Black Library’s epic, ridiculously huge Horus Heresy series has proven incredibly popular, and for a lot of fans it’s the ‘premium’ BL range, the series that takes top billing and gets readers most excited. For all that it started small and exploded into something utterly massive, as readers we’ve always known that it has a definitive end point, and for almost as long as there’s been the Heresy range there’s been speculation over what Black Library will do once the series has finished – what ‘the next Heresy’ will be. With the Siege of Terra mini-series drawing to a close – at the time of writing there are just two books remaining of the planned eight – and heralding the long-awaited end of the Heresy, that question of what might come next seems more pertinent than ever.
With that in mind, I wanted to look at some of the most commonly-talked about suggestions for what might come after the Heresy, and talk a bit about what I would personally like to see. This isn’t really going to be a ‘pros and cons of each option’ sort of article, because I don’t want to spend too long talking about each option, and in order to try and keep things reasonably focused I’m going to stick purely to the 40k setting, Let’s face it, Age of Sigmar has not had a lot of love recently, and while I’d be very happy to see a step up in BL’s AoS output, it seems unlikely. I’m also not going to talk about things like what format books might get released in – you know, whether BL will do ‘premium editions’ like the Heresy hardbacks, or paperbacks like Dawn of Fire. That’s a whole other conversation!
Lastly, before I get onto the good bits, let’s touch briefly on something that always comes up in discussions of the Heresy – the question of how much to reveal, and how to avoid ‘losing the mystique’ of the setting. Clearly the Heresy series has told a lot of fantastic stories, but in the process of doing so it has definitely stripped back a little of the mystery, and in many respects it’s the mystery – that sense of only catching glimpses of events and names – that makes a setting like 40k so intriguing. Of course it’s a balancing act for Black Library as to how much to reveal and how much to keep hidden, and it’s also up to each person to decide how important the mystique is to them as a reader. There are pros and cons to both sides of that particular debate, but for the purpose of this article let’s not worry about it too much.
What events might BL tackle next?
In this first section I’m going to list a few of the most common events or time periods in 40k history that tend to be brought up when discussing what ‘the next Heresy’ might be. For no reason other than it’s how my brain works, I’ll go in chronological order. I’ll also include links to more information about each event/time period, if you’d like to know more – I’m going to go with Lexicanum as my personal preferred 40k wiki, and where available the lore videos of the excellent Oculus Imperia channel.
The Unification Wars
One of John Blanche’s iconic Thunder Warrior depictions
I would say that this is one of the two possibilities that I see Black Library fans talking about the most – the tantalising idea of looking even further back along the 40k timeline to the events that led up to the creation of the Imperium, the Great Crusade and then inevitably on to the Horus Heresy. There’s very little concrete information known about the pre-Great Crusade era, and I can absolutely see the appeal of fleshing it out and learning more about some of the pre-Imperial warlords, the Thunder Warriors, and The Emperor before he founded the Imperium. Certainly the few glimpses we’ve had so far of this time period – most notably in Chris Wraight’s Valdor: Birth of the Imperium – have been fascinating, and some of the Siege of Terra books have shown unexpected little glimpses of the past. There’s always the Perpetuals of course, if BL wants a way of framing pre-Unification stories.
The Unification Wars via Oculus Imperia
The Unification Wars on Lexicanum
The Scouring
Anna Lakisova’s amazing Luther artwork
This is the other option that comes up most often – where the Unification Wars would look to events before the Heresy, the Scouring would essentially carry on the timeline and portray the aftermath of the Heresy, as the Imperium finds its feet in a galaxy that’s forever been changed. There’s a bit more information available about this period, or at least we know of more things that happened – the destruction of Caliban/the Lion and Luther, the destruction of traitor legion homeworlds, the Iron Cage, Guilliman’s fateful duel with Fulgrim, etc. Obviously these take place over a reasonably long period, and there would certainly be a lot to cover. Again, I can see the appeal of this, and I think it’s probably more likely that BL would tackle some of these events than look back in detail at the Unification Wars.
The Age of Apostasy
I love this legenday John Blanche artwork!
Moving the timeline on by a few thousand years, the Age of Apostasy is a fascinating part of 40k history, looking away from the Space Marine-heavy era of the Heresy and its immediate aftermath and into a period concerned much more with the Ecclesiarchy, and in time the Sisters of Battle. To me, religion and faith are fundamental pillars of 40k as a setting, so a period of 40k history in which the Ecclesiarchy and the Administratum came into conflict is absolutely ripe for further exploration. Especially as it was a time in which the Imperium was genuinely on the verge of disaster, which saw the rise of High Lord Vandire and then Sebastian Thor, and which includes the formation of the Adepta Sororitas. I also think it would be nice to explore a period a little less Space Marine-heavy, and a little more politically complex.
The Age of Apostasy on Lexicanum
The Abyssal Crusade
If anyone knows the artist for this amazing image, please let me know!
This one is maybe a little left of centre, but I’ve always thought it was kind of cool – a power-crazed Imperial saint sending 30 Space Marine Chapters on a penitent crusade into the Eye of Terror, having supposedly been found to be corrupted by the Warp. Of course the real irony is that whether they were truly corrupt or not beforehand, the inevitable result of the crusade was that the vast majority of the Chapters were either destroyed or actually corrupted by spending so much time in the Eye of Terror. There would be loads to explore here, from the further curtailment of civil liberties (such as they were) under Saint Basillius’ influence to the disasters that befell the various Chapters, and the subsequent efforts of the Administratum to hush up what really happened.
The Abyssal Crusade on Lexicanum
The Badab War
After the Unification Wars and the Scouring, this option probably comes up the most, inspired I imagine by the work done by Forge World in their Imperial Armour books. I’m not particularly familiar with the Badab War myself, having never read those IA books, but I roughly know what happened. It certainly sounds suitably epic, involving Huron Blackheart, the Astral Claws (later the Red Corsairs), various other Chapters, and withheld taxes, culminating in open rebellion and all out war between Space Marines. It remains to be seen whether this is too close to the Heresy in terms of being mostly Space Marine-driven, with a charismatic warrior leading his followers into rebellion against the Imperium, and also whether Black Library would want to tackle something that already has quite a lot of established lore via Forge World. That being said, it would be interesting to see a ‘historical’ series tackling a relatively recent event in the 40k timeline.
There are several videos in this playlist, although the series isn’t yet finished
The Badab War via Oculus Imperia
Something new
I Am Slaughter – book one in The Beast Arises
While it wasn’t anything like to the scale of the Horus Heresy, Black Library’s The Beast Arises series proved that there’s still plenty of scope for surprises in the 40k universe. Anyone who has even briefly skimmed through a rulebook, background book or Codex will know that there are countless interesting events and snippets of 40k lore out there, mostly mentioned just in passing. There’s nothing to say that BL couldn’t pick one or more of these and expand upon them – the Tyrannic Wars (M41) maybe, or the Nova Terra Interregnum (M35-36), or even ‘A Doom Unstoppable’ (M40 – I pulled this from the 8th edition Genestealer Cults Codex). I’m not sure how likely it is that BL would commit to a long series about any of the smaller, lesser-known events, but anything’s possible – and the point is, something we don’t know much about could be an interesting option, and would somewhat do away with the question of ‘losing the mystique’.
The Era Indomitus
Avenging Son – book one in the Dawn of Fire series
For the first time…well, ever I think…the ‘now’ of the 40k setting is genuinely ongoing, and being revealed over time. The clock has moved another step closer to midnight, we’re into the Era Indomitus, and everything from here on in is brand new. Of course Black Library has already got involved in this time period, first with the Dark Imperium trilogy and now with the Dawn of Fire series, but it doesn’t really seem clear exactly what BL’s plans are. Ok, Dark Imperium has been adjusted to fit at the end of Dawn of Fire, which is (confusingly) still ongoing, but I’m sure I remember talk of Dawn of Fire being just the first part of an even bigger series – so could it be that BL are actually planning something more ambitious? Well, time will (hopefully) tell, but I think it’s certainly a possibility that they might want the ‘current’ 40k timeline to play a big part in the next big series. Of course if that’s the case, they probably need to do a slightly better job of communicating what’s actually going on! Again though, that’s a whole other conversation.
What would I like to see Black Library do next?
Ok, so those are just a few of the suggestions for what Black Library might choose to tackle as ‘the next Heresy’. Obviously I’ve only scratched the surface – there are plenty more options too, and we could debate the possibilities endlessly. What I think is more interesting to consider, however, is what BL chooses to do in terms of overall scale and series length. The obvious assumption is that they will try to recapture the magic and invest heavily in another massive, long-running series, something that they can label as another premium range and get fans hooked on over a relatively long period of time. Bear with me here, but I actually don’t want that to be the case. I know that might sound a bit backward, especially given how much I enjoyed most of the Heresy, but let me explain.
There are lots of things I love about the Heresy, but let’s face it – it’s LONG! In many respects that’s a good thing, as there’s a lot to get absorbed in, but it’s also hard to keep up with. Those of us who have been reading the Heresy from the beginning have waited 16 years for the series to reach its finale, and it’s not been easy to keep track of character arcs, events from earlier books, where certain factions are at various points in the series, and so on. I can’t imagine how daunting it is to start reading the Heresy now, and I have to ask myself the question of whether I would be able to (or want to) commit to a new series of this sort of length now. And to be honest, the answer is “probably not”. These days I find it hard to commit to anything much longer than a trilogy, so the thought of starting a series without knowing how many books it will include in total…yeah, I’m really not sure about that.
My personal preference would be for Black Library to forget about trying to recapture the size and scale of the Heresy and instead (to borrow a phrase from my day job) to take a more agile approach. By which I mean continue to explore cool events from the 40k timeline, but concentrate on slightly smaller stories that can be broken down into shorter, more easily consumed series. This would leave room for the Heresy to be explored further as a setting now that the main narrative arc has been completed, and perhaps give authors the chance to catch up on some part-finished series. Let’s take a look at these points in a bit more detail…
The Horus Heresy as a setting
Lots of people have opinions on which Heresy stories are the most important ones to read, or what the ‘best’ reading order is for the series, and these opinions all stem from the length and complexity of the series, and the difficulty in committing to something this big. There’s no ‘right’ way of reading the series but without going into too much detail I think it all comes down to the fact that the Heresy grew organically rather than being planned from start to finish up front, and different stories did different things. Some drove the wider narrative relentlessly forward towards the series’ inevitable conclusion, while others took their time in exploring what the Imperium was like at that time (ok, that’s an oversimplification, but I’m sure you get the gist of what I’m saying), and different readers got different things out of them. Now that the main narrative is essentially over though, what’s stopping Black Library from going back and telling more stories set during this time period?
Nemesis might not ‘move the narrative forward’ much, but it’s still a cool book
This idea of the Heresy changing from a series into a setting is incredibly compelling to me personally, and I think a lot of readers would be into it too. It feels crazy to say this, but even with 54 novels (plus the Siege books) BL has really only skimmed the surface of what was happening across the entire galaxy during the time of the Heresy. Just because we’ll have seen some of the major events of the Heresy, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still countless opportunities for interesting storytelling during this period. That could be a case of revisiting familiar characters and looking at things they got up to outside of what’s been shown so far, or it could involve brand new characters and/or locations whose stories fill in some of the blanks. This might not be of interest to readers who just wanted to see the big story beats of the Heresy brought to life, but that’s ok – the main Heresy series has already scratched that itch.
It really just seems like a shame to have built the Heresy up into such an incredibly rich tapestry of characters and events only to never return. Given that it’s a galaxy-spanning war – and arguably you could roll the Great Crusade era in with the Heresy – it seems like a total no-brainer to start treating it as a setting much like BL already does with, say, Necromunda (or how they briefly did with the Age of Legends range for the Old World).
Smaller historical series
Turning the Heresy into a setting is one thing, but there’s still going to be demand from readers for further exploration of 40k’s history, whether that’s the time periods I mentioned earlier or something else entirely. Rather than a single ‘tentpole’ series that lasts for ages and requires a serious commitment from readers though, why not explore a number of events and time periods from 40k’s backstory in a variety of shorter series – sort of a ‘40k historical’ range? I feel like this would be a great way of tackling some of the cool events and time periods I mentioned earlier, drilling down into the core of what makes each one interesting without getting bogged down in vast, expansive storylines.
I would be interested in seeing different approaches taken to these historical series depending on the size, scale and complexity of each event being tackled. As I’ve said, I’m not keen on starting another huge series, but I’d be interested in seeing what would happen if BL tackled a variety of events via a combination of single-author novels, duologies or trilogies, and larger multi-author collaborative projects spread across multiple novels. Smaller-scale events could perhaps be covered in just a few releases (maybe using different story lengths – short stories, novellas, novels etc.) while larger events might warrant bigger series. We’ve already seen BL try a 12-book series (albeit with short word counts) to cover The Beast Arises – that had its problems, but the concept is still pretty cool.
How about, for something bigger like the Scouring, a number of discrete novels or small groupings of novels, each exploring one element of the wider time period? That way they could all feed into a shared sort of ‘umbrella’ series but wouldn’t be tied too closely together, and could be read – maybe even written – in a variety of different orders. That might then appeal to readers who want the big, epic series while not putting off those who want to be able to dip in and out without worrying about continuity, or the daunting prospect of needing to buy and read loads of books. It would also maintain the sort of ‘writer’s room’ concept that the Heresy has made such good use of – in fact by decentralising things and applying that idea to multiple smaller series, BL could encourage author collaboration (and reap the rewards therein) much more broadly than if they only do it for one massive, complicated series.
Volpone Glory – expanding the Sabbat Worlds
I’ve mentioned Dawn of Fire already, but I should point out that from what BL has told us so far, it might be that they’re already taking that smaller-scale collaborative approach with this series. I’ll remain a touch dubious until I can see more of the shape that DoF is going to take overall, exactly how many books it’s going to comprise of and if/how it fits in with other 40k series in future, but it’s going to be interesting to watch either way. I also want to mention the Sabbat Worlds, because now that BL have started publishing novels set in this series (is it a series? A range maybe? Hard to say…) by authors other than Dan Abnett it does seem to open up the tantalising prospect of this becoming a genuine multi-author, collaborative mini-setting itself. I’m sure I’m not the only person who would be interested in seeing where that could go…
Catch up on unfinished series
As well as keeping the Heresy going as a new setting and kicking off some other interesting historical series, the other thing I’d love to see Black Library do is to actively encourage authors to spend some time catching up on part-finished series. To be fair, it’s not like the Heresy has dominated so much that nothing else has been written while it’s been ongoing – far from it – but it definitely feels, correctly or otherwise, that the Heresy has always tended to take precedence. To me, this ties in with the point about focusing on smaller historical series – if BL goes for another huge epic like the Heresy, the same thing is going to happen again and smaller but just as interesting series are going to suffer.
Off the top of my head I can think of several existing series which seem to have stalled a bit recently, or which have been introduced as ongoing series but not fleshed out as much as I might have expected. Putting aside The Primarchs, which is still missing the final four novels, and the Horus Heresy Character Series, which has only had three books announced so far (obviously both of these series are closely linked to the Heresy itself), there’s also John French’s Horusian Wars trilogy, David Annandale’s Castellan Crowe series, both Rise of the Ynnari and Phoenix Lords series from Gav Thorpe, the Imperial Knights series by Andy Clark, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Black Legion and Spear of the Emperor series, not to mention Dan Abnett’s Bequin trilogy and Chris Wraight’s Vaults of Terra and Watchers of the Throne series.
Incarnation came out in 2018 – hopefully the third book in the trilogy will still happen!
That’s just off the top of my head – I’m sure there will be more, and I haven’t even touched on Age of Sigmar! To be fair, in the last couple of years we’ve seen Abnett’s and Wraights’ series progress, but it’s been years since the last novels in all the rest. Of course some of them may not have sold well enough for BL to continue with them, but the point is that there are loads of interesting stories already being told, and I would love to see them all finished or at least extended. While the Heresy wasn’t stopping this happening, I do think it was slowing down the process, so I think there’s an opportunity coming up to refocus and get some more of these series over the line.
***
Anyway, as always I’ve ended up writing more than I’d intended – I could keep going, but then this article would just keep growing and growing…much like the Heresy did! As it is, that’s a reasonably good overview of some of the most commonly mentioned possibilities for what Black Library might do next, and of what I would personally like to see. I’m sure the folks at BL have big plans, and hopefully we’ll find out about some of them reasonably soon – but in the meantime, I’d love to know what you would like BL to do next. Are there events or periods of time you’re desperate to see explored? Do you want another huge, epic series or lots of smaller ones? Drop me a line in the comments below, or come find me on Twitter and let me know!
See also: all of the Horus Heresy reviews on Track of Words.
If you enjoyed this interview and would like to support Track of Words, you can leave a tip on my Ko-Fi page.
I recall in previous Black Library Live events, when fans showed excitement in continuing into the Scouring era, Nick Kyme’s response was to instead champion the idea of Unification Wars history instead, so I expect that period to take precedence (personally I’d prefer the Scouring first!), plus the Heresy as a setting as they’ve already talked about.
That’s interesting. My feeling has always been that the Unification Wars would be tricky to do in detail, hence why it’s only been very lightly touched upon so far. For me personally, I’m far less interested in either that or the Scouring than I am in in exploring some of the smaller, lesser-known periods of 40k history (and digging into the Heresy as a setting). That’s just me though, and I see the appeal of the others 🙂
I’ve always consider WH universes as sandboxes authors can do whatever heck they want within. Fans pointing out the characters in XIIV novel is wearing Mark VIIIIIXXX armor instead of VIIIIIXXM armor is to me ridiculously silly. It seems people keep forgetting WH isn’t hard sci-fi, there are barely any sci-fi elements. Gravity, atmospheres, planet’s rotation, just to name a few, are so rarely taken into consideration every single story reads like it’s on Earth or in a space ship. That’s all fine, just don’t make it into something it isn’t.
Having said that, I prefer smaller, stand-alone series. Like Mr Fehervari and his incredible Dark Coil series. You can pick any book you want and dive in. Or Jake Ozga is now showing similar approach with his AoS stories.
When you look back at the 54 HH books, most of them are pointless filler. There’s no point doing the series like that again if it ends up poorly planned out, convoluted mess you need charts and diagrams to figure what arc to read next because reading these books in the publishing order is not the best approach.
We need more Fabius Bile, Vaults of Terra, etc trilogies. That is what’s keeping me interested in the setting.
I do agree about taking things too seriously, but I suppose that often stems from readers being hyper-aware of miniscule details as fans of the games and the minis. For me though, they’re not particularly important, and for sure 40k is more science fantasy than science fiction.
I think it’s dangerous to talk about books being filler, though. That’s entirely subjective, and for lots of readers (myself included) the books which don’t ‘move the narrative forward’ or have a huge impact on the broader series are often interesting for different reasons. Rejecting them as pointless is pretty dismissive really, and everyone’s entitled to find enjoyment in things that they like. I think it’s also worth mentioning that tackling the Heresy in its published order is a perfectly good way of reading the series…for some readers.
All that being said, small standalone series are what I’m most interested in too. If BL could find a way to deliver the immersive depth of longer series with the immediate, contained impact of smaller series then I think they’d be onto a winner.
That was a fun article, loads of story ideas. You hit the nail on the head with the word ‘setting’. The grim dark setting of 40k is awesome, take it back to the cosmic horror that surrounds the byzantine, crumbling Imperium. I think the resurrection of Guilliman and the plastered on introduction of Belisarius Cawl was the day the music grim dark died for me.
I’ve always wanted to read a mini series on a tyrannic invasion of a sub-sector/sector. Starting off in the vein of the start if Battlestar Galactica. You’d be able to get some Imperial Navy stories in, evacuation of planets, horrifying battles and desperate measures taken.
The odd story about the Unification Era would be fun, purely for the fact that they contain ‘techno-barbarians’ (“Techno, techno, techno! [Vinyl Scratch]). They would make some sweet models.
And the Age of Apostasy would allow a political/Game of Thrones story arc to unfold. Chris Wraight has been good at those sorts of stories.
You’re right about the Heresy. That was too big. Aaron Dembski-Bowden said on a podcast interview that he thought the Siege of Terra series was too large at 8 novels and should have been 5. I agree with him on that. But does mean we get 2 Abnett novels.
Michael, you need to moonlight as a BL editor!
Nah, I don’t think BL would want me!
In terms of the length of the Heresy, that’s not actually what I meant. I’m fine with the Heresy being long, and in many respects I wish it had carried on rather than rushing a bit towards the end. I just don’t think I could face another long series, considering how much time I’ve sunk into the Heresy.