Category Archives: Reviews

Under Fortunate Stars – Ren Hutchings

Ren Hutchings’ debut novel Under Fortunate Stars, out now from Solaris, is a characterful and thought-provoking space opera featuring accidental time travel, unwilling heroes and space-based corporate bureaucracy. On board the cargo hauler Jonah, roguish Jereth and cynical Leeg are trying to stay away from the war with the Felen engulfing Union space when they find themselves trapped in a strange deep-space rift. Caught in the same rift is the Gallion, a ZeyCorp research vessel transporting an alien ambassador. When the two ships meet, confusion abounds as the Gallion crew claim to be from a time far in the Jonah’s future. Not only that, but history buff Uma, Director of Engineering onboard the Gallion, recognises the Jonah as the ship that carried the ‘Fortunate Five’ and played a crucial part in ending the war with the Felen…even if its crew doesn’t quite match up to what the history books say.

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Ahriman: Eternal – John French

Seven years after Ahriman: Unchanged brought the first trilogy to an end, John French returns with Ahriman: Eternal, a new novel detailing the great sorcerer’s ongoing attempts to undo the damage he’s unwittingly caused to his Legion. In the aftermath of the Second Rubric, Ahriman and his Exiles find themselves pursued by the Pyrodomon, a force released by the Rubric which reaches out from the warp to consume the Thousand Sons, sorcerers and Rubricae alike. With cracks widening in the alliance of his followers and the Pyrodomon on their heels, Ahriman looks to techno-arcane xenos abilities – via a captured Necron called Setekh – for the power to control time itself. As the Exiles seek out this power, the Harlequins intervene in their unique fashion, determined to shape events to their own ends and avoid a tragedy only they can foresee.

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[IN BRIEF] Assassinorum: Kingmaker – Robert Rath

Three Imperial Assassins have to work together to pull off an audacious, fiendishly dangerous mission in Robert Rath’s Warhammer 40,000 novel Assassinorum: Kingmaker. Their task: to infiltrate a Knight world, instigate a succession and avert a secession, bringing the Knights of Dominion back into line with the Imperium. Pulled out from their existing missions, Sycorax (Callidus) and Avaaris Koln (Vanus) are hand-picked by the veteran Vindicare assassin Absolom Raithe for their complementary skills (if not complementary personalities), and under Raithe’s fragile leadership the somewhat dysfunctional team plans and executes a daring mission with a bewildering array of moving parts. Inevitably things end up coming down to bullets, blades and the terrifying power of the Knights, but along the way there’s infiltration, impersonation, social engineering, data manipulation, document forgery and lots more.

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QUICK REVIEW: Bone Armour – Victoria Hayward

Victoria Hayward’s short but razor-sharp story Bone Armour couldn’t be more suited to Grimdark Magazine (it’s available in issue 30) if it tried, setting its stall out early with mention of Bonecutters and ‘cadaver grinding facilities’ before getting really dark. Told via a series of written reports, it details Warrant-Officer Tamoh’s pursuit of a worker gone rogue and suspected of impeding the ‘war effort’. As Tamoh follows Meret’s trail through the vast manufactory dedicated to the production of bone armour, from crowded Habitation Zones to empty transport hubs, the net gradually closes in even as the danger Meret poses becomes increasingly clear.

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Mask of Silver – Rosemary Jones

Rosemary Jones’ first contribution to Aconyte Books’ range of Arkham Horror novels, Mask of Silver blends the Golden Age of cinema and sinister mysticism in a subtly creepy combination of Hollywood and cosmic horror. Costume designer Jeanie Lin and her film star sister Renee Love are part of a close-knit crew working with director Sydney Fitzmaurice on his popular, chilling ‘nightmare movies’. For their latest production they set up in Sydney’s home town of Arkham, ostensibly to keep costs down, but it’s not long before the filming is best by unexplained accidents and strange goings-on in and around the creepy Fitzmaurice family home. As the shoot progresses, Jeanie is increasingly haunted by nightmares and worried about the toll that making this film is having on her and her sister.

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Braking Day – Adam Oyebanji

A spectacular science fiction debut, Adam Oyebanji’s Braking Day tells a gripping story of a generations-long mission approaching its end, and the prejudices and politics of a community torn between a troubled past and an unknown future. As the three ships of the generation fleet approach ‘Braking Day’ – the point at which they start to decelerate ready to reach their destination at long last – aboard the Interstellar Vehicle Archimedes trainee engineer Ravi MacLeod is being worked harder than ever. Struggling with the requirements of his studies to become an officer and the suspicion of his family towards those of the officer class, Ravi finds himself caught between two worlds. When he starts seeing impossible things he worries that the stress is getting to him, but it soon becomes clear that something strange is going on, and beneath the surface of the fleet there are tensions starting to come to a head.

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Empire of Wild – Cherie Dimaline

Mixing family drama, social commentary and sinister folklore, Cherie Dimaline’s Empire of Wild is a strange and beautiful novel exploring life, love, grief and fear in a small Métis community in Canada. Nearly a year after her husband Victor walked out and never came back, Joan still refuses to give up hope, despite her heartache and the unsubtle exhortations of her family. The last thing she expects, however, is to stumble upon Victor in a group of traveling preachers, with a new identity – as the Reverend Eugene Wolff – and no apparent awareness of who she is. As she searches for a way of bringing him back to himself and back into her arms, she turns to folk tales and old lore to combat the darkness that has claimed her husband.

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Certain Dark Things – Silvia Moreno-Garcia

First published in 2016 before being re-released in 2021 by Jo Fletcher Books (in the UK – Tor Nightfire in the US), Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s vampire-noir novel Certain Dark Things confidently blends style with substance to deliver a darkly compelling tale of undead cartels, ancient alliances and unlikely friendship on the streets of Mexico City. Young, street-smart but a little naive, Domingo makes his living picking garbage and daydreaming about the vampires he reads about in the comics. When he crosses paths with Atl, the last remaining vampire of her family, he finds himself drawn to her, mesmerised by her mystery and beauty. Alone (apart from her dog, Cualli), afraid and hunted by both a rival clan and a gang of vampire-hating criminals, Atl is desperate to find a way out of the city, and begrudgingly accepts Domingo’s help, despite what she knows it will mean. As Domingo learns what vampires are really like – not necessarily how the comics portray them – so Atl gets a glimpse of the human way of life.

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The Justice of Kings – Richard Swan

Part murder mystery, part grand political fantasy, Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings takes an unusual approach to the gritty fantasy genre, focusing more on the steady grind of the legal process than action and adventure. Sir Konrad Vonvalt is a Justice, a lawman who roams the Sovan Empire empowered with both the authority to exercise judgement, and the powers – metaphorical and literal – to enforce punishment. Accompanied by clerk Helena and taskman Dubine, Vonvalt pauses his roaming to investigate the murder of a noblewoman, only to gradually realise that this one crime is in fact only a symptom of a much bigger problem. For all Vonvalt’s faith in the moral certainty of his role as a Justice, times are changing and a power struggle is starting that will threaten the Imperial Magistratum, and the Empire itself.

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36 Streets – T.R. Napper

After the incredible, immersive experience that was his 2020 short story anthology Neon Leviathan, T.R. Napper returns with 36 Streets, a full-length novel in the same setting that delivers mystery, action, compelling questions and heart-wrenching emotion. Born in Vietnam, raised in Australia and comfortable with neither heritage, Lin ‘the Silent One’ Vu is a brutally efficient gangster living and working in the dangerous streets of Hanoi’s Old Quarter. When her boss tasks her with investigating a murder at the request of a strange, rich Englishman, Lin has the opportunity to put her skills to a different use to normal. As her investigation proceeds though, the secrets she uncovers force her to confront her own painful past, and consider anew her place within the thirty-six streets.

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