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. It’s been another week dominated by the Advent Calendar, with the first of several short audio dramas as well as six short stories. There are a few other bits and pieces to talk about, but Advent is the main focus, so let’s get cracking with that straight away.
Advent Calendar
Of the seven stories this week, no fewer than three of them were previously published in the Black Library Events Anthology 2017/18, so if you managed to get hold of a copy of that, it might have felt like a slightly less exciting week than it could otherwise have done. For everyone else however, there have been six new short stories plus the first Necromunda audio drama, with an impressively wide range of settings, characters and subject matter.
A Dirge of Dust and Steel by Josh Reynolds (£2.49)
A new instalment in Josh’s Hallowed Knights series, this introduces Sathphren Swiftblade and the Vanguard Chamber, and includes a cool old-school dwarf reference. It’s also available in the Sacrosanct & Other Stories anthology, but look past that and it’s a great little story, which is well worth checking out for a Stormcast story that’s a little different to usual. Check out my review here.
The Deserter by Justin D. Hill (£3.99)
The first ever Necromunda audio drama (as far as I’m aware), this one takes an interesting tack for a tale of the underhive, eschewing the usual gang-based storylines for something a little more personal and low-key. Some excellent performances bring things nicely to life, and it’s worth it just to kick back and listen to the sounds of the underhive. Check out my review here.
The Last Council by LJ Goulding (£2.49)
And now for the contentious one, a story which is already seeming to divide fans and set tongues wagging. If you like things to be black and white then this might not be for you, but if you enjoy a little ambiguity – and the chance to see different sides of a couple of key characters – then it might well be of interest, and provide a little food for thought. Check out my review here.
Motherlode by Nick Kyme (£2.49)
The second Blackstone Fortress short story of the Advent campaign, this follows the amusingly named ratling twins Rein and Raus, and takes things just a touch less seriously than most BL stories. Check it out if you fancy something with a bit of bantering dialogue and cheeky characters. Check out my review here.
One, Untended by David Guymer (£2.49)
You wait years for a Gotrek story and three come along all at once! Following on from Realmslayer (and presumably Robbie MacNiven’s The Bone Desert, which I haven’t read yet) this is a satisfying story that feels like classic Gotrek, with Felix’s old role ably played by the rather more devious aelf Maleneth. Check out my review here.
The Battle of Blackthunder Mesa by Phil Kelly (£2.49)
The second of this week’s stories pulled from the BL Events Anthology, this is – as you can probably tell from the cover – a T’au Empire story, looking at the introduction of a particular piece of wargear. At the time of writing I haven’t yet reviewed this one, but keep an eye out for that as soon as I can get it written.
The Atonement of Fire by David Annandale (£2.49)
The last of the three stories from the Events Anthology, this one is a Horus Heresy story following on from Ruinstorm and showing a little bit of Guilliman’s response to the events of that novel. It’s cool to see Guilliman struggling with his anger a little, and also who doesn’t love a massive space battle? I reviewed this last year, so you can check out my review here.
Midweek
Much like last week, there wasn’t a huge amount going on in terms of Black Library news during the week, other than all the cool Advent stories. Once again the Wednesday BL-related post from Warhammer Community was a roundup of the last few Advent stories, which is fine I suppose…but not particularly interesting. Once again I’m reminded of how little BL content there is on the Community site, and how much I’d love to read something properly insightful and valuable rather than just a summary. I mean, I write these weekly summaries and do my best to add a few bits of insight into them…but you’d hope that there’s at least one person within GW/BL who’s got something interesting to talk about! Hey ho.
I did spot one interesting BL-related snippet in a different Warhammer Community post, which suggested that Black Library authors Dan Abnett, David Guymer and Josh Reynolds were going to be in attendance at the Warhammer World Open Day in January – Dan to sign early copies of Anarch, David and Josh to sign early copies of the Age of Sigmar anthology Gods and Mortals. Shortly after I tweeted about this, the specific section of that article was removed (it sounded like there was a bit of confusion amongst the authors) but it’s back up now, so it looks like that’s definitely happening! I’m hopefully going to be at the Open Day, so let me know if you’re coming along!
One final quick snippet – over on Twitter, Josh has confirmed that he’s got a Balthas Arum (from Soul Wars) story in the Gods and Mortals anthology, which is great news. That story’s title is The Library of Forgotten Moments (one of several stories that Josh has in the anthology), which sounds interesting! I’m VERY much looking forward to getting my hands on that anthology.
Weekend
It’s been a weekend of re-releases, with no brand new titles but two omnibus editions and the latest Horus Heresy mass market paperback. No surprise there really, as it’s fairly standard for Black Library to slow down the new titles in the last couple of weeks of the year, before kicking things back off in January. This time last year we got a handful of digital-only bundles, for example.
Starting with the Horus Heresy, the latest paperback edition is for Graham McNeill’s The Crimson King – we’re talking the small-format, legacy edition paperback priced at £7.99, to match the early editions that these books were first released in. If you’ve been holding off buying this then now’s the time to pick it up and learn a bit more about what was going on with the Thousand Sons – click here to check out my review if you’d like a bit more information before buying it.
Next up we’ve got The Beast Arises Volume 3 omnibus, available in ebook (£14.99) or paperback (£15) editions. This is the third and final omnibus for the series, containing the last four books – Watchers in Death by David Annandale, The Last Son of Dorn by David Guymer, Shadow of Ullanor by Rob Sanders and The Beheading by Guy Haley. There’s no doubt that the series as a whole isn’t perfect, but I still think it was an impressive achievement for BL, and there are some genuinely brilliant moments in these last few books. Well worth checking out, I’d say.
Lastly we’ve got the latest in the growing range of Warhammer Chronicles omnibus editions, which collect together classic books from the Warhammer Old World. This time around it’s The Tyrion and Teclis Omnibus by William King, which features the novels Blood of Aenarion, Sword of Caledor and Bane of Malekith and is once again available in ebook (£14.99) and paperback (£15) editions. I spoke to William King for one of my usual Rapid Fire interviews, which you can read by clicking here or on the banner below.
Thoughts on the week
I’m not sure there’s a whole lot more to talk about for this week, than what I’ve already said. Certainly in terms of the weekend’s releases I’d say they’re all useful, valuable releases to have available…but not exactly headline titles. On the one hand it would be nice to have something a bit more exciting to get stuck into just before Christmas (you know, when a large part of BL’s readership is just settling down for a holiday) but on the other hand I get that the punishing release schedule does inevitably need to slow down sometimes.
As for the Advent Calendar, I’ve been pretty happy with the last seven stories (despite having read three of them before). As I said earlier, Laurie’s The Last Council is definitely the most contentious of the series so far – funnily enough, this time last year I was saying much the same thing about his audio drama First Lord of the Imperium! Personally I’ve enjoyed both of these Malcador stories, and I like the opportunities they provide to see slightly different sides to this unusual character. It always pleases me to see characters react in different ways – what others might see as ‘out of character’ I tend to see as revealing a little more of what they’re really like, beneath the usual facade. Still, like it or not this has proved quite the talking point – which is a good thing.
Actually, one more thing. This week I’ve published two Rapid Fire interviews focusing on Warhammer Chronicles omnibuses – one with Mike Lee talking about The Rise of Nagash, and the William King interview about The Tyrion and Teclis Omnibus which I mentioned earlier. I was always a big fan of the Old World so I’m really enjoying talking to authors about their old Warhammer stories, but I’d love to know what you think – are you interested in more of these interviews looking back at classic Warhammer books? Do you want more information, or different questions? Drop me a line and let me know either way.
As usual, here’s the list of my posts this week – it’s been Advent-heavy again, but with a few fun extras as well:
- QUICK REVIEW: A Lesson in Iron by David Guymer
- Anarch by Dan Abnett
- RAPID FIRE: Mike Lee Talks The Rise of Nagash
- QUICK REVIEW: The Deserter by Justin D. Hill
- QUICK REVIEW: The Last Council by LJ Goulding
- QUICK REVIEW: Motherlode by Nick Kyme
- QUICK REVIEW: One, Untended by David Guymer
- RAPID FIRE: William King Talks The Tyrion and Teclis Omnibus
Coming up…
From what I can tell, next weekend is going to be an even quieter one, as we reach touching distance of Christmas. Not to worry though, as there’s another seven Advent Calendar stories still to come – including a few more audio dramas!
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.