The 40K History of the Black Library: Suffer Not the Xenos (2001 Part One)

Hello and welcome to the eleventh installment in our series chronicling the history of the Black Library, as told from a Warhammer 40,000 perspective. For convenience, here is the list of the History so far:

• Part One: The Beginning. 1990. Inquisitor and Deathwing.
• Part Two: A short pause. 1993. Space Marine.
• Part Three: 1994-95. Harlequin and Chaos Child.
• Part Four: 1997. Dawn of the Black Library and Inferno!
• Part Five: 1997. The first year of Inferno!
• Part Six: 1998. Gaunt’s Ghosts and Last Chancers debut.
• Part Seven: 1998. Warhammer Monthly’s first ten issues.
• Part Eight: 1999. The books are back!
• Part Nine: The books of the year 2000.
• Part Ten: The short stories and comics of 2000.

What we’re starting to witness now is the rise of the Black Library as most of us know it today. Games Workshop has begun to find a formula that works. Whereas their first attempt was to have veteran speculative fiction writers pen novels for their IP, now they’re taking a more homegrown approach by using short story vehicles to vet talent for the more ambitious novels.

These days that’s largely done through the Black Library website, which offers collections of new short stories multiple times a year. But back at the turn of the century, paper was still king and instead we had the Inferno! and Warhammer Monthly magazines.

It’s easy to look back now with the benefit of hindsight and know what worked and what didn’t, and we see an element of that in the first two novels of 2001. One would go on to become one of the imprint’s greatest-ever releases, while the other not only fell to obscurity but was ultimately disclaimed by the Black Library.

Today we’ll be looking at the first half of 2001. While it wasn’t as busy as the later half of the year, it is perhaps most notable for launching a new series from Dan Abnett, who by then was already the Black Library’s most prodigious voice with a sizable body of both prose and comic work.

Xenos, by Dan Abnett

Those whose engagement with Warhammer is mainly through the books rather than the games may be surprised to learn that there’s a lot more to Games Workshop than just the main product lines of Warhammer Fantasy Battles (or Age of Sigmar) and Warhammer 40,000. GW regularly publishes tabletop and board games that reflect different elements of their creative cosmos. For 40K, for instance, there have been releases like Space Hulk (1989), Battlefleet Gothic (1999) and Aeronautica Imperialis (2007), or Gangs of Commorragh (2017), all tied into the 40K universe but quite different in terms of focus and gameplay than the main wargame.

Back in 2001, fans of narrative skirmish games were excited to see the release of Inquisitor. With the tagline “everything you have been told is a lie” the game pit you and an opponent leading rival bands of inquisitors and their agents, represented in a visually arresting 54mm standard (about twice the size of the wargame’s 28mm miniatures).

“Of all the design projects I worked on while at Games Workshop,” reflected lead designer (and Black Library veteran) Gav Thorpe₁, “for many gamers of a certain age my most obvious legacy will be Inquisitor. It’s certainly one that ranks in the top three projects I am proud of.” Inquisitor was more than just a fun new game, with its core rulebook filled with art led by John Blanche and with layout and design work from Stefan Kopinski, “far ahead of the established GW book design aesthetic at the time.”

Inquisitor didn’t just capture the imaginations of its designers and gaming public. Amongst those intrigued by the property was author Dan Abnett, who at this point already had built up a solid body of work for the Black Library with a number of short stories and comics appearing in Inferno! and Warhammer Monthly as well as the early Gaunt’s Ghosts books.

Inquisitor had come to Abnett’s attention through his Black Library editor, who had sent him over an advance copy of the game’s rulebook because he thought the art might serve as helpful inspiration.

“I was so grabbed by the content,” noted Abnett in the Illustrated and Annotated Edition of Xenos (2021), “that I rang him back and asked if anyone was writing an Inquisitor novel and, if they weren’t, could I?”

The editor gave Abnett the green light, provided that he could have it completed in time to publish it alongside the launch of the game. Challenge accepted, Abnett had it written in about 60 days. “It’s remarkable that a spontaneous, unplanned book written entirely on the fly has held up for this long,” he’d observe.

Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts had transported readers to the front lines of the war theatres of the Imperial Guard, but Inquisitor’s focus demanded something very different. “I wanted to capture the sense of a ‘hard-boiled noir,’ in 40K terms.” And so, taking more than a few leaves out of the pages of detective stories, Gregor Eisenhorn was born.

Xenos follows Inquisitor Eisenhorn as he races to recover an arcane and malign artifact known as the Necroteuch, unraveling a sinister conspiracy along the way. “One way or another,” writes Abnett in the afterword of the 2021 edition, “Xenos has become a benchmark in Black Library fiction. With the possible exception of Horus Rising, it’s probably the most successful thing I’ve ever written.”

Pawns of Chaos, by Brian Craig

Brian Craig was a member of that small but noteworthy club of British speculative fiction writers that helped populate the early days of Warhammer fiction. Authors like Ian Watson and Barrington J. Bayley had been writing for years before Warhammer threw its quill in the ring, and Craig (the pen name of Brian Stableford) was the writer of a hundred novels mainly in the late 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.

When Games Workshop was looking for established writers to take a crack at their universe, Craig came aboard with the Orfeo Trilogy from 1989-1991 (Zaragoz, Plague Daemon, and Storm Warriors). Also in 1991, he penned Ghost Dancers₂ for GW’s Dark Future setting before going dark for the rest of the decade.

He returned at the turn of the millennia, writing The Wine of Dreams in 2000 and Pawns of Chaos in 2001. The latter remains his only 40K book, and is unusual in the catalogue as it anchors on the perspective of Chaos cultists defending an attack on their planet by the Imperium. Like Watson, some of what Craig brought to the table was informed by his own sensibilities honed over a long writing career rather than an imperative for in-universe conformity. Whether it’s the unusual choice of a youthful protagonist in a Chaos society, a scene with a cultist castrating themself, or some other collection of elements that eventually moved away from the evolving mainstream of the property, Pawns of Chaos would go on to be an early reprint under the Heretic Tomes label₃ in 2010. This short-lived imprint offered the Black Library the ability to reissue works that were “written in a different time and place, when the worlds of Warhammer and 40K were different from what they are now.”

While this wasn’t the last we’d see of him in the Black Library, Pawns of Chaos was the last of his novels. Craig passed away in February, 2024.

Meanwhile, in the Inferno

The three issues of Inferno! during the first half of the year had some very familiar names to the modern reader.

• Boyz in the Hive, by Jonathan Green. When a captive ork escapes an uphive zoo, it’s up to Nathan Creed to take it down. Years later this story would be reprinted in 2012’s Necromunda Ombibus 2. (Inferno! #23)
• Business as Usual, by Graham McNeill. When a deal goes South in the underhive, things can go bad very fast- as one ganger is about to learn the hard way. Like a number of this year’s stories, it would be reprinted the following year in the Words of Blood anthology (Inferno! #24)
• The Emperor’s Will, by David Charters. “For anyone who wants to submit a story, we have… two simple rules,” noted editor Marc Gascoigne in the introduction to Inferno! #24. “One: be true to the background. Two: be any good. Fulfil those two and odds are you’ll be published in these pages at some stage!” While I cannot be certain, I am guessing that this was the path David Charters took to see this story of Imperial pacification come to print. It was to be the author’s only contribution to the Black Library, and I could not find any direct attribution online. No author info, no other work- and no less than three other published authors sharing the same name with zero speculative fiction publication. All the same, the story would be reprinted once more, in 2003’s anthology Crucible of War. (Inferno! #24)
• Loyalty’s Reward, by Simon Jowett. A ganger runs afoul of the Inquisition in this tale, which would be included in the Words of Blood anthology. (Inferno! #23)
• Pestilence, by Dan Abnett. Interestingly, all three of the Warhammer 40K stories from Inferno! issue #22 would see a reprinting later in the year as part of the reissue of the Deathwing anthology. This made the book an interesting bridge between early Black Library history and the content we’re more familiar with today, as the trio of authors were Abnett, Gav Thorpe, and Graham McNeill. In Pestilence, a medicae investigates a mysterious contagion striking down the Imperial Guard. The story would see multiple reprintings over the years, in 2006 (Let the Galaxy Burn), 2014 (There is Only War), 2018 (The Magos), and 2020 (Lord of the Dark Millenium).  (Inferno! #22).
• Raptor Down, by Gav Thorpe. At what cost duty? A flight commander of the Aeronautica Imperialis must choose between obeying orders or breaking them to save the war- at the cost of his career. Thorpe’s tale was not only reprinted in Words of Blood, but also in 2006’s Let the Galaxy Burn and later in On Wings of Blood (2019) (Inferno! #24)
• Suffer Not the Unclean to Live, by Gav Thorpe. A member of the Imperial Ecclesiarchy is torn between upholding his duty and concern for the underhive’s mutants afflicted with an unknown plague. Reprinted in There is Only War in 2014. (Inferno! #22)
• Unforgiven, by Graham McNeill. A Dark Angels strike force confronts a heretical cult on one of their recruiting worlds, only to find the Fallen at the heart of it. Unforgiven would be reprinted in 2013’s The Book of the Lion, a print-on-demand anthology, then again the following year in There is Only War. (Inferno! #22)

Inferno! also contained the following comics and illustrations. Note that titles in italics are original illustration works by the named title; otherwise, they are named after the story they accompany (the art itself is untitled).

• Boyz in the Hive, by Des Hanley. Hanley in the 90’s was a part-time staff member of the Games Workshop store in Leicester₄, and would do artwork and illustrations for the store. His work soon impressed the regional manager, who took his portfolio to the company. Hanley was hired as an official GW artist, and over the better part of the next decade provided art for a number of Warhammer releases- mainly the Third Edition books and Battlefleet Gothic. (Inferno! #23)
• Business as Usual, by Adrian Smith. (Inferno! #24)
• Da Sekret Weapon, by Gordon Rennie (script) and Paul Staples Jeacock (art). The ork flyboyz of Def Skwadron are tasked with testing a new secret weapon for their bombers in this comic. What could possibly go wrong? (Inferno! #22)
• The Emperor’s Will, by D. J. Cockersell. “I find there is pleasure to be gained from making something which has never existed before,” noted Cockersell in a 2021 interview₅. Another of those immensely creative figures we only happen to meet in passing in the Black Library, Cockersell was a self-taught sculptor who came aboard Gamaes Workshop’s Forge World in 2000. Six years later, he emigrated from England to New Zealand and took a job at Weta Workshop₆, where he works today as the head of sculpting. (Inferno! #24)
• Loyalty’s Reward, by Paul Dainton. (Inferno! #23)
• Pestilence, by Paul Dainton. (Inferno! #22)
• Raptor Down, by Jim Brady. (Inferno! #24)
• Space Marine Scout, by John Gravato. Gravato provided the cover art for issue #23, depicting a camouflaged Space Marine ready for business in the jungle. (Inferno! #23)
• Suffer Not the Unclean to Live, by Adrian Smith. (Inferno! #22)
• Unforgiven, by Graham Stoddart. Stoddart was another artist in the 2000AD-Games Workshop ecosystem, including doing illustration for Judge Dredd. This wouldn’t be the last we’d see of Stoddart, who in 2003 would provide the art for Warhammer Monthly’s notable Deathwatch comic series. (Inferno! #22)

Back to the Drawing Board

Meanwhile in the comic magazine Warhammer Monthly, the format was starting to coalesce around a few longer-running serial stories rather than leaning more heavily on the one-shots, perhaps a reflection of the publication finding its stride. With one exception, the first half of 2001 was entirely given to continuing narratives.

The editorial page also received a makeover in issue #39, with the bickering, bantering duo Baneblade and Gutspew (pictured above) finally being put out to well-earned pasture. The newer layout more closely aligned with Inferno!, being a better showcase of the issue’s contents as well as editorial commentary.

• Blood and Braids, by Nik Vincent (script) and Graham Stoddart (art). A Necromunda story, Vincent’s contributions to date for the Black Library have been for the Fantasy side where she’s also collaborated with husband Dan Abnett. Here we see the wages of greed when it comes to a Spyrer’s thirst for underhive blood. (Warhammer Monthly #42)
• Daemonifuge – Lord of Damnation, by Gordon Rennie (script) and Karl Richardson (art) continues the tale of Sister of Battle- and suspected heretic- Ephrael Stern. (Warhammer Monthly 38, 39, 40, 41)
• Ephrael, by Karl and Stefan Kopinski. The Brothers Kopinski were back, providing a cover portrait of Ephrael Stern. (Warhammer Monthly #39)
• Gravier, by Adrian Smith. Cover art showcasing the star of Inquisitor: Ascendant. (Warhammer Monthly 38)
• Inquisitor: Ascendant, by Dan Abnett (script), Simon Coleby (art), and Jim Brady (art). Back in 1999, Warhammer Monthly ran a nine-part series featuring Inquisitor Defay and his student Gravier investigating a Chaos incursion₇. Two years later we’ve got a new story centered on Gavier having to track down his old mentor- who may or may not have been tainted by the very evils he confronted. Coleby stepped down from drawing the series after issue #40, with Jim Brady stepping in starting in the next installment. (Warhammer Monthly 38, 39, 40, 42)
• Titan, by Mark Harrison. Harrison is a sci-fi and fantasy artist who has done work for 2000AD, White Dwarf, Magic: the Gathering, and more. His debut comic book was Loose Cannons, an all-female mercenary team written by Dan Abnett for Marvel UK. Although completed, it was never published₈. Here he provided the cover art for Warhammer Monthly #42.
• Titan: Ground Zero, by Dan Abnett (script) and Anthony Williams (art). A new story arc begins for Princeps Hekate and the crew of the Imperius Dictatio in the wastelands of the factory world Artemis. (Warhammer Monthly 42, 43)

Now halfway through 2001, in our next installment we’ll be looking at the action-packed second half of the year, one which saw quite a bit more in terms of book releases. Thanks for reading!

Footnotes

1. Thorpe wrote about the game some years later on his own blog here.
2. Published as Kid Zero in England.
3. We’ll look more closely at this once we get to 2010.
4. Hanley shared this anecdote and other thoughts of the time in a 2014 interview with Magpie and Old Lead.
5. The Top Row interview really is worth a read, as Cockersell has been involved in some amazing, non-wargaming stuff as well.
6. If that sounds familiar, amongst other things they are the sculptors behind the Warhammer statues and replica helmets.
7. Keen-eyed readers may also have noted that Inquisitor Defay and Gravier had an appearance in Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts debut novel, First and Only.
8. It’s an interesting story, and you can read it here.

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