I recently posted a Forgotten Texts review for Chris Pramas’ classic (and excellent) Dark Angels short story The Black Pearl. I also got in touch with Chris for a quick interview, talking about how he ended up writing for Black Library and giving his thoughts on the wider hobby. Let’s get straight into the interview…
“Yer one of us now, lad.”
An early Warhammer story from back in 1997, Andy Jones’ Grunsonn’s Marauders introduced readers to the titular band of roguish adventurers – the dwarf Grimcrag Grunsonn, Jiriki the elf, young Imperial Envoy Johann Anstein, and the wonderfully named barbarian Keanu the Reaver. You can probably work out the tone of the story just from the names! It sees the four marauders taking on a quest to find a powerful magical relic, on behalf of a friendly old wizard. As you might expect, things don’t turn out quite as simple as they hope, and much adventure ensues.
“I was afraid…to face up to what I had done…”
In Chris Pramas’ classic Dark Angels short story The Black Pearl, the young Interrogator Chaplain Uzziel leads his brothers in a mission so important it could change the face of the Chapter. The prize, so valuable it’s worth risking everything for, is nothing less than the legendary Lion Sword, the whereabouts of which was revealed during the interrogation of one of the Fallen. Standing between Uzziel and the sword are the Exodite eldar of Lughnasa, but can he really trust the word of the Fallen?
Forgotten Texts is an ongoing, weekly series of articles in which I take a look back into the Black Library archives at some of the earliest stories I can find. These mostly cover the (old) Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 settings, although there are a few Necromunda stories in there as well, and the idea is that each article will contain a review of the story as well as a commentary on how it stands up against, and fits in with, the state of the setting as it is today.
“All that is foul and pestilent will be washed away…”
Set in the Necromunda underhive, Alex Hammond’s 1997 short story The Demon Bottle follows hapless half-ratskin Sarak as he attempts, without much success, to get his life back on track. Dependent on cheap booze and dubious pills and scraping a living as a pest exterminator, he dreams of life in the heady heights of the Spire as an escape from the harsh realities of the underhive. When his debts are called in however, he finds himself hunting some unusually dangerous pests.
The first of my Forgotten Texts reviews, looking back at vintage Black Library short stories from the days of Inferno! Magazine, was for Jonathan Green’s classic Ultramarines vs Tyranids short story Salvation. As an extra treat, Jonathan has kindly agreed to talk a little about this 20 year old short story and the process of writing it! Without further ado, over to the author…
“Left behind, as he himself had been…”
A classic short story from way back in 1997, Jonathan Green’s Salvation follows Brother Rius of the Ultramarines’ 1st Company as he and his brothers battle the Tyranid menace on Jaroth, a newly rediscovered Imperial world. After chancing upon the planet during a routine patrol, the Ultramarines acknowledge their duty to protect its natural resources and defenceless population, despite facing appalling odds. Brother Rius and his squad find themselves in the thick of the action, determined to wipe the Tyranids out to the last creature, but when Rius is badly wounded he earns a newfound respect for the honest, hardy locals.
There’s been fiction set in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes for a LONG time, in one form or another. Way back in the depths of time you could buy novels set in these world (and indeed all sorts of other Games Workshop-related settings) published by GW Books and then Boxtree, before Black Library itself was set up in 1997, originally as part of the wider BL Publishing division of Games Workshop and later its own division.