Category Archives: Article

Warhammer 40,000 Legends Issue Thirteen – Storm of Iron by Graham McNeill

Issue thirteen of the Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection takes us back to 2002 for Graham McNeill’s much-loved Iron Warriors novel Storm of Iron. One of Graham’s earliest Black Library novels – alongside Nightbringer, which was also released in 2002 – this tells the story of the Iron Warriors’ invasion of Hydra Cordatus, and introduces a certain Iron Warrior named Honsou who went on to have a rather important career and feature heavily in a number of his other novels. It’s still widely considered a genuine classic Black Library novel, over fifteen years after publication; at the time of writing this article it rates at an impressive 4.12 on Goodreads.

Keep reading…

Monthly Highlights – February 2018

Welcome to March! 2018 is two months down already, if you can believe it, and in February I posted twenty-one reviews of books, short stories and audio dramas here on Track of Words. As with last month, when I published my first Monthly Highlights article, I’m taking a quick look back at everything I read and pulling out a few highlights. Once again I’ve picked a single story to be the main highlight, along with a couple that merit notable mentions.

Last month I went with an audio drama as my main highlight, but while February was chock full of short stories, this time I’m going with a novel – although once again it’s something I picked up as a pre-release at an event. February’s highlight for me was Wolfsbane by Guy Haley, the 49th novel in the Horus Heresy series. Check out my review here.

Keep reading…

Black Library at the Horus Heresy and Necromunda Weekender 2018

The weekend of the 3rd and 4th of February saw a few hundred Warhammer fans descend upon the Nottingham Belfry for the sixth annual Horus Heresy Weekender event, except in 2018 the mould was broken with the addition of Necromunda. While you could look at this as the first step towards a future Forge World Weekender, covering all of the different games created and supported by Forge World, this year’s event it was officially labelled the Horus Heresy and Necromunda Weekender. It’s a bit of a mouthful – doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue – but there you go.

As always, Black Library were in attendance with a range of guests to support their Horus Heresy fiction line, and also to talk about upcoming Necromunda releases. As you might expect, that was the main draw for me at this event – I do like the miniatures and the games, but my main interest is always the fiction, so I focused my attention for the most part on that side of things over the weekend. Unlike the Black Library Weekender I’m not going to do quite such a comprehensive write up looking at individual seminars, but I do want to talk a little bit about the event overall, and relay some interesting Black Library-related information I picked up while I was there.

Keep reading…

Monthly Highlights – January 2018

It’s February already – we’re a full month into 2018, and in that first month I’ve posted no fewer than sixteen reviews of books, short stories and audio dramas on Track of Words. I thought it might be fun this year to take a regular look back at what I’ve read each month, and pick out some highlights – for the time being I’m just going to call this Monthly Highlights but I’m open to suggestions for a catchier title! I’ll try to keep things reasonably brief, focusing on the one story each month which I feel was a particular highlight, as well as a couple of notable mentions.

For this, the inaugural Monthly Highlights for January 2018, I’m going for an audio drama, rather than a book – Titans’ Bane by Chris Dows. Click on this link or the image below to check out my review.

Keep reading…

Warhammer 40,000 Legends Issue Twelve – Architect of Fate

Twelve books in and the Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection turns to one of the longest-running 40k series – Space Marine Battles – for the first time, with Architect of Fate. Comprising four novellas from Sarah Cawkwell, Ben Counter, Darius Hinks and John French, it’s a four-part exploration of just how dark and creepy the 41st millennium can be, as a range of Space Marine chapters tackle enemies both seen and unseen as they struggle unknowingly in the strings of Tzeentch’s greatest manipulator, Kairos Fateweaver. It’s not what you’d call the template for Space Marine Battles books, but it’s certainly an interesting one.

Keep reading…

Spotlight on Andy Clark

With three novels, two novellas and a handful of short stories to his name, and a very exciting novel currently in development, Andy Clark is probably at the point where it’s not really appropriate to think of him as a new Black Library author any more. With that in mind, and considering that I’ve read and reviewed almost everything he’s written for Black Library (the exception so far being Knightsblade), I thought it might be fun to take a closer look at his stories and writing style, and talk a little about what you can expect if you pick up something with his name on it.

Keep reading…

Warhammer 40,000 Legends Issue Eleven – Mechanicum by Graham McNeill

For issue eleven of Hachette’s Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection it’s back to the Horus Heresy with Mechanicum by Graham McNeill, the third Heresy book to be included so far. While it’s not the first in that series to be included in the collection, it is the first to tackle one of the most iconic, but least-represented factions in 40k – the Mechanicum, or in 40k terminology what became the Adeptus Mechanicus. Since its publication back in 2008 we’ve seen a raft of new stories featuring this faction, in both 40k and the Heresy, but at the time it was the first real opportunity we’d had to delve into the history and character of Mars and its denizens.

Keep reading…

Warhammer 40,000 Legends Issue Ten – Ultramarines

Issue ten of Hachette’s Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection is the first instalment that’s an anthology of short stories, rather than a novel – in this case Ultramarines, or to give it its full, original title Legends of the Dark Millennium: Ultramarines. One of a number of anthologies in the Legends of the Dark Millennium series, it’s a collection of short stories from five different authors, all featuring the boys in blue. It’s not the first 40k Legends book to feature the Ultramarines – that would be Warriors of Ultramar – but considering the enduring popularity of this faction it’s not surprising that we should see a second book crop up so soon.

Keep reading…

Writing for Black Library – Open Submissions Window 2018

It’s been a while since the last Black Library open submissions window, but 2018 has barely begun and the latest opportunity is now available to get yourself published by your favourite purveyor of awesome Warhammer fiction! Hurrah, hooray and let general excitement commence! If you haven’t already seen the announcement on the Warhammer Community site, take a look here for all the details: https://www.warhammer-community.com/writeforblacklibrary/ Keep reading…

2017 In Summary

I’m a little late, seeing as it’s already 2018 when I’m writing this, but as usual I’m hopping on board the recap-of-the-year bandwagon and taking a look back at how 2017 went here on Track of Words. For me it’s been a year chock full of great books, short stories and audio dramas – especially on the Black Library front – and it’s also been a year of real growth for the site…but more on that later. For now, let’s start off as usual with some figures.

Keep reading…