Ben Counter’s contribution to a loose series of Deathwatch-themed stories from Black Library, One Bullet looks at the Ultramarines of Third Company as they face off against a vast army of orks among the wreckage of an industrial city. Led by the fiery rhetoric of a young Chaplain Cassius, and supported by a squad of experienced Sternguard veterans, the Ultramarines must make use of every weapon in their arsenal if they are to emerge victorious.
The second of Black Library’s Summer of Reading stories sees a new name added to the author pool in Andy Clark, whose story Whiteout sees a Deathwatch team launching a pinpoint strike against a vast ork Waaagh! that’s threatening to overwhelm the Imperial defences. When their insertion goes wrong the Marines find themselves in the midst of a blizzard, battling against time as well as a vast tidal wave of orks as they attempt to destroy a vital bridge and deny the enemy an easy route into the Imperial lines.
The first in a week’s worth of new short stories for Black Library’s Summer of Reading campaign, Sandy Mitchell’s The Cost of Command features the Astral Knights way back before their fateful all-out assault on the necron World Engine. Here we see two of their number duking it out in an honour duel, the reason for which gradually becomes clear as the protagonist looks back on his squad’s last mission and the toll it incurred on each of them.
[This review was originally written after the release of the Limited Edition version of Cybernetica, although it’s now available in standard formats as well.]
While most recent Horus Heresy releases have moved the story forward chronologically, for the latest Limited Edition novella, Rob Sanders’ Cybernetica, Black Library have taken us back to an earlier point in the timeline. Set on Mars just as the Heresy begins, we follow a Raven Guard known as The Carrion, sent to train as a Techmarine after he was grievously wounded and left unable to follow his legion’s way of war. Alongside brothers from other legions he finds himself fighting to survive against the might of the Mechanicum, while on Terra, Rogal Dorn looks for a way to deal with the escalating situation on Mars.
Once again published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, The Silkworm is JK Rowling’s second crime novel featuring the private detective Cormoran Strike, and picks up several months after the events of The Cuckoo’s Calling. After an unwanted moment in the spotlight for his work on the Lula Landry case, Strike finds things getting back to normal when he takes on a case from Leonora Quine, whose husband Owen, an author of dubious taste and talent, has gone missing. As he begins his investigation it quickly becomes clear that there is more to Owen’s story than a man hiding away from his wife, with the inflammatory manuscript for his latest book having been circulated amongst his publishers and peers just before his disappearance.
Tapping into a rich history of mystery and adventure stories, Katherine Woodfine’s debut novel – The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow – is a fast paced, exciting children’s book with plenty to capture the imagination of both younger and older readers. Set in Edwardian London, the story takes place in and around Sinclair’s department store, a sort of cross between Selfridges and Willy Wonka’s factory, full of wonders and intrigue, cubby holes and grand staircases, and as exotic to its customers as to the book’s readers. Into this steps Sophie Taylor, 14 and recently orphaned, trying to adjust to a new world and determined to stand on her own two feet.
Warhammer is dead, long live Warhammer! That’s right, the old Warhammer is gone and in its place is Age of Sigmar, and Black Library have got straight in on the action with Chris Wraight’s latest novella, The Gates of Azyr. This is a whole new chapter for Warhammer, set thousands of years after the events of the End Times, with endless scope for brand new storytelling. Running to the usual 120-ish pages, the book introduces the new Stormcast Eternals led by Vandus Hammerhand and the Khorne forces of Khorgos Khul, as Sigmar’s forces make their first strike into the Realm of Fire and finally strike back against the armies of Chaos.
What do you do if you’re one of the most famous authors on the planet, but want to try something different, and for people to judge your writing purely on its merits? You write under a pseudonym, that’s what – and that’s exactly what JK Rowling did when she quietly released her first crime novel under the name of Robert Galbraith. It didn’t take long for the secret to be revealed, at which point sales went through the roof as expected, but the question remains – can Rowling come out from under Harry Potter’s shadow and cut it in the crime genre? The answer is that yes, she certainly can. Keep reading…
While best known for ‘literary fiction’, Joanne Harris has written across a range of genres, and The Gospel of Loki is her third book to heavily feature Norse mythology. Previous novels Runemarks and Runelight are straight-up fantasy with a Norse flavour, while here she sets out to retell the sagas of the Norse gods from the perspective of Loki, the trickster, offering a reversal of the usual viewpoint. Covering the whole story, from the Nine Worlds’ creation through to Ragnarok, Loki tells his own version of events, showing Odin and the rest of the gods in a totally different light.
As debut novels go they don’t come much more ambitious than Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, a complex, politically-themed science fiction epic. Heavily reminiscent of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels, from the huge scale of its setting to the use of powerful ship-based artificial intelligences, it nonetheless feels fresh and characterful, distinct enough to stand proudly within the space opera genre. The story follows Breq, an ancillary – a ship’s once-human avatar – previously one of many, but now separate and alone. We meet her nineteen years into a mission that she is pursuing with single-minded determination, and which might be finally drawing to a close.