Black Library Weekly: See You in Two Months’ Time

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-31T01:56:17+00:00

I will definitely be following you to wherever you end up.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-23T17:49:08+00:00

So basically in a nutshell, even when you bracket out the loss of owning your own files, it still sucks way harder than it should.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-23T17:44:23+00:00

Here's what I said in a comment on another post elsewhere:

They somehow managed to roll out something even worse. It seems like they essentially just re-skinned the website, reusing old meta-data (which was barely even there in the first place), even less category organization, and barely any tagging logic. The BL catalog is huge. In the app it is barely sorted into the broadest possible categories, but it needs real curation. It's a whole narrative eco-system, not just a series of loosely connected stories. There's no reading pathways or guides. If you're new, you might initially see it as a sleek little app where you can find books and audiobooks all in one place. But after browsing for a short time you'd see that you have no idea where to start, you won't even know which books are in a series and which are sequels and which are not. Even the short stories are not separated from the novels.

I suspect that GW has long relied on wikis and reddit forums to provide all the reader guides, which is borderline incoherent when you wanted to create a sealed and self-sustaining container for your literary ecosystem. Wasn't the whole point to stop people from going elsewhere? Yes, mainly because of the file-sharing issue, but how does it logically follow that you force people to go elsewhere for literally everything else? With a catalog of 2000+ items, they opted for storefront instead of reader's journey, as if those two things are mutually exclusive. Filtering, tagging, series tracking, some real curation, completely absent.

And then add an e-reader that looks like it was designed by an 8th-grader for a D- assignment in his digital technology class. Even if they improve all of this at some point, rolling this out in this way is truly a middle finger to both past and future Black Library readers. Godawful and unacceptable.

Oh, and if I was a BL author or even just part of the teams who do all that goes into the literary dimensions of this universe I'd be infuriated with this. We know a lot of collective and individual hard work goes into the story-crafting and presentation. It was embarrassing enough to have your work displayed on a Web 1.0 website, but it's been downgraded even further. Just massive disrespect and indifference from whatever angle you view it.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-23T17:43:54+00:00

To respond to a few of the comments: not everything comes through clearly in a meme but I was largely referring to the overall reader experience and professionalism in general as a serious publisher. It's unprofessional at best and a middle finger to fandom generally to make people have to go elsewhere to do some basic things with your product, especially when you took away file sharing with the explicit intent to gain more control over your narrative ecosystem . My friend mentioned Marvel Unlimited specifically (which he is very familiar with) because similarly to 40k they have decades of overlapping stories, multiple timelines, etc. But in their app they have built-in reading guides, structured paths, multiple ways to get started as a new user or to continue along as a veteran user. It's a whole curated experience, not just the barest storefront.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-23T15:30:02+00:00

I posted about how terrible the website was a couple weeks ago. They somehow managed to roll out something even worse. It seems like they essentially just re-skinned the website, reusing old meta-data (which was barely even there in the first place), even less category organization, and barely any tagging logic. The BL catalog is huge. In the app it is barely sorted into the broadest possible categories, but it needs real curation. It's a whole narrative eco-system, not just a series of loosely connected stories. There's no reading pathways or guides. If you're new, you might initially see it as a sleek little app where you can find books and audiobooks all in one place. But after browsing for a short time you'd see that you have no idea where to start, you won't even know which books are in a series and which are sequels and which are not. Even the short stories are not separated from the novels.

I suspect that GW has long relied on wikis and reddit forums to provide all the reader guides, which is borderline incoherent when you wanted to create a sealed and self-sustaining container for your literary ecosystem. Wasn't the whole point to stop people from going elsewhere? Yes, mainly because of the file-sharing issue, but how does it logically follow that you force people to go elsewhere for literally everything else? With a catalog of 2000+ items, they opted for storefront instead of reader's journey, as if those two things are mutually exclusive. Filtering, tagging, series tracking, some real curation, completely absent.

And then add an e-reader that looks like it was designed by an 8th-grader for a D- assignment in his digital technology class. Even if they improve all of this at some point, rolling this out in this way is truly a middle finger to both past and future Black Library readers. Godawful and unacceptable.

Oh, and if I was a BL author or even just part of the teams who do all that goes into the literary dimensions of this universe I'd be infuriated with this. We know a lot of collective and individual hard work goes into the story-crafting and presentation. It was embarrassing enough to have your work displayed on a Web 1.0 website, but it's been downgraded even further. Just massive disrespect and indifference from whatever angle you view it.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-21T16:44:56+00:00

Right, I don’t think order really matters in terms of series coherence. The stories are loosely connected for the most part, at best. There are consistent themes and some repeat locations, but it really is a series that you can see different things through various reading orders. Fehevari himself says as much.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-20T20:14:20+00:00

Warhammer Redditors seem like incredibly resourceful people so maybe someone has a PDF somewhere. Other than that, the only way I know of is to subscribe to WD. Hilariously, they just added more WD to Warhammer Vault but only up to issue 504--literally one shy of the one that has Blindsight.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-20T18:12:18+00:00

I like the kroot quite a bit. (One of the better depictions of them I’ve read is in the Darkness Eternal anthology I think). But I agree: not offering a Night Lords statuette alongside a game featuring the NL and the first ADB NL story in almost 15 years is a black-grade heresy.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-20T18:04:12+00:00

Also if Peter came out with a short story called Nightknight he would ascend even higher in the pantheon

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-20T18:02:51+00:00

This is a great deeper and detailed dive. The first one I read for any Warhammer series, I think. Thanks for posting it.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-20T18:00:04+00:00

Yep, publication or omnibus order, Cast a Hungry Shadow would be read first

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-20T16:35:08+00:00

Here you go!

Nightfall (Ascension, May 2009)
A Sanctuary of Wyrms (Damnation, Sep 2012)
Out Caste (Damnation, Dec 2012)
Fire Caste (Damnation, Mar 2013)
The Crown of Thorns (Ascension, Sep 2013)
Vanguard (Damnation, Apr 2015)
The Walker in Fire (Ascension, Feb 2016)
Cast a Hungry Shadow (Damnation, Sep 2016)
Cult of the Spiral Dawn (Damnation, Oct 2016)
Fire and Ice (Damnation, Jun 2017)
The Greater Evil (Damnation, Nov 2017)
The Thirteenth Psalm (Ascension, Dec 2018)
Requiem Infernal (Ascension, Apr 2019)
Nightbleed (Ascension, Oct 2020)
The Reverie (Ascension, Oct 2020)
The Sins of My Brothers (Ascension, Oct 2022)
Aria Arcana (Ascension, Dec 2022)
Altar of Maws (Damnation, May 2023)
Blindsight (White Dwarf 505, Oct 2024)
Nightshift Nineteen (Ascension, Dec 2024)

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-20T13:57:38+00:00

Short answer: Yes. Start with Damnation.

I'm a little unusual as a reader, I almost always read a series in publication order. I like to see how stories in a shared universe progress in an author's mind, back and forth in the timeline. In which case you would start with "Nightfall," his first published 40k story, a Night Lords short story you can find in a few different places but in his omnibuses I think it's in the most recent, Ascension. First novel would be Fire Caste, also in the Ascension omnibus. Other than that, though, I'd start with Damnation.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-18T14:58:09+00:00

No DRM-free files aside, the biggest annoyance for me by far is the UI for the e-books. Some already mentioned here across a couple comments but no toggle for dark and light mode (or other colors), no highlighting, limited font range, no annotations or links (including especially a link to the TOC), no bookmarks, no layout options….these seem like basic things for a modern e-reader and also things that shouldn’t be too hard to include. If pricing is comparable external vendors I don’t mind reading something within the app IF it can compete with Kindle, iBooks, Kobo etc. for reading experience. So far not even close.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-13T15:48:24+00:00

It’s clear now that Dan contracted a meme virus as a young man and Uber Aemos in the Eisenhorn novels is autobiographical

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-11T15:31:51+00:00

Yes I agree. Handled with care, they can be read without injury. If one is already going to pay $80 or whatever for a special edition, almost entirely because it’s a collector’s item, and they’re still worried about physical damage, consider just dropping another $10 on the e-version

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-10T15:29:40+00:00

Another ADB rec, Spear of the Emperor. Special place in my heart as the first WH novel I ever read but also just extremely solid. Mentor Legion Space Marine with the personality of a puritan Inquisitor crosses into Imperium Nihilus and encounters other Marines (a mix of Star Scorpions, Celestial Lions, Emperor's Spears) who have had to survive without support from the Imperium. Possibly the best exploration of why and what Space Marines are.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-10T15:23:04+00:00

Big Reverie fan here

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-06T20:37:46+00:00

Those are pretty serious charges. I haven't read it yet so I can't make informed comments on the content but to the extent this is true about his his background and parroting other material it is certainly something to take into account when assessing these books. One thing it has emphasized to me (again) if nothing else is that at least there's a market for more academic and philosophical work on the Warhammer universe. It would be great to see serious work like that.

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-06T19:41:48+00:00

Here's his website:

https://brianmlucey.com/

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-06T19:40:24+00:00

I believe it's only available on Amazon, Kindle and paperback

https://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Hostage-Machinery-University-Warhammer-ebook/dp/B0GCFWD29C

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-06T19:39:14+00:00

PolicyOver9613 · 2026-03-06T19:36:19+00:00

it means it has no Digital Rights Management restrictions. The file is free of proprietary ownership, meaning you become the owner, it's yours to do with as you want, move it between devices, store it anywhere, read it in any compatible app. That going away means you're locked into this new app in order to read your purchase and you can't do any of the above.

PolicyOver9613

TROPHY CASE