Avenging Son – Guy Haley

Guy Haley’s novel Avenging Son kicks off the nine-part Dawn of Fire series, which promises to explore in detail the events of the Indomitus Crusade – the driving force behind the ‘current’ Warhammer 40,000 timeline. This first instalment features the first great battle of the Era Indomitus, as Fleetmistress VanLeskus leads Fleet Tertius against the Khornate Crusade of Slaughter for control of the Machorta Sound, determined to stop the forces of Chaos from claiming territory that would allow them to threaten Terra itself. Before the returned Primarch Roboute Guilliman can dispatch VanLeskus and Fleet Tertius, however, he has to navigate his way through the byzantine politics of an Imperium still reeling from the opening of the Great Rift, a task which even a Primarch can’t manage alone.

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Aconyte Books – January 2021 Releases and 2020 Recap

It’s time for me to take a look at the cool new novels coming this month from Aconyte Books, but this time I’m doing something a little different, because it’s the start of not just a new year, but the second year that Aconyte have been publishing new books! As well as taking a look at the two new novels released today, I’m also going to include a quick recap of everything Aconyte published in 2020, split out by the various IPs/worlds that are featured. If you haven’t yet taken the plunge with Aconyte, this should be a great place to start – I’ll include links to all of my reviews and author interviews so you can find out more about anything that catches your eye.

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Yearly Roundup: 2020 Highlights

Last year I put together a few different Yearly Roundup posts for 2019, and I’m now doing the same for 2020 – I’ve already done a 2020 In Numbers article, and today it’s time to take a look back at some of my personal highlights from last year. Obviously 2020 was A YEAR so in some respects it feels weird to be talking about highlights, in light of all the madness that’s transpired recently. I think it’s important to look for positives though, rather than focusing on all the horrible stuff, especially as reading and working on Track of Words were two of the main things that got me through last year!

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QUICK REVIEW: Precious Little Things – Adrian Tchaikovsky

A prequel to his novella Made Things, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s short story Precious Little Things is a brilliant little story that’s full of magic and imagination, but isn’t afraid to deal with real-world issues too. In the soaring halls of the Tower live the varied tribes of the Homunculi, tiny creatures of wood, metal, paper, wax and more, brought to life by the power of the Maker. Roughly made of crude wood, Tam risks much to seek out gold for his daughter so that she can exceed the limitations of her humble origins, unintentionally setting her on a path that will change their entire society.

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Yearly Roundup: 2020 in Numbers

Another year gone by (and what a weird year it’s been), and it’s time once more to take a look back at another year of running Track of Words – my seventh year! I’m going to follow the pattern I started last year, of splitting things across several articles, starting with a look at some of the numbers for 2020 pulled from my website’s stats. I’ll take a look at the overall visitor numbers and give a quick breakdown of the content I published in 2020, then finish off with the most popular articles (across a few categories) on Track of Words over the last year. All being well, I’ll then take a look in a couple of separate articles at some specific highlights, referring back to the goals I set for 2020, and look ahead to what 2021 might hold.

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Monthly Roundup – December 2020

Welcome to December’s Monthly Roundup here on Track of Words, the final article I’m going to post in 2020! As usual I’ll take a look back over the last month in terms of what I’ve been writing about on ToW, and what I’ve been reading. For the second month running I’ve posted a review, author interview or blog article every day this month (it’s become something of a tradition for each November and December), so there’s lots to talk about here. I’ll take a quick look at each piece of content and provide links out to all of them so you can take a longer look if you’re interested, then write up a few overall thoughts for a general update on the month’s reading and writing.

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A Guide to Guy Haley’s Prince Maesa Stories

Over the last couple of years, one of my personal highlights in Black Library’s Age of Sigmar range has been Guy Haley’s slowly-growing series of stories featuring Prince Maesa and Shattercap. Haley has written a lot of 40k and Horus Heresy stories but relatively little for Age of Sigmar, however this ongoing saga of an aelven Wanderer in search of a way to bring his lost love back to life – told across multiple stories and different mediums – is well worth checking out. As it’s not a novel, however, I sometimes wonder if it falls under the radar for a lot of readers, especially as BL hasn’t provided any guidance on how everything links together or in what order to read the different stories.

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The Harrowing of Doom – David Annandale

For his first Marvel novel, The Harrowing of Doom – part of the Marvel: Untold range from Aconyte Books – David Annandale tells a tale of iron will and fierce obsession as Doctor Doom sets out to turn the tables on Hell itself. Each year at midsummer, Doom must battle a champion of Hell to try and free his mother’s soul, an impossible task that he’s fated to lose every time. Setting out to change the terms of the duel and weigh things in his favour at last, Doom enlists the help of the sorceress Maria von Helm and a reluctant Father Zargo and embarks on a bold but risky gamble. Even as he works feverishly on this new project, the security of Latveria is threatened by the deposed crown prince Rudolfo Fortunov.

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Top 20 Books of 2020

I’ve already published a few articles in which I look back at my favourite Black Library stories of 2020 for all the Warhammer fans out there, but as the year is very nearly finished it’s now time for a wider roundup of all the best SFF/horror books in general that I’ve read this year. I would normally do a top 10, but I couldn’t resist making this the ‘top 20 of 2020’ so I’ve doubled the usual number of books…which, to be fair, did make my life easier as I’ve read so many great books this year! Narrowing the list down to 10 would have been really tricky, and even getting it down to 20 required a few sacrifices.

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Rise of the Ynnari: Wild Rider – Gav Thorpe

Word is that 2019’s Wild Rider, Gav Thorpe’s second Rise of the Ynnari novel, is likely to be the final instalment in the series, which is a shame as it’s both an entertaining story in its own right and a fantastic exploration of the Ynnari and their role within Aeldari culture. After unintentionally awakening a Necron tomb complex on the maiden world of Agarimethea (see the events of short story Fireheart), Wild Lord Nuadhu Fireheart returns to Saim Hann to try and rouse his Craftworld into an alliance with the Ynnari of Yvraine. Nuadhu hopes to reclaim his honour by returning to Agarimethea in force to deal with the Necrons before they can fully awaken, but the council of Saim Hann are loath to commit their forces, wary of Yvraine’s motives.

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