Book Review: 25 for 25 part 5

Well here we go, last but not least, the last five stories of Black Library's 25 for 25.

Snares and Delusions by Matthew Farrer was first published in Dark Imperium and tells the story Chaplain De Haan and Word Bearers as they attempt to take over an Eldar Exodite world. This was a very good story because you totally feel it is going to go one way that the beginning, and then it totally goes a different way at the end. Very good read!

Next up is The Curiosity by Dan Abnett. This story was in Cruicible of War, and it tells us about one of my favorite, least known Dan Abnett character, Magos Biologis Valentin Drusher. I read about Drusher the first time in Fear the Alien. In that story, I really felt that Abnett was riffing on Harry Dresden, but I don't get that feeling in this story. In this one, the Magos, having completed cataloging all of a fauna on the planet, is sent to check on a predator he may has missed. Hijinks ensue!

Book Review: 25 for 25 part 4

Part four of the five-part saga that is 25 for 25 continues today.

First up we have The Burning by Nick Kyme. This one comes from the 2010 BL Chapbook. I haven't been much of a fan of Nick Kyme's Salamanders, so I really didn't read through this one very thouroghly. Probably because this story takes place between Salamander and Fire Drake and I never finished Salamander.

The second story for today is A Good Man by Sandy Mitchell. This story was published in the Sabbat World's Anthology, and it tells a rather unique story of a non-war related tale that takes place on Verghast long after the Tanith have left. This tells the story of Zale Linder, a scribe, and what happens when he tries to look up a friend when he first lands on Verghast. This feels more like a detective story than a 40k story, and it is such a great change of pace!

Book Review: 25 for 25 part 3

Here we are again for another day and another five of "the best" from Black Library.

First up today we have Even Unto Death by Mike Lee. This story was first published in Bringers of Death. This is an awesome story, and that isn't just because it is a Space Wolf story (although that certainly doesn't hurt!). It tells the tale of Skaflock, a Wolf Guard in charge of a bunch of scouts on the world of Volturna. The Wolves are in town to clear out some Orks, but the sneaky Orks aren't making it easy. The Orks have ambushed the Wolf Lord and stolen his body! Well, the Wolves can't let that stand!

Next up we have The Carrion Anthem by David Annandale. This one is in Hammer and Bolter Issue 11, and it tell a story of how Typhus gets things done when he decides to take over a world! I don't think I have read anything by David Annandale before, but this story makes me want to read more! Very good story, very grim-dark ending!

Book Review: 25 for 25 part 2

All this week I am going over Black Library's celebration of the 25th anniversary of 40k, yesterday I went over the first five stories, today I will be doing the next five.

First up we have At Gaius Point by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. First printed in Legends of the Space Marines
(available from BL), this is a story of a Flesh Tearers squad that has had one of its battle brothers succumb to the black rage, and it is a very good tale of how far they will go to make sure that the truth of their curse does not get out.

Up next is Mistress Baeda's Gift which is in the Fear the Alien anthology (currently out of stock in paperback, but still available on ebook). This is the story of Malwrack, and Dark Eldar that is trying to win the hand of his lady fair, well not exactly like that. Lets just say that Dark Eldar courtship is... interesting. This is very good read.

The third story for today is Survivor by Steve Parker. This story comes from Hammer and Bolter issue 9, and it has got to be my pick for best story of the five today. This is a very cool story, and it has a very nifty unexpected twist at the end. I'll leave it at that.

Next up is The Heraclitus Effect by Grahm McNeill which comes from Planetkill (another one that is OOS in paperback but still available in ebook). This is one of the Iron Warriors short stories about the Warsmith Honsou and it gives us a glimps into what he is willing to do to get back at his favorite Ultramarine Uriel Ventris. Let me tell you, you don't want to piss Honsou off!

Last for today is Flesh by Chris Wraight. This one comes from Hammer and Bolter issue 7, and it is an Iron Hands story. While I don't think I liked this story 100%, I think it does an excellent job of giving you a glimps into what Space Marines (for the most part) are like, and where the interests of "humans" fall in their spectrum of "giving a crap".

Well that is it for today, tune in tomorrow for stories 11 - 15!

Book Review: 25 for 25 part 1

With the recent 25th anniversary of Warhammer 40,000, the Black Library released an anthology called 25 For 25. The ebook has 25 of the best 40k short stories every written (or so they claim).

This week I will be going through this book five stories at a time.

In this first installment, we start out with Pestilence by Dan Abnett. I believe that this story was first published in Deathwing, and then published again in Let the Galaxy Burn. An Imperial Recollector has been sent to the Hospice of Saint Bastian on Symbal Iota to help uncover information that will help fight Uhlren's Pox on Genovingia. To do that he must interview Colonel Fege Ebhoe, a man that has worked on a malady similar to the pox. Unfortunately Ebhoe is not so forthcoming with information, and what he does give, is rather unsettling.

The second story is Wrath of Kharn by William King. This story was first published in Dark Imperium and it tells the take of (oddly enough) Kharn the Betrayer. Kharn and is lovely band of berserkers are assaulting the Temple of Superlative Indulgence which (also oddly enough) is a temple to Slaaneshi. In the temple a daemon of great power tempts Kharn and the berserkers with infinite pleasure. Obviously the daemon doesn't know who he's dealing with!

Book Review: Fifteen Hours

A couple of weeks ago, Pat from the 11th Company contacted me to do an interview/book review. That review was of Deliverance Lost, and at the end he asked me if I wanted to do another review in the future. I gushed a little and said, "sure," so a week later we sat down and reviewed Fifteen Hours.

It had been a while since I had read this book so I sat down to read it again, and I re-found out that this is really a very enjoyable book.

One of the things that really make this book enjoyable to me are the characters. Mitchel Scanlon does a great job of creating some very memorable characters in a few short pages. These little vignettes are what make the story.

The first one we see if of Erasmus Ng. He is what I guess you would call a scribe. He works 12-hours a day 7-days a week transcribing a series of numbers broadcast to him by some disembodied voice.

Book Review: Path of the Seer

Well this was supposed to go out on Friday, but with my mom in town for spring break, I didn't actally get around to writing the post, and I've learned that if you have a blog post without any writing, it isn't actually very interesting, so here we go. This time with more interesting!

Path of the See is the second in the Eldar saga. I really enjoyed Path of the Warrior, and I was looking forward to reading this book, but when I got it I had a hard time initially getting through it. I want to say that it was because I read a not-so-flattering review from another blog before I read it, and I think it put me off the book. So after setting the book aside for a good long time, I finally came back to it.

This tells, well, not the same story as Path of the Warrior, but sorta the same story as Path of the Warrior, but from a different persective. One of the issues I had to begin with was the fact that both books begin at pretty  much the same point. Thirianna and Korlandril are waiting for their buddy to come back from a long journey. They have pretty much the same conversation as they did in the first book, and both of them are kind of annoying.

Book Review: Dread Fleet

Waaaaaaaaay back when Dread Fleet came out I went down to the FLGS and noticed all of the boxes and along with them was a little book by Andy Hoare that went with it.

I really regret not getting the Black Reach book and the Space Hulk book (which I have recently fixed) so I picked this one up.

This story is about Captain Jaego Roth and his Ahab-like thirst for revenge for Count Noctillus after he wreak  Jaego's home town and is generally a bad dude.

Roth starts out by going to the Empire and stealing a vessel he believes is capable of taking out Noctillus' flag ship the Bloody Reaver. After that he assembles a gang of like-minded captains to help him take down Noctillus. This story reminded me of the old Sinbad movies from the 70's-80's with it's road trip feel how at each stop they picked up someone to add to their super group.

Book Review: Know no Fear

Right on the heels of Deliverance Lost, we have Know no Fear by Dan Abnett, and I was feeling so good about DL, that I knew KnF was going to be a great book, and boy was I right!

This is the story of how the Word Bearers try to destroy/cripple the Ultramarines so that they can't play a part in the siege of Terra. This is still the point of the Heresy where the bad guys know whats going on, but the good guys still have no clue.

At the beginning of the story, the Ultramarines and Word Bearers are joining together to go put down some filthy xenos culture. Everyone assumes that the pairing is so that the two legions can bury the hatchet for the smack-down the Emperor laid upon the Word Bears via the Ultramarines 40 years previous. Little did the Ultramarines know it would be a literal hatchet that was in-fact a power ax buried into someones face!

Book Review: Space Hulk

Every once in a while I troll the Black Library site looking for ebooks they have published that may have not got as much press as some of the flashier titles. The other week I found Space Hulk by Gav Thorpe.

This is an ebook version of the novella (not sure why it isn't called a short story) that came with the Space Hulk board game from GW. I have played a few of the mission for Space Hulk so I know some of the background information, and it is nice to see that the novella was written with the board game in mind. 

All of the characters from the board game are in the story. In fact, it was like Mr. Thorpe dramatized each of the missions that were in the board game. And to top it off, it was very well done.

One of the things I found a bit odd was some of the speech from the Blood Angels terminators, I really didn't think the Blood Angels were as "holy" as the speech made it sound. I would have thought maybe that the Dark Angels, or Black Templars talked that way, but not the Blood Angels. Please note, this is not a criticism, just something I didn't realize before reading the story.

Book Review: Deliverance Lost

The latest in the Horus Heresy books makes me think fondly of some of the older HH novels.

One of the things I really really liked about some of the first HH novels was background information about the primarchs and the founding of their legions and how the Heresy effected them. We saw this in books like Decent of Angles, Fulgrim, and later in The First Heretic, these books have been some of the finest in my opinion.

One of the trickiest things about this book is that it is a sequel to Raven's Flight, and I am not sure if as many people listen to the audio books as the written books. The good news is that Gav Thorpe does a good job of filling in some of the gaps. You may not know exactly what is going on with Marcus Valerius' dreams, but we know he had them, and that they ultimately led him to go bail our Corax.

This book picks up at the end of Raven's Flight, and at the end of the Istavaan V massacre. The Ravens are fleeing the Istavaan system, and Corax is hoping that his father can help him rebuild his shattered legion after he leave 75,000 dead battle brothers on Istavaan.

Book Review: Emperor's Finest

Man I love Ciaphas Cain. If someone had told me before I read For the Emperor, that someone would be able to write a comic take of the Grim Dark of 40k, I would have thought it was doomed to failure. And then Ciaphas Cain came into my life, and the Grim Dark changed.

This book is out of order with the other books (it would kind of have to be after "Cain's Last Stand" taking place technically after Ciaphas retires) and that was a little bit weird for me because there were certain things that the readers knew, but Cain himself didn't know as the action was taking place, but thankfully, as with all the Cain books, we have the footnotes written by Amberly Vail.

Cain has been assigned as an Liason officer to the Reclaimers space marines chapter. I guess he figured with the biggest, baddest bad asses in the galaxy surrounding him, he should be pretty safe.

Silly Caiphas, you should have known better than that. Cain deals almost exclusively with genestealers in this book, and while we've seen him deal with Tyranids before, seeing him tool around a space hulk with terminators was kind of different.

Book Review: Legion of the Damned

If ever there was a Black Library book that I feel was false advertising, this would be the one. That sounds a bit ominous, but its not all bad.

I think everyone that is a power armor and fluff nut like me (I am hoping that there are others out there like me) knows about the Legion of the Damned. The fluff says that one of the 21st cursed-founding chapters, The Fire Hawk was sent to fight Eldar pirate. The entire chapter made a warp jump to Crowe's World, but none of them arrive (I personally blame those dirty Eldar!).

After that, from time to time, when Imperial forces were facing insurmountable odds, the silent Black and Flame armored Astartes would joint the fight and leave without a word. These were the Legion of the Damned.

When I saw that this book was coming out I got very excited. I like any of the "mysteries" in 40k, and this is one. "Too bad the book was coming out in April", I thought to myself.

Book Review: Hammer & Anvil

So the last few Black Library books I have read haven't been the best, so I was a little apprehensive about this one, but I was worrying for nothing. Hammer & Anvil was one of the best books I have read in a while.

This book takes place following the events of Faith & Fire (that came out almost six years ago!) and again follows Battle Sister Miriya and Hospitallar Verity.  This time they are sent to reconsecrate the destroyed bastion on Sanctuary 101. For those of you in the know, you know that this was the first time that the Imperium had contact with the Necrons.

With the Necron codex still fresh, this book was a great one to publish about the same time, and if anyone wonders whether or not the BL authors have advanced knowledge of what will be in the codex, this book proves it.

Book Review: The Gildar Rift

So after the last two Black Library books I read, I was a little worried about reading another. I know it seems kind of silly. It is not as if the last two books were terrible, I just didn't care for them, and what is it that people say about opinions?

Anywho, I picked up The Gildar Rift and I was a bit excited because a) I enjoyed Ms. Cawkwells' short stories about the Silver Skulls, b) after Imperial Armour 9/10 & Blood Reaver, I've got a thing for the Astral Claws/Red Corsairs, a c) I don't think I've met "A Space Marines Battles Novel," I haven't liked yet. So with those things in mind, I dove in.

I have to start with a bit of a critisim. The book began with a bit about a Rogue Trade moving into the Gildar system, not waiting for their marine escort and subsequently being attacked by pirates. There was nothing really wrong with it, but it really served no purpose in the story. It is just a gimmick that the BL authors seem to do more and more. Some of them can pull it off (like Dan Abnett in Bloodpact), but for others it really just falls flat, as it does here, in my opinion.

Book Review: Atlas Infernal

It has been quite a while since I have finished this book, but I decided that I needed to get on with it and post a review, so here it goes.

This book, along with Outcast Dead were pretty painful for me to read. I didn't really like the majority of either book. With Outcast Dead, there was a really good ending to pull the book up, with Atlas Infernal, it didn't feel that way to me.

Now any book about the inquisition is going to be compared to the Eisenhorn/Ravenor books by Dan Abnett. This is a little harsh, because these books are excellent, and any other inquisition book is going to have a hard time living up to that standard.

In Eisenhorn, we see the story of an Inquisitors change from a fairly purity inquisitor to a much more radical inquisitor by the end of the book. Eisenhorn does some pretty messed up things by the end of the third book, but by that time, you see the man that he is, and I at least could understand why he did what he did.

Book Review: The Outcast Dead

I've been having some bad luck with the Black Library lately. I haven't really liked the last two books I've read. Unfortunately The Outcast Dead is one of those books.

So this is the story of an astropath named Kai Zulane. he has had a bad year due to the fact that the last ship he was on had a Geller field failure and everyone on board died except him and the navigator. Due to the trauma of this, he can't seem to send messages anymore. So he is being sent back to (not yet holy) Terra to see if he can be salvaged as an astropath. If not, hes gonna be tossed into the astronomican.

One of the things I really didn't like about this story was that the main character seemed like a bit of a d-bag. I really just didn't like him. Ever. I have read books where the "protagonist" was kind of unlikable but usually there is some redeeming end to the story. I'm sure the author tried to do that, but I was really just fed up with Kai by the end of the story.

Book Review: Deathwing

I don't remember exactly when I first heard of this anthology, but I did hear about it and I decided I wanted it. I checked all the Half Price Books in the Austin area (there are a bunch), but I did not find the book. I then went to Amazon, and I did find it, used, and for about cover price. I was happy with that and ordered it.

Deathwing is an anthology that is a bit odd as it is sort of a second printing. The first printing had seven stories, but this printing has ten. I'm not sure why they did it, but I knew about this before hand and opted for the one with more stories.

I have got to say that I was a little disappointed because I thought, due to the title, that this would be a book about Dark Angels, but I was wrong. There were only two stories about Dark Angels.

Book Review: Iron Hands

So a few weeks back I just happened to be tooling around online and just happened to go to the Black Library site to check out the upcoming releases. Imagine my surprise when I see that Black Library is offering free shipping! This is a big deal to me because there were a number of Print on Demand books that I was looking at, but it just costs so much to have them shipped overseas.

So I snatched up the debt card and ordered me some books. The first one I sat down to read was Iron Hands by Jonathan Green.

In Iron Hands we see the beginning of Abbadon's 13th Black Crusade. The Iron Hands chapter home world of Medusa sits right in the path of the despoilers campaign so the space marines are preparing for war. Iron-Father Gdolkin's plans for glory are derailed when the Mechanicus calls in an old debt with the iron hands and Gdolkin is sent to repay the debt.

Book Review: Embedded

So this is a bit off topic for this blog. It is not 40k or Warhammer Fantasy Battle, or miniaure related in any way, but I am going to post it any way. I just got done reading Dan Abnett's book Embedded.

So this is Dan Abnett's first non-40k sci-fi novel from what I understand. It takes place in the near-future where things are similar enough to what we have in the present day, but still strange enough to make this a sci-fi novel.

One of the strengths of this book is the way Abnett has created his own lingo for everything. It reminds me of Neuromancer or Blade Runner (or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep if you feel better about it). For me this gives an intimate feeling to the universe. It makes me think a little bit about every day items or discussions, and gets me to buy into the story a bit more.