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. This week has been another fairly quiet one, so once again it’s not going to be a particularly long post. As always, however, there’s still enough to talk about – so let’s get cracking…
Monday
The week started off with an Age of Sigmar short story (for the second week in a row), in the shape of The Lightning Golem by Nick Kyme (£2.49 in ebook), which follows a Lord Veritant from the Celestial Knights Stormhost on a dark, portentous mission. There have already been plenty of Age of Sigmar stories tackling the question of what happens to Stormcast Eternals when they die and are reforged, and this is another one…but it takes a slightly different approach to anything else I’ve read before. It starts off by portraying the protagonist in a very human, emotional way, which adds weight to what happens as the story progresses, and there are some interesting ideas explored along the way. It’s perhaps not the easiest story to read, but it’s worth it for the big picture. Check out my review here.
Midweek
There’s very little to talk about in the midweek period this week, with just a couple of quick Warhammer Community post focusing on Black Library and very little else. The first of those posts was quite interesting, however, being an interview with Josh Reynolds in which the questions had all been suggested by fans over on the BL Facebook page. It’s worth having a read to get a sense of Josh’s dry humour, not to mention to find out what his favourite BL book (that he didn’t write) is.
The other Warhammer Community post which is sort-of Black Library related is this one, summing up the events of Malign Portents for Age of Sigmar, which have been revealed over the course of fifty (!) short stories – all of which are available for free. The final story has now been published, so it feels like a great time to mention these in case you haven’t come across them already. I’ve actually been holding off reading most of them, for various reasons, but now the series has finished it feels like a great time to get stuck in.
I’m not sure how closely BL were involved with these stories, as they’ve all been published via the Malign Portents website and they’re all credited as having been ‘produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham’ – so there are no authors on the covers, or anything like that. Ultimately, however, I don’t think it really matters, as the opportunity to check out so many (albeit very short) stories FOR FREE is quite amazing. If you haven’t yet checked these out, you can find them all here.
Weekend
In last week’s Black Library Weekly I suggested that the latest Primarchs novel would be released this weekend; I’m 100% certain that the BL site did originally have Vulkan: Lord of Drakes listed as being available to order from the 30th June, but that’s no longer the case – it is, in fact, now available to order from the 14th July. Instead, this weekend saw the release of the latest Warhammer Chronicles omnibus, two new paperback editions, and a hardback journal. Not a bad haul overall, although nothing brand new as such.
Let’s start with Warhammer Chronicles, and the latest re-release in this series – Ulrika the Vampire: The Omnibus by Nathan Long, which is available in ebook (£14.99) and paperback (£15) editions. The books in this trilogy were originally released somewhere around 2010-2012 I think, and followed on from Nathan’s involvement in carrying on the Gotrek and Felix series after William King’s last instalment. It’s great to see the Warhammer Chronicles series including a wide range of stories, and while this trilogy might not have quite the fanbase as some of the old-school Warhammer stories do, it feels like a great inclusion. I’ve never read these books, so I know I’m looking forward to this omnibus – especially after reading Nathan’s answers in my latest Rapid Fire author interview, which you can read by clicking here or on the banner below.
Next up are two 40k paperbacks, from Aaron Dembski-Bowden and John French, both of which are available for £8.99 each. If you’re after other formats, however, they’re both also still available in hardback (£18), ebook (£9.99) and MP3 audio (£29.99) formats. Both of these are fantastic books, one – Black Legion – continuing a series and the other – Resurrection – kicking a series off. If you like 40k and fancy reading stories which are dark, complex and thought-provoking then both of these series should be high up on your lists. If you’d like to read my reviews of both of these books you can find them here – for Black Legion and for The Horusian Wars: Resurrection.
Lastly, and very briefly, the final release of the weekend was the Warhammer Age of Sigmar Journal, following on from the release in May of a Horus Heresy journal. This one looks like being the same size and format as the Heresy one, and is priced once again at £13 – so if you really need a fancy notebook and you love Age of Sigmar, this might just be the one for you.
Thoughts on the week
To be honest it’s been quite a quiet week in terms of news and releases; it feels odd to be saying that for a week which offered no fewer than five releases, but as those include one short story, an omnibus of old(ish) novels, two paperback editions and a notebook…overall it does feel like a quiet one. That’s not to say these aren’t interesting releases, mind. If I’m honest, The Lightning Golem probably isn’t my favourite of Nick’s stories overall – but I was certainly surprised by the places he went with that story. I rather enjoyed it, and I think it’s good to see stories which explore familiar themes in new ways.
The weekend’s releases are all very much worth having, although for me personally I’d say that the Ulrika omnibus is the most interesting of the four titles. As I said earlier, these books passed me by first time around, but after reading Nathan’s answers in his interview this week I’ve got to say I’m really quite intrigued. I LOVE the Gotrek and Felix books, and I remember Ulrika as a character in those, so I’m quite keen to go back and give these a go. Interestingly, this is the first of the Warhammer Chronicles omnibuses that I’ve done a Rapid Fire interview for – let me know what you think, and whether you’d like to see more author interviews about omnibus editions like this.
That’s about it for the week, really – I think I’ve covered everything else already. As always, here’s a list of what else I’ve been posting this week:
- Slaves to Darkness by John French
- QUICK REVIEW: The Lightning Golem by Nick Kyme
- QUICK REVIEW: Headhunted by Steve Parker
- QUICK REVIEW: Exhumed by Steve Parker
- RAPID FIRE: Oldhammer – Nathan Long Talks Ulrika The Vampire
Coming up…
Judging by the Black Library website, next week should bring with it the release of the next Age of Sigmar novel – Callis and Toll: The Silver Shard by Nick Horth. Until recently it also looked like we’d be getting Mephiston: Revenant Crusade by Darius Hinks, although at the time of writing this appears to have dropped off the BL website, for some reason. Hopefully it will show up again soon! Also, keep an eye out next weekend for the announcement of October’s upcoming releases, and – hopefully – some more information about the upcoming Warhammer Horror series.
As always, if you’ve got any thoughts or comments on the week’s news and releases – or if you’ve spotted something I’ve missed – please do get in touch via the comments section below or on Facebook or Twitter.