Black Library’s Age of Sigmar anthology Champions of the Mortal Realms collects together four novellas originally published in 2018 as part of the ‘Black Library Novella Series 1’ – Warqueen by Darius Hinks, Heart of Winter by Nick Horth, The Red Hours by Evan Dicken and The Bone Desert by Robbie MacNiven. All four novellas are excellent, and as an anthology this offers great value for a collection of stories covering a wide variety of characters, locations and themes from across the Mortal Realms. It’s had a slightly strange publication history, however (as has its 40k companion Servants of the Imperium), so I’ll talk a bit about that as well as taking a quick look at each story and linking out to my individual reviews.
So first of all, it’s great to see Black Library offering this anthology (even if only in ebook – more on this shortly) as it’s easy for novellas to get a bit lost among all the other titles, and these are all well worth checking out if you’re an Age of Sigmar fan. Whether you’ve read most or all of the novels and are still hungry for more stories of reasonable length, or you’re looking to dip a toe into the Mortal Realms and try a few things out without going all-in on a novel, these are all fun stories with great characters and plenty of entertaining action, and between them they offer a range of perspectives on the Mortal Realms. Compared to buying all four novellas individually it’s also a really good price, working out as roughly four for the price of two and a half! That’s going by the individual ebook prices.
What’s weird though is that if you want to buy directly from Black Library, you can only pick this up as an ebook…AND YET. The paperback version of this exact anthology was released back in August 2019, but only via the book trade (i.e. Amazon, physical bookstores etc.) and not direct from BL! I remember being a bit confused back when the paperback was published, as it’s very rare to see BL release something only in the book trade, and they didn’t do any form of marketing for it that I could see. It’s great that this is now available in ebook (both direct from BL and via the book trade), so I suppose it’s a case of ‘all’s well that ends well’, but it’s both strange and a bit of a shame that BL aren’t selling the paperback too (via the Games Workshop website), as I’m sure there will be readers who would prefer it in that format. I would say that at least you know now, but from what I can see the paperback is now out of print…
Anyway, that strangeness aside, as I said earlier these are really great stories that I can highly recommend to anyone interested in Age of Sigmar. Here are a few quick thoughts on each novella, with links out to my full reviews (I’ve also included the original cover art for each novella, just because it’s cool).
Warqueen by Darius Hinks
A Tzeentch-worshipping Darkoath tribe and its utterly badass Warqueen taking on Khornate invaders, only to get embroiled in in-fighting and vicious scheming. Tons of fighting, but some good character work as well to provide a bit of balance. Likely to be of particular interest to Chaos fans, but a lot of fun even if you’re faction-agnostic.
Check out my review of Warqueen.
Heart of Winter by Nick Horth
One of the standout characters from Horth’s City of Secrets, aelven Fleetmaster Arika Zenthe gets her own moment in the spotlight in this swashbuckling tale of naval adventure on the seas of Ghur. Pacy, full of adventure and excitement, with a nice sideline in Zenthe’s backstory and yet another example of a secondary character stealing the show (increasingly a Horth trademark)!
Check out my review of Heart of Winter.
The Red Hours by Evan Dicken
With a disgraced Freeguild captain defending an isolated outpost in Chamon from supernatural forces, this continues Dicken’s approach of exploring the interesting little corners of the Mortal Realms, away from the main factions and big events. It’s a great opportunity to see the setting through the eyes of regular, mortal characters – very satisfying.
Check out my review of The Red Hours.
The Bone Desert by Robbie MacNiven
Set after the events of the Realmslayer audio drama, everyone’s favourite grumpy dwarf (don’t call him a duardin) Slayer is still looking for his axe, travelling through the titular desert alongside his reluctant companion, the aelf Maleneth. A little different to Gotrek’s usual novel-length escapades, this is a great addition to his ongoing adventures in the Mortal Realms.
Check out my review of The Bone Desert.
In summary then, despite a weird release history this anthology is a great addition to Black Library’s Age of Sigmar range. It offers an excellent opportunity to explore a range of entertaining, pacy, action-packed and surprisingly characterful stories that between them do a great job of illustrating the scope and tone of the Mortal Realms, and on top of that it’s damn good value too. Anthologies aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, which is fair enough, but at this price it’s really a no-brainer for anyone who does enjoy shorter fiction and wants to know more about Age of Sigmar (as long as you’re ok with ebooks).
See also: the main Age of Sigmar reviews page on Track of Words.
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I like the sounds of the Freeguild novel, might have to pick that up on its own if it’s still available.
It’s great, as is everything I’ve read from Evan Dicken 🙂 Looks like the individual ebook is still available!
I found your longer review and purchased a copy via the link.
I’ll get a review up for it myself when I’ve finished reading it.
Ah yay, thank you! Hope you enjoy it, I’ll keep an eye out for you review 🙂