Tag Archives: Black Library Celebration

Black Library Celebrations

Every year Games Workshop puts on what it calls a ‘Black Library Celebration’, which is supposed to be an opportunity for fans to…well…celebrate all things Black Library, but every year it ends up a bit of a damp squib (or should that be a damp squig?). This year, rather than bemoan another missed opportunity and another day of website chaos, I thought I’d do something different and put together my own small celebration of all the things I personally think are cool about Black Library fiction. I’m going to talk about why I read BL stories and what I get out of it, then pick out some highlights from recent years in terms of book reviews, articles and author interviews, all of which I think genuinely celebrate Black Library.

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Opinions: On the Black Library Celebration 2022

Another year, another mildly disappointing Black Library Celebration, an annual event which should provide an opportunity to get existing BL readers hyped and encourage new fans to try out some great storytelling, and which should celebrate Black Library fiction as something valuable and enjoyable in its own right. Instead, it inevitably ends up as a safe exercise in box-ticking that does the bare minimum but really only serves to remind readers like me – who aren’t especially interested in the miniatures or the games – that we’re not an audience segment which Games Workshop really cares about. Ok, that’s a bit melodramatic – but if you look at what was available to buy this year and what the coverage of the Celebration entailed…it’s also kinda true.

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3 Wishes for the Black Library Celebration 2022

The annual Black Library Celebration has been running since 2018, an event which in the words of Warhammer Community offers a chance to “celebrate your passion for the fiction of the Warhammer universes”. It’s a great idea in principle, using Games Workshop stores (when they’re not all shut due to Covid) and the Warhammer Community site to bring the Black Library community together – readers, authors, and everyone involved in the community. Every year, however, I find myself disappointed that instead of actually celebrating the breadth of storytelling on offer across BL fiction or the incredible work that goes into writing these stories, this event is basically just an opportunity to release a bunch of new 40k books all on the same day, along with a new Games Workshop miniature of a BL character.

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The Black Library Celebration 2019

Back at the beginning of 2018, the first Black Library Celebration took place over the weekend of the 24th and 25th February to mark 20 years of Black Library stories. It looks like we can now say that it’s an annual event, as the 2019 Black Library Celebration has recently taken place, this time featuring a whole week of brand new releases as a celebration (surprise, surprise) of all things Black Library. An annual celebration of stories set in the worlds of 40k and Age of Sigmar is something I can absolutely get behind, so I thought I’d take a closer look at what was involved this year.

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