Upcoming BL Stuff 2025

[cheywood]

In general BL doesn’t put out many books I automatically skip these days. They’ve cut down on the generic bolter porn and most of the current authors are decent enough. There are some things that aren’t to my taste, like an emphasis on small scale, semi-YA stories (looking at you, Kloster) but by and large the days of endless space marine battles and fan-fiction level prose are over. 
 

With all that said, you’d have to pay me to read this new Farsight novel. 

Edited February 25 by cheywood

[darkhorse0607]

Here I thought we were moving on from terrible Tau novels thanks to Elemental Council

 

Wrong again

[wecanhaveallthree]

Well I'M looking forward to it. Absolutely give me Cursed Wanderer Farsight battling endless Tyranid hordes, with reinforcements too good to be true and Aun'Va's long, evil reach (OR IS IT???). Elemental Councili is all well and good, but those kind of small scale culture novels do need to be backed up with these swinging dick 'remember how big the setting is' books, where Chaos tempts and Tyranids devour and Farsight fights. I was grumbling over on Reddit about Abnett writing genre books wearing the flayed-off face of 40K, so this is quite timely and much appreciated.

[darkhorse0607]

14 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

'remember how big the setting is' 

 

Ah yes, nothing quite says "look how big the setting is" like the fourth book about one of only two Tau characters they give books to, by an author that has taken once what was an interesting race that tried to do things differently than the rest of the galaxy by forming a coalition only to reduce that to evil mind control

 

 

[Krelious]

I'm wondering today there is some limited Emps Children codex coming out, part of a box set. is that completely separate from the other limited edition codex release?

[skylerboodie]

Yes the one on the army box is diferent from the deluxe one with all the gubbins

[OpossumStrong]

The results are in

I enjoyed Siege Of Vraks, it did show a krieg from more human prospective and I liked it.
I personally voted for Eidolon, but I'm biased because I love EC . 

[theSpirea]

Every year I'm quite baffled by these results, but this year takes the cake. The top three were all barely average reads at best. Lelith, in particular, was so forgettable that I don't even remember what it was about.

This is concerning and disappointing

 

And what is this about: We’ve had a variety of xenos both as antagonists and protagonists, plenty of intrigue and action from the Imperium, and aftershocks felt across the Mortal Realms as the Skaven achieved their grand plan - yet not a single AoS made it to the top10

[cheywood]

Certainly an unexpected result. I liked Vrak more than most, but it’s not even in my top 5 for the year. Just goes to show how most of BL’s readership puts little weight on traditional markers of literary quality.

[skylerboodie]

Plus a lot of votes will be from people who've not even read the book they're voting for, let alone read the others to be able to fairly judge/compare. Could be as simple as Krieg fans voting Krieg just cos

[Jareddm]

Lelith was...fine. But third on the list seems crazy to me. 7th or 8th perhaps.

And Deathworlder in tenth!? Unbelievable.

Lazarus is about where I expected it to be.

[Roomsky]

I haven't even read Above and Beyond yet, and I know it should be on the list.

 

But these results are always pretty wild, to be honest.

[Felix Antipodes]

The more of these Best Of lists I see the more I think they GW base them on sales rather than actual votes.   Having said that, there were few in the top ten that shouldn’t have been there*.  After that it comes down to personal choice on the finishing order imho.

 

* LE/SE releases like Interceptor City should be counted in the year of their general release imho 

[LemartesTheLost]

21 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

 

* LE/SE releases like Interceptor City should be counted in the year of their general release imho 

 

This is honestly what irks me the most out of this whole process. So 2,000 LE + X,000 audio/ebook purchases are good for 9th place. Imagine how much higher it would've placed if the hardback released the same day, and folks could actually make an informed vote. 

[Felix Antipodes]

Did anyone else pick up the BL Celebration 2025 eShort Sub this time around?  I did, but almost a week after the last eShort was released it still hasn’t been added to the zip file alongside the other four stories.  I’ve sent them an email but no reply att (time differences make phone calls a pain).

Has anyone else got the same issue or do I have a weird issue?

[cheywood]

Really hoping we get Ashes of Cadia Jude Reid and not Sisters of Battle Jude Reid for Fulgrim. Usually BL authors improve noticeably after their first novel, but I couldn’t even finish Morvenn Vahl.

[LemartesTheLost]

11 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

Did anyone else pick up the BL Celebration 2025 eShort Sub this time around?  I did, but almost a week after the last eShort was released it still hasn’t been added to the zip file alongside the other four stories.  I’ve sent them an email but no reply att (time differences make phone calls a pain).

Has anyone else got the same issue or do I have a weird issue?

 

I didn't buy the whole Sub, just the Consecrators short by Jon Flindall but that transferred and opened up just fine.

[Felix Antipodes]

Problem sorted.  BL finally updated the sub zip file last night (my time) adding the Flindall story.  No reply from BL to my query though, just a stealth solution.

[Nagashsnee]

14 hours ago, cheywood said:

Really hoping we get Ashes of Cadia Jude Reid and not Sisters of Battle Jude Reid for Fulgrim. Usually BL authors improve noticeably after their first novel, but I couldn’t even finish Morvenn Vahl.

I am in the same boat. Gave up on Morvenn and never felt the need to go back.

[Felix Antipodes]

2 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

I am in the same boat. Gave up on Morvenn and never felt the need to go back.

That’s not good… it’s up next on my reading list 

 

Lord Emperor steel my soul…

[theSpirea]

19 hours ago, cheywood said:

Really hoping we get Ashes of Cadia Jude Reid and not Sisters of Battle Jude Reid for Fulgrim. Usually BL authors improve noticeably after their first novel, but I couldn’t even finish Morvenn Vahl.

Damn, I actually struggled already with Ashes of Cadia. It's not a bad book but so generic, bland support characters and the whole plot is moving from A to B, stay there/get ambushed, move to C, rinse and repeat.

Daemonbreaker was also a struggle. These are the books I read and in a week or two I don't remember anything about them. It makes me sad because I love her crime short stories and was hoping she'd get a chance for a full novel there.

[Krelious]

On 3/12/2025 at 4:33 AM, Felix Antipodes said:

That’s not good… it’s up next on my reading list 

 

Lord Emperor steel my soul…

Honestly its not too bad and worth reading for the antagonists, which is kinda dissapointing in its own right because the should have been in a better book.  I mean I was stupid enough to buy the mega limited ed because i liked Ashes of Cadia and was hit with a massive let down of a book that feels nice to hold but largely isnt a nice read. I'd imagine anyways that its like Chaos characters might be easier to write than a group of battle nuns. 

[DarkChaplain]

Second dead week in a row....

[darkhorse0607]

4 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

Second dead week in a row....

Wait, Black Library still publishes things?

[Nagashsnee]

PEOPLE! People! Its fine! They are just going to wait for a super popular 40k release day to mass dump 3-5 BL books/LE onto the webstore. That way the traffic can really bottleneck and the any bot scalping can be done to its full potential. 

 

Hopefully they wait for the next marine codex preorder to put out Black Legion 3, Watchers of the Throne 3 and the first scouring book. Give everyone  the full and proper BL shopping experience.