Category Archives: Article

Monthly Highlights – June 2020

With another month gone by, the end of June brings us to the halfway point of 2020 – a very strange year, I’m sure you’ll agree. I hope you’ve all been coping with the lockdown and the weird restrictions on day to day life we’re all dealing with, and where possible have been getting some good reading time in. As usual, for this Monthly Highlights article I’m going to take a look back through what I’ve been reading and listening to over the last few weeks – in this case I managed 15 books (four of which were audiobooks) across a slightly wider range of genres and topics than I usually go for.

I’ll keep things as succinct as I can, and link out to reviews where they’re available; as with last month I chose quite a lot of these books for the purpose of escapism rather than to review, and quite a few were re-reads. Without further ado, however, let’s get straight on (in the order in which I read them) with June’s books…

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The Horus Heresy: Preparing for Sons of the Selenar

I don’t know about you, but after nearly 15 years and goodness knows how many stories, I’m increasingly finding it tricky to keep track of characters and story arcs in Black Library’s Horus Heresy series. Not so much the main series beats, but the smaller arcs and threads that run throughout the Heresy – there are just so many of them, and in some cases it’s been years since I last read these stories. Now that the Siege of Terra sub-series (or whatever you want to call it) is here, it feels more important than ever to have a good handle on who’s who; I want to get as much enjoyment out of these final few books as possible!

Having just got my hands on a copy of Graham McNeill’s Siege of Terra novella Sons of the Selenar, I realised that I really couldn’t remember much about the characters I was going to be reading about. I could have jumped straight in and I’m sure I would have got the gist, but as this was likely going to be the final mission for the crew of the Sisypheum, I wanted the book to have the greatest possible impact! With that in mind, I dug back through my copies of previous Heresy books and revisited each of the key stories which lead up to Sons of the Selenar. Having done so, I thought I would put together a quick article pointing out what those stories are and where to find them, in case it’s useful to anyone else.

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Monthly Highlights – May 2020

I’m sure I’m not the only person for whom time is behaving strangely during the Coronavirus-related lockdown, but May has definitely been a weird month; that being said, we’re now into June, so it’s time for my next Monthly Highlights post. As usual I’ll take a look back at the books I’ve been reading over the last few weeks, and link out to reviews where they’re available. It’s been a bumper month for reading – I’ve read no fewer than 17 books – which means there’s lots to talk about, so I’ll try to keep things succinct for each book and not waffle on for too long!

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Cold Open Stories – 2020 Fast Fiction Collection

I was recently asked to be one of three community judges for the April 2020 Fast Fiction Collection over at Cold Open Stories, a call for fans of Warhammer fiction to submit 1,000 word stories in the Warhammer 40,000 setting. The deadline has now passed and the three judges – Colyn from Cold Open Stories, Jack from the Youtube channel Oculus Imperia and myself – have read through the submissions selected for inclusion in the collection and picked out our recommended choices. You can read the winning short story, along with all of the selected entries, over at the COS website. It’s been a really interesting experience to be part of this process, so I thought I’d write up a few thoughts on what was involved.

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May 2020 – Taking a Quick Break

In the month just gone I read twelve books and published sixteen posts here on Track of Words, on top of the usual day job and general real-world life. That feels great, but thinking back to how things felt at the time I’m amazed I managed to be so productive. I know I’m not the only one finding things tough at the moment – it’s a very strange time in so many respects – but while I consider myself pretty fortunate in a lot of ways, I’ve been feeling increasingly tired and worn out. With that in mind, I’m going to take a quick break from thinking about Track of Words – but first I thought I’d give a little update about why, and what I’m going to be doing.

TL;DR – I’m tired and I need a bit of time to myself, so I’m going to take a week (probably) to just read and relax and not think about writing reviews or blog posts (but I’ll probably still be on Twitter).

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Monthly Highlights – April 2020

It’s time again for another Monthly Highlights post, my regular look back at what I’ve been reading (and listening to) over the last few weeks. I’m sticking with the format I started last month, which involves a fairly quick look at each and every book I read in April – a couple of those were audiobooks, but most of them were in prose format. Once again I’ve excluded short stories, but with no fewer than twelve books to talk about there’s plenty to cover without extending to other formats (and it’s long enough as it is)! I’ve listed these in the order in which I read them, with links to reviews and author interviews where appropriate.

Without further ado, let’s get straight to the first book…

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Monthly Highlights – March 2020

Welcome to March’s Monthly Highlights post here on Track of Words, in which I’m looking back at what I’ve been reading over the last few weeks. I’ve been playing around with the format of these posts recently, and I’m going to change things up again this time around. I’ve done a lot of reading this month but my brain hasn’t been in the best of states (as I’m sure many of you can understand, with the weird state of the world right now)…and to be honest, still isn’t. With that in mind, rather than talking about a few books in more detail, this time around I’ll give a quick overview of all the books I’ve read recently. It won’t be in-depth, but hopefully I can give you a flavour of each one.

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Monthly Highlights – February 2020

Welcome to February’s Monthly Highlights post here on Track of Words, where I look back at last month’s reading activities and book-related news. I’m a bit (by which I mean very) behind this time around, as I’m writing this in the middle of March, but the end of February was a busy time so I hope you’ll forgive me the tardiness just this once! Considering the lateness, I’m going to keep things fairly short and sweet (for me) and just pick out three great reads from last month – a novel, an anthology and a short story. Interestingly, all three of the authors of the stories I’ve gone for are known by their initials…I didn’t plan for this, I promise!

Anyway, let’s get straight onto the great reads…

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Where to start with Black Library: Blackstone Fortress

With literally hundreds of Black Library books, short stories and audio dramas available, and new stories being released every week, it can be hard to know where to start, whether you’re brand new to Warhammer or you want to find out more about certain series, factions or characters. That’s where my series of Where to Start With Black Library articles comes in, as I try to demystify the process of getting into Warhammer fiction, suggesting some great stories that you could start with and talking about why they would make good entry points. In this article I’m looking at Blackstone Fortress, a sub-setting within Warhammer 40,000 which is relatively new but has already featured in some great stories.

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Monthly Highlights – January 2020

Welcome to my first Monthly Highlights article of 2020, looking back at my reading highlights and book-related news for the first month of a brand new decade! It’s been a great month, I’ve had a blast reading eight books (and counting), and I’m trying something a little bit different this time around, with a mixture of my usual highlights posts and the weekly roundups I used to write. As well as picking out the usual highlight, I’m also going to talk more widely about what I’ve been reading and what’s been going on in general. Maybe I should call this a Monthly Roundup instead…perhaps next time, but for now let’s crack on with a little bit about the book I’ve enjoyed the most this month.

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