Black Library Weekly – W/C 19/02/18

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. This week has been a busy one on the Black Library front, with no fewer than six new short stories, three new novels, and even a dedicated Black Library day in Games Workshop/Warhammer stores around the world. Lots to talk about, so let’s get straight to it…

Necromunda Week
It all started on Monday, where instead of a single Digital Monday short story we got the start of Necromunda Week, which saw six new short stories released one a day from Monday to Saturday. I’ve read and reviewed five of the six stories so far (and will cover the sixth as soon as I can), and you can find links to each of the reviews below.

• Death’s Head by Josh Reynolds
• Burned by Darius Hinks
• Emp-Rah’s Eye by Guy Haley
• Scar Crossed by Nick Kyme
• Once a Stimm Queen by Robbie MacNiven
• Dirty Dealings by Rachel Harrison

As usual these are digital-only short stories, which you can pick up from either the Black Library website or Amazon for £2.49 each. As is often the case with weekly story events like this, there’s also a subscription offer where you can buy the whole set in one go and save money. In this case Necromunda Week: The Bundle is £9.96, which means you’re getting six stories for the price of four. I’m always a proponent of the bundles/subscriptions because I tend to want to read everything, rather than pick and choose – considering this bundle is for such a specific theme, I imagine most people who want to read one of these stories will be interested in all of them. As such, I think the bundle is definitely the way to go!

Midweek
Aside from the daily Necromunda short stories, there wasn’t a huge amount going on during the week. The weekly Black Library-related Warhammer Community post was, however, quite interesting – if you haven’t already, you can check it out here. It’s really cool to see some of the Black Library authors talking about their favourite BL books, and where they would recommend new readers start. I was particularly interested to see that two different authors (Phil Kelly and Justin D. Hill) recommended Storm of Iron by Graham McNeill as somewhere to start; it’s been AGES since I’ve read that, but I could be tempted to pick it up again sometime soon.

Weekend
Saturday the 24th was the big Black Library Celebration, with Games Workshop and Warhammer stores running events and selling a range of new products. I’ll come onto that in the section below, but first let’s take a look at the books that went on sale this weekend – three new novels, paperback editions of two books from last year, paperback reprints of two old-school novels, and a few bits of Black Library merchandise.Without a doubt the biggest Black Library release…well, for I don’t know how long…was Dan Abnett’s surprise fourth novel in the Eisenhorn trilogy – The Magos. Available in limited edition hardback (£45), paperback (£9.99) and MP3 (£29.99), it’s actually a bit of an omnibus collecting together all of the Eisenhorn short stories (it’s subtitled The Definitive Casebook of Gregor Eisenhorn) along with a brand new novel. If you’re after the LE hardback (of which 1500 were printed), it looks to be sold out on the Black Library site but the UK Games Workshop site does seem to still have at available (at time of writing). Click this link or the banner below for a Rapid Fire interview with Dan about this book.

Next up was the 40k Space Wolves novel Lukas the Trickster by Josh Reynolds, another one to get the limited edition treatment – it’s available in LE hardback (£40), standard hardback (£18) and MP3 (£29.99). The LE hardback is restricted to 1,250 copies, although there’s been no confirmation yet of how many have been sold so far. Once again you can read a Rapid Fire interview with Josh, talking about the book – click this link or the banner below.

The last brand new book of the weekend was another Space Wolves title, this time Ashes of Prospero by Gav Thorpe – the second book in the new Space Marine Conquests series. Like The Devastation of Baal before it, this one is priced low right from the off – it’s available in paperback (£8.99) and ebook (£6.99) formats, although no audiobook. Carrying on the theme, you can read a Rapid Fire interview with Gav for this one, as well – here’s the link, or click the image below.

So those were the new books, but the weekend also saw two new paperback editions – one for 40k and one for Age of Sigmar. Both Cadia Stands by Justin D. Hill and Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows by Josh Reynolds came out in hardback last year, and are now available in paperback for £8.99 each. Those weren’t the only paperbacks either – you might remember that last year BL asked us to vote for two classic books to be reprinted, with the winning choices being Brothers of the Snake by Dan Abnett and Drachenfels by Jack Yeovil. Both titles are now available once more in paperback, for £7.99 each. They’re both in the old mass market format (i.e. the smaller paperback format, which these days is usually only used for the Heresy), with the same cover artwork as the previous editions.

I’ve seen comments online from people happy that nothing’s changed in these editions, which is fair enough if you’re after faithful reproductions of the original covers. Personally, however, I’m a bit underwhelmed with them. That might be because I’ve already got original copies of both books, but for me I’d have loved to have seen both these standard paperbacks and also some slightly special, celebratory editions as well. I know I’d have happily bought copies if there had been something different about them, whether that had been LE hardbacks in the same stylings of recent releases, or maybe just ‘20th anniversary’ editions with slightly different covers, and perhaps even author forewords or afterwords. As it is…if you’ve already got copies of these then there’s really no reason to buy them again.

Speaking of paperbacks, it’s interesting that alongside the LE hardback The Magos is available as a paperback and not a standard hardback. That bucks the trend of recent books, but what it does do is maintain the design and format of the existing series – the paperback matches the latest editions of Xenos, Malleus and Hereticus. Where in the past BL have been guilty of not taking things like that into consideration, much to the annoyance of collectors, this time I think they’ve done exactly the right thing.

The final releases to talk about are both pieces of Black Library merchandise – a set of 20 Years of Black Library postcards (£15 for 100 postcards) and a Warhammer 40,000 journal (£13). These have both been available at the last couple of Weekender events, and you can now pick them up on the BL website as well. They’re both quite cool…but perhaps not essential.

One last comment about the new titles before we get onto the Black Library Celebration, about the ebook versions of The Magos and Lukas the Trickster. You may remember that for several of the recent books to be released as LE hardbacks, Black Library offered LE + ebook bundles where you could buy the ebook for half price (i.e. £5) if you bought the LE hardback. While I’ve seen plenty of people grumble about preferring to get the ebook free with the LE (understandable, but not likely to happen), there’s a definite benefit to having a discount. After all, the LEs are heavy, expensive books that you probably don’t want to carry around too much. Strangely, though, this weekend’s LEs didn’t get that bundle. At 600+ pages The Magos is the biggest LE yet, so there’s even more reason to pick up the ebook for your commute. I can’t speak for BL in terms of the reason(s) why they haven’t offered the bundle this time, but it seems a shame…and on the face of it at least, rather cynical.

Black Library Celebration
I was hoping to write a separate post about this, but to be honest it didn’t turn out to be as exciting an event as I’d expected – so I’m going to cover it all here. If you’re not aware, 2018 marks Black Library’s 20th birthday and the 24th February was designated Black Library Day – hence three big releases, plus a bunch of other bits and pieces. There was quite a lot of noise made about it in the run up to the weekend, including some (justifiable) excitement about the release of a brand new Gregor Eisenhorn model for 40k, to go along with the release of The Magos.

I popped down on Saturday morning to the big Warhammer store on Tottenham Court Road in London to see what had been organised. I got there about fifteen minutes before the store was due to open, thinking that there might already be a big queue, but I was the first person there, closely followed by maybe seven or eight more people before the doors opened (hi Dan!). The staff in the store were as friendly as always, but it was instantly a bit disappointing because it was clear that there was nothing really special arranged in the shop. There was no Black Library-themed special display unit, no banners or posters, no authors there ready to sign books…just the shop as it usually is.

Now, it could be that other stores had more going on – perhaps the one I visited was the odd one out. I certainly hope so, because I think Black Library is such an important part of the Games Workshop hobby as a whole, and a 20 year anniversary is something to celebrate! It felt odd that the flagship London store wouldn’t have anything specific arranged, though. There were copies of The Magos and the Eisenhorn model at the tills and on one of the tables, and a single shelf of new BL releases on the wall, and that was about it – nothing else to get us excited.

Here’s was was available to pick up:

• One copy of the LE Lukas the Trickster hardback (which I picked up).
• The Magos in paperback.
• The new Eisenhorn model.
• Lukas the Trickster in standard hardback.
• The old Lukas the Trickster model.
• Brothers of the Snake and Drachenfels in paperback.
• Black Library postcards.
• Warhammer 40,000 journal.
• Badges and bookmarks (free).
• Black Library Celebration 2018 short story collection (free with any purchase).

Plenty of stuff to buy or grab for free, but…nothing super exciting, in my opinion. I mean, the chance to get hold of physical copies of The Magos and Lukas the Trickster a week sooner than usual is cool, and likewise the new Eisenhorn model, but I think I was hoping for something exclusive, something that rewarded people for heading out on a freezing cold (at least in London) Saturday morning. Either that, or something in the way of a competition or a raffle, something to bring the shop to life a bit. That being said, while there were a few of us by the time the doors opened it wasn’t exactly packed to the rafters, so perhaps a more festive atmosphere wouldn’t have worked anyway.

As for there only being one limited edition hardback for the shop…I was pleased to be able to snaffle it for myself, but it would have been nice if there had been more than just one! I’m not sure how that would actually work, given that there’s only a limited number of each…but it did seem weird to just have a token LE sat by the tills.

I should also mention the absence of Ashes of Prospero, which I thought was very strange. I don’t think I missed it – I’m pretty sure it simply wasn’t there. Given that copies have been available at the Weekenders in November ‘17 and February of this year, and the ebook was available on Saturday, I don’t really understand why it wasn’t available. Gav’s one of BL’s most popular authors, and Space Marine Conquests should be one of the key series, so it definitely seemed weird not to have it.

One thing I did like was that every purchase came with a copy of The Black Library Celebration collection, which contains six short stories, two each from 40k, Age of Sigmar and the Horus Heresy. The same applies online, so if you bought any physical books on Saturday (and indeed in future, while stocks last) then you should get a copy in the post as well. Here’s the list of stories within, with links to my reviews from their original digital releases:

• The Absolution of Swords by John French.
• A Trick of the Light by Josh Reynolds.
• Bear Eater by David Guymer.
• Pantheon by Guy Haley.
• The Last Son of Prospero by Chris Wraight.
• Into Exile by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

All six of those have previously been released in digital format, but there will be plenty of people who haven’t picked them up yet, so it’s cool to see them get a physical release as well – and for free! Of particular note is The Last Son of Prospero, which is an absolute gem of a Heresy story.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very pleased with the quantity and quality of new releases that landed this weekend, and while I’ve already got all of the short stories within it’s nice to see the short story collection being given out for free. I do, however, feel like a bit more could have been made of this big occasion – if it were me I’d have tried to arrange some more excitement in stores, a few authors invited to the events, something a bit special to buy for anyone making it down to a store (a book, not a model), and a bigger deal made of the reprinted classic books.

I’d love to hear about your experience with the Black Library Celebration, and if the store you went to offered anything different. Get in touch and let me know!

Thoughts on the week
It’s already been quite a long post this week, so I won’t go into too much more detail here. While I might have been a touch disappointed by the BL Celebration in person, I’ve got to say that as a whole it’s been a really good, impressive week. Starting from the beginning, I might be a bit biased as a huge fan of both Necromunda and short stories, but I’ve had an absolute blast reading all of the Necromunda Week stories. There’s been a real sense of variation amongst them, and I’ve loved reading stories that are slightly different in tone and style to what we normally get in 40k or Age of Sigmar. If you haven’t already checked them out, I can’t recommend them enough! It did help that I’d listened to Josh and Nick read from their stories at the Weekender, so still had those voices in my head when I read them!

As for the weekend’s releases…well, when was the last time we saw three new novels, four paperbacks – including two old-school classics reprinted – and a bunch of merch, all released on the same day? Putting the in-store experience to one side, that’s a pretty impressive set of releases to put out on a single day to celebrate 20 years of Black Library. I said it before – The Magos is going to be the biggest of the releases, as you can see by the LE hardback having sold so well. I hope that doesn’t take too much away from the other two brand new titles, however, as it’s very cool to see both of these coming out as well. Keep an eye out for reviews of all three books in the not too distant future.

All I really have to say now is…here’s to the next 20 years of Black Library!

As always, here’s what I’ve been posting so far this week:

• Wolfsbane by Guy Haley.
• Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell.
• QUICK REVIEW: Death’s Head by Josh Reynolds.
• QUICK REVIEW: Burned by Darius Hinks.
• QUICK REVIEW: Emp-Rah’s Eye by Guy Haley.
• RAPID FIRE: Gav Thorpe Talks Ashes of Prospero.
• QUICK REVIEW: Scar Crossed by Nick Kyme.
• RAPID FIRE: Josh Reynolds Talks Lukas the Trickster.
• RAPID FIRE: Dan Abnett Talks The Magos.
• QUICK REVIEW: Once a Stimm Queen by Robbie MacNiven.

Coming up…
Next week’s big release looks like being the physical version of Josh Reynolds’ Age of Sigmar novel Nagash: The Undying King, after it’s December digital-only release.

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.