Black Library Weekly – W/C 01/10/18

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. There have been plenty of releases this week to talk about, including confirmation of another month’s worth of upcoming titles, so let’s get straight down to business.

Monday
After two weeks without a Digital Monday story, things returned almost to normal this week – no new short story, but there was a brand new short audio drama. Kill Shot by Ben Counter (£3.99 in MP3 audio) is an Officio Assassinorum audio, which as you can probably tell from the cover image is about a Vindicare assassin, and which lasts about 20 minutes. I’m sad to say that I was a bit disappointed by this one – the last Counter audio I listened to (Heart of Decay) was really good, but this didn’t really work for me.

I just didn’t warm to or really buy into any of the characters, and while there was an explanation of sorts I found it tough to see the main character’s constant descriptions of what she was seeing and doing as anything other than a fairly blunt way of cramming in exposition. Your mileage may vary, of course, but even for hardcore Counter fans I think there are better stories out there. Here’s my review.Midweek
It was a pretty quiet midweek on the BL front, so there’s not a lot to talk about. The regular Wednesday post on the Warhammer Community site was about the only big thing I spotted – this week it was all about ‘Orktober’, which in Black Library terms meant books and audio dramas featuring orks. Unsurprisingly the first thing on the list was the Beast Arises series, with the addition of stories set on Armageddon, and Guy Haley’s Red Sunz stories. If you’re relatively new to BL and fancy getting hold of some ork-focused reading or listening then this should be helpful, although there’s not really anything in it which will surprise long-term fans. Still, I like the idea of these sorts of themed posts.

One little thing I did spot while trawling Twitter came from David Annandale, in the form of the title for his next Neferata book – the ominous sounding The Dominion of Bones. Not only is that an AWESOME title, but David has finished his first draft – I’m sure it’ll be a while yet before we see anything more about that, but should be interesting.

Weekend
Unlike the midweek period, Saturday was a pretty busy day in Black Library terms. Not only was there the release of the latest brand new 40k novel, two omnibuses and a Horus Heresy mass market paperback, but January’s new releases were also announced – two novels, one anthology, one audio drama and two omnibuses. Plenty to talk about, so let’s start with the weekend’s releases.

The big story of the weekend is Dark Imperium: Plague War by Guy Haley, the sequel to the excellent Dark Imperium, which is available in hardback (£18) and ebook (£9.99) formats. No audiobook this time; the original Dark Imperium did get an audiobook, but if I remember rightly it wasn’t released at the same time as the print editions (although I might not be remembering correctly). Formats notwithstanding, this promises to be an interesting read if it’s anything like its predecessor. As usual I spoke to Guy for a quick Rapid Fire interview about this book, so have a read of that by clicking here or on the banner below.

If you don’t yet have the original Dark Imperium, there are a couple options it’s worth being aware of. Firstly, the ebook edition has been reduced to £5 for a little while now, so that’s the cheapest way of getting hold of it. It’s out in paperback (£8.99) and the aforementioned audiobook (£29.99), but interestingly the (£18 standard, not SE) hardback is still available as well. There’s even a one-click bundle which adds the hardback of both Dark Imperium and Plague War into your basket at the same time, although there’s no discount for buying them together.

The release schedule for Horus Heresy titles in the smaller, mass market paperback (MMPB) edition is pretty much locked in at one every two months these days, and Saturday saw that continue with the release of Shattered Legions in the usual £7.99 paperback. That means we’re now up to book 43 in MMPB and book 49 in trade paperback – Wolfsbane – while the upcoming hardback of Heralds of the Siege will be book 52. In case you’re not familiar, Shattered Legions is an anthology of stories regarding the Iron Hands, Raven Guard and Salamanders, featuring a novella and a bunch of short stories. You can check out my review of the anthology by clicking here.

Lastly there are two new paperback omnibuses, each priced at £14.99 in ebook or £15 in paperback. Keeping with the ‘Orktober’ theme, the first of these is The Beast Arises: Volume 1, which contains the first four novels in that series – I Am Slaughter by Dan Abnett; Predator, Prey by Rob Sanders; The Emperor Expects by Gav Thorpe and The Last Wall by David Annandale. The second omnibus is Gotrek and Felix: The First Omnibus by William King, which includes Trollslayer, Skavenslayer and Daemonslayer along with five short stories from King and a handful of other authors. Both of those omnibuses are bargains for what they include, so if you’ve not taken the plunge on either series then maybe now’s the time to do so.

As I mentioned earlier, as well as new releases available to order now, Saturday also brought with it confirmation of six titles which are going to be available to order in January. Here’s what’s what:

Celestine by Andy Clark
I know we shouldn’t judge books by their covers, and I know I’ve spoken at length about special editions and limited editions (and the problems with both), but just look at that cover! That’s how you do a limited edition, eh? Cover aside, this should be an interesting one. Andy’s featured Celestine before, in his novel Shroud of Night, so he’s got a bit of form writing about her, and I’m certainly looking forward to finding out a bit more about what she’s really like.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that as this is a ‘limited edition’ (as opposed to special edition) it looks like the standard formats won’t be available in January. Only time will tell whether they’re released three months later (as per the Primarchs novels and Neferata) or if the wait will be longer.

Anarch by Dan Abnett
It’s finally here. Well, almost. The fifteenth Gaunt’s Ghosts novel, and the fourth and final instalment in the story arc known as The Victory – and we’ve only had to wait a year between The Warmaster and this! It’s been confirmed to be available to pick up at the Black Library Weekender in November, where I think it’s going to be VERY popular. This one is going to fly off the shelves, I reckon!

Gods and Mortals (various authors)
This one looks very cool as well – a hardback Age of Sigmar short story anthology. I love a good anthology, and this features eighteen short stories, of which (I think) ten have been previously released as e-shorts while the other eight are brand new. Here’s the contents list, with links out to reviews of the stories already relased:

Nightfane by Nick Kyme
A new Horus Heresy audio drama, this one continues Nick’s work with one of the most engaging Ultramarines characters out there – Aeonid Thiel. It looks like it follows on from Red-Marked, and looks like it should be fun.

Blood Angels: The Complete Rafen Omnibus by James Swallow
This promises to be a beast of an omnibus in size terms, containing no fewer than four novels (Deus Encarmine, Deus Sanguinius, Red Fury and Black Tide) and five short stories. It should also be a nicely self-contained book, covering the whole of this story arc.

Warriors of the Chaos Wastes by CL Werner
The latest in the growing range of Warhammer Chronicles omnibuses, this contains three novels by CL Werner all focusing on Chaos characters. I don’t think they’re necessarily directly linked, rather it’s a thematic collection. It includes Wulfrik, Blood for the Blood God and Palace of the Plague Lords. Three classics!

So that’s it for January – lots to look forward to – but it also looks like Inferno Volume 2 is going to be coming our way in December. At the moment it’s not listed on the BL website, but is showing up on the GW site.Here’s the contents list:

  • The Merchant’s Tale by Guy Haley
  • The Thirteenth Psalm by Peter Fehervari
  • Spiritus in Machina by Thomas Parrott
  • From the Deep by Jaine Fenn
  • Faith in Thunder by Robert Charles
  • What Wakes in the Dark by Miles A Drake
  • Solace by Steve Lyons
  • Ties of Blood by Jaime Crisalli
  • Turn of the Adder by J C Stearns
  • No Honour Among Vermin by C L Werner

As usual, to finish off this section here’s a list of what else I’ve been posting about this week:

Thoughts on the week
After the mild disappointment of Monday’s new short audio drama, and a rather quiet midweek period, this week has been all about Saturday’s releases. In terms of titles available to order now, Plague War has got me quite excited (I even went back and re-read a bit of Dark Imperium to get myself in the mood for it), and judging by the page views so far for my Rapid Fire interview with Guy I’m not the only one interested in this book.

I’m really looking forward to January’s releases, though. I’m seriously tempted by all six of those releases, which is a pretty rare occasion – even the Warriors of the Chaos Wastes omnibus is tempting, despite the fact that I’m fairly sure I already own all of the novels individually! Meanwhile James Swallow’s Blood Angels series is something that’s always passed me by thus far, so the thought of having it all in one place is pretty positive. As for the others, I always enjoy reading new Age of Sigmar short stories, any new Heresy release is great, and Anarch is an absolute instant-buy.

Celestine is perhaps the most noteworthy of January’s releases, in my opinion. It’s kinda hard to look past that gorgeous cover, but if you can tear your eyes away from it what little information we have about the story itself sounds really interesting. The issue for me, however, is that once again this is a BL limited edition which is announced without all of the information I’d ideally like in order to make an informed decision. What’s the page count? Is there an additional short story included? More importantly, how long is the wait going to be before this comes out in standard editions? Don’t get me wrong, I’m very tempted by the LE…but I don’t understand why BL can’t provide ALL of the information up front, so that I – and everyone else – can see the full picture. Maybe one day.

Coming up…
Judging by the Community article which announced the new short audio dramas, Judge of the Wastes by David Annandale should be the next Digital Monday release. In terms of next weekend, it looks like Friday will bring with it the limited edition hardback of Corax: Lord of Shadows by Guy Haley, while the standard edition of Vulkan: Lord of Drakes by David Annandale should be available to order on 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.

2 comments

  1. Yes Celestine LE does look nice, especially the description of the cover having a tapestry effect (hopefully cloth bound then!).

    I agree re lack of page count information, as the spine looks incredibly thin for a Black Library novel

    Reply

    1. Yeah I spotted that, but I think it’s worth remembering that the image we’ve got at the moment may well not be fully representative of the final product. That being said, I’d still like some more info!

      Reply

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