QUICK REVIEW: Do Eagles Still Circle the Mountain? – Graham McNeill

The second story from the Honour of the Space Marines anthology to get a standalone e-short release, Graham McNeill’s Do Eagles Still Circle the Mountain? picks up the story of Uriel Ventris between the end of The Chapter’s Due and the as yet unreleased The Swords of Calth. Engaged against the orks on Sycorax, when circumstances change and the Ultramarines’ mission changes from assault to survival, Ventris and his warriors of the Fourth look for refuge away from the sucking mud flats. A Mechanicus facility offers shelter, but it also provides a troubling mystery for the captain to consider.

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Barricade – Jon Wallace

Barricade by Jon Wallace, the author’s debut novel, is the first in a trilogy set in a post-apocalypse Britain. It’s a pretty standard dystopian setup – humans build artificial life, stuff goes wrong, war ensues and ruins everything for everyone involved – except, unusually, it’s seen through the eyes of one of the artificial beings, or Ficials. A construction worker by ‘optimisation’, Kenstibec is now a taxi driver, and is hired to take a journalist (another Ficial called Starvie) from Edinburgh to London. To do so he has to find a way out of the Edinburgh barricade, past the besieging army of Reals (normal humans to you and me) and through a country prowled by tribes of half-feral humans out for Ficial blood.
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Black Library Weekly – W/C 07/11/16

Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, where I take a look at the Black Library-related news from the week just gone – announcements, pre-orders and new releases.

The quietest week we’ve had for a while in terms of both releases and news, this week hasn’t provided a great deal of excitement but it has however given us the twelfth and final book in The Beast Arises series.
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QUICK REVIEW: The Burden of Angels – Nick Kyme

Another story previously only available in an anthology (the limited edition Honour of the Space Marines), Nick Kyme’s The Burden of Angels follows on from the events of his Tome of Fire trilogy, focusing on Tu’Shan, Chapter Master of the Salamanders. Meeting with his opposite number in the Blood Angels to renew oaths of brotherhood, Tu’Shan seeks guidance from Chapter Master Dante, who he holds as a figure of virtue and nobility. When circumstances pit the two chapters against each other, he finds his perception of the virtuous Dante challenged, and his own humanity tested.
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Black Library Weekly – W/C 31/10/16

Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, where I take a look at the Black Library-related news from the week just gone – announcements, pre-orders and new releases.

The slower rate of brand new releases continued this week, albeit with some small changes to the usual way things have worked recently. That being said, it’s been an exciting week for new, upcoming titles with a whole raft of (often temporary) covers and synopses discovered online as well as a few confirmed by Black Library.
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Shadow of Ullanor – Rob Sanders (The Beast Arises Book Eleven)

IMPORTANT: This is book eleven in a series – there will be spoilers unless you’ve read I Am Slaughter, Predator, Prey, The Emperor Expects, The Last Wall, Throneworld, Echoes of the Long War, The Hunt for Vulkan, The Beast Must Die, Watchers in Death or The Last Son of Dorn.

Shadow of Ullanor is the eleventh, and penultimate, book in The Beast Arises series, and Rob Sanders’ second contribution after the excellent Predator, Prey. After the disastrous end to The Last Son of Dorn, the Imperium stands on the edge of the abyss. Gathering together on Inwit for a solemn Festival of Blades, the Imperial Fists successor chapters form a plan which will honour their First Founding chapter and see one last, all-in attempt to end the greenskin menace once and for all. Meanwhile First Captain Zerberyn begins to see the implications of his alliance with the Iron Warriors.
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Children of Sicarus – Anthony Reynolds

A Horus Heresy audio drama from Anthony Reynolds, Children of Sicarus follows on from the end of the graphic novel Macragge’s Honour to show a little of what happened when Kor Phaeron led his surviving followers to the daemon world of Sicarus. Surrounded by enemies and with ever-dwindling numbers, the Word Bearers find strange allies who promise to aid them against the malicious attentions of one of Sicarus’ daemonic warlords, the ‘Kairic Adept’ Larazzar. Along the way Kor Phaeron encounters a reincarnating priest, an ancient and worryingly precise prophecy, and a tangible link to his distant primarch Lorgar.
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The Hanging Tree – Ben Aaronovitch

Ben Aaronovitch’s latest novel in the Peter Grant/Rivers of London series – The Hanging Tree – brings us back to London after Peter’s foray into the countryside in Foxglove Summer. The focus is on Mayfair this time as Peter investigates a drug-related death where one of the suspects is the daughter of Lady Tyburn, physical manifestation of one of London’s rivers and not one of Peter’s biggest fans. As the fateful events are gradually revealed and the implications uncovered, new players in the magical scene are introduced, some familiar faces reappear, and a bigger mystery might just be solved.

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Upcoming Black Library Releases (as of October/November 2016)

After the long-awaited return of the Black Library website’s Coming Soon section, news is now breaking of a further tranche of new books heading our way in the coming months. A quick trawl through the dusty corridors of the internet reveals a fair number of new titles, although here I’ve excluded the paperback versions of books already released or announced.

It’s worth bearing in mind that these release dates are almost certainly going to be the wider online releases, as opposed to the initial Black Library website releases, so take with a considerable pinch of salt. In addition, very few of the covers look to have the finished artwork, so keep an eye out for the official covers once these reach the Black Library website. Continue reading →

Black Library Weekly – W/C 24/10/16

Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, where I take a look at the Black Library-related news from the preceding week – announcements, pre-orders and new releases.

After a quiet week for Black Library in the run up to the release of the new Burning of Prospero Games Workshop board game, did things pick up again with more new releases? Well, not really – but there were some interesting things nonetheless, so read on for more… Continue reading →