''Inferno!'' (originally ''Carnage'') was a bi-monthly magazine published from 1997 to 2004 by

Games Workshop Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are '' Warhammer Age of Sigmar'' and '' Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake, ...

's publishing division, Black Library, which was initially just the name of the team brought together to work on ''Inferno!''. 10th anniversary interview
, with Marc Gascoigne It presented fiction, artwork, and comics set in the

fictional universe A fictional universe, or fictional world, is a self-consistent setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed, or fictional realm (or world). Fictional universes ma ...

's of Games Workshop's

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama ...

and

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

game A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (su ...

s. These initially included '' Warhammer Fantasy Battle'', '' Warhammer 40,000'', and ''

Necromunda ''Necromunda'' is a skirmish tabletop war game produced by Games Workshop since 1995. It has been relaunched as ''Necromunda: Underhive'' in 2017. In ''Necromunda'', players control rival gangs battling each other in the Underhive, a place of ...

'', and later added the '' Mordheim'' and ''

Gorkamorka ''Gorkamorka'' is a tabletop skirmish wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is set on the desert world of Angelis in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, and prominently features Orks. The player takes control of a group of warriors with the object ...

'' settings.

Publication

Rick Priestley and Andy Jones of ''Warhammer'', and author Marc Gascoigne, developed the idea for the Black Library which produced the magazine ''Inferno!'' as a result beginning in July 1997. ''Inferno!'' was launched with a trial "issue zero" as a section in the Games Workshop house magazine ''

White Dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes ...

'' (issue 210). Issue 1 of the actual magazine was launched shortly afterwards under the editorship of Games Workshop staffer Andy Jones. The magazine settled into a standard format of two fantasy and two science fiction stories per issue, with ancillary features such as standalone artwork, comics, cutaway diagrams of fictional machines from the stories, maps of fictional battles, and mocked-up books, dossiers, or correspondence by characters in the settings. With the exception of one early comic series, ''Inferno!'' published individual, complete stories, not serials.

Creators

''Inferno!'' had a policy of accepting unsolicited submissions and publishing new authors. Many writers who went on to publish novels for Black Library, such as C.L. Werner and Ben Counter, began their professional writing careers with short stories in ''Inferno!'' The magazine also published stories by established science fiction authors such as

Barrington J. Bayley Barrington J. Bayley (9 April 1937 – 14 October 2008) was an English science fiction writer. Biography Bayley was born in Birmingham and educated in Newport, Shropshire. He worked a number of jobs before joining the Royal Air Force during 1 ...

and

Brian Stableford Brian Michael Stableford (born 25 July 1948) is a British academic, critic and science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped ...

Warhammer Monthly

The success of ''Inferno!'', along with the lessons learned and the contacts made during its early days, led to a

spin-off Spin-off may refer to: *Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work *Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity * Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gove ...

comic, '' Warhammer Monthly''. This produced longer comic stories in an anthology format common in British comics like '' 2000 AD'' (with whom it shared a lot of creators). As Marc Gascoigne puts it "It became obvious very quickly that the occasional comic strip in Inferno! along with the short stories was OK, but very soon what we needed to do was a proper comic, so about a year after Inferno! kicked in, Warhammer Monthly made its debut."

Novels

Black Library's novel range also started life in ''Inferno!'', "we had stories that were immediately thought of, at least internally by us, as pilots, tasters for a novel range"

Cancellation

''Inferno!'' was cancelled in November 2004 after publishing 46 issues.

Relaunch

In 2018, Black Library relaunched ''Inferno!'' as a quarterly anthology series. The new ''Inferno!'' runs 300-400 pages and features serial and one-off short stories from both veteran Black Library authors and new writers. Each new volume has been accompanied by a limited time reprinting of issues of the original magazine: Issues 1-5 with Volume 1, 6-10 with Volume 2, 11-15 with Volume 3, and 16-25 with volume 4.

Notes

References

''Inferno''
at the '' Locus'' Index to Science Fiction

External links

''INFERNO!'' #46
Defunct science fiction magazines published in the United Kingdom Magazines established in 1997 Magazines disestablished in 2004 Speculative fiction magazines published in the United Kingdom Wargaming magazines Warhammer 40,000 Warhammer Fantasy {{italic title