I’m A Hall of Famer!
It’s looking increasingly unlikely that I’ll ever be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, but at least now I can say that I’m in the Black Library Hall of Fame instead.
“The very best Black Library novels, chosen by the authors. Every month, we’ll be asking a Black Library author to choose a novel they think is important, iconic, or just plain entertaining, and to tell us why.”
I will be eternally in David Annandale’s debt (which is an awful lot of biscuits) for choosing Path of the Warrior – the first book in the Path of the Eldar trilogy – as his Hall of Fame book. Here’s what he had to say about it:
“I adore Gav Thorpe’s entire Eldar trilogy, but I must choose one book, and so I’ll choose the first: Path of the Warrior.
The task of this book is not an easy one – there are no human characters here to speak of, except as antagonists, so the challenge is to give us protagonists who feel properly alien while still inviting our engagement and sympathy. Path of the Warrior does this admirably.
On top of that, we get a rich, convincing sense of the culture of Craftworld Alaitoc, and a layered sense of the majestic tragedy that is the path of the Eldar. We see this on the macro scale, in the events confronting Alaitoc, but on the personal as well, as we follow the transformation of Korlandril from artist to warrior, and the full, terrible loss that comes with that transformation.
And as if that isn’t enough, Gav pulls off a stylistic tour de force that made me gasp when I realised what was happening. The Exarchs speak in hexameter triplets. The effect is subtle, and makes the Exarchs even more alien and forbidding. Not only that, but what is more fitting than to have these legendary warriors speak in the meter of the epics of old? As a reader, I was delighted by the experience. As a writer, I am agog with envy and admiration.”
High praise indeed, and I’m honoured that Path of the Warrior was chosen as the first ever book in the Black Library Hall of Fame.
For those who aren’t familiar with it, “Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. According to Greek mythology, hexameter was invented by the god Hermes” (taken from Wikipedia). I gave each Exarch his own meter – here are some examples:
Kenainath:
“Now to make your choice, to meet your companions, Striking Scorpion”
Morlaniath:
“It shall be an honour, to lead your warriors, to make them Hidden Death”
Guy Haley also spotted this use of language and I seem to remember he was very pleased to extend its use to his novel Valedor.
One of the Striking Scorpions from Path of the Warrior, Bechareth, garnered so much interest from readers that I wrote a short story called Dark Son, detailing his history. Dark Son is only available in the Path of the Eldar omnibus.
Let me know in the comments which Black Library books would be in your Hall of Fame, and what make them “important, iconic, or just plain entertaining”?
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