RAPID FIRE: Darius Hinks Talks Blackstone Fortress: Ascension

Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with authors talking about their new 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 or listen to it.

In this instalment I spoke to Black Library author Darius Hinks about his new novel Blackstone Fortress: Ascension, the follow up to his excellent 2018 novel Blackstone Fortress. It’s available to pre-order in a variety of formats – including a swanky Special Edition hardback – and promises to be another tremendously entertaining 40k novel exploring the stranger, darker corners of the setting. If you haven’t already checked out Black Library’s range of Blackstone Fortress stories, now is as good a time to start as any! Continue reading →

The Colonel’s Monograph – Graham McNeill

Released as part of Black Library’s 2019 Novella Series 2, Graham McNeill’s Warhammer Horror novella The Colonel’s Monograph is a quiet, creepingly sinister portrayal of the slow road to corruption. Grieving in the wake of her husband’s death, retired archivist Teresina Sullo takes on a private commission to catalogue the library of a celebrated war hero, the late Colonel Elena Grayloc. As her work progresses Sullo fixates on finding one particular book, which she hopes might shed light on the mysterious circumstances of the colonel’s return to Grayloc Manor and subsequent death. The deeper she digs, however, the more it becomes clear that something sinister lurks behind the colonel’s heroic facade, and that Sullo’s obsession with finding answers is leading her down a dark path from which she might not return.

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Bloodlines – Chris Wraight

The first Black Library novel published under the Warhammer Crime label, Chris Wraight’s Bloodlines is a tale of corruption, brutality and rampant inequality which takes a close look at the gritty realities of life for everyday Imperial citizens. In the vast, continent-sized hive city of Varangantua, Probator Agusto Zidarov is tasked with investigating the apparent disappearance of a spoiled scion of one of the city’s most powerful families. Despite his initial misgivings, it gradually becomes clear that something vile and deeply dangerous is going on in Varangantua. In order to get to the bottom of it Zidarov must navigate vicious cartels, the over-privileged ruling elite, and the corrupt systems of law and bureaucracy in which he himself works.

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Author Spotlight: Marc Collins

Welcome to this instalment of my Author Spotlight series of interviews, which aim to give an overview of each author’s background and approach to writing, and a slightly more detailed look at one of their new releases in particular. In this instalment I spoke to Marc Collins about his background, influences and route to writing for Black Library, his new story Cold Cases – included in the upcoming anthology No Good Men (which goes up for pre-order this weekend) – and his thoughts on the Warhammer Crime imprint as a whole.

Without further ado, let’s get straight into the interview.

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Curse of Honor – David Annandale

David Annandale’s novel Curse of Honor kicks off the new range of Legend of the Five Rings fiction from Aconyte Books with a sinister tale of duty, ambition, misplaced pride and monstrous darkness. Lieutenant Hida Haru is destined to one day become the daimyō of Striking Dawn Castle, but before then he has to somehow prove himself to his family, a task at which he has spectacularly failed thus far. When he stumbles upon a foreboding city hidden within the Twilight Mountains, he sees a chance to make a name for himself and strike a blow against the Shadowlands, but his ill-timed actions only lead to disaster. With cracks forming in the fragile alliances within Striking Dawn, and a horrifying evil unleashed upon the castle, its defenders must find a way to guard against terrible enemies both within and without.

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QUICK REVIEW: Underhive Apex – Will McDermott

Featuring the legendary outlaw D’onne Ulanti – or ‘Mad’ Donna – Will McDermott’s Necromunda short story Underhive Apex is a chainsword-fuelled shot of frantic, explosive underhive action. On the hunt for a uniquely useful mutant known as Lumpy Nox, D’onne and her pet ogryn Dog have tracked their quarry to a Cawdor-owned manufactorum, only for an entire Goliath gang to arrive and steal him away from under their noses. Not to be denied, D’onne adjusts on the fly and happily throws herself into the fray despite being outnumbered, outmuscled and outgunned, confident that she’ll figure something out and walk away the victor.

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Soulless Fury – Will McDermott

Thirteen years after the publication of Lasgun Wedding, Will McDermott returns to Black Library and Necromunda with Soulless Fury, moving his focus from Kal Jerico to one of the underhive’s other famous names – D’onne Ulanti, otherwise known as Mad Donna. While the estranged daughter of House Ulanti tears through the underhive in search of a young man captured by Cawdor gangers, Scrutinator Primus Servalen is dispatched by Lord Helmawr to reel her in once and for all. As the two women embark on a lethal cat-and-rat chase, it becomes clear that there’s more at stake for both of them than just survival and the death of an enemy, and chaos ensues in the underhive.

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Terminal Overkill – Justin D. Hill

Justin D. Hill’s Necromunda novel Terminal Overkill is a grim tale of survival and the search for revenge, which leans hard on the darker side of life in the underhive. The Wild Hydras of House Escher scraped a living controlling territory in the Dim Zone bordering the underhive, until the rise of brutal Goliath overlord Fettnir and the death of their leader, Red Tori. Escaping into the darkness of the underhive, Brielle – teenage daughter of Red Tori – must first learn to survive on her own, before clawing her way back to a position from where she might strike back against Fettnir and claim revenge for what he took from her.

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Gods of Jade and Shadow – Silvia Moreno-Garcia

A darkly beautiful fairy tale set in 1920s Mexico, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow melds fantasy with Maya mythology in a gorgeous story of quiet dreams, unexpected adventure and fratricidal gods. Living a quiet life of drudgery tending to the needs of her unkind grandfather in a drab, nowhere town, young Casiopea Tun keeps her hopes and dreams pragmatically simple. That all changes when she accidentally frees Hun-Kamé, the dethroned Mayan god of death, from where his spirit has been kept prisoner for decades. With her life bound to Hun-Kamé, the two of them embark on a quest to retrieve the dark and brooding god’s throne from his brother, an adventure that takes them from rural Yucatán to Mexico City and beyond.

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Indomitus – Gav Thorpe

Gav Thorpe’s Warhammer 40,000 novel Indomitus, released in July 2020 to coincide with the latest edition of the tabletop game and its ongoing background, pits the Ultramarines of Crusade Fleet Quintus – considered a cursed fleet by some – against the nightmarish Necrons led by Overlord Simut. After years of uphill struggle against the forces of the Archenemy, the Ultramarines onboard the Ithraca’s Vengeance are in dire need of a comprehensive victory to lift morale and spur the fleet’s momentum. When the strangely becalmed Warp strands them in a system afflicted by a bizarre psychic malaise, they’re drawn into a desperate defence against the undying Necrons, whose relentless assault and terrifying abilities threaten the Indomitus Crusade and the Imperium as a whole.

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