A review by porge_grewe
Anathemas by David Annandale
4.0
Really solid collection of horror stories, wringing the potential out of the rich worlds of Warhammer AOS and 40,000. The stories represent a broad cross-section of horror genres on various scales, with psychological horror most heavily represented, but plagues ('Hab Fever Lockdown'), military crises ('Vox Daemonicus'), body horror ('Skin Man') and various others all making appearances as well. As with any such collection the quality varies and some stories are prone to the flat endings by which horror short stories are often plagues, but the best stories of the collection are so good that I would recommend this to any horror fan, especially as no knowledge of the worlds presented is actually needed if you don't mind ignoring some names of worlds (after all, most of the people represented in these stories don't know any more about them than you will!).
Particular praise goes to 'Runner' by Alan Bao, 'A Threnody for Kolchev' by Darius Hinks, and especially to Lora Gray, submitting the best story of the collection for the third Warhammer horror collection in a row, with the brutal, heartbreaking, and beautiful 'These Hands, These Wings'.
Particular praise goes to 'Runner' by Alan Bao, 'A Threnody for Kolchev' by Darius Hinks, and especially to Lora Gray, submitting the best story of the collection for the third Warhammer horror collection in a row, with the brutal, heartbreaking, and beautiful 'These Hands, These Wings'.