Tag Archives: Warhammer 40k

Visions of War – The Art Of Space Marine Battles

Black Library’s series of Space Marine Battles books started in 2010 with Steve Parker’s Rynn’s World, and since then has expanded to contain well over a dozen novels and more than twenty assorted novellas, short stories and audio dramas. 2014 saw two notable additions to the series, in the shape of Andy Smillie’s Sons of Wrath (initially released as a First Edition), and the art book Visions of War (also initially a First Edition). A beautifully-presented hardback filled with a range of artwork from the series so far, it showcases the incredible work of artists such as Jon Sullivan, Kai Lim and Clint Langley (amongst others), and includes short stories from LJ Goulding and Anthony Reynolds.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Blind King – Paul Kearney

Published in 2015 (although subsequently removed from sale), Paul Kearney’s 40k short story The Blind King was intended to act as a prequel to his novel Dark Hunters: Umbra Sumus, which was sadly caught up in legal difficulties in quickly withdrawn from publication. Here we see the Dark Hunters chapter in its relative infancy, fighting for survival against an army of traitor Titans. With the future of the Dark Hunters at stake, the entire chapter goes to war, but against the might of Titans will even that be enough?

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Valedor – Guy Haley

With a few notable exceptions the Warhammer 40k universe is largely shown to us through the eyes of the Imperium, lending it (not inappropriately) a very human perspective. Occasionally though, Black Library releases something which shows a different side to 40k, in this instance Guy Haley’s Valedor which follows in the footsteps of Gav Thorpe’s Path of the Eldar series to look through the eyes of this ancient, dwindling race. We see the eldar of Iyanden, still reeling from the latest in their string of disasters, as they set out to prevent the merging of two tyranid hive fleets; in order to avert a disaster that would have terrible consequences for their entire race, they are forced to ally with not only the eldar of another craftworld but also their dark kin.

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Khârn: Eater of Worlds – Anthony Reynolds

First released on Christmas Day 2014 in ebook, as the final part of that year’s Black Library Advent Calendar, Anthony Reynolds’ Warhammer 40,000 novel Khârn: Eater of Worlds is set after the Horus Heresy, looking at the fractured and damaged remnants of the World Eaters legion in the aftermath of the Siege of Terra. Their primarch is gone, the chain of command ravaged, and rival factions are forming and threatening to rip the legion apart; the only one who might be able unify the legion is Khârn, but he lies unresponsive in a coma after being pulled from the battlefield on Terra.

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QUICK REVIEW : Forgotten – Dan Abnett

On the twenty-third day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Gaunt’s Ghosts short story by Dan Abnett. A Gaunt’s Ghosts ghost story, in fact, called Forgotten. As the story unfolds, several of the Ghosts are gathered around a fire in a quiet storeroom somewhere within the Ser Armaduke, telling each other ghost stories. At Gaunt’s prompting, Mkoll begrudgingly tells his tale, of a fiend who moves in the darkness and strikes unseen, forgotten by death but stalked in turn by Mkoll.

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QUICK REVIEW : Loss – Joe Parrino

On the twenty-first day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Raven Guard audio drama by Joe Parrino. Loss, a fifteen-minute audio, sees a squad of young Raven Guard scouts battling against dark eldar, ambushed from out of the shadows in a reversal to the usual order of things. As the inexperienced scouts pit their strength against the xenos they find their preconceptions of superiority and invincibility sorely tested.

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QUICK REVIEW : The Dread Sentinels of Dorn – Rob Sanders

On the twentieth day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…an Imperial Fists short story by Rob Sanders. The Dread Sentinels of Dorn sees Captain Kontrador of 5th Company investigating the unexplained silencing of one of the Imperial Fist-manned star forts on the border of Segmentum Solar. When the fate of the star fort and its garrison becomes clear, as a tyranid hive ship threatens his own vessel, Kontrador realises that far more is at stake than just the lives of him and his warriors.

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QUICK REVIEW : Holder of the Keys – Gav Thorpe

On the nineteenth day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Dark Angels audio drama by Gav Thorpe. Another twenty-minute audio, Holder of the Keys sees an unnamed member of the Fallen offering his recollection of events that took place on and around Caliban 10,000 years previously, as he suffers under psychic interrogation by the titular Holder of the Keys. His confession, drawn out of him under duress, paints a very different picture of events to those held to be true by the Dark Angels Inner Circle.

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QUICK REVIEW : Vengeful Honour – Nick Kyme

[This short story was originally released as part of the 2014 Black Library Advent Calendar]

On the sixteenth day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Marines Malevolent short story by Nick Kyme. Continuing the thread started in Bitter Salvage (in the Angels of Death anthology), Vengeful Honour sees Ballack and his unloved brothers in the Malevolents embroiled in the fighting on Armageddon. Faced with the prospect of fighting alongside the already antagonised Black Templars, and conscious of his own reduced capabilities, Ballack becomes increasingly aware of his own mortality. When some unwelcome faces appear, things seem to be looking bleak for the Malevolent.

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QUICK REVIEW – Ahriman: Gates of Ruin – John French

Overlapping slightly with the events of Ahriman: Sorcerer, and following on from several of the other short stories in the series, John French’s Ahriman: Gates of Ruin once more tells a tale of Thousand Sons sorcerer Ctesias. Here the weary daemonologist is looking back from a point far in the future, recalling the part he played in leading Ahriman and his followers out of the Eye of Terror. Ctesias’ knowledge of daemons is put to good use as he seeks the location of the Gates of Ruin, but can a daemon ever really be trusted?

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