Category Archives: Black Library

Black Library: What’s Next After the Horus Heresy?

Black Library’s epic, ridiculously huge Horus Heresy series has proven incredibly popular, and for a lot of fans it’s the ‘premium’ BL range, the series that takes top billing and gets readers most excited. For all that it started small and exploded into something utterly massive, as readers we’ve always known that it has a definitive end point, and for almost as long as there’s been the Heresy range there’s been speculation over what Black Library will do once the series has finished – what ‘the next Heresy’ will be. With the Siege of Terra mini-series drawing to a close – at the time of writing there are just two books remaining of the planned eight – and heralding the long-awaited end of the Heresy, that question of what might come next seems more pertinent than ever.

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Day of Ascension – Adrian Tchaikovsky

Prolific, award-winning science fiction author Adrian Tchaikovsky makes his long-form Black Library debut with Day of Ascension, a Warhammer 40,000 novel which pits the cold, academic machine logic of the Adeptus Mechanicus against the insidious alien threat of a Genestealer Cult. Genetor Gammat Triskellian is an ambitious man, but the organic focus of his work is out of favour with the priestly hierarchy of the forge world Morod, and Triskellian is frustrated at every turn by his superiors. When he stumbles across evidence of a xenos taint lurking amongst the poorest inhabitants of Morod he sees an opportunity to further his own goals and undermine his rivals. To the downtrodden members of the Congregation of the Divine Union though, Triskellian is merely another oppressor to be endured and overthrown on the path to their destiny.

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RAPID FIRE: Justin D. Hill Talks The Bookkeeper’s Skull

Hello and welcome to this Rapid Fire author interview, where today I’m delighted to welcome Justin D. Hill back to Track of Words to discuss his new Warhammer Horror novel The Bookkeeper’s Skull. Alongside his excellent historical fiction (written under Justin Hill, without the D), many Black Library fans will be familiar with Justin for the excellent work he’s done tackling the Cadians (three novels, several short stories and counting), but The Bookkeeper’s Skull is in fact his fifth BL novel, and his first in the Warhammer Horror range. It’s available to buy right now in hardback, ebook and audiobook formats, so if you’re keen to explore the darker side of Warhammer 40,000 and life in the Imperium, then read on to find out more about this intriguing new novel!

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Volpone Glory – Nick Kyme

One of only a handful of non-Dan Abnett novels in Black Library’s Sabbat Worlds series (or is it maybe a setting now?), Nick Kyme’s Volpone Glory more than holds its own in this much-loved range – a gritty, powerful page-turner of a book that delves into the complex character of the Royal Volpone regiment of Imperial Guard. Set in 791.M41, so roughly the same time as The Warmaster, it sees the 50th Royal Volpone on Gnostes, bogged down in a protracted campaign attempting to push the Blood Pact out of an entrenched island chain, their vaunted pride dented by their lack of progress. As the prospect of victory hangs in the balance even while the archenemy develops its own devious plans for the war, politics within the ranks of the Volpone lead to division, mistrust and increasingly desperate tactics. Hope springs from an unexpected source, but will it be enough?

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Adrian Tchaikovsky Talks Day of Ascension

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview where I’m delighted to welcome Adrian Tchaikovsky to the site for the first time, to talk primarily about his upcoming Warhammer 40,000 novel Day of Ascension, as well as two more books he’s publishing in 2022. As a well-established, award-winning and incredibly prolific science fiction and fantasy author, it’s great to see Adrian turning his hand to writing for Black Library as well, and with his amazing ability to write compelling non-human characters a novel featuring both the Genestealer Cults and the Adeptus Mechanicus sounds like a perfect fit! Day of Ascension is due out at some point in January, so ahead of its release you can find out a little more about it here – along with a few details of two more sci-fi books coming in 2022 from other publishers: Ogres and Eyes of the Void.

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The Spy Novels That Inspired Assassinorum: Kingmaker – Robert Rath Guest Post

Welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where today I’m welcoming the brilliant Robert Rath to the site to discuss the inspiration for his upcoming Black Library novel Assassinorum: Kingmaker. I’ve been a big fan of Rob’s writing since reading his debut BL short story, The Garden of Mortal Delights, and like a lot of people I was blown away by his novel The Infinite and the Divine! All three of his Assassinorum short stories have been fantastic, so I can’t wait to read Kingmaker and see more of the assassins in action. In this article Rob talks first about his early introduction to Imperial Assassins and then the spy novels that have particularly influenced Kingmaker, so read on and let’s start the hype building for the novel when it’s released sometime in 2022!

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Black Library in 2022

The Black Library online preview has just taken place, squeaking in at the end of 2021 to show off some of the books due for publication in 2022, so now seems like a good time to look ahead and think about what 2022 might be like from a BL perspective. For the first part of this article I’m going to talk specifically about the BL preview and give some of my observations on how it went (TL;DR overall I enjoyed it, even if I’m not keen on how it was structured), and what I think about the newly-announced books. After that I’ll recap the other BL books that have already been confirmed for 2022, and then go on to talk in a fair bit of detail about how I see the year ahead going on the BL front…or at least how I’m hoping it will go.

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The Twice-dead King: Ruin by Nate Crowley – Victoria Hayward Guest Review

Hello and welcome to this guest review here on Track of Words, where I’m opening up the floor to author Victoria Hayward to talk about Nate Crowley’s novel The Twice-dead King: Ruin, which is out now from Black Library. 40k fans may well already be familiar with Victoria as the author of short stories The Carbis Incident and The Siege of Ismyr (featured in the Warhammer Crime anthology Sanction & Sin), both of which are excellent! I knew Victoria had read and loved The Twice-dead King: Ruin, and I was delighted when she agreed to write this review – I think it’s a fantastic review, which brilliantly illustrates what this book means to Victoria while painting a vivid (but spoiler-free) picture of the story as a whole. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

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Don’t Give Up: 2021 as a Debut Author – Marc Collins Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where today I’m handing the reins over to the brilliant Marc Collins to talk about what 2021 has been like as a debut author. Marc’s debut novel Grim Repast was published this year as part of Black Library’s Warhammer Crime range, and it’s an absolute belter of a book – and likewise all of Marc’s short stories I’ve read have been fantastic. It’s been great to watch Marc’s authorial journey from the outside, but in this article he’s kindly offered some fascinating insight into what it’s been like from his perspective, including his path through the Black Library Open Submissions process. It’s very much a tale of perseverance and determination, and I’ve no doubt these are only the first steps in a long and prosperous career.

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Best of Black Library 2021

2021 is rapidly coming to a close, which means it’s time for my usual roundup of the best Black Library books I’ve read over the last year. As always, I want to open with the caveat that these are my personal highlights based solely on what I’ve read – I’m not suggesting that there haven’t been other excellent BL titles released this year, just that I haven’t read them! I should also point out that I’m basing my selections on books which were first published in 2021, which means I’ve chosen one that only had a Limited Edition release and won’t be more widely available until 2022, and that this year I’m almost entirely looking at novels. In previous years I’ve also covered other formats and split out my choices into different articles based on the main BL settings – 40k, Age of Sigmar and Horus Heresy – but this year I’m just going to do this one article, and concentrate on novels.

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