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 on the BL front, with nothing brand new in terms of releases, but there’s been some information about the upcoming Black Library Live event to add a little bit of interest for anyone up for a trip to Nottingham in June. Let’s start at the beginning as usual…
Monday
For the third week in a row, Black Library have looked to the Age of Sigmar for the Digital Monday short story – in this case The Resolute by Josh Reynolds (£2.49 in ebook as always). It’s the third of five stories from the Legends of the Age of Sigmar: Sylvaneth anthology to be released as a standalone e-short, but unlike Heartwood and Wrathspring it ties into a wider, ongoing storyline as well instead of being a standalone story. Tying into Josh’s Hallowed Knights arc, and slotting in before the novel Plague Garden, it does a pretty good job of telling an interesting story that can work on its own, while also adding character to some characters who will be familiar to anyone following the wider arc. Have a read of my review here for a bit more information.
Midweek
As far as I could tell there wasn’t a huge amount going on during the midweek period, but the BL Live update I mentioned earlier did pop up in a Warhammer Community post on Wednesday with a range of information about what’s going to be happening on the day. It was a pretty good update actually, with information that should be useful both for reassuring existing ticket holders and encouraging more people to attend. It’s not so long that it needs me to provide too much of a summary here, so I’ll just pick out a few key elements:
- There’s now 12 confirmed guests, including eleven authors and one artist (the ever-present Neil Roberts). That’s not a bad haul – not as many as you usually get at a Weekender, but a good selection nonetheless and probably about right for a single day.
- That looks like it’s almost the full complement as the schedule is now available as well, with confirmed seminars…although James Swallow is listed against one of the seminars so presumably he’ll be added to the list of guests soon as well.
- Black Library staff don’t tend to get any of the spotlight, but there’s a ‘Coming Soon’ seminar on the schedule with editors Hannah and Kate plus art commissioner Rachel – that should be cool.
- Overall it looks like there’s a decent range of seminars, across two rooms – for me personally the highlights look like being Josh Reynolds talking about ‘The War of Souls’, which presumably means his upcoming (but as yet not on the publicised schedule) novel Soul Wars, and the audio seminar which features some real audio specialists.
- Interestingly, however, Darius Hinks isn’t yet listed against any of the seminars, while Dan Abnett’s name is only against one of them. I wonder if that will change, or if they’re maybe only in attendance for part of the day.
- The range of products that will be available to buy looks pretty good – a couple that will be fully released that day (War of Secrets and Martyrs of Elysia), several advance releases including two (Soulbound and The Lords of Terra) that aren’t due out until August, and a few bits of the usual merch as well.
I’d say it’s looking pretty good, based on the information provided so far. If nothing else it’s nice to see the schedule confirmed a month or so before the event, to help with travel plans etc. (although for future events I wonder if rough start and end times couldn’t be listed in advance), but actually there’s plenty of information here to give anyone attending lots to work with in terms of planning their day. It’s worth mentioning that there will, presumably, be signing sessions during the day as well – so if you’re after getting an autograph or two it’s worth bearing in mind that you might need to skip a seminar somewhere to catch your favourite author(s).
Weekend
Onto the weekend, and as I suggested at the end of last week’s article the ‘main’ release for the week is another Warhammer Chronicles anthology – The War of Vengeance. Available in paperback (£15) and ebook (£14.99) formats this contains a trio of novels, one each from Nick Kyme, CL Werner and Chris Wraight. It’s one of the old-school Warhammer series that I still haven’t got around to reading, but I’ve heard good things about it. I also gather, although I can’t vouch for how true this is, that the plan was originally to extend this overall story out beyond a single trilogy, until the End Times happened and that put paid to that. Shame, but at least it’s possible to pick these books up in physical format once again.
Alongside that omnibus, two 40k novels that were first published back in 2017 have received the paperback treatment – each for £8.99. Chris Wraight’s Inquistion novel Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne is a modern Black Library classic, and well worth picking up if you haven’t yet checked it out – you can have a read of my review right here. I haven’t yet read Robbie MacNiven’s White Scars novel The Last Hunt, but if it’s half as good as his Carcharadons work then it will definitely be worth reading. While I don’t yet have a review of that, I do have a Rapid Fire interview which you can read by clicking either here or on the banner below.
Thoughts on the week
Overall it’s definitely been one of the quieter weeks, especially if you either don’t live anywhere near Nottingham or otherwise can’t attend Black Library Live. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind seeing releases which plunder BL’s back catalogue, and I’d say all four of this week’s releases are valuable additions…although I’d definitely suggest picking up Legends of the Age of Sigmar: Omnibus 1 instead of getting the e-short for The Resolute, as it’s WAY better value. The three weekend releases are all cool, and I’m always up for more paperbacks – some might prefer to see brand new novels coming out, but I’m actually ok with a bit of a break to give my wallet some time to breathe.
It’s also been a quiet week on the Track of Words front, as I’ve been giving myself a bit of time away from the keyboard and the constant demand for new content. Have you missed me? Yeah, I thought not. Despite the relative lack of reviews (I mean, you still got two reviews), I’m SUPER excited about the first part of my interview with Peter Fehervari – I’ve been looking forward to this for ages, and I would really, really recommend checking it out even if you’ve never read any of Peter’s stories before. He’s a great guy, and I think his enthusiasm for and knowledge of 40k really shines through. I haven’t yet got a confirmed date for when I’ll be releasing the next part, but rest assured I’ll post it as soon as I can.
As usual, here’s a quick roundup of what I’ve posted so far this week:
- Blackshields: The Red Fief by Josh Reynolds.
- QUICK REVIEW: The Resolute by Josh Reynolds.
- Peter Fehervari Talks 40k and the Dark Coil.
Coming up…
If you’re hoping for something brand new at the weekend…well, I’ve no idea if you’ll be happy or not, as there doesn’t appear to be anything listed on the BL website. It might be a week of surprises, or it might be another quiet one – only time will tell. I do, however, think that Monday’s short story will be Sands of Blood by Josh Reynolds (the short story version of the Age of Sigmar audio drama) as I spotted that briefly show up on the BL site earlier.
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.