Review: Black Library Celebration 2026

Although, at the time of writing, this book isn’t due to be available until tomorrow, I’ve had a copy for a little under a fortnight. No, it's not a preview copy hand-delivered by James Workshop himself. A local comic shop clearly didn’t read the instructions, and offered me one when I was in there. It would have been rude to say “no”.

So, is it worth getting yourself out of bed and down to your local store to grab a copy? Let’s go story by story:

Irreplaceable

by Denny Flowers

“Oh, I see why this is a free anthology.” At least, that was my thought after finishing this story. Don’t get me wrong, it’s well written. The core characters are very Orky (or Groty), and there’s a sense of both the fun and the menace of this faction. But…

Well, it’s not really a short story. It’s a story in which events occur, which are probably after events I haven’t read, and which appear to lead into other events which I most likely won’t read. It just doesn’t hang together as a narrative in its own right, more as advertising for something to come. Which left me worried that this is what the whole book would be like.

Luckily, I was wrong.

Doomwheel

by Ian Green

Much better-good, yes-yes.

This is a really satisfying short, following a Doomwheel driver (and his unfortunate assistants) through a battle across the Seraphon. It’s full of the Skaven mad scientist shenanigans you might expect, while keeping the Skaven a realistic threat. My one complaint with the Skaventide novel was, while it successfully made the beloved of the Horned Rat deeply threatening and dangerous, as you would expect from an edition’s main threat, it lost that element of anarchic comedy that threads through the race.

This short story manages that balance perfectly, acting a complete, satisfying story in its own right, while making me desperately hope that a Skaven novel is coming from Green. An absolute highlight.

Opportunity Cost

by Jonathan D Beer

I enjoyed Beer’s Tomb World a great deal, so I was looking forwards to this one. It’s the Adeptus Mechanicus exploring a seeming derelict Leagues of Votann ship, which has a great sense of growing dread based on the readers knowing something about the Kin that the AdMech characters don’t… As someone who used to write game settings professionally, I appreciate it when writers find gentle ways of reinforcing that’s what’s common knowledge to players is often not well known within the setting…

While this didn’t quite have me longing for a Beery AdMech novel, this was a throughly enjoyable look into how an AdMech ship functions, that made me more interested in the faction than I have been before.

And I was really appreciating the fact that we’re now halfway through this book, and we’ve yet to see a Space Marine or Stormcast Eternal…

The Nameless

by Hal Wilson

In a lonely town, in the wilds of Shyish, a man wakes up with no knowledge of who he is, and with a gun in his possession, inscribed with a name he doesn’t know. The nighthaunt are at the gates, looters are in the town, and somebody’s been doing a ritual in a tower…

This is another delightfully self-contained short story, that is saturated with the genre-melding that AoS fiction does so well. There’s a strong Western tone, with undertones of Horror, Base Under Siege, and Thriller.

This is possibly the most narratively satisfying of the stories in the anthology. It’s not advertising anything but the delights of the Mortal Realms as a storytelling setting, and the skill of the author. And the end will stay with you…

Joy of the Martyr

by Ness Brown

And, praise The Emperor, we conclude with everyone’s favourite gothic death nuns facing an unexpected foe, armed with nothing more than their unwavering faith in His Blessing (plus some heavy ordnance and their power armour…).

This is not a story about the plot, which plays out much as you might expect once the nature of the opponents is revealed. It’s a story about the faith journey of one of the Sisters, and how their faith shapes what they see.

If you love the wildly over-the-top, medieval-level faith fanatic nature of the Sisters, you’ll love this story. And I certainly did.

Verdict

Four really enjoyable and very different stories, and one well-written but unsatisfying story? That’s a great deal for the grand total of £0.00 this is going to cost you. If you’re reading this before 28th March 2026, then get yourself along to your local Warhammer or FLGS, and grab one of these before they disappear.

There’s an hour or so’s satisfying reading for free—with nary a Stormcast or Space Marine in sight.

Update:

It’s also available for free in the Black Library app until April 20th: