Category Archives: Books

Nagash: The Undying King – Josh Reynolds

Harking back to some of Josh Reynolds’ earlier Undead-focused Warhammer stories, Nagash: The Undying King is an Age of Sigmar novel set in the Mortal Realms long before the actual Age of Sigmar. Available as a Warhammer World-exclusive hardback before its Christmas Day 2017 e-premiere release, it looks at the Rictus clans of Shyish, Nagash-worshipping human tribes being driven out of their lands by the inexorable forces of Nurgle. Tamra ven Drak leads what remains of her clan north in search of survival, following two of Nagash’s Mortarchs whose plans she finds herself increasingly bound up in.

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The Realmgate Wars: Mortarch of Night – Josh Reynolds and David Guymer

Book nine of the Realmgate Wars series, Mortarch of Night was originally released as eight audio dramas (four by Josh Reynolds and four by David Guymer) before being rolled up into this novel. Although really two stories, the overall narrative is Sigmar’s attempt to negotiate a new alliance with Nagash, focusing mostly on one stormhost – the Hallowed Knights, specifically the Bull-hearts led by Lord-Celestant Tarsus and Lord-Relictor Ramus. Venturing into Shyish in search of the Great Necromancer, the Hallowed Knights forge an uneasy alliance that will have profound consequences, while Nagash himself appears…unhappy with the intruders into his realm.

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Sons of the Hydra – Rob Sanders

Rob Sanders has a good track record with Heresy-era Alpha Legion, and now he’s tackling them in a pre-Dark Imperium 40k novel, Sons of the Hydra. It follows the exploits of a small Alpha Legion warband known as the Redacted, led by Occam the Untrue – and no, he doesn’t have a sword called Razor. There’s a typically twisty, convoluted plot as Occam drives the Redacted in pursuit of his and the legion’s goals, and without giving too much away it involves Marines of varying chapters and loyalties, the expected levels of infiltration and false faces…and lots of plasma guns.

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The Bastard Legion – Gavin Smith

This was first posted on the British Fantasy Society website. Click here to check out more fantasy, sci-fi and horror reviews.

A hugely entertaining military-ish science fiction novel, Gavin Smith’s The Bastard Legion (originally released as The Hangman’s Daughter) kicks off a series of the same name, set 400 years into a dark but still recognisable future. Livewire, smart-talking mercenary Miska, commanding a force six-thousand strong, is commissioned to pacify a group of rebellious miners on a remote asteroid. The problem is, her army is made up of dangerous criminals from a stolen prison ship, trained only in virtual reality and compelled to fight under threat of execution, while her only help comes from the digital presence of her dead father.

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Fabius Bile: Clonelord – Josh Reynolds

Josh Reynolds’ 2016 novel Fabius Bile: Primogenitor provided an unexpected injection of variety into Black Library’s 40k output, which is continued with the sequel – Fabius Bile: Clonelord. Picking up a fair amount of time after Primogenitor, we catch up with Chief Apothecary Fabius just as he’s about to set out for a darkened spur of the Webway in search, as always, of knowledge. When his exploration of a long-abandoned Craftworld is interrupted by familiar, if unwelcome, faces he ends up drawn closer to an old brotherhood than he’d really like, and persuaded to risk much…for great reward.

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The Warmaster – Dan Abnett

Over six years after Salvation’s Reach was published, Dan Abnett’s long-awaited fourteenth Gaunt’s Ghosts novel – The Warmaster – arrives with a heavy weight of expectation. Part three of The Victory, it picks up almost immediately after Salvation’s Reach as the surviving Ghosts attempt to return to the Crusade, aboard the battered Highness Ser Armaduke. They completed their mission, but the danger isn’t over – even when they limp to the hotly-contested forge world Urdesh the perils, and surprises, keep coming. Thankfully for us as readers, that translates into more of the great Gaunt’s Ghosts drama that we know and love.

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Salvation’s Reach – Dan Abnett

Following closely on from Blood Pact, Dan Abnett’s 2011 novel Salvation’s Reach is book thirteen in the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, and part two of The Victory. After their two-year stint cooling their heels on Balhaut, the Tanith First and Only are shipping out for their next mission, a task considered so suicidally dangerous the details are only revealed en-route. Aboard the battered, ancient ship the Highness Ser Armaduke and guided by unproven insider intelligence, the Ghosts make for remote Chaos outpost Salvation’s Reach where even their specialist skills will be sorely tested if they hope to succeed…and survive.

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Blood Pact – Dan Abnett

Dan Abnett’s twelfth Gaunt’s Ghosts novel, Blood Pact kicks off the fourth arc in the series, known as The Victory. Set two years after their last mission on Jago, the Ghosts have spent the last year stationed on Balhaut, the site of the Sabbat Crusade’s greatest victory. While the regiment grows increasingly bored and complacent, Gaunt worries that he’s been sidelined for good. When a high-ranking enemy prisoner insists on speaking only to Gaunt, however, he’s dragged back into intrigue and danger in a way he couldn’t have expected, on a world freighted with memories.

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Honour Guard – Dan Abnett

Published just two years after the start of the series, Dan Abnett’s Honour Guard is the fourth Gaunt’s Ghosts book, and kicks off the second arc within the series – The Saint. Set on the shrineworld Hagia, birthplace of Saint Sabbat, it sees Gaunt tasked with leading the Imperial liberation efforts, which soon go horribly wrong. With his career in tatters and Chaos reinforcements inbound, he’s sent on a desperate mission to save the most important of the world’s holy relics – the body of the Saint herself – and reclaim some small measure of personal glory.

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The Devastation of Baal – Guy Haley

The first novel in the brand new Space Marine Conquests series, Guy Haley’s The Devastation of Baal continues the story set out in Dante and brings the Blood Angels bang up to date with the new 40k background. As Hive Fleet Leviathan heads inexorably towards Baal, Commander Dante calls to the Chapters of the Blood, and the Blood Angels successor Chapters answer in force. Tens of thousands of Space Marines stand in defence of Baal against the untold trillions of the Leviathan. In context of the wider galaxy, however, Leviathan isn’t the only threat that the sons of Sanguinius face.

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