Inferno! Issue 46

Inferno! #46

by Christian Z. Dunn (Editor), Matt Ralphs (Editor), Dan Abnett (Contributor)

Issue Forty Six of Inferno! is the abrupt and final issue of Inferno! magazine. As usual, it features short stories from the worlds of Warhammer 40,000 & Warhammer Fantasy.

This issue contains:

Warhammer 40,000
The short stories:
The Eldar story, Menshad Korum
The Adeptus Mechanicus story, Gardens of Tycho

Warhammer Fantasy
The short stories:
The Blackhearts story, Hetzau's Follies
The Brunner the Bounty Hunter story, Sickhouse

66 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Christian Dunn, sometimes credited as C.Z. Dunn, is a senior editor for Black Library.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Winter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Menshad Korum by CS Goto couldn't really pull me into caring about the story. The concept is interesting but the writing didn't do anything for me. It felt very out of place that a few of the Eldar characters are worshipping Slaanesh, the very race that would not even spend a second on entertaining the thought. I honestly skipped a lot of this story because it just felt very strange. I also don't understand why it has to be mentioned that Lelith is doing something vaguely sexual every time she appears, just weird.

Hetzau's Follies by Nathan Long was a pretty fun read. The 'twist,' if you can call it that, was really obvious but honestly I was more interested in the fact that it was a more 'local' Warhammer story. I've never read anything from Warhammer Fantasy, but I really enjoyed how it unfolded in just a single town. Recognizable places and names cemented for me that this could actually be happening somewhere in the Fantasy universe. Overall a fun little story, and the nurglings really shined here too.

Gardens of Tycho by Dan Abnett is kind of a detective-y story about finding a monster in a city that's barely standing after a civil war. I liked the overall vibe here as well. The hunt for one of 40k's monsters was interesting to see unfold, and where usual novels of 40k tend to be switch locations all the time, I like that this one was just as local as Hetzau's Follies and that it spend a bit more time building the image of this city in your head. Something that CS Goto should have done more in his short story.

Sickhouse by C. L. Werner has some similarities to Hetzau's Follies in that it's about Nurgle. In this one, two bounty hunters that hate each other's guts end up working together to survive in a plague-infested Tilea. However, one of them falls sick and the other doesn't know where the bounty target is located, forcing him to go to the local chapel/hospital dedicated to the goddess of healing. Meanwhile, forces of Nurgle are preparing to assault this chapel to ensure the plague continues unhindered. In general, a fairly standard short story, in the realm of 'alright' and 'entertaining'. If you like Hetzau's Follies, you'll probably enjoy this one as well at the least. What confused me about the writing is that the priestess is immediately introduced as "comely" looking despite wearing robes. It's mentioned once, and nothing else is mentioned about her. Not how she looks like, just nothing. She doesn't even introduce herself, her name is simply dropped a few paragraphs later without explanation. Perhaps this was done to build up one of the bounty hunters as more of a 'bad guy', considering these two have more stories together and we first meet her through his eyes, but it just felt weird to me that that's all we get about her appearance.

[Regan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Menshad Korum 2/5
Hetzau's Follies 3/5
Gardens of Tycho 5/5
Sickhouse 3/5