There’s been fiction set in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes for a LONG time, in one form or another. Way back in the depths of time you could buy novels set in these world (and indeed all sorts of other Games Workshop-related settings) published by GW Books and then Boxtree, before Black Library itself was set up in 1997, originally as part of the wider BL Publishing division of Games Workshop and later its own division.
Issue Five of the Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection from Hachette and Black Library returns to the Horus Heresy with Horus Rising by Dan Abnett. The opening novel of the Heresy series, first published ten years ago, this is where it all began for what’s become the biggest and most popular series that Black Library have ever published. After a further 40+ novels (and counting) this is still generally held as one of the series high points, and is an obvious entry in the …Legends Collection.
Between the 25th December 2016 and the 5th January 2017 Black Library ran a 12 Days of Christmas campaign featuring discounts, bundles and even a free digital short story. The campaign is now over and most of the offers have been and gone as we move deeper into January, but I thought I’d take a quick look back to recap on what the campaign offered.
Two days ago I wrote an article asking why Black Library don’t tend to put much support behind their books when they’re released in paperback. Yesterday I followed up with another article to clarify what I was talking about, using the example of Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s The Talon of Horus. The point, as I saw it, was that all of these great books are being released in paperback after having already had hardback editions, but they’re appearing without any advertising or promotion from Black Library. Well, what do you suppose happened today…?
Yesterday I put up a post talking about Black Library’s approach to marketing their paperback releases, which I was prompted to write after realising just how many paperback editions of existing books have been released recently with barely any acknowledgement from Black Library. Various people chimed in with thoughts and comments, which were all really interesting to read – it’s always interesting to get this sort of response and discussion.
“All releases in all formats” is a catchphrase that’s bandied about a lot in regards to the Horus Heresy series, referring to Black Library’s commitment to a) release all of the audio stories in prose format, and b) make all of the main-range books available in the three different physical formats – hardback, large format paperback, and small (mass market, or legacy) paperback. What’s most interesting about that phrase is the very fact that it exists at all, given that multiple formats is a pretty new concept for Black Library. You only have to go back a few years, to 2012’s release of Angel Exterminatus, to find the first of the main-range Horus Heresy books to be released in hardback; before that it was only the occasional book such as the Sabbat Worlds anthology that came out in hardback.
There’s been a lot of talk online of late that since Black Library have started talking about upcoming releases it’s been all 40k and Horus Heresy, but there’s not been any new Age of Sigmar books mentioned. I wrote a quick blog post a couple of months ago about the two upcoming Age of Sigmar novels that were discussed at Black Library Live, but there hasn’t been any word on what else might be coming up in the Mortal Realms.
I often try to do things a little differently here on Track of Words, but sometimes it’s worth just jumping on the bandwagon and going for it – like with blog posts looking back at the year that was. Last year I wrote a 2015 In Summary blog post, and I’m doing the same this year – taking a look at how 2016 was for me as a reader and a blogger (let’s not talk about what it’s been like in the rest of the world…*shudders*). I’ll try not to ramble too much, so let’s start off with a few numbers…
As usual Black Library closed off 2016 with an Advent Calendar series, which gave us 24 short stories or audio dramas from across the range of settings – 40k, Horus Heresy, Age of Sigmar and even Blood Bowl. As I did for the last couple of years, I read the stories as they came available and posted reviews of each one, but now it’s all over I want to take a moment to look back at the Advent Calendar as a whole.
For Issue Four of Hachette’s Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection the action turns away from Space Marines and Inquisitors to the Imperial Guard, and a humble guardsman. Fifteen Hours by Mitchel Scanlon was first published waaaay back in 2005 and is one of those books that hasn’t quite made it to be an all-out Black Library classic, but is nonetheless held as something of an Imperial Guard must-read. A quick look on Goodreads shows it to be rated at 3.7 out of 5, which is pretty good, while on Amazon (UK) it’s got nine 5 star reviews and one 4 star review! Sounds like it’s worth a read, right?