Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. After last week’s Summer of Reading campaign we’re back to normal service now, so I’ve gone back to the usual structure for this article. Let’s kick things off in the usual way, beginning with the start of the week.
From games design and White Dwarf to freelance Black Library author, Gav Thorpe has had a huge impact on Games Workshop and its intellectual properties over the years. September 2017 marks the twenty year anniversary of Gav’s first Black Library short story – Birth of a Legend – while 2017 has also seen Gav receive a prestigious Gemmell Award for his Age of Sigmar novel Warbeast.
With both of those milestones firmly in mind, I spoke to Gav about his twenty-year career as a Black Library author and how that fitted in with his time at Games Workshop, along the way discussing his first two Black Library stories, his work in the audio medium, and loads more.
“A small gift hardly compares to the life of a Dwarf King, now does it?”
Gav Thorpe’s first ever Black Library story, first published twenty years ago, Birth of a Legend is an old-school Warhammer story featuring an early incarnation of one of the setting’s greatest characters. When King Kurgan and his retainers are captured by the Orc warlord Vagraz Head-Stomper, things look bleak for the Dwarfs. That is, until the local human huntsmen arrive to investigate the intrusion into their territory, led by a young man with a powerful destiny. Determined to drive them off and free the Dwarf captives, he leads his men into battle against the Orcs…and the rest is history.
A sweeping story of adventure, danger and drama, Justin Hill’s Viking Fire is a novelisation of historical events – the story of Harald Hardrada, from his youth in Norway to his invasion of England in 1066. It’s a wide-ranging story spanning the majority of Harald’s life and moving across large swathes of the continent as Harald pursues his fate, from the fjords of Norway to the warm seas of the Mediterranean. Along the way he fights on land and sea, meets Kings, Emperors and Empresses, wins hearts and loses friends; he’s driven to survive and succeed, and realise his ambitious dreams.
First published within the Fyreslayers anthology before getting the standalone ebook treatment, Guy Haley’s Age of Sigmar short story The Volturung Road has one foot in the Mortal Realms and the other back in the World That Was. As the Slaanesh-worshippers’ siege of his family’s hold approaches its one hundred and first year, runeson Ulgathern grows increasingly concerned, fearing that a prophecy deemed unreliable by most is coming to fruition. When tragedy strikes and his personal circumstances change, he sets out towards the Volturung lodge to reach his people’s ancestral home and escape the fate he sees approaching.
Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. This week, instead of the usual Digital Monday short story we’ve had the 2017 Summer of Reading campaign, so I’ll go through that first before moving on to the other points of interest for the week.
Day Seven of 2017’s Black Library Summer of Reading campaign
Chris Wraight’s White Scars stories are rightly acknowledged as some of the best in the Horus Heresy, but if you thought that arc was over after The Path of Heaven, the short story Restorer is a reminder that their story isn’t finished. Entirely spoilerific if you’re not up to speed with events – be warned – it sees Shiban Khan back on Terra, attempting to recover both physically and psychologically from the various traumas he’s suffered since Prospero. Taking in the corridors of the Imperial Palace and the wilds of pre-Siege Terra, it’s a story of reflection and atmosphere as much as action.
Day Six of 2017’s Black Library Summer of Reading campaign
Lucius the Eternal – the guy who, any time he’s killed and his killer takes satisfaction in the act, comes back to life in a rather gruesome fashion. How does that work if he’s not killed by a person, but rather a thing? That’s the question asked by Ian St. Martin in his short story Pride and Fall, an unusual and unexpectedly horrifying tale set relatively early on in Lucius’ eternal-ness. Without giving too much away, much to Lucius’ surprise he meets his temporary end not at the hands of a mighty warrior, but in an altogether more humble way. Continue reading
Welcome to Track of Words presents Rapid Fire, the first in what I hope will be an ongoing series of quick interviews with Black Library authors focusing in on brand new releases. As the name suggests, these interviews are going to be short and sweet, with the idea being that I’m going to ask more or less the same questions to each author – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read it.
In this first instalment I asked Ian St. Martin about his new novel Lucius: The Faultless Blade, which you can pick up online and in bookstores now. Without further ado, over to Ian.
Day Five of 2017’s Black Library Summer of Reading campaign
The book trade is a dangerous business, at least in Josh Reynolds’ Age of Sigmar short story Auction of Blood. Palem Bok, bookseller and spy, is tasked with attending an auction of rare items and acquiring what turns out to be a remarkably dangerous artefact for his mistress, the Mortarch Neferata. Danger abounds in the streets and houses of Greywater Fastness, and in order to complete his mission Bok must exercise all of the caution, judgement and skill a bookseller needs, along with a judicious serving of violence and death.