Warhammer Horror – What We Know So Far (March 2019)

First announced at Black Library Live in 2018, the new Warhammer Horror range is almost upon us – the first titles are due to go up for pre-orders on Saturday 23rd March, so there’s really not long to wait now. That being said, I’m sure I’m not the only Black Library fan who’s keen to know more about what this new range is going to mean for stories set in the worlds of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Age of Sigmar, and so as I find my own excitement growing I thought I’d take a look at what’s been confirmed so far.

What is Warhammer Horror?

That’s a pretty good question, and one which I’m not sure has a single right answer – at least not yet. There’s been a slow trickle of information released mostly via the Warhammer Community page which has talked about what to expect, in a variety of interesting but somewhat non-specific ways. I guess we won’t know for sure until the first releases are out, read or listened to and discussed, but to try and get a feel for what’s going to be covered I’ve tried to find as many bits of information as possible and gather them all in one place.

Firstly, a couple of very quick snippets from my own write-ups of Black Library events which took place last year. From what I remember of Black Library Live, and the notes I took, the only information given was that Warhammer Horror will feature both 40k and Age of Sigmar stories, and it will allow an even more in-depth exploration of existing themes than at the moment. In the Coming Soon seminar of the Black Library Weekender the first few releases were confirmed (more on those later), and interestingly it was described as a ‘new imprint’ as opposed to a series.

I think that’s particularly interesting – the use of the term imprint. Here’s a quick definition pulled from Wikipedia:

“An imprint of a publisher is a trade name under which it publishes a work. A single publishing company may have multiple imprints, often using the different names as brands to market works to various demographic consumer segments.”

A couple more excerpts from that (admittedly brief) Wikipedia article:

“Imprints typically have a defining character or mission.”

“A single publishing company may have multiple imprints, with the different imprints often used by the publisher to market works to different demographic consumer segments.”

To me this suggests that we can expect these releases to be labelled and packaged a little differently to what we see with the main ranges, as BL are trying to appeal to slightly different audiences than the usual straight-up science fiction and fantasy crowd. A bit more on this later…

I’ve gone through all of the Community articles I could find which mentioned Warhammer Horror, and rather than copying large segments of information I’ve pulled out just a few highlights which I thought were particularly interesting. Here’s how the Horror range/series/imprint has been variously described:

• A series of books which promises chills and spills and tales tinged with darkness.
• A chance to explore the darker side of the Warhammer universe.
• A range of titles written for more mature readers that delves into the rich legacy of darkness and terror at the heart of the Warhammer universes.
• Tread[ing] a path into unsettling and unnerving places, engaging with more mature themes that are not for the faint or tender of heart. Visceral, psychological, supernatural, we plan on delving deep into the underbelly of the Warhammer worlds, exploring what is truly frightening.

That all sounds interesting, although it’s fairly low on tangible details. I’ve seen comments on forums and social media picking up on the ‘darker side of the Warhammer universe’ bit and wondering how you go darker in something like 40k, when it’s pretty awful already. I’m assuming that what ‘engaging with more mature themes’ really means is tackling existing ideas/settings/races/characters etc. but showing them from different (almost certainly darker) perspectives and maybe even focusing less on the battlefield and more on the everyday setting…which has the potential for all sorts of ‘mundane’ horrors that full-on war stories maybe can’t look at.

There’s also another interesting quote in one of the Community articles, about how this “focuses wholly on stories that will scare and delight.” I think the emphasis there is on ‘wholly’, in that while plenty of existing BL stories have horror elements they’ve (almost) always needed to keep the ‘war’ in Warhammer front and centre. As I mentioned above, perhaps the Horror range will allow for stories which explore the same settings but can take a step (or several) back from those elements of grand battles. I’m sure there’s plenty of scope for horror stories set right in the midst of battle as well, but maybe we’ll see more which deal with different sorts of situations.

What are the aims?

To me it looks like this new series/range/imprint is intended to do two main things – to allow Black Library to tell different kinds of stories which they hope will still appeal to existing Warhammer fans, and to allow Warhammer stories to reach a wider audience, by appealing to people who might previously have been put off by the idea of reading science fiction or fantasy. Let’s take a quick look at each of those goals individually.

It looks to me as though the vast majority of the marketing that’s been done so far regarding Warhammer Horror has been geared towards appealing to existing fans, and trying to get readers who love BL’s usual sci-fi/fantasy stories excited about something a little different. As you can see from the excerpts above, the Community articles have mostly emphasised the way in which these stories will dig deeper into the Warhammer universes, and I think that’s going to appeal to a lot of existing fans. Sure, not everyone’s going to want to read horror stories, but it’s all about providing options – for those who love Warhammer but maybe don’t feel like the usual battle stories give them everything they want, perhaps these horror stories will hit the spot.

I think the approach that BL has taken from an editorial standpoint is pretty sound, bearing in mind this goal – they’ve mostly commissioned stories from a bunch of well-known authors who are likely to be familiar to existing BL fans. Josh Reynolds, David Annandale, Phil Kelly, CL Werner, Graham McNeill…these are big names within BL, and as much as I’m sure the chance to write horror stories has been great from an author’s perspective, having these sorts of names involved from the start is a strong statement from BL and is a great way to get fans interested and excited.

I’ve also noticed that as well as all of the online marketing that BL have been doing – remember that there’s a Black Library Instagram page these days as well as Facebook and the Community site – there’s been publicity within Games Workshop stores. I was in my local store recently and they had a Warhammer Horror poster displayed as well as some flyers by the till, and I overheard the store manager waxing lyrical about how excited he was for these new stories. That’s great to see, and a smart move to try and encourage Warhammer fans who perhaps don’t read much BL stuff to take the plunge.

Moving on to the second goal, of reaching a wider audience, I think there are a few interesting choices which speak to how important this is for Black Library. I’m not sure if you can see from the photo of the flyer above, but on the spine of both Maledictions and The Wicked and the Damned you might just be able to make out an unfamiliar logo. That’s the Warhammer Horror logo – not Black Library, not Games Workshop, but a specific brand for this range. That seems like a smart move to me – these books are going to be stocked in bookshops within the horror section, not the science fiction/fantasy section, and branding them this way is going to help separate them from ‘normal’ BL titles and fit in with the horror section.

What that means is readers who might never venture into the science fiction section of their local bookshop – but who will happily browse the horror shelves – will start seeing these books for the first time. That’s an entirely new group of readers for BL to appeal to, and I think the cover designs for both of the two new books will fit in nicely within the context of what’s going to be included on those horror shelves, and hopefully appeal to these readers. Some people might see the logo and recognise Warhammer, but presumably the hope is that by contextualising Warhammer alongside horror there’s the chance to pique those readers’ interest beyond what would happen if they saw a Games Workshop store or a full-on science fiction BL book.

The choice of putting these books out straight to paperback (as well as digital formats) is a smart move as well, I think. There’s definitely a demographic of BL readers which prefers hardbacks – i.e. the collectors amongst us – but for a brand new range it seems sensible to encourage as many people as possible to start buying in, which means removing as many barriers to entry as possible. Keeping the cost of entry (i.e. the price of a book) as low as possible is one way in which that’s a good move, but it’s worth pointing out that you don’t tend to see many hardbacks on the shelves in the horror sections (or science fiction sections, for that matter) of bookshops. Paperbacks are much more prevalent, so by going straight to paperback BL are trying ensure that these books get onto the shelves as quickly as possible, and therefore reach as many people as possible. Definitely a good move.

Lastly, while I mentioned earlier that BL have commissioned a good number of existing authors for these releases, they’ve also gone the other way as well. Maledictions includes stories by established authors with good reputations in the horror genre, people like Cassandra Khaw, Lora Gray and Alec Worley, and while they’re perhaps not the headline names given that this is an anthology featuring lots of authors, they add a little dash of additional horror respectability to it. Likewise with Alec having written the first audio drama for the range, and also with the re-issues of the Drachenfels series with Kim Newman’s name on them for the first time, rather than Jack Yeovil. People often buy books purely because they’ve read other things by the same author, so established names like this may well help the range do well.

What’s going to be available?

From what I gather it looks like there’s going to be an initial batch of releases which will go up for pre-orders on the 23rd, featuring a short story anthology, a portmanteau novel and an audio drama. At some point after that (it’s not clear when, just yet) we should see a classic series of old-school (by which I mean late 80s/early 90s) Jack Yeovil Warhammer novels starting to be reissued with swanky new covers. I’m going to break that down, with as much information as I’ve got about each one, but first I want to show you the results of a quick Twitter survey I did recently in which I asked people to vote for which release they’re most excited for.

As you can see, the short story anthology Maledictions came out comfortably on top, which I thought was an interesting result. Personally I’m a HUGE fan of short story anthologies but I sometimes wonder if they’re maybe not as popular as straightforward novels. It would have been really interesting to see if the same result would have happened had there been a ‘normal’ (for lack of a better word) novel on the list, as opposed to a portmanteau.

Maledictions
The most popular in my little poll, this one is an anthology featuring stories by eleven different authors, set in both 40k and Age of Sigmar. Here’s the list of authors:

• Cassandra Khaw
• Richard Strachan
• Graham McNeill
• Lora Gray
• CL Werner
• Peter McLean
• David Annandale
• Paul Kane
• Josh Reynolds
• JC Stearns
• Alec Worley

Not a bad list, eh? Here’s Hannah Hughes, the series editor at BL, talking in one of the Community articles about this anthology:

“From Gothic tales of grief and tragedy and harrowing accounts of psychological torment to murderous hauntings and bizarre, cosmic horrors, we’re taken on a terrifying and emotional journey to discover the wakeful terror of life in the Warhammer universes.”

The Wicked and the Damned
This one is the portmanteau novel, featuring three novellas by Josh Reynolds, Phil Kelly and David Annandale, and it’s up on the BL website with the usual product info. Here’s an excerpt from one of the Community article in which Hannah explains a little about this title:

“[A portmanteau is] a method of storytelling which links multiple stories to an overarching narrative. This portmanteau is an unsettling compendium of confessions by three characters tied together by a grievous fate. It features three novellas written by some of Black Library’s most gifted (and disturbed) authors…”

It looks like this is going to be available in the usual paperback and ebook formats as well as an audiobook, with a range of narrators.

From the same article here’s Hannah again, this time talking about each of the novellas in turn:

“In ‘The Beast in the Trenches’ by Josh Reynolds, we follow the story of Egin Valemar, a brooding commissar hell-bent on purging his ranks of a taint that only he can see. This moody, psychological horror is a fascinating dissection of a mind warped by the madness and paranoia of a life spent in the blood-soaked trenches of the 41st Millennium.”

Note that this one is narrated in the audiobook by Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead in Hellraiser, so that’s a smart little extra dose of horror authenticity right there!

“The ‘Woman in the Walls’ by Phil Kelly explores the terrible consequences of envy and ambition by way of an incredibly sinister haunting. The evil that lurks in this story is palpable. It feels resentment and spite, and neither physical strength nor mental agility can deter this creature that was so woefully wronged.”

“In ‘The Faith and the Flesh’ by David Annandale, a missionary wrestling with doubt has a terrifying encounter which puts more than just his faith to the test. This is a fast-paced, visceral horror which will leave readers breathless as they try to escape the nightmare that feasts on their emotions and preys on their peace of mind.”

Perdition’s Flame by Alec Worley
We haven’t had a Community article about this one yet, but as with The Wicked and the Damned it’s showing up on the BL website so you can have a read of the product info there. Here’s my favourite bit of detail from the website description:

“It’s dark, atmospheric, utterly terrifying and a perfect audio horror experience, compellingly written and thunderingly performed.”

It’s a shame that the cast list isn’t included yet, but suffice to say the audio format should work beautifully for horror stories, and Alec’s writing is excellent so I’m really looking forward to this one. I’ll add to this article if we get any further details about Perdition’s Flame before it’s released.

What’s next?

Those three releases are due on the 23rd, and then it looks like over the next few months we’ll start to see the classic Drachenfels series re-released with lovely new covers (I mean, just look at them – wow) and author introductions. Like I said earlier, it’s good to see these published under Kim’s name rather than Jack Yeovil, the pen-name he originally used. I’m not sure when the first of these is going to be published, but I’ve a feeling that if it doesn’t show up for pre-order on the 23rd it will at least be available very soon afterwards.

Here’s a run-down of the four books in the series, with their gorgeous new covers:

Drachenfels – first published in 1989, this is about as classic as it gets for Warhammer fiction.

Genevieve Undead – book two in the series.

Beasts in Velvet – book three in the series.

Silver Nails – a short story collection.

It’s also been confirmed via the Community site that we’ll see a few more horror stories released ‘later in 2019’, including three new novels, another short story anthology and “more audio dramas”. No details yet on the anthology or the audios, but here are the authors and titles of the upcoming novels:

• Dark Harvest by Josh Reynolds
• The House of Night and Chainby David Annandale
• Castle of Blood by CL Werner

As and when I find out any more about these titles I’ll make sure to update the article.

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There you have it, then – as much information as I could find about the upcoming Warhammer Horror series. Or range. Or imprint. Whatever we end up deciding to call it. Personally I’ve not tended to read a lot of horror stories in the past, but I’m intrigued by this and I can’t wait to start digging into these new releases. I’ll try to get some reviews posted as soon as I can, but in the meantime let me know what your thoughts are via the comments section below, Facebook or Twitter.