Tag Archives: Warhammer 40k

Agent of the Throne: Ashes and Oaths – John French

The third instalment in the excellent Agent of the Throne audio drama series (and follow up to the Scribe Award-winning Truth and Dreams), John French’s Ashes and Oaths continues the story of inquisitorial agent Ianthe and the dangerous missions she’s sent on by Inquisitor Covenant. This time around Ianthe and her team are tasked with acquiring the services of an ex-Administratum information broker, on the war-scarred world of Dustcorn. When things don’t quite go to plan, and a dubious figure from a past mission reappears, Ianthe is forced to make some unwelcome compromises in order to get the job done.

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QUICK REVIEW: City of Blood – Matt Smith

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

Matt Smith’s short story City of Blood is a Necromunda-esque tale of fast-paced underhive action in the 41st millennium, just not set on Necromunda. In the labyrinthine slums beneath Obergard Secundus, Jesca Veil – deserter, formerly of the 151st Hadran Rifles – has made a deal to get herself off-world. If she’s to see the deal through and make it to safety, however, she’ll have to contend with not just the untrustworthy nature of her shady contact but also the vengeful presence of the Officio Prefectus and the many and varied dangers lurking in the darkness of the underhive.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Price of Duty – Matt Smith

A standalone Imperial Guard short story by Matt Smith, The Price of Duty takes a familiar setup – a straight-laced commissar serving with an ill-disciplined regiment of Catachan Jungle Fighters – and delivers a slightly different take to usual. For young Commissar Jasper Nevin, serving under a Lord-Commissar whom he idolises is a dream come true, however the soldiers of the Catachan 64th don’t seem to hold him in much regard. Surrounded by warriors of strength and fortitude, Nevin finds his own skill and bravery lacking, but to survive he’s going to have to find a way to earn at least someone’s respect.

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Vaults of Terra – The Hollow Mountain by Chris Wraight

Book two in Chris Wraight’s Vaults of Terra series featuring Inquisitor Crowl and Interrogator Spinoza, The Hollow Mountain picks up pretty much straight away after the end of The Carrion Throne. Though disaster was averted on the throneworld, Crowl believes that the powerful people behind the conspiracy to bring a xenos creature to Terra are still at large and need to be brought to justice for their crimes. Despite Spinoza’s misgivings, they continue to investigate – albeit in secret, fully aware of the dangers involved in doing so – even while Terra seethes in a worrying atmosphere of unusual friction and unease.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Spirit of Cogs – John French

A short story in John French’s ongoing Horusian Wars series, The Spirit of Cogs is a sinister little ghost story told by Glavius-4-Rho to Severita while the ex-magos is working on a repair. Casting his machinic mind back to his first experience on a true forge world, Glavius-4-Rho tells a tale of his younger self being recruited into a mysterious project, swathed in secrecy, which requires his expertise. He and another magos throw themselves into their work, despite the strange phenomena plaguing their efforts, but before long they start to question the consequences of the Mechanicus’ thirst for knowledge at all costs.

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The Wicked and the Damned – David Annandale, Phil Kelly and Josh Reynolds

One of the first batch of releases published by Black Library under the Warhammer Horror label, the Wicked and the Damned is a portmanteau story – a collection of three loosely linked novellas, by David Annandale, Phil Kelly and Josh Reynolds. On the mist-shrouded cemetery world of Silence, three strangers – a commissar, an officer and a priest – are brought together seemingly by random, surrounded by the dead with only each other and the sinister mortuary-servitors for company. Confused and unsettled, to try and understand what’s going on and why they’ve been gathered together they each tell the story of what they remember last, and what led them to Silence.

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QUICK REVIEW: Out Caste – Peter Fehervari

Peter Fehervari’s Out Caste is a very brief (i.e. micro-short) prequel story to the wonderful novel Fire Caste, focused on the character of Jhi’kaara, a scarred and battle-hardened t’au Fire Warrior. Nominally set sometime before the events of Fire Caste, it sees Jhi’khaara in reflective mood, looking back on her path through life and the events – some positive, others profoundly painful – which led her to where she’s ended up. It’s a story about identity and the specific importance which that concept has for the t’au, shown through the lens of a warrior looking from the outside in.

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QUICK REVIEW: Reborn – Nicholas Wolf

The Black Library debut for Nicholas Wolf, 40k short story Reborn explores a little of what might happen if an Astra Militarum regiment forsook its oaths to the Emperor, and where that might lead. For Acting-Captain Petrov of the 224th Kelbran Janissaries, the knowledge that his regiment has been abandoned by its commanders and left to die is too much to bear. When he snaps and kills his commissar, he turns his back on the Emperor and takes his first steps on a new path, driven by a determination to survive long enough to return home and see his son.

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QUICK REVIEW: A Sanctuary of Wyrms – Peter Fehervari

An oblique sequel to the phenomenal Fire Caste, Peter Fehervari’s A Sanctuary of Wyrms is an unsettling, insightful short story exploring the sinister side of the T’au Empire and the corrupting nature of the world Fi’draah. On a mission to explore a region known to the gue’la as the Coil, Water Caste emissary Por’ui Asharil finds her opinions of her Earth and Fire caste companions challenged, and her belief in the Greater Good shaken. When they reach a seemingly abandoned Imperial outpost, their path takes them into a darkness hiding a horrifying truth, and Asharil’s change is completed.

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The Way Out – Rachel Harrison

A multi-part audio drama told over three 20-plus minute instalments as part of Black Library’s Digital Horror Week 2019 (subsequently released as a standalone CD/MP3), Rachel Harrison’s The Way Out is a creepy little 40k story of the cracks that let the darkness in. For Captain Karina Arq and her crew, watch station Refuge offers a glimmer of hope when their ship, the Fortune’s Favour, is forced to suddenly drop out of the Warp. It’s not until Arq and her companions board the station, however, that they start to realise that what they thought was salvation may in fact be something entirely different…and much worse.

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