So far We've had the Legend of Sigmar, The rise of Nagash, and The Von Carstein trilogy. Next month brings the epic Sundering of Elves.
Don't be expecting a neat storyline where one book flows seamlessly into the next, oh no. Gav Thorpe is a marvelously good writer but the way that every novel ends on a cliffhanger and every subsequent novel refuses to resolve those cliffhangers, switching to new characters and settings like it's malignantly defying your expectations, is something that made me pull my hair out in frustration.
I guess that the scope of the war was a little too big to be handled by any sort of conventional storytelling.
And they were very good stories but damn me if I wasn't fed up by Caledor though.
The trilogy's resolution is also one that won't be resolved for thousands of years in-world either.
Expect to read the End Times for the full tale on this one.
I suppose it's something that should be expected. As the elves are long-lived their tale necessarily must be one of those that needs the longest time to resolve itself.
For the Old World setting, the Time of Legends novels were meant to give readers the information on the prevailing status quo of that world.
This means that as long as the setting continued, the Sundering trilogy was good enough as it is.
But with the End Times, the effective end of the Old World, The Sundering ends on a cliffhanger, which won't be resolved for millenia.
And of the Time of Legends novels I've read, The Sundering is unique in this. It's the only one without an actual finale, ending with promises instead of definite resolution.
The Rise of Nagash's ending delivered a perfect circle, the Legend of Sigmar had full resolution, even though it did not end with Sigmar's ascension.
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Up and coming in April we knew of the Champions of Chaos omnibus which quite frankly is drop dead gorgeous and something I'll clear some time off of my designated reading schedule when it comes out.
And can I just say that I'm so happy that the initial cover that I posted in the earlier blogpost on the Chronicles did not turn out to be the one they picked.
This is also the first one of the Chronicles Omnibi of which I haven't already read everything of, and so I'll be going in pretty blind. I did already read the short story Reaper by Sarah Cawkwell, which I picked up in a chapbook somewhere and which was utterly brilliant.So I'm very much looking forward to this one.
Sigvald will be read in anticipation so that when the omnibus arrives I'll have no qualms about directly moving into Valkia's storylines (apparently all the short stories in the omnibus are hers!)
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Now those are the omnibi that we knew of.
But now in the darkling quiet there's whispers. rumours, quiet natterings of the coming of a Great Betrayal in May,
(And it's going to be one of these two,
I'm partial to the above, but until they release them you never can tell...)
the hunting of witches in the summer of June,
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| Note the Twin-Tailed Comet iconography |
but maybe most intriguingly; the return of the Bloodborn Lady in july.
And it is this one above all others that makes me anticipate the return of my favourite duo of the Old World. But the fact that Ulrika is here before them makes me expect either a surprise release somewhere up ahead or maybe even a limited edition treatment, which quite frankly is more than a little overdue.
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I have read the Witchhunter omnibus, though I honestly can't remember much of it, which doesn't necessarily mean much as I used to gulp down Warhammer like it was air in those days.
The War of Vengeance is the one that actually made me stop reading the novels. I didn't actually read it, mind you, but the Black Library was in a very bad period again where they just switched cover styles right between novel releases and it was teeth-grittingly infuriating enough that I just stopped buying the novels and ended up waiting for the inevitable omnibi releases... which then never came...
I've also not read any Ulrika though I did love her in the Gotrek and Felix series.
Really clever move by William King doing what he did. Genuinely memorable.
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In 40K news which I usually don't dabble in I did find something of note, which was the (unexpected) omnibus for Armageddon, which I might pick up.
Helsreach is just an absolute classic and genuinely good in its own right. Shades of David Gemmell, but in melancholy first person, and with bolters, chainswords and aliens.
How can you say no to that?
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And this one, which also intrigued me, and which isn't 40k and rather of the Age of Sigmar setting.
This is volume 1 out of a total of 2 which will be collecting the entirety of the Realmgate Wars.
2, I tells ya!
That means that besides the Gates of Azyr novella, this one will collect the first five novels of the Realmgate Wars saga. What the hell, man? How small is that print going to be, how large the book?
But then again, it's not as if the Realmgate novels were that big to begin with anyway.
Guess we'll have to wait and see in August somewhere.
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(Oh yeah, and in more Age of Sigmar news: Nagash is gonna start duking it out with Sigmar in July in Josh Reynolds' Soul Wars, presumably tying into the whole Malign Portents thing. Nagash coming into Azyr and all that jazz.
I guess it's a little refreshing, Chaos not being the big baddie again, though hmm, I don't know, I like Chaos. But I'll be honest, I like Nagash too. I'll be interested to hear some opinions on this one when it comes out.)
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