Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. It’s been something of an odd week to be honest, with a new Horus Heresy novel and a couple of reprinted short stories, then nothing much else ‘official’…plus some very interesting news from the grapevine so to speak. Let’s crack on and take a look…
Every once in a while a whole bunch of information about upcoming Black Library books shows up online, sometimes just titles, other times along with synopses and covers. Quite a lot has showed up recently, so I thought it might be good to pull together everything I can find about these books. Of what I’ve included below, some have been kicking around online for a while so you might be familiar with those, but others have only just showed up.
Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with Black Library authors talking about their new releases. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – 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 instalment I asked David Annandale about his new Horus Heresy novel Ruinstorm – book 46 in the series! It’s available to order now, so let’s get straight on with the interview.
For the fifth instalment of the ongoing Horus Heresy-set The Primarchs series, Gav Thorpe takes a look at the primarch of the Word Bearers in Lorgar: Bearer of the Word. When disgraced preacher Kor Phaeron finds a strange infant – clearly touched by the gods – in the company of a band of ragged nomads travelling the arid lands of Colchis, he instantly recognises the potential for his own gain represented by Lorgar. We watch as he exerts his influence upon the impressionable Lorgar, and how their relationship develops as Lorgar himself changes.
Available as a standalone e-short or within the Sedition’s Gate and War Without End anthologies, Guy Haley’s The Laurel of Defiance sees Ultramarines Captain Lucretius Corvo honoured by Guilliman for his role in the defence of Ultramar. As he mingles with the great and good of the realm, uncomfortable with the esteem in which he’s held and the message behind his recognition, he recalls the events which led there. Events, on the world of Astagar, which saw him lead his men against the forces of the Word Bearers and World Eaters, and their horrific allies.
Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. As expected, this week brought with it the latest tranche of upcoming titles to be announced, along with a fairly low key, but still interesting, mixture of releases. Let’s take a look..
In their first full non-Heresy outing, the Talons of the Emperor – i.e. the Adeptus Custodes and the Sisters of Silence – take centre stage in Chris Wraight’s novel Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor’s Legion. With word from Cadia looking bleak, and crises springing up throughout the Imperium, calls grow for the Custodes to end their self-enforced seclusion and fight once more at the forefront of the Imperium’s armies. Set predominantly on Terra it deals with the events leading up to the Gathering Storm, both military and political, from the perspective of the Custodes, the Sisters of Silence, and the High Lords.
2003’s classic Black Library novel Daemon World, by Ben Counter, is something of an iconic 40k novel despite being about as un-40k as you can imagine…but in a good way. On the titular daemon planet Torvendis, deep within the Maelstrom, Lady Charybdia rules in the name of Slaanesh, her great city built upon deep-running strata of battle and death. When the mountain tribes begin to stir, and Word Bearers arrive hunting one of their own, the balance of power on Torvendis begins to change.
Josh Reynolds’ first contribution to the Horus Heresy series, Blackshields: The False War is a 72-minute audio drama featuring ex-World Eater Endryd Haar…and lots of arguing. On the prison Forge of Xana-Tisiphone, Archmagos Gilim Raijan waits to make a trade with Horus’ emissary, even as a loyalist fleet battles against the system’s defences in orbit. Meanwhile Haar and his warband of Blackshields, having cast off their legion loyalties and offering fealty to neither Horus or the Emperor, seek only to survive and to find their own path through the war.
Five years after its publication in Treacheries of the Space Marines, Anthony Reynolds’ short story Vox Dominus is now also available as a standalone e-short. Carrying on the story of Marduk from Reynolds’ Word Bearers trilogy (and very spoilerific if you haven’t read at least Dark Apostle) it sees the Word Bearers clashing with their cousins in the Death Guard over the unexpected arrival of the corpse of XVIIth Legion battleship. While a combined force of Word Bearers and Death Guard investigate the stricken Vox Dominus, Marduk sees the opportunity to further his own plans, complete with a little treachery.