List of unfinished/cancelled series

[theSpirea]

Discussions about ongoing/cancelled series is a common topic not only here on B&C. I figured it might be handy to compile everything into one thread. I'm listing only novels, some series received a short story or novella but the list would be way too long to track those as well.

 

Bequin - Dan Abnett

1. Pariah (2012)
2. Penitent (2021)
3. ?

 

Black Legion - Aaron, Dembski-Bowden

1. The Talon of Horus (2014)
2. Black Legion (2017)
3. ?

 

Carcharodons - Robbie MacNiven

1. Red Tithe (2016)
2. Outer Dark (2018)
3. ? - afaik last book Robbie wrote for BL was AoS novel in 2018

 

Ciaphas Cain - Sandy Mitchell

      10. Choose Your Enemies (2018)

      11. Vainglorious (officially announced, no date yet)

 

Gaunt's Ghosts - Dan Abnett

      15. Anarch (2019)

      16. ?

 

The Horusian Wars - John French

1. Resurrection (2017)
2. Incarnation (2018)
3. Abomination (mentioned by the author, no official info yet)

 

Inferno! (anthologies) - Various authors

      5. Volume 5 (2020)

      6. Volume 6 (2021)

      7. The Inquisition (2021)

      8. The Emperor's Finest (2022)

 

Iron Hands - David Guymer

1. The Eye of Medusa (2017)
2. The Voice of Mars (2018)
3. ?

 

Necromunda - Various authors

       x. Fire Made Flesh (Denny Flowers) (2021)

       x. there's been no info about this setting since 2021. Not even a short story/novella afaik, even Fire Made Flesh was the only title published in 2021. It seems BL abandoned it

 

Novella Series

1. Series 1 (2018)
2. Series 2 (2019)
3. Series 3 (2020)
4. ? no info about this series. BL already changed the format from 10 paperbacks to 5 A5 (small) hardbacks with the 3rd series

 

Rise of the Ynnari - Gav Thorpe

1. Ghost Warrior (2017)
2. Wild Rider (2018)
3. afaik confirmed by Gav Thorpe BL cancelled this series

 

Space Marine Conquests

      6. Fist of the Imperium (Andy Clark) (2019)

      7. Masters of Shadow (Thomas Parrott) - this one is officially cancelled

      8. ?

 

Watcher of the Throne - Chris Wraight

1. The Emperor's Legion (2017)
2. Regent's Shadow (2020)
3. ?

 

Warhammer 40K/AoS - Adventures

     5. Plague of Nurglings

     6. Tomb of the Necron

     7. no info on whether the imprint is dead or not

 

The Circle of Fire - Nick Kyme

     1. Rebirth (2014)

     2. ? no info, the first book was published as "Book one in the Circle of Fire"

 

Castellan Crowe - David Annandale

    1. Warden of the Blade (2017)

    2. Castellan (2018)

    3. ?

 

Imperial Knights - Andy Clark

    1. Kingsblade (2017)

    2. Knightsblade (2018)

    3. ?

 

 

Untitled series - these books are expected to be a part of a series

Spear of the Emperor - Aaron Dembski-Bowden (2019)

Lords of Silence - Chris Wraight (2018)

 

 

If you find info about any of the listed series, feel free to post it here and I will update this post. If there's anything I missed (very likely), do let me know

 

EDIT

2023-07-16 - updated the list. Thank you everyone for contributing. It's a bit tricky to decide what is discontinued/never planned as a series. Sure, some titles might end on a cliffhanger asking for a sequel but that doesn't necessarily mean the BL ended the series because they never started it in the first place.

 

It's hard to track anything related to BL. Just recently they deleted quite a lot of videos from their Twitter channel (I was rewatching some old BL live events and interviews with authors and just a few weeks ago all videos disappeared).  

Edited July 16, 2023 by theSpirea

[Lord_Ikka]

Edit- Screwed up my novel series... nothing to see here...

Edited July 14, 2023 by Lord_Ikka

[DukeLeto69]

10 minutes ago, Lord_Ikka said:

Horusian Wars was soft/quietly cancelled when FFG lost the licensing for 40k RPGs. Confirmed by John French in a Tweet I believe. 

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!

 

Really? Goddamit!

[theSpirea]

Whaaat? I know it's not the best Inquisition series but the Divination anthology was awesome and I want the third book.

Also, how is it tied to the FFG 40K RPG?

[Lord_Ikka]

5 minutes ago, theSpirea said:

Whaaat? I know it's not the best Inquisition series but the Divination anthology was awesome and I want the third book.

Also, how is it tied to the FFG 40K RPG?

You know what, I was confusing the Horusian Wars with the Dark Heresy novels (too many inquisition books running around in my brain...)- digging further John French mentioned a third book Abomination back in 2019 but has been silent since. 

[Colman]

They’ve announced a new Cain book for release some time soon.

[darkhorse0607]

McNeill said that there would be another Honsou book coming, but that was back when Ventris got his latest book/model so no idea if that is still happening

[DarkChaplain]

Don't forget the Salamanders. Kyme finished the Tome of Fire trilogy (+anthology in omnibus) and started the Circle of Fire trilogy with the next installment. Utter silence since.

 

Yarrick got also canned after two novels, despite obvious setup for Armageddon's Third War. They omnibus'd what had been written a while back, and washing their hands of it.

 

Still no follow-up to Haley's Baneblade series, either.

 

Warhammer Horror is being kept on life support at this point. There's one series for AoS with one more novel to come, but that is also the only novel we got this year/"season" iirc. Just an omnibus capping off previous hardback shorts and an anthology of old material otherwise.

 

Crime has as many dangling series waiting for sequels as it has novels in total. Wraight, Haley, Worley, Collins, they're all due sequels that may or may not ever happen.

 

Khârn got abandoned after Eater of Worlds, despite it being set up for a direct sequel.

 

And that's just off the top of my head, and without even getting to all the canned WHFB and AoS titles (like Josh's Blood of Nagash finale, or Josh's Eight Lamentations novel 2 (which even had an Amazon listing already), or Thorpe's second Khul novel, where the first was actually numbered, etc)

[DukeLeto69]

1 hour ago, Lord_Ikka said:

You know what, I was confusing the Horusian Wars with the Dark Heresy novels (too many inquisition books running around in my brain...)- digging further John French mentioned a third book Abomination back in 2019 but has been silent since. 

Phew, although yeah the Dark Heresy books by Sandy Mitchell were excellent but we never got the third!

[cheywood]

19 minutes ago, DarkChaplain said:

Still no follow-up to Haley's Baneblade series, either.

Haley’s mentioned that he plans to write another book in the series when he has a chance. I’m curious how many of these series are abandoned because the author’s writing something else/lost interest and how many are actually cancelled by BL. It seems like a mix of both based on comments on Twitter and the like.

[Colman]

It occurs to me that the Bequin series ending would need to wait for everts at the end of the Heresy, so I have a vague fantasy it’ll come out once those are resolved.

[Pacific81]

Having just read an article/interview about it, apparently there were once plans for an Inquisitor 4, by Ian Watson :)

[Dzirhan]

David Annandale's Castellan Crowe series was left hanging in book 2 of it, Andy Clark's knight series is supposed to have a third book but not heard much of it since and if you want to go further back, the ending of Steve Parker's Rebel Winter appeared to be set up for a sequel

[EverythingIsGreat]

3 hours ago, Pacific81 said:

Having just read an article/interview about it, apparently there were once plans for an Inquisitor 4, by Ian Watson :)

 

A bunch of loose threads in that one. The lore had left the whole Illuminati thing behind, but well things may have become a little more flexible.

I would also like more of Inquisitor Czevak.

[DukeLeto69]

5 hours ago, Colman said:

It occurs to me that the Bequin series ending would need to wait for everts at the end of the Heresy, so I have a vague fantasy it’ll come out once those are resolved.

That is precisely what is happening and if you have read Penitent you will know why.

[wecanhaveallthree]

The Ynnari are my favourite hill to die on, but the lack of Horror - after such a solid initial run and the short story releases they did - leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. I think it ties back into whatever the hell happened at GW/BL right after 8th Edition. That was an incredible time. Story moving forward, lots of awesome, unique books coming out that felt really energetic. The enthusiasm for the work was contagious. It really felt like the start of a golden age for the literature, that authors were being unshackled from the old status quo and couldn't wait to get to grips with the new 'frontier' of the setting. Imperium Nihilus, in particular, was absolutely ripe for exploration. The Ynnari were a whole new spin on the Eldar and in the setting - space elves who actually stopped navel-gazing and shirking responsibility for the Fall and trying to make positive change was enormously refreshing. We got Horror. We got Crime. We even got Adventures.

 

Then something strangled it. It was slowing down even before COVID, which definitely contributed, but something slammed the brakes on everything that was happening. The Indomitus time-skip got retconned. Haley had to rewrite his Guilliman books before even finishing them. There was a hard swerve in another direction, and it felt like it cut off a lot of momentum at the knees. And before it could build back up - if it would - then we ran into COVID.

 

It really is kind of dispiriting to look at the consistent dates of when the last books of these 'abandoned' series were published. The plug got pulled pretty hard, and pretty obviously, and it really makes one wonder what might have been.

[gaurdian31]

They were 2 separate Alpha Legion books that really felt like they both could have received sequels. Shroud of Night by Andy Clark and Sons of the Hydra by Rob Sanders. Maybe that's just me.

[EverythingIsGreat]

25 minutes ago, gaurdian31 said:

They were 2 separate Alpha Legion books that really felt like they both could have received sequels. Shroud of Night by Andy Clark and Sons of the Hydra by Rob Sanders. Maybe that's just me.

 

It's not you. Imo, because of the nature of that beast, anything about the Alpha Legion will seem unfinished, even if it takes 100 volumes (not) to arrive there.

[System Sound]

2 hours ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

A bunch of loose threads in that one. The lore had left the whole Illuminati thing behind, but well things may have become a little more flexible.

I would also like more of Inquisitor Czevak.

Wasn't Atlas Infernal bound for a sequel? Or is it just me day dreaming at this point?

 

Ahriman series seems to be getting a new lease on life. hopefully...

 

Also didn't ADB say a few times that he would like to make a "sequel" to Night Lords trilogy?

 

For Abnett, there's Interceptor City.

 

Blackstone Fortress: Ascension ended on a sequel bait of sorts. Probably will never be followed upon on thought. Thanks Cursed City...

[darkhorse0607]

I'm nominating this thread as the most depressing discussion of the year

[aa.logan]

The ending of a series called ‘the Horus Heresy’ has been left hanging; as i understand it (not read it yet), the most recent book has a lot of loose threads but there’s been no kind of announcement of  follow-up work(s)

[kamedake88]

Kyme's Salamanders is so far unfinished and there was news a long time ago that it would be continuing. I do believe this was before Guilliman came back though. 

[EverythingIsGreat]

Good day,

 

I suppose a case could be made that a definition or at least a rough guideline of what "finished" means in the current context is warranted. Some examples:

 

The final, complete (if only temporarily) attainment of the protagonist(s) objectives?

The unequivocal defeat or death of the protagonist(s)?

The protagonist(s) forced\evolved into a major re-evaluation?

 

All such conditions effectively usher in a new status quo so they could constitute an/the ending.

 

12 hours ago, aa.logan said:

The ending of a series called ‘the Horus Heresy’ has been left hanging; as i understand it (not read it yet), the most recent book has a lot of loose threads but there’s been no kind of announcement of  follow-up work(s)

 

Although this may be a different topic, stopping the main "Horus Heresy Series" narrative at volume 54 seems entirely arbitrary, and imo does not satisfy any of the usual conditions of an ending. Conceptually, there is a rather abrupt transition to the SoT branch of the "Horus Heresy Series" even after taking into account the non-linear narrative.

 

[grailkeeper]

Nor only didn't they finish the Marines Malevolent series, they didn't even let me start it.

 

 

Brought to you by a slightly bitter open submissions applicant .

[grailkeeper]

There are doubtless plenty of series from years back that never got finished.  Some series even had author changes mid way through - I'm thinking here of a few of William Kings series.