Category Archives: Black Library

The Mirrored City – Josh Reynolds

Published in 2018 as a tie-in to the then-new Warhammer Underworlds sub-setting of Age of Sigmar, Josh Reynolds’ The Mirrored City introduces the city of Shadespire, exploring the curse laid upon it and its Katophrane rulers by Nagash, and the damned souls caught within its tangled streets. Seguin Reynar is one such soul, a deserter from the Freeguild who made his way to Shadespire seeking his fortune only to find himself hunted, trapped, and caught up in the schemes of one of the city’s ancient, bitter ruler-spirits. As he explores the city, battling its many and varied denizens and doing his best to avoid the attentions of the blood-crazed Chaos worshipper tracking him, Reynar searches for a way to escape both the attentions of Katophrane Sadila and the cursed city itself.

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QUICK REVIEW: Blood of the Flayer – Richard Strachan

After a few Warhammer Horror short stories, Blood of the Flayer is Richard Strachan’s first main-range Age of Sigmar story for Black Library, an intriguing tale of an unusually non-committal Chaos warlord. In Chamon, the realm of metal, Lord Huthor gathers warriors to his banner and dreams of power and purpose. When a Slaaneshi seductress lures him away from Chaos Undivided, Huthor leads his warband into the service of the god of excess, but never truly embraces that path. As the years pass and his armies grow, Huthor walks many different paths in search of his destiny, confidently taking only what he needs from each.

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5 Lesser-Known Warhammer 40k Stories

Warhammer 40,000 is a huge, expansive setting, and Black Library churns out dozens of new stories every year, ranging from standalone short stories to grand, sweeping multi-novel series. In amongst the huge mass of 40k fiction out there, it’s inevitable that some stories don’t quite get the attention they deserve, especially bearing in mind BL’s relentless release schedule and the opportunities for new releases to fall through the cracks. Just because something isn’t mega popular doesn’t mean it isn’t worth tracking down and reading, however. In this article I’m taking a look at a few examples of 40k stories that – in my opinion – deserve to receive far more praise than I tend to see them getting.

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RAPID FIRE: Robert Rath Talks The Infinite and the Divine

Welcome to this instalment of my Rapid Fire series of quick author interviews, in which I’m chatting to Robert Rath about his debut novel for Black Library, The Infinite and the Divine. This exciting new Warhammer 40,000 title is the first full novel to feature the ancient technological menace of the necrons as its protagonists, and promises to be something a little different to the usual Black Library fare. It’s available to pre-order as of Saturday the 3rd October.

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Writing Resources on Track of Words

While Track of Words was originally conceived as a site purely for book reviews, over the years it’s expanded to include author interviews, blog posts, and various (hopefully) useful resources for readers and fans of science fiction, fantasy and horror. In the last couple of years I’ve also published quite a few articles and interviews aimed at anyone interested in writing SFF and horror, and I’ve got plans for lots more in this vein. With that in mind, I thought it might be useful to have a single source for all these resources, where I can link out to everything that I’ve created so far and keep updated as and when new resources become available.

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RAPID FIRE: Guy Haley Talks Flesh and Steel

Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with authors talking about their new releases. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read or listen to it.

In this instalment I spoke to ever-prolific Black Library author Guy Haley about his new Warhammer Crime novel, Flesh and Steel, which is available to pre-order as of the 26th September. If you’re interested in a bit of ‘domestic 40k’, with a look at one of the most interesting factions in the setting, this looks like being the next book to check out!

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No Good Men – Warhammer Crime Anthology

Taking its place in the first wave of Black Library’s Warhammer Crime releases (alongside Chris Wraight’s Bloodlines and Alec Worley’s Dredge Runners), short story anthology No Good Men explores some of the different ways in which Imperial justice is loosely interpreted on the mean streets of Varangantua. Eschewing the usual battlefields and familiar tabletop characters in favour of ordinary citizens simply trying to survive the brutal realities of Imperial life, these stories all explore Varangantua’s atmospheric, cyberpunk-esque stylings and the towering inequalities corroding the heart of the Imperium. As the title suggests, there are no heroics here – just regular people doing what it takes to get by, whether that falls within the remit of the law or not.

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RAPID FIRE: Graham McNeill Talks Fury of Magnus

Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with authors talking about their new releases. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read or listen to it.

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Writing for Black Library – Pitching Warhammer Horror (Part Two)

Welcome to the second part of Writing for Black Library – Pitching Warhammer Horror, in which another seven fantastic authors talk about writing horror short stories and pitching Warhammer Horror stories in particular. If you haven’t already, I would recommend you first check out these two interviews: Alec Worley Talks Pitching Warhammer Horror and part one of Writing for Black Library – Pitching Warhammer Horror. Assuming you’ve read both of those, check this out for loads more great advice, ideas and suggestions that I hope will prove helpful whether you’re preparing a pitch for this year’s Black Library open submissions window or you’re just interested in writing horror stories in general.

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RAPID FIRE: Mike Brooks Talks Brutal Kunnin’

Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with authors talking about their new releases. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read or listen to it.

For this interview I spoke to the prolific Mike Brooks about his new Warhammer 40,000 novel Brutal Kunnin’ – the first ever Black Library novel to be written from an ork’s perspective! It’s available to pre-order as of Saturday 12th September, so if you’ve ever wondered what it’s really like inside an ork’s head while he’s getting stuck into a good fight…now’s the time to find out!

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