QUICK REVIEW: Endurance – Chris Wraight

An appetiser before his upcoming novel The Lords of Silence, Chris Wraight’s short story Endurance takes place (mostly) on the besieged Imperial world of Lystra, where the shattered remnants of the defenders continue to battle on against the endless hordes of walking dead. The situation for the Imperials is bleak, even with a scattering of loyal Space Marines bolstering the defences, and that’s before the Death Guard arrive. Dragan, known as the Gallowsman, leads his warband on the hunt for slaughter, and Lystra is in his sights.

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The Warmaster – Dan Abnett

Over six years after Salvation’s Reach was published, Dan Abnett’s long-awaited fourteenth Gaunt’s Ghosts novel – The Warmaster – arrives with a heavy weight of expectation. Part three of The Victory, it picks up almost immediately after Salvation’s Reach as the surviving Ghosts attempt to return to the Crusade, aboard the battered Highness Ser Armaduke. They completed their mission, but the danger isn’t over – even when they limp to the hotly-contested forge world Urdesh the perils, and surprises, keep coming. Thankfully for us as readers, that translates into more of the great Gaunt’s Ghosts drama that we know and love.

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QUICK REVIEW: Stone and Iron – Robbie MacNiven

The first audio drama in the Horus Heresy Primarchs series, Robbie MacNiven’s Perturabo: Stone and Iron sees the Hammer of Olympia leading the inexperienced 33rd Grand Battalion of the Iron Warriors into battle. Fighting against greenskins in support of their Imperial Fists cousins, the Iron Warriors are under close scrutiny by their primarch even as they follow his orders. Though his officers seem leery of the VIIth Legion’s efforts, Perturabo sees an opportunity to impart an important lesson to his sons using the Fists as his example.

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Black Library Advent Calendar 2017

Nothing says Christmas like twenty-four days of Warhammer fiction, right? It’s become a Black Library tradition over the past few years to offer an Advent Calendar comprising of short stories and audio dramas, with a new tale revealed each day in the run-up to Christmas Day, and this year is no different. Over the course of Advent we’re going to be able to get our hands on fourteen short stories and ten short audio dramas, across 40k, the Horus Heresy (including The Primarchs) and Age of Sigmar – including the first pieces of Shadespire fiction!

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RAPID FIRE: Dan Abnett Talks The Warmaster

Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with Black Library authors talking about their releases. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read it.

In this instalment I spoke to legendary Black Library author Dan Abnett about his new novel The Warmaster, the long-awaited fourteenth novel in the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, which is available to buy now.

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Salvation’s Reach – Dan Abnett

Following closely on from Blood Pact, Dan Abnett’s 2011 novel Salvation’s Reach is book thirteen in the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, and part two of The Victory. After their two-year stint cooling their heels on Balhaut, the Tanith First and Only are shipping out for their next mission, a task considered so suicidally dangerous the details are only revealed en-route. Aboard the battered, ancient ship the Highness Ser Armaduke and guided by unproven insider intelligence, the Ghosts make for remote Chaos outpost Salvation’s Reach where even their specialist skills will be sorely tested if they hope to succeed…and survive.

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Blood Pact – Dan Abnett

Dan Abnett’s twelfth Gaunt’s Ghosts novel, Blood Pact kicks off the fourth arc in the series, known as The Victory. Set two years after their last mission on Jago, the Ghosts have spent the last year stationed on Balhaut, the site of the Sabbat Crusade’s greatest victory. While the regiment grows increasingly bored and complacent, Gaunt worries that he’s been sidelined for good. When a high-ranking enemy prisoner insists on speaking only to Gaunt, however, he’s dragged back into intrigue and danger in a way he couldn’t have expected, on a world freighted with memories.

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QUICK REVIEW: Killbox – Dan Abnett

A follow-up short story to Salvation’s Reach, book thirteen in Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts series, Killbox sees Scout Sergeant Mkoll of the Tanith First and Only prowling the quiet, forgotten depths of the Highness Ser Armaduke. Down amongst the dust and the punishing heat, something is tracking him…hunting him. Even among the stealth specialist Ghosts, however, Mkoll is a peerless huntsman, and knows better than any the relationship between hunter and hunted. In the forgotten darkness of the old ship, a game of cat and mouse develops.

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Honour Guard – Dan Abnett

Published just two years after the start of the series, Dan Abnett’s Honour Guard is the fourth Gaunt’s Ghosts book, and kicks off the second arc within the series – The Saint. Set on the shrineworld Hagia, birthplace of Saint Sabbat, it sees Gaunt tasked with leading the Imperial liberation efforts, which soon go horribly wrong. With his career in tatters and Chaos reinforcements inbound, he’s sent on a desperate mission to save the most important of the world’s holy relics – the body of the Saint herself – and reclaim some small measure of personal glory.

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The Devastation of Baal – Guy Haley

The first novel in the brand new Space Marine Conquests series, Guy Haley’s The Devastation of Baal continues the story set out in Dante and brings the Blood Angels bang up to date with the new 40k background. As Hive Fleet Leviathan heads inexorably towards Baal, Commander Dante calls to the Chapters of the Blood, and the Blood Angels successor Chapters answer in force. Tens of thousands of Space Marines stand in defence of Baal against the untold trillions of the Leviathan. In context of the wider galaxy, however, Leviathan isn’t the only threat that the sons of Sanguinius face.

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