Surely I can’t be the first avid Black Library reader who has looked at all these stories and tales we love so much and thought, I wonder if I could write some of that, too?
This time, I took my shot. Cold Open Stories is a terrific site and Discord community for amateur writers, hosting frequent flash and short fiction competitions based around Warhammer 40K. With the current theme (at the time) being The Scouring, that volatile post-Heresy period when the Imperium convulsed with the repercussions of the titanic civil war, I wrote a story of a planetary governor on his last day in office.
One thing I learned is that keeping the story to 1,000 words is hard, and forces some very difficult choices. My first draft was over 1600 words, and the first 500 to be cut were by far the easiest.
Still, my wee debut effort managed to make Editor’s Choice, which made me very proud. You’re welcome to read it here, and while you’re over there check out the winner and some of the other amazing, bite-sized tales.
Up for Preorder
Exciting news for the Black Library this week as Chris Wraight’s highly anticipated Illustrated and Annotated Edition of The Lords of Silence will be available for preorder. First teased at the end of June, this has long been a title in high demand in the secondary market. Paperback copies alone have typically traded hands for $125-150, hardbacks higher still.
And this isn’t just a reprint, but includes new illustrations and author content comparable to what we’ve seen in the new editions of Xenos and Malleus from Dan Abnett in the last couple years. I love this format from the Black Library, and hope to see much more of it in the future.
Fans of Astra Militarum stories (that’s me!) will also be excited at the arrival of Final Deployment, the latest from R S Wilt. This is Wilt’s first novel for the Black Library, having previously contributed several short stories including The Guns of Enth (for 2024’s Space Marine Successors Week) and Eradicant (for last year’s Black Library Celebration).
Like previous titles in the Astra Militarum series (Victoria Hayward’s Deathworlder, Longshot by Rob Young), Final Deployment will debut in softcover. As a hardcover collector that’s a bit underwhelming, but we get what we get.
A Fox Up My Sleeve
Richard Fox is the author of the long-running Ember War Saga, which in 2017 won a Dragon Award for best Military Sci-Fi or Fantasy. Being a West Point grad doesn’t automatically make one a good writer, but if you happen to be a good writer and a West Point grad then those will be some really interesting military tales.
Last April he joined the ranks of Black Library authors with the story We Were Brothers, a tale of the Red Corsairs that was released during Heretic Astartes Week (reviewed here).
In mid-June, Fox posted on Facebook that he was preparing to move abroad for a year (or more), and would need to shutter his online store for awhile. He shared a discount code that would give you 50% off for the next three days it remained open, and one of the things he had on there was a story review. With the deadline approaching to submit my short story to the Cold Open Fast Fiction contest (see above), I thought it would be a great opportunity to run my piece past an established author. I paid my monies and tooks my ride, sending A Peaceful Transfer of Power off for assessment.
Two things stood out to me about the experience.
First, I felt like a real jackass when I realized what I’d done. Here’s a guy getting ready to move across the world with his family, throwing out a deep discount to lighten his physical inventory and give him some bonus liquidity. And there’s me, using the discount code to instead give the guy extra homework. Big ‘main character’ energy stuff there, a real facepalm moment when it hit me.
But to his endless credit, Fox delivered like an absolute champ. His feedback was lengthy and detailed, encouraging where he saw the positives and constructive in areas where I wasn’t as strong as I could have been. He offered several good suggestions for tightening up the tension. “Flash fiction like this needs to hint at the twist and then deliver it suddenly,” he wrote, “but when the reader gets to the twist the first thing they’ll do is mentally go back over the story to see how they missed the clues (and they’ll be delighted) or feel cheated because the clues weren’t there.”
It was terrific guidance, and while I struggled to implement all of it under the word count before the looming deadline (and try I did!) it will certainly help me for the next one. So for my fellow amateurs and aspirants out there, keep an eye out for writers willing to critique your work- it can be a terrific investment.
Just don’t be like me and hand them your manuscript when they’re trying to board a plane.
RPG Corner
While there’s a bit longer to wait for the physical release, Warhammer: The Old World by Cubicle 7 Games just saw the Gamemaster’s Guide release in PDF format. With the arrival last month of the Player’s Guide, gamers now have everything they need to get started gaming in the World of Legend.
For those curious to learn more about the game, this past week they took a closer look at character knowledge and skills- all keys to sleuthing and investigation of the many horrors and evils that abound.
ICYMI
Don’t look now, but we dropped another installment of our 40K History of the Black Library series. Here we’re taking a look at the first half of 2001, a time that featured two new novels. One would go on to be legendary, the other heretical.
Those hoping for a book review weren’t disappointed either, as Falcon40K dove into Robbie MacNiven’s latest, Void Exile, the third book in the Carcharodon series.
Finally, if you’re reading this then I hope you’re seeing some value in the expanded Black Library content we’re bringing you week after week here on Goonhammer. Every week a roundup of what’s going on in the world of the Warhammer books, plus new reviews and lore content on the regular. If you’re already a supporter on our Patreon, thank you, I truly appreciate it.
If not, here are a few good reasons to consider it.
Either way, I’m happy to have you aboard as a reader, so thank you for that support too!
Quick Hits
- Games Workshop released its annual report for FY 2024. This is the kind of grist that fills every mill in the hobby, as each interest area looks to read tea leaves for its own particular dimension of the hobby. Black Library enthusiasts were no different, with a very detailed discussion unfolding over on Reddit. One fun fact: the Black Library sold around 4.5 million novels last year. That’s a lot of paper changing hands!
- Heck of a weekend for Gareth Hanrahan (Grit in the Wheels, Rites of Binding). He was the lead writer for the Moria – Through the Doors of Durin supplement for Free League Publishing’s The One Ring RPG. Moria cleaned up at the Ennies, the award for excellence in tabletop RPG publishing announced each year at GEN CON. Silver for Best Supplement. Gold for Best Cartography. And- wait for it- Product of the Year, too! Big congratulations to Gareth and the rest of his contributing team.
- Looking for something to read? Schlock! Webzine has some free new fiction from Josh M. Reynolds (Deathstorm, Manflayer). It’s titled St. Ulfhaugh, and it may or may not have something to do with werewolves.
- We mentioned Tim Waggoner (Skin Man) last week after his adaption of Terrifier 2 won a Scribe Award. Not one to sit still, he spent some time this week to sit down and chat for an hour with the Anth Wood Movie Media vidcast. Waggoner is also the author of Just Add Writer: A Complete Guide to Writing Tie-Ins and IP, so he’s got plenty of insight on how the sausage gets made.
- Another Black Library writer going under the klieg lights this week is Carrie Harris (A Forbidden Meal, The Strength of Symbols) who was interviewed by the Tarot Interviews podcast.
Coming Attractions
Here’s a list of the date-set upcoming releases from the Black Library based on the available preorder information we have. As always, take all of this with a grain of salt unless it’s Games Workshop-confirmed.
Going forward, this section will be updated weekly in this column. Any titles that are announced but without a date will be added once a date is assigned it, and anything highlighted in green is something just added (or updated) this week.
2025
- Broken Crusade, by Stephen B. Fischer (paperback, 8/12) (review)
- Grey Knights: The Omnibus, by Ben Counter (paperback, 8/12)
- The Lords of Silence: Illustrated and Annotated Edition, by Chris Wraight (hardcover, 8/23)
- Final Deployment, by R S Wilt (paperback, 8/23)
- The High Kâhl’s Oath, by Gav Thorpe (paperback, 8/23) (review)
- The End and the Death: Volume III, by Dan Abnett (paperback, 8/26) (review 1, 2)
- The Legend of Sigmar, by Graham MacNeill (paperback, 9/9)
- Ciaphas Cain: The Anthology, by Sandy Mitchell (paperback, 9/23)
- The Twice-Dead King: The Omnibus, by Nate Crowley (paperback, 9/23)
- Elemental Council, by Noah Van Nguyen (paperback, 10/7) (review)
- Morvenn Vahl: Spear of Faith, by Jude Reid (paperback, 10/21)
- Double Eagle, by Dan Abnett (paperback, 11/18)
- Death and Duty, by Steve Lyons (paperback, 11/20)
- Interceptor City, by Dan Abnett (paperback, 11/18) (review)
- Hell’s Last, by Justin D. Hill (paperback, 12/16)
2026
- Farsight: Blade of Truth, by Phil Kelly (paperback, 1/27)
- Fulgrim: The Perfect Son, by Jude Reid (paperback, 1/27) (review)
- The Shattered and the Soulless, by Graham McNeill (paperback, 1/27)
- Vaults of Terra: The Omnibus, by Chris Wraight (paperback, 1/27)
- Siege of Terra: The Shattered and the Soulless, by Graham McNeill (paperback, 1/29)
- Huron Blackheart: Master of the Maelstrom, by Mike Brooks (paperback, 3/10)
- The Green Tide, by Mike Brooks, Nate Crowley, and Justin Woolley (paperback 3/26)
- Carnage Unending, by Dan Abnett (paperback, 4/26)
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