Hello and welcome to the ninth installment in our series chronicling the history of the Black Library, as told from a Warhammer 40,000 perspective. Today we’re entering 2000, by which point Games Workshop has moved past their first foray into novelizing their properties (Parts One, Two, and Three), through bimonthly stories and comic magazines (parts Four, Five, Six, and Seven) and back into traditional novel publishing (part Eight).
Today we’re going to be looking at the books of the year 2000. In previous entries in this series we’ve covered both the books as well as the periodicals in the same piece, but as the fledgling Black Library begins to grow its book offerings as well as stacking its periodicals (Inferno! and Warhammer Monthly), we’re going to give each publication type its own room to breathe a little. This is a formative time for the Black Library, with the seeds being planted then for all the offerings we enjoy now.
1999 was the year the books came back, with the Black Library- having previously outsourced the publishing of their novels and anthologies- kicked off the inhouse production. It had been almost a decade since the first Warhammer 40,000 novel had debuted with Ian Watson’s Inquisitor. We’d seen a total of four novels and a single anthology before the tap was shut off in 1995. But Games Workshop hadn’t been idle, ‘building from the back’ with the unveiling of Inferno! magazine.
By 2000, amidst the palpable relief that the world didn’t end with the Y2K virus, fans of the grim, dark future were in on the ground floor as the modern Black Library (which itself had only debuted under that name in 1997) rebuilt itself. Of the three novels published the previous year, two of them would form the basis for ongoing series (Space Wolves and First and Only).
Ragnar’s Claw, by William King
There’s a certain irony in the fact that William King’s Space Wolves saga is so foundational to the 40K body of work given that 40K was never his first-choice setting. Preferring fantasy to science fiction, he noted that “the Space Wolves were as close as I could get to it in the 40K background.”1
But just as Gotrek and Felix were King’s gift to the Fantasy side, so Ragnar Blackmane would prove to the 40K universe. With Space Wolf telling the story of Blackmane’s accession to the ranks of the Astartes, it’s time for him to make full use of his newfound strength in service to the Imperium. When an Inquisitor enlists the Wolves’ help in dealing with a plague, Blackmane and his squadmates must prepare for their first offworld combat deployment.
But this is no ordinary plague, and it requires more than an ordinary cure.
As the middle volume of the initial three-book story arc, Ragnar’s Claw would see reprinting in the Space Wolves Omnibus in 2007. Eighteen years later the Black Library would offer up a new boxed-set Special Edition of the trilogy, in recognition for the pride of place it occupies in the catalogue.
13th Legion, by Gav Thorpe
“At the heart of the Last Chancers,” remarked Gav Thorpe in an interview2, “is the idea of a bunch of disparate, conflicted but interesting characters having to do something stupid but heroic.” Thorpe’s heroes had first come to life in Inferno #5, being originally conceived for the Second Edition Imperial Guard Codex as a way to show off the grittier side of the Guard (as we covered in part six).
As the 13th Penal Legion, the Last Chancers fight not just for survival and glory, but for redemption as well. Thorpe conceived it to be, at its core, a “rip-roaring action story,” but also an examination of how “in an Empire spanning a million worlds and countless billions of people, a few brave souls really can make a difference.”3
This is Warhammer 40,000, though, so that naturally isn’t a story of unbridled hope. Rather, it’s the tale of a Colonel who assembles a crack team of the roughest and toughest by leading a pack of criminal scum from warzone to warzone, bleeding off the weakest amongst them. What’s left are the truly gritty, the lethally desperate, the Last Chancers.
13th Legion would see a reprinting in the Last Chancers Omnibus six years later.
Ghostmaker and Necropolis, by Dan Abnett
The year 2000 saw not one, but two releases going out for the further adventures of Gaunt’s Ghosts. As covered in Part Eight, the Black Library had pitched to Dan Abnett the idea of repurposing his body of short stories into a novel, an idea he rejected for the debut First and Only. For the sophomore effort, however, he did precisely that.
Ghostmaker wasn’t simply an anthology of these stories, as Abnett relates in an interview4:
First and Only was written as a novel, and then when that was successful and Games Workshop wanted novel number two, I thought ‘ok well now I’ll do the fix up of the earlier stuff, just to make sure it’s got all of the material in it’. So I took all those short stories and wove them together, expanding some and re-writing some, and made them into the second novel – Ghostmaker – much of which is set before the first novel. But the context is very clear, as they are Gaunt’s memories.
Undoubtedly the ‘head start’ Abnett had in reusing some of his work helped him deliver a second novel in the same year, as six months later saw the launch of the third Gaunt’s Ghost’s novel, Necropolis.
With Abnett’s first two Gaunt’s novels spanning different theatres of war, Necropolis was the first to tell a story set in a single conflict all the way through. Stationed on the Imperial world of Verghast, the Ghosts are pulled into battle when a conflict breaks out after a hive city launches an all-out attack on its neighbor.
Necropolis would be a huge success for the Gaunt’s Ghosts, even now frequently appearing on lists of top 40K fiction. The first three of Abnett’s novels would be ready for the omnibus treatment just three years later with Gaunt’s Ghosts: The Founding, and then again in 2017 with The Founding: A Gaunt’s Ghosts Omnibus5.
Anthologies
In the previous year the Black Library released a 40K anthology, and this year it was Necromunda’s turn as Status: Deadzone hit shelves in September. Edited by Marc Gascoigne and Andy Jones, it collected ten previously-released tales of gang warfare in the grim underhive- as well as one new tale.
- Bad Spirits, by Jonathan Green. Appearing in Inferno! #3, this tale introduces the bounty hunter Nathan Creed, Green’s take on the ‘man with no name’ trope prevalent in Westerns. Creed would have a bit of an unusual journey across the next few years of releases, as Green relates in greater depth here.
- Badlands Skelter’s Downhive Monster Show, by Matthew Farrer. Something is menacing a ratskin camp, but what could it be? Perhaps the monster show has something to do with it? (Originally in Inferno! #11)
- Descent, by Simon Jowett. Descent was the one story in the anthology that was seeing print ofr the first time. Lengthier than the rest (taking up about a third of the book itself), here an ex-Redemptionist pastor and a Spyrer hunter seek their fortunes in the sump submersible Queequeg. This tale was clearly meant to be the face of the anthology, as Black Library advertising of the day attests to.
- The Day of Thirst, by Tully R. Summers. Summers’ journey in the Black Library began and ended in 1998, with both stories included in this anthology. This first one involves a High Priestess of the Blood Coven calling in a debt. (Originally in Inferno! #6)
- The Demon Bottle, by Alex Hammond. A half-ratskin pest exterminator drowns his sorrows hoping for a better life, until the day his debts are called in and he’s hunting very different prey. (Originally in Inferno! #1)
- The Lake, by Tully R. Summers. An Orlock ganger eking out a living harvesting spider eyes finds the nearby lake holds more than the usual amount of secrets in Summers’ second story, which originally appeared in Inferno! #9.
- Mark of a Warrior, by Richard Williams. The Black Library was almost flirting with simultaneous release here, with this story of a Goliath juve must survive a trek to an infested mine armed with just slightly more than his wits appearing in both Inferno! and this anthology within a three-month span. (Originally in Inferno! #19)
- Rat in the Walls, by Alex Hammond. The conclusion of Knife’s Edge Liz’s story that started in Inferno! issue #6, this originally appeared in Inferno! #14.
- Rites of Passage, by Gordon Rennie. As ganger initiates are put to the test in the underhive, something far worse stalks them. (Originally in Inferno! #4)
- Sisters, by Neil Rutledge. An Escher leader sets off to avenge the loss of her sister and kill the plague zombies responsible. (Originally in Inferno! #10).
- A World Above, by Alex Hammond. A Spyrer hunt in the underhive runs into trouble when it encounters Knife’s Edge Liz. (Originally in Inferno! #6).
Notable Debuts
By this time in the story, there seemed to be three main paths to getting published in the Black Library. One way was to be an existing author in the genre, such as Ian Watson and Barrington J. Bayley. A second way was to submit to Inferno!, which was always on the hunt for quality Warhammer stories and included a submission invitation advert in many issues.
Then there was the path Andy Chambers took- being employed at Games Workshop. Chambers was a designer on just about any product coming off the factory floor, from Warhammer Fantasy Battles to Warhammer 40,000 Second Edition, Necromunda to Space Hulk.
Chambers would contribute two 40K stories in 2000 before his pen would go quiet for five years, reappearing for the Necromunda novel Survival Instinct. He’d go quiet again until a five-year period in 2011 saw him publish three more novels, a novella, and some more short stories for the Black Library.
The absence of Warhammer output didn’t mean Chambers was sitting still. He was the lead designer for Mongoose Publishing’s Starship Troopers game in 2003, Lead Story Writer for Blizzard’s StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, and designed 2012’s Dust Tactics for Fantasy Flight Games. Presently he’s involved as a co-designer (along with fellow GW alum Jervis Johnson) for Heroes of Might and Magic: Battles.
Jim Alexander was another creative who occupied the Venn overlap between 2000AD and Games Workshop, being the pen behind the somewhat notorious Calhab Justice series (think a Scottish Judge Dredd). But that aside he has a substantial body of work for known properties like DC’s Batman, Marvel’s X-Men and Spider-Man, Star Trek, and Samurai Jack.
He scripted two comics upon his debut for the Black Library in 2000, but would go on to be best known three years later for the Deathwatch series. He also contributed a single short story, 2004’s Plague Ship.
He’s moved into novel-writing in the last few years, starting with 2018’s GoodCopBadCop, and has even had a couple of his comic series get adapted for television (King’s Crown and Whisky in the Jar, the latter starring Michael Biehn of Terminator and Aliens fame).
Richard Williams wouldn’t hit his stride in the Black Library for a few years yet, but he did get his foot in the door in 2000 with a short story for Inferno!. By the time he’d conclude his run in 2011 he would have a trio of novels under his belt, as well as having co-written the Liber Chaotica background books in 2003-4.
Williams had discovered the world of Warhammer in the pages of White Dwarf 126, which released in June of 1990.6
Outside of the grim, dark future Williams has lent his creative talents to game design (the steampunk story game Anarktica: Fate of Heroes), theatre, and theatre direction.
And there we have it, the four books of 2000. It seems a modest haul now as we reflect in 2025, but these small steps a quarter-century ago would continue to help the Black Library build a solid foundation from which it could develop. Of course, back then it had plenty of help from its short story and comic magazines, Inferno! and Warhammer Monthly.
In our next installment, we’ll take a look at what they had to offer as we entered a new millennium.
Footnotes
- He remarked upon this in the comments section of his blog back in 2016, here.
- Where else? Track of Words.
- With terrific candor, Thorpe shares his novel synopsis for the book on his blog.
- Track of Words once again!
- If this all seems a bit Judean People’s Front versus People’s Front of Judea, congrats, you’re not the only one. Still, the later publication included additional content so it needed a new title.
- Authors who turn up unannounced in Reddit discussion threads about their work are the real MVPs.
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