Category Archives: Books

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir – via Grimdark Magazine

It’s with great pleasure that I can tell you I’ve had my first review published by the excellent Grimdark Magazine, for Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. If you haven’t come across Grimdark Magazine before, and in case the name hasn’t given the game away, it’s a website and (quarterly) digital magazine specialising in science fiction and fantasy of the darkest dark. You should check it out, it’s awesome! Go on – here’s the link. I’ve reviewed a story from the magazine before, but I’m delighted to be now writing reviews for the site, although don’t worry – it’s in addition to Track of Words, not instead!

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Isha’s Lament – Thomas Parrott

Thomas Parrott’s first longer-form Black Library story, Isha’s Lament is a Blackstone Fortress novella, an entertaining and insightful tale of survival, exploration and the after-effects of trauma. Brakus Andradus – once a soldier, now a hunter – is part of a group of explorers who find a ruined, dead ship within the fortress, and in doing so unwittingly trigger a calamity that endangers everyone on both the fortress and Precipice. Despite his failing health Brakus ventures back in search of a way to prevent disaster, accompanied by a motley group of uneasy companions, and in the darkness faces up to his fears.

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Sisters of the Vast Black – Lina Rather

Lina Rather’s debut novella, Sisters of the Vast Black is a beautiful little story of faith, love and hope in the midst of endless, cold space, featuring secret-keeping nuns, living spaceships and a sinister government trying to reclaim power. The sisters of the Order of Saint Rita travel the edge of space in their sentient ship Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, offering medical aid and religious comfort to scattered colonists far from the main systems. After answering the call of a brand new colony, the sisters find their peaceful lives threatened by the shadow of a war long thought over.

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Rites of Passage – Mike Brooks

Rites of Passage isn’t only Mike Brooks’ debut Black Library novel, it’s also the first 40k novel ever to focus entirely on the Navigator Houses, a crucial but previously under-explored element of the Imperium of Man. Returning home to Vorlese after the death of her husband (which she herself arranged), Chettamandey Brobantis’ careful plans for the future of her house are interrupted by inter-house politics, mysterious disappearances and the looming threat of warp-based disaster. As danger builds, Chetta comes to realise that all of her meticulous planning and all her skill in diplomacy might not be enough to save her house, and Vorlese itself, from what’s coming.

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The House of Night and Chain – David Annandale

David Annandale’s Warhammer Horror novel The House of Night and Chain is a bleak tale of trauma and the spiralling descent into paranoia and madness, a 40k haunted house story set far away from the big plotlines. Wounded, traumatised, widowed and grieving, Colonel Maeson Strock returns to the agri-world of Solus to take up the governorship, and the city of Valgaast to take up residence in his family’s ancestral seat, Malveil. Duty-bound to stamp out the growing corruption in the ruling council and determined to rebuild his fragmented family upon Solus, Maeson soon finds himself drawn into a sinister mystery with Malveil at its heart.

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Angel Mage – Garth Nix

Set in a world of angels, monsters and musketeers, Garth Nix’s standalone fantasy novel Angel Mage cleverly transposes the essence of The Three Musketeers into a beautiful tale of magic, adventure and friendship. Over a century after fleeing her homeland of Ystara in the wake of a great tragedy, the powerful mage Liliath wakes in Sarance and begins the next stage of her grand plan. She seeks out four individuals – a musketeer, a scholar, a clerk and a doctor – who find their paths converging and who feel an unexplained connection between themselves. While Liliath spins her web for them, the four companions are swept up in events of great import and placed in danger they can’t begin to comprehend.

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The Lost and the Damned – Guy Haley

Book two in Black Library’s Siege of Terra mini-series concluding the Horus Heresy, Guy Haley’s The Lost and the Damned picks up where The Solar War left off as Horus Lupercal launches his assault on Terra itself. Reinforced by thousands of conscripts and protected by ancient shield technology, the outer walls of the Imperial Palace bear the brunt of the initial attacks as the Warmaster tests the physical defences with brutal bombardments and assaults from the dregs of his forces. The loyalists know they need only endure until salvation arrives, but time is of the essence for the traitors. While the legions wait to take to the field on both sides, egos clash as the traitor primarchs vie for position, bickering amongst themselves in the name of pride, glory or their new gods.

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Warhammer Adventures: Claws of the Genestealer AND Secrets of the Tau – Cavan Scott

Cavan Scott’s Warped Galaxies series continues to impress (and entertain) with books two and three – Claws of the Genestealer and Secrets of the Tau. With the necron Hunter taken care of (for now, at least), Zelia, Talen, Mekki and Fleapit search for a way off the snow-bound planet they find themselves stranded on, before braving the unfamiliar confines of a frontier space station. With dangers all around, from lethal aliens to the elements themselves, they need to put their differences aside and find ways to work together if they’ve any hope of finding their way to safety, and a distant rendezvous with Zelia’s mum.

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Bigger Than Biggs – Danie Ware

Danie Ware’s Judge Anderson novella Bigger Than Biggs follows on from Alec Worley’s three Year One novellas, and sees the Psi-Judge tackling biker gangs and delving into dark secrets in the Big Meg. On secondment to the uncompromising Chief Johnson in Sector-19, Anderson stumbles upon something big when the rescue of a kidnap victim leads to hints of sinister goings-on beneath the Eee-Zee Rest block. Johnson won’t sanction an investigation due to the political connections of the block’s owner, but Anderson’s gifts tell her something terrible is about to happen, and it’ll take someone with her talents to stop it.

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Ghoulslayer – Darius Hinks

The first novel since 2015 in Black Library’s much-loved ‘Nounslayer’ series, Darius Hinks’ Ghoulslayer picks up after the events of the Realmslayer (see the theme there?) audio dramas and sees Gotrek – minus Felix – roaming the Mortal Realms in a typically bad mood. This time he’s in Shyish, accompanied by the aelf Maleneth and troubled Stormcast Trachos, with his sights set on a confrontation with Nagash himself. A chance encounter with a mysterious magician leads them to the hidden underworld of Morbium in the Amethyst Princedoms, where they battle vast numbers of the titular ghouls as an army of mordants threatens to sweep all before it.

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