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’s been all about brand new releases, with even the midweek news concerning…you guessed it…brand new releases. Lots of interesting stuff to look at, so as usual let’s jump straight in.
Monday
After a couple of weeks without a brand new Digital Monday story – the last two have been prose versions of older audio dramas – it’s nice to see something fully new this week. Monday’s new release was The Twisted Runes by Matt Smith (£2.49 in ebook), the second of Matt’s short stories to be released after In Service Eternal back in 2016. This time the focus is on the Silver Skulls, making this (I believe) only the eighth story to involve that particular Chapter and the first to have been written by anyone other than Sarah Cawkwell.
It’s always nice to see someone else take a crack at a faction normally written by a single author, and this story takes a slightly different approach to Cawkwell’s stories by focusing on a character who’s a little different to the Silver Skulls we’ve seen before. You can have a read of my review by clicking here; suffice to say it’s an interesting take, even if it didn’t fully hit the spot for me. Worth investigating, though, if you’re at all interested in this Chapter.
Midweek
I’ve made no bones about the fact that I’m a MASSIVE fan of Black Library’s audio content – I even went so far as to write a Warhammer Community article about audiobooks and audio dramas last year. If you keep an eye on my reviews you’ll probably know that I’ve listened to a good number of audio dramas this year (fun fact: I’ve reviewed fifteen audios so far in 2018) and have – as far as I recall – given excellent reviews to each and every one. Why am I telling you this? Well, because this week’s BL-related Warhammer Community post was all about a bunch of new ‘commuter audios’ that are coming out very soon, and I couldn’t be much more excited!
What’s a ‘commuter audio’? It’s just a snappy name for the sort of short 20-ish minute audios that BL sometimes release, which are understandably well-suited to listening to on your morning or evening travel to or from work. Recently we’ve seen CL Werner’s Guns of the Black Eagle as well as no fewer than three orky audios (making up Prophets of Waaagh!) from Guy Haley, and they’ve all been a lot of fun. I know I’m a bit biased because I’m such a big fan of audios, but I really can’t wait to check out these new ones.
And you know what’s even better? Not only have the Community team confirmed that they’re coming, they’ve given us the title, synopsis and release date for all four! Here are some very quick details, but check out the article for more info (bearing in mind the release dates and release order has changed since the article first went live):
- 1st October: Kill Shot by Ben Counter – an Officio Assassinorum audio about a Vindicare assassin.
- 8th October: Judge of the Wastes by David Annandale – an Astra Militarum/Imperial Guard ghost story.
- 22nd October: The Denied by Josh Reynolds – a Hallowed Knights story, this time about a Knight-Questor on the hunt for an aelf corsair.
- 5th November: The Interrogation of Salvor Lermentov by Chris Wraight – a Vaults of Terra story featuring Inquisitor Crowl from Chris’ excellent The Carrion Throne.
So they all sound good fun, right? You’ve probably noticed that they’re being released one per week – they’re going to be in place of the usual Digital Monday short stories. While I’m always going to be greedy and want both prose and audio stories, I’m still really looking forward to these! I love that the release dates have been confirmed – it’s nice to see BL giving us specific advance notice. If you still haven’t taken the plunge into audio, I reckon one of these might just be the time to give it a try – and you can plan accordingly!
The only other interesting thing I spotted during the week was the chance to win a special edition copy of Robbie MacNiven’s upcoming Ultramarines novel Blood of Iax over on the Black Library Facebook page. This time there’s a line from a non-specified BL book, and to win you just need to add a comment with the name of the character being referred to – the closing date is the 27th September. Good luck!
Weekend
Just two releases this weekend, but they’re both brand new titles and they both look great! First up is a new 40k audio drama – Taker of Heads by Ian St. Martin, available in the usual CD (£12) and MP3 (£9.99) formats. It’s a Mortifactors story, featuring a character who Ian wrote about (later on in his long life) in the short story Deathwatch: Swordwind, and promises to take a good long look at this unusual Chapter of Space Marines. There’s an excerpt available on the BL website (or in the audio app) if you fancy a taste of what to expect, and as usual I also have a quick Rapid Fire interview with Ian which you can read by clicking here or on the image below.
The other release this weekend is Shadespire: The Mirrored City by Josh Reynolds, which you can pick up in hardback (£18) or ebook (£9.99) formats. As I’m writing this I can’t see an audiobook for this, although there’s a banner on the BL site which mentions MP3 audio so we’ll see whether that’s a mistake or whether an audiobook is coming. Either way, it’s going to be great to read about Shadespire and explore that setting – it’s always good to get hold of a new Josh Reynolds novel, and he’s not showing any signs of slowing down in terms of his contributions to the Age of Sigmar for Black Library! Once again, you can have a read of a Rapid Fire interview with Josh by clicking here or on the banner below.
Thoughts on the week
Three brand new releases – short story, audio drama, novel – plus news of four new short audio dramas due for release in the next month or two…I’d say there’s been some great new Black Library content this week! It’s been quite a compact week, with only a few points of interest, but they’ve all been really interesting, and I’m very happy with that. I don’t think there needs to be MASSES of different things happening, or even loads of different releases, as long as everything that does happen is cool (although to be fair I’m not averse to there being LOTS of cool things either!).
I think of everything that’s happened during the week I’m most excited about the ‘commuter audios’ news. All four of the short audios sound really cool, and (in my opinion) it’s great to see BL continuing to experiment with different styles of storytelling – if these four are as good as the last four (Clint’s Kharadron audio and Guy’s three ork audios) then I think we’re in for a real treat, and I would definitely be up for regular audio drama releases like this. The fact that two of them are linked into existing series is really just the icing on the cake, for me at least. I appreciate that not everyone wants to listen to audios (although I hope you all at least give them a try), and likewise that some would prefer physical releases rather than electronic, but I wouldn’t worry too much as a 20-25 minute audio is only ever going to be a very short story, and therefore is unlikely to be CRUCIAL to the ongoing series. I guess BL can’t please everyone, but I for one am definitely pleased by these new stories!
I’d also like to point you towards the first ‘Black Library Author Introduction’ interview that I’ve done, with Matt Smith, which I posted on Thursday. I’m always keen to support new releases with my Rapid Fire interviews, but this is the first time I’ve interviewed an author as a way of introducing them to BL fans and giving them the chance to talk a bit about themselves. I’d really like to know what you – the BL fans and readers – think of that sort of interview, and whether you’d be interested in reading more of them, so please do let me know!
As usual, here’s a list of what I’ve been posting about over the last few days – lots of interviews this week!
- Rise of the Ynnari: Ghost Warrior by Gav Thorpe
- The Twisted Runes by Matt Smith
- Getting Started With Black Library – Age of Sigmar
- Black Library Author Introduction – Matt Smith
- RAPID FIRE: Ian St. Martin Talks Taker of Heads
- RAPID FIRE: Josh Reynolds Talks Shadespire: The Mirrored City
Coming up…
Next week’s big release is Blood of Iax by Robbie MacNiven, which is going to be available in both normal and special editions. That’s the only title I can see, but it could be that BL also drop a paperback or something like that at the same time. Roll on next Saturday!
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.