Black Library’s second Warhammer Horror-branded short story anthology, Invocations features twelve stories from ten different authors, four of which have previously been released as individual digital-only shorts while the other eight are presented here for the first time. All twelve explore the darker corners of the 41st Millennium and the Mortal Realms, with established names like David Annandale, Justin D. Hill, Nick Kyme and CL Werner joined by newer (to Warhammer) but still familiar authors Lora Gray, Peter McLean and Richard Strachan. Meanwhile Ray Cluley, Jake Ozga and Steven Sheil all make their Black Library debuts.
As is becoming the norm for Warhammer Horror the focus is almost entirely on everyday, non-military characters buckling under the psychological, physical or emotional (or all of the above) pressures of eking out often painful existences against the backdrops of uncaring worlds. There’s violence and physical conflict aplenty – often accompanied by considerable quantities of gore (especially in Nick Kyme’s Stitches) – but that’s never the purpose of the story, and they all emphasise the psychological side of horror as well as the more visceral elements. There’s a real mixture of styles on display, from the body horror of Ray Cluley’s Flesh and Blood to the disturbingly everyday darkness of Lora Gray’s gothic He Feasts Forever and Justin D. Hill’s The Confessions of Convict Kline. A trio of Age of Sigmar stories depict the bleak realities of rural life, CL Werner’s bleakly satisfying A Sending from the Grave sees a rogue spirit running amok in Chamon, while David Annandale provides an impressive range of disturbing goings-on across his three stories.
That variety does mean it’s hard to see a single consistent theme across the book (beyond a general sense of tone), but at the same time there should be something to pretty much any horror fan’s taste. Most of these are standalone short stories, although a couple of them tie in with other works – Peter McLean’s Blood Sacrifice follows on from Baphomet By Night while David Annandale’s From the Halls, the Silence directly references the setting of The House of Night and Chain. Interestingly, if you look closely you’ll also find brief references in every one of them which subtly connect all five 40k stories to The House of Night and Chain and the seven Age of Sigmar stories to CL Werner’s novel Castle of Blood – dark rumours, a brutalised Guard regiment, a distant location, all just little hints of something bigger. Quite what these links mean and whether a greater theme is slowly developing remains to be seen, but they add a nice little touch of connective tissue to the still-new Warhammer Horror imprint.
Maledictions felt like the first step towards an evolution of Black Library fiction, harking back to the tone of early Warhammer stories but maybe not going quite as far into horror as some fans expected. Invocations takes us another step further along that path, getting variously darker, gorier, creepier or just plain weirder than what you might expect in ‘normal’ Warhammer fiction. Depending on your outlook and tolerance levels, these stories aren’t necessarily overtly scary, but rather the sort that leave you feeling uncomfortable, saddened, on-edge or disturbed (sometimes all at the same time), and that stick with you for at least a while afterwards. Taken as a whole it’s not exactly an uplifting anthology, favouring a bleak and dour tone over the excitement, adventure or glory that Warhammer fiction often provides, but then that’s the point really, isn’t it? If you’re interested in exploring the sinister fringes of 40k or Age of Sigmar, chances are this excellent anthology will provide exactly what you’re looking for.
Here’s the contents list:
- The Hunt by David Annandale
- The Confession of Convict Kline by Justin D. Hill
- He Feasts Forever by Lora Gray
- Stitches by Nick Kyme
- The Healer by Steven Sheil
- Blood Sacrifice by Peter McLean
- The Growing Seasons by Richard Strachan
- Supplication by Jake Ozga
- From the Halls, the Silence by David Annandale
- A Sending from the Grave by CL Werner
- Flesh and Blood by Ray Cluley
- The Summons of Shadows by David Annandale
