Tag Archives: Steven B Fischer

RAPID FIRE: Steven B. Fischer Talks Broken Crusade

Hello and welcome to this Rapid Fire interview here on Track of Words, where I’m delighted to be welcoming author Steven B. Fischer back to the site – this time to chat about his latest Black Library novel, Broken Crusade! Steve and I have chatted before about his excellent BL debut Witchbringer, and after reading and loving Broken Crusade I was keen to pick his brains again, and get a little insight into another fantastic 40k novel. One of my personal favourite BL novels of 2024, Broken Crusade was a fascinating read, and it was great fun digging into it with Steve, discussing Black Templars, second novels, melancholic Space Marines, unusual World Eaters, and loads more.

Continue reading →

Best of Black Library 2024

2024 was a year in which I read fewer Black Library books than ever before (well, since I started Track of Words at least), and Games Workshop continued to make it tricky to be a BL fan (that’s a whole other conversation)…but even so there are still plenty of great BL books for me to look back on and talk about. ‘Best of the year’ roundups are something of a blogger/reviewer tradition, and far be it from me to buck that trend, so here I’ve picked out the three BL books that I particularly enjoyed in 2024. Because I always have a hard time limiting myself to just a few choices (or just a few words), I’ve also come up with a few honourable mentions that are worth talking about too.

Continue reading →

Witchbringer – Steven B Fischer

After a trio of excellent 40k short stories, Steven B. Fischer makes his Black Library novel debut with Witchbringer, a bleak tale of the Astra Militarum told from the viewpoint of a newly-trained sanctioned psyker. Once a captain in the Cadian 900th before her burgeoning powers saw her shipped off to the Scholastica Psykana, no sooner has Glavia Aerand completed her gruelling training than a portent-filled vision sees her unhappily assigned back to her old regiment, who are embroiled against Traitor Guard on the miserable, mist-shrouded world of Visage. Finding fear and mistrust where once there was comradeship, Glavia has to fight to find a place in the regiment, while trying to understand what lies behind the mysteries of the gloomy, waterlogged world she finds herself on (including the unusually high rate of psykers it generates), and the fate of her missing mentor.

Continue reading →

RAPID FIRE: Steven B Fischer Talks Witchbringer

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, where today I’m very happy to welcome back Steven B. Fischer to talk about his brilliant new Warhammer 40,000 novel Witchbringer. Steve and I chatted recently for an Author Spotlight interview and it was super interesting (you can check that out here), and the little glimpse we got into Witchbringer was more than enough for me to want to chat about the novel in more detail. With that in mind, in this interview Steve gives a great overview of what to expect from Witchbringer, including what it was like exploring the Scholastica Psykana and the nature of being a psyker in the Imperial Guard, keeping character conflict at the heart of the novel, looking for light in the middle of a grimdark universe, and loads more. Oh, and the relative merits of psychic powers in the real world!

Continue reading →

Author Spotlight: Steven B. Fischer

Hello and welcome to this Author Spotlight interview where today I’m chatting to Steven B. Fischer, who may be familiar to Track of Words readers from his Warhammer 40,000 short stories in Inferno!, and his upcoming Black Library novel Witchbringer. With his novel still a little way off, I thought it was a good time to get to know Steve as an author – what he likes to write, how writing for Black Library compares to working on his own IPs, and what it is that appeals about grimdark fiction in particular. We also chat a bit about Witchbringer, just to give you a sense of what you can expect when it arrives later in the year!

Continue reading →

QUICK REVIEW: The Weight of Silver – Steven B. Fischer

This story is currently only available within Inferno! Volume 3.

His second Black Library short story after debuting with The Emperor’s Wrath, Steven B. Fischer’s The Weight of Silver is another Imperial Guard story, this time featuring a young Cadian officer wrestling with questions of confidence and authority. The Cadian 900th are newly arrived on an embattled Imperial world, and newly-promoted Lieutenant Glavia Aerand faces dissent within the ranks of her platoon as well as the dangers posed by the enemy. After her first mission ends in disgrace she questions her abilities and the merit of her rank, and she’ll have to dig deep if she’s to survive and thrive.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: The Emperor’s Wrath – Steven B Fischer

Steve B Fischer’s debut Black Library story, The Emperor’s Wrath is a story of three civilians caught between their world’s corrupt local militia and the vengeful Imperial Guard. As a child, Caius watched the Emperor’s Wrath murder his parents during a brutal rebellion. Growing up in the ruins of his world, trying to look after his younger siblings, he’s become embittered by what he sees as the Imperium’s abandonment of his world. When Imperial forces return he sees little distinction between them and the militia, but it’s not long before he finds himself forced to choose a side.

Keep reading…

The Return of Inferno! to Black Library

Way back in the mists of time (well, 1997 to be precise) the first publication for the newly-created Black Library was a bi-monthly magazine called Inferno!, which featured short stories, comic strips and artwork all bringing the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 to life. Inferno! ran to 46 issues over seven years, and introduced fans to a whole host of names who would go on to be regular Black Library authors. Dan Abnett, Gav Thorpe, William King, Ben Counter and a whole host of other authors published their first Black Library stories in the pages of Inferno! magazine.

Keep reading…