Category Archives: Guest Post

Kate Dylan – My Top 5 YA Sci-fi Books

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, kindly contributed by Kate Dylan – author of the fantastic Mindwalker (and, recently announced, the upcoming Mindbreaker – due in September 2023). I read Mindwalker earlier in 2022 and it’s one of my favourite books of the year, a brilliant example of how YA science fiction can be both tremendous fun and incredibly powerful, so when Kate offered to talk a bit about some of the other YA sci-fi novels that have been released recently I thought it was the perfect topic for a guest post! If you haven’t already picked up Mindwalker I would strongly suggest you grab a copy, and Kate’s recommendations below should give you plenty more to look forward to reading too.

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Cath Lauria – Marvels and Monsters

Welcome to Marvels and Monsters on Track of Words, a brilliant guest post written by the fantastic Cath Lauria. With not one but two novels from Aconyte Books coming out in early 2023, each in a different IP, I asked Cath if she would be interested in talking about what it’s like writing stories in multiple universes, and what the similarities and differences are. The resulting article offers a really interesting insight into the life of an SFF author and the experience of writing IP fiction, and a few hints about what to expect from Terror World and Silver Sable: Payback when they arrive in 2023. Cath’s writing is always full of energy and enthusiasm, and that comes through here in a real sense of hope and excitement for next year, which I love!

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Nicholas Binge – 12 SFF Books of Christmas

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where I’m delighted to be joined by author Nicholas Binge for a look both back at 2022 and ahead to 2023. Author of Professor Everywhere and the upcoming Ascension (coming in April from Harper Voyager), Nicholas has kindly curated a whole host of recommendations for brilliant SFF books, so if you’re on the lookout for a great book released this year, or something coming next year to look forward to, look no further than this article. I’ve read and can happily endorse a few of these recommendations too, but there’s loads here that I’m now really looking forward to getting hold of!

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Sci-fi in a Fantasy World – Kate Dylan Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where I’m delighted to welcome author Kate Dylan with a fascinating article exploring some of the differences between science fiction and fantasy, the ways in which some stories work better as SF than F, and what those differences might mean for both writers and readers. If you’ve ever pondered questions like what the difference is between science and magic, or between a tech company and a coven of witches, or how an eight year-old child would end up with a computer implanted in her brain, then this article is going to be of interest!

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Preparing For Reign of the Devourer by David Annandale

Here’s a question: what connects Percy Bysshe Shelley, Howard the Duck, a vampire cow and a murderous surgeon? The answer is that they’re all influences author David Annandale drew upon in one way or another when writing his latest Marvel novel Reign of the Devourer, which is out now (in ebook) from Aconyte Books! After reading his recent guest post about the relationship between horror fiction and visual media, I thought it might be fun to ask David to talk a bit about the books, comics and movies that inspired and influenced him while he was working on Reign of the Devourer, and put together a sort of ‘primer’ for the new novel. If you want to get into the appropriate mindset for the latest (mis)adventures of Doctor Doom, these stories are exactly what you need!

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Science Fiction Debuts in 2022 – Michael Mammay Guest Post

Welcome to the first Track of Words guest post of 2022 – today I’m joined by science fiction author Michael Mammay, who’s here to talk about debut SF novels coming out this year. If you’re on the lookout for some great new reads, this is the article for you! Michael’s Planetside series comes highly recommended, and his latest novel The Misfit Soldier is due out from Harper Voyager in February 2022! If you’re on Twitter and you don’t already follow Michael, I would strongly recommend you do – he’s a really positive presence, and a great advocate for SF, so enjoy reading his guest post and then check him out on Twitter!

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To Judge a Book By Its Cover – Thomas Parrott Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post where today I’m letting author Thomas Parrott loose on the site to look ahead to 2022 and talk about some of the debut fantasy, horror and sci-fi novels coming soon that have caught his eye. I couldn’t be happier to have Tom on the site and I’m really keen to check out some of his suggestions (in fact as chance would have it I’m currently reading one of them), and I hope you’ll find some great new books to check out too! In addition, if you haven’t read any of Tom’s own work yet then I can highly recommend you check it out – I’ve included a link at the end of the article to all of my reviews of his stories, and keep an eye out for his debut novel Recruited, coming in February 2022 from Aconyte Books as the first of their stories set in the world of Tom Clancy’s The Division.

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Horror Fiction & Visual Media – David Annandale Guest Post

Hello and welcome to today’s Track of Words guest post where I’m delighted to welcome the brilliant David Annandale to discuss some of the ways in which visual media and horror fiction are influenced by, and in turn influence each other. David will be familiar to a lot of readers as the author of all manner of dark fantasy and science fiction for both Black Library and Aconyte Books, and whether he’s writing all-out horror or not everything he writes has that dark DNA at its core. With two new books already announced for 2022 from Aconyte Books – Reign of the Devourer, a Doctor Doom novel as part of the Marvel: Untold range, and In the Coils of the Labyrinth for Arkham Horror – I can’t think of a better time to hear David’s thoughts on this topic!

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The Spy Novels That Inspired Assassinorum: Kingmaker – Robert Rath Guest Post

Welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where today I’m welcoming the brilliant Robert Rath to the site to discuss the inspiration for his upcoming Black Library novel Assassinorum: Kingmaker. I’ve been a big fan of Rob’s writing since reading his debut BL short story, The Garden of Mortal Delights, and like a lot of people I was blown away by his novel The Infinite and the Divine! All three of his Assassinorum short stories have been fantastic, so I can’t wait to read Kingmaker and see more of the assassins in action. In this article Rob talks first about his early introduction to Imperial Assassins and then the spy novels that have particularly influenced Kingmaker, so read on and let’s start the hype building for the novel when it’s released sometime in 2022!

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When Life Gives You Bushfires – Nate Crowley Guest Post

Hello and welcome to Track of Words, where today I’m handing things over to the wonderful Nate Crowley for a fascinating guest post discussing disaster-driven winemaking, Black Library novels about (among other things) “gigantic, roaring green killing machines”, and the difficulties of writing during 2020 and 2021! If that sounds like an unusual combination, well…it is, but it really works – I think this is a fantastic article with a compelling mixture of dark humour and brutal honesty, touching upon themes that a lot of us can relate to. Author of my favourite Black Library novel of 2021 – Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! – and some of the best, most entertaining books I’ve read over the last couple of years, if you haven’t yet checked out any of Nate’s work then I strongly recommend you remedy that very soon.

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