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The Realmgate Wars #5
Wardens of the Everqueen
The War of Life rages on, as Torglug the Despised and the forces of Nurgle seek to destroy the Everqueen. But with their new Stormcast allies, the beleagured sylvaneth at last have a hope of victory...
Athelwyrd, the last great bastion of Ghyran’s sylvaneth, has fallen to the pestilent servants of the Plague God. At their head, the warlord Torglug the Despised will do anything to seize the ultimate prize his master so fervently desires: Alarielle, the Everqueen. Her defenders will not see her taken easily though – Lord-Castellant Grymn and his chamber of Hallowed Knights have sworn themselves to her protection. As a great exodus of sylvaneth and Stormcast Eternals sets out from the ruin of Athelwyrd with Torglug’s Chaos host hard on their heels, the strength and conviction of Alarielle’s defenders will be tested as never before.
The dramatic events of the War of Life from the Balance of Power campaign book come to, well, life. C L Werner weaves a fascinating tale of heroes and villains, with a serious suprise at the end.
Athelwyrd, the last great bastion of Ghyran’s sylvaneth, has fallen to the pestilent servants of the Plague God. At their head, the warlord Torglug the Despised will do anything to seize the ultimate prize his master so fervently desires: Alarielle, the Everqueen. Her defenders will not see her taken easily though – Lord-Castellant Grymn and his chamber of Hallowed Knights have sworn themselves to her protection. As a great exodus of sylvaneth and Stormcast Eternals sets out from the ruin of Athelwyrd with Torglug’s Chaos host hard on their heels, the strength and conviction of Alarielle’s defenders will be tested as never before.
The dramatic events of the War of Life from the Balance of Power campaign book come to, well, life. C L Werner weaves a fascinating tale of heroes and villains, with a serious suprise at the end.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published February 6, 2016
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April 28, 2016
Wardens of the Everqueen
is, in my eyes, a royal mess of a novel. Reading it frustrated me to no end, and it took every speck of will to see it through to the end. I even had to make a list of problems it has, just so I wouldn't forget some due to the sheer amount of issues I found.
First off, this novel continues the plotline revolving around Lord-Celestant Gardus and Lord-Castellant Grymn and the Hallowed Knights, who have been sent to the Realm of Life to find the Everqueen and protect her against Chaos. Josh Reynolds wrote two novellas in this plotline, The Gates of Dawn and War in the Hidden Vale, published in War Storm and Ghal Maraz respectively.
By the end of War in the Hidden Vale, Gardus falls to the Great Unclean One Bolathrax in the Everqueen's sanctum. They succeed in finding the goddess, but in doing so led the enemy straight to her. As a result, Lord-Castellant Grymn now has to lead the Hallowed Knights in place of Gardus (again) and follow the Everqueen and her Sylvaneth tree-people on their exodus to a new safe haven. On the way they are hounded by Torglug the Despised, champion of Nurgle.
That is the entire premise of the story. The Stormcast Eternals and Sylvaneth are on the run from their enemies, attempting to delay them countless times, shrinking in numbers and getting saved by deus ex machinae every other chapter. And it is incredibly boring!
Before I go into the plot more, though, let me grab my laundry list of problems, most of which concern consistency with the other two stories, the main book for Age of Sigmar and the first campaign book, The Realmgate Wars: Quest For Ghal Maraz , which these were based on, and general tonal shifts.
C.L. Werner seemed entirely unaware of what went on before his story. The plot is entirely isolated from it beyond featuring the same named characters, more likely than not straight from the campaign book. I do not believe he was given either the other two campaign books before it, nor the two preceding novellas by Reynolds. As a result, many things are off, glossed over, never mentioned at all, or simply wrong.
For example, Prosecutor-Prime Tegrus is miraculously alive, without any mention at all of him mutating and being put out of his misery by Alarielle in the Hidden Vale. Then there are new characters filling the same roles and military positions that already had dudes filling them before.
Grymn seems to consider this his first time leading the Hallowed Knights, when for most of Hidden Vale, he did exactly that (and was better at it, if you ask me). He constantly goes on about what Gardus would be doing and cites mantras that Gardus never used in the previous stories, and even the manner of Gardus' death is never explained. He's simply dead or "gone". There is a big gap in character development here, and not even once is Grymn's desire to be the Hallowed Knights' shield to Gardus' sword mentioned - something that I liked about the previous part.
Likewise missing are the Astral Templars and Guardians of the Firmament, two other Stormhosts that took part in the War in the Hidden Vale. Zephacleas and co are gone without a trace, as if they never had existed at all, even though they decided to join the exodus before and had no way back besides death anyway.
Alarielle, meanwhile, is presented as the gentle, benevolent goddess who couldn't harm a fly, and is welcoming of the Stormcasts. There is no trace of the wrathful queen who proved she could handle herself and wiped out hordes of enemies in a blink. Instead, she hides behind her Sylvaneth and never takes an active role. No worries, though, since she turns into a seed barely three chapters in, and thus her active role to the story is reduced to about three scenes total.
On the other side of the conflict, Torglug the Despised is now the supreme leader of Nurgle's forces in Ghyran, with no mention of the Glottkin, Gutrot Spume or the other antagonists we know are actually leading the war. Slaugoth Maggotfang is now reduced to Torglug's chief warlock, even though he was defeated far away from the Hidden Vale and was a rival of the Despised. Oh well.
If you've read the previous books (which you should have before starting this anyway), you'll have to stomach all these inconsistencies and more that I didn't list here. All of these problems are down to negligience - whether it was the author's or that of the editors' at Black Library, I cannot say. But the fact of the matter is, someone, somewhere, screwed up mightily.
This is what happens when you try to craft a continuous storyline across several books for a meta-setting, but commission different authors who didn't get the full briefing or research material to aid them. You can't write things like these in a vacuum, and expect good results. The funny thing is, Black Library has done far better with The Beast Arises , which has been in production for at least 3 years before the first book launched, and every author has to read through what came before. It results in a consistent series, which The Realmgate Wars certainly are not.
Now to the problems with the story itself. Yes, I found it utterly boring and tiresome. It felt like an overly elaborate and dragged-out battle report, which makes sense considering it is based on a string of scenarios from The Realmgate Wars: Balance of Power .
The big issue with that is just how repetitive it all is. The Stormcasts repeat the same actions and delaying tactics over and over (block the way, oh we can't, let's leave a rearguard here then to hold the enemy, they die in a blink, repeat). At some point I had to wonder just how much more effective it would have been to meet the enemy in proper combat and reduce them to ashes in one swoop rather than let them gather reinforcements along the way, or give them time to summon daemons.
The better part of the chase takes place on a frozen sea, with a blizzard going on and all. Obviously, shattering the ice to cut off pursuers is attempted, multiple times, with little result.
Tegrus and his winged warriors are delegated to scouting the area and checking up on enemies, far too many times throughout the book ("I have need of your eyes again"), to the point where they barely saw combat. The Lady of Vines, Alarielle's handmaiden and bearer of the Queen-Seed, attempts to do the same magic tricks multiple times, with little result. Torglug turns to Slaugoth for magical help multiple times, too.
And whenever things started to go bad, there was always some form of deus ex machina to help the Stormcasts. It took the form of a second Stormhost being sent (and their boss getting slain within moments, so as not to steal the show from Grymn) or Torglug leaving Grymn after cutting off his hand instead of finishing him (which results in Grymn coming back, of course, and leading the Stormcasts to victory while forming stronger bonds with the Lady of Vines), even though he was looking forward to killing him moments before. Even the final battle was saved by a similar occurence. As a result, there never was any tension to the Stormcasts' struggle. Even when you think a character is dead, he returns after a chapter or two.
Can I just say how bad the book's overall chapter structure is? Twelve chapters for 250-odd pages isn't nearly enough. They drag on, switch points of view multiple times, and at times the timeline arbitrarily skips. There were many, many places where a chapter division could have happened without anything needing to be written differently.
Similarly, the author screwed up on the matter of "show, don't tell". Slaugoth's rival sorcerer under Torglug, for example, barely takes part in the story. We are told about bitter rivalry, but never actually shown the extent of it. We are told how the Skaven seer acted towards Torglug, after his death no less, but never shown anything beyond his "recruitment". We are told that Lizardmen/Seraphon interfered with Torglug's advance, but never shown - they were just shoehorned in as a namedrop without even impacting anything. So much character development and potentially interesting sideplots are missing in favor of repeated clashes on the ice, over and over, without tension or excitement.
A lot of groans came from how bombastic the book attempted to be. But where do you really go from the massive battles early on, and titanic bringers of winter being awoken and stalking the realm like living mountains? Where do you go from having one of Nurgle's Greater Daemons as a sheer unstoppable enemy, apart from throwing three more into the mix later? It is the old problem DC had to fight with for a long time when it came to their comic franchises like Superman, or even Shounen Anime. How do you increase the stakes when you have already defeated foes with the power to destroy whole planets with the tip of their finger? There is a point where it all deflates and becomes a parody of itself, and it looks like Age of Sigmar is about to reach that point.
The story suffers from Age of Sigmar's tendency to tell its narrative in unimaginable superlatives, with no subtlety or real downtime. Every bit of calm is just another preparation for battle two pages on. Every bit of introspection by the characters is focused on war, and how could it be different when, really, they are all basically mind-wiped pawns of their respective gods?
Sometimes, the book tries to be more than it is, and those instances got my hopes up. But it never succeeds in actually being more. It tries to ponder the nature of the gods and asks questions about whether they are acting out of their own free will or by a god's design, but that lasts for about two pages before being forgotten again, without really impacting anybody or anything. It tries to give the antagonist a bit of a redemption arc at the very end, but it simply doesn't work. It falls flat due to how unlikeable and irredeemably bad he was for the whole novel. The fragments strewn throughout just don't hold up to the task. Besides, seeing Torglug fawning over the perfection of the Celestant Prime like everybody else on the Stormcast side does is just tiring. It also didn't help that Torglug's manner of speech was that of an imbecile, completely disconnected from his Reynolds-version.
And then, after a bit of a bigger battle where Chaos gets destroyed within moments by the significantly overpowered Celestant Prime, Grymn and co, the book simply ends with little resolution to the plotline. Seeing how the Celestant Prime wasn't even part of 90% of the story, I got annoyed by how much of the show he stole here, without even a single line of dialogue. Werner wrote him well in Hammers of Sigmar, but here he stole the opportunity of a final face-off between the established characters. Instead, the novel ends on a note of uncertainty, and a feeling of defeat, unsatisfying even in its final moments.
No, I cannot possibly recommend this one. I fought with myself just to keep reading and finish what I started. Battles blur together to the point of being blunted, and what little development between Grymn and the Sylvaneth I enjoyed, was quickly drowned out by yet another engagement. Adding the continuity issues to the mix, or the very repetitive environments and even dialogue or characters' thoughts, the book made me almost fall asleep on my Kindle on multiple occassions. I'd mark this one down as the worst of C.L. Werner's works I have read to date.
First off, this novel continues the plotline revolving around Lord-Celestant Gardus and Lord-Castellant Grymn and the Hallowed Knights, who have been sent to the Realm of Life to find the Everqueen and protect her against Chaos. Josh Reynolds wrote two novellas in this plotline, The Gates of Dawn and War in the Hidden Vale, published in War Storm and Ghal Maraz respectively.
By the end of War in the Hidden Vale, Gardus falls to the Great Unclean One Bolathrax in the Everqueen's sanctum. They succeed in finding the goddess, but in doing so led the enemy straight to her. As a result, Lord-Castellant Grymn now has to lead the Hallowed Knights in place of Gardus (again) and follow the Everqueen and her Sylvaneth tree-people on their exodus to a new safe haven. On the way they are hounded by Torglug the Despised, champion of Nurgle.
That is the entire premise of the story. The Stormcast Eternals and Sylvaneth are on the run from their enemies, attempting to delay them countless times, shrinking in numbers and getting saved by deus ex machinae every other chapter. And it is incredibly boring!
Before I go into the plot more, though, let me grab my laundry list of problems, most of which concern consistency with the other two stories, the main book for Age of Sigmar and the first campaign book, The Realmgate Wars: Quest For Ghal Maraz , which these were based on, and general tonal shifts.
C.L. Werner seemed entirely unaware of what went on before his story. The plot is entirely isolated from it beyond featuring the same named characters, more likely than not straight from the campaign book. I do not believe he was given either the other two campaign books before it, nor the two preceding novellas by Reynolds. As a result, many things are off, glossed over, never mentioned at all, or simply wrong.
For example, Prosecutor-Prime Tegrus is miraculously alive, without any mention at all of him mutating and being put out of his misery by Alarielle in the Hidden Vale. Then there are new characters filling the same roles and military positions that already had dudes filling them before.
Grymn seems to consider this his first time leading the Hallowed Knights, when for most of Hidden Vale, he did exactly that (and was better at it, if you ask me). He constantly goes on about what Gardus would be doing and cites mantras that Gardus never used in the previous stories, and even the manner of Gardus' death is never explained. He's simply dead or "gone". There is a big gap in character development here, and not even once is Grymn's desire to be the Hallowed Knights' shield to Gardus' sword mentioned - something that I liked about the previous part.
Likewise missing are the Astral Templars and Guardians of the Firmament, two other Stormhosts that took part in the War in the Hidden Vale. Zephacleas and co are gone without a trace, as if they never had existed at all, even though they decided to join the exodus before and had no way back besides death anyway.
Alarielle, meanwhile, is presented as the gentle, benevolent goddess who couldn't harm a fly, and is welcoming of the Stormcasts. There is no trace of the wrathful queen who proved she could handle herself and wiped out hordes of enemies in a blink. Instead, she hides behind her Sylvaneth and never takes an active role. No worries, though, since she turns into a seed barely three chapters in, and thus her active role to the story is reduced to about three scenes total.
On the other side of the conflict, Torglug the Despised is now the supreme leader of Nurgle's forces in Ghyran, with no mention of the Glottkin, Gutrot Spume or the other antagonists we know are actually leading the war. Slaugoth Maggotfang is now reduced to Torglug's chief warlock, even though he was defeated far away from the Hidden Vale and was a rival of the Despised. Oh well.
If you've read the previous books (which you should have before starting this anyway), you'll have to stomach all these inconsistencies and more that I didn't list here. All of these problems are down to negligience - whether it was the author's or that of the editors' at Black Library, I cannot say. But the fact of the matter is, someone, somewhere, screwed up mightily.
This is what happens when you try to craft a continuous storyline across several books for a meta-setting, but commission different authors who didn't get the full briefing or research material to aid them. You can't write things like these in a vacuum, and expect good results. The funny thing is, Black Library has done far better with The Beast Arises , which has been in production for at least 3 years before the first book launched, and every author has to read through what came before. It results in a consistent series, which The Realmgate Wars certainly are not.
Now to the problems with the story itself. Yes, I found it utterly boring and tiresome. It felt like an overly elaborate and dragged-out battle report, which makes sense considering it is based on a string of scenarios from The Realmgate Wars: Balance of Power .
The big issue with that is just how repetitive it all is. The Stormcasts repeat the same actions and delaying tactics over and over (block the way, oh we can't, let's leave a rearguard here then to hold the enemy, they die in a blink, repeat). At some point I had to wonder just how much more effective it would have been to meet the enemy in proper combat and reduce them to ashes in one swoop rather than let them gather reinforcements along the way, or give them time to summon daemons.
The better part of the chase takes place on a frozen sea, with a blizzard going on and all. Obviously, shattering the ice to cut off pursuers is attempted, multiple times, with little result.
Tegrus and his winged warriors are delegated to scouting the area and checking up on enemies, far too many times throughout the book ("I have need of your eyes again"), to the point where they barely saw combat. The Lady of Vines, Alarielle's handmaiden and bearer of the Queen-Seed, attempts to do the same magic tricks multiple times, with little result. Torglug turns to Slaugoth for magical help multiple times, too.
And whenever things started to go bad, there was always some form of deus ex machina to help the Stormcasts. It took the form of a second Stormhost being sent (and their boss getting slain within moments, so as not to steal the show from Grymn) or Torglug leaving Grymn after cutting off his hand instead of finishing him (which results in Grymn coming back, of course, and leading the Stormcasts to victory while forming stronger bonds with the Lady of Vines), even though he was looking forward to killing him moments before. Even the final battle was saved by a similar occurence. As a result, there never was any tension to the Stormcasts' struggle. Even when you think a character is dead, he returns after a chapter or two.
Can I just say how bad the book's overall chapter structure is? Twelve chapters for 250-odd pages isn't nearly enough. They drag on, switch points of view multiple times, and at times the timeline arbitrarily skips. There were many, many places where a chapter division could have happened without anything needing to be written differently.
Similarly, the author screwed up on the matter of "show, don't tell". Slaugoth's rival sorcerer under Torglug, for example, barely takes part in the story. We are told about bitter rivalry, but never actually shown the extent of it. We are told how the Skaven seer acted towards Torglug, after his death no less, but never shown anything beyond his "recruitment". We are told that Lizardmen/Seraphon interfered with Torglug's advance, but never shown - they were just shoehorned in as a namedrop without even impacting anything. So much character development and potentially interesting sideplots are missing in favor of repeated clashes on the ice, over and over, without tension or excitement.
A lot of groans came from how bombastic the book attempted to be. But where do you really go from the massive battles early on, and titanic bringers of winter being awoken and stalking the realm like living mountains? Where do you go from having one of Nurgle's Greater Daemons as a sheer unstoppable enemy, apart from throwing three more into the mix later? It is the old problem DC had to fight with for a long time when it came to their comic franchises like Superman, or even Shounen Anime. How do you increase the stakes when you have already defeated foes with the power to destroy whole planets with the tip of their finger? There is a point where it all deflates and becomes a parody of itself, and it looks like Age of Sigmar is about to reach that point.
The story suffers from Age of Sigmar's tendency to tell its narrative in unimaginable superlatives, with no subtlety or real downtime. Every bit of calm is just another preparation for battle two pages on. Every bit of introspection by the characters is focused on war, and how could it be different when, really, they are all basically mind-wiped pawns of their respective gods?
Sometimes, the book tries to be more than it is, and those instances got my hopes up. But it never succeeds in actually being more. It tries to ponder the nature of the gods and asks questions about whether they are acting out of their own free will or by a god's design, but that lasts for about two pages before being forgotten again, without really impacting anybody or anything. It tries to give the antagonist a bit of a redemption arc at the very end, but it simply doesn't work. It falls flat due to how unlikeable and irredeemably bad he was for the whole novel. The fragments strewn throughout just don't hold up to the task. Besides, seeing Torglug fawning over the perfection of the Celestant Prime like everybody else on the Stormcast side does is just tiring. It also didn't help that Torglug's manner of speech was that of an imbecile, completely disconnected from his Reynolds-version.
‘Shall I be telling you a secret?’ Torglug said, his blemished eyes fastened upon those of the lightning-man. ‘Are you knowing what is putting victory within my grasp? After so much fruitless searching, I am finding way into Athelwyrd. I am telling you,’ the warlord chortled. ‘Lightning-men who are finding refuge for me. You are uncovering door I am not finding. You are coming here seeking audience with Alarielle, to be promising her aid of your Sigmar. Instead, you are breaking spells that are hiding her from me. Belonging to you is glory of exposing Radiant Queen’s redoubt.’
And then, after a bit of a bigger battle where Chaos gets destroyed within moments by the significantly overpowered Celestant Prime, Grymn and co, the book simply ends with little resolution to the plotline. Seeing how the Celestant Prime wasn't even part of 90% of the story, I got annoyed by how much of the show he stole here, without even a single line of dialogue. Werner wrote him well in Hammers of Sigmar, but here he stole the opportunity of a final face-off between the established characters. Instead, the novel ends on a note of uncertainty, and a feeling of defeat, unsatisfying even in its final moments.
No, I cannot possibly recommend this one. I fought with myself just to keep reading and finish what I started. Battles blur together to the point of being blunted, and what little development between Grymn and the Sylvaneth I enjoyed, was quickly drowned out by yet another engagement. Adding the continuity issues to the mix, or the very repetitive environments and even dialogue or characters' thoughts, the book made me almost fall asleep on my Kindle on multiple occassions. I'd mark this one down as the worst of C.L. Werner's works I have read to date.
September 13, 2016
Continuing the chronological progression of the Realmgate Wars series, this follows on from Josh Reynolds' novella in Ghal Maraz focussing on the alliance between the Hallowed Knights and the Sylvaneth against the hosts of Torglug the Despised, and also, in a way, from C.L. Werner's own entry in Hammers of Sigmar. As is often proving to be the case, the Chaos characters provide most of the interest and Torglug is a particularly intriguing antagonist, actually harbouring doubts about whether he's picked the right side and raising the possibility of redemption, which we rarely if ever see in Old World Warhammer or 40K. I would have liked to have seen more of that, but battles dominate as they have throughout. That's no bad thing, and they're all well done, and it was particularly nice to see the Sylvaneth see some action. Lord-Castellant Grimm wins the determination prize for the way he bashes his head against the brick wall that is Torglug, and it was also nice to see the character grow into his command as the story went on. If a tricky situation was too often resolved by lightning bolts from the heavens depositing new troops into the battle, it is at least well explained why this can't *always* happen, and it didn't detract from the tension. An exciting read all in all, and I'm looking forward to Lord of Undeath for some blacker fair.
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July 7, 2017It was a good book, i really enjoyed it, but the story was unecessarly prolonged (the middle part).
I must admit the realmgate wars is getting better and better, as the story progresses.
I must admit the realmgate wars is getting better and better, as the story progresses.
May 11, 2021
When reading Warhammer fiction, you kind of have to take it as a sub-genre all its own, and consider the purpose of each of these books. They're designed to flesh out their universe, yes, and of course tell stories that provoke and entertain, but their more important purpose is to support the table-top game they belong to. That means getting people hyped up by including the kind of combat and setpieces that can be more or less reenacted on the table-top. That is, Warhammer fiction kind of has to be taken at face-value, as more pulp entertainment than something particularly deep or introspective.
That being said, there *is* room to interweave this kind of setpiece combat with more characterful elements, and that's something I've enjoyed about the Realmgate Wars series so far, especially in terms of characterizing the stormhosts. Age of Sigmar is still a relatively new setting, especially when Wardens of the Everqueen was published, but Werner did a great job fleshing out characters like Lord-Castellant Grymn and Nurgle warlord Torglug. Throughout the book Werner deftly strings together some pretty cool combat phases with some more interesting story phases, especially where Grymn interacts with the Sylvaneth leadership and where Torglug ponders his place in this story.
Torglug is an especially fascinating character, much more interesting than the Khorne and Tzeentch warlords and warlocks which have earlier been series antagonists. In some ways his story parallels that of the stormcasts'. Indeed, he has a story that could very well have led to him being one of Sigmar's chosen, except that in his inglorious end he was corrupted by Nurgle instead of getting the chance to fight to the death. Torglug dismissing the Stormcasts as fanatics of Sigmar reinforces this parallelism, the two sides so unintentionally similar in a way which puts an interesting spin on the constant battle between chaos and order.
Although it has what feels like a bit of a rushed ending, I think that this story is an excellent addition to the Age of Sigmar library, and it's worth a read along with earlier books in this series if you're at all interested in this setting or just general over the top fiction of this kind. I'm excited to read more about the Hallowed Knights, as I understand they've become a fairly popular legion in this series. But first, I'm excited to finish the rest of the books in the Realmgate Wars. It is to this books credit that it maintains that excitement despite a fairly rote structure and an unsatisfying conclusion.
That being said, there *is* room to interweave this kind of setpiece combat with more characterful elements, and that's something I've enjoyed about the Realmgate Wars series so far, especially in terms of characterizing the stormhosts. Age of Sigmar is still a relatively new setting, especially when Wardens of the Everqueen was published, but Werner did a great job fleshing out characters like Lord-Castellant Grymn and Nurgle warlord Torglug. Throughout the book Werner deftly strings together some pretty cool combat phases with some more interesting story phases, especially where Grymn interacts with the Sylvaneth leadership and where Torglug ponders his place in this story.
Torglug is an especially fascinating character, much more interesting than the Khorne and Tzeentch warlords and warlocks which have earlier been series antagonists. In some ways his story parallels that of the stormcasts'. Indeed, he has a story that could very well have led to him being one of Sigmar's chosen, except that in his inglorious end he was corrupted by Nurgle instead of getting the chance to fight to the death. Torglug dismissing the Stormcasts as fanatics of Sigmar reinforces this parallelism, the two sides so unintentionally similar in a way which puts an interesting spin on the constant battle between chaos and order.
Although it has what feels like a bit of a rushed ending, I think that this story is an excellent addition to the Age of Sigmar library, and it's worth a read along with earlier books in this series if you're at all interested in this setting or just general over the top fiction of this kind. I'm excited to read more about the Hallowed Knights, as I understand they've become a fairly popular legion in this series. But first, I'm excited to finish the rest of the books in the Realmgate Wars. It is to this books credit that it maintains that excitement despite a fairly rote structure and an unsatisfying conclusion.
September 30, 2019
This book picks up where one of the earlier books left off. In this one, The Hallowed Knights must defend the Everqueen against the forces of Nurgle led by Torglug The Despised. With their leader slain in the earlier battle with Nurgle their second in command Lord Castellant Lorus Grymn must lead them into battle with the help of a few notable allies. This book is a good mix of action and dialogue and gives the reader some more insight into the characters that were not mentioned in the earlier story such as Grymn's doubt about his own ability to lead and the source of Torglug's hate for the forces of Order. The settings for the battles are truly fantastic (one is a living mountain) and this really adds to the excitement in the story. This is the 6th book in a 9 book series and stands out as one of the better ones so far. I definitely recommend this book.
June 24, 2017
Following on from Josh Reynolds’ novellas in War Storm and Ghal Maraz, this continues the story of the Hallowed Knights in the realm of Ghyran, as they fight to protect the Everqueen, Alarielle, from falling into the hands of Nurgle’s champion Torglug the Despised.
As the book progresses it becomes clear that its early promise is partly maintained, but only partly. The journey becomes something of a slog, bogged down in battle after battle, and while the overall arc allows Grymn, Torglug and co. to develop, the plot becomes a little repetitive.
Overall, though, this is pretty satisfying, and certainly feels like the most cohesive story so far in the series.
Read the full review at http://www.trackofwords.com/2017/06/2...
As the book progresses it becomes clear that its early promise is partly maintained, but only partly. The journey becomes something of a slog, bogged down in battle after battle, and while the overall arc allows Grymn, Torglug and co. to develop, the plot becomes a little repetitive.
Overall, though, this is pretty satisfying, and certainly feels like the most cohesive story so far in the series.
Read the full review at http://www.trackofwords.com/2017/06/2...
April 7, 2021
2.5 Stars
A continuation of the storyline of the Steel Souls penned by Josh Reynolds in War Storm (The Gates of Dawn) and in Ghal Maraz (War In the Hidden Vale), this one doesn't do as well. Asking Herr Werner to pen this one probably wasn't the best idea either, mostly because another writer originated these characters, this is a direct continuation, and it doesn't appear that there was much of a previous read on the previous chapters in the saga. Others have reviewed this in more detail, and continuity errors like Tegrus coming back unscathed, and the disappearance of the Astral Templars, are pretty glaring.
The narration itself is more breathless superlatives, which was not at all Werner's style in Warhammer Fantasy, and I continue to wonder if he's poking fun at having to write a faction that does not seem to be to his taste (though he does get plenty of Nurglish nastiness to write, which he can do in his sleep).
I will say that Lord-Castellant Grymn is a much better leader than he gives himself credit for, the incident with the loss of his hand and its replacement is really interesting, and there is a measurable sense of tension that does leave you wondering how the Steel Souls can possibly fulfill their mission to shepherd Alarielle to safety. Having the Celestant-Prime show up in the tradition of the Eagles of Manwë might be a bit anti-climactic, but it's about the only way things were going to get better, and this kind of thing is exactly what the Stormcast Eternals are for. They literally are the celestial avengers bringing deliverance from on high, so it's a bit silly to complain about. He's just doing his job, and it is nice to see that the Big S has enough firepower in spots to actually overthrow Chaos, rather than frantically stave them off as in WHF.
This one is hard to recommend, not because there isn't enjoyment here, but because of the glaring continuity errors. Read it for what it is, and you'll have a better time.
A continuation of the storyline of the Steel Souls penned by Josh Reynolds in War Storm (The Gates of Dawn) and in Ghal Maraz (War In the Hidden Vale), this one doesn't do as well. Asking Herr Werner to pen this one probably wasn't the best idea either, mostly because another writer originated these characters, this is a direct continuation, and it doesn't appear that there was much of a previous read on the previous chapters in the saga. Others have reviewed this in more detail, and continuity errors like Tegrus coming back unscathed, and the disappearance of the Astral Templars, are pretty glaring.
The narration itself is more breathless superlatives, which was not at all Werner's style in Warhammer Fantasy, and I continue to wonder if he's poking fun at having to write a faction that does not seem to be to his taste (though he does get plenty of Nurglish nastiness to write, which he can do in his sleep).
I will say that Lord-Castellant Grymn is a much better leader than he gives himself credit for, the incident with the loss of his hand and its replacement is really interesting, and there is a measurable sense of tension that does leave you wondering how the Steel Souls can possibly fulfill their mission to shepherd Alarielle to safety. Having the Celestant-Prime show up in the tradition of the Eagles of Manwë might be a bit anti-climactic, but it's about the only way things were going to get better, and this kind of thing is exactly what the Stormcast Eternals are for. They literally are the celestial avengers bringing deliverance from on high, so it's a bit silly to complain about. He's just doing his job, and it is nice to see that the Big S has enough firepower in spots to actually overthrow Chaos, rather than frantically stave them off as in WHF.
This one is hard to recommend, not because there isn't enjoyment here, but because of the glaring continuity errors. Read it for what it is, and you'll have a better time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 10, 2020
Continuation of the story from the previous installments. The chase is on! Can the putrid blightkings reach the seed of everqueen? The Stormcasts stand in their way in the desperate scramble for escape.
This is a relentless read following the flight of our heroes. Quite enjoyable to see the valiant efforts of our Sigmarite knights. I also especially enjoyed seeing the Sylvaneth fight even though they were overmatched in much of the story.
This is a relentless read following the flight of our heroes. Quite enjoyable to see the valiant efforts of our Sigmarite knights. I also especially enjoyed seeing the Sylvaneth fight even though they were overmatched in much of the story.
October 15, 2021
I greatly enjoyed this, and I’m definitely sold on the Age of Sigmar as a setting. This is, essentially, a story about one long battle, and the pacing and tension is well-done in my opinion. This definitely does a lot to excite me for the setting.
February 1, 2019
Not a bad story but I couldn’t get a great feel for the characters. Still enjoyed reading it for the most part.
July 21, 2017
For whatever reason, when I'm at my lowest ebb, fantasy fiction has always been the only thing to pull me through some really dark moments. And the best type of fantasy to aid my psyche are the stories that have heroes battling long odds. Some of the best of that is Warhammer.
I had read this before, earlier in the year, but had to reread it recently as it's very much a tale of outnumbered heroes battling hordes of evil, vile, dark foes bent on the eradication of life.
Set in the newish Age of Sigmar universe (think Biblical War in Heaven type tales on steroids and in 3-d), the book follows the Hallowed Knights Chamber of Stormcast Eternals as they fight a grueling rear guard action against the forces of the god of pestilence and assumptive taco-hell style gas: Nurgle. Their main task is to protect the Everqueen, Alarielle (she of the Wood Elves of old world Warhammer, now a goddess), unless Nurgle takes control of the power of life and growth itself.
Basically the book is one long action sequence, and features the menagerie of Chaos Warriors, Nurgle stuff, Plague Skaven, molting Beastmen, and the good guys: Stormcast, and the still weird to me bastardized hybrids of tree and Elf that are the Sylvaneth.
I found it fitting that Clint Werner would pen the first full length novel of the AoS setting, and here he does a very good job. A bit of a morality tale with Torsun/Torglug makes its way onto the pages as well, something Clint does in all his books at least in a small way.
Well worth the reread, and definitely among the best, thus far, of the AoS setting, which hopefully gets some new life breathed into it as it's run out of steam a bit novel wise.
Easy 4 of 5 stars.
I had read this before, earlier in the year, but had to reread it recently as it's very much a tale of outnumbered heroes battling hordes of evil, vile, dark foes bent on the eradication of life.
Set in the newish Age of Sigmar universe (think Biblical War in Heaven type tales on steroids and in 3-d), the book follows the Hallowed Knights Chamber of Stormcast Eternals as they fight a grueling rear guard action against the forces of the god of pestilence and assumptive taco-hell style gas: Nurgle. Their main task is to protect the Everqueen, Alarielle (she of the Wood Elves of old world Warhammer, now a goddess), unless Nurgle takes control of the power of life and growth itself.
Basically the book is one long action sequence, and features the menagerie of Chaos Warriors, Nurgle stuff, Plague Skaven, molting Beastmen, and the good guys: Stormcast, and the still weird to me bastardized hybrids of tree and Elf that are the Sylvaneth.
I found it fitting that Clint Werner would pen the first full length novel of the AoS setting, and here he does a very good job. A bit of a morality tale with Torsun/Torglug makes its way onto the pages as well, something Clint does in all his books at least in a small way.
Well worth the reread, and definitely among the best, thus far, of the AoS setting, which hopefully gets some new life breathed into it as it's run out of steam a bit novel wise.
Easy 4 of 5 stars.
March 23, 2016
Only The Faithful!
Really enjoyed the book, was a real tale of overcoming adversity and really grew the character of the Hallowed Knights which is always good. Unfortunately the ending was not quite as I hoped - a fantastic spectacle and still enjoyable but less than that which is hoped for.
Still a cracking book and recommended reading
Really enjoyed the book, was a real tale of overcoming adversity and really grew the character of the Hallowed Knights which is always good. Unfortunately the ending was not quite as I hoped - a fantastic spectacle and still enjoyable but less than that which is hoped for.
Still a cracking book and recommended reading
July 5, 2016
Page to page epic action with a very memorable bad guy. I wish more 40K fiction was at this level.
August 1, 2016
Protecting the Everqueen from Chaos.
April 10, 2017
Compared to some of the other books in the Realmgate wars I enjoyed this story very much. It continues the story of the Hallowed Knights but with their Leader gone falls to their 2IC Lord Castellant Grymn to lead them and protect Alarielle the Everqueen from the forces of chaos.
I found Grymn and the antagonist a champion of Nurgle to be interesting characters to read about as the book is told from both their positions.
I found Grymn and the antagonist a champion of Nurgle to be interesting characters to read about as the book is told from both their positions.
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