‘The Stacks’ – Chris Winterton (Black Library)


You know what I’m like, if there’s a bus ride to (or from) work then I’m usually reading some Warhammer Short fiction on my phone 😉 I’m not really up for anything too in depth (at least not on the morning commute, okay the evening rid home as well) so a short, sharp dose of Grimdark and/or horror is just the right length to hold my interest. Okay, and it gives me time to have a little snooze if I need it 😉

It looks like I’m finally getting caught up with the short reads as ‘The Stacks’ was part of this year’s Black Library ‘Horror Week’. After some early cases of ‘isn’t all 40K horror really…?’ I’m fully behind the line now and was keen to see what Chris Winterton (an author whom I hadn’t read until now) would bring to the table. And the answer was…

The will of the Inquisition comes above all else… The Inquisition tasks an archivist to find a lost tome but can she retain her sanity as she executes her duty…?

At only thirty one pages long, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there couldn’t possibly be all that much to ‘The Stacks’… could there? You’d be wrong. It does feel like everything is over in a flash but take your time in ‘The Stacks’ and you’ll see that Winterton clearly works well in tight spaces like this. The plot is very simple but that’s almost besides the point as Winterton leaves the plot to tick along and stocks up on atmosphere instead, And what an atmosphere this story has… You can only see as far as Livia’s candle and Winterton uses her nerves to play on his readers. It’s a move that really pays off, encouraging you to keep reading just so you can see around the next corner… Which is when Winterton hits you with… you’ll see.

I also enjoyed the constant playoff between the potential horror lurking in the archives and the very real horror that Livia knows that the Inquisition will bring if she doesn’t find that book. It makes for some really tense reading and even though you just know that Livia is screwed either way, well… I still couldn’t help but root for her.

I usually feel sorry for Black Library authors who are given a brief but then have very little room to play in (it’s the nature of the business but even so…) but in the case of ‘The Stacks’, it’s like Chris Winterton was created specifically to get the most out of those small spaces. I’m intrigued to see what he comes up with next.

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