Tag Archives: Warhammer 40k

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Mike Brooks Talks The God-King Chronicles (and a Busy 2022)

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, where today I’m welcoming Mike Brooks back to the site to chat about his epic fantasy trilogy The God-King Chronicles, which is now complete with the recent release of book three, The Godbreaker. It seemed like the perfect time to look back on the trilogy as a whole, what readers can get out of it, what inspired these stories and the world in which they’re set, and how Mike feels now that it’s all done. But that’s not all! It’s been a busy year for Mike in terms of book releases, so once we finished chatting about The God-King Chronicles we moved onto discussing several of Mike’s Black Library novels that have been published this year, featuring Chaos Space Marines, Orks and…more Chaos Space Marines.

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Short and Sweet: October 2022

Hello and welcome to the first in a new series of articles that I’m tentatively calling Short and Sweet, in which I’m going to write up a few quick, informal thoughts and observations about some of the SFF books that I’ve recently read, but which I’m not planning on reviewing more thoroughly. I’ve basically pinched this idea from a friend (check out Fabienne’s ‘Review Roundup’ posts on Libri Draconis), and I’m hoping it will work for me too as a way of still talking about books for which I don’t have the time or headspace to write full, in-depth reviews. The plan is for this to be an irregular series rather than committing to a specific frequency, so to begin with at least I’ll try to write one of these posts maybe once a month, or perhaps a bit less than that, depending on what I read.

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QUICK REVIEW: Lepidopterophobia – Dan Abnett

First released in the special edition hardback of Penitent and then included in the Inferno! Presents: The Inquisition anthology, Dan Abnett’s Lepidopterophobia is a slow, sinister tale featuring Medea Betencore, and a welcome addition to the large collection of short stories that support and enhance the Eisenhorn/Ravenor/Bequin trilogy of Inquisition trilogies. Best read after Pariah to avoid spoilers for that novel, it sees Medea scouring the city of Queen Mab for information that might help her and her master Gregor Eisenhorn understand or even locate the mysterious King in Yellow. When the discovery of an unusual tome in one of Queen Mab’s many book markets leads her into the maze-like stacks of a dark and dust-laden store, little does she realise she will soon have to face her oldest fear, amongst other things, simply in order to stay alive.

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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!

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Matthew Farrer Talks Urdesh – Part Two

Hello and welcome to the second part of my in-depth interview with author Matthew Farrer, where we’re taking quite a detailed (but still mostly spoiler-free) look at his Urdesh duology for Black Library. In the first part (which you can read here) Matthew talked about the journey that these books went on (they weren’t originally commissioned as a duology!), and what it was like contributing novel-length stories to the Sabbat Worlds series. In this second part we’re going to look in a bit more detail at some of Matthew’s writing process for these books, from structure and pace (by way of the Discworld) and perspective-hopping to how to really portray the speed and power of Space Marines in motion (by way of Captain America), and what it was like collaborating with both the BL editors and fellow author Dan Abnett.

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Matthew Farrer Talks Urdesh – Part One

Welcome to part one of this in-depth interview, where I’m genuinely delighted to be talking to author Matthew Farrer and going into quite a lot of detail discussing his Urdesh duology from Black Library. After something of a long gestation, Urdesh: The Serpent and the Saint was released in June 2021, followed a few months later by Urdesh: The Magister and the Martyr. Between them these two books – telling a single overarching story, really – explore a crucial part of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade from a brand new perspective, as the Iron Snakes and Saint Sabbat lead the armies of the Imperium in the war for Urdesh against the forces of the Anarch. With both books now available in paperback, it seemed the perfect moment to chat to Matthew about the unusual journey that this story has taken and the books that are available now as a result.

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The Twice-dead King: Ruin – Nate Crowley

Having tackled necrons once already in his phenomenal Black Library novella Severed, it felt inevitable that Nate Crowley would turn his hand to a full-length novel exploring this lesser-seen (in BL terms) 40k faction, so it’s a welcome bonus that The Twice-dead King: Ruin is in fact the first volume in a necron duology! After three hundred years of exile to a dismal outpost of a once-great dynasty, necron lord Oltyx is mired in bitterness at his reduced circumstances. When a vast ork invasion turns out to be the sign of an even greater doom to come however, Oltyx realises that his only hope – for himself, and for the dynasty itself – is to return home and break his exile. Determined to at least make the attempt, he sets out to rouse his brother and father on the dynasty’s homeworld, regardless of the personal costs he knows he will incur.

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Outgunned – Denny Flowers

Denny Flowers’ second Black Library novel Outgunned takes to the skies with a tale of picts, propaganda, underestimated xenos and the aerial might of the Aeronautica Imperialis. On the agri world of Bacchus – famed for its wine production – an infestation of orks has rapidly progressed from a minor irritation to all-out war, and Imperial forces are making slow progress. When Imperial Propagandist Kile Simlex arrives on Bacchus, tasked with recording a motivational pict to inspire confidence and aid recruitment, he finds little as he expected. His intended subject – Flight Commander Lucille von Shard – proves not quite the dashing hero he imagined, while the orks are far from the mindless wretches portrayed in the picts he’s seen. As he wrestles with questions of how to capture his pict and how to craft a suitable narrative, the war for Bacchus becomes increasingly desperate.

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RAPID FIRE: Alec Worley Talks The Wraithbone Phoenix

For today’s Rapid Fire author interview I’m delighted to welcome the brilliant Alec Worley to talk about his new Warhammer Crime novel The Wraithbone Phoenix, which is out now from Black Library. If you enjoyed the audio drama Dredge Runners then you’ll be very happy to know that the odd-couple ratling/ogryn duo of Baggit and Clodde are back with a new adventure, but even if not there’s a lot to enjoy with this fun but deceptively dark new crime novel. I’ve read it, and can confirm that it’s brilliant! Read on to find out more about the story, the characters and some of the book’s key themes, along with some of the books, films and other visuals that had an influence on its creation – everything from Elmore Leonard to Wallace and Gromit!

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The Wraithbone Phoenix – Alec Worley

After 2020’s excellent audio drama Dredge Runners, Alec Worley returns to the ratling/ogryn duo of Baggit and Clodde for a full-length Warhammer Crime novel in The Wraithbone Phoenix, a fun crime caper that’s deceptively dark beneath the surface. Baggit and Clodde are hiding out in a reclamation yard, trying to avoid the unwelcome attention caused by a hefty bounty on their heads, and the ire of their yard’s stuck-up steward. When word reaches Baggit of a wrecked Imperial starship beached in a neighbouring yard, with a legendary artefact hidden somewhere within its bones, he realises his prayers might just have been answered. If he and Clodde can retrieve it, the Wraithbone Phoenix could get them out from under the bounty and set them up for life, not to mention offer Baggit the chance of a little tasty revenge. The problem is, they’re far from the only ones hunting for the Phoenix.

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