Shadowhawk takes a peek at the upcoming novella by new-to-Black Library author, David Annandale.

“An iconic character finally getting his own book? Sign me up!” ~Shadowhawk

Black Library has just announced another exclusive hardback novella from a new author, and this one promises to be just as exciting as the last two such releases, Christian Dunn’s Dark Vengeance and Andy Smillie’s Flesh of Cretacia.

David is an author I can certainly recommend, if people are unfamiliar with his work. He has written about Yarrick before, in the 15th Birthday eShort Evil Eye, which was a great short piece on the character. His Death Guard/Typhus short story Carrion Anthem in Treacheries of the Space Marines was a top-notch story about corruption and faith. And his stand-alone eBook only Blood Angels/Mephiston short story Eclipse of Hope was another excellent piece, which really explored the character and the chapter both.

He has another novel coming out soon, Space Marine Battles: The Death of Antagonis, which I’m really excited about, as it features the Black Dragons chapter, one of the ill-aspected Cursed Chapters in the Imperium. Fantastic stuff!

Here’s the blurb and other relevant info:

Release: January 2013 (should be soon!)

Hardback: $20.00 | eBook: $11.99 | 128pp | Extras: Full Colour Map

From the ashes of the Second War of Armageddon a hero of the Imperium emerged. War-torn and bloody, Commissar Yarrick swore vengeance on the beast that escaped his righteous wrath, the despoiler of Armageddon – Ghazghkull Thraka. Tracking down the ork warlord to the desolate world of Golgotha, Yarrick leads an armoured company to destroy the beast but does not reckon on Thraka’s cunning.

Ambushed, his army all-but destroyed, Yarrick is captured and awakes to find himself aboard the beast’s space hulk facing a fate worse than death…

ABOUT THE BOOK

Yarrick: Chains of Golgotha is presented in a premium hardback format and includes full-colour map.

So what do you think, of the artwork and blurb both?

*****

Pre-orders for the print and digital versions are both up, which you can place here.

*****

To give some context to this release, Black Library has been going all out with their new novellas range since they released Nick Kyme’s Horus Heresy: Promethean Sun in summer of 2011. There have been three more limited edition novellas since then, two of them for the Heresy range (Aurelian by Aaron Dembski-Bowden and Brotherhood of the Storm by Chris Wraight), and the third for the Space Marine Battles range (Catechism of Hate by Gav Thorpe). The books have generated a fair bit of controversy with regards pricing, site issues and availability, and I’m honest, I’ll say that this very fact has been a huge factor in their sales. Black Library has definitely got a feel for the fans’ pulse on what they want, and they are giving it to us, just not quite in the way we imagined.

They addressed the availability issue last year in September with the release for Chris Wraight’s book, which was not limited to a specific number of copies. As long as people ordered the book within a specific week-long window, they were guaranteed a copy. To take matters further, they limited the number of copies per order to 2, which was a huge step forward since for the previous releases, several opportunistic people had bought several copies and sold them on eBay for hefty profits.

Not a situation any publisher would like to be in, I’m sure.

They made another change to the novellas range just a month and half later, when they announced Andy Smillie’sFlesh of Cretacia. This post-Heresy story, set in the Scouring period to be exact, was cheaper by 33% and was on a general release to anyone, no restrictions on number of copies available or a time-period to place said orders. Of course, this book also did not have all the fancy-schmanzy bonuses of the other novellas. I certainly applaud their decision to make these changes. The exclusivity of the other titles may be great, but in the long run, despite all assurances to the contrary, it does feel like you are shafted for the two years it will take for a reprint.

With the upcoming release of David’s Yarrick: Chains of Golgotha, it looks like the new format is definitely here to stay, and I’m fine with that.

Final point, Dark Vengeance by Christian Dunn, the tie-in novella for the new 6th Edition Warhammer 40,000 Rules, was similar to Flesh of Cretacia and Chains of Golgotha but benefited from a much cheaper eBook.