Author Archives: Michael Dodd

QUICK REVIEW : Brotherhood of the Moon – Chris Wraight

On the twenty-second day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Horus Heresy short story by Chris Wraight. First of all, Brotherhood of the Moon is a direct sequel to Scars, so if you haven’t read that…look away now. Shown through Torghun Khan’s eyes as he attempts to explain himself in the aftermath of Scars’ denouement, it looks at his early dealings with the Lunar Wolves and some of the first steps that set him on his path. He recalls early campaigns before the legion was reunited at Chondax, and his desire to see his legion honoured and respected alongside the Lunar Wolves.

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QUICK REVIEW : Loss – Joe Parrino

On the twenty-first day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Raven Guard audio drama by Joe Parrino. Loss, a fifteen-minute audio, sees a squad of young Raven Guard scouts battling against dark eldar, ambushed from out of the shadows in a reversal to the usual order of things. As the inexperienced scouts pit their strength against the xenos they find their preconceptions of superiority and invincibility sorely tested.

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QUICK REVIEW : The Dread Sentinels of Dorn – Rob Sanders

On the twentieth day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…an Imperial Fists short story by Rob Sanders. The Dread Sentinels of Dorn sees Captain Kontrador of 5th Company investigating the unexplained silencing of one of the Imperial Fist-manned star forts on the border of Segmentum Solar. When the fate of the star fort and its garrison becomes clear, as a tyranid hive ship threatens his own vessel, Kontrador realises that far more is at stake than just the lives of him and his warriors.

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QUICK REVIEW : Holder of the Keys – Gav Thorpe

On the nineteenth day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Dark Angels audio drama by Gav Thorpe. Another twenty-minute audio, Holder of the Keys sees an unnamed member of the Fallen offering his recollection of events that took place on and around Caliban 10,000 years previously, as he suffers under psychic interrogation by the titular Holder of the Keys. His confession, drawn out of him under duress, paints a very different picture of events to those held to be true by the Dark Angels Inner Circle.

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QUICK REVIEW : Herald of Sanguinius – Andy Smillie

On the eighteenth day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Horus Heresy audio drama by Andy Smillie. Set amidst the turmoil of the newly-founded Imperium Secundus, Herald of Sanguinius sees Commander Azkaellon making some difficult decisions regarding the safety of his primarch, the new Emperor Sanguinius. Tensions are running high amongst the gathered Space Marines, and the future of Imperium Secundus weighs heavily upon both Sanguinius and his sons.

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QUICK REVIEW : The Value of Fear – Gav Thorpe

On the seventeenth day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Horus Heresy short story by Gav Thorpe. A 1000-or-so word micro short, The Value of Fear features the Raven Guard as they fight to quell an Alpha Legion-led rebellion alongside an unlikely ally in the shape of a still-loyal Night Lord. Striking as ever from the shadows, as the mission progresses Sergeant Ashel has cause to question the methodologies of his ally, compared to those of the Raven Guard.

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QUICK REVIEW : Vengeful Honour – Nick Kyme

[This short story was originally released as part of the 2014 Black Library Advent Calendar]

On the sixteenth day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Marines Malevolent short story by Nick Kyme. Continuing the thread started in Bitter Salvage (in the Angels of Death anthology), Vengeful Honour sees Ballack and his unloved brothers in the Malevolents embroiled in the fighting on Armageddon. Faced with the prospect of fighting alongside the already antagonised Black Templars, and conscious of his own reduced capabilities, Ballack becomes increasingly aware of his own mortality. When some unwelcome faces appear, things seem to be looking bleak for the Malevolent.

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Ancient Lives, New Discoveries – British Museum (John H. Taylor and Daniel Antoine)

The British Museum is famous for no end of reasons, but one of the things it’s most synonymous with is its collection of Egyptian mummies. Incredibly, over the 250+ years that the museum has been maintaining its collection it has never unwrapped any of the mummies; in 2014 it opened a new exhibition called Ancient Lives, New Discoveries which uses the results of new technology to peer beneath the wrappings of eight of the mummies and show them in a new light. This book is the companion to the exhibition and tells the stories, or at least as much as can be determined, of these eight people and how their mummified remains came to be held at the museum.

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QUICK REVIEW – Ahriman: Gates of Ruin – John French

Overlapping slightly with the events of Ahriman: Sorcerer, and following on from several of the other short stories in the series, John French’s Ahriman: Gates of Ruin once more tells a tale of Thousand Sons sorcerer Ctesias. Here the weary daemonologist is looking back from a point far in the future, recalling the part he played in leading Ahriman and his followers out of the Eye of Terror. Ctesias’ knowledge of daemons is put to good use as he seeks the location of the Gates of Ruin, but can a daemon ever really be trusted?

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QUICK REVIEW : None More Loyal – Mike Lee

Released on day fourteen of the 2014 Black Library Advent Calendar.

A standalone story, but also the prequel to the novel Legacy of Dorn, Mike Lee’s Crimson Fists short story None More Loyal follows Veteran Sergeant Galleas and his squad as they respond to an Inquisitorial request for aid and lay a trap for an infamous enemy of their chapter. Galleas prepares as well as he can for the coming conflict and the opportunity to exact revenge in the name of lost brothers, but as ever with the Inquisition, things are not quite what they seem.

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