‘Swords of the Empire’ – Edited by Marc Gascoigne & Christian Dunn (Black Library)

Page Count: 253 Pages

Here’s another book that I read last year (while taking a break from the blog) and had every intention of posting about it here, until the impending move saw it packed into a box and forgotten about… Until today 😊

Well, last night actually. I was doing something else entirely and happened to see ‘Swords of the Empire’ sat on a shelf, it’s long overdue a mention here so I thought I’d do something about that before I forgot again. With that said, lets go…

In the grim world of Warhammer, the bloodthirsty followers of the Dark Gods ravage the land. It is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is also a time of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage!

‘Swords of the Empire’ is a storming collection of all action stories including a brand new ‘Storm of Chaos’ story by the award-winning author Dan Abnett and a new story by Gordon Rennie, featuring Zavant the great sage detective of Altdorf…

‘Swords of the Empire’ was published way back in 2004 and I suspect the only way you’ll find a copy now is via eBay or if Black Library decide to release it again via print on demand. You never know, with the return of the ‘Old World’ to the tabletop, stranger things have happened. I’d say that if you are a fan of the Old World, ‘Swords of the Empire’ is worth seeking out (I’ve just had a look and there are copies on eBay going for fairly reasonable prices). I’ve said it before and it feels like a cop-out but it’s worth saying again… Anthologies are tricky beasts because not every story will hit the mark; do you take a chance on a collection then or do you stick with a book by an author that you know you’ll enjoy? I was happy to take a chance on the book as I love the setting and I haven’t come across a writer yet who I felt shouldn’t be writing in it. Having finished the book… Not every story worked for me, as well as others, but there were no real duds either. Maybe not a great read then, more of a consistently good read with a couple of great moments. I’ll take that from any anthology 😉 Your mileage will of course vary.

I’ve got a hell of a day headed my way so I thought I’d round things off here with some quick thoughts on each story. Here we go…

‘The Vampire Hunters’ – Robert Earl

Read the story and then appreciate the little play on words here, I did 😊 ‘The Vampire Hunters’ was a good, solid opening to this collection. Creepy with bursts of action and a nice reminder that you don’t need a sword, to do the right thing, if you have something to fight for. Not an outstanding tale for me but it does its job well enough.

‘Meat Wagon’ – C.L. Werner

This is the first time I’ve come across Werner’s Mathias Thulmann and while ‘Meat Wagon’ doesn’t hang around long enough for us to get to know Thulmann, we do get to see what he is capable of and that’s more than enough, seeing the path he cuts through the undead. I wouldn’t have minded a little more about Thulmann himself though. I’m going to have to find his other books, aren’t I?

‘The Case of the Scarlet Cell’ – Gordon Rennie

Now this was the standout tale for me. An intriguing mystery, hunted down by an intriguing lead; all in my favourite city of Altdorf. That is all 😊

‘Rest for the Wicked’ – James Wallis

Another ‘police procedural type tale’, set in Altdorf again, that was ok but maybe suffered a little for coming right after ‘The Case of the Scarlet Cell’. Like I said, it was ok but didn’t quite have the chops to match the previous tale.

‘The Nagenhof Bell’ – Jonathan Green

I loved reading about ‘Badenov’s Band’, back in the day, and ‘The Nagenhof Bell’ was a large part of why I bought ‘Swords of the Empire’. It was just as much fun this time as it was when I last read it. But then what’s not to love about a bunch of mercenaries under siege from Skaven? Nope, me neither 😉 I’ll have to dig out my copy of ‘The Dead and the Damned’ now.

‘Swords of the Empire’ – Dan Abnett

Not a bad way to end an anthology (a great way in fact) but there was a little too much going on here and it felt like ‘Swords of the Empire’ needed to be a full novel for everything to get its moment and be examined properly. Having said that though, Dan Abnett clearly cannot write a bad Warhammer tale and that is very much still the case with ‘Swords of the Empire’, It just needed a little more room to breathe, that’s all.