Fabius Bile: Manflayer - HYPE THREAD (by Josh Reynolds)

[Bobss]

Ladies and Gentlemen. The time is almost upon us. The finale of the very damn good Fabius Bile trilogy that Josh Reynolds has blessed us with - gracefully undoing the decades of gore-porn that followed Fabius' exploits around like a bad, slightly chlorinated smell

 

Here's a few things I managed to dig up from Josh's Tumblr and a few other places. I don't know if they have been posted before, and I like to believe there isn't already a Manflayer thread 

• Arrian Zorzi = Team Dad
• Gland-hounds are the nice New Men
• deep, meaningful off-screen relationships that will only be hinted at
• Lady Malys is here for two chapters
• Melusine, please stop spooking the New Men
• Melusine and Saqqara slow dancing on the bridge of the Vesalius
• Khorag Sinj pep-talk
• Ever wondered how much of an Gorel is?
• Chaos cocktail party
• Everyone hates Sylandri Veilwalker
• Melusine’s first steps
• Guess who’s back…that’s right, it’s KANATHARA, WHOSE HOOVES SHATTER MOUNTAINS AND WHOSE VOICE LULLS THE SUN
• The best part of writing Fabius Bile 3 is working on this extended scene where Fabius and Abaddon just -talk each other for like six pages. It has both smugness and self-righteous digs. It is two hateful people being hateful to one another
• And like Price, he goes full ham at the drop of a hat
• An Alpha Legion operative plays (violent) tag with adolescent gland-hounds
• Devolved aeldari harpy-bats
• Fabius Vs the Glass Plague
• Horrible, horrible skin-angels
• Zargad Ket, Creche-Master, explains why the infants are muzzled
• Fulgrim Vs Fabius
• A moonlit veranda, Maqos-Queen Spohr and Fabius
• God-Machines
• Savona Vs an army of Drukhari Wracks
• The Pilgrim

These comments seem to be small quirky splinters based on what Reynolds had written up to that point, and with him later declaring that he would need to cut out about a third of the book some of these might not appear in the final version when we get it

 

Otherwise, it seems this book builds towards the Battle of

Belial IV (with Belial IV being mentioned in Primogenitor as one of Bill's hangouts). For those who know of or want to read about this battle I feel like it's going to end with...

Everyone except Fabius dead, with his New Men project crushed. But, as with Ahriman and other Champions of Chaos, Fabius picks up the pieces and plods forwards in his quest once again...

 

Who are your favourite characters from the series already? Besides Bill, I really liked Alkenex from Clonelord because he reminded me of a diligent rank-and-file officer... serving in a corrupted, shattered Legion of hedonists, but still retaining some of that trademark discipline and hierarchical deference that the III Legion were renowned for. I also declare Savona as the Queen of Love and Beauty of all Black Library females 

[Marshal Loss]

When is it out? Been really looking forward to this.

[Roomsky]

Very hyped for this, thanks for the tumblr summary.

 

I for one am insulted they made Reynolds cut the book down, the man is a wizard when it comes to Warhammer. BL in general needs to be less stingy with their word counts, let them make their Saturnine-sized monsters. They could even get away with charging a little more.

[cheywood]

When is it out? Been really looking forward to this.

Supposed to be today/yesterday depending on your time zone. Presumably they’re holding it for whenever GW gets back to business and physical copies can be sold, but we haven’t received any info from BL so that’s a guess.

[mc warhammer]

looking forward to this more than any other BL book

[StrangerOrders]

Literally my favorite author in the setting, can't wait for this to come out and desperately hoping they do a limited edition with a 'flayed skin' style pattern after his coat

[Bobss]

Literally my favorite author in the setting, can't wait for this to come out and desperately hoping they do a limited edition with a 'flayed skin' style pattern after his coat

 

Me too! Not to derail my own thread, but my personal FAB FIVE (in order) is: Josh Reynolds, Chris Wraight, ADB, Dan Abnett and John French capping things off as number five. Even his Lukas novel, which I didn't find intrinsically interesting because I am neither a Puppies fan nor a Deldar fan, portrayed each side in a wonderfully authentic light with deeper moments here and there. The fact we could've have a Space Marines Battles novel: Skalathrax from him makes me want to torch Black Library Towers once the lockdown is lifted over here. Absolutely mental stuff

[Roomsky]

 

Literally my favorite author in the setting, can't wait for this to come out and desperately hoping they do a limited edition with a 'flayed skin' style pattern after his coat

 

Me too! Not to derail my own thread, but my personal FAB FIVE (in order) is: Josh Reynolds, Chris Wraight, ADB, Dan Abnett and John French capping things off as number five. Even his Lukas novel, which I didn't find intrinsically interesting because I am neither a Puppies fan nor a Deldar fan, portrayed each side in a wonderfully authentic light with deeper moments here and there. The fact we could've have a Space Marines Battles novel: Skalathrax from him makes me want to torch Black Library Towers once the lockdown is lifted over here. Absolutely mental stuff

 

 

I think Anthony Reynolds was to get the Skalathrax book, as he wrote Eater of Worlds (which was also pretty good).

 

Though Anthony seems to have stopped writing, so I'm down for Josh to take up the torch BL, wink wink nudge nudge.

[b1soul]

Are Anthony and Josh in any way related?

[Sandlemad]

*gets out small triangular flag reading 'Reynolds' and large #1 foam finger*

 

 

I for one am insulted they made Reynolds cut the book down, the man is a wizard when it comes to Warhammer. BL in general needs to be less stingy with their word counts, let them make their Saturnine-sized monsters. They could even get away with charging a little more.

 

Absolutely. Editors gotta do what editors gotta do, fair enough, but Reynolds isn't just good, he's uniquely talented at spinning gold out of dross. Soul Wars. Apocalypse. Chap is a real professional. Not that the other BL authors are not but dude is skilled at taking subject matter he wasn't particularly interested in (e.g. Word Bearers in Apocalypse, Space Wolves in Lukas the Trickster) and doing amazing things with them, or taking what should have been a simple release tie-in and making it into something wonderful, weird, funny and horror-inflected. Give him a little slack!

 

Favourite characters: I mean, they're all so good. Primogenitor and Clonelord between them have more fun and interesting characters than nearly most BL series. Bile himself is a wonder and a joy but I really like Oleander Koh. Arrogant but surprisingly chill, loves smoking warp-drugs, loves singing badly to himself, accepts with a self-indulgent sigh that he'll never be as good as Lucius with a blade but simply must try the last...

I wouldn't expect him to show up in Manflayer after how Primogenitor ended for him but he was a gem of a character.

[Bobss]

 

 

Literally my favorite author in the setting, can't wait for this to come out and desperately hoping they do a limited edition with a 'flayed skin' style pattern after his coat

 

Me too! Not to derail my own thread, but my personal FAB FIVE (in order) is: Josh Reynolds, Chris Wraight, ADB, Dan Abnett and John French capping things off as number five. Even his Lukas novel, which I didn't find intrinsically interesting because I am neither a Puppies fan nor a Deldar fan, portrayed each side in a wonderfully authentic light with deeper moments here and there. The fact we could've have a Space Marines Battles novel: Skalathrax from him makes me want to torch Black Library Towers once the lockdown is lifted over here. Absolutely mental stuff

 

 

I think Anthony Reynolds was to get the Skalathrax book, as he wrote Eater of Worlds (which was also pretty good).

 

Though Anthony seems to have stopped writing, so I'm down for Josh to take up the torch BL, wink wink nudge nudge.

 

 

That makes sense, because Anthony Reynolds' Khârn book sort of just... ends, despite being one of the better Khârn portrayals out there (and significantly better than Khârn in the Siege of Terra, but, again threads and derails and whatnot!) but I know for a fact that Josh Reynolds pitched the idea (as a Space Marines Battles novel) that got rejected. In fact he posted a load of 'pitches Black Library rejected' on his Twitter some time ago. It's perfect depression material if you're ever interested

 

Are Anthony and Josh in any way related?

 

I don't think so. Anthony Reynolds is Australian, living in Sydney (I think) whereas Josh Reynolds is American, living in Sheffield, England (God bless)

 

While Anthony has always been one of the stronger Black Library authors in my mind, and his Word Bearers series was probably the best pre-Night Lords Space Marines series available at the time, I think Josh is on another level entirely. I thought Chris Wraight's Emperor's Children portrayal in Path of Heaven was the best to date, then Josh gives me his beer and has a crack himself and.. wow. Clonelord not only portrayed each and every faction and sub-faction (from the Consortium to the Phoenix Conclave to Imperial Space Marines to the myriad groups of eldar, the rival factions on the Versalius, the different strains of mortals under Bile's command, to Trayzn himself who wasn't the least bit cartoonified) in a wonderfully authentic way (there's half-a-dozen-or-more Emperor's Children figures who're all distinctly different characters, when any lesser author could've and would've turned them into varying shades of shallow, generic hedonist), but built on a wide range of pre-existing material, brought a lot of its own ideas to the fore and even acted as a low-key Fulgrim Primarchs novel - you can simply replace the underdecks of the Versalius with the underhives of Chemos and bam, that's Fulgrim's childhood for you. And did I mention that the actual Fulgrim Primarchs novel is what I consider to be the gold standard for a Primarchs novel? Sure, Hammer of Olympia did more for its Primarch, and Warhawk of Chogoris did more for its Legion, but Palatine Phoenix is quite simply the best 'here is a 200-page story featuring our titular boy bringing a world into compliance.' Oh lawdy 

[b1soul]

Yes, I liked the Fulgrim novella quite a lot. I still prefer Wraight's prose but Josh is very readable. I might have to try out his Fabius series, though I prefer Loyalist or uncorrupted EC to the Slaaneshi or heavily operated ones.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Amazon has it up for release in October. I really hope they release the digital version earlier, but knowing black library and how they drag anticipated releases out to maximise profit, Im betting itll be October...

[b1soul]

An eventual Omnibus would be swell

[Bobss]

Amazon has it up for release in October. I really hope they release the digital version earlier, but knowing black library and how they drag anticipated releases out to maximise profit, Im betting itll be October...

 

That's probably the paperback version. The hardback version and the digital version would've been available now if it weren't for the 'rona but that is probably being pushed back until next month or June (I guess)

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

 

Amazon has it up for release in October. I really hope they release the digital version earlier, but knowing black library and how they drag anticipated releases out to maximise profit, Im betting itll be October...

That's probably the paperback version. The hardback version and the digital version would've been available now if it weren't for the 'rona but that is probably being pushed back until next month or June (I guess)

A very true. My point still stands that they could have released the digital version on the actual date, instead of holding it back for the hardback release.

[Morovir]

They may still just put it up for release on the 2nd May, available to download straight away, rather than having the pointless week for preorders now that it is just a digital product for the immediate future.

[Roomsky]

Amazon listing for the softcover has been bumped to March 16, 2021. We may be looking at September or October for the hardback and audio, friends.

 

I can't imagine why, the release timing implies they were already printed before things were shut down.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Roomsky

[Knockagh]

I bet after the whole debacle with Josh and BL this will sell out super quick. It will be interesting to see how it’s promoted.

[Bobss]

Disappointing if true. This will most likely be a contender for GOAT Black Library novel in my eyes

[caladancid]

Amazon listing for the softcover has been bumped to March 16, 2021. We may be looking at September or October for the hardback and audio, friends.

 

I can't imagine why, the release timing implies they were already printed before things were shut down.

 

I liked your post- but to be clear I very much DISLIKE the content.  Carry on.

[Felix Antipodes]

The HB is confirmed for preorder next Saturday.

[Bestkeptsecret]

Can some people please confirm or express opinion about whether the events in Manflayer are different from the circumstances in War of the Spider?

 

Is the story in Manflayer about the Battle of Belial IV? whereas War of the Spider in Psychic Awakening is the latest in Fabius Bile's story timeline?

 

I am concerned whether the story in Manflayer is set in Bile's past battle with the Dark Eldar Haemonculi [as told briefly on Lexicanum, which we already know about] or does it feature fresh new content about Bile's current state and plans.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Bestkeptsecret

[Petitioner's City]

I think we won't know til we have the book in hand, but I doubt the book has anything "present day" since neither of its predecessors did - nor comparable books like the Ahriman trilogy.

[Sandlemad]

It’s Belial IV and all the events leading up to it, several millennia before modern 40k. We know about it insofar as the Haemonculus codex had a handful of paragraphs but we should not expect that to offer anything more than the barest summary. Even just from what Reynolds hinted that he had to cut, there’s a lot more going on.