Tag Archives: David Annandale

Mephiston : Lord of Death – David Annandale

In a relatively short space of time David Annandale has amassed a sizeable body of work for the Black Library, writing for the Imperial Guard, Black Dragons, Iron Hands and Grey Knights amongst others. One of his earliest contributions was a limited-edition Blood Angels novella in the Lords of the Space Marines series; soon to be re-released in non-limited format, Mephiston : Lord of Death takes a detailed look at the Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels, the only one of their number ever to overcome the Red Thirst. Following on directly from the short story Eclipse of Hope, this finds Mephiston accompanying 4th Company as they battle Chaos Space Marines, daemons and their very nature, drawn ever onwards towards the Pallevon system and whatever lies waiting for them there.

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Sabbat Crusade – edited by Dan Abnett

From humble beginnings back in the 1990s, there are now eighteen books set within the Sabbat Worlds, a region of space originally invented by Dan Abnett to provide a suitable setting for a story about a Commissar who was also a Colonel, and the ragtag bunch of soldiers he commanded. Look how it’s grown! With anticipation as high as ever for Warmaster, the long-awaited next novel in the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, Black Library are whetting our appetite with Sabbat Crusade, the second anthology of stories set within the wider crusade. Edited once again by Abnett and including stories from eight authors (Abnett included) along with previously out of print background on the crusade, it covers both sides of the story, not only the Ghosts and their Imperial allies but also the forces of the Archenemy at play in the region.

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Legacies of Betrayal – Black Library anthology

2014 was a bumper year for the Horus Heresy. We saw the 29^th and 30^th books in the series released, Vengeful Spirit and Damnation of Pythos respectively, as well as a goodly number of novellas, anthologies, audio dramas and short stories. Now, on the one hand many Black Library fans are the kind of people who in the interests of completion will buy any new story as soon as it’s made available, while on the other hand many fans are unwilling or unable to fork out vast sums of money for limited edition releases, or just can’t get their head around audio dramas. If you’re Black Library, what do you do? How do you cater to both sets of fans? Well, with Legacies of Betrayal sneaking in just before the end of the year to make it 31 in the series, it looks like you release as much as you can in as many different formats as you can, then bring out an anthology that collects a bunch of those stories together in one place.

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Echoes of War – a Space Marine audio drama collection

As the Echoes of War fade (see what I did there?!), the Space Marines hang up their armour and the dreadnoughts are shuffled back into their long slumbers, it feels worth recapping on a week of excellent audio dramas from Black Library. For me, this collection came at a perfect time; the week before I had been digging around on my PC and found Hunter’s Moon and Thief of Revelations, neither of which I had previously listened to. Having devoured those in short order, it was with a sense of delightful serendipity that I saw Echoes of War listed on the Black Library website, and I didn’t need much persuading to get involved.

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True Name – David Annandale (audio drama)

The fifth and final audio drama of Black Library’s Echoes of War collection, David Annandale’s True Name brings us back to the forces of good, in this case the Grey Knights of Titan. Picking up immediately after the events of Maledictus, Annandale’s Sanctus Reach novella, we follow Epistolary Gared as he struggles against an insidious psychic attack from the daemon Ku’gath Plaguefather. Caught between the daemon and an inbound ork fleet, still bloodied and reeling from their last battle, the Grey Knights face a challenge that will test both their strength and their faith.

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Legion of the Damned : Digital Collection – Black Library Anthology

The Legion of the Damned – spectral Space Marines clad in ebon and bone, wreathed in flame, appearing only when the hour is darkest and humanity’s need is greatest. It’s a wonderful concept, one which entered the Warhammer 40,000 canon way back in the ’80s and has been a fan favourite ever since. They’re classic 40k – dark and gothic, morally ambiguous and forever shrouded in mystery. For anyone hoping to get a concrete explanation of their background, you won’t find it here. Instead we get a collection of short stories (including one very short story) from six Black Library authors exploring different aspects of this most mysterious of forces.

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Sedition’s Gate – Black Library Anthology

Released at the 2014 Horus Heresy Weekender as an event-exclusive anthology, Sedition’s Gate collects together short stories from five Black Library authors in a format to match the limited-edition Horus Heresy novellas. There is no overarching theme for these stories, so instead they each focus on a different snapshot of the Heresy, some focusing on familiar characters and others on brand new characters and story lines.

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The Damnation of Pythos – David Annandale

The clue is in the title really – ‘Damnation of Pythos’. Not salvation, damnation. Given David Annandale’s love of horror films and monsters it should come as no surprise to find that his first novel in the Horus Heresy series is somewhat on the bleak side. For the 30^th novel in this every-growing series we find ourselves back with the Iron Hands in the aftermath of Isstvan V and the Dropsite Massacre, with the loss of Ferrus Manus still fresh and raw in their minds.

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Crown Fire – David Annandale

A crown fire is a specific type of wildfire where it’s specifically material at the canopy level that burns, such as tall trees or vines. It’s an apt name for David Annandale’s first Jen Blaylock novel, the focus of which is Blaylock’s pursuit of those at the top of the corporate tree responsible for the deaths of her family.

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