Black Library News & Rumours Thread III, that awkward third title.

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**Hulksmash**

I love how people are complaining about Hardbacks first and having the paperback within 3 months....

This is actually nicer than standard practice in publishing. Standard practice is generally hardback and then approximately a year (sometimes more depending on the series) later you get the paperback. GW just now has the readership base for certain authors or series to follow the standard publishing format.

I do wonder about the electronic version. They could choose to release the electronic version similar to standard publishers with it being a higher initial cost and then dropping it down to paperback prices when the paperback is released.

**Alpharius**

Actually, it does, and more than just a little bit.

I'd posit that you are quite outside the core group of fans too...

**reds8n**

Those of you who won't be able to make it to a GD this year.....

http://www.blacklibrary.com/Warhammer/games-day-anthology-2012.html

About the book

The Black Library Games Day Anthology 2012/13 is a collection of six short stories, taken from the worlds of Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the Horus Heresy and the Time of Legends. A handsome hardcover volume, the Games Day Anthology is strictly limited to 3,000 copies worldwide. It contains the following stories:

•Distant Echoes of Old Night - Rob SandersDeath Guard Chaplain Murnau hunts a small force of Imperial Fists on a forest moon. As his foes elude him, he unleashes one of his Legion’s most terrifying weapons: the Destroyers.
•Extinction - Aaron Dembski-Bowden
•The Horus Heresy is over, the traitors have been defeated and the Sons of Horus are a dying Legion. Can Ezekyle Abaddon reunite the Warmaster’s sons before they embrace extinction?
•The Master of Mourkain - Josh Reynolds
•Nagash is dead, but his legacy lives on as the vampire Ushoran embarks upon a quest to retrieve the Great Necromancer’s crown from Kadon, the deadly Master of Mourkain.
•The Blessing of Iron - Anthony Reynolds
•Battle-Brother Dolmech protects an Adeptus Mechanicus functionary on a rebel-held world. But what do the Iron Hands want with Beneficiari Armicus, and who else is hunting him?
•The Memory of Flesh - Matthew Farrer
•Warring with deadly aliens, the Iron Hands are plagued by equipment malfunctions. They are the masters of the machine, but now their technology seems to have a mind of its own…
•Perihelion - Dan Abnett
•An outbreak of violence at an Inquisitorial conclave throws Gregor Eisenhorn into a deadly confrontation with a malevolent psyker – and an even deadlier one with his old friend Gideon Ravenor.

**KamikazeCanuck**

What the? There's a post Heresy short story in there?

**reds8n**

I believe it's somewhat of a precursor to the Abaddon series he wants to write, "Rise of the Warmaster" kind of thing IIRC.

.. that said he's got to finish... errr... I mean just dot the "I"s and cross the "T"s on "Betrayer"... and then there's also a NL HH book and a rumoured SoB book too.. so might be a while.

Guess he's got to eat, sleep etc as well.

**BrookM**

He's not doing a lot of sleeping if you keep track with his Face/Tweet feeds.

**Pacific**

Hulksmash wrote:
I love how people are complaining about Hardbacks first and having the paperback within 3 months....

This is actually nicer than standard practice in publishing. Standard practice is generally hardback and then approximately a year (sometimes more depending on the series) later you get the paperback. GW just now has the readership base for certain authors or series to follow the standard publishing format.

I agree, the hardback > softback procedure is a standard in the industry. I think the upset is probably more to do with having something in the past, but then it being taken away. Kind of like the friend who gives you his MP3 player ("I've got a new one now, don't need it any more") only to ask for it back a few months later. The fact that it was a gift, and you had nothing previously, doesn't stop the feeling of indignation.

It's been a poorly kept secret that the GW upper-management hold the customer base in extremely low regard.. Sad to see that it looks like elements of that are filtering through to both FW and BL these days.

**Alpharius**

You love how people liked paying less money for all of the books to date in the HH series and are now annoyed at the initial offering being double the price and a delay of 3 months if they don't want to pay hardcover prices, and now will have to avoid spoilers like the plague?

Kirby, is that you?

**BrookM**

Can't we just warn people who post blatant spoilers and if they keep it up, boot them?

**Eisenhorn**

Open a thread with Spoiler warning.
If not posted there your arse gets the boot.

**spiralingcadaver**

I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this (cursory search), but Brotherhood of the storm was announced on the FW newsletter as $50.

I'm sorry, but I find a 128 page print on demand book coming in at $50 to be pretty thoroughly embarrassing...

**BrookM**

But but but but it's signed by the author and hand stamped by the intern and made of the finest trees that GW could get from a fair trade site!

**reds8n**

http://www.blacklibrary.com/Blog/the-horus-heresy-and-beyond.html

Tuesday 2nd of October, 2012

The Horus Heresy and Beyond

Angel Exterminatus is the brand new Horus Heresy novel from Graham McNeill. It is also the first of our new range of collector’s editions, featuring hardback covers, exclusive internal artwork and an author afterword.

These new editions of the Horus Heresy will form part of an exciting new range of Games Workshop Exclusive titles. There will be a new title in your Hobby Centre every month, including all of the new Horus Heresy books as well as exclusive novellas. These won’t be available in book shops, but there’s no need to panic if you don’t live near a Games Workshop Hobby Centre, as you’ll still be able to get your copy from blacklibrary.com.

The second of these new titles, released in November, will be Flesh of Cretacia, a Flesh Tearers Space Marine Battles novella by Andy Smillie. Set shortly after the tumultuous events of the Horus Heresy, Flesh of Cretatia sees the newly founded Flesh Tearers establishing their homeworld. Check out Clint Langley’s fantastic cover artwork

If this looks familiar, it’s because we showed you a sneak peek of the art in Thursday’s blog. Below you can see Amit, the lead character in the novella, in his Terminator armour. Armed with dual chainfists and storm bolters, he looks ready for anything the galaxy can throw at him. He’s accompanied by a banner bearer, proudly displaying the new Chapter’s insignia.

Be sure to check the blog tomorrow when Andy Smillie will be joining us to chat about novellas, Flesh Tearers and the myriad ways there are to kill things.

In the meantime, keep yourself busy by setting reminders for Angel Exterminatus and Flesh of Cretacia.

**Kanluwen**

Huh. That's kinda neat, especially now that I have a GW "Hobby" Center right nearby.

Amusingly enough, no bookstores though.

**BrassScorpion**

I've been told that these "GW store only exclusive" hard back books will be $30 each and only sold for a brief limited amount of time. Ouch.

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

The release says

"These won’t be available in book shops, but there’s no need to panic if you don’t live near a Games Workshop Hobby Centre, as you’ll still be able to get your copy from blacklibrary.com"

so you can order them online too (for their limited release period)

**Alpharius**

As much as I hate Schadenfreude, we can only hope it falls flat on its face then...

**Harriticus**

*sigh* GW making everything expensive/complicated/"limited edition" these days. I just want to be able to walk into a bookstore and get a tiny little HH book about relevant stuff in the HH. Instead we get expensive hardback limited edition 2-week period 1,000 copies for a tiny novella about obscure space marines doing obscure things.

**KamikazeCanuck**

I guess that's the way they want it. They want it to be hard to have a comprehensive collection. Making the fans painstaking try to obtain and put together bits of confused lore and contradictory history through hearsay and rumor as if they were actually Imperial Scribes.

**kronk**

Not buying it. I'll wait for the paper back from Amazon.com.

**Bloodwin**

I think it's a very sensible idea. The market for paperbacks is bloody awful, especially with bookstores doing buy one get one free on HH books. In order for them to keep selling books they have to maximise their own profits, this means they have to come up with ways to sell HH books direct, so they come up with an exclusive edition. I'm glad to see they are doing the old books as well.

Having said all that though, I usually buy just the audio version but am reading the ones not on audio on my kindle. I have enough issues storing all my models and rule books without paperbacks cluttering up the place.

**Temujin**

We are bad and Games Workshop has to punish us. The large number of people buying Horus Heresy books are failing to buy the latest miniature releases in similar numbers, so from now on we all have to report to our local GW branch and submit to a sales pitch before we are permitted to buy our books. Who cares if this annoys GW's biggest mainstream audience - as long as they can feed a tiny minority of them into their core business, the rest can rot.

**Kroothawk**

Harriticus wrote:
*sigh* GW making everything expensive/complicated/"limited edition" these days. I just want to be able to walk into a bookstore and get a tiny little HH book about relevant stuff in the HH. Instead we get expensive hardback limited edition 2-week period 1,000 copies for a tiny novella about obscure space marines doing obscure things.

It's Fineprint™

Oh, and the new Ravenor/Eisenhorn and High Elf novel also seem to be Hardcover first.

**reds8n**

They've always been advertised as such.

The first high elf book also was.

For limited/finite series I don't mind so much, especially with regards to Mr. Abnett's work.

It's the change of format now I dislike for the HH books.

**Warmaster Primus**

I know what you mean. My OCD about how all the books line up on my shelf overcomes my inner collector. While I dislike the format change, I personally don't think it'll effect me much.

In terms of the Bequin Trilogy, I have the other 2 trilogies in their respective omnibus formats. I'll probably break down and buy them as they come out. I can't wait 3 years for that omnibus.

**narked**

Yup. How dare they release a cool, rather nice looking hardback several months early for those that want it...

**Alpharius**

I think he might have been a bit more upset about the limited edition BL only books (at least for 2 to 3 years) about significant characters in the Horus Heresy.

Like... the White Scars and Jaghatai Khan?

**KamikazeCanuck**

I just hate how those are like $60. I'm not made of loonies!

**Compel**

To be honest, I'm not that concerned about it.

I haven't gotten round to reading Fear to Tread yet and have yet to order Shadows of Treachery.

**BrookM**

On the bright side regarding the limited release novellas: The stories handled within, while a nice layer of flavour, are not super-essential to the picture as a whole and don't deal in super-secrets that will come back to bite you later onwards. So far though, it has been fifty-fifty in the opinion of this soul. Promethian Sun was rather.. MEH, while Aurelian added a nice layer of backstory to the First Heretic.