Blood of Aenarion - Save your money and your mind - spoilers

[Ptolemy]

SPOILERS AHEAD - Read anyway, I'll save you the pain.

Okay...I liked William King's Felix and Gotrex stuff. I thought he did a nice job with combat, in particular. Certainly not a polished author (few in Black Library really are) but one that I thought did justice to one of the oldest duos in warhammer.

Fast forward to Blood of Aenarion.

HOLY SMOKES was this a rag of crap.

First off, at $29 for a 300 page, 14 font, 1.5 line spaced hard cover is WAY too much. However, being the first in what I expected to be a definitive trilogy for our beloved Asur, I figured I was obligated to read it.

Second, the character development is laughable. Tyrion, in particular, is just terribly written. He is so campy it makes me want to vomit. The notion that this happy-go-lucky suburban jock will become the greatest warrior in elfdom is something that Hemingway himself couldn't make believable at this point. He has casual sex with at least two different elf maids in the book (one of which is his cousin) with the sort of wham-bam-thank you-maam approach I would have expected from a bad coming of age story.

His entire character operates like he is a disciple of Bob Marley. I can almost hear 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' playing in my head while I read from Tyrion's point of view. While I love Bob, he's not the greatest prototype for a warrior.

Then comes Teclis. Teclis is at least more consistent. In fact, you get the sense that everyone at GW has a much better sense of what Teclis is like (Raistlin anyone?). Crass, concise and contemplative, he has all the makings of the brooding master wizard. If anything, they wrote Teclis and then said to themselves, "Tyrion should be the opposite in all things." Well, eternally glum is far more compelling than eternal sunshine.

Naturally, both characters are so amazingly talented that neither needs to learn to do anything. They just succeed automatically. Thus, Deus Ex Machina is the answer to all problems by default. Tyrion is going to dual a highly skilled elven swordsman? No problem, he picks up a sword, magically (literally) knows how to hold it and use it properly and goes all Achilles. When the fight is over, the pretty boy bags his cousin and then goes surfing. Gnarly.

Teclis LITERALLY has a Deux Ex Machina moment where he becomes the machine of a god (hooray predictable plots!). He goes totally Super Sayan as well.

Oh...and N'Kari? This crazy awesome deamon that has plagued the line of Aenarion for thousands of years? He is basically an angry lawyer who is able to snap his claws and summon up a thousand daemons directly into Ulthuan. We are led to believe that the entire court of the Phoenix King thinks its better to move our wonderful twins to the Shrine of Asuryan because it will be safer than the largest city in all elfdom ( WTF?)

Speaking of the Shrine...did you know its a South American styled pyramid? Yuuup! Just like the Lizards have. Freaking A.

Do not worry though, Finubar decides to actually leave NO soldiers at the shrine except a paltry bodyguard of spearmen. By the way, all the Phoenix Guard are technically dead by the end of the book. Maybe there are 5 left. Enjoy that.

Anyway....its awful. Avoid it or suffer as I have suffered.

[HERO]

rofl, amazing review

[grantmepower]

Hey, I appreciate the heads-up. I'll be giving it a pass.

[Giladis]

His entire character operates like he is a disciple of Bob Marley. I can almost hear 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' playing in my head while I read from Tyrion's point of view. While I love Bob, he's not the greatest prototype for a warrior.

Good morning to you to

Speaking of the Shrine...did you know its a South American styled pyramid? Yuuup! Just like the Lizards have. Freaking A.

It has been so since it was first described since 4th edition and later writen stuff (Sundering trilogy) supports that.

Do not worry though, Finubar decides to actually leave NO soldiers at the shrine except a paltry bodyguard of spearmen. By the way, all the Phoenix Guard are technically dead by the end of the book. Maybe there are 5 left. Enjoy that.

That bit is already in the Daemon Army Book since 2008


Cheers

[templargdt]

Sounds like ADB needs to get more book contracts from GW. Thanks for the review, I'll save the money.

[Teledor]

Sorry you had to suffer through that. It's odd that GW wouldn't know what to make of Tyrion and allow such a mess of his character to be written. Sad. Many a brilliant military/martially oriented people throughout history were pretty crazy in one way or another... and definitely no where near surfer bra. You'd think they could make an amalgam of these figures to come up with something pretty compelling.

Thanks for the heads up though.

[Code13]

A couple of points:

William King was the author that actually invented Felix and Gotrek

Bob Marley was the definition of a Warrior Poet

ALL Black Library stuff is pretty naff at least, some are terrible. If its not naff then it's pre Black Library (Wolf Riders, Drachenfels, Zaragoz etc)

As it happens my mrs was going to buy me these for Xmas, then I read a sample page and my brain threatened to make me stop breathing if I made it read any more.

[Elessehta of Yvresse]

Tyrion appears in the IoB book, and the Author made him out to be arrogant and cold, I liked it.

[Prince of Spires]

I've just started reading Defenders of Ulthuan and I'm getting the same feeling (although neither Teclis nor Tyrion has made an appearance).

The characters seem flat and a bit a charicature. The evil guys sit in a corner thinking about how evil they are and laughing maniacally. And the good guys seem one dimensional, with very simple motivations. They seem to do things because the writer needs them to do it, not because it's in character.

The writing itself is a lot of telling and very little showing (if that makes sense). It tells you about a lot of feelings and action and it doesn't actually show you the action.

Everything is great and endless and magnificent and wonderfull. It gets a bit old after the first few pages. And if everything is amazing, nothing is (since it's the new norm).

Add to all this that the story is a bit slow in developing, and it adds up to an average book I wouldn't actually recomend reading to anyone, which is a pitty realy. It feels like it is the first book of the author. I just hope the next one is better.

Rod

[Malossar]

So i read it as well but for 20 bucks cheaper haha.

Buy the ebook version! It was only 9.99 USD.


The only thing that i actually liked from the book was some of the descriptions of elves, the malice in the heart of all of them. The thin line that seperates the Asur from the Druchii.

[Tethlis]

Ptol, your synopsis is basically why I stay away from all Black Library reading. As someone who has spent most of his life studying English Literature, I just have no interest in anything with campy/cliche dialogue and overused character archetypes. I prefer to use the armybooks as a scaffold for crafting my own perspective of the Warhammer universe. Thanks for letting us know your thoughts.

[Giladis]

Ptol, your synopsis is basically why I stay away from all Black Library reading. As someone who has spent most of his life studying English Literature, I just have no interest in anything with campy/cliche dialogue and overused character archetypes. I prefer to use the armybooks as a scaffold for crafting my own perspective of the Warhammer universe. Thanks for letting us know your thoughts.

I agree with that 100%. Though I admit I am prone to some bolter porn indulgence from time to time

[Tethlis]

I agree with that 100%. Though I admit I am prone to some bolter porn indulgence from time to time

I must admit, I find 40k lore very, very compelling

[Anuriel]

Well, looks like I dodged a bolt there.

I'm more usually to be found over on the Druchii side of things, but I stop by here occasionally. I just want to say thank you. You've saved me from a lot of rage and incidentally, explained where someone got all this nonsense about what Tyrion 'is' like from. It was this.

You see, I've always liked the High Elf background, going back in history to when there was simply Elf background and forward to current days. I thought it was sweeping and epic with battles and dragons and all the elements of fantasy I'd always loved. There would have been a lot of scope to produce something that could have really showcased Elven culture. Perhaps Mr. King is really writing a work of comedy ... no, on second thoughts, it just sounds like a bad joke. He used to write some of the flavour text in White Dwarfs a long time ago, and based on this I thought he might make readable Elves. Thank you again for the timely warning. I am actually so keen to find a good High Elf story that I might have considered it, so you've done me a favour by saving me probably whole actual days of wrath. Any time you find yourself in Naggaroth, I owe you a favour

If anyone does want to read a reasonable depiction of Tyrion, and a not-bad one of Teclis, Defenders of Ulthuan does all right in that respect in my opinion. I didn't love the book, but it's not bad.

If anyone has any suggestions as to where I might find that good story with the sweeping, epic narrative and mood of early days, I would be happy to know

There is only one way to salve the pain of an experience like this. It's to repeat as often as needed "Novels are not cannon". (Official GW line is, so far as I last heard, that they're only semi-canon at most which will do me.)

So: Novels are not cannon Novels are not cannon Novels are not cannon Novels are not cannon Novels are not cannon ..... If I say it hard enough maybe it will go away?

[ZT Strike]

nice review, my story is better if anyone cares to read it. I have chapter I one here already. I will admit I took Teclis' character in a different direction than what we are used to, but it was more for story purposes.
(Spoiler: I gave Teclis the behavior and mentality of an old man. While he is "young" in the story the potions of the White Tower are shown not to be strong enough, and slowly he is dying. He having come to terms with this has had a major effect on his attitude.)

[Jimmy]

I will add that one to the do not buy list, thanks for the heads up!!

[Marwynn]

I actually enjoyed it.

Yes, it's tired and cliche. It's a Black Library book, it's not really literature now is it? Yes, it's written as if there's nothing these kids can do wrong. But there's stuff about the culture that's worth a few bucks to get an insight into. Go to the bookstore and read it there.

I found myself laughing at Teclis' one-liners. Literally, out loud. Plot was meh. Fighting was equally meh.

And I would love for Aaron Dembski-Bowden to write a High Elf story. Or a thousand.

EDIT:

Oh and to clarify a plot point: the twins weren't sent to the Shrine of Asuryan just for their safety, it was also a very calculated move by Finubar. The Shrine has the best wards against Daemons in Ulthuan. Finubar knew that. But he also knew that if the twins were to die, as heirs of Aenarion, they'd unite the people in anger and grief behind him. They had to go there anyway to get tested so really a cold and calculated move.