Taught by the legendary Helmut Schau, Dieter Lanz has gathered every skill needed by a Scarlet Sword infantryman. On his 18th birthday he sets out to join Helmut's old company. Along the way he finds out that Hochland has been invaded by an army of Orcs under a new and wily chieftain.
Battle. Carnage. Excitement.
But not really.
Well, I don't have much to say about this one.
Call to Arms fits to a tee what a mainstream reader might expect to read when they hear they're about to read a 'Warhammer' novel.
i.e. It's all about the fighting.
Everything from character backgrounds to subplots (were there any?) revolve around either martial upbringing or warfare.
It's in large contrast with the other Empire Armies novel I read this week.
In Reiksguard you had the Father-Son dynamic with that shadow stretching everywhere from plot to characters, you had the mystery subplot, the provincials vs Reiklanders, personal animosity between the main characters, the interplay of the switching points of view both from our multiple main characters and from 2 enemy characters AND THEN you still had the battles to top it all off. They were better battles too, as observed from the point of view characters who had inner conflicts and who actually looked as if they might bite the broadsword at times.
And in Reiksguard they were knights for Sigmar's sake. The most clichéd warriors one thinks of when you think of a medieval setting.
Here we have footsoldiers. Swordsmen. The regular joes. In the day and age where military fantasy seems to be at its peak, how do you get away with making those so boring?
Well, the interplay between them is limited to the accepted one and constrains itself to the absolute norm; with semi-hostile banter that is always explained and commented on as a natural venting process for men under stress. They are also stereotypical army men; the devout one, the grizzled soldier, the sniper who talks to his gun, the garrulous lazy one, the shifty bastard. All of these characters are ones you've seen before and likely in the same type of story.
But maybe the worst offender of all is our main character Dieter Lanz.
A main character who's upbringing is in perfect alignment with where he ends up. So that to every situation he has a perfect response and a perfect answer to. He's a bloody Mary Sue.
The plot itself was formulaic, though there was a revolution to it I wasn't expecting, or rather, I wouldn't have expected it if it hadn't already been given away on the back blurb. As it is, it's also a let-down and what could have been interesting was just as bland as the rest of the novel. The first half of the story had at least some decent build-up but by the time we reach part 3 everything becomes rushed. It's a slog where nobody's at risk and where nothing really matters, right up until the final battle. And then that's over in the blink of an eye, helped along by ridiculous deus ex machina.
The novel does a lot of things wrong, but most of all; It is boring. Nothing exciting happens, nothing dangerous, nothing that'll make you remember this one in a few months.
Well, at least it was consistently bad.
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A stupid novel to be reading on the last day of the year but, Ah well. At least the Empire Armies Series is done.
I can comfortable say that Call to Arms was the worst of the lot.
Reiksguard, Iron Company and Warrior Priest are the better ones, even though I think I remember Grimblades being a bit of a beast on its own. Though it's been too long ago to rate that one with any accuracy.
The Empire omnibus collects Iron Company, Grimblades and The Newcomer Gemmell award-winning Warrior priest alongside a number of short stories that tie either into those stories or the Empire Armies setting. For the rest they can be read out of order as they're all stand-alones.
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