Zero Day Exploit

Forges of Mars #Short Story

by Graham McNeill

Amidst the toxic ash wastes of Mars, the spiker-for-hire Adept Hydraq is tasked to infiltrate the mighty Basiri forge complex and steal data from its tech-priest overlord. As Hydraq and his team of spikers and infocytes pull off their daring heist, he discovers that his haul is far more dangerous than he could have imagined, and puts him in the greatest peril he has ever known.

Read it because
It's pretty much the Adeptus Mechanicus equivalent of a heist story, with a cast of cool, memorable characters and a thrilling, edge-of-the-seat plot that will have you gripped to the very last word.

Genres: 40k, Short Stories, Science Fiction

31 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 20, 2014

About the author

Hailing from Scotland, Graham McNeill narrowly escaped a career in surveying to work for Games Workshop as a games designer. He has a strong following with his novels Nightbringer, Warriors of Ultramar, Dead Sky, Black Sun and Storm of Iron.

Reviews

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

the descriptions and tech are amazing

[Nick Caris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely quick short story to read after the of mars series

[Hajdu Marcell · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting, but nothing really groundbreaking or so.

[Robert McCarroll]

I've noticed a strange pattern. I would come up with an idea for a story set in the 40K universe, begin compiling material to try to pitch it to the Editors at Black Library and then I'd see "Coming soon from Graham McNeill - the same idea I'd been working on". I'm not making accusations because the timing is such that he would have had to have started work on it far earlier and thus had the same notion separately. It's only ever McNeill, and it's always Mechanicum related.

Now, in theoery that should mean I should like these stories, since the basic premise is one I'd thought of as one that I'd find entertaining. The problem is, there's something about McNeill's style and views on characterization that make me not like his work. While the concept is great, the characters and execution don't jive with me. This may end up sitting perpetually half-read on my Kindle.