Black Library Weekly – W/C 20/08/18

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 little unusual in that there’s been very little in the way of BL-related news, but instead there’s been a load of new releases with the latest ‘Summer of Reading’ campaign. Let’s get straight into that, shall we?

Summer of Reading
In case you’ve never seen one of these campaigns before, pretty much every year (occasionally more often) Black Library spend a week releasing a new short story every day, in digital format as usual. This year the stories cover the main three settings – 40k, Age of Sigmar and the Horus Heresy – and come from an interesting mix of new and more established authors. They’re available individually, for £2.49 each, or as a subscription bundle for £12.45 – which works out as 7 stories for the price of 5. If you’re only interested in certain stories then you might be best off cherry picking those individually, but if you think you might get all of them then the subscription is definitely the way to go.

I’ve been reviewing these as I’m reading them, and I’m happy to say that (as I write this) all of them I’ve read so far have been really good, and for different reasons. Here’s a rundown of the seven stories, with links where appropriate – so far I’ve reviewed the first four, with further reviews to come.

Two Metaphysical Blades by Chris Wraight
The week kicked off with an unusual but highly effective Horus Heresy story, which takes place at various points from long before the birth of the Imperium to the Siege of Terra and beyond. It’s not exactly what you’d call an easy read, but it’s crammed full of really interesting moments and ideas, and should appeal to any Heresy fan who likes digging beneath the surface of things. There’s also lots of Valdor and Russ, which is cool! Well worth checking out.

Blacktalon: When Cornered by Andy Clark
There’s a full novel about Neave Blacktalon from Andy coming out soon (although it’s been pushed back a little from the original September release date), and this is an excellent way to get yourself in the mood with a sneak peek of what to expect. It turns out Blacktalon is a total badass (who knew, eh?) and really quite different to your usual Stormcast, which bodes well for the novel. This is a fun little story, which also continues the trend in recent AoS tales of nicely exploring yet another region of the Mortal Realms. Check it out.

A Company of Shadows by Rachel Harrison
Rachel’s short story Execution was one of my highlights of 2017, and the follow-up doesn’t disappoint. It’s another really strong and characterful story, with lots more of the awesome Commissar Raine but also some great exploration of another character – the sergeant of one of the Antari squads – who seems to be getting set up as quite an important character. It’s dark and gritty, and Harrison writes these Guard characters just SO well – I’ve got a feeling we’re going to see lots more about the Antari in future.

The Armour of Fate by Guy Haley
Most Black Library stories – in any format and of any length – tend to focus on putting the War in Warhammer, which is awesome…but it’s nice to read an occasional story which doesn’t have quite such a tangible conflict at its heart. This is one such story, dealing with Guilliman’s attempts to find out what will happen if he finally removes his armour, and it provides a valuable opportunity to get a sense of the man in a more relaxed, informal setting than usual. There’s some really great dialogue, and you feel Haley enjoyed playing upon some of the classic Ultramarines stereotypes here.

The Learning by David Guymer
The Idoneth Deepkin are such a new faction that this is only the second story to feature them, but it’s another intriguing tale which digs into a little bit of what makes them so damn creepy. Rather than see them at war, however, this looks at something a little smaller scale and less focused on the miniatures range. If you’re at all interested in Age of Sigmar, the Mortal Realms and the many strange inhabitants therein, this is worth reading.

Lightning Run by Peter McLean
I haven’t read this one yet, largely because the subscription seems to have gone a bit wrong (this is fairly common, to be honest) and I haven’t been able to download it as yet. I’m always keen to read about the Imperial Navy (or Aeronautica Imperialis, these days), however, as there’s still so little written about them, so I’m looking forward to this. Considering how dark and disturbing McLean’s first BL story (Baphomet by Night) was, I’m slightly nervous though!

Prologue to Nikaea by David Annandale
Finishing off the week with a second Horus Heresy story, this one sees David Annandale tackling Malcador during the Great Crusade. Once again I haven’t yet read this, but I do enjoy the occasional pre-Horus Heresy story and this one promises to shed some light on the ever-present question of why there was so much pressure to curb the Librarius. Should be really interesting to read this, although I’m not expecting any concrete answers!

Weekend releases
On top of those seven short stories, the weekend saw the release of a brand new Space Marine Conquests novel (the fourth in the series), the second Realmgate Wars omnibus, and the paperback edition of one of the best BL books from 2017- lots to enjoy!

First off, we’ve got Of Honour and Iron by Ian St. Martin, which is available as per the previous instalments of this series in paperback (£8.99) and ebook (£6.99) formats – like the old Space Marine Battles series used to be, it seems as though BL are treating this as an entry point into the fiction and pricing accordingly, which is a good move. The first three books in this series have been really interesting, so I’ve got high hopes for this, and I’ve enjoyed all of Ian’s BL stories so far! If you’d like to know just a little more about it before parting with your money, have a read of my latest Rapid Fire interview by clicking here, or on the image below.

Next up is The Realmgate Wars: Volume 2, the second HUGE Age of Sigmar omnibus to come out in three weeks. For the bargain price of £15 (in paperback, or £14.99 for the ebook) you can pick up no fewer than six of the Realmgate Wars books all in a single volume – although bear in mind that two of those books are collections of short stories/prose versions of audio dramas. If you haven’t yet read these books, this – in conjunction with the first volume – is without a doubt the way to get hold of them. £30 for eleven novels, a novella and a short story? Bargain. Here’s a quick reminder of what’s included in this volume:

There is in fact also a one-click collection of the two Realmgate Wars omnibuses in paperback, called The Complete Realmgate Wars Collection – there’s no additional discount for buying this, but I guess it saves a couple of extra clicks if you’re feeling lazy. To be honest, I assumed it was an ebook collection at first, but a quick test shows that it just adds the two paperbacks into your basket.

Last up we’ve also got the paperback of Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor’s Legion by Chris Wraight, which is available for the princely sum of £8.99 – although the ebook (still £9.99, sadly) and MP3 audio (£29.99) editions are also available. There’s no denying it, this is a FANTASTIC book, tackling some of the coolest events taking place around the change from ‘old’ 40k to the new Dark Imperium timeline, and putting both the Adeptus Custodes and the Sisters of Silence front and centre. I was actually slightly surprised to realise that it wasn’t already out in paperback as the hardback came out way back in October 2017, but if you’ve been patiently waiting that long – or just haven’t got around to picking it up – I’d really recommend checking it out. You can have a read of my review here, or if you’d like to hear some of Chris’ thoughts on it you can read a Rapid Fire interview with him by clicking here or on the banner below.

Thoughts on the week
As I said at the top of the article, there really hasn’t been much in the way of Black Library-related news this week – as far as I can tell there wasn’t even the usual Wednesday post on the Warhammer Community site, although that’s perhaps there was a quick post on Monday about the Summer of Reading stuff. Still, beggars can’t be choosers and at least we got LOADS of new content this week.

I am, however, quite proud to point out that on Sunday of last week (after I’d posted last week’s roundup, so too late to be included in that) the BL Facebook page put up a post about David Annandale’s Neferata novel and the Rapid Fire interview he did with me! That was really nice to see, especially as it was included in the weekly email as well – even if it did actually link to the review of the book rather than the interview. Still, it was really nice to see Track of Words publicised by BL, and I was really pleased to see it!

In terms of the week’s releases, I don’t think there’s a huge amount to say that I haven’t already mentioned, other than to reiterate how much I’m enjoying the Summer of Reading stories so far. While it’s a teeny bit frustrating that the subscription (or at least the delivery mechanism for it) hasn’t quite worked as it should, I’m still really pleased with the standard of the stories I’ve been able to read so far. I’ll hopefully put together a quick roundup post once I’ve read the last couple of them, but suffice to say I think there’s a lot within these stories that will be of interest to fans. I know some people prefer to wait and pick these sort of short stories up when they’re released in physical form, but there’s a fair chance you’ll have to wait quite a while for some of these – so if you can bring yourself to go for the ebooks, I’d really recommend checking them out!

As usual, here’s what I’ve been posting about this week…

Coming up…
I’ve been waiting for this for SUCH A LONG TIME! Next week sees the release of the latest Ciaphas Cain novel, Choose Your Enemies by Sandy Mitchell, and I couldn’t be more excited! We should also see Key of Infinity and Other Stories, which is a great little collection of short 40k audio dramas from last year’s Advent Calendar.

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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