Tag Archives: Jude Reid

Best of Black Library 2023

Following on from my Best SFF Books of 2023 article, this time I’m turning my attention to Black Library in particular (as I always do), and picking out the best BL books that I’ve read over the last twelve months. It’s always interesting to go back through and think about what the highlights have been, and as ever there have been some really great releases this year. Compared to previous years (like 2018 for example, when I read a whopping 65 BL books) I haven’t read quite as many BL books in 2023, but the 24 I did read this year still gave me a decent pool to choose from, and all the books I’ve picked out are genuinely fantastic, and very much worth reading!

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Gundog by Gary Whitta – Jude Reid Guest Review

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words Guest Review, in which the excellent Jude Reid (author of, among other things, the recent Black Library novel Creed: Ashes of Cadia) takes a look at Gundog by Gary Whitta – out now from Inkshares and also available in podcast form. I hadn’t come across this before, but I’m intrigued by the idea of a novel released as both a serialised podcast and a regular book – and it sounds fantastic! I’m delighted to feature Jude on the site, and hope you enjoy this guest review as much as I did.

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Creed: Ashes of Cadia – Jude Reid

Jude Reid’s debut novel for Black Library, Creed: Ashes of Cadia introduces readers to the character of Lord Castellan Ursula Creed, in a story about the burden of legacy and questions of Cadian identity. Pulled away from her current campaign by the returned Primarch Guilliman himself, Ursula is entrusted with a daring mission to return to what’s left of her homeworld and retrieve a weapon purportedly left behind by her father, Ursarkar E. Creed, before the Fall of Cadia. She knows it’s a propaganda exercise as much as anything, but she has her reasons for accepting it. Far from a glorious return home though, this proves to be a clumsy, chaotic mission driven – to Ursula’s mind – by all the wrong reasons, and plagued by disaster right from the off.

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Writing For Black Library – Open Submissions January 2023 Part 3: Writing Samples

Hello and welcome to the third and final instalment of my January 2023 edition of Writing For Black Library here on Track of Words – in this part our nine brilliant Black Library authors are discussing the tricky task of planning out short stories and putting together writing samples. If you haven’t already, I’d recommend checking out the previous two articles first: part one, in which we discussed writing 100-word story pitches, and part two, which was all about what makes a great Space Marine story. If you’ve already read both of those, read on to find out what advice and recommendations our authors have for writing short stories in general.

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Writing For Black Library – Open Submissions January 2023 Part 2: Space Marines

Welcome to the second in my three-part series of Writing For Black Library articles released to coincide with BL’s January 2023 Open Submissions window. For these articles I spoke to nine Black Library authors who kindly agreed to share their advice and ideas regarding three topics: pitch summaries, Space Marine stories, and generally writing short stories and samples. In Part 1 we covered writing pitches – if you haven’t already, definitely check that out – while for this second part the focus is on Space Marines. Specifically, I asked each of the authors this question: “What would you say makes a great Space Marine story?”

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Writing for Black Library – Open Submissions January 2023 Part 1: Pitching

Every year or two, Black Library announces an Open Submissions Window – a short period of time during which anyone can pitch a short story to the BL editorial team. Towards the end of 2022 BL announced that its next open subs window will begin in January 2023, with a specific theme of stories exploring Space Marine successor Chapters. In previous years I’ve put together articles and interviews full of advice from Black Library authors on how to pitch and write short stories, but it’s been a while since I’ve done that so now seems like a good time to do another one. Or, to be precise, another three! If you’re interested in writing for BL in general, and submitting to this open subs window in particular, I think you’ll find a lot of interest in these articles.

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QUICK REVIEW: Snow White, Green Mantle – Jude Reid

Available in issue 32 of Grimdark Magazine, Jude Reid’s short story Snow White, Green Mantle is a sharp, bloody tale of desperation and survival in a world turned upside down. In a gloomy, run-down village on the edge of the woods, hunter Fionn is hired to do what the headman can’t, to take his daughter into the forest and slit her throat. She doesn’t relish the job but in a life always lived on the move, the prospect of earning a warm bed for the night is enough to get her to agree to it. Once in the woods, however, she soon learns that there’s more to the headman’s daughter than she realised, and the creatures who live away from the feeble light of humanity – the Othermen, who have reclaimed the world for themselves – want the girl for their own reasons.

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Sanction & Sin – Warhammer Crime Anthology

Sanction & Sin, the third short story anthology from Black Library’s Warhammer Crime range, collects together nine stories from a mixture of BL veterans and newer names (including debuts for J.S. Collyer and Jude Reid) exploring the trials and tribulations of some of the women living amidst the blood, the dirt, the crime and corruption on the grim streets of Varangantua. Whether trying to maintain the Lex, care for others’ bodies and souls, make a killing or just make a living, each of these characters is forced to confront the realities of life in this vast and unforgiving city, the inequality and the brutality, the squalid streets and the merciless conditions. While some thrive despite the odds, others aren’t so strong or so fortunate, and justice means little in Varangantua.

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Sanction and Sin: Warhammer Crime and Women in Black Library – with J.S. Collyer, Victoria Hayward, Jude Reid and Danie Ware

Hello and welcome to this very special author interview here on Track of Words, where today I’m talking to no fewer than four fantastic authors – J.S. Collyer, Victoria Hayward, Jude Reid and Danie Ware – about their stories in the new Warhammer Crime anthology Sanction & Sin from Black Library. It’s always great to see new stories published in the Warhammer Crime range, and Sanction & Sin sounds like a fantastic collection of stories exploring some really interesting angles on Warhammer 40,000 as a setting. More than that though, it’s something of a landmark for Black Library as the first anthology to feature stories from four female authors.

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