Black Library Weekly – W/C 11/12/17

Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. It’s been another Advent-heavy week, with not a huge amount of other stuff to talk about. Don’t worry, though, there have been some really juicy Advent stories so still plenty to cover…

Advent

Another full week of Advent Calendar stories, covering 40k, the Heresy, the Primarchs, Age of Sigmar and Shadespire. Compared to last week there have been some equally fantastic stories, although – speaking personally – a couple of them have dipped in quality a little bit in relation to the overall high standard we’ve seen so far.

Heart of Decay by Ben Counter – audio drama (£3.99)
What happens when you pit a pair of Relictors against a dangerous Death Guard warrior? Find out in this really cool audio drama from Ben Counter – I say audio drama, but it’s really a radio play as there’s no narration…only dialogue and SFX. One of the surprise successes of the Advent Calendar so far, for me.

Dreams of Unity by Nick Kyme – short story (£1.99)
We don’t often see Thunder Warriors stories, so this came as a bit of a surprise. It’s quite a sad story, but also one of those great Heresy tales that’s set somewhere away from the main action and can show a different side to things. It’s probably not an essential read, but a fascinating one nonetheless.

Callis and Toll: The Old Ways by Nick Horth – short story (£1.99)
A continuation of City of Secrets, this is a similar thing to CL Werner’s The Witch Takers in that it shows a different side to the Age of Sigmar – no Stormcasts, just normal humans. For me it was an interesting concept, and I can see potential with these characters, but it wasn’t quite enough to really hook me. Hopefully we’ll see more of these guys in more exciting circumstances.

Malcador: First Lord of the Imperium by LJ Goulding – audio drama (£3.99)
Okay, so it’s a Primarchs story featuring Malcador…who’s not a primarch. Don’t let that distract from what is a really, really well-constructed story that makes fantastic use of the audio medium. Most of the talk around this so far has been about the big revelations, and how truthful Malcador is really being…there’s a lot to think about, but it’s not just about those things. Listen on headphones, and enjoy a beautiful audio production.

The Battle For Markgraaf Hive by Justin D. Hill – short story (£1.99)
This one’s a sequel to Justin’s novel Cadia Stands, and while it’s not full of huge spoilers it’s still probably worth having read the novel first. There’s some cool stuff here showing how the Cadians fight and think, but it’s a weird one because it sort of feels like half a story. It’s half of a good story…but still. A little odd.

A Place of Reflection by David Guymer – audio drama (£3.99)
The second Shadespire audio drama – in fact the second ever Shadespire story – this sadly doesn’t match the standard of Doombound, and is (in my opinion) the first of the Advent audio dramas to not really deliver. There’s a good premise here, and the cast do their best, but it just doesn’t really work.

A Brother’s Confession by Robbie MacNiven – short story (£1.99)
A prequel this time, introducing the main characters for Robbie’s upcoming novel Blood of Iax. There an interesting mix here, exploring a little bit of how Primaris Marines work for the Ultramarines, and a little bit of what it’s like for a Space Marine Apothecary. It’s another enjoyable short story from MacNiven, and bodes well for the novel.

Weekend

For the first time in what feels like ages, there were no new releases – nothing brand new, nothing reprinted into new formats. What we did get was a bunch of ebook bundles rolling up various releases into individual, cost-effective packages. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s available:

The Gaunt’s Ghosts Complete Collection by Dan Abnett and various others (£99.99)
According to BL this is the entire Gaunt’s Ghosts collection – so by my count that includes thirteen novels, two anthologies and…some?…short stories. It’s tough to work out the exact value of this one, but going on £6.99 each for the ebooks of the novels, except The Warmaster which is £9.99 at the moment…plus £6.99 for Sabbat Worlds and £14.99 (weird?) for Sabbat Crusade…that comes to over £115. Pretty good value, in that case!

The Horus Heresy: The Story So Far (December 2017 edition) by many, many authors (£364.99)
Another one that involves lots of maths to work out the value. So…46 books (doesn’t include Old Earth, for some reason) at £9.99 each (did you realise even the earliest Heresy books are still £9.99 in ebook?!) is £459.54; plus The Honoured and The Unburdened (£19.98); Macragge’s Honour (£19.99); then novellas Promethean Sun, Scorched Earth, Wolf King and Cybernetica (£19.96); and short stories Myriad, Blackshield, Into Exile,The Grey Raven, The Painted Count, Exocytosis, The Last Son of Prospero, Ordo Sinister and The Ember Wolves (£18.91). By my not very good maths that works out as £538.38.

So that’s damn good value if you fancy buying EVERYTHING – you’d save £173.39, or about 30%. I say everything, because that’s what BL say…but it doesn’t include Sons of the Forge, Restorer or the Advent stories, as well as Old Earth as mentioned before. Pretty close to everything, mind.

Six Horus Heresy unabridged audio collections by various authors (£74.99 each)
Individual audiobooks are usually £29.99 each, so these three-part collections provide a saving of about £15 each. Not bad. I’ve listed each of these new collections below, along with which books are included. Remember that books 1 to 27 are already available in similar collections (search for unabridged on the BL site if you want to find them easily).

  • Books 28 to 30: Scars, Vengeful Spirit and The Damnation of Pythos
  • Books 32 to 34: Deathfire, War Without End and Pharos
  • Books 35 to 37: Eye of Terra, The Path of Heaven and The Silent War
  • Books 38 to 40: Angels of Caliban, Praetorian of Dorn and Corax
  • Books 41 to 43: The Master of Mankind, Garro and Shattered Legions
  • Books 44 to 46: The Crimson King, Tallarn and Ruinstorm

Note that book 31 (Legacies of Betrayal) doesn’t have an audiobook collection because all of the stories contained therein have previously been made available as either audio dramas or individual audiobooks. According to the Warhammer Community site, you can now get the entire Heresy range (as it stands, and with the exception of Legacies of Betrayal) in one of these three-part collections. As far as I can see, however, that’s missing out Old Earth (again), which seems like a slightly weird omission.

Thoughts on the week

The Advent Calendar overall is still looking damn good, even if some of this week’s releases aren’t quite of the same quality that we saw earlier in the month. Laurie’s First Lord of the Imperium is almost certainly going to be the most contentious of the lot, but I really think that the best thing to do is to not think too hard about this stuff. Kick back and enjoy it for what it is – a really well-made audio. Speaking of which, Ben Counter’s Heart of Decay is one of the most interesting Black Library releases I’ve come across for a while, and something that I would absolutely recommend you check out if you haven’t already.

I didn’t include a midweek section in this week’s post, but one thing did come up – confirmation that there will be two new books (in ebook form) over Christmas – one on Christmas Day and one on Boxing Day. I *might* have talked about this being Christmas Eve and Christmas Day when I talked about it on Twitter…but no, definitely the 25th and 26th. No confirmation as yet what these two releases are going to be, but here are the hints from Warhammer Community:

On Christmas Day, something stirs in a place of horror. Souls cry out in terror and are silenced, as a sleeper awakens and darkness falls…

  • I’m thinking this might be a novel tying in with the upcoming Malign Portents stuff for Age of Sigmar.

Boxing Day brings twists and turns in a quest for salvation that takes an unlikely hero into the heart of darkness, pursued by mighty foes and in search of something he doesn’t understand.

  • Honestly I don’t have a clue about this one. If the 25th is Age of Sigmar then maybe this will be 40k? Maybe?

In terms of the weekend’s releases, I’d say that they look designed to tap into last-minute gift ideas and getting people thinking about what to spend their money on immediately after Christmas. Bear in mind that ebooks and MP3 audios offer instant gratification, so they make ideal purchases on Christmas Day…if you can afford them!

Speaking of which, there’s no doubt that all of these bundles are good value as always, but still…they’re pretty damn expensive, especially the Heresy one. I’ve talked about this loads before, but for every time I say that these bundles cost a packet, BL seem to release another one…which suggests that people are buying them! I guess the audiobook bundles are just genuinely good value, and might just about creep into the sort of amount I can see people being reasonably happy with dropping in one go. Just under £100 for the Gaunt series is damn good, but then that’s starting to look like a lot of money…

There’s no two ways about it, the Heresy bundle is VERY expensive…but then it does save you a huge amount of money. But…if you’ve not yet started on the Heresy, that’s a lot to spend on a brand new series, all in one go! I’d love to hear from anyone who has bought something like this…so if that’s you, let me know!

So overall it’s been the sort of week you might imagine in the immediate run-up to Christmas…lots of small, relatively cheap digital products as well as a bunch of much more expensive digital products. I suspect anyone who steadfastly refuses to read anything in digital isn’t particularly happy with the week, but with Christmas delivery dates fast approaching I can’t say I blame BL for focusing on the digital.

As usual, here’s the list of my posts this week – it’s been Advent all the way for me, too:

Coming up…

I’d expect more of the same next week, with the focus being on Advent once again. I’m particularly looking forward to the final Primarchs audio, from Ian St. Martin, which drops on the 22nd. Look out for something Primarchs-related and (hopefully) interesting from me in the couple of days after that! Obviously the Christmas Day and Boxing Day books should be cool as well, although technically they’re the following week!

As always, if you’ve got any thoughts or comments on the week’s news and releases please do get in touch via the comments section below or on Facebook or Twitter.

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