Event Roundup: Black Library Live 2018

On Saturday 16th June, Warhammer World in Nottingham played host to Black Library Live 2018 – the latest event dedicated exclusively to Black Library. With seminars, signings, masses of books to buy and loads of other Black Library fans to chat with, it was a great day – and as usual I wanted to write up some of my thoughts about the event. This isn’t a fully comprehensive write up of the whole event, as there were too many seminars for one person to attend, so instead it’s an overall roundup of what I saw and how I felt it all went, including a Coming Soon section at the end. Spoiler – it was great, and everyone involved should be very proud!

Overview
2017’s Black Library Weekender was a fantastic event, and the Black Library team have set themselves high standards off the back of that – so I was pleased to see that BL Live lived up to those standards in terms of the overall planning and organisation that went into the event. I was attending with my mate Dan, and we got to Warhammer World around mid-afternoon on the day before the event so that we could have a look around and get in some games in Bugman’s Bar. Already the BL team were getting things ready, starting to set up the sales stand and bringing in mountains of books!

On the Saturday morning there was already a respectable queue by the time Dan and I arrived at about 8.30, but the doors opened promptly at nine and we were all inside nice and quickly, handing over our tickets in exchange for goody bags containing the day’s schedule, a free copy of the Hammerhal and Other Stories anthology and a flyer announcing the date of this year’s Black Library Weekender – it’s going to be the 3rd and 4th November, in case you’re interested. I like that there was no fuss about this, no grand announcement that we all had to wait around for at the end – just a matter of fact confirmation. As for the free book, it’s a nice touch – especially as the event ticket was already pretty good value at £15.

Walking into the main hall at Warhammer World, almost the whole back wall was dominated by a massive sales stand, packed full of books, audio CDs and merchandise. A particularly nice touch was a ‘Coming Soon’ cabinet, with copies of all of the books and CDs due to be released – from the new releases just out that day, all the way through to September’s upcoming titles. Quite a lot of those were also available to buy (more on this below), although BL were only teasing us with September’s releases – on the one hand it would have been great to be able to buy some of those (especially the new Ciaphas Cain novel!) but on the other hand my wallet would really not have thanked me.

As always at these events, huge credit has to go to the BL staff working on the sales stand, and indeed everywhere else – taking tickets, helping out getting everyone into the seminars, and so on. Everyone is always so friendly and so positive, and that really helps to maintain a similar atmosphere at the event. I don’t know everyone’s names, so apologies to those of you who I miss, but thanks so much to Neil, Charles, Abigail, Yannick and everyone else on the team. I was sad not to see Kelly – hope you’re recovering well, and see you at the next one!

Of course, a Black Library event wouldn’t be complete without the authors and artists to talk in seminars and sign books, and the BL editorial team to compère the seminars. I’ll talk a little about the seminars later on, but for now I’d like to thank all of the authors who took time out of their schedules to come and talk at the event – I’m consistently impressed by how friendly and knowledgeable all of the authors are, and as usual I really enjoyed listening in seminars and chatting to those authors I met in person. For me it was especially great to meet Darius Hinks and Phil Kelly for the first time – lovely to chat to both of you – and it was a pleasure as always to catch up with Josh, Guy, John, Chris and Andy.

In my write-up of last year’s Black Library Weekender I talked about how impressed I was with the preparation that the BL editorial team put in for the seminars, and how well they compèred the seminars. Everyone clearly takes this seriously, and at BL Live that preparation and planning was in evidence again – great work Hannah, Kate, Nick and Rachel and thanks once again for putting together well-structured and thought out seminars.

Releases
If you’re thinking about attending one of these events in future and wondering what was available to buy, let’s say there was plenty to choose from! As well as the dedicated Black Library bookshop in Warhammer World, the sales stand for the event focused mostly on new (or new-ish) titles and beautiful Special Editions, even including a few copies of SE hardbacks that aren’t available on the BL site any more (like Warden of the Blade). The main new releases for that weekend were all available, so that’s Soul Wars by Josh Reynolds (including the SE hardback), War of Secrets by Phil Kelly (which apparently sold out twice!), and Yarrick: The Omnibus by David Annandale.

One of the great things about these events is getting hold of pre-release titles, and BL didn’t disappoint. I might have missed one or two, but here’s a pretty comprehensive list of what was available to buy in advance of its main release date:

• Martyrs of Elysia by Chris Dows.
• Vulkan: Lord of Drakes by David Annandale (LE hardback).
• Callis and Toll: The Silver Shard by Nick Horth.
• Mephiston: Revenant Crusade by Darius Hinks.
• Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris by Chris Wraight (standard hardback).
• The Horusian Wars: Incarnation by John French.
• Hunger by Andy Smillie.
• Slaves to Darkness by John French.
• The Tainted Heart by CL Werner.
• Soulbound by George Mann.
• The Lords of Terra by Laurie Goulding, Robbie MacNiven and Ian St. Martin.

Here’s what I picked up, including a couple of duplicates for mates who couldn’t make it:

Plenty to choose from there, eh? On top of that impressive list there was a Black Library Live chapbook, which contained two short stories that had only been available digitally before (The Maiden of the Dream by John French and The Old Ways by Nick Horth) as well as a couple of event-exclusive anthologies. Both Sons of the Emperor and The Black Library Event Anthology 2017/18 were first released at previous events, but it’s good to see they’re still available now – lots of great stories across those two books.

And there was more! Two relatively old books – one 40k, one Warhammer – were available in paperback as Editor’s Choice titles: Blood of Asaheim by Chris Wraight and Skarsnik by Guy Haley. As I understand it, these are a bit like the books chosen by public vote – Drachenfels and Brothers of the Snake – just chosen by BL editors. It’s great to see these available once again in physical format, especially Skarsnik as there aren’t that many old-school Warhammer titles still available in paperback. They will apparently be getting a wider release than just at events, so keep an eye out for more information if you fancy picking up one of both of these titles.

Seminars and Signings
I’m not really one for getting books signed so I didn’t pay too much attention to the signings queues, but there were loads of them running throughout the day. If I’m being picky I’d say this was one of the few gaps in the overall organisation of the event, in that I was seeing people online asking for the signing schedule so that they could plan their day, but it wasn’t included in the advance information. I can only assume that was because the schedule wasn’t actually confirmed until shortly before the event, but I can understand that it must have been frustrating for those who were keen to get books signed. Hopefully next time this will be announced earlier on, to help with that planning.

In terms of the seminars, there was a total of ten running throughout the day, split across two rooms. In theory it would have been possible to go to five, with an hour for lunch, but Dan and I gave ourselves a bit more time to beat the queue for lunch in Bugman’s (no way we’d have managed to get served in time otherwise) and chat with other attendees, so I only made it to four seminars. They were really interesting seminars, though, so I was very happy with them!

One of the two seminar rooms was much smaller than the other, so sensibly the seminars in that room were ticketed. When we first arrived, after getting the goody bags we could pop over to a table to pick up tickets (hi Abigail!) for each of the five seminars in that room – they didn’t need paying for, but with only a limited number of seats in the room it made sense that these sessions would be first-come-first-served.

I was slightly surprised that there wasn’t an intro session (or a closing one, either) to kick things off, but I assume that was so that we could get straight into the seminars and fit so much into the day. As usual there were still lots of people buying books and generally settling in when the first seminars kicked off, but the one I was in soon filled up. I’m not going to go into masses of detail about what was discussed in each seminar (otherwise this post would be massive, and take me all day to write), but I’ll pick out a few highlights from each of the four that I attended.

The War of Souls with Josh Reynolds
With the new edition of Age of Sigmar just about to be released, and his novel Soul Wars available to pick up that very day, it made sense for there to be a seminar with Josh Reynolds talking about the book and the wider events taking place in Age of Sigmar. If you want to see all of the notes I took from this seminar as I live-tweeted them, take a look at this tweet which kicks of a LONG thread.

Josh is always good value in seminars, and he was on fine form in this one – chatting about the similarities between Nagash and Sigmar, the differences between Stormcast Eternals and Space Marines, some fascinating details about his novel and the specifics of the Mortal Realms, and his plans (which may or may not be serious) to write about farmers next time around. I’m not sure how much his editor Hannah – doing a great job as compère – appreciated the audience’s enthusiasm for stories about rutabaga farmers or the silk trade, though…

If you’re interested in Age of Sigmar, Josh is the man to follow on Twitter and come talk to at events – he’s written so much about the Mortal Realms, and has some fascinating insights into how things work. Also, Soul Wars sounds fascinating! I can’t wait to get stuck into it…

The Sound of Fury with Andy Smillie, George Mann, Chris Dows and Guy Haley
I’m a huge fan of BL’s audio dramas, so I always try to attend the audio seminars when I can. Apparently there should have been some audio clips to listen to in this seminar, but with four great authors – Andy Smillie, George Mann, Chris Dows and Guy Haley – there was plenty of interesting content even without any excerpts. I didn’t tweet quite so many times during this seminar, but you can still follow that thread by checking out this tweet.

The topics of conversation ranged from how the authors prepare for writing an audio script to what each author is particularly known for in audio, and why they chose those characters. I particularly enjoyed Andy’s comments on the three Flesh Tearers characters we writes about the most – and I can’t wait to listen to his latest audio, Hunger.One of the most interesting questions that Nick (Kyme, as compère) posed was about what each of the authors would particularly like to write about, for audio. Guy said he’d like to explore the Reforging of Stormcast Eternals (scope for great SFX there), Andy wants to write about an astropathic choir being infected by a Nurgle sorcerer (yes please!), and Chris is keen to write an audio set on a submarine…which is a brilliant idea! George’s suggestion was that he wants to write an audio really emphasising the idea of unreliable narrators, where every character is telling their side of the story and none of them are quite telling the truth. If any of those ideas come to fruition I’ll definitely look forward to listening to those stories.

War in the Shadows with John French
I could listen to John talk about the Inquisition all day, so I was particularly looking forward to this one – especially as I had a copy of his new novel The Horusian Wars: Incarnation in my bag waiting to be read! As before I did a bit of live-tweeting – you can check that out here – but I *may* have been a bit distracted listening to John, so I didn’t get that much done. If you haven’t read any of John’s Horusian Wars stories, they’re really worth checking out – but be aware that they’re not necessarily the easiest stories to read. They definitely reward you for paying attention as you’re reading them.

Something I really enjoyed about this seminar was the relationship between John and Nick (Kyme), who’s John’s editor for this series. It was great to see how much Nick clearly loves what John is doing with these stories, and get some of Nick’s thoughts on John’s writing. Anyone who’s interested in writing fiction could benefit, I think, from the conversation that ensued about how John takes a story with lots of characters and breaks them down into smaller groups so that they each have time to breathe, while it was interesting to hear that there ‘might be’ (i.e there definitely are) plans to combine the Horusian Wars short stories into a fourth volume. I’ll buy that!

Coming Soon from Black Library with Rachel Harrison, Kate Hamer and Hannah Hughes
The final seminar of the day for me was all about (some of) the books and audios coming out over the next few months. The deliberately vague answer as to when these are coming out was that we should expect them all to be available within the next twelve months or so. I would be very surprised if these are all of the upcoming releases – in fact if you look around online you’ll find other titles on Amazon and so on – so it really looks like there’s LOTS to look forward to.

Most of these books and audios had cool new artwork as well, which Graeme from the Warhammer Community team promptly made available on the Community site straight after the seminar. I’ve pinched the images from there where possible (and a couple from elsewhere online), as they’re MUCH better than my dodgy camera phone photos (although if you want to check those out as well, here they are) – click on each of them for bigger versions. There are a few, however, which didn’t have available artwork, so I’ve listed those as well with whatever detail I can remember!

Let’s start with the Horus Heresy…

Corax: Lord of Shadows by Guy Haley
Book 10 in the Primarchs series, and Guy’s second instalment. Rather than trying to remember what was discussed, here’s the synopsis (courtesy of Amazon):

During the Great Crusade, it falls to the primarch Corax of the Raven Guard to humble the immense void-cities of the Carinae. Determined to bring these worlds into compliance, he unleashes the might of his Legion and a massive war host of the Imperial Army. But the lords of Carinae are well defended and without remorse.

At the height of the conflict, at the void-city of Zenith, a dread bio-weapon from an ancient time is unleashed. At once, the Imperial force is brought to its knees, as allies are turned against each other and the Raven Guard left to face almost insurmountable odds. As the campaign teeters on the brink of failure, Corax’s desire for vengeance is severely tested against the need for a swift and certain resolution to the war.

Heralds of the Siege edited by Nick Kyme and Laurie Goulding (art by Neil Roberts)
This one is an anthology of Heresy short stories, and according to Amazon it’s going to be book 52 in the series…which suggests something like an October release date maybe? Of course, that could just be Amazon getting it wrong. Once again, here’s the synopsis:

A galaxy burns and brother turns on brother as the conflict brought about by a beloved son’s betrayal reaches its fateful end. The Warmaster Horus has triumphed. His massive fleet at last nears Terra and the patriarchal Throne of his hated father. Many have fallen to bring this moment about, their tales are the ashes upon which the Heresy was born and prospered. Others have played their own small parts, drops in an ocean of war and blood. None of it matters. Terra looks to the skies as it raises its defences. Armies muster, heroes raise their swords, citizens cower. The war is coming. And nothing can stop it.

This anthology includes sixteen stories set during the Horus Heresy, some of which are in print for the first time or were originally released as audio dramas, by authors Gav Thorpe, Chris Wraight, John French, James Swallow, Guy Haley, Nick Kyme, Rob Sanders and Anthony Reynolds.

Visions of Heresy (art by Neil Roberts)
A new, updated version of Visions, incorporating the new artwork which has been released since the last version was published. I gather Guy Haley has been involved in this, although I don’t know whether that means he’s written the text, or whether he’s been involved more from an editorial perspective. Coming December 2018, in time for Christmas. When someone asked how many more versions of Visions there would be before the Heresy came to an end, the answer was along the lines of ‘as many as would be appropriate’ – in other words, presumably at least one.

Hubris of Monarchia by Andy Smillie
No artwork for this one yet, but it’s a new Heresy audio drama. Here’s the info that was on the slide:

Captain Alcaeus of the Ultramarines plans on joining the muster at Calth but will not rest until the greenskin overlord of the Ghaslakh Empire is purged. His obsession drives him to greater and greater feats but in his zeal has Alcaeus not realised the true enemy?

Titan Death by Guy Haley
Another one without artwork yet, and also coming December 2018, this is Guy Haley’s third Heresy novel. If Heralds of the Siege does come out in October/November then presumably this will be book 53, but time will tell. Here’s the info from the slide, again:

The Siege of Terra looms, and Titans fight against Titans as the God-Machines of Loyalists and Traitors alike clash in a world-ending battle that will decide the next stage of the war.

A couple of Heresy-related tidbits that I picked up during the seminar:

• We should find out ‘before the end of the year’ when the first Siege of Terra novel will be released – so look out for that release sometime next year, I guess.
• We’ll hear about a Death Guard novel from James Swallow (which I took to mean a Heresy novel) ‘in the summer’.

Next let’s look at 40k…

Spear of the Emperor by Aaron Dembski-Bowden (art by Marc Lee)
What a beautiful piece of cover art that is! I can’t find a synopsis yet, but the slide did have this to say about it: ‘An in-depth look into a Primaris Space Marine Chapter, the Emperor’s Spears, and the effect of their isolation from the wider Imperium.’

I suspect this will be a popular one, hence why it’s going to get an ‘epic limited edition…followed by a hardback edition around six months later.’ While there was no official confirmation of what ‘epic’ refers to there, it was implied that this would be something different to what we normally see in the SE/LE hardbacks. Personally I hope it’s not too much like the £85 The Warmaster LE, which didn’t really work for me – or plenty of other people, apparently, as there are still copies available online. Time will tell, though.

Rise of the Ynnari: Wild Rider by Gav Thorpe (art by Anna Lakisova)
The sequel to Gav’s Ghost Warrior, here’s the info from the slide about this one: ‘Yvraine and her Ynnari warriors combine forces with the fierce aeldari of Craftworld Saim Hann against an ancient threat.’

Not too much to go on there, although the Community article hints at ‘something metal and skeletal’ while Rachel made a point of talking about how the artwork is unusually bright and positive for 40k…although the landscape is unlikely to remain so pristine for long!

Dark Imperium: Plague War by Guy Haley (art by Igor Sid)
This one got some ‘oohs’ when the cover came up in the slideshow – the sequel to Dark Imperium. There wasn’t much info provided about the story, but I did manage to find this – once again courtesy of Amazon:

In the void and upon the worlds of Greater Ultramar, the battle for the Imperium continues.

Intent on rebuilding his home realm and using it as base to reconstruct the ravaged stellar empire of mankind, the returned primarch Roboute Guilliman proceeds with his war to drive Mortarion and his Death Guard Traitor Legion from the domain of the Ultramarines.

But when Guilliman brings his brother to battle upon the diseased plains of Parmenio, the intervention of a greater power in their fraternal struggle threatens to upend the Imperial Regent’s understanding of the galaxy, and his place within it.

Primarchs and ideologies clash in this second, thrilling part of the Dark Imperium trilogy.

Celestine: The Living Saint by Andy Clark (art by Kevin Chin)
This was another to get an excited reaction from the audience, while editor Kate talked about it being one to watch. The artwork is certainly gorgeous, and Andy’s already covered Celestine a little in his novel Shroud of Night. Here’s what the slide had to say about this: ‘Saint Celestine is the living embodiment of the God-Emperor’s might, yet little has been told about the trials she faces to be reborn. Until now. Released as a sumptuous limited edition, followed by a hardback edition around six months later.’

Prophets of Waaagh! by Guy Haley
A brand new audio drama, according to the Community article this sees ‘the Red Sunz Mek Mob from the novella Evil Sun Rising and audio drama Klaw of Mork fight their way back to prominence.’ The cover art is fantastic, and the slide talked about how the orks are ‘fighting not only to survive, but for the shooty-fun of it too!’ Sold.

Inferno! volume 1 (art by Lie Setiawan)
I’m particularly excited about this, as I love short story anthologies and I have incredibly fond memories of the old Inferno! magazines. I’ve talked about this before, but in case you missed that here’s the contents list:

1. David Annandale – The Unsung War
2. Peter McLean – No Hero
3. Evan Dicken – The Path to Glory
4. Mike Brooks – A Common Ground
5. Steven Fischer – The Emperor’s Wrath
6. Josh Reynolds – Waking the Dragon
7. Nate Crowley – The Enemy of my Enemy
8. Josh Reynolds – How Vido Learned the Trick
9. Danie Ware – Mercy
10. Guy Haley – At the Sign of the Brazen Claw

The plan for Inferno! is for there to be a new volume roughly every four months. That sounds like a lot of work to get all those short stories written and edited, but I would LOVE to get three of these anthologies per year.

Gaunt’s Ghosts – Anarch by Dan Abnett
No artwork yet for this one, but it was great to see it being confirmed and on the schedule. In case you’re not aware, this is the fifteenth Gaunt’s Ghosts novel, and the fourth and final part of the arc known as The Victory. Somebody asked if this would be the final ever Gaunt’s Ghosts novel, and the slightly non-committal answer was that if Dan writes another one, BL will publish it. Great news!

Here are a couple of extra bits and pieces of 40k info I picked up during the seminar:

• There are no plans for new Space Marine Battles books at the moment – those sorts of stories will be released under the Space Marine Conquests series.
• Someone asked if we’ll see more Last Chancers stories from Gav – Hannah suggested that she’s meeting with Gav soon to discuss his schedule, and implied (although didn’t confirm) that it *might* be possible.

Lastly let’s take a look at Age of Sigmar…

Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods by David Guymer (art by Jake Murray)
David has been writing about Hamilcar for a while now, in various audios and short stories, but this is the first time he’s had a novel of his own. Here’s what the slide said: ‘Captured by a skaven warlock, Hamilcar Bear-Eater must call upon every trick, ally and favour just to survive, because his next death could be his last.’ That sounds like a nice reversal for such a confident character – should be fun.

Realmslayer by David Guymer (art by Johan Grenier)
Another Age of Sigmar story from David, this is the triumphant return of Gotrek Gurnisson to the Mortal Realms in a four-part audio drama boxed set…in which Gotrek is voiced by none other than Brian Blessed! Here’s the info from the slide: ‘When Gotrek Gurnisson learns of the Stormcast Eternals, human champions elevated to immortality, he knows why fate has brought him to the Mortal Realms. To find Felix.’ For a slightly extended version, here’s what Amazon has listed:

Gotrek Gurnisson was the greatest monster slayer of the age, who met his doom at the End Times. The heroic duardin stepped forth into the Realm of Chaos to fight the daemons gnawing at the world’s ending and satisfy his death oath, leaving behind his companion Felix Jaeger. Now Gotrek has returned, having outlived the old gods and the Old World.

Spat from the ruinous depths with his redemption unfulfilled, he emerges into the Mortal Realms, a strange new world where gods walk the earth and dark forces are ascendant. Nothing is as he remembers. His oaths are dust, and the lands are torn asunder by Chaos. Yet when Gotrek learns of human champions being elevated to immortality for Sigmar’s fight against this darkness, the so-called ‘Stormcast Eternals’, he knows why fate has brought him into this new age. To find Felix. For only then can he find the peace in death he seeks. But is there more to Gotrek’s apotheosis than even he can fathom? Has he truly been chosen by Grimnir and for what purpose?

I really can’t wait to listen to this, not least because as a four-part audio drama there should be loads of space for the story to really develop.

Hallowed Knights: Black Pyramid by Josh Reynolds
Check out that cover! You can’t quite tell from this picture, but the wider cover shows Gardus and a couple of other Stormcasts doing their best superhero landings, emerging from the storm. Great stuff! In case you weren’t aware, this is the sequel to Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden, and according to the slide: ‘Continuing the tale of Gardus Steelsoul and his Warrior Chamber of Stormcast Eternals as they are tested anew in Shyish, the Realm of Death.’

On a related note, there are apparently plans for a sequel to Spear of Shadows from Josh, but he’s being kept very busy so it won’t be for a while.

Did I say lastly? Well, there was one more announcement…

Warhammer Horror
Hot on the heels of the announcement of Warhammer Adventures, a range of Black Library books for younger readers – as well as Peter Fehervari’s prophetic comments in this interview – comes another brand new range. Warhammer Horror…sounds ominous, but brilliant!

So far all the confirmed information is that it’s coming in 2019, although according to the BL Facebook page there should be more information on the 4th of July. A few notes I made during the seminar were that it’s going to feature both 40k and Age of Sigmar, that no dates are confirmed yet but it should be with us within the next year or so, and that it will allow an even more in-depth exploration of existing themes than at the moment.

Looking back through my tweets there are a handful of other snippets of information, so I’ll combine those here as they’re not specific to the Heresy, 40k or Age of Sigmar:

• There should be some more Necromunda stories ‘next year’.
• It’s ‘unknown’ at the moment whether there will be new Blood Bowl stories any time soon.
• The plan is for digital-only short stories to eventually get physical releases, but there were no confirmed releases (although I reckon Inferno! might be a good place to see some of those, in future).
• There will be a Summer of Reading campaign this year.
• It’s *possible* that we might see new stories set in the Old World at some point in the future!

And that’s everything I can find and/or remember about the Coming Soon seminar. Lots to look forward to, eh?

***

So there you have it. This has turned into something of an essay (not surprising, given my track record) but I hope there’s been plenty of interesting information in there for anyone who couldn’t make it to Black Library Live this year. I’m sure there will be other sources of information elsewhere online if you’re after details of what happened in the other seminars – if I could have attended all ten then I would have!

In case it wasn’t obvious, I had an absolute blast at this year’s event, and I was once again impressed by how well organised and well run it all was. I’ve said it before, but thanks again to all of the BL staff and authors (and artist, although I didn’t manage to chat to Neil Roberts) for putting on such a good event. If I’m being SUPER picky then I’d love for BL to put a little more information out as early as possible to help us plan – things like the start and end times would be really helpful, in terms of booking trains etc. That really is being picky, though! If you’ve got this far and are still unconvinced about attending a BL event, then I don’t know what more I can say – other than give it a try!

Lastly, I’d like to thank all of the other fans who I met on Saturday and who contributed to an event which saw me smiling from start to finish. It’s always really humbling when someone recognises me from writing Track of Words, and this time around I met so many people who I’d previously only interacted with online – it’s brilliant to put faces to names/Twitter handles! I hope everyone enjoyed the event as much as I did, and all being well I hope I’ll see lots of you again at the Weekender in November!

As always, if you’ve got thoughts, comments, questions and so on then feel free to leave a comment below, or find me on Facebook or Twitter!