Where to Start With Black Library: Sisters of Battle

Welcome to the first in a new series of Where to Start With Black Library articles on Track of Words, in which I’m going to try and demystify the process of getting into reading Warhammer fiction. With literally hundreds of Black Library books, short stories and audio dramas available, and new stories being released every week, it can be hard to know where to start, whether you’re brand new to Warhammer or you want to find out more about certain series, factions or characters. Hopefully I can help with that!

In this article I’m going to look at the Sisters of Battle, one of my favourite Warhammer 40,000 factions, and offer up some suggestions of great stories you might want to check out. The best place to start with these stories will depend on various factors, far too many for me to cover succinctly, so I’m going to suggest a few different lengths and mediums to give you options to choose from. Where possible I’ll stick to stories I’ve read and enjoyed myself, and link out to reviews where they’re available.

In a universe full of Space Marines and mostly-male Imperial Guard characters, the Sisters of Battle are a breath of fresh air. As well as providing a welcome break from what can be a very male-dominated genre of fiction, the Battle Sisters offer a compelling mixture of martial discipline, intense faith and human frailty that’s tailor-made for powerful storytelling. In recent years a few Black Library authors have started contributing some fantastic stories about these awesome warrior women, and I would say there’s never been a better time to be a fan. Where to start, though? Here are a few options…

Start with a novella
Black Library produce stories of wildly differing lengths, but personally I think a novella makes for a great middle ground, offering more depth and detail than a short story without the investment in time (and money) of a novel. This length is perfect if you want to really get your teeth into a story without going all-in on a novel, and luckily there are a couple of excellent Sisters of Battle novellas by Danie Ware, both published in the last year or so and available for the bargain price of £3. Start with The Bloodied Rose, then if you enjoy that move onto the more recent Wreck and Ruin.

Both feature Sister Superior Augusta, who’s a 20+ year veteran and an absolute badass. Danie has a brilliant handle on the Battle Sisters, beautifully balancing the practical military elements of the characters, the way they operate and fight, with the fiery, intense faith that drives them. You want to see kickass women taking the fight to xenos and heretics while singing hymns in perfect harmony and channelling their worship of the Emperor to drive and motivate them while they’re at it? Danie’s got you covered. If you’d like to know more about Augusta and her exploits, you’re in luck because they continue in a range of short stories as well!

All of the Augusta stories work as standalones, but I would suggest you start with Mercy and then see what takes your fancy; some of the stories are set in Augusta’s present, while others look back to a younger version of the character. If you’d like to know more about this series and the characters then check out my Author Spotlight interview with Danie, in which she talks about Wreck and Ruin in particular but also Augusta and her squad in general, including how she “deliberately chose to go with an older character, partially to move away from the (deeply wearying) sexual cliches, and partially so that she had both strength and experience.”

Go big – start with a novel
If you’ve enjoyed the Augusta stories and fancy something longer, or just prefer a novel, then my recommendation would be Mark of Faith by Rachel Harrison, which was – in my opinion – one of the best Black Library books of 2019. From a plot perspective it’s a pretty straightforward story, but in terms of characters it’s out of this world, using the contrasting (but at the same time remarkably similar) viewpoints of a Battle Sister and an inquisitor to tell a story with themes of faith, duty, family and love running throughout. It’s a dark, intense book which really puts its characters through the wringer, and is a (relatively) rare BL book that really emphasises the emotional aspects of the story, without ever losing its essential grimdark 40k-ness.

You want more novel recommendations? Ok, no problem. If you fancy going back to the beginning, the earliest BL stories to focus on Sisters of Battle (I think) were James Swallow’s novels Faith and Fire and Hammer and Anvil, which are probably the foundation of everything that’s come later on. I confess I missed these when they were first released and still haven’t read them, so I can’t give you any specifics, but they’re conveniently collected together (alongside a short story and the prose version of an audio drama) in Sisters of Battle: The Omnibus, as an easy collection for anyone interested in checking them out. It’s on my bookshelf, waiting to be read one day!

For something that’s maybe better described as Sisters of Battle-adjacent, you might try Andy Clark’s short novel Celestine: The Living Saint. Celestine herself is a little bit different to the Battle Sisters in general, but this gives a great insight into a character built on foundations of faith and discipline. Alternatively, if you want to dig deep into the Sisters and explore some of the less military aspects of these characters – as well as a somewhat less conventional story to most BL books – I can wholeheartedly recommend Requiem Infernal by Peter Fehervari. It’s essentially a horror story, featuring a tormented Sister Hospitaller returning to her birthplace and delving into the secrets at the heart of her Order – and it’s wonderful!

Try an audio drama
I’m a big fan of audio dramas, so I’ll always advocate for trying this medium as well as prose stories – and luckily there are Sisters of Battle stories available in this format too! Broken Saints by Alec Worley, a three-part audio currently only available in individual components (although I’m sure a single release will be available eventually) – is a tremendously entertaining story about a Sister who’s been through some serious ups and downs with her faith and her rank, and finds herself tormented by what she’s become and what other people expect of her. Worley’s Sister Adamanthea shares some similarities with Ware’s Augusta, but has taken a different path and is much more of a wild, reckless sort of character – who’s perfect for the audio medium.

Just as an aside, much like the Augusta series there are various short stories featuring Adamanthea, at different stages in her life. Check out this interview with Alec in which he talks at length about what interests him about the Sisters of Battle, and gives his recommended reading order for the series. All three of the short stories – Whispers, Repentia and Martyr’s End – are fantastic!

If you like audio and you fancy something a bit longer, you could try another Sisters of Battle-adjacent story, once again featuring Celestine – Gav Thorpe’s audio box set Our Martyred Lady. This is probably the least Sisters-y of everything I’ve mentioned, focusing more on the relationship between Celestine and Inquisitor Greyfax, but it’s still a fantastic story dealing with some very relevant themes, and there’s nothing quite like listening to two fantastic voice actors – in this case Emma Gregory (as Celestine) and Katherine Tate (yes, that Katherine Tate, as Greyfax) – bouncing off each other.

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So there you have it, a few different places you could start with Sisters of Battle stories. There are plenty more BL stories featuring the Battle Sisters (apologies if I’ve missed your favourite off the list!), but these are my personal favourites. As a quick recap, my top picks are The Bloodied Rose by Danie Ware, Mark of Faith by Rachel Harrison and Broken Saints by Alec Worley, although regular readers won’t be even slightly surprised that I would also strongly recommend Peter Fehervari’s Requiem Infernal!

I also have a couple of more general Getting Started With… articles, one focusing on Warhammer 40,000 stories and the other on Warhammer Age of Sigmar, so do check those out as well.

Please feel free to get in touch in the comments below or on Twitter if you have any questions, or to let me know how you get on with these stories, otherwise happy reading and listening!