One of several excellent 40k short stories featuring Commissar Severina Raine and the 11th Antari Rifles, Rachel Harrison’s Fire and Thunder is a bleak and powerful examination of the grubby, confused horror of war in the 41st millennium. Raine and the Antari are redeploying from the cathedral city of Whend when they find themselves under heavy fire and cut off from Imperial lines. With walking wounded and no chance of extraction, their only hope is a dangerous forced march through enemy-held territory, but with ammunition running low and enemies pressing in all around, the odds are heavily set against them.
Over the course of these short stories Harrison is gradually revealing the identity and history of the 11th Antari and their officers, and this time around the viewpoint rotates between Raine and Sergeant Daven Wyck of the Wyldfolk. Raine is still the focal point, but the story’s really about Wyck and his relationship with death as, strung out and constantly on edge, he’s pushed right to the limit of his endurance. It’s written with brutal immediacy and pulls no punches with the action, but in the midst of all the carnage the characters continue to develop in intriguing ways, and there are yet more signs that this is going to be a series to really watch.
See also Execution and A Company of Shadows.
This was released as part of the 2018 Black Library Advent Calendar – click here to see the main page for the Advent Calendar, with links to all of the reviews.
