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 the penultimate week of 2018, and much like last week it’s been dominated by the Advent Calendar, which has included no fewer than five audio dramas this time around. Let’s take a look…
Advent Calendar
No Horus Heresy this week, but otherwise a wide range of settings and stories, featuring some big-names like Neferata and Hamilcar to some rather lower-key characters. After these stories there’s just the one left over for the Advent series!
The Palace of Memory by David Guymer (£3.99)
If memory serves, Hamilcar first made an appearance in one of David’s Knights of Vengeance audio dramas, and it’s great to see the Astral Templars Lord Castellant back in audio. The medium suits his bombastic personality SO well, and I’d say this is my favourite Hamilcar story so far. Here’s my review.
Expectatio by Matt Keefe (£3.99)
The second of three Necromunda audio dramas in this year’s Advent Calendar, I found this one ever so slightly tricky to follow because of the similarities between several of the voices, but other than that it was another entertaining Necromunda story. There’s a lot to enjoy in just kicking back and absorbing the sounds and atmosphere of the underhive. Here’s my review.
Black Atonement by David Annandale (£3.99)
This one is a Neferata audio drama, in which Emma Gregory is clearly having a blast playing the Mortarch of Blood. There’s just three characters in this one, but the dialogue is great and it’s loads of fun listening to Neferata do what she does best. Here’s my review.
Purity is a Lie by Gav Thorpe (£2.49)
This is the last of the Blackstone Fortress short stories in the Advent Calendar, and in my opinion the weakest of the lot. It features some of the same characters as Darius Hinks’ novel, but written with no continuity between the two – not Gav’s fault, I’d suggest that should have been picked up in editorial. On its own, it’s entertaining enough, but even then I didn’t think it quite did enough – not bad per se, just not what it could have been. Here’s my review.
Hungerfiend by Guy Haley (£3.99)
Guy’s written quite a few Prince Maesa stories now, and this is the second of them written as an audio drama after The Autumn Prince (from last year’s Advent). He’s hit on something really good with these characters, and this time Maesa and Shattercap are joined by a duardin – who’s featured in the stories included in Inferno! so far. Well worth checking out. Here’s my review.
Sand Lords by Peter McLean (£2.49)
This is Peter’s fourth Black Library short story, and if you’ve read my reviews of the previous three you’ll know I think very highly of Peter’s writing. He’s tackling Tallarn Desert Raiders this time, and while it’s not quite as viscerally dark as some of his other stories, it’s once again focused on the costs – and horrors – of war for the Imperial Guard. Impressive stuff.
Half-Horn by Josh Reynolds (£3.99)
The final Necromunda audio drama, at the time of writing I haven’t yet listened to this (it’s still Saturday as I’m writing this post, but the audios have been visible on Audible for some time) but I’m really looking forward to it. I mean…Josh Reynolds writing a Necromunda audio? Featuring the beastman bounty hunter Gor Half-Horn? Yes please!
Midweek
As you might expect considering the previous two weeks, the Wednesday Black Library-related Warhammer Community post was another roundup of the Advent Calendar stories so far. You can have a read of that here, but there’s not a whole lot to say about it. It definitely feels like the Community site has slowed down this month, both in terms of quantity and also quality – by which I mean content which has real value beyond being purely informational. I think that’s fair enough; it’s the run up to Christmas and we’re all a bit knackered now, so the Community team deserve a break!
I did spot one other very interesting piece of BL-related news this week, which you can see right here via the Twitter account of Richard Garton, Submissions Editor at Black Library:
That’s right, there were over three and a half THOUSAND entries in this year’s Open Submissions window, and every single one of them has been read. Richard made a point in another tweet of clarifying that he hasn’t personally read them all, which is probably a good thing – can you imagine reading through 3.5k submissions yourself? I’m pretty sure I’d have gone loopy long before I got to the end of them, so sharing them out across the team seems like the sensible solution to me.
I think it’s a real testament to the passion and enthusiasm of the Black Library fan community that so many people wanted to submit something, and are hoping to someday write for BL. I’ve already read a couple of new stories which have come through this process, in Inferno! Volume 2 (which I picked up at the Weekender), from Thomas Parrott and Jamie Crisali, and I REALLY hope that we’re going to see more over the next few weeks and months. I’d love for BL to make it clear when this happens, so we know that an author has come through the submissions window – it would be really interesting to know!
Thoughts on the week
You’ll notice I’ve skipped the usual Weekend section – that’s because there were no releases on Saturday, so there’s nothing to talk about! This is pretty standard – it was definitely the case last year for the final weekend before Christmas, and considering the crazy release schedule that Black Library stick to I can’t say I’m too concerned about a single weekend with nothing new. To be fair, it’s almost a relief! Bear in mind, too, that we’re due a pair of ebook digital premieres on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, so there’s going to be new stuff coming in the middle of next week as well as the end!
As for Advent, it’s been fun to get so many audio dramas this week – the only downside being having to re-download so many fairly large files each morning as a subscriber! In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about, it’s regarding the Advent Calendar Subscription, which works by adding each day’s new file into the ‘My Downloads’ section of your account. You end up with three download links – one each for ePub, Mobi and MP3 – that allow you to download everything as zip files which gradually increase in size over the month as more stories are added. Here’s what mine looks like as of Saturday:
It’s never been my favourite way of getting hold of new content (although more on that in a minute) but for the most part it works fine…unless you’ve not got a very good internet connection. My wifi hasn’t been great for a little while now (long story) so it’s taking a REALLY long time to download the zip files for my MP3s! That’s obviously not BL’s fault in any way, although I’ve always thought there must be a better way of implementing these sorts of subscriptions. That being said, I’ve been DELIGHTED to see that there hasn’t been a single problem with the files being added to my account each day this year (I’ve had considerable difficulties in the past), so while I’m being a little bit grumbly here I’m actually pretty happy with this overall!
Back to the content, and for me I think Purity is a Lie has been the only real stumble in this year’s Advent Calendar so far (and there’s only two days left, so that’s pretty good). Gav mentioned on Twitter that he hadn’t been able to read the Blackstone Fortress novel (which I reviewed this week and very much enjoyed) before writing this story, so it’s entirely understandable that he would pitch this particular plot, but I can’t help thinking someone at BL should have spotted the continuity issues between this and the novel. I’d have absolutely loved to read a story about the aeldari character from the game – Amallyn Shadowguide – so I kinda wish Gav had written a similar type of story just focused on that character instead! Ah well.
Apart from that one, I’d say it’s been a week of excellent stories (I’m pretty confident Half-Horn is going to be great), and testament to the continued high standards BL are keeping to for audios. I’ve said this lots before, but the audio medium really does suit 40k and Age of Sigmar stories very well, and I hope this year’s Advent audios have been able to encourage a few more people to take the plunge and get stuck into audio!
Here’s the usual roundup of everything I’ve been posting about this week:
- Blackstone Fortress by Darius Hinks
- QUICK REVIEW: The Palace of Memory by David Guymer
- QUICK REVIEW: Expectatio by Matt Keefe
- QUICK REVIEW: Black Atonement by David Annandale
- QUICK REVIEW: Purity is a Lie by Gav Thorpe
- QUICK REVIEW: Hungerfiend by Guy Haley
- Wanted: Dead by Mike Brooks
Coming up…
As I said earlier, we’re due a couple of ebooks released in advance of their physical counterparts, one on Christmas Day and one on Boxing Day. I can’t wait to find out what they are! On top of that, at the weekend it looks like we’re going to be getting Inferno! Volume 2 and Graham McNeill’s The Uriel Ventris Chronicles: Volume 1.
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.