Black Library Weekly – W/C 23/04/18

Hello and welcome to the latest instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. As you’ll see as you read on, this week has been a slightly unusual week, with just a couple of releases but something super cool taking place midweek. Let’s get straight to it…

Monday
It’s back to the archives for this week’s Digital Monday short story, with Andy Chambers’ classic Adeptus Mechanicus tale Deus Ex Mechanicus (£2.49 in ebook). Originally released in issue 20 (I think) of Inferno! magazine before being reprinted in a few different anthologies, it was written WAY before any of the cool new Adeptus Mechanicus models were available (we’re talking 20 years, give or take) and back when necrons were very different to what they are now, but somehow it still feels appropriate…and in places weirdly prophetic. You can have a read of my review here, but suffice to say if you’re a fan of either of these factions then I think it’s a story you’ll probably enjoy.

Midweek
I’ve got used to talking about these sorts of weeks, away from the big new tile releases and so on, in terms of looking for positives and often digging a little to find cool things taking place. Not so this week – in a welcome surprise, on Wednesday the Warhammer Community site posted brand new cover artwork for not one…not two…but FIVE upcoming Black Library books. If you’ve not yet checked that out, have a read of the Community article here and/or my own commentary on the new artwork and the reveal itself here.

I don’t have a huge amount more to add to what I’ve already said really, other than to reiterate that – in my opinion, at least – this is an excellent move on Black Library’s part. As I saw someone comment online, building hype for new models and rules has become a common occurrence, to why not do the same for books? Cover reveals are pretty common in other areas of the publishing industry, and I think it’s about time Black Library started making more use of this sort of thing to start building hype about books a little earlier than they have been doing up until now. If this were to happen on a regular basis I know I would be very happy!

Weekend
As with last weekend there was just the single release on Saturday – The Voice of Mars by David Guymer, which is the sequel to last year’s The Eye of Medusa. No audiobook for this one (at least not yet), so the formats it’s available in are hardback (£18) and ebook (£9.99). I thought The Eye of Medusa was interesting, with some great elements but also a few issues, so it’s going to be interesting to see how this one goes. As usual I spoke to David for a quick author interview to get an idea of what to expect – you can check out that Rapid Fire interview by clicking here or on the banner below. I thought David’s comment about this being less of an ‘ideas-heavy’ story was interesting, in particular.

That was the only new release at the weekend for English-language readers, although if you’re a German reader there was a bit more for you to enjoy with German translations available for not just The Voice of Mars but also some great older titles. It’s an interesting mx, including Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor’s Legion, Salvation’s Reach, The Master of Mankind and even an old-school Warhammer Chronicles novel from Gav Thorpe – my German isn’t great, so I’m not sure if it’s the full omnibus of The Sundering or just part of it. It’s cool to see so many translations coming along at the same time – it’s worth mentioning simply because there are so many, and the selection is so varied – and I’m sure those will be some popular titles for German readers!

Thoughts on the week
Well it’s been a slightly odd week really. Normally if there were only two releases – and one of them was an old story from the archives – I’d probably be talking about it as a pretty quiet week, and in some respects it was. I like the way Monday’s short story loosely tied into Saturday’s main release, with the Adeptus Mechanicus link, and also felt appropriate given the recent-ish release of Forgebane and the new 40k lore that goes with it. That being said, neither of those releases are really what you’d call major releases, so I suspect that for a fair few Black Library fans it’s going to have felt like a week without much for them to get their teeth into.

Or at least it would, except Wednesday’s cover reveals somewhat change the dynamic of the week. On the one hand, none of the titles whose covers were revealed came as a total surprise – the new Ciaphas Cain novel was confirmed (albeit not named) at the Black Library Weekender last year, Robbie’s Ultramarines novel and Clint’s witch hunters novel were teased by short stories in the Advent Calendar, John’s Heresy novel was confirmed at the Horus Heresy and Necromunda Weekender in February, and Chris’ novel…well, I can’t quite remember when that was confirmed but it had been on the radar for a while. On the other hand, revealing the (badass) covers brings all of these books into focus a bit more, and while we don’t yet have release dates the fact that the covers are done and revealed instantly starts building hype as the assumption is they’re coming soon.

In fact, if you head to July’s Coming Soon page on the BL website you’ll see that the banner uses sections taken from three of these just-released covers, as opposed to artwork from titles actually released in July. That doesn’t necessarily mean that these books are going to be released in August…but it does suggest it. I for one would be VERY happy to see all of these coming in August, although I do rather fear for my wallet if that’s the case. I can definitely see the Ciaphas Cain novel getting a limited edition hardback, for example. Hopefully next week we’ll see the usual confirmation of the next month’s new titles, and find out for certain.

So – a slightly unusual week in terms of how things normally go, but a pretty cool one nonetheless. As usual, to round off this section I’ve listed below all of the posts I’ve published so far this week:

Coming up…
As far as I’m aware there’s nothing listed on the Black Library website for release next weekend. It’s been a while since we last had an audio week, so I’m wondering if perhaps that’s what we’ll get next week – presumably we’ll find out on Monday if I’m right or if I’m WAY off.

As always, if you’ve got any thoughts or comments on the week’s news and releases please do get in touch via the comments section below or on Facebook or Twitter.

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