'Aria Arcana' – Peter Fehervari (Black Library)


If this was a real advent calendar, well... I'd be opening it in completely the wrong order and there'd be loads of gaps where I just didn't bother opening the little windows at all. This is the Black Library 'Advent Calendar' Series though so it doesn't matter so much that I'm reading these out of order. Which I am, unashamedly so ;o)

I last read something by Peter Fehervari way back in August 2020 and it stuck because it was really very good. So good that when I saw 'Aria Arcana' mentioned on Twitter, I took one look, thought 'I'll have some of that' and it was on my Kindle a couple of minutes later. And here we are, with that a tale that... I'm not sure... It's quick thoughts again as it's only a short story and well, let me tell you about it.

This is the part of the review/post where I'll copy and paste a little blurb or if I'm feeling a little adventurous, sum it up myself. This time though, I can't because I'm not a hundred percent sure what's going on here. 'Aria Arcana' is beautifully written but the point of it? I can't quite put my finger on it (the ending is superb but... why?) and maybe that's the way it was meant to be; 'Aria Arcana' is a tale of the Warp and we all know that the Warp is fickle and liable to change... Which is what this story does. Brother Verlaine is on a journey but his mentor is not to be trusted so anything could happen here and it does, I guess it's for us to work out the whys and to be fair, a busy trampoline park (littl'uns birthday party) was probably not the best place to be pondering that question!

The journey though... Like I said, it's superbly written, from the almost cinematic switch in viewpoint to Verlaine's journey and what he sees on the way to the top of the city. It's one of those stories where you just sit back and let all that amazing prose just wash over you and you're just there for the ride. I love it, even if I'm not sure why these things are happening (maybe it's part of a much larger storyline that I've missed? I don't know...)

And that's all I've got really ;o) 'Aria Arcana' is not the read that you'd normally expect from Black Library but that's what makes it stand out all the more. My mind is a little bit blown at the glimpse into the Warp that Fehervari shows us here (even if I'm left questioning what just happened).

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