Inferno! A Warhammer 40,000 Collection

by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Matt Smith, Noah Nguyen

A Warhammer 40,000 Short Story Collection

In this anthology, you'll find 31 stories from the grim darkness of the far future. First published in Inferno!, there are fresh yarns from your favourite authors, plus debut stories from up-and-coming Black Library luminaries.

READ IT BECAUSE

Inferno! has long been a home for sensational Warhammer short fiction, and has acted as proving ground for many up-and-coming Warhammer writers, many of whom have gone on to become household names. In this collection of short stories set in the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium and previously published in Inferno!, you'll find thrilling tales from established novelists including Adrian Tchaikovsky, David Annandale, and John French, as well as newer Warhammer writers like Marc Collins and Gareth Hanrahan.

CONTENTS

Raised in Darkness by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Exorcism of Karsa V by Matt Smith
Vova's Climb by Noah Nguyen
The Stuff of Nightmares by Steve Lyons
The Last Knight (Part 1) by Gavin G Smith
The Last Knight (Part 2) by Gavin G Smith
Respite's End by Marc Collins
Castle of the Exile by Gareth Hanrahan
Best Death Wins by Sean Grigsby
No Quarter by Rob J Hayes
The Karsharat Abomination by George Mann
Firstborn Exile by Filip Wiltgren
Journey of the Magi by Jonathan Green
Green and Grey by Edoardo Albert
Where Dere's da Warp Dere's a Way by Mike Brooks
Blackout by J C Stearns
The Spirit of Cogs by John French
City of Blood by Matt Smith
Empra by Nate Crowley
The Weight of Silver by Steven B Fischer
The Emperor's Light by Rob Leahy
The Thirteenth Psalm by Peter Fehervari
What Wakes in the Dark by Miles A Drake
Solace by Steve Lyons
Turn of the Adder by J C Stearns
The Unsung War by David Annandale
No Hero by Peter McLean
The Emperor's Wrath by Steven B Fischer
The Enemy of My Enemy by Nate Crowley
The Firstborn Daughter by Filip Wiltgren
Mercy by Danie Ware

972 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 26, 2021

About the author

ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY was born in Lincolnshire and studied zoology and psychology at Reading, before practising law in Leeds. He is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor and is trained in stage-fighting. His literary influences include Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, China Miéville, Mary Gently, Steven Erikson, Naomi Novak, Scott Lynch and Alan Campbell.

Reviews

[Rashid Yasin · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot of warhammer in here. It's almost 4 stars for the scope of it, as there are certainly 4 star stories embedded within. But as a whole, it's hard to say that the collection is more than a fun vacation read (which is exactly what it was for me, as a good way to spend time in the break between Christmas and New Year's).

I am a fan of Nate Crowley, so I have to shout out his contributions because they're fantastic. Empra is the story of a primitive tribe making artillery shells for an imperial starship, worshipping the Emperor of Mankind, whose name has morphed over time into the god "Empra". They are promised heavenly delivery in the ship from the hellish landscape they make their living on. But, as one tribal girl finds out, the ship is its own terrible landscape of endless work for other ship people who live belowdecks and worship a similar morphed version of "the Emperor" and are promised heaven on land. It's a story of the duplicity and harshness of the Imperium of Mankind, of the souls who are ground up in the never-ending war machine. This is the sort of story that really appeals to me - the ones about space marines or imperial guards fighting aliens are a lot less interesting.

Some of the imperial-focused stories are more inspired than others (the two-parter about a Knight are a nice coming of age story at the same time that I think was particularly well-written), but it's the ones that come at the setting from an alternate view that are more interesting. Another Crowley story "Enemy of my Enemy" tells of a general who knows he can defeat the tyrannid threat encroaching on a planet by allying with the ork army he had been fighting days prior. But as he learns to adopt the savagery and power of the orks, the orks also learn how to be cunning and duplicitous like humans.

Probably you could read the various Crowley stories, "The Spirit of Cogs", "Raised in Darkness" and a a few others and get the "best" of the crop, and those would easily be 4 star stories. But having some silly shooty-bang stories or vignettes into little pieces of the 40k universe is also fun, so it's worth having this big collection because 40K is a big universe with a lot of stories. I enjoyed going through this big Inferno collection, which is all I asked for going in.

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is very much a short story anthology. Some of these were absolute hits, incredible stories, and others fell a little flat.