Category Archives: Article

Where to Start With Black Library: Age of Sigmar Grand Alliance Order

Hello and welcome to this instalment of my Where to Start With Black Library article series, where I’m offering suggestions for good entry points into BL’s various ranges, and attempting to demystify Warhammer fiction a little bit. Historically, Black Library hasn’t provided much in the way of guidance regarding its massive range of stories, so I was pleased to see a recent (at the time I’m writing this) Warhammer Community article offering suggestions for where to start with Age of Sigmar books exploring the Grand Alliance Order – the ‘good guys’ (ish) of the Mortal Realms. While I applaud the intentions of this article, I didn’t think it was very thorough, and I didn’t necessarily agree with all of its suggestions, so I’ve put together an article myself on the same topic.

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Where to Start with Black Library: Necromunda

If you’ve ever looked at Black Library’s range of Necromunda stories and thought “that looks cool, but I’ve no idea where to start” then don’t worry – I’m going to do my best to help! As with pretty much everything BL produces, it’s tough to figure out in which order to read these stories and whether any of them are connected, but that’s where my series of Where to Start With Black Library articles comes in. I’m always keen to try to demystify Warhammer fiction, so in this article I’ll offer a few suggestions for what I think might be good entry points to Necromunda as a setting and as a fiction range.

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Aconyte Books Roundup: May 2021

Welcome to my Aconyte Books roundup for May, where I’m going to take a look at the two new books being published this month – a pair of Marvel: Heroines novels featuring fantastic characters drawn from the pages of Marvel comic books. I’ll also take a quick look both back at what was published in April and ahead to what’s due in June, before picking out a book from the ever-growing Aconyte back catalogue to talk about a bit more. As usual I’ll include the publisher’s synopsis for the two new novels, and this month I can link out to reviews and author interviews for both books!

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Monthly Roundup – April 2021

Hello and welcome to another Monthly Roundup article here on Track of Words – somehow April is already over, and we’re now a third of the way through 2021! In terms of reading I had a great month, split pretty evenly between reading for review and purely for fun, even if I slowed down quite a bit over the last few days as I got away from London and had a bit of time by the seaside. I’ve kept pretty busy on Track of Words too, with 15 posts since my last monthly roundup, weighted quite heavily towards reviews. I didn’t set out to write loads of reviews, it just happened that way!

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40k Reading Order: Ultramarines and Iron Warriors – Graham McNeill

Welcome to this 40k Reading Order article, where today I’m actually looking at two series which intersect and overlap, both by Graham McNeill, as part of an ongoing set of articles in which I’m providing recommended orders for various Black Library series. The Ultramarines series – (mostly) featuring Uriel Ventris – and the Iron Warriors series – featuring Warsmith Honsou – can be read separately, but fit together brilliantly to form one larger whole, and between them they include almost 30 stories. Graham has kindly provided his suggested (in-universe chronological) reading order for the whole lot, so if you’ve ever wanted to read these series but haven’t known where to start, look no further than this article!

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Aconyte Books Roundup: April 2021

Welcome to my latest Aconyte Books roundup, where I’m taking a look at a couple of brand new novels alongside a recap of the last couple of month’s releases. April brings with it a pair of brilliant-sounding new books – the latest Arkham Horror novel, and the first full KeyForge novel – which between them, if my maths is right (not a certainty), take the total number of published books from Aconyte up to 20! Huge congratulations to all the team at Aconyte for hitting this landmark, and doing it during a pandemic too! I say this every time, but if you haven’t yet taken the plunge and checked out some of the brilliant books Aconyte are publishing, I would really recommend you remedy that very soon…

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Monthly Roundup – March 2021

Welcome to my Monthly Roundup for March 2021, here on Track of Words. For me, March was one of those strange months that seemed to both go on for ages, and fly past rapidly – weird. I’ve mostly settled into my posting schedule of four per week (albeit I only managed three, one week), which continues to keep me feeling busy but in a manageable way, but I had a couple of tough weeks where I really struggled to get into reading. I’ll talk a bit more later about why and what I did to get my head back in the right place, but suffice to say I did actually end up reading plenty, and I think I’m back on the right track now.

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40k Reading Order: Sister Augusta – Danie Ware

Welcome to this 40k Reading Order article, where this time I’m taking a look at Danie Ware’s Sister Augusta series of Adepta Sororitas stories. This is part of an ongoing set of articles where I’m looking at a range of Black Library series and providing recommended orders in which to read the various stories. At the time of writing there are three novellas, one novel and a range of short stories available in the Sister Augusta series, and with a little help from Danie I’ve put together two reading lists – one for a recommended reading order, and one for the chronological (in-universe) order in which the stories take place. If you’ve ever wanted to read this series but haven’t known where to start, then look no further than this article!

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40k Reading Order: Silver Skulls – Sarah Cawkwell

Welcome to this 40k Reading Order article, the first of many where I’ll be taking a look at a range of Black Library series and providing recommended orders in which to read the various stories – in this case Sarah Cawkwell’s excellent Warhammer 40,000 Silver Skulls stories. If you’ve ever wanted to read this series but haven’t known where to start, then look no further than this article! With a little help from Sarah, including a handy page on her website, I’ve put together a comprehensive list of all of her Silver Skulls stories, along with a couple of other stories that link off at a bit of a tangent and some suggestions for what to read next.

As well as the recommended reading order, I’ve also included a breakdown of each story with the publisher’s synopsis, suggestions of the best way to get hold of each one, and links out to my review where they’re available.

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3 Wishes for the Black Library Celebration 2022

The annual Black Library Celebration has been running since 2018, an event which in the words of Warhammer Community offers a chance to “celebrate your passion for the fiction of the Warhammer universes”. It’s a great idea in principle, using Games Workshop stores (when they’re not all shut due to Covid) and the Warhammer Community site to bring the Black Library community together – readers, authors, and everyone involved in the community. Every year, however, I find myself disappointed that instead of actually celebrating the breadth of storytelling on offer across BL fiction or the incredible work that goes into writing these stories, this event is basically just an opportunity to release a bunch of new 40k books all on the same day, along with a new Games Workshop miniature of a BL character.

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