Black Library Weekly – W/C 08/10/18

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. I’ve spent a lot of this week working on my 1,000th post on Track of Words, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit worn out and don’t write too much for this one! Don’t get me wrong, there’s been some very interesting BL-related news, and so let’s take a look…

Monday
The week kicked off with another ‘commuter audio’ release for Digital Monday, following on from last week’s Kill Shot. This week it was the turn of David Annandale with Judge of the Wastes, which is available in MP3 audio for £3.99. It’s a satisfyingly creepy little ghost story, which makes excellent use of the audio medium and really seems to play to David’s strengths – very much a story which plays inside its main character’s head, rather than being a guns blazing action story. Have a read of my review if you want to know more, but the long and short of it is this: go buy it now, it’s definitely worth listening to!

Midweek
Just the one thing showed up during the week, but it was – as these things go – pretty darn exciting! This week’s Black Library-related Warhammer Community post, which landed as usual on Wednesday, provided the first pieces of information we’ve seen about a brand new series of ‘collectable’ novellas, which are going to be available to order from the 3rd November – and will be available to pick up at the Weekender. That’s right, a series of novellas – ten in all! These had previously been mentioned on the Weekender page over on the BL website, but until now we hadn’t seen any details of what to expect.

I must confess, when I first found out about a collectable novella series I automatically jumped to the conclusion that they would be special edition hardbacks, and therefore would cost an arm and a leg. It’s that word ‘collectable’, which isn’t something BL have used much in the past but which made me assume that these were going to be posh editions. As it turns out, they’re going to be in paperback, and while individual prices haven’t yet been confirmed the word is that they’re going to be nice and affordable – like, less than £5 each affordable.

What that tells me is that the six ‘Start Here With Black Library’ novellas that I’ve been talking about recently – and which for some reason weren’t (and still aren’t) available direct from BL – were an exercise in testing the water. If these new novellas are the same price, i.e. £3 each, then I predict they’re going to sell like absolute hot cakes! I really, really hope that’s the case, because it would be a brilliant statement for Black Library to make, acknowledging that there’s a place for short, cheap books which provide a great entry point to the daunting world of Warhammer fiction.

The signs are all pretty promising, then, helped by the fact that all ten of these novellas are brand new stories, and also that we’re talking ‘Novella Series 1’…which the Community article confirms to mean there will be more. It’s also been confirmed via the BL Facebook page that while these aren’t (yet, at least) going to have audio editions they are going to be available as ebooks as well as paperbacks. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s going to be available:

• The Bloodied Rose by Danie Ware: a Sisters of Battle story featuring Sister Superior Augusta from Danie’s short story Mercy.
• Steel Daemon by Ian St. Martin: this looks like a story about tank crew, but on the BL Facebook page it talks about a Cadian airman. Interesting.
• Auric Gods by Nick Kyme: a 40k-era Adeptus Custodes story, which according to Nick on Twitter “utilises a lot of the new Adeptus Custodes lore”.
• Spear of Ultramar by David Annandale: a Horus Heresy story that’s a prequel to the Siege of Terra, exploring why Guilliman didn’t make it to Terra in time.
• Dreadwing by David Guymer: another Siege of Terra prequel, this time focused on Lion El’Jonson and the Dark Angels.
• Wanted: Dead by Mike Brooks: a Necromunda story, which judging by the cover focuses on House Escher. More Necromunda is always welcome!
• Warqueen by Darius Hinks: an Age of Sigmar story about a Darkoath Warqueen, a character Darius described on Twitter as “proper brutal”.
• The Red Hours by Evan Dicken: Age of Sigmar once more, I’m not sure what this one is going to be about but judging by the cover it’ll focus on mortal humans, not Stormcast.
• The Bone Desert by Robbie MacNiven: a real surprise this – a Gotrek Gurnisson story for Age of Sigmar, nicely coinciding with David Guymer’s Realmslayer audio dramas.
• Heart of Winter by Nick Horth: one final Age of Sigmar story; I’m guessing from the cover that this is going to be about Arika Zenthe from City of Secrets and The Silver Shard.

They all look very interesting indeed, to me! I’m pretty sure I’ll end up buying all of them, especially if they’re only £3 each. I’ve seen a few grumbles online about the numbers on the spines, as though it’s a genuine problem for anyone who doesn’t want to buy all ten – to which I would say that not only is it not the end of the world to have books whose spines don’t match, but if they turn out to be £3 each then it might not be the biggest hardship to get the lot anyway! That’s ten novellas for less than the price of two hardbacks.

If you’re not sure whether you fancy picking these up, keep checking the Black Library Facebook page for more information about each of them. Once the Weekender is over and I’ve got my hands on the lot, I’ll also do my best to provide a bit more information about them as well!

Weekend
I had expected the weekend to start a little early, with the release of the limited edition hardback for Guy Haley’s Corax: Lord of Shadows on Friday – that’s certainly what the GW website had suggested. As it happened, that release date looks to have been pushed back by a week and a bit, so Lord of Shadows is now due for release on the 20th. Ah well, not the end of the world – another week isn’t too long to wait, and there’s no harm in my Rapid Fire interview with Guy being available to read a week in advance!

What was released, on Saturday, was Vulkan: Lord of Drakes by David Annandale in two of the usual standard edition formats. That’s hardback (£12.99) and ebook (£9.99), as while the banner on the BL site also mentions audiobook, as yet there’s no sign of that particular format. Hopefully it’ll turn up soon, for all the fans who prefer to listen to their Primarchs novels! Lord of Drakes is the ninth novel in this series, which means that barring any surprises like Alpharius and Omegon getting a book each, we’re now halfway through the series! For a bit more information about what to expect from this one, have a read of my Rapid Fire interview with David (from when it came out in LE hardback) by clicking here or on the image below.

That’s it for the weekend’s new releases, but as I mentioned at the top of the article this week – Saturday to be precise – saw me publish my 1,000th post on Track of Words. I still can’t quite believe I’ve hit that particular milestone – it’s like a Space Marine Chapter of articles! After asking for suggestions on Twitter, and through my gaming and reading group, I settled on writing a retrospective post, which turned out to take me A LONG TIME to write, but which I’m really quite proud of. You can have a read of that here if you haven’t checked it out yet, but be warned – it’s quite long!

As usual, here’s a full list of this week’s posts – including my Rapid Fire interview with Guy which ended up being a week early! Ah well.

• Inferno! Volume 1 – Tales From the Worlds of Warhammer
• QUICK REVIEW: Judge of the Wastes by David Annandale
• QUICK REVIEW: The Unsung War by David Annandale
• QUICK REVIEW: No Hero by Peter McLean
• RAPID FIRE: Guy Haley Talks Corax: Lord of Shadows
• One Thousand Posts on Track of Words

Thoughts on the week
For me it’s been a slightly strange week, as I’ve kept myself super busy writing all of the week’s Track of Words content, not least my 1,000th post, while also getting excited about the new novella series. I also realised that it’s now less than three weeks until the Black Library Weekender, which means it’s about time for me to start properly thinking about which seminars I want to go to, and seriously planning what books I’m going to be able to afford to buy (and have space for in my case, to bring home)!

On the release front, it was a little strange to see Lord of Shadows pushed back at the very last minute, and that left the weekend feeling ever so slightly underwhelming with just the one book available to order. It’s a pretty good week overall for David Annandale fans, however, with not just Lord of Drakes coming up for order in standard edition but also Judge of the Wastes – which to me was a great example of how well David writes audio these days.

Those new novellas stole the show for me, though. I always get excited by new Black Library books, but ten in one go? Cheaply priced? From ten different authors, three of whom have only had short stories released so far? With what looks like five female protagonists? There’s a lot to look forward to amongst this series…if only there was a Blood Bowl novella included, then I’d say it was perfect!

Coming up…
Next weekend looks like being a busy one, with no less than three new releases – the delayed Corax: Lord of Shadows by Guy Haley (in LE hardback), the new Horus Heresy anthology Heralds of the Siege, and the full audio drama Prophets of Waaagh! by Guy Haley…who’s clearly been busy!

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.