Tag Archives: Black Library Advent calendar

Black Library Advent Calendar 2019 – Recap

Another year’s Black Library Advent Calendar series is over, after nearly a month’s worth of brand new short stories, audio dramas and digital-only novels. As is now tradition, I’ve been writing daily reviews for each story as they’re released (excluding the novels – I don’t read that quickly), and you can find all of the links for those reviews right here. In this article, however, I’m taking a look back at the series as a whole to reflect on what’s been released, and talk about how individual stories connect to existing series…and maybe suggest what might be coming in the future.

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QUICK REVIEW: Morningstar – Graham McNeill

A companion piece to Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero, Graham McNeill’s 24-minute Horus Heresy audio drama Morningstar is set just before the Siege of Terra, with Magnus and Ahriman venturing into what remains of Tizca. As father and son explore the ruins of the City of Light, Ahriman questions their purpose in returning to the site of such pain, but Magnus – now largely restored – once more plays the role of teacher, and reveals an unexpected secret to his favoured son. The truth of Morningstar offers power to be wielded, but at a great cost to both Magnus and Ahriman.

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QUICK REVIEW: Divine Sanction – Robert Rath

A tale of the Officio Assassinorum, Robert Rath’s short story Divine Sanction (his first 40k story) offers a close look at the dangerous final stages of a Callidus assassin’s mission. The city of Veridian is wracked by unrest as the sermons of Confessor Illsandor spread the insidious influence of the xenos T’au and set the city’s factions against each other. Sent to infiltrate the city and find a way to remove and impersonate the Confessor, the assassin Sycorax closes in on her target only to face a last-minute challenge that forces her to improvise and start to question her mission.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Test of Faith – Thomas Parrott

Thomas Parrott’s first foray into tales of the Adeptus Astartes, The Test of Faith is a Dark Angels story exploring the strained relationship between two generations of Space Marines. Interrogator-Chaplain Raguel and the younger, second-generation Chaplain Hadariel lead a squad of Primaris Marines into battle aboard a vast, mobile mining vehicle, sweeping through its aged corridors and crushing the resistance of its mortal defenders. As they approach the heart of the vehicle and the nature of its crew is revealed, the bonds between the Dark Angels are tested in the heat of battle and Raguel’s true purpose is challenged.

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QUICK REVIEW: Skull Throne – Jake Ozga

Jake Ozga’s second Black Library short story, Skull Throne is a brave, hypnotic, intense Age of Sigmar story that could only exist as part of the Warhammer Horror imprint. In a silent, desolate part of Shyish, a young woman drifts through what’s left of her life in a distant haze, detached from the world around her and caught in a strange loop of indecision and what might be madness. When her routine is broken by a new presence that forces her to act, she feels something stir within that reawakens her mind and opens up a new path before her.

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Broken Saints – Alec Worley

Alec Worley’s 40k Sisters of Battle series moves into audio territory with Broken Saints, a gripping audio drama (originally released as three individual instalments) in which Sister Adamanthea, no longer a Repentia and now considered a Living Miracle, finds her faith tested like never before. Troubled by rising doubts during a holy day for the garden-temple of Concordia, when disaster strikes Adamanthea is quick to put aside her religious responsibilities and throw herself into the fray. Her presence is meant to help unify the fractious factions on Concordia, but first she must come to terms with her own faith, and lead her sisters to victory against a worryingly co-ordinated heretic uprising.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Sanguinalia Day Massacre – Justin D. Hill

Justin D. Hill’s Necromunda short story The Sanguinalia Day Massacre tells a tale of greed, power and uprising in the underhive, a grimdark retelling of Spartacus with the violence and brutality turned up to 11. Pitboss Barras has everything in place for the big showdown, pitting Thrax’s crew of low-hive scummers against the pick of his prized Goliath fighters, but when things don’t go quite to plan a chain reaction is triggered that leads inexorably to rebellion. For Thrax, condemned to die in the pits for the killing of his parents, a lifetime of suffering is about to boil over.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Age of Enlightenment – David Guymer

Picking up after the novel Champion of the Gods, David Guymer’s short story The Age of Enlightenment sees Hamilcar, no longer a Lord-Castellent, led to the Unchained Lands in Ghur by his Knight-Questor geas. Arriving at a strange, shrouded fortress besieged by the endless forces of Nagash, he begrudgingly joins the dour, gloomy Lord-Celestant Settrus and his Imperishables in its defence. Electing to search for its secrets rather than stand on the walls alongside its defenders, Hamilcar unearths an ancient and troubling mystery at the heart of the fortress, which he’s then forced to protect against a worryingly powerful enemy.

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QUICK REVIEW: Champions, All – Marc Collins

A story of duty, faith, sacrifice and really big swords, Marc Collins’ Champions, All (his second short story for Black Library) is a tale of the Black Templars with bonus Sisters of Battle. As the battered remnants of the Edioch Crusade prepare a head-on assault against an ork-held fortress, once protected by the Order of the Valorous Heart, Emperor’s Champion Cenric receives a vision from the Emperor Himself. When he’s separated from his brothers during the battle he finds his faith tested, but his purpose is renewed by striking at the heart of the orks alongside a lone Sister Repentia.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Child Foretold – Nicholas Kaufmann

Nicholas Kaufmann’s debut for Black Library is a Warhammer Horror short story, a tale of loss, loneliness and belonging for an isolated man. Kavel Trake was once a soldier in the militia, until the orks came to Ballard’s Run. Since then, having lost his family, his leg and his purpose, he’s eked out a living as a farmer with little to do but work and drink. When a dying woman stumbles onto his secluded farm and begs him to care for a babe in arms, he finds both a surprising sense of newfound purpose and the beginnings of a dark path.

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