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The hardbacks are indeed exclusives, available only directly from BL, GW, and GW stores.

i have been buying hardbacks for years from BL...
Gaunt's Ghosts, Commissar Cain, and Ultramarine novels have been released in Hardback first for years, with the paperback about a year later...
the thing is, i always get them at a discount outside of GW...
if these are only available at full retail, in a GW store, i can see that hurting sales...
i will just buy the eBook at $10 less, but a lot of people won't...

i definitelt think the exclusive move hurts more than the hardback aspect...
not only are they asking more money, but they are making it harder to get...
that bit seems crazy to me...
it's like not publishing enough White Dwarfs...

White Dwarf never used to sell out, and people could get the rules they needed easy enough...
now people are pissed off that they need to almost pre-order a magazine that actually has something useful in it, and rightly so...

hardback makes sense...
exclusivity, not so much...

cheers
jah

Only hardbacks I'm getting now are the remaining Macharius and Bequin trilogy instalments. The rest I can sit out.

I'll just get the Gaunt's Ghosts. I've been getting those for a while anyway.

Is it a bad thing that 90% of the posts in this thread since my last check-in are complaints and/or discussion of the pricing and release structure of BL books and not about the books themselves? It used to be that my weekly stop here got me some reviews of books that I hadn't gotten to yet, maybe some cover art previews, and the occasional BrookM post ranting about a lack of spoiler tags... now it's pretty much wall to wall complaints and/or repudiation of those complaints. That doesn't seem like a positive change in the ol' public relations category. I don't think that the preceeding discussion is inappropriate or any somesuch but am just rather surprised about a generally positive series of threads taking such a dramatic turn for the worse in response to BL's decisions on how they release their books.

It is sad isn't it?
Perhaps we can turn it around? So... How about them Space Marines? Have they .....uh....shot any good aliens lately.....?

 warboss wrote:
Is it a bad thing that 90% of the posts in this thread since my last check-in are complaints and/or discussion of the pricing and release structure of BL books and not about the books themselves?

It might be a bad thing but whose fault is it? When the books were $10 mass market trade paperbacks (which you could buy discounted for even less) that we could all get at the same time, we discussed them. Now they are $30 exclusives (i.e., no discount), we aren't buying them and instead complaining about the reasons why we aren't buying them. Seems like something is bad, for sure.


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 warboss wrote:
I don't think that the preceeding discussion is inappropriate or any somesuch but am just rather surprised about a generally positive series of threads taking such a dramatic turn for the worse in response to BL's decisions on how they release their books.

Yep, it's worrisome. We can only hope that Hulksmash is right and this will all be water under the bridge sooner or later. Just like how we have to get used to $50 codicies and $82.50 Stormravens. Some people have been priced out or just sickened by this and stopped playing. I guess we're seeing the beginnings of the same thing with the novels.


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 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
How about them Space Marines? Have they .....uh....shot any good aliens lately.....?

In all honesty, I have really been enjoying the SM Battles books.

I have been reading Siege of Castellax and it's pretty darn good. I also read the first chapter or so of Legion of the Damned and thought it was even better.

I picked up Garro: Sword of Truth, I liked it. Decent audio drama imo... VERY predictable plot though...

I picked up Battle of the Fang on Monday at Barnes and Nobles. I've just past the halfway point with it last night, and I'm enjoying it so far. I guess it will hold me over for now.

 kronk wrote:
I picked up Battle of the Fang on Monday at Barnes and Nobles. I've just past the halfway point with it last night, and I'm enjoying it so far. I guess it will hold me over for now.

Nice, I'll probably pick it up after I finish Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, but I've got 62 pages left in the Eisenhorn Omnibus, I think Alpharius can finally stop bugging me about it

 Alfndrate wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I picked up Battle of the Fang on Monday at Barnes and Nobles. I've just past the halfway point with it last night, and I'm enjoying it so far. I guess it will hold me over for now.

Nice, I'll probably pick it up after I finish Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, but I've got 62 pages left in the Eisenhorn Omnibus, I think Alpharius can finally stop bugging me about it

Maybe!

Until you're completely up to date (PARIAH is waiting) though, no promises!

I did enjoy BATTLE OF THE FANG, but I'm a sucker for almost anything pre-40K 40K, if you know what I mean!

 Alfndrate wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I picked up Battle of the Fang on Monday at Barnes and Nobles. I've just past the halfway point with it last night, and I'm enjoying it so far. I guess it will hold me over for now.

Nice, I'll probably pick it up after I finish Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns,

Exactly. It's not required that you read those first, but I am enjoying it more because I did, I think.

I own the Eisenhorne Omnibus and read the first book, the short story between 1 and 2, and half of book 2. Then I got a couple of HH books, the Chaos codex, the 6th Edition rulebook, the FW HH book...

I just can't bring myself back to it for some reason.

 warboss wrote:
Is it a bad thing that 90% of the posts in this thread since my last check-in are complaints and/or discussion of the pricing and release structure of BL books and not about the books themselves? It used to be that my weekly stop here got me some reviews of books that I hadn't gotten to yet, maybe some cover art previews, and the occasional BrookM post ranting about a lack of spoiler tags... now it's pretty much wall to wall complaints and/or repudiation of those complaints. That doesn't seem like a positive change in the ol' public relations category. I don't think that the preceeding discussion is inappropriate or any somesuch but am just rather surprised about a generally positive series of threads taking such a dramatic turn for the worse in response to BL's decisions on how they release their books.

Well, I've read Betrayer/Angels Exterminatus ebooks plus Siege of Castellax lately. Pariah is still on the shelf for me.

I enjoyed Angels Exterminatus more then Betrayer surprisingly, the first time I've ever preferred a non ADB-work to an ADB-work, though Betrayer does great at giving Angron more depth. Siege of Castellax was surprising entertaining for bolter porn but fails to develop any of the CSM like other past books such as the Night lords Trilogy/Storm of Iron managed. Nonetheless I consider it a step above most of the Space Marine Battles books, which tend to be poor.

Although not BL, I think Alan Bligh's work for FW is probably the very best writing coming out of GW at the moment. I don't know if he could do BL-style fiction but I wish they'd let him do a sort of obvious propaganda piece, something along the lines of the IG primers but a tad more serious -- something like Xenology or the Liber Chaotica or Index Astartes. BL does so many novels these days; how about some of those weird/fun/in-universe works?

 Manchu wrote:
Although not BL, I think Alan Bligh's work for FW is probably the very best writing coming out of GW at the moment.

100% agreement. I can't wait to see what he and his group do with 2 books on the HH Drop Site Massacre.

 Harriticus wrote:

Well, I've read Betrayer/Angels Exterminatus ebooks plus Siege of Castellax lately. Pariah is still on the shelf for me.

I enjoyed Angels Exterminatus more then Betrayer surprisingly, the first time I've ever preferred a non ADB-work to an ADB-work, though Betrayer does great at giving Angron more depth. Siege of Castellax was surprising entertaining for bolter porn but fails to develop any of the CSM like other past books such as the Night lords Trilogy/Storm of Iron managed. Nonetheless I consider it a step above most of the Space Marine Battles books, which tend to be poor.

I've skimmed through the Siege book but that's as close as I've gotten to catching up besides reading the Blood Angels HH book over the last few months. I've found that my interest in 40k novels ebbs and flows along a path similar to my interest in the tabletop game and 6th edition has largely nipped that in the bud.

 warboss wrote:
and the occasional BrookM post ranting about a lack of spoiler tags...

It is still an offence for which people should be banned in my opinion. The books are expensive enough already and sometimes it takes forever for a book to reach a person. It sometimes takes up to a month for a book to reach me and I don't want some backward gakker to spoil an expensive book for me.

For those interested, I do have a full Betrayer review ready to go. I haven't actually posted it anywhere because the blog I usually post to is down. If there's interest, I can post a full text here.

Lemme know, and cheers!

If you post, use spoiler tags, please. I have no interest in reading reviews until after I read the paperback version.

 Alpharius wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I picked up Battle of the Fang on Monday at Barnes and Nobles. I've just past the halfway point with it last night, and I'm enjoying it so far. I guess it will hold me over for now.

Nice, I'll probably pick it up after I finish Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, but I've got 62 pages left in the Eisenhorn Omnibus, I think Alpharius can finally stop bugging me about it

Maybe!

Until you're completely up to date (PARIAH is waiting) though, no promises!

I did enjoy BATTLE OF THE FANG, but I'm a sucker for almost anything pre-40K 40K, if you know what I mean!

I finished it at lunch today, you wanna ship me Pariah so I can read it without buying it? I gots Wyrd kool-aid to drink son! My money is wrapped up in breaches and things that go through them.

 kronk wrote:
If you post, use spoiler tags, please. I have no interest in reading reviews until after I read the paperback version.

A good review shouldn't spoil anything

Sure, post it up. Make sure you keep a few sentences between the top of the post and the spoiler tags so the preview text doesn't show it.

Also, I'll probably buy it anyways since it was written by AD-B


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Also, Steel Blood?

New Space Marines Battles Digital exclusive?

 Manchu wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Is it a bad thing that 90% of the posts in this thread since my last check-in are complaints and/or discussion of the pricing and release structure of BL books and not about the books themselves?

It might be a bad thing but whose fault is it? When the books were $10 mass market trade paperbacks (which you could buy discounted for even less) that we could all get at the same time, we discussed them. Now they are $30 exclusives (i.e., no discount), we aren't buying them and instead complaining about the reasons why we aren't buying them. Seems like something is bad, for sure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:
I don't think that the preceeding discussion is inappropriate or any somesuch but am just rather surprised about a generally positive series of threads taking such a dramatic turn for the worse in response to BL's decisions on how they release their books.

Yep, it's worrisome. We can only hope that Hulksmash is right and this will all be water under the bridge sooner or later. Just like how we have to get used to $50 codicies and $82.50 Stormravens. Some people have been priced out or just sickened by this and stopped playing. I guess we're seeing the beginnings of the same thing with the novels.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
How about them Space Marines? Have they .....uh....shot any good aliens lately.....?

In all honesty, I have really been enjoying the SM Battles books.

I have been reading Siege of Castellax and it's pretty darn good. I also read the first chapter or so of Legion of the Damned and thought it was even better.

Legion of the Damned have a book? Is it an origin story or are they already ghosting around?

Ghosting around. The main characters are from an IF successor chapter, can't remember the name.

Should be The Fire Hawks.

Is the SIEGE OF CASTELLAX any good? Bit of an odd question, as so far I've had a really hard time enjoying any of the Space Marine battle novels, with exception to the Purging of Kadillus, yeah I'm the outsider here. I like CL Werners fantasy stuff, but how does his 40k do?

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Should be The Fire Hawks.

No, I don't mean the LotD. The book is about some IF successor chapter fighting a desperate battle against daemons and getting ... well, not exactly saved ... will avoid spoilers ... by the LotD.

Like the Death Korps in Dead Men Walking they cameo in the novel written about them?

Heh, wouldn't surprise me one bit.

 BrookM wrote:
Is the SIEGE OF CASTELLAX any good?

The main theme of the book is how the Iron Warriors are caught between humanity and inhumanity, where humanity is honoring one's duty to the legion and Primarch -- and inhumanity is both their paranoid, sadistic nature as well as the Warp taint. So the book's structure revolves around this, zooming way out to "epic scale" scenes and then way in to the usual up-close-and-personal BL fare. I think it's an okay book with some very good parts.


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 BrookM wrote:
Like the Death Korps in Dead Men Walking they cameo in the novel written about them?

Heh, wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Well, the novel is a frame story. The outer frame is an Inquisitor is investigating what happened on this planet where a daemon incursion is halted then a Space Marine chaplain from an IF successor chapter pulls up with a large amount of Astartes. They both want to know what happened and .. take a look at the cover of the book and the title, it's not a spoiler ... but the issue becomes -- what was that IF successor chapter doing there and why did they send such a huge force to the planet after the battle was over? So the inner frame is a "flash back" about what those IF successor guys were doing on this planet and what happens to them and obviously about the LotD eventually showing up.

 BrookM wrote:

 warboss wrote:
and the occasional BrookM post ranting about a lack of spoiler tags...

It is still an offence for which people should be banned in my opinion. The books are expensive enough already and sometimes it takes forever for a book to reach a person. It sometimes takes up to a month for a book to reach me and I don't want some backward gakker to spoil an expensive book for me.

And now the circle is complete and balance is restored in the thread.


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 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Legion of the Damned have a book? Is it an origin story or are they already ghosting around?

The titular marines are completely absent in over 95% of the book iirc. If you're buying it specifically because you like them, I can't recommend it. Otherwise, it was an ok but not spectacular book.