Josh Reynolds no longer works for BL

[Marshal Loss]

Hadn't seen this relatively recent news (thrown my way by the glorious LetsYouDown): Manflayer will be Josh Reynolds' last book for Black Library. Not sure if this is topic-worthy or not, but it's definitely a big loss for the setting.

[Roomsky]

Hadn't seen this relatively recent news (thrown my way by the glorious LetsYouDown): Manflayer will be Josh Reynolds' last book for Black Library. Not sure if this is topic-worthy or not, but it's definitely a big loss for the setting.

 

Nooooooooo.

 

That is tragic.

[cheywood]

Hadn't seen this relatively recent news (thrown my way by the glorious LetsYouDown): Manflayer will be Josh Reynolds' last book for Black Library. Not sure if this is topic-worthy or not, but it's definitely a big loss for the setting.

He’s been hinting at it for months but it’s still sad to hear. I think his last AOS novel was canceled. It was listed and then removed from his website.

[bluntblade]

Hadn't seen this relatively recent news (thrown my way by the glorious LetsYouDown): Manflayer will be Josh Reynolds' last book for Black Library. Not sure if this is topic-worthy or not, but it's definitely a big loss for the setting.

Agreed. I really hoped we'd see more from him.

[theSpirea]

Hadn't seen this relatively recent news (thrown my way by the glorious LetsYouDown): Manflayer will be Josh Reynolds' last book for Black Library. Not sure if this is topic-worthy or not, but it's definitely a big loss for the setting.

 

It was just a matter of time. He has expressed his frustration working for GW/BL many times. Tons of his ideas rejected (he posted a list somewhere and there were some really stuff). Stuff he started working on just cancelled out of nowhere, etc.

 

He was one of the most professional writers BL had and it's a big loss for them. I'm still going to follow his career and the stuff he's going to publish in the future.

[DarkChaplain]

 

Hadn't seen this relatively recent news (thrown my way by the glorious LetsYouDown): Manflayer will be Josh Reynolds' last book for Black Library. Not sure if this is topic-worthy or not, but it's definitely a big loss for the setting.

He’s been hinting at it for months but it’s still sad to hear. I think his last AOS novel was canceled. It was listed and then removed from his website.

 

 

Yeah, the Eight Lamentations were in the air for years now, with Amazon listings being pushed etc.

 

For what it's worth, Josh leaving Black Library for good (after taking time off from working for them) actually is a serious blow to my continued interest in BL fiction and GW in general. Can't say it's been particularly strong in recent months to begin with, but knowing that Josh won't write any more Warhammer Horror entries, be they novels or shorts, sucks a big one. He's also the one dude who made AoS the most interesting as a setting to me; the other regulars aren't bad, but nobody comes close to Josh's vision and worldbuilding - I dare even say that AoS as a setting for Black Library would not actually be a thing without him anymore. He did a lot of necessary work to make it viable after the Realmgate Wars basically tanked in sales. I don't believe there's been an author with more titles to his name in that setting.

 

And 40k? Josh's written some truly marvelous pieces there, too. But even looking back, he never got the approval to write more Mentors after his micro short for the Angels of Death series back then. The short was pretty good and got me interested in what he'd do with them. Needless to say, his ideas for them were different from what AD-B did in Spears, and frankly, I prefer Josh's version. Looking at his list of rejected pitches a while back on Twitter made me seriously upset (and I'm sure those gutpunches contributed to my lack of motivation to read much BL lately). I'd lean myself out of the window and make the claim that Josh Reynolds might be the most shafted author BL's had to date. The amount of canceled projects, cut-short trilogies, last minute commissions, release issues and what not are truly staggering. And then you had that whole GW legal team debacle when he tried to give people closure through his AskFM channel after the End Times, coming up with lore-suitable replies as to x and y and characters that slipped through the cracks.

 

I don't blame him one bit for deciding to call it quits, whatever the precise reasons are. His career with BL has been a rollercoaster even just from what I was able to see from the outside. I cannot possibly fathom his feelings on the various matters, but if I'd been in his shoes, I'd probably flipped more than one table at BL offices, on top of flipping off my editors. That stuff would turn most people into nervous, anxiety-ridden messes questioning their own abilities and worth to the company.

And still, Josh managed to consistently write some of the most enjoyable and engaging works for them. Off the top of my head, I can't even find a clear dud in his range. He clearly put in the legwork every time, more so than many others. Him being gone diminishes the publisher's value quite tremendously, both in terms of quality as in volume.

[Roomsky]

May we never forget that he was so talented that he phoned in his Space Marine Conquests novel, and it was still the best one.

 

I don't care for AoS, but he seemed to me to be the driving force behind interest in the setting's novels. I'd be interested to find out how his works sold compared to the other authors, he certainly wasn't lacking in quality content. 

 

Manflayer will be bittersweet.

[Marshal Loss]

 

 Looking at his list of rejected pitches a while back on Twitter made me seriously upset

At risk of reopening old wounds, do you still have this list floating around somewhere? Genuinely curious

[mawhis]

 

 

 Looking at his list of rejected pitches a while back on Twitter made me seriously upset

At risk of reopening old wounds, do you still have this list floating around somewhere? Genuinely curious

 

Here you go:

 

https://twitter.com/JMReynolds/status/1243882796977979393

[Roomsky]

 

 

 

 Looking at his list of rejected pitches a while back on Twitter made me seriously upset

At risk of reopening old wounds, do you still have this list floating around somewhere? Genuinely curious

 

Here you go:

 

https://twitter.com/JMReynolds/status/1243882796977979393

 

Good god.

 

We've been robbed.

[DarkChaplain]

May we never forget that he was so talented that he phoned in his Space Marine Conquests novel, and it was still the best one.

 

I don't care for AoS, but he seemed to me to be the driving force behind interest in the setting's novels. I'd be interested to find out how his works sold compared to the other authors, he certainly wasn't lacking in quality content. 

 

Manflayer will be bittersweet.

 

He also picked up the pieces of another, canned/rejected novel for the sake of "Apocalypse" (what a throwaway, tie-in >title< that was. Almost as terrible as Cult of the Spiral Dawn's "Genestealer Cults", which at least got a rather late paperback edition with the proper title after Legends of the Dark Millennium tanked and got abandoned as a series... like basically every series is - I'm still surprised Space Marine Battles lasted as long as it did, and even there they kicked Jon Sullivan out of the project, which diminished the cover art greatly.)

 

mawhis was quicker on the twitter thread link, so I'll just point towards this tweet in particular for a chuckle

https://twitter.com/JMReynolds/status/1243887267535560704

Yeah... he kind of did run out. He didn't expect it to blow up the way it did

 

Yes, there are some Fabius Bile stories among the rejected pitches. We'll never see Fabius experimenting on a Genestealer Patriarch, for example.

 

And yes, Roomsky, my feelings exactly. The amount of unwritten Warhammer Heroes (by far my favorite subseries BL has done next to Time of Legends, where Josh's trilogy lost its finale due to the End Times) books alone makes my blood boil and question the competency of BL's editorial and marketing staff.

Edited May 15, 2020 by DarkChaplain

[theSpirea]

On his website (posted in January) he has Steel Souls (AoS, probably the last book in Hallowed Knights trilogy?) listed as upcoming novel. I wonder if it's still going to be published. 

[bluntblade]

The whole thread of tweets is interesting, actually. But it still makes me sad.

Edited May 15, 2020 by bluntblade

[Marshal Loss]

 

 

40K novel. Space Marine Battles: Skalathrax. Three POVs: World Eater, Emperor's Children, and a prisoner aboard the EC vessel.

 

Ok :cuss now I feel robbed

[bluntblade]

Damnit.

[mc warhammer]

 

 

 

Hadn't seen this relatively recent news (thrown my way by the glorious LetsYouDown): Manflayer will be Josh Reynolds' last book for Black Library. Not sure if this is topic-worthy or not, but it's definitely a big loss for the setting.

He’s been hinting at it for months but it’s still sad to hear. I think his last AOS novel was canceled. It was listed and then removed from his website.

Yeah, the Eight Lamentations were in the air for years now, with Amazon listings being pushed etc.

 

For what it's worth, Josh leaving Black Library for good (after taking time off from working for them) actually is a serious blow to my continued interest in BL fiction and GW in general. Can't say it's been particularly strong in recent months to begin with, but knowing that Josh won't write any more Warhammer Horror entries, be they novels or shorts, sucks a big one. He's also the one dude who made AoS the most interesting as a setting to me; the other regulars aren't bad, but nobody comes close to Josh's vision and worldbuilding - I dare even say that AoS as a setting for Black Library would not actually be a thing without him anymore. He did a lot of necessary work to make it viable after the Realmgate Wars basically tanked in sales. I don't believe there's been an author with more titles to his name in that setting.

 

And 40k? Josh's written some truly marvelous pieces there, too. But even looking back, he never got the approval to write more Mentors after his micro short for the Angels of Death series back then. The short was pretty good and got me interested in what he'd do with them. Needless to say, his ideas for them were different from what AD-B did in Spears, and frankly, I prefer Josh's version. Looking at his list of rejected pitches a while back on Twitter made me seriously upset (and I'm sure those gutpunches contributed to my lack of motivation to read much BL lately). I'd lean myself out of the window and make the claim that Josh Reynolds might be the most shafted author BL's had to date. The amount of canceled projects, cut-short trilogies, last minute commissions, release issues and what not are truly staggering. And then you had that whole GW legal team debacle when he tried to give people closure through his AskFM channel after the End Times, coming up with lore-suitable replies as to x and y and characters that slipped through the cracks.

 

I don't blame him one bit for deciding to call it quits, whatever the precise reasons are. His career with BL has been a rollercoaster even just from what I was able to see from the outside. I cannot possibly fathom his feelings on the various matters, but if I'd been in his shoes, I'd probably flipped more than one table at BL offices, on top of flipping off my editors. That stuff would turn most people into nervous, anxiety-ridden messes questioning their own abilities and worth to the company.

And still, Josh managed to consistently write some of the most enjoyable and engaging works for them. Off the top of my head, I can't even find a clear dud in his range. He clearly put in the legwork every time, more so than many others. Him being gone diminishes the publisher's value quite tremendously, both in terms of quality as in volume.

this . i'm bummed to the point my interest in bl is affected

[cheywood]

On his website (posted in January) he has Steel Souls (AoS, probably the last book in Hallowed Knights trilogy?) listed as upcoming novel. I wonder if it's still going to be published.

Cancelled, I believe. It’s no longer listed on his website and he says Manflayer is his last book (for BL).

Edited May 15, 2020 by cheywood

[Kelborn]

A trul shame that he left.

His AoS stuff brought me into the setting and for me, he's THE author you can blindly trust about that.

Gonna have to catch up on his 40k stuff and keep following his career and new projects.

 

And dayum...that list of rejected stuff... What a dark pantheon damned shame we never got them!!!

[StrangerOrders]

I... I am befuddled.

 

He was one of their most interesting authors for me, even his phoned in ones (Apocalypse) blasted the living hell out of the standard for 40k. Knowing he was involved has had me considering picking up AoS (as well as one of the only books to make Primaris at all interesting).

 

Most of all he is the one who picked up the joke of the EC and threw it out a window and ran with Bligh's brilliant ideas from Betrayal to make the Palatine Phoenix. Which, while short, has become my favorite and most distinct HH story and completely flipped an entire legion on its head for me.

 

I can't fathom how on earth he is the one that has trouble when compared to some of the... other stuff that gets green-lit (and sometimes Salamander lit, if you catch my drift) in this setting.

 

Can someone with more intimate knowledge explain this one to me? I cant wrap my head around it (although I suspect office politics is at work).

 

Also, given how incompetent the editors are at BL and some of the stuff they've been putting out, this is just egregious.

 

Well, that will diminish my enjoyment of this moving forwards to be honest. More perhaps due to the implication that this could happen with other talented writers while we keep having to deal with lazy stories and subpar writers (glares at the entire 'traitor primaris' short story). 

 

I dont suppose there has been any word on Manflayer's release date?

[DarkChaplain]

The mere fact that Josh was never invited to write for the Horus Heresy (until getting to write three audio scripts about Endryd and a Primarchs novel - a range that was supposed to benefit "newer" authors or authors wanting to write Legions/Primarchs that others had dibs on for the main course... but then didn't really after all) speaks volumes about how messed up things must've been. You don't simply sleep on that kind of talent.

[Roomsky]

The mere fact that Josh was never invited to write for the Horus Heresy (until getting to write three audio scripts about Endryd and a Primarchs novel - a range that was supposed to benefit "newer" authors or authors wanting to write Legions/Primarchs that others had dibs on for the main course... but then didn't really after all) speaks volumes about how messed up things must've been. You don't simply sleep on that kind of talent.

 

I was still holding out hope he'd drop another, Dorn or something. Fulgrim is one of the series' best.

[Bobss]

It doesn't matter if Josh Reynolds leaves Black Library, we'll get another 67 Guy Haley Blood Angels books that will be praised from one end of the Internet to the other 

[caladancid]

It doesn't matter if Josh Reynolds leaves Black Library, we'll get another 67 Guy Haley Blood Angels books that will be praised from one end of the Internet to the other 

 

Now that you mention it- I am still waiting on Darkness in the Blood....

 

In all seriousness he will be missed, especially in AoS (Dark Harvest was just amazing). 

 

Even his latest novel for Necromunda (Kal Jericho Sinner's Bounty) was very well done, can't imagine why that one has been largely ignored in favor of other Necromunda novels....

Edited May 16, 2020 by caladancid

[mc warhammer]

on a small note, i wouldn't use the term phoned in for "apocalypse". yeah it was rushed out, yeah it was assigned ...but that thing reads like he put 100% effort in despite the circumstances

[Roomsky]

It doesn't matter if Josh Reynolds leaves Black Library, we'll get another 67 Guy Haley Blood Angels books that will be praised from one end of the Internet to the other 

 

For all I snipe at Haley, I have to be fair: I never understood why anyone liked Blood Angels until I read his Dante stuff. I'm looking forward to a listen of Darkness in the Blood, not the least of which because the spoilers are bananas.