Blighted Empire by C. L. Werner (Book Review)

In recent years, C. L. Werner has emerged as one of my favourite Black Library authors, especially through his short fiction. Primarily writing in the Warhammer Fantasy setting with an occasional foray into Warhammer 40,000 I think of him as one of the more technically sound authors and someone who can tell complex stories and complex characters really well. He showed that with Dead Winter last year, his first Black Plague novel for the Time of Legends meta-series. It was political epic fantasy at its best and showed a cross-section of the Empire and its enemies at one of the lowest points in the former’s history.

Earlier this year the second novel in the trilogy was released, which I got to read last month. I’ve been really neglectful of my Black Library reading this year, so I haven’t had a chance to read all the books that I’ve wanted to. But what little I’ve read has been quite good and Blighted Empire is a great example of that.

Hinterkind #2 by Ian Edginton (Comics Review)

Vertigo’s Hinterkind is one of those out-there kind of comics that the publisher loves to put out. They are different from the norm, often bend conventions a certain way, and they all have a very unique flavour. Ian Edginton proved that with last month’s first issue, in which he told a post-apocalyptic story wherein mankind is almost extinct, nature has taken over the world, and there are creatures from mythologies and urban legends running around all over.

He continues in the same vein with the new issue, building on the things he introduced in the previous issue, adding to the world, and giving you more reasons to care about it. But at the same point, things feel a little too slow. But, this was still an interesting issue because we get to see the other side of the conflict, much as with the bookend final scenes of the first issue, and we get to find out what the Hinterkind think of humans and what their goals are.