Adam

Maybe 2.5??

I was in the mood to read a one off Fantasy novel and this one has been on my shelf for a while, so I decided to give it a whirl. Technically my second Warhammer Fantasy book. I really loved the first, but after I thought about the book more and more... well... it started to lose more stars. For the most part the novel did manage to scratch that itch of a one off shorter story set in the Old World of Warhammer, but this book had some really serious glaring issues that, for me, just are unforgiveable.

First off, there are way too many characters in this short of a novel. First we encounter Gerhart Brennend the Pyromancer mage we meet at the beginning and then we jump to another character... at this point not alarming. I'm sure their stories will converge... but then a third shows up, then a fourth, and at this point it's getting a bit much for a story that is only 250 pages. Especially since it seems like these other tales have gotten in the way of being able to actually finish the main arc.

This novel starts off with wizarding battle between Gerhart and another mage, who's name I can't remember. The battle was fairly well written, but part of the problem with it is that we really didn't have much of an idea about why they were fighting, so at that juncture it was hard to get into. I remember being confused and wondering if it was two friends having a duel, because they said "old friend" in the dialog, so I thought maybe they messing around. When one of them finally gets killed, then I knew they weren't... but I still didn't know why this battle was happening. Apparently, and I didn't explicitly learn this until later in the book, but I guess Gerhart's enemy had fallen to chaos. Now, maybe that was implied by the twin tail comet notes Gerhart took from the other guy, and maybe I just don't know enough Warhammer lore... but it would have been nice to have gotten that spelled out. Or, maybe I was just so confused I missed that part of the beginning, and no, this novel is not worth re-reading so I won't be checking.

Based on the description on the back of the book, this whole thing is supposed to culminate with the Siege of Wolfenburg. After Gerhart gets the documents, there is nothing to suggest he better get to Wolfenburg. Instead it feels like he is meandering through the countryside based on his "feelings" of where chaos is going or coming from? I really had a hard time figuring out this direction, because he went through a bunch of towns that were destroyed by a party of chaos, but he never once encounters the main army. So where did these people come from? I know they were fallen Sigmarites, but I was just so confused about where they came from and they seemed to have nothing to do with Wolfenburg. In fact, it made no sense that Gerhart would want to go there based on following these fallen followers of Sigmar.

Prior to this we are introduced to a Witchfinder who had been hunting an errant wizard. His search lead him to the ruined tower where Gerhart killed the other wizard. Now this is one of the few areas where the tales make sense, and Gerhart in the midst of trying to save a village from the fallen Sigmarites is then waylaid by the Witchfinder to be put on trial. I actually thought this part of the story was pretty great, because it showed the general dysfunction that a lot of things in Warhammer can often face.

Now it's time to introduce a totally new character, who's name I also forget, but they are a warrior priest of Sigmar and he's fighting the undead in some random village somewhere else. This characters story arc makes the least sense of anyone else's in this novel. He doesn't really converge the main scenario in any way shape or form except as a sort of after thought. He basically roams around saving people form various things until he has a small militia of 50 people. Now, you'd think maybe they'd go to Wolfenburg, but no... they never even have that on their radar. Instead they're just wandering around and end up fighting a bunch of beastmen. Which is all well and good, but then they wind up in no way to do anything for Wolfenburg, leaving me to wonder why this story arc is even here... It was almost as if there was a more grandiose tale Green had thought of, but just didn't have the time to write down for whatever reason.

So, Gerhart resolves things with the Witchfinder, now it's time to hightail it to Wolfenburg. Why? Reasons. He knows there's a big force of chaos about to descend onto the city and he wants the lords to muster their army and fight the chaos hordes head on. They bicker about this for a while and then the chaos hordes show up. One thing about this that I did think was cool was that Green brings us into the world of chaos a bit. He introduces yet another character the chaos wizard Verdhan. The problem with there being so many characters is you never get to know anyone, so we just get to see this guy preparing for things... cool, but not well developed.

Now Wolfenburg is under siege and the story of the siege happening is quite good. Actually just about all thing surrounding the battles were really good. Even the warrior priest of sigmar versus the beastmen was a good fight. Anyway, Wolfenburg knows they don't have enough people or resources to stop the chaos horde, but they know there was a cannon train on the way to the city. The lords send out Gerhart and new character Karl Reimann and his group to see what happened to them. Here we get a real treat as far as I'm concerned. This skirmish level battle between Gerhart and a wizard creating a Hellcannon. This was super cool stuff and probably the better part of this novel to be honest.

Now we get to the crazy part of this book. Naturally Gerhart and Reimann prevail and since they can't use the great cannon, they all go back to Wolfenburg. But by the time they get there the walls have been breached. The Evil sorcerer Verdhan has done an ultra powerful ritual that is causing the people of Wolfenburg to transform into various grotesque creatures as only Tzeentch would wish. It is here that the giant showdown between two sorcerers takes place. I won't spoil the actually epic battle, but the main character wins, as expected. But then... all of a sudden Chaos retreats? Like, they had this huge horde and then they just go home after defeating Wolfenburg. Even without the sorcerer, they still won! They even set up totems of victory... but do not continue their march deeper into the Empire. I have to be honest, I <i>really</i> do not understand what happened here.

That basically finishes off chapter 11... but then it gets real bad. There's a chapter 12. I think Green was trying to wrap up the tales of the survivors, but it's just insanely abrupt. For some reason he tells us the tragic back story of Gerhart here and it just feels like it comes out of nowhere. This was the kind of thing we should have heard about earlier, because it would have given way more context to the reader about why Green kept talking about Gerhart's anger and why he was trying to avoid it. But no... we get some random data dump that feels like authors notes in the last chapter. It really doesn't even feel like a real chapter.

Oh yeah, and then the warrior priest of Sigmar shows up at Wolfenburg after it had completely fallen. Way to get those stories to converge in a meaningful way...

In the end, I think I feel more frustrated about this novel because it had the potential to be pretty good. Like Green had some solid and cool ideas. The story just feels wildly incoherent. There's too much stuff that doesn't <i>really</i> need to be in here, and all it did was sacrifice time for writing a better story. The last chapter just feels utterly disorganized so we don't even leave on a high note as readers. I really wanted to like this book, Green did a good job in crafting and describing the world. He even had very exciting battles! Which might be enough for the tabletop, but not so much if I'm going to read a full blown novel. I don't know, I'm not sure I'd recommend this to anyone in the end, maybe if you're Warhammer obsessed and want to read everything.