QUICK REVIEW: Five Candles – Lora Gray

Lora Gray continues to explore the quiet, melancholic fringes of the Mortal Realms with their Warhammer Horror short story Five Candles, a tale of Aqshian fire and dark, troubling death magic. Having grown old when all her friends died young, Havisa now lives by herself, scorned by the youthful inhabitants of the nearby village. When disaster sees her humiliated even further, she unexpectedly finds the old fire of her Aqshian spirit burning once more, and alongside a kind but mysterious stranger she embarks on a mission to warn the village of dark tidings to come in the wake of Nagash’s necroquake.

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Monthly Roundup – October 2020

Welcome to October’s Monthly Roundup here on Track of Words – I hope you had a good month, in spite of the continuing craziness! For this month’s article I’m continuing to play around with the format, to try and figure out what works best. I thought it might be interesting to use this article as a way of collecting together all of the content that I’ve recently published here on Track of Words, so you can take a look through and see if you missed anything. With that in mind, I’ll quickly run through the reviews, author interviews and blog posts that I posted since my last roundup, then talk a little about what else I’ve been reading before giving a quick life update to follow on from last month.

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Legacy of Ash – Matthew Ward

Matthew Ward’s The Legacy Trilogy opens with Legacy of Ash, a 240k word behemoth of a novel which sets out Ward’s stall for the series and emphasises the epic in epic fantasy. Fifteen years after a failed Southshire rebellion, the Republic of Tressia is still mired in internecine conflict, its ruling Council divided on how to deal with their troublesome southern subjects. When the looming threat of the neighbouring Hadari Empire becomes too much to ignore, it falls to the Council’s champion Viktor Akadra to rally the Southshires in defence of the Republic, while siblings Josiri and Calenne Trelan – whose mother led the failed rebellion – face difficult choices as they confront both the lasting implications of their mother’s actions, and Viktor’s role in her death.

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November’s 2020 Releases From Aconyte Books

Have you checked out any of Aconyte Books’ cool new tie-in fiction yet? Last month I put together an article showing all of the new novels coming out in October from Aconyte, and I’m going to keep banging the drum for this great new publisher with another article along the same lines. While not quite as hectic as October’s release schedule, it looks like November is still going to see a fair few new Aconyte novels, for four different IPs, so there’s lots of cool stuff that’s going to be available to read very soon. I’ll do a quick recap of October’s releases, then take a brief look at all of the upcoming titles for November – including links to author interviews where appropriate.

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Carrie Harris Talks Liberty & Justice For All

Welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, in which I chat to author Carrie Harris about her new book Liberty & Justice For All, which kicks off a new series of Xavier’s Academy novels from Aconyte Books. What’s not to love about prose novels exploring interesting characters from amongst Marvel’s X-Men? If, like me, you grew up watching X-Men: The Animated Series, this is a very exciting proposition! It’s due out in ebook and as a US paperback on the 3rd November, with the UK paperback due a little bit later on the 10th December.

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Tim Pratt Talks The Fractured Void

Welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, in which I chat to science fiction author Tim Pratt about his first novel for Aconyte Books – The Fractured Void. Set in the Twilight Imperium universe, this promises to be a fun, action-packed sci-fi adventure, from an author who’s got form with the space opera genre. It’s due out in ebook and as a US paperback on the 3rd November, with the UK paperback due a little bit later on the 10th December. If you’re a fan of the Twilight Imperium game, or just fancy a good old space opera, this sounds like one to keep an eye on!

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A Traveller’s Guide to Peter Fehervari’s Dark Coil

With the release of the short story Altar of Maws (May 2023), Peter Fehervari’s catalogue of Warhammer 40,000 fiction – known informally as The Dark Coil – currently totals 18 stories. Every piece of 40k fiction is linked by taking place within a single shared universe, but The Dark Coil goes way beyond that. These stories share much deeper connections, between them forming a web of characters, locations, themes and recurring motifs that is gradually becoming more and more apparent as additional stories are published. One of the joys of reading Fehervari’s work is in unpicking these subtle connections, but it can be daunting to know where to start looking.

Welcome, then, to A Traveller’s Guide to the Dark Coil.

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: S.A. Sidor Talks The Last Ritual

Welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, in which I chat to author S.A. Sidor about his new novel The Last Ritual, his first for Aconyte Books. It’s the second Aconyte novel to be set in the world of Arkham Horror (after Josh Reynolds’ Wrath of N’Kai), and looks like being a fascinating read for horror fans and Arkham aficionados alike. Keep an eye out for the ebook and the US paperback edition releasing on the 3rd November, with the UK paperback edition coming a little bit later on the 10th December.

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The Key To Fear by Kristin Cast – Via Grimdark Magazine

The latest book I’ve reviewed for the fine folks over at Grimdark Magazine is Kristin Cast’s The Key To Fear, a surprisingly dark and bloody young adult novel set fifty years after a pandemic killed off the vast majority of the American population. Published in the UK by Head of Zeus, it’s out in hardback and ebook on the 5th November, and you can read my full review on the GdM website right now. As usual I’m putting down a few additional thoughts here in this article/review, so you can check out the GdM piece for my standard third person/objective review, and this one for some more subjective comments.

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QUICK REVIEW: Nightbleed – Peter Fehervari

The first of Peter Fehervari’s short stories officially released under the Warhammer Horror label, Nightbleed lives up to expectations as both a creepy, low-key horror story in its own right and an intriguing addition to The Dark Coil. In Carceri Hive, on the night-shrouded world of Sarastus, two souls find themselves bound together. Reduced to applying her skills for a dubious synth-protein supplier, ex-medicae Chel forces herself not to question where the raw materials come from, but suffers dark dreams nonetheless. In shadowed alleys, street prophet Skreech plans his next offering to the Night Below. As True Night approaches, the two spiral ever closer to a fateful meeting.

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