Black Library Monthly – May 2019

Welcome to Black Library Monthly for May 2019, in which I’m going to take a look over the key pieces of Black Library-related news which arose over the last month, as well as talk about the month’s new releases and what I’ve been reviewing. As always there’s been lots to talk about, even though it feels like Black Library have been a little quieter than usual in terms of the news and information they’ve been providing. Still, with lots of new releases – including loads of new short stories – there’s no shortage of interesting topics to look at. As usual, I’ll kick off by taking a look at the month’s general BL-related news before moving onto a couple of more specific topics and then the month’s releases.

General News

As usual, let’s start by talking about the bits and pieces of Black Library-related news which turned up during May. There hasn’t been much BL content published on the Warhammer Community site recently (and that’s saying something, considering how small a proportion of the content BL usually accounts for) so I don’t have a huge amount to talk about here, but I’ll kick off with a couple of ‘last chance to buy’ Community posts which did show up – this one talking about the Black Library Novella Series 1 and this one looking at limited edition hardbacks. Not the most exciting of content, with both of them feeling more like marketing ploys than community engagement.

In terms of the novellas, the gist of the article is that the ten volumes in the series are only going to be available until the 29th June, after which presumably they’ll drop off the BL site. It’s not clear whether that applies to both physical and digital editions; I saw someone ask about that on Facebook but their question wasn’t answered. Time will tell, I guess. The good news is that there’s a second series of novellas coming in November, and while the Community article didn’t mention anything we do already know that eight of the ten novellas in Series 1 will be coming out in various omnibuses later in the year. As for the LE article, it was just a very brief reminder that there are (or were) some copies still available of four LE hardbacks which have been available for quite some time. If you want to see which LEs are still available, have a look here – seems as though there are only three options left now.

That’s pretty much it for the Community site – there were posts about the Siege of Terra (which I’ll talk about in a section later on) and Black Library Live (check out the following section), and then it was just a case of the usual ‘available to order today’ posts talking about new releases. I’ll quickly talk about the Coming Soon page later on as well, but if you’re interested in upcoming titles it’s worth pointing out that the contents list for Inferno! Volume 4 (due in October) has been made available to the wider book trade. Here’s the full contents, complete with some unusual additional information in parentheses:

  • Green and Grey (formerly Dulce et Decorum) by Edoardo Albert
  • Where Dere’s Da Warp Dere’s A Way by Mike Brooks
  • The Serpent’s Bargain by Jamie Crisalli
  • The Hand of Harrow by Denny Flowers
  • Journey of the Magi by Jon Green
  • The Fourfold Wound by Eric Gregory
  • At the Sign of the Brazen Claw: The Sorcerer’s Tale by Guy Haley
  • The Manse of Mirrors by Nick Horth
  • The Karsharat Abomination (Sabbathiel) by George Mann
  • Salvage Rites by Thomas Parrott
  • Blackout (formerly Urban Warfare) by JC Stearns
  • Firstborn Exile by Filip Wiltgren

I’m not entirely sure what the ‘formerly…’ comments refer to – presumably the fact that these stories were originally written under different titles? I’ve never seen that information provided to the public before, but perhaps it was accidental. The comment for George Mann’s story is useful, however, as we know that this is going to feature Inquisitor Sabbathiel from George’s previous stories for Titan Comics. As usual, it’s nice to see a mixture of familiar and new names in amongst this lot – I’m looking forward to checking these stories out.

Lastly, for this section, I want to talk just a little bit about Warhammer Fest, which took place in Coventry on the 11th and 12th May. I went along on Saturday 11th, and while I wasn’t specifically there to focus on BL (this time around I was much more interested in the awesome new Contrast paints) I can still talk a little bit about BL’s presence at the event. I was quite disappointed at BL’s offering for last year’s Warhammer Fest, but this year I was very pleased to see that the sales stand had that weekend’s new releases (including The Solar War) plus several pre-release titles including Spear of the Emperor, Genevieve Undead, Myths & Revenants and Rulers of the Dead. There were even a few copies of books I thought had completely sold out, like the Maledictions anthology for Warhammer Horror.

I know Black Library Live is only a month after Fest, but I think it’s still important that BL fans who show up to Fest get some cool things to buy – and this year BL provided exactly that. To be honest I felt like the sales stand overall was smaller than it was in 2018, but the selection was geared much more towards brand new titles, which I think worked really well. The HUGE pyramids of The Solar War and Spear of the Emperor looked awesome, too – as you can see in this image pinched from the Community site!

As for Black Library-related seminars, sadly John French wasn’t able to make it on the Saturday so the planned Solar War session didn’t happen. I did attend Guy Haley’s session about his new novel Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter, which was interesting as usual and saw some pretty good audience questions asked. Track of Words even got a shout out from Guy, although that was probably because I was sat on the front row directly in front of him! That was all I saw from BL, and as far as I’m aware there were no reveals over the weekend – those were presumably held back for Black Library Live. Speaking of which…

Black Library Live
As I write this, BL Live is just a couple of days away and I’m looking forward to heading to Nottingham to chat to the authors, meet up with other fans and maybe pick up a couple of books as well. Over the course of May there have been a variety of Facebook and Instagram posts advertising the event and encouraging fans to buy tickets, but for most of the month there was actually very little information available about what’s going to be happening. At one point a Community article did appear, featuring a seminar schedule but no information on signings or pre-release titles, but that quickly disappeared again (presumably, in hindsight, because it turned out that William King wasn’t able to attend and the schedule needed to be adjusted).

After a few more Instagram posts appeared and started to drip-feed details of some of the pre-release titles (strangely only on IG, not on FB or the Community site – but that’s another conversation), eventually – by which I mean on the 29th May, three days before the event – this Community article landed. Now that’s how the sort of information we’d all been looking forward to for weeks – it’s just a shame we had to wait until quite so close to the event! Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to now know what’s going to be available, but I can’t help thinking it would have been better to provide that information earlier in order to try and encourage more people to buy tickets!

Do check that article out for information on what’s available and for the seminar schedule, although it’s a shame to see that the signing schedule (presumably there are going to be specific signing tables, as usual) hasn’t been included on that. It’s also a shame – although not in any way the fault of Black Library – that William King isn’t able to attend the event, as I think he would have been very popular with a lot of fans! Maybe next time. It’s worth pointing out, as well, that sometime after the article was first published, it was updated to reflect the fact that Andy Clark’s Celestine will be there to buy in hardback, not paperback, and – interestingly – with the addition of Guy Haley’s Dark Imperium: Plague War (originally published in hardback in October 2018) as a limited edition hardback!

That’s genuinely great to see, as I’m sure I’m not the only fan/collector who’s been a bit disappointed to see a series started off with a LE hardback only for the second book to not get the same treatment. A matching LE for book 2 is great to see, even if it’s a bit late for everyone who already bought the standard hardback! I’m told that there was a lot of demand after the fact for this LE, hence BL going back and releasing it – I’m interested to see whether other second books which have been out for a while (like Fabius Bile: Clonelord, for example) might get the LE treatment as well, or indeed whether Chris Wraight’s Vaults of Terra: The Hollow Mountain – which has so far only been shown in standard hardback – will be available in LE.

I’m sure I’ll end up writing at least a quick roundup of the event once it’s over and done with, so check back for more details regarding pre-releases, seminars and previews. I’m unlikely to be live tweeting the event this year, and likewise I don’t expect I’ll write a full, in-depth event review, but I’ll do my best to put something together at least.

Coming Soon page
I can’t write one of these roundups without talking about the Coming Soon page, which since April has been back and in a new home on the Warhammer Community site. It’s been interesting to follow it recently and see how often it’s started to be updated – the answer being…every now and then. It’s clear so far that this isn’t going to be the sort of resource which updates on a regular basis, with each weekend’s pre-order titles generally being removed from the page somewhere between a week and a couple of weeks after they go on sale. That might change of course, as it’s still fairly early days for this new incarnation of the page.

What’s more interesting than how often titles are removed, is what’s happening with new titles being added! There’s only been one new batch of titles so far since the page went live, but they went up on the 4th May – the first Saturday of the month, which had previously been the usual point at which new titles were added to the old version of the page. Hopefully that will continue, with another batch of books and audios added very soon. Whether or not BL wait until BL Live has happened before they do that, however, remains to be seen. Anyway, the latest batch included a fair number of re-issues (in different formats), as well as a couple of titles which had shown up in the book trade before but hadn’t been mentioned yet by BL. Here’s the list, as much as I can remember it:

Venators – 29th June
A Necromunda audio collection, again presumably featuring the Advent audios – The Deserter by Justin D. Hill, Expectatio by Matt Keefe and Half-Horn by Josh Reynolds.

Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter by Guy Haley – 3rd August
The standard edition of Guy’s third Primarchs novel – this will presumably land in hardback, ebook and MP3 audio formats.

Knights of Macragge by Nick Kyme – 10th August
A new 40k novel featuring Cato Sicarius of the Ultramarines, presumably dealing with the unpleasant events which occurred when he found himself lost in the Warp.

Terminal Overkill by Justin D. Hill – 24th August
A new Necromunda novel, going straight to paperback! Dedicated hardback collectors might grumble, but for everyone else it’s great to see BL publishing some books straight as paperbacks and providing a different route into their series.

Forest of the Ancients by Tom Huddleston – 17th August
The third Warhammer Adventures novel in the Age of Sigmar-set Realm Quest series.

Secrets of the Tau by Cavan Scott – 17th August
Similarly, the third Warhammer Adventures novel in the 40k-set Warped Galaxies series.

Agents of the Imperium – 10th August
An audio collection which I’m assuming features the three 40k short audio dramas from the 2018 Advent Calendar – Judge of the Wastes by David Annandale, Kill Shot by Ben Counter and The Interrogation of Salvor Lermentov by Chris Wraight.

Plus various paperback editions (actually labelled as such – just what I suggested last month!) including:

  • The Orion Trilogy by Darius Hinks – 27th July
  • Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods by David Guymer- 10th August
  • Uriel Ventris Chronicles: Volume 2 by Graham McNeill – 10th August
  • The Buried Dagger by James Swallow – 17th August
  • Honourbound by Rachel Harrison – 24th August

I might have missed the odd title, but that’s pretty much everything new. Because the new Coming Soon page isn’t sorted by month, it’s tricky to look back and figure out when each title was added to the list!

What’s interesting, now that I’ve put all of those titles together in date order, is that there’s very little scheduled for release during July. At the moment we’ve got Chris Wraight’s The Hollow Mountain due out on the 13th July and a couple of paperbacks due on the 27th July, but nothing else. I wonder what’s going to be filling the release schedule for the 6th and 20th? Let me know if you’ve got any ideas – could it be the next Siege of Terra novel? Something to tie in with a GW release? I’m looking forward to finding out.

The Siege of Terra
Speaking of the Siege of Terra, for the last section under the News heading let’s take a quick look at what’s been going on in terms of the Horus Heresy and its concluding mini-series. By the end of April we had seen five author/artist/editor interview videos turn up, and this month the remaining three (I’m assuming they’re all done now, as all 6 authors have been featured) landed. Here are the links, in case you haven’t watched these yet:

That’s not everything, either. This month saw the launch of a brand new Siege of Terra microsite, which you can check out here, featuring all of those video interviews, various ‘buy now’ links, and some cool artwork which was previously featured in the LE hardback of The Solar War. That’s all much of a muchness in my opinion – it’s nothing properly brand new, really – but the highlight of the site is undoubtedly a high resolution, zoomable version of the GORGEOUS Sol System map which was also included in that LE hardback. Seriously, it’s worth having the site purely for that map – even though I’ve got a physical copy of it, the digital version is really valuable as you can zoom in and see everything in loads of detail.

The site overall is…ok, I guess. Hopefully it’s going to be updated as the series progresses with lots more content, but if its purpose is purely as a repository of basic information about the series and the authors then I’m not sure how useful it’s going to be beyond an introduction to anyone who doesn’t know anything about the series. That’s fine, of course – I’ve no doubt it’s handy for those who haven’t followed the Heresy from the beginning – but I wish there was a hook, a killer feature that would make it useful to everyone. If it had a little bit of insightful commentary from authors/editors/the community about the key stories or character arcs to be familiar with before starting the Siege, then that would be really useful. Even better, a filterable digital reading order which allowed fans to select a Legion or character and see all of their stories – now THAT would make the site something special, and something genuinely useful.

Digital Mondays

This month there were two brand new Digital Monday stories (hurrah), one story pulled from the pages of Inferno! Volume 1, and – best of all – a whole week of brand new Warhammer Horror stories! Starting with the horror stories – labelled as Digital Horror Week 2019 – here’s the full list:

With Rachel’s audio drama being split over three days (essentially three 20+ minute audios making up a full-length story) and four short stories, that was an entire week of creepy new tales. I picked up the usual subscription offer to save a bit of money (and thankfully didn’t have any downloading issues!) although if you’re only interested in certain stories or settings they’re available individually as well. You can click on the links above, or in the section below, to read my reviews, but suffice to say I thought these were all really good, and went further into the horror stylings than the stories in Maledictions. I had a fair few moments of being genuinely unsettled (or, in the case of Nick’s story, totally grossed out), as well.

As for the rest of the month’s Digital Monday stories, here’s what turned up:

That’s two more Black Library debuts – always good to see new names popping up. Of the two, I was particularly impressed with Robert Rath – that felt like a very well thought-out and executed story, and it instantly made me excited to read more from him. Fingers crossed more will be coming sometime soon! The third of the stories, from David Annandale, was originally published in the first volume of the new Inferno! Anthology, although disappointingly BL have chosen not to mention that on their website, in their newsletter or on Facebook. I think that’s naughty, personally. Considering it’s £2.49 for this story on its own or £7.99 for the anthology (featuring this and 10 other stories), I know which option I would recommend!

Weekend releases

As usual I’ll quickly take a look through May’s new releases, covering both brand new titles and reissues in new formats. I’ve listed these (I think) in the order in which they were published.

Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter by Guy Haley
The 12th book in the Primarchs series for the Horus Heresy, and Guy’s third! This was released as usual in limited edition hardback format first, with the standard edition due out in a few months. Check out my quick interview with Guy here.

Inferno! Volume 3
The third volume of the new short story anthology, featuring stories from familiar names like John French, Guy Haley and David Guymer as well as newer authors such as Matt Smith, Nate Crowley and Rik Hoskin…among others.

Classic Inferno Issues 11-15
As usual, when a new volume of Inferno! is released BL also reissue five issues of the classic magazine as print on demand titles. These are always only available to order for a couple of weeks, so that time frame has passed now, but presumably the next batch will be available to order in October when volume four is released.

Tales of Heresy
Something of a surprise release, this one – the MP3 audiobook edition of book 10 in the Horus Heresy series. As usual, this is available via the BL website, the BL Audio App or Audible – don’t forget you can start a month-long trial of Audible and get this for FREE, if you fancy dipping your toe into audiobooks.

Knights of Caliban by Gav Thorpe
A whopping great paperback omnibus featuring a trio of Gav’s 40k Dark Angels novels – Azrael, The Purging of Kadillus and Angels of Darkness. Pretty good value at £15 (£13.99 in ebook) for three novels!

Blackstone Fortress by Darius Hinks
The paperback edition of the excellent novel which accompanied the launch of this new Games Workshop boxed game – much, much more than ‘just’ a tie-in novel, mind. Check out my interview with Darius by clicking here, or my review here.

Black Pyramid by Josh Reynolds
The second novel in Josh’s Hallowed Knights series for Age of Sigmar, now available in paperback edition. Have a read of my interview with Josh by clicking here.

The Solar War by John French
After the interesting times of this novel’s limited edition release, it’s now available in standard formats as well – so that’s hardback, ebook and MP3 audio. If you’re a Horus Heresy fan, do yourself a favour and pick this up because it’s fantastic! Check out my quick interview with John here, or my review here.

Ashes and Oaths by John French
The third instalment of John’s brilliant (and award-winning) Agent of the Throne audio series, available in CD or MP3 audio formats. Check out my reviews of the previous instalments: Blood and Lies and Truth and Dreams.

Myths & Revenants
An Age of Sigmar short story anthology available in hardback and ebook formats, this features no fewer than thirteen excellent stories. Check out my review (it’s more of a list of review links, really) here.

Rulers of the Dead by David Annandale and Josh Reynolds
This paperback omnibus features two short novels, both of which were previously available first as LE hardbacks and subsequently as standard hardbacks – Neferata: Mortarch of Blood by David Annandale and Nagash: The Undying King by Josh Reynolds. Click those links for my reviews, or check out quick interviews here with David and with Josh.

Skaven Wars: The Black Plague by CL Werner
The latest Warhammer Chronicles omnibus to plumb the depths of the Old World, this collects together three of Clint’s old-school novels – Dead Winter, Blighted Empire and Wolf of Sigmar – and four short stories. Another absolute bargain.

Genevieve Undead by Kim Newman
The second of Kim Newman’s (writing as Jack Yeovil) Genevieve books to get the Warhammer Horror paperback/ebook treatment. That cover, though! Gorgeous.

Rise of the Ynnari: Wild Rider by Gav Thorpe
Book two in Gav’s Rise of the Ynnari series – first published back in November 2018, now available in paperback as well. Check out my quick interview with Gav here.

Angron: Slave of Nuceria by Ian St. Martin
Roughly three months after coming out in LE hardback, the 12th Primarchs novel is now also available in the usual hardback, ebook and MP3 audio formats – and it’s an absolute cracker of a book! Check out my quick interview with Ian here, or my review here.

Reviews, interviews and blog posts

Here’s the list of everything I published in May. It’s not all Black Library-related, but even the couple of non-BL reviews might be of interest as they’re for books written by authors who also write for BL!

This month I’m going to pick three short stories as my top choices from everything I’ve read. There really hasn’t been a story I haven’t enjoyed, and I could wax lyrical about several of them – including Gav’s The Red Feast and most of the Warhammer Horror stories, but I’m going with the three Peter Fehervari stories as my top picks. With these last three stories (all of which have been available for ages) I’ve now reviewed everything Peter’s written for Black Library; I know I talk a lot about Peter’s writing, but that’s because I think he’s utterly unique and absolutely wonderful. These are all well worth checking out if you enjoy stepping away from Space Marines and epic battles and exploring the darker, stranger aspects of the 41st millennium.

  • Crown of Thorns: a very short story tackling the bizarre but fascinating Angels Penitent chapter of Space Marines, this crams an incredible amount into very few words. You won’t find many answers here, but the questions might just fire your imagination.
  • A Sanctuary of Wyrms: a sequel (of sorts) to Peter’s novel Fire Caste, this explores some intriguing themes and angles regarding the T’au Empire and how they perceive the Imperium, as well as being a sinister, powerful story in its own right.
  • Out Caste: this is more of a prequel to Fire Caste, another micro-short story which this time focuses in tightly on a single character and how she relates to the Greater Good.

Coming up…

Taking a look at what’s listed on the new Coming Soon page (and what I’ve heard through the grapevine), here’s what we can expect to see in June:

  • Liber Chaotica – a reprint of the classic background book
  • Titandeath by Guy Haley in paperback
  • Old Earth by Nick Kyme in paperback
  • Soul Wars by Josh Reynolds in paperback
  • Gloomspite by Andy Clark
  • Spear of the Emperor by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
  • Shield of the Emperor – a 40k Astra Militarum omnibus featuring stories by Steve Lyons, Steve Parker and Mitchel Scanlon
  • Death’s Mercy by Gav Thorpe
  • Gotrek & Felix: The Third Omnibus by William King and Nathan Long
  • Venators – a Necromunda audio drama collection featuring stories by Justin D. Hill, Matt Keefe and Josh Reynolds
  • Underhive – a Necromunda anthology featuring lots of different authors
  • Silver Nails by Kim Newman in paperback
  • Beasts in Velvet by Kim Newman in paperback

Plus, of course, anything which hasn’t been included on the Coming Soon page!

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As always, if you’ve got any thoughts or comments on the month’s news and releases – or any reviews I’ve written – please do get in touch via the comments section below or on Facebook or Twitter.

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