For a while now Black Library’s Age of Sigmar range has been focused very much on individual books rather than trilogies or sequels*, but with the announcement of Richard Strachan’s Temple of Silence – the follow-up to Hallowed Ground – it looks like maybe, maybe, that might be changing. This got me thinking about which other AoS novels deserve the sequel treatment, so I’ve picked out five books that I personally loved, and which have been crying out for sequels. Most of these books have been out for quite a few years already, so chances are the window for sequels is long gone, but that doesn’t mean we as readers should stop talking about them, and asking BL for more!
*I find this an odd approach, personally. The range opened with the 10-strong Realmgate Wars series, and a few of the early books which followed did indeed get sequels – City of Secrets and The Silver Shard; Plague Garden and Black Pyramid; Overlords of the Iron Dragon and Profit’s Ruin, Mortarch of Blood and The Dominion of Bones. After that though, sequels completely dried up, with Gotrek Gurnisson’s Nounslayer series the only note of continuity throughout the range. For readers to really get into Age of Sigmar, in my opinion there need to be multiple trilogies or series (like in the 40k range). It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.
Anyway, without further ado then, let’s get into it. I’ve listed these books by the order in which they were published, going from oldest to newest.
Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows by Josh Reynolds
This was supposed to kick off a full Eight Lamentations series, which would have been an absolute delight, following a search across the Mortal Realms for eight powerful weapons. As it was, Spear of Shadows ended up the only novel, accompanied by an audio drama and a handful of (admittedly excellent) short stories. It covers the search for one of the eight weapons – the titular Spear of Shadows – by a selection of heroes, antiheroes and plain villains, and essentially offers an action-packed travelogue of the Realms, visiting all manner of intriguing locations. There’s a reason why this still crops up on a lot of people’s lists of great Age of Sigmar starting points – it’s tremendous fun (Reynolds really gets AoS), covers loads of ground in terms of factions and cool characters, and ties in really cleverly with lots of Reynolds’ other stories.
Given that Reynolds has long since stopped writing for Black Library I’m fairly sure there won’t ever be a sequel, or at least not from Josh himself. He’s said publicly that the audio drama War-Claw was essentially a heavily streamlined version of what would have gone into the second novel, so you can check that out for a glimpse of what might have been, at least. If you’re after short stories, the only two actually branded as Eight Lamentations are Auction of Blood and The Tainted Axe, but several others are definitely connected, including The Road of Blades and Order of the Fly: Tourney of Fate. There’s so much good stuff here though, so it’s hard not to pine for an alternate world in which BL did commission further novels – wouldn’t that have been something?
Check out my review of Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows
Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods by David Guymer
For a long time this was my favourite Age of Sigmar novel, and you know what? Even though it’s been out since 2019…it might still be my favourite. Top three, for sure. Brash, loud, utterly full of himself but yet strangely self-aware and incredibly honest, Hamilcar is an absolute pleasure to read about, and seeing the Mortal Realms through his eyes gives a different picture to what you get with pretty much any other character. The central concept here – a skaven warlock steals Hamilcar’s soul, so the big man has to try and figure out how to be a hero without all his powers – is brilliant, and provides the perfect platform for action, excitement, further exploration of the setting, and a whole lot of (uncharacteristic for BL) humour. Stormcast Eternals characters in particular tend to lean towards dour and serious, so this sort of fun, legitimately funny book is a real breath of fresh air – and personally I think BL should commission more along these lines.
As far as I can tell, the only Hamilcar story published since Champion of the Gods is the short story The Age of Enlightenment, although you could also include Force of Personality as that got a standalone digital release some time after it was first published in the Gods & Mortals anthology. Not only is it a crying shame that the Hamilcar stories have dried up, but it also seems a bit weird – after all, BL published three short stories and an audio drama before the novel came out, and it really seemed as though they were building Hamilcar up to be a key hero in the AoS range.
Check out my review of Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods
Check out RAPID FIRE: David Guymer Talks Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods
The Red Feast by Gav Thorpe
A book which really stands out as something different in the AoS range, which isn’t that surprising I suppose seeing as it’s actually set long before the Age of Sigmar – in the Age of Myth, in fact. It’s the story of a proud warrior who turns (or at least will turn) to Chaos as a way of ensuring survival for his people, discarding the newfangled worship of this guy called Sigmar along the way. Remember that guy Korghos Khul in the Realmgate Wars? Well this is where he came from! For much of the story it doesn’t even feel that much like Warhammer, reading more like AoS as historical fiction, but that’s a feature not a bug – it’s something different to the rest of the range, continuing what BL used to do for the Old World with its Time of Legends series and exploring some of the events that shaped the setting as we know it now. It’s SO good…
…and it’s an absolute tragedy that BL didn’t continue this series, especially as they so clearly planned to. This was, after all, labelled as “Book One of The Khul” (it’s right there on the front cover!), so the original plan was obviously to continue it. I don’t know what happened (maybe someone at BL/GW decided it was too soon to be exploring the Age of Myth after all – although I’d strongly disagree with that), but the scope of what we might have had still haunts me every time I think about this book. It’s always frustrating to see a publisher give up on a series, but this was such a good book, with so much promise for further stories.
Check out my review of The Red Feast
Check out RAPID FIRE: Gav Thorpe Talks The Red Feast
Gloomspite by Andy Clark
There was a time when you could justifiably criticise BL’s AoS range for not exactly capturing the typically dark, bleak tone that normally characterises Warhammer fiction. That changed over time, but Gloomspite really sealed the deal – this book is gross, in the best possible way, and it still leaves me feeling a little icky just thinking about it. And that’s exactly how it should be, for a novel about (although not told from the POV of) the Gloomspite Gitz! It’s really a Cities of Sigmar novel, set mostly in the city of Draconium and featuring a band of mercenaries begrudgingly roped into the defence of the city, as the Bad Moon rises and brings with it all manner of horrible creatures and disturbing effects. The Swords of Sigmar make for great protagonists, but it’s the combination of strong characters and all the (often mushroom-based) nastiness that really makes the book sing.
Don’t get me wrong, Gloomspite works perfectly well as a standalone story, but at the same time it’s perfectly set up for a sequel. The surviving Swords of Sigmar characters are easily strong enough to carry further stories, whether they face the same sort of enemies again or something totally different, and I would very happily read more about them. What I’d really love is further stories continuing this sort of tone and feel – i.e. exploring the grubby, horrible side of life in the Mortal Realms. There might not be another faction with quite the same vibe as the Gitz, but the overall blend of fantasy adventure and icky horror could definitely be replicated, while not impinging on the slightly different tone of the actual Warhammer Horror range.
(Note that Clark’s more recent novel Bad Loon Rising isn’t connected to Gloomspite – it’s a standalone book, written from a Gloomspite Gitz POV.)
Check out my review of Gloomspite
Prince Maesa by Guy Haley
The first Prince Maesa story (the audio drama The Autumn Prince) came out back in 2017, followed over the next few years by another short audio and an assortment of short stories. It wasn’t until 2022 that this novel arrived, featuring all of the existing stories combined, updated and expanded upon (there’s quite a lot of new material here too) to create a single cohesive narrative. That might sound weird but it really works, the episodic nature of the story allowing Haley to send Maesa and Shattercap (easily my favourite character) all around the Mortal Realms, meeting interesting people and fighting horrible monsters, all in the name of Maesa finding a way to bring his mortal love back to life. Individually the stories are all excellent, but combined like this they become more than the sum of their parts, and I’m not sure you’d even be able to tell if you didn’t already know that these had originally been individual releases.
Of the five books I’ve chosen, this is the only one that I think might actually get a sequel at some point. If nothing else, it’s the most recent of the lot, and probably the most accurate in terms of the present state of AoS lore. It’s also written by perhaps the most prolific of all current BL authors, and it’s fair to say that BL considers Haley to be a very safe pair of hands (which I’d absolutely agree with). It would certainly merit a sequel, or in fact multiple sequels. Given how strong the characters are, and the way that – like Spear of Shadows did – it provides a sort of travelogue of the Mortal Realms, I can’t help feeling that this could be a perfect vehicle for a sort of ‘introductory’ trilogy, ideal for readers trying to wrap their head around the Realms. This is BL of course, so they probably won’t commission more, but if they did…I would definitely buy them.
Check out my review of Prince Maesa
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So there you go – five Age of Sigmar novels that I personally think really deserve sequels. Will any of them actually get sequels? Only time will tell, but to be honest I’d be surprised. Even if they don’t though, I really – really – hope BL recognises that an endless stream of standalone novels is not what we want to see. Nothing wrong with standalones of course, but I’d like to see them balanced against a decent number of trilogies and ongoing series (not just featuring Gotrek Gurnisson), to provide variety within the range and give us readers the chance to really get to know some of these great characters. We’ll see!
Let me know if you’ve got suggestions for other AoS books you’d like to see get the sequel treatment – leave a comment below, or find me on social media.
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