Black Library Weekly – W/C 15/01/18

Hello and welcome to the latest instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. It’s been quite a quiet week for the most part, without a huge amount of newsworthy happenings, although the weekend has provided a couple of talking points. Let’s start at the beginning, as usual…

Monday
For the second week running, the Digital Monday short story was an existing tale given its standalone e-short release – in this case Veil of Darkness by Nick Kyme (£2.49 in ebook). This one’s had a handful of releases before, beginning with its original release as a Space Marine Battles audio drama before being included in two different anthologies (one of which is available as a physical book). On the one hand it does feel a touch like it’s being milked for every penny, but on the other hand this is just a continuation of Black Library’s approach of getting as many older short stories out as individual releases.

Multiple releases aside, it’s a continuation of the arc that Nick started with Fall of Damnos, focusing on Cato Sicarius once again, so if you’re a fan of the previous stories and haven’t yet checked this out, it’s worth picking up. If you’re not specifically a fan, you might be better off getting hold of the Legends of the Dark Millennium: Ultramarines anthology instead, as it’s probably better value. Either way, you can find my review of it right here.

Midweek
To be honest it was a pretty quiet time on the Black Library front, during the midweek period. About the only thing I spotted was a Warhammer Community post looking at the Adeptus Custodes and the Thousand Sons (seeing as they’re both getting new Codexes soon) and talking about where to find these factions in Black Library’s stories. It’s a cool idea that I imagine will be really helpful for newer fans who maybe aren’t sure where to start finding stories about their favourite characters or armies. Of all of the stories included in the article, I was particularly pleased to see Dan Abnett’s Blood Games get a mention, seeing as that was the short story that really kick started my interest in the Horus Heresy! It’s just so, so good…! FYI it’s also available in audio format, including on Audible (don’t forget you can sign up for a free trial, which means you get a lovely free audio!) – click here or on the image below to check that out.

That was really it, I’m afraid. To be fair, mid-month weeks like this are often pretty quiet, so it’s not a massive surprise. If I missed something interest, however, please do get in touch and let me know!

Weekend
After a quiet midweek, things picked up at the weekend with three new releases – a new audio drama, the limited edition hardback of the next Primarchs novel, and the physical release of a new Alpha Legion book for 40k. Not a bad haul all told.

Starting with the audio drama (because why not?), Corsair: The Face of the Void is the latest audio from James Swallow, and is available in the usual CD (£12) and MP3 (£9.99) formats. Remember that you can also pick the audio up on the BL Audio App, although at the moment it’s not yet available on Audible. It’s a narration-free audio drama about a rogue trader chasing down pirates and evading Imperial authority…what’s not to like about that? You can check out my review here, and a short RAPID FIRE interview with James below – hopefully between those two articles you’ll be convinced to go and buy this. It’s great fun!

Next up was the limited edition hardback of the seventh Primarchs novel – Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa by David Guymer, available for the usual princely sum of £40 and limited to 2,500 copies. Now, I was under the impression that this was due to be released on the 27th January, but for whatever reason it saw the light of day a week earlier – good news for Iron Hands fans! It did mean, however, that I had to quickly put together and post my RAPID FIRE interview with David, given that I was expecting to post it next weekend! You can read that interview by clicking on the banner below. I’ll get a review of this together once the standard hardback comes out in May, but from the book’s description it sounds pretty cool!

Lastly, we also got the physical release of Rob Sanders’ Alpha Legion novel Sons of the Hydra, after its Christmas digital premiere. In addition to the existing ebook (£9.99) you can now pick the hardback up for the usual £18 – I assume it’s available to order now, and will be in stores next weekend. To be honest I was a little disappointed with this one, considering how good some of Rob’s stories have been in the past – it’s certainly not up to the same standard as things like The Serpent Beneath, sadly. Still, it’s good fun for the most part, and touches upon some interesting ideas. You can read my full review of it here.

A pretty good selection of releases for the weekend, then. There were no paperbacks this week, but with a hardback, a LE hardback and an audio drama I think Black Library covered most bases! Of the three releases, I make no apologies for championing Corsair, as it’s a hugely entertaining story and hopefully the start of some really cool things to come.

Thoughts on the week
I’d say it’s been a bit of a mixed bag, overall. It’s been far from the quietest of Black Library weeks, but for much of the week it’s erred on the quieter side – Monday’s short story was perhaps not the most exciting of releases (in my opinion, at least), while after last week’s awesome submissions-related news it did feel a bit quiet during the midweek period. As I’ve said before, however, we can’t always have exciting news dropping each week, so fair’s fair.

Thankfully, the weekend picked up nicely with some cool new titles, even if one of them was rather sprung on us as a surprise. Generally speaking I don’t have a problem with that, but considering that £40 is quite the investment for a single book I do think it’s a bit naughty this time around to release Ferrus Manus a week earlier than had previously been confirmed. I hope the early release hasn’t messed up anyone’s careful budgeting…although considering that the Primarchs LEs don’t tend to sell out too quickly it’s hopefully not going to be an issue.

As I’ve said earlier, of the three releases I’m unashamedly championing Corsair, both because I think audio dramas are awesome and because this particular audio drama was really well done. I was slightly concerned that after the emotional gut-punch of Titans’ Bane I was going to be disappointed by any audio drama which didn’t have such a powerful story, but thankfully Corsair put paid to that concern with a story that feels exactly like James said in his RAPID FIRE interview – like “the ‘pilot episode’ for a Corsair series, setting up a set of characters and situations that can play out over multiple stories.” If you’re a fan of classic sci-fi spaceship-based TV shows then I really think you’ll enjoy this.

As usual, here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve posted this week in case you’ve missed anything:

Coming up…
Looking ahead, next weekend still promises to be chock full of releases even with Ferrus Manus having dropped this weekend. Unless schedules change again, we should see Knightsblade by Andy Clark (the sequel to the hugely entertaining Kingsblade) as well as Gaunt’s Ghosts: The Saint by Dan Abnett in paperback omnibus form. I’m also keeping my fingers crossed for an original short story on Monday…!

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.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.