Book porn: Neferata, Mortarch of Blood

Arrived in the mail a little while ago; one of The Black Library's awesome limited editions.

This time, rather different than usual, it's a limited edition of one of the novels of their fantasy setting. Barring the Realmgate Wars series, the Age of Sigmar has only had two notable limited editions, one of them this one.

 The Limited editions are usually new releases, so you can't really tell before you buy if the prose and story are going to be worth it. But the books themselves, their presentation is always totally worth the buy.

Pictures don't really do this one any justice.

Overall faux-weathering of the cover and spine to make it seem as if this is a really old tome.

The page-edges on the up and underside are differently marked; with a red screaming vampire skull.

Also, note the red reading ribbon, reminiscent of a forked tongue.

Look at this badass piece of art.

Autograph page with some more amazing art,

limited to a 1000 copies, I'm guessing these are still available on the Black Library site, though again, I can't vouch for the quality of the prose or story.

This piece isn't so great though.

Uninspired and woefully inadequate, especially since Age of Sigmar takes the Old Fantasy Warhammmer's baroque tendencies to excess, and those were already quite over the top.

At every chapter we're treated to a colour page with a quotation

Similar ending piece, though this one comes with Neferata's (I'm guessing) personal motto, maybe only after the events of the novel.

Back cover.

If you haven't guessed by now, this one's about vampires.

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Here's most of the rest of my BL special editions.

Most of what I've got leans to the fantasy side but you'll notice some exceptions.

I hugely enjoy Aaron Dembski-Bowden's writings so I even if I've moved away from the 40k side of things those still get bought. And as a Chaos lover there's no way I wouldn't be buying (and eventually reading) anything to do with their side of things.

The Blood Bowl box is really quite nice, even if the novels form kind of a universe on their own.

Covers for the Talon of Horus and the Fabius Bile book.

Because Fabius is a demented Chaos surgeon whose robes are stitched together from human skin, Bl has tried to apply that effect to the book itself. it's really quite nice.

Tacky, you say, adolescent even?

Well yes. And that is fine. It doesn't always need to be mature, you know.

Though apparently there's all kinds of problems with the Realmgate Wars series as a whole and between individual books, their presentation is really quite nice as well.

My favourite-looking one is book 7, the only green one, as it's about the Orcs.

Or... Orruks if you prefer... I do not.

Every one of the ten books comes with some glorious internal artwork, and the back of the cover is magnetized to keep the book closed when not reading.

The warp, or the vast reaches of space, conspire to form the image of a massive Orruk's screaming face.

The other notable Age of Sigmar Limited Edition.

The continuation of Nagash's Saga.

I'm still a huge fan of the Rise of Nagash trilogy, one of, if not the most epic trilogy ever written under the Warhammer Fantasy label.

Two 40k box sets, both hugely rewarding reads, and the absolute cream of the 40k fiction, even though, after reading though the Eisenhorn books several times, I'll be buggered if I can tell you what happens in them. Comes from having a first person narrative maybe.

As I said, very nice books, and BL usually tries to do something unique, with most every other book having a different finish.