A few weeks ago I received a very surprising bit of news – Age of Darkness had made it to number 31 on the New York Times bestseller list for Mass Market Paperback Fiction. You may wonder why that came as a surprise when the previous four books in the Horus Heresy series had all made the list and the authors of all four of those had contributed stories to the anthology, but the thing is this – anthologies hardly ever make the NYT bestseller list.

The fact that it did is not only testament to the strength of the Horus Heresy series, nor the fact that Age of Darkness marks the first forays into the unexplored years of the Heresy, but also to the hard work of a group of people working away in the background who don’t receive a credit in the book itself. Because of having to find room for author bios in the back of the book, there wasn’t enough room for an acknowledgements page in Age of Darkness so I’m going to use this blog posting to thank some of the key people who made the book happen.


A huge dollop of thanks must go to the 10 people who without their contributions there wouldn’t have been a book at all. Dan Abnett, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Graham McNeill and James Swallow were already NYT bestsellers in their own right, but John French, Nick Kyme, Rob Sanders, Gav Thorpe and Chris Wraight can now join this list. In John’s case, it was his first piece of work to see print (his previous BL contribution being a short story in the digital-only Hammer and Bolter) and for three of the other writers it was their Heresy debut.

But there were only nine names on the table of contents, how can you thank 10 contributors, I hear you cry? Neil Roberts is the unsung hero of the Horus Heresy series and raises the bar with each and every cover he delivers. I may be just a smidge biased but I think the Age of Darkness cover is the best yet, and not just because a Space Marine from a certain legion is getting his head crushed…

Each and every member of the Black Library team deserve credit for this too, from Lynne Gardner, who makes sure that the authors receive their paperwork for the short stories, George Mann, who has both hands on the rudder but somehow still has a hand free to sign the cheques and contracts, through to Neil Wylie who made sure that the book had an ISBN and that the details were uploaded to Amazon and other booksellers. Darius Hinks, Rosie Edwards and Adi Wood not only made sure that the book was typeset and looked great, but were also responsible for the adverts and catalogues that made the world aware of the book’s existence. Andy Smillie made sure the marketing ran smoothly so that Mal Green, Rik Cooper, Vince Rospond and Ragnar Karlsson could get booksellers and Games Workshop stores excited about the anthology, while Carol Sanderson and Emma Clarke were responsible for the books getting printed, being shipped all over the world and, perhaps most importantly, that the bills were paid. Caroline Pritchard-Law and Rachel Docherty did a great job with the digital editions of not only the book, but also the individual short stories and the various associated audio products. I’d also like to issue a little bit of pre-emptive thanks to Anthony Esteban and Chris Bone who will be launching the French language edition early next year.

Finally, no Black Library book would hit our consistent high standards without the efforts of the editorial team. Lindsey Priestley, Nick Kyme, Graeme Lyon and Laurie Goulding go above and beyond with every title we put out but, with the exception of Nick who pulls double-duty as a BL author, very rarely get their time in the sun.

And now that my Gwyneth Paltrow moment is over, I’m off to start commissioning stories for The Primarchs.

-Christian

Just Dave wrote:You'll create a new thread, though, right?