Best Black Library book of 2018

[Carach]

 

Does Anarch and Spears of the Emperor really belong on this list? Those haven't hit general release yet.

Second this... Rules for this should be "general release"... Damn you BL LOL

 

 

indeed - when people were listing it here i went looking for Spears thinking that i might have missed its release or something.

 

Twice the disappointment. :'(

[Byrd]

I've only been reading BL for a couple of years, so most of my reading is catching up with the old stuff (i'm reading the HH in order), but i would nominate:

 

Best new book of 2018: The Lords of Silence, by Chris Wraight. (honourable mention: Dark Imperium, by Guy Haley)

 

Best old book of 2018: Brothers of the Snake, by Dan Abnett. (honourable mention: Know No Fear, by Dan Abnett)

 

Best short stories: Last Son of Prospero, by Chris Wraight, and Sanctuary of Wyrms by Peter Fehervari.

[Xisor]

So I've been out of the loop a bit since early last year - last "recent" book I read must have been... "Neferata 2" by Annandale?

 

Ergo: I've missed a good chunk (say the second two thirds) of 2018's releases

 

If I were to pick up a handful of stories, what would your recommendations be?

 

For the record, I've always enjoyed the likes of Chris Wraight, Rob Sanders, John French and Rob Sanders, but genuinely enjoy almost everything by everyone.

 

Principally, I'm a bigger fan of less action-oriented stories, and I've really enjoyed shorts/novellas, so the novella series and re-jig of Inferno are already looking likely.

 

Anything I absolutely shouldn't miss?

[aa.logan]

Anything I absolutely shouldn't miss?

Lords of Silence. Lords of Silence. Lords of Silence. It’s really very very very good.

 

The novellas I’ve read so far have all been excellent, Steel Daemon and Wanted: Dead being my favourites.

 

I’d also recommend learning German in order to read Spear of the Emperor. Either that or waiting for the standard release in English. It’s as good as everyone says.

[Taliesin]

It's been interesting seeing the results.

I had not expected Lords of Silence and Slaves to Darkness to overwhelm the rest so much.

Also nice to see several mentions for Abnett's Magos which seems to have been very wel received.

I had also expected to see several mentions for Jaghatai Khan and Outer Dark based on comments throughout the year, and here they are found again.

 

Spear of the Emperor gets a good showing as well even though it was a very expensive limited edition, that and Anarch are going to be back in 2019 as top candidates for a win, and we might also see the sequel to Spear of the Emperor  in that list as I expect that will come out this year.

 

The only omission to me is Wolfsbane.

[Tymell]

Wolfsbane would've done a lot better with me personally if it had devoted the parts given to Cawl (which were enjoyable in themselves, but felt irrelevant) to further developing Russ/Horus' relationship, or the Sons of Horus themselves. As it was, I still liked it, but that held it back for me.

[Phoebus]

Of the ones I read, I’d rank them in this order:

 

1. The Lords of Silence

2. Anarch

3. Slaves to Darkness

4. Carcharodons: Outer Dark

5. Wolfsbane

6. War of Secrets

 

I read the Burden of Loyalty and Heralds of the Siege anthologies, but I’m not including them in the ranking because their contents had already been released elsewhere over the past 12-24 months (which goes to show that, ahem, the board had been set and it’s been pealing midnight for sometime).

 

This list may very well look different when I get to read some of those other entries. It will take something special to knock The Lords of Silence of their perch, though.