Category Archives: A Few Thoughts On

A Few Thoughts On: Champions of the Mortal Realms

Black Library’s Age of Sigmar anthology Champions of the Mortal Realms collects together four novellas originally published in 2018 as part of the ‘Black Library Novella Series 1’ – Warqueen by Darius Hinks, Heart of Winter by Nick Horth, The Red Hours by Evan Dicken and The Bone Desert by Robbie MacNiven. All four novellas are excellent, and as an anthology this offers great value for a collection of stories covering a wide variety of characters, locations and themes from across the Mortal Realms. It’s had a slightly strange publication history, however (as has its 40k companion Servants of the Imperium), so I’ll talk a bit about that as well as taking a quick look at each story and linking out to my individual reviews.

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A Few Thoughts On: Downdraught by Gareth L. Powell

I love a good novella, and I’m a big fan of Gareth L. Powell, so picking up his new novella Downdraught was a bit of a no-brainer. It’s set in the same world as his short stories The Last Reef, Hot Rain and Flotsam – all of which are collected in The Last Reef and Other Stories – although unlike those other stories, this one is for the most part rather more down to earth (literally and figuratively). It’s labelled as a ‘science fiction horror novella’, and while the book is as much a small-scale character drama as anything else, it proves to be a good example of how closely linked those two genres are – and how both SF and horror can sit comfortably in grounded, human stories.

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A Few Thoughts On: From A Certain Point of View

I’ve read very few Star Wars books, despite being a big fan of the IP, but I want to talk a bit about From A Certain Point Of View, published in 2017 to celebrate 40 years of A New Hope, which I read quite recently and absolutely loved. If you haven’t come across it before, this is a 40-strong short story anthology (from 43 authors – there are a few double-headers) in which each tale takes a character or a scene from the original film and expands upon it, providing fresh, unexpected and insightful new perspectives on otherwise familiar stories. From Imperial officers, stormtroopers, rebels and Jedi to Jawas, Tuskens, Bith and all manner of droids, on Tatooine, Alderaan, Star Destroyers and the Death Star, these stories explore the characters and locations of A New Hope like never before.

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