Void Exile

by Robbie MacNiven

384 pages, Paperback

Published April 7, 2026

About the author

Robbie MacNiven is a Scottish author and historian. His published fiction includes over twenty novels in genres ranging from sci-fi and fantasy to historical fiction, written for publishers such as Black Library, Titan, Rebellion and Aconyte Books. He has also written novellas, short stories, audio dramas, comic scripts and graphic novels, has worked on narrative and character dialogue for multiple digital games (SMITE: Blitz, Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground, Raid: Shadow Legends), and has written colour text and branching narratives for multiple RPG and game rulebooks, including the award-winning Undaunted series by Osprey Games. In 2022 his X-Men novel "First Team" won a Scribe Award for tie-in fiction.

On the non-fiction front, Robbie specialises in Early Modern military history, particularly focusing on the 18th century. He has a PhD in American Revolutionary War massacres from the University of Edinburgh - where he won the Compton Prize for American History - and an MLitt in War Studies from the University of Glasgow. Along with numerous articles for military history magazines, he has written eight books on 18th century conflicts including the American Revolution and the Seven Years War, seven for Osprey Publishing and one for Helion Books. He has also written the scripts for over a dozen episodes of the hit YouTube educational channel Extra History.

Outside of work and writing, his passions include historical re-enacting, gaming, and football.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating would be 3½ stars. (I also found it funny that Goodreads double-checked that I wanted to rate this book, which has yet to be officially released. I ordered it directly from Warhammer and received the book last week.)

I think I was in a mood for criticism when I read this book. I usually rate print copies of books higher because I'm not really a fan of ebooks, but in this case, I enjoyed the first two Carcharodon books more despite having read them as ebooks.

Part of the issue is that there were no section breaks in the narrative. For example, the action would take place in one location with these characters; in the next sentence, the narrative would be in another location with different characters. I haven't gone back to the first two books to check whether that's MacNiven's style. And I know section breaks aren't necessary—I've read books that have more stream-of-consciousness writing. But the fact that I noticed these lack of transitions makes me think the section breaks were removed from the manuscript before it went to print.

Otherwise, love the Carcharodons, love Bail Sharr. I haven't read as much about the Mechanicus and find it fascinating how inhuman they can be. I am not looking forward to the return of Jade Rannick, whom I think of as this overzealous authority figure who wants to make the Carcharodons pay for what they've done. As the Carcharodons say, however, there is no honor in the Outer Dark.