After the post-Black Library lull it looks like Games Workshop has resumed normal broadcast service for our hearts, minds, and wallets with Age of Sigmar getting some love this week. The 40K ice had already been broken with this week’s preorder window for the next Phil Kelly book, Farsight: Blade of Truth. Over to the Fantasy side, we’ve got a new Limited Edition release in addition to an anthology.
Preordering This Week
First up is a Limited Edition release of Ushoran: Mortarch of Delusion by Dale Lucas. This is the first novel since 2023 from a writer who plies his trade exclusively in the Age of Sigmar setting- including his Warhammer Horror novel Black-Eyed Saint.
For the unfamiliar, Ushoran the Summerking is a Vampire Lord, progenitor of the strigoi bloodline, and this novel looks to tell the tale of opposition to his kingly rule. It is releasing in this Limited Edition first, so those wanting to enjoy the story but not hungering for this special edition (and increased price tag to match) will have a few months to wait before the general, hardcover release. Leontus: Lord Solar, for instance, debuted in an upgraded edition last November, only seeing a regular hardcover release this January.
They’re billing this one as an anthology, but it’s probably fair to call it an Blood Queen Neferata omnibus. It contains a trio of novels, 2018’s Neferata: Mortarch of Blood, 2019’s Neferata: The Dominion of Bones, and 2021’s A Dynasty of Monsters, alongside a trio of short stories.
Annandale is one of the Black Library’s longer-serving authors, having his first short (The Carrion Anthem for 40K) published in 2011 and Age of Sigmar novel Callis & Toll arriving only last year.
A New Subscription
The Black Library’s modern release pattern for short stories is to have two event-locked eShort subcriptions a year, one during the Black Library Celebration in February and the other in December as an Advent Calendar. In addition, there are four themed weeks throughout the year the drop another five tales each.
Last year we had Space Marine Successors Week in April, Wanderers of the Realms Week (Age of Sigmar) in June, Daughters of the Emperor Week in July, and Astra Militarum Week in October. Another April approaches and if Chaos Space Marines are your thing, you’re in for a treat.
These eShort events are always a great way for Warhammer to give stage to up-and-coming writers cutting their teeth on the short story format. Only two of the five authors featured in the upcoming Heretic Astartes weeks have published in the Black Library before, and only one of them (Jude Reid of Daemonbreaker and Morvenn Vahl: Spear of Faith) is a veteran. The other is Mike Vincent, a writer who made his debut last year with two other short stories featured in eShort subscriptions (The Vengeful Dead and Exterminator).
Saying Farewell to the Fat Bloke
The wargaming community lost a real one this week as Paul “Fat Bloke” Swayer lost his battle with cancer.
Sawyer was the editor-in-chief of White Dwarf from 1993-2007, after which time he co-founded Warlord Games and helped develop the World War 2 wargame Bolt Action. Beyond the CV, though, he touched a great many lives in our tight-knit hobby.
White Dwarf alum Nick Davis penned a fond remembrance here, and the writers at Wargamer I thought had a touching sendoff as well.
Your Wargamer team contains several thirty-something hobbyists and wargamers who grew up basking in the thrilling, inviting, brightly colored era of White Dwarf over which Sawyer presided. As journalists we’ve also keenly watched and covered the rise and rise of Warlord Games with Sawyer and Stallard in charge.
We wish Paul’s family our deepest condolences, and we honor Paul for the incredible contributions he has made to the wargaming hobby we all love.
Thanks for everything, Paul.
ICYMI: The Meta AI Debate
We had a big piece here at Goonhammer this past week, with a number of Black Library authors responding with their concerns about the recent disclosure that Meta had been training its AI tool, Llama3, on pirated works.
Ivan Mulkeen, author of 2016’s eShort Council of the Storm was released as part of Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade, shared his thoughts with me after our initial piece had gone to print, and I wanted to make sure to include them here.
“[Meta] will claim fair use rules were applied to the training, but in the case of my work in particular, it was work done as part of a contract, that I don’t own, that the client chose to post online on a website.
“I feel like once you post anything online retaining ownership becomes really tricky.
“So do I I like Meta using stolen work? No, of course not, but I also feel a bit powerless to do anything about it aside from bitch, and watch my blood pressure skyrocket.
“Some sort of royalties system would need to be established to account for people whose work has clearly been exploited, I guess?”
Ivan wasn’t the only author to raise the thorny concerns about authorship versus ownership when it comes to IP writing, so make sure to check out the article if you haven’t already. Thanks for your insight, Ivan!
Quick Hits
- I love perusing other people’s recommended reading and reading-order lists. Even if I don’t necessarily agree with all of the selections, it’s a great way to get a sense of the Black Library’s many narratives, and quite often I’ll find something new to read. One Black Library devotee took inspiration from the list at Track of Words and made an expanded (and updated as of this month) list here. Worth a look!
- Robert Rath, author of Fall of Cadia, The Infinite and the Divine, and Assassinorum: Kingmaker gets his turn in the studio in this month’s Scribes & Scriveners on WarhammerTV.
- Kim Newman has a new novel up for preorder, Model Actress Whatever. Set in an alternative-history 2020’s London where the Beatles not only never broke up, but were revealed to be evolutionary agents sent by the gods to evolve the human species. Black Library nutters with a keen eye for history will remember Newman as the author of a number of early, pre-Black Library Fantasy stories under the nom de plume, Jack Yeovil.
- Finally, Black Library writer Gav Thorpe was at Adepticon this past weekend helping represent his latest project, the mech-based skirmish game Zeo Genesis. While the crowdfunder campaign doesn’t launch for another month, Gav shared some pictures of the models on his BlueSky account and is providing the narrative work for the Zeo Genesis universe.
Writers Are Fans, Too
Finally, this week’s hobbywork spotlight comes to us from Mark A. Latham, who penned a trio of short stories (Kovos Falls, Judgement, and Like Father, Like Son) for 40K and Fantasy in 2012-13. Clearly the love’s never left him, if this insidious trio of Skaven are any indication!
Mark’s newest book, fantasy novel The Last Vigilant, is available for preorder and releases this June.
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