Where to start with Black Library: Blackstone Fortress

With literally hundreds of Black Library books, short stories and audio dramas available, and new stories being released every week, it can be hard to know where to start, whether you’re brand new to Warhammer or you want to find out more about certain series, factions or characters. That’s where my series of Where to Start With Black Library articles comes in, as I try to demystify the process of getting into Warhammer fiction, suggesting some great stories that you could start with and talking about why they would make good entry points. In this article I’m looking at Blackstone Fortress, a sub-setting within Warhammer 40,000 which is relatively new but has already featured in some great stories.

Why Blackstone Fortress (or BSF), you might ask? Well, in my opinion it’s a really good place to get into 40k fiction as a whole, giving you the chance to start small before diving into the main range. After all, the best stories – of any kind – feature great characters, and the BSF game is packed full of cool characters. Who wouldn’t want to find out more about Janus Draik, the ratling twins Rein and Raus, or Imperial Robot UR-025? Not only that, but these characters cover a real cross-section of Imperial society – Rogue Traders, the Ecclesiarchy, sanctioned mutants and more – and even a few xenos factions, all of which you can explore without needing to commit to a whole series.

The best place to start with any faction or setting is always going to be subjective, and will depend on various factors – far too many for me to cover succinctly – so in these articles I’m going to try and suggest a few different lengths and mediums to give you options to choose from. Where possible I’ll stick to stories I’ve read and enjoyed myself, and link out to reviews where they’re available.

Start with a novella
You might wonder why I’m suggesting a novella rather than the novel Blackstone Fortress (which, to be fair, looks on the surface to be an ideal starting point). Well, I’ve talked before about how a novella is a great middle ground in terms of story length, offering considerably more depth and detail than a short story without the investment in time (and money) of a novel. In my opinion, it’s the perfect length for when you want to really get your teeth into a story (and a setting) without going all-in on a novel, and luckily there just happens to be a BSF novella which makes a great entry point. Don’t worry, I’ll talk more about Blackstone Fortress the novel in a bit!

Thomas Parrott’s Isha’s Lament was released in November 2019 as part of the Black Library Novella Series 2, and personally I think it’s a fantastic story! It provides a great opportunity to explore both the crazy, physics-defying nature of the Fortress and the dangerous wild west-esque bustle of its attendant space station Precipice, while getting to know a mixture of new names and familiar faces. It’s a wonderfully character-driven story, so while you’re having fun seeing the game brought to life (the main protagonist isn’t a named character in the game, but you’ll recognise one or two names) you’re also getting a powerful story dealing with themes of trauma and survival. Have a read of my review, or if you fancy knowing a bit more then check out my Author Spotlight interview with Thomas.

Try some short stories
I’m a big advocate of using short(er) fiction to test the waters – as you’ll have worked out from my novella suggestion – and if you’d prefer something shorter still to just get a feel for what the Blackstone Fortress is like from a Black Library perspective, there are plenty of great short stories you could try. If you fancy a range of viewpoints – in terms of authors and characters – on the setting then the Vaults of Obsidian anthology provides you with ten different authors’ takes on the setting across twelve stories. It’s an interesting mix of well established BL authors – Josh Reynolds, Nick Kyme, Guy Haley, David Annandale and Darius Hinks (who’s perhaps written the most in this setting) – and newer names like JC Stearns, Denny Flowers, Thomas Parrott and Nicholas Wolf, so there’s real variety in there.

If all you want is a single short story to give you just a taste of the setting, then in my opinion you really can’t go wrong with either Man of Iron by Guy Haley or Motherlode by Nick Kyme, both of which are included in Vaults of Obsidian but are also available as individual e-shorts. Man of Iron is packed full of juicy lore snippets – UR-025 is definitely not what he seems on the outside – while Motherlode sees Nick Kyme with tongue planted firmly in cheek having a lot of fun with the sibling double-act of Rein and Raus. Both of those stories are well worth checking out, although they’re both (at least) slightly more humorous than the usual Black Library fare. For a darker (and, let’s face it, more conventional) take on the setting you could try The Warp’s Curse by Michael J. Hollows.

Go all in on Janus Draik
I’ve mentioned Darius Hinks’ brilliant novel Blackstone Fortress already, and there’s no doubt that if you want to go big and dig into the setting in as much detail as possible, this is the way to do it. It’s a swashbuckling ‘dungeon-bash’ sort of adventure, featuring Janus Draik, Taddeus the Purifier, the kroot tracker Grekh (and a few others) exploring both Precipice and the Fortress itself, in search of a way to claim it as a weapon for the Imperium. It’s packed full of action and adventure, and while it doesn’t give away too many secrets it still offers an eye-opening perspective on the Blackstone Fortress and brilliantly brings the setting to life. Check out my review here, or my Rapid Fire interview with Darius here.

NOTE: if you enjoy this novel then good news – BL haven’t officially announced it yet, but a sneaky peek on the German-language Amazon page shows an upcoming second book entitled Die Menzel-Anomalie, which I assume translates as The Menzel Anomaly. Hopefully we’ll find out more about this (including the official English-language title) sometime soon!

If you’re a fan of audio dramas (personally I love a good audio), you can follow more of Draik’s adventures by picking up Darius’ audio The Beast Inside. It’s a really entertaining story which sees Draik and Grekh brilliantly brought to life by a typically excellent voice cast, alongside Chaos cultists, a rival Rogue Trader and a certain alien beastie – which to be fair, the cover art rather gives away. Have a read of my Rapid Fire interview with Darius about the audio for more info. As a next audio step if you’re after a bit more, I’d then suggest you check out Chris Dows’ three-part audio Augur of Despair – Draik isn’t in it, but he’s regularly referenced and you could argue that this story sort of follows on from The Beast Inside. Either way, it’s a lot of fun – I’ve got an in-depth interview with Chris about this story and LOTS more, if you’d like to know more.

I’ll talk more in other articles about where to start with the main-range 40k fiction, but hopefully this has inspired you to pick up some of the great Blackstone Fortress stories out there – whether as an entry point to 40k fiction or just because you’re keen to find out more about BSF. What’s more, if you’re a Warhammer hobbyist it’s worth pointing out that these stories are ripe for combining with your gaming and/or modelling activities, whether you look through your 40k miniatures collection for suitable models or have a go at kitbashing or converting your own characters. That’s the joy of the Warhammer hobby and Black Library stories, the way everything links together and allows you to make the hobby your own!

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So there you have it, a few different places you could start with Blackstone Fortress stories. As a recap, my personal recommendation would be to start with Isha’s Lament by Thomas Parrott, but a few other suggestions would be the Vaults of Obsidian anthology, Darius Hinks’ novel Blackstone Fortress, and his audio drama The Beast Inside. I’m hoping there will be lots more BSF stories released in the future, because so much of what’s been released so far has been fantastic!

Please feel free to get in touch in the comments below or on Twitter if you have any questions, or to let me know how you get on with these stories, otherwise happy reading and listening.