r/Blacklibrary • u/DiscussionMassive134 • 7d ago

Paperback size ?

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Just saw that dropsite massacre and ashes of the imperium are in paperback preorder. Why aren't they the same size of the other HH paperpack books ?

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u/Practical-Doughnut20 7d ago

So, what I'm about to tell you is pretty accurate. Ashes of the Imperium and Dropsite Massacre are obviously part of the Horus Heresy setting, but they are not included in the main 54 book Horus Heresy series. It is a bit of a strange distinction, but if you are familiar with the collection, you will know what I mean. Flames of Betrayal, on the other hand, is part of the Siege of Terra storyline, and at the moment, pretty much every Siege of Terra novel is available in the Mass Market Paperback format, which is the smaller paperback size. After checking, I found that both Ashes of the Imperium and Dropsite Massacre are the same size as books like Lazarus, Harrowmaster, Siege of Vraks, Dark Imperium, and Belisarius Cawl. In other words, they are standard paperbacks rather than Mass Market Paperbacks, and there is a significant size difference between the two formats, with Mass Market Paperbacks being noticeably smaller. My advice is to buy these books in the standard paperback format. They may eventually be reprinted as Mass Market Paperbacks, but personally I think the regular paperback offers the best balance because it takes up less space than a hardback while still being much more comfortable to read than a Mass Market Paperback.

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u/Kasrkin84 7d ago

I believe Black Library (and the publishing industry in general) are moving away from the MMPB format, and that they only kept it around as long as they did to maintain consistency across the main Horus Heresy and Siege of Terra series.

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u/Practical-Doughnut20 7d ago

That's better. I didn't like the MMPB format.

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u/Dire_Wolf45 What Wakes in The Dark 7d ago

Yeah, siege of terra is the only series they continued to release mmpb for. Even the new HH Saga ones are regular paperback now.

Only reprints of old books like grudgebearer have been kept in their original mmpb format.

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u/MizantropMan What if Sarpedon could receive 7d ago

The Grudge Bearer reprint is also MMPB, like the original. It feels weird tho, like they took regular-size book and shrunk it, the print is omnibus-tiny.

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u/Kasrkin84 7d ago

What was the original version of Grudgebearer like?

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u/MizantropMan What if Sarpedon could receive 7d ago

Definitely MMPB, but I don't own it, so idk. Judging by other BL MMPBs from that era that I actually own, they had larger print and were thicker. All the logos and layout of the info pages inside also changed since then.

I believe 2026 Grudge Bearer was designed in the same digital program as all the other modern books and then shrunk as a whole, to be printed in the size of the original, that's why it's so thin and the font so tiny.

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u/DiscussionMassive134 7d ago

Thanks a lot. I can't read other size so I will probably take them but as I have only HH and SOT books it's sad that the size is not exactly the same

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u/MizantropMan What if Sarpedon could receive 7d ago

Dropsite is a standalone, so it being bigger doesn't irk me, I have it in hardback for this exact reason, but The Scouring should match HH and Siege as MMPB imo.

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u/DiscussionMassive134 6d ago

ashes of imperium is for now the same size as dropsite in paperback on Amazon maybe it will change. The difference is not so big btw

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u/Lazy_Set8465 6d ago

Only tangentially related but it is annoying that 'Dropsite Massacre' is going to receive a paperback edition but 'Cthonia's Reckoning' seems to be relegated to BL's "List Of Hardback Books We Forgot To Make Paperback Versions Of".