Tesserae

by Richard Strachan

Warhammer Horror (AoS)

Unknown Binding

About the author

Richard Strachan lives in Edinburgh, UK. He has had stories published in magazines like Interzone, The Lonely Crowd, Gutter and New Writing Scotland, and writes for Games Workshop's Black Library imprint.

Reviews

[Alina Zabiyaka · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘I am a modest artisan, your excellency,’ I said with a laugh, hoping my heart wouldn’t beat out of my chest, ‘but I am not so humble as to deny the charge! I am, as it happens, reckoned of rare talent as a craftsman.’

Warhammer Horror is one of my favourite BL series – there is so much in these stories that rarely gets shown or mentioned in ‘wider’ AoS/40K books, as initially they were meant not to include Space Marines, Inquisition, Stormcast Eternals and such... but as I’ve made sure many times, even these most popular factions can really shine in a new light of horror genre. Such a variety of interesting plots, places and mostly ‘ordinary’ people... in rather extraodinary situations (especially considering that pretty much everything in these grimdark world/s is out-of-the-ordinary)
Among the short stories in the fourth Horror anthology I especially loved ‘Pentimento’ by Nick Kyme and ‘Tesserae’ by Richard Strachan, which both – perhaps not incidentally – tell of two very skilled artisans charged with restoring ancient objets d’art, but in the process of this seemingly harmless activity these characters discover things they were never meant to, thereby consigning themselves – and those around them – to dire fates indeed. To say more, however, would be spoiling the pleasure, so just read and enjoy…