Category Archives: Highlight

Writing an Eco-Change Epic Fantasy (While Living Through One) – David Hair Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post courtesy of David Hair, author of the Talmont series – book two of which, The Drowning Sea, is published in the UK by Arcadia in hardback and ebook. To help celebrate the release of The Drowning Sea, David has very kindly written this post discussing the themes and inspiration behind the Talmont series, in particular the influence of climate change on this story. If you like your fantasy on the Epic side and you’re on the lookout for a new series, this is well worth checking out!

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RAPID FIRE: Steven B. Fischer Talks Broken Crusade

Hello and welcome to this Rapid Fire interview here on Track of Words, where I’m delighted to be welcoming author Steven B. Fischer back to the site – this time to chat about his latest Black Library novel, Broken Crusade! Steve and I have chatted before about his excellent BL debut Witchbringer, and after reading and loving Broken Crusade I was keen to pick his brains again, and get a little insight into another fantastic 40k novel. One of my personal favourite BL novels of 2024, Broken Crusade was a fascinating read, and it was great fun digging into it with Steve, discussing Black Templars, second novels, melancholic Space Marines, unusual World Eaters, and loads more.

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Behind the Scene: Kiss of the Basilisk by Lindsay Straube

Hello and welcome to this Behind the Scene article here on Track of Words, where today I’m joined by author Lindsay Straube with an annotated excerpt of her new novel Kiss of the Basilisk – out now in the UK from Arcadia in hardback, audio and ebook. Now this is something a little different to what I normally cover, a book described as a “five-chilli TikTok monster romance fantasy sensation” and whose press release opens with “THIS BOOK IS NOT SAFE TO READ AT WORK”…but what is life without a little variety, and indeed a little spice? Lindsay has kindly contributed an excerpt from the opening of Kiss of the Basilisk, along with commentary discussing her thought process throughout this scene.

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The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands – Sarah Brooks

First things first, I’m unusually biased here, as the author of The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands – Sarah Brooks – is my sister. With that caveat in mind though, I want to talk a bit about this book, which I absolutely, unapologetically loved. Inspired by a real-life passage on the Trans-Siberian Express, The Cautious Traveller… is the story of a perilous journey from Beijing to Moscow on a grand and powerful train, heavily protected against the dangers of a vast, largely unknown expanse – the titular Wastelands. Among the crew and passengers on the train are a trio of viewpoint characters, each with secrets to hide and their own unique perspectives on the train and the Wastelands. As the journey progresses though, the strength and safety of the train are challenged, while passengers and crew alike are confronted with the Wastelands at its most dangerous.

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Track of Words Reviews: What to Expect

Over the years here on Track of Words I’ve written over 1,100 reviews and counting, and for a long time I’ve been meaning to put together a quick article to talk about what you can expect if you check out one or more of my reviews. At the time of writing this I’ve also just posted my first deliberately shorter book review (which I’ve called ‘In Brief’, as the start of a new type of review), which reminded me that I really ought to clarify what you can expect from the different types of reviews too. So what I’ll do here is give a quick overview of my general style of writing and the things you can expect to see or not see in my reviews, then break down the different review types as well. Hopefully this will be useful!

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Black Library: ‘New 40k’ Reading List

After decades of remaining more or less static, these days the Warhammer 40,000 setting is evolving before our eyes, and many of the new and upcoming novels from Black Library are helping to shed light on these new developments in the lore. It’s not always clear how the various stories fit into the ongoing timeline, however, and Black Library as usual doesn’t seem inclined to provide anything in the way of an official reading order. I’ve put together this reading list to try to fit together where all of the recent books go in the ‘new 40k’ timeline – it’s entirely unofficial, and I can’t guarantee that I’ll have got everything right, but hopefully it will be a useful resource to anyone interested in keeping up with Warhammer 40,000 fiction.

NOTE: until such time as BL produces an official resource, I’ll do my best to keep this reading list up to date with new releases as and when they’re published. This version of the article was created in January 2021, but I’ve added books in here and there along the way – the last minor update was in August 2022.

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A Traveller’s Guide to Peter Fehervari’s Dark Coil

With the release of the short story Altar of Maws (May 2023), Peter Fehervari’s catalogue of Warhammer 40,000 fiction – known informally as The Dark Coil – currently totals 18 stories. Every piece of 40k fiction is linked by taking place within a single shared universe, but The Dark Coil goes way beyond that. These stories share much deeper connections, between them forming a web of characters, locations, themes and recurring motifs that is gradually becoming more and more apparent as additional stories are published. One of the joys of reading Fehervari’s work is in unpicking these subtle connections, but it can be daunting to know where to start looking.

Welcome, then, to A Traveller’s Guide to the Dark Coil.

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Black Library Pre-Order Tracker

It can be hard to keep track of upcoming Black Library releases – there’s the Coming Soon page on Warhammer Community but that has big gaps and isn’t updated very often; the occasional Warhammer Community article looking at previews/reveals; and the wider book trade, with websites like Amazon often updated with some information well in advance of books being published. Wouldn’t it be great if there was ONE place you could check which consolidated all of that information, and clearly laid it out to help you plan ahead and decide what to buy and when? Well as it happens, I’ve put together a spreadsheet containing all of the information I can find. I’ve embedded it into this article, and I try to keep it as up to date as possible, so check back any time to see what’s coming up. Continue reading →