Author Archives: Michael

QUICK REVIEW: A Memory of Tharsis – Josh Reynolds

Currently only published in the Black Library Live! 2016 chapbook (alongside Argent by Chris Wraight), Josh Reynolds’ short story A Memory of Tharsis sees Fabius Bile paying a visit to Lady Spohr, Magos-Queen of the forge world Quir, to make a trade. He needs her services to repair his ancient medicae equipment in order for him to continue his grand work, but if he’s to succeed he knows he will have to offer her something new and unique. If he fails to provide something suitable he might not survive the visit, but he has something up his (rather disturbing) sleeve.
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Black Library Weekly – W/C 28/11/16

Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, where I take a look at the Black Library-related news from the week just gone – announcements, pre-orders and new releases.

It’s been another bumper week after last week’s bounties – a different feel to things, but a lot of interesting releases throughout the latter half of the week. Christmas continues to loom large with the opening few titles from the 2016 Advent Calendar, while the mixture of new and re-released titles carries on as it has for the last few weeks. There was also an interesting announcement which will be of interest to fans of ebooks…
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QUICK REVIEW: The Maiden of the Dream – John French

Day two of Black Library’s 2016 Advent Calendar brings us The Maiden of the Dream by John French, the second ‘story of the Horusian Wars’ after The Purity of Ignorance. The titular Maiden is Mylasa, a powerful psyker who, as one of Inquisitor Covenant’s acolytes, uses her gifts to interrogate prisoners of the Inquisition and purge their memories. Can she be trusted, however? Beneath the accumulated memories ripped from the minds of others, is her soul still pure? Keep reading…

Interview with Laurie Goulding – Part Two (December 2016)

Earlier in the week I posted the first part of a wide-ranging interview with Black Library Commissioning Editor Laurie Goulding, which included loads of fascinating details about Laurie’s work chronicling the Scythes of the Emperor chapter of Space Marines (which he writes under the name LJ Goulding). In this second part of the interview we talk about the other side of Laurie’s work for Black Library, as the man responsible for editing the Horus Heresy series!
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Black Library Advent Calendar 2016

As is fast becoming tradition, it’s December and Black Library are celebrating the approach of Christmas with an Advent Calendar consisting of twenty-four new stories released one per day right up until Christmas Eve. After 2014’s selection of 40k and Horus Heresy short stories and audio dramas, and 2015’s Call of Chaos mixing stories and Games Workshop rules content for 40k and Age of Sigmar, this year we’re getting a variety of content across 40k, Horus Heresy, Age of Sigmar and even Blood Bowl!
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Interview with Laurie Goulding – Part One (November 2016)

I recently had the chance to sit down with and pose some questions to Laurie Goulding, Arch-Heretic and Herald of Pedantry, the man responsible for shepherding the colossal Horus Heresy series for Black Library. It’s not all Heresy though as Laurie also writes under the name LJ Goulding, and has his first full Black Library novel due for release early in 2017 – the Space Marine Battles book Slaughter at Giant’s Coffin.

Over a pretty wide-ranging interview we discuss his route through the hobby, how he wound up responsible for editing and commissioning the Horus Heresy, why he chose the Scythes of the Emperor as the subject of his first novel, and much more. In fact we covered so much ground that I’ve split the interview into two parts – in this first part we talk about Laurie’s background and how he found himself working for Black Library, and take a look at his work as a Black Library author, including the upcoming Scythes of the Emperor novel. 

Without further ado, let’s get straight on with the interview…
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Black Library Weekly – W/C 21/11/16

Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, where I take a look at the Black Library-related news from the week just gone – announcements, pre-orders and new releases.

The presence of the big pieces of Games Workshop news has been felt throughout this week – the follow-up from Black Library Live, the release of the new edition of Blood Bowl, and the announcement of the next big thing in Warhammer 40,000. Each of these have contributed to what’s been a pretty impressive (and potentially expensive) week for fans of the hobby, as has the inevitable shadow of Christmas looming ever larger. Read on for more details…
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The Master of Mankind – Aaron Dembski-Bowden

The clue is in the title. Book forty-one of Black Library’s colossal Horus Heresy series, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s The Master of Mankind brings The Emperor front and centre. Set five years after Magnus the Red’s intrusion into the Great Work it sees the forces of the Imperium losing the webway war against the endless hordes of daemons and traitors pouring in. Even the combined might of the Custodes, Sisters of Silence and the Mechanicum isn’t enough to avoid being them pushed ever further backwards, as long as The Emperor remains away from the front lines. Meanwhile something stalks the fringes of the conflict, unseen.
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Black Library Live Coming Soon – Age of Sigmar

In the last of three posts covering the new titles announced at Black Library Live 2016, this time I’m looking at a couple of newly-announced titles for the Warhammer Age of Sigmar range – both by the incredibly productive Josh Reynolds.

As with the previous posts (on the upcoming Warhammer 40,000 and Horus Heresy titles) there were no release dates given for either of these new titles, and neither of these have got covers yet.

We didn’t get a lot of details on these in the seminar, but I spoke to Josh Reynolds, author of both titles, who gave me a little bit of information about each of them.
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Black Library Live Coming Soon – The Horus Heresy

In the second of three posts covering the new titles announced at Black Library Live 2016, I’m taking a look here at the upcoming Horus Heresy releases (including the Primarchs series). I’ve included comments from series editor Laurie Goulding alongside some of the titles, to give a little extra detail.

As with the previous post (on the upcoming Warhammer 40,000 titles) it’s worth remembering that these are not necessarily listed in publication order – no release dates were given. Once again I’ve not included anything that (at the time of writing) is showing up in the Coming Soon section of the Black Library website.
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