The longer I’ve covered the Black Library, the more I’ve come to understand the role of the digital short stories in the narrative ecosystem. If (like me) you’ve tended to be book-focused, it may not be as apparent that not only are they useful ways to keep developing existing characters, but they also serve as a proving ground for new talent. After two or three short stories, the Black Library editors seem to have a good idea whether or not you’re ready for a novel.
Take, for example, Russell Zimmerman. Zimmerman’s done a lot of writing for established properties like Shadowrun and Battletech, as well as some freelancing work for the Wrath & Glory 40K role-playing game. Until the recent Heretic Astartes Week (where I selected his story Seven Ships as ‘best in show’), he hadn’t cracked into the world of Warhammer fiction, but he’s already provided the Black Library with a second, as-yet-unreleased story as well as been signed for a novel.
Last year’s eShort Subscriptions had a bumper crop of Black Library debutantes (who have been specially highlighted below). Some of these names we’ll see (or have already seen) again, while others may end up with just the one (though as I always say, one you’re in the club, you’re in the club!).
Today we’ll be looking at the eShorts for Warhammer 40,000 (Fantasy’s eShorts were briefly covered here previously).
Black Library Celebration Week (February 19-23)
While not everything in the Celebration Subscription in February was 40K-related, there were three that were.
- The Reskard Purgation, by Jude Reid. We’d get a full novel featuring Morvenn Vahl in July, but here in February readers got an appetizer with The Reskard Purgation. This isn’t uncommon; here in 2025 the Emperor’s Children swordmaster Tamaris Marduk, who featured in Fulgrim- The Perfect Son was first unveiled the month before in the short story Perfection and Pain. In Reskard, we see a pre-Canoness Vahl caught firmly in the horns of an unexpected moral dilemma. This story would get a physical printing in 2025’s Blood of the Imperium anthology.
- Painboyz, by Mike Brooks. Another Blood of the Imperium short story, we’re treated to Dok Drozfang and his boyz getting a little too close of a look at Drukhari culture. Brooks (Da Big Dakka, Lelith Hesperax) is one of the best for crafting hilarious Ork stories, and this one was a real treat (reviewed here).
- Eradicant, by R S Wilt. The first of two short stories we’d see from R S Wilt in 2024, this one centers on a unit of Tempestus Scions on a mission to rescue the governor of a Chaos-infested world.
Space Marine Successors Week (April 8-14)
Two months after the Celebration, the year’s first Theme Week was unveiled. Unusually, this one ran for seven days instead of the usual five, but who’s complaining?
- Death’s Toll, by Jon Flindall. Jon’s been writing 40K short stories since 2019, and notably was the author of Tome Keepers: Legacy of Defiance, a story serialized in White Dwarf last year before being collected in print in Blood of the Imperium. In Toll, the Iron Lords work to purge a world of T’au with such brutality that IMperial leadership begins to wonder who the real monsters are.
- The Blooded, by David McDougall. 2024’s first rookie debut, this story centers on Imperial Guard under assault from the Death Guard. As the Angels Vermillion arrive to save them, could the cure be worse than the disease?
- The Guns of Enth, by R S Wilt. To an Astartes of the Howling Griffons, an oath is a sacred duty. A vow to destroy enemy-held cannons on Enth is already hard enough, but when their drop-pod is knocked behind enemy lines…
- Tally of Slaughter, by Mark-Anthony Fenech. In echoes of the Badab War, the Executioners hunt down a member of the Astral Claws who has thrown in with Vashtorr the Arkifane in this rookie debut. In my recent piece on the history of the Black Library in 1998, I talked about Andras Millward who, noting that there wasn’t much science-fiction written in Welsh, set about to remedy that. Mark-Anthony Fenech channels that same spirit, but for writing in Maltese. Fascinating!
- The Vengeful Dead, by Mike Vincent. The first of Vincent’s two shorts released digitally in 2024, this story relates the bitter last stand of a Red Talons Redemptor Dreadnought as Night Lords close in for the kill.
- The Shot That Kills You, by William Crowe. The final rookie debut in a week packed with them, here we have the masters of stealth and ambush, the Raptors, engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the Drukhari. Have they finally met their match?
- Tears of Raphaela, by Richard Swan. As the last surviving member of a Lamenters warband on a Tyranid-ruined world, Eliminator Ramethos knows victory is impossible. But vengeance? That’s still very much in play.
Black Library Celebration Week (July 8-12)
Just this past week Games Workshop teased an upcoming anthology, Paragon of Faith and Other Stories. It features not only a pair of new novellas, but also a physical printing of all five of the eShorts that were part of Daughters of the Emperor Week last July. When they’re hot, they’re hot!
- Infernal Motives, by Jude Reid. I mean, could you really have an Adepta Sororitas Week without at least one story by Jude Reid or Danie Ware? Just as we saw in the Celebration earlier in the year, we are treated to an appetizer before a novel. This time it’s Celestian Sacresant Aveline, heroine of the following month’s Daemonbreaker.
- Redemption Through Blood, by John Sollitto. Khorne cares not whence the blood flows, but then he hasn’t contended with the fury of Sister Marcella of the Order of the Bloody Rose. This debut effort from John Sollitto remains his only work in the Black Library- for now!
- Our Lady of the Voyage, by Kate Flack. Don’t let the term “rookie” throw you, Flack is no neophyte to the Warhammer universe. She was a writer for the Dark Heresy RPG and the Second Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play. She was Editor for the Tome of Corruption supplement, and with Mythic was a developer for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (which had some of the best PVP I’ve personally ever played, full stop. Two words: collision detection). Her tale here involves a Sister of the Order of the Ebon Chalice tracking down a missing preacher who may not want to be found.
- The Fires of Our Faith, by Nicholas Werner. Canoness Commander Florelia of the Order of the Argent Shroud and Inquisitor Serantia of the Ordo Hereticus to deal with a world given over to the worship of a false Emperor in this debut short story from Nicholas Werner.
- Joy of the Martyr, by Ness Brown. Astrophysicist Brown pens a tale of a crisis of faith in the Adepta Sororitas in their Black Library debut, a story which was “a dream come true” for them to be able to write.
Astra Militarum Week (October 14-18)
- Tattershield, by William Crowe. As the world around them collapses to Chaos, a band of desperate Kasrkin look to eliminate an enemy commander in Crowe’s second short story of the year.
- The Strength of Symbols, by Carrie Harris. Harris’s sophomore effort after a Kroot tale in 2023, this story features a Valhallan medic on a mission to retrieve a regimental banner from the Orks that hold it.
- Those Without Mercy, by Callum Davis. Davis has had an interesting path to the Black Library, and I suppose some of it depends on how you want to define that. A purist would say that Davis’s debut was in 2022 when he had a pair of stories contained in The Successors: A Space Marine Anthology. But I’m not a purist, and would want to consider his full body of work including short stories written for the Psychic Awakening narrative play series in 2020 (published both on Warhammer Community as well as in the Collector’s Editions of the gamebooks) as well as previous work in White Dwarf. However deep you see his contributions, he added this story to it in 2024 which involves the Savlar Chem-Dogs and the murder of a Commissar.
- The Last Psyker, by Shauna Lawless. This Week’s one true rookie debut, this tells the story of a Primaris Psyker and the Guard regiment he’s tasked to- a regiment that both hates and fears him in equal measure.
- Exterminator, by Mike Vincent. In Vincent’s sophomore effort, he spins a tale of unfortunate Tallarn Desert Raiders and their Leman Russ battle tank assigned to escort duty on an ice world. If that wasn’t bad enough, wait until the cargo escapes…
Black Library Advent Calendar (December 2-24)
In contrast to the Theme Weeks, which have increasingly become proving grounds for new talent and bench depth, the Black Library Advent Calendar is largely where the veterans get to play.
- Nightshift Nineteen, by Peter Fehervari. This story, of an ill-fated maintenance crew in Hive Carceri, is part of Fehervari’s cult-favorite horror-esque Dark Coil series. (Our own Lenoon recently did a deep dive into the series, so if you’d like to learn more make sure to check it out!)
- Solemnity, by Nick Kyme. An Ultramarine reflects on all he and his Chapter have been through in the Hall of Remembrance, meeting a mysterious stranger in the process. That reflective Ultramarine? That’s Ferren Aerios, one of the heroes of the Dawn of Fire series who is getting his own star turn later this year.
- Call of Oblivion, by Sam Ryan. One question I hear often these days is, “Whatever happened to Warhammer Crime and Horror?” It’s a good question; I really enjoyed those imprints and I’d hate to think we’ve seen the last of them. Those looking for hopeful signs of life can point to this debut story from Sam Ryan, set in the crime-ridden city of Varangantua. Somewhere inside Games Workshop is an editor whose brain I’d love to pick regarding the decision to run this story in the Advent Calendar (and for the avoidance of doubt, that’s in no way meant as a commentary on the story itself, which I much enjoyed!)
- The Feast of Saint Luthera, by Victoria Hayward. Hayward splashed on the scene in 2021 with a pair of short stories in different anthologies. By 2021, she’d penned four more for the Black Library and delivered her first novel, my 2024 Book of the Year Deathworlder. Here she delivers a short about the Imperial Knights and a world mired in decay and tyranny.
- Irreplaceable, by Denny Flowers. While Flowers is perhaps best known for Lucille von Shard (Outgunned, Above and Beyond), Irreplaceable saw him writing Mad Dok Grotsnik- the protagonist in Grotsnik: Da Mad Dok which just went up for preorder last weekend. Another appetizer-main course pairing!
- Da Kaper Krew, by Justin Woolley. Another one-two story pairing here with Da Red Gobbo, though the vagaries of the publication schedule meant that we ultimately got the main course (Long Live da Red Gobbo) a month ahead of the appetizer (Da Kaper Krew). All the same, this story sets up the beginning of the novella, with Da Red Gobbo and Slipbit conniving to steal the kroozer Big Thumpa from their despised Ork overlords.
- Anathema, by Jude Reid. The Advent calendar’s final story takes us back to the Horus Heresy, with a band of rogue Psykers making a desperate escape from the Sisters of Silence. But from the one that hunts them, there can be no escape.
So how many of this year’s crop of eShorts did you get a chance to read? Any of them stand out is particularly deserving of attention? I’d love to hear what you thought, so please feel free to share in the comments below!
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