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Inferno! Volume Two


Red_Shift

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I've just started this and wondered if anyone else has had a read. After the enjoyable AoS first story there is a fairly odd but strangely compelling story featuring the Angels Penitent which has left me eager for more stories about that particular chapter. Inferno seems to be going strong from what I have read here and in the first volume, what did you guys think?
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Got it sitting next to my bed, just didn't have the time to dig in yet (I blame the new seasonal Anime lineup kicking off the past week, and FFXIV having a major patch with raids and all that).

Peter Fehervari's story is my most anticipated part in the collection, so I'm glad that it's getting a good reception! The Angels Penitent featured in some of his other stories so far (check the Dark Coil thread for details).

 

Inferno! so far seems like exactly what it needs to be, right now. Looking at the lineup in Volume 3 already, we can only hope that sales will be good enough to warrant keeping it going for many years to come.

So torn. I really REALLY want to read the Peter Fehervari short and it will probably be worth the price of the entire book BUT my wallet doesn't like the idea of buying an anthology for just one story (that may in future be released as a ebook).

 

I have absolutely zero interest in AoS so only HH/40k stories will be read by me.

 

So interested in my fellow brothers views on the rest of the stories in Inferno 2.

Well, I'm gonna make you more conflicted, I assume, if I tell you that, having read half of Fehervari's story last night, I already got my money's worth out of the book, with half the story left to go. Fehervari's once again on the longer side for short stories, and his stylistic choices for The Thirteenth Psalm are incredibly suitable. It's told as a first person perspective from an Angel Penitent, and references a bunch of his other stories in clever ways.

 

Even if the rest of the anthology turns out boring, which may be the case for some with so many AoS stories (although I have been pleasantly surprised in Inferno! Vol.1 already, and some of the Hammerhal and Sacrosanct inclusions - they're far better nowadays than they used to be), I'll be happy with the purchase. Will be finishing the read tonight and probably end up re-reading sections of his other works to cross-reference further. I would've finished it last night if I hadn't ended up re-reading The Crown of Thorns and looking through The Walker in Fire and Fire & Ice in-between chapters.

I've just finished 'spiritus in machina' which I greatly enjoyed, so looking up for 40k so far. I believe the next story is AoS but I would encourage you not to skip them, it seems to be becoming an interesting setting, helped Immensely by the talent that black library can direct at it

@DC well that's that then... I will be buying it!

 

P.S. hope your neighbours have stopped drilling!

 

You won't regret it! I am floored by the story. His characterisations of the Angels Penitent are so evocative, it actually makes me want to go and paint my own with the various tidbits and quirks Peter describes, to the point where I ended up thinking of where and how to get certain bits while reading about the characters. I can't remember when that happened last with any BL story I've read. The story is quite unsettling all around, with some truly terrifying scenes depicted.

If this one doesn't catch on enough with the community to warrant more commissions about the Chapter in particular, I'll be really disappointed!

 

Flipping through the rest, there's plenty 40k content in here otherwise too. I wasn't too sure going by titles alone, but it's an even split. I'll note down the editor-intros to the particular stories, for good measure:

 

The Thirteenth Psalm by Peter Fehevari

 

 Master of the macabre, Peter Fehervari is well known for his appreciation of all things strange and peculiar in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

In this mysterious narrative, a squad of Space Marines from the Angels Penitent are forced to confront their own flaws and the dishonourable history of their own Chapter as they are drawn further and further into an engimatic web of cruelty. Can the past truly remain buried and forgotten? Or are even the Penitent susceptible to falling?

Spiritus in Machina by Thomas Parrott

 

American author Thomas Parrott begins his writing journey with Black Library upon a crippled ship deep within a galaxy in flames.

When the Skitarius Alpha Primus 7-Cylae awakes from stasis, his memory data is damaged and his knowledge fragmented. All he has to guide him is a servo-skull directed by the Magos Explorator, who seems determined to resurrect their dying ship. But as they descend into the destruction, Cylae must confront the realisation that nothing is as he remembers.

What Wakes in the Dark by Miles A Drake

 

Hailing from Amsterdam, author Miles A Drake makes his second venture into the Dark Imperium's alien-infested battlefields to spin a story of danger and intrigue.

While on deep void patrol, Sergeant Achairas and his Tactical Squad of Death Spectres are ordered to urgently rendezvous with a member of the Ordo Xenos. They learn that Black Station Thirsis 41-Alpha has fallen silent after reports emerged of buried xenos archaeology being uncovered. Archais and his elite warriors must locate the heretical device capable of untold destruction at all costs, or die trying.

Solace by Steve Lyons

 

In this tale, Steve Lyons turns his attention to the Mordian Iron Guard as they face a threat away from the battlefield that may be more dangerous than the xenos they've been battling.

Separated from the rest of the regiment, Guardsman Maximillian Stürm and his squadron are lost deep within a forest rife with deadly aeldari. When they stumble upon the small village of Solace, they believe salvation is at hand. They can rest, regroup and resupply before heading out again. But Solace might not be the deliverance they need...

Turn of the Adder by J C Stearns

 

Illinois-based author and drukhari enthusiast J C Stearns brings his zeal for all things dark and twisted to Inferno! for the first time.

When a treacherous wych cult affronts the Kabal of the Bladed Lotus by falling to Ynnead, the powerful Archon K'Shaic rallies his forces to wipe them from existence. But when K'Shaic attempts to sway the tide of battle by pitting his two sons against each other, the brothers reveal dastardly schemes of their own.

 

Phew, typing all these single-handedly while holding the book open was more effort than I figured it'd be. They really should be putting these blurbs onto the Inferno! store pages...

Either way, I'm sure some of these will be of interest as well, for anybody on the fence. I'm particularly curious about Parrott's debut and some Dark Eldar action.

Haha, I wish. Well, I don't, obligations are garbage when it comes to hobby-related things, I find. But then, I was also doing the bookkeeping on Goodreads for years, adding new BL titles as they appeared, correcting entries etc, until I got fed up with it during the Dark Age of policy shifts. I like things neat and tidy, at least when it concerns hobbies. In the case of the blurbs, I hadn't read over them yet myself (I jumped straight into Fehervari's story!), so reading and typing them down got me interested in some of them as well.

 

With Inferno! you could say that I have a vested interest in seeing it succeed, I guess. For one, as a format, it curbs down on all those numerous e-only Shorts that have been flooding the BL site for years (and it looks like their releases have slowed down drastically in that area), and putting stories in print first like they've been doing lately is a good thing in my book. 10 bucks for a paperback are certainly more appealing than three-fiddy per story digitally. Looking at volume 2, it also seems like only one story has previously been available digitally (From the Deep for AoS), whereas the first volume had two or three, so great!

 

On the other hand, I also loved the idea of Hammer and Bolter back then, just that they dropped it after 24 months, and I wasn't a fan of the serialized novels, which were obviously removed from the omnibuses, and the many extracts. Having a regular format to highlight new authors is fantastic at any rate, especially when it is done next to popular veterans. Looking at the two volumes so far, it also appears like they're more open to do things a bit weird, probably because the risk is shared within the whole anthology. Some, or maybe most, of my favorite BL stories are off the beaten track, so if Inferno! enables authors to do more of the kind, I'm all ears (or eyes, eh?). Now if only I wasn't notoriously bad with following through with reading anthologies from start to finish.... Either way, this is Hammer & Bolter's idea executed properly, so I preordered the first three volumes months ago via Amazon myself.

 

But at the end of the day, this was probably my fangirling over Peter's works more than anything. I'm extremely happy that he's finally gotten a rather vocal following online. The first few years were pretty frustrating in that regard, with people straight up skipping Fire Caste, or his contributions to Tau Empires going under the radar for so long, and the mis-marketed Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults that stripped all sense of outward identity from his novel. I'm still upset at BL over that. So if Inferno! gives him a boost, especially since his story is the first 40k offering in the anthology and really, really good... well, you catch my drift.

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