Blizzard Novel Reviews

Reviews by Magic were purchased over Amazon UK, though other people may prefer the main Amazon.com site.

More information on the books can be found there and at Blizzard's website.

Any assortment of spoilers are avoided as much as possible in these reviews.


'ENTHRALLING'



Lord of the Clans
Game: WarCraft
Author: Christie Golden
Summary: An orc raised by humans escapes his captivity and embarks upon an epic quest to save his race.

Originally an ill-fated adventure game that scrapped by Blizzard due to various complications (If you must know: personnel difficulties, an excessive production time and risky financial prospects), the story of the rise of the young Thrall finally made its way to this book of the same name. Due to his importance in the WarCraft story, including his renewed game appearance as Warchief in WarCraft 3: Reign of Chaos, it was decided to have a novel to explain to fans his origin and rise to become, naturally, Lord of the Clans.

During the First War, a young orc is found in the wilderness and raised by an Alliance officer. He dubs the creature Thrall and has great plans for 'it'. Eventually, after the Second War between the human Alliance and orcish Horde is over, the remnants of the orc clans are few and scattered with the majority imprisoned within several internment camps set up by the Alliance. Those imprisoned no longer contain their savage bloodlust or desire for carnage, and peculiarly have little energy either. The overseer of the camps was the one who found the orcish infant, and now he plots to use the creature to line his pocket with gold. After a savage beating, however, Thrall decides to escape with the help of a local girl and soon embarks upon a quest to reclaim his heritage, that of his clan and very race, and discover his destiny.

Noticeable links with WarCraft are light - a handful of familiar characters make an appearance and, naturally, act accordingly, but they are few and far between, unlike Day of the Dragon which has many more. LOTC usually has little need for them, though - it's in the mostly unrestricted confines of after the Second War, concentrating on creating new characters and exploring unseen areas, especially Thrall and the orc race.

I can say for certain that Lord of the Clans will not fail to disappoint in quality. This is definitely excellent fantasy reading -- reminding me of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, my first major fantasy novel -- with very little, if any, dull or tedious passages - I was nearly always interested in continuing to read. There is a great mixture of action, travelling, intrigue with distinct characters throughout -- Grom's first appearance is most suitable -- and a wide range of emotions are instilled into the reader through Golden's work, such as shock, sympathy, despair and hope (In fact, a scene towards the end almost brought me to shed a tear). She has done a brilliant rendition of the tale, making up for the sour disappointment of the adventure game's cancellation. Speaking of which, if you studied the remains of said game, such as the snippets of information and screenshots upon the net, I will tell you now that very little is used -- including Thrall's sweet one-liner at the end of the teaser cinematic -- and the book is predominantly fresh material. There's no, for example, conspiracy involving Rend and Maim (Blackhand's sons), Thrall meeting with Alexstrasza or Deathwing, mending broken goblin zeppelins or so such, though I suppose those suited the adventure game incarnation. On the plus side of this, there is more authentic parts, even if in turn this means some of the 'coolest' parts we saw of the game and its world are not present. Perhaps that's the taste of disappointment still resonating on my tongue? Maybe, but I wonder why Christie couldn't have fitted them into the book despite the expense of creative freedom.

The adventure is suitably epic, with many memorable and fantastic scenes, bringing in themes of honour, freedom, heritage and mercy, plus a showing of the culture of the misunderstood orcs. Whereas in WC1 and 2 they were ruthless monsters, you'll come to realise that they are a far more tragic race.

LOTC may, however, disappoint in duration - 278 pages, whereas Day of the Dragon has precisely one hundred more, in fact, and is for the same price upon Amazon. You know it's coming to an ending far quicker than you'd like and some sequences are arguably too short or just feel rushed, like they are only as long as necessary ... as if Christie was not truly constantly enthusiastic and interested in creating a WarCraft novel. However, that said, it's the enjoyment of the duration that matters and it hardly detracts from the pleasure of simply reading it so this is certainly a minor gripe.

Not all parts of the book are exactly logical with WC3, I thought. When Thrall and a certain individual met in the game, I thought there'd be a possible link to the book. No such things happen. One, fairly major character from the book never appeared in the game - it feels like there was no attempt to link any parts of the book to the game, aside the main outcomes and ending. This, to me and possibly other WC fans, makes it seem less like official canon. I'm sure that it could all be logically explained somehow, as well as it simply not being possible to forge precise links between Golden's work during the making of either product, the novel and game -- and if so then objection withdrawn.

As you'd expect me to state - if you like fantasy settings, especially the WarCraft one, you'll certainly enjoy Lord of the Clans, I have no doubt about that. I suggest you read The Last Guardian or Day of the Dragon before, however, just because they are better overall books and thoroughly part of the WC universe. With that said, this is still superb value for money, going by the hours on average it took me to read through, and it remains very much recommended.

Loktar ogar!

Rating: 3/5

Rommel's Review:
It was the first WC book I read. I actually expected more. It is definitely enjoyable, but too predictable, and in my opinion worst of all three (LOTC, DOTD and TLG), although it's not bad at all, only worse than the other two. What really annoyed was that it had almost nothing to do with the original Warcraft Adventures: LotC (as we can see from its beta screenshots, since it was never released), the parts about Rend and Maim, Alexstrasza, Deathwing, etc, were thrown away (Maybe due to the DOTD novel?). The storyline, as I said, is very predictable and all characters are too 'cliche'. And Thrall is too good for an orc - I can't believe a greenskin can be so noble and merciful. It's a bit too naive, in my opinion.

Rating: 6.5/10


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'FIERY'



Day of the Dragon
Game: WarCraft
Author: Richard A. Knaak
Summary: Maverick mage is set upon a quest to liberate the Dragon Queen in orcish-held lands.

Where to begin? Conspiracy, intrigue, mystery, action, crazy gryphon-riding dwarf's, sorcerers, villains, politics, and, of course, dragons - this book has all of these and expertly weaves them together to make a brilliant WarCraft novel.

The end of the Second War is truly close to finally ending in the world of Azeroth, the second of the orc-human conflicts that has devastated the realms. Yet the desperate orcs of the Dragonmaw clan aren't quite beaten yet - they still control small if significant areas of Khaz Modan and their greatest prize - the Dragon Queen Alexstraza - allows their mighty dragons to continue to be a great menace to the Alliance. The human forces are hard pressed to defeat these orcs, along with maintaining the uneasy and bickering unison of its nations and races. The Kirin Tor council of the magocratic nation of Dalaran send a mage, Rhonin - a loner-styled maverick with a tainted past - on the impossible task of liberating the queen to help end the war. The council of mage's believe he will fail, while but one, even more mysterious than the rest, has faith in him. After meeting and travelling with an impassive elven Ranger, Rhonin's quest soon becomes far more complex than he had ever imagined...

I simply must leave the story at that as there is of course much more to it, with some excellent moments and twists, some of which in the book are hinted at and others not at all. The pace is much faster than Lord of the Clans, with plenty of surprises, characters and genuinely wonderful passages that keep you guessing and interested in the story. A range of other characters are introduced throughout, with distinct personality's and information on their points of view and agenda. The viewpoints and opinions of various characters are seen and transitioned regularly - ala science fiction spectacular Dune - and each time we are shown what is on their mind, both their worries and objectives. This is certainly more interesting than one characters constant view throughout, even though it is mostly Rhonin we see.

Major human characters of the WarCraft universe are seen for the first time - mostly the Alliance's leaders, such as King Terenas, and he fortunately acts just as you'd expect for a mighty, wise king, and there's no Genn Greymane being nice and outgoing here, for example. There's even a minor cameo of a future character from WarCraft 3 too. Additionally, there are more familiar units and even 'buildings' (Well, at least one) used than in Lord of the Clans, which is again appealing for players of the games to immerse themselves and really believe this is WarCraft - such details, quite unlike Golden's Lord of the Clans, really are excellent to draw in WarCraft fan(atics). Whereas Golden rarely stepped far into the recognisable parts of the WC world, and arguably more of a standard fantasy one, Day of the Dragon is always reminding you it's part of the Blizzard setting. It's clear that Knaak seems to have had more contact with Blizzard's story-tellers (Chris Metzen, then) or played the games more than Golden.

This is absolutely essential for WarCraft fans that enjoy a great novel. A must.

What more can I say? It's got dragons in it!

Rating: 5/5

Rommel's Review:
Quite long and interesting. I'm glad the author has a good idea of post-WC2 politics, as they're described in the first part of the book. The adventure part, with Rhonin & Co travelling to Khaz Modan, is a bit cliche (especially Rhonin/Vereesa relations), but very well written and quite enjoyable. What I didn't like is that Prestor simply turned out to be **** (no spoilers!), thus making the political intrigue much more plain. Also, the author seems to be a bit obsessed with the dragons and everything connected with them (no surprise - he's working on Dragonlance series). Oh, and I also liked Arthas's cameo :-)

Rating: 7.5/10

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'MASTERFUL'



The Last Guardian
Game: WarCraft
Author: Jeff Grubb
Summary: During the First War, Khadgar, a young mage of Dalaran, is sent to the tower of the sorcerer Medivh to become his apprentice, with the ulterior motive of being a spy for his magocratic nation. As he settles in, he gradually comes to learn more of Medivh's lineage and the legendary Order of Tirisfall.

This is an amazing book. It's a shame those five words do not convey the justice deserved - I can say that this is a true WarCraft novel, especially since it deals with one of the most major of its characters, Medivh. He's possibly the closest WarCraft has to Lord of the Rings' Gandalf - a very powerful mage who from birth has had a destiny forged for him. While Lord of the Clans never felt like it was utterly WarCraft, and Day of the Dragon did in most parts, The Last Guardian is definitely very much so. It is clear the author, Jeff Grubb, really delved into the setting and intended to explain fully what happened with Medivh in the First War with a sense of great enthusiasm and care.

When I first head about TLG and Khadgar being Medivh's apprentice (Which had never been mentioned until the WC2 expansion), I thought more inconsistency's, the bane of WC fanatics like myself, were to be created, but after reading TLG this is clearly wrong. The book does a great deal in filling in gaps and 'answering' queries fans may have about the first years and events of WarCraft 1, such as Medivh's status as a Guardian, his mother Aegwynn and Garona the half-orc. It all adds up and makes sense - the effort was clearly well spent and worth it, of which we should be thankful to Mr Grubb. Here he has been more than an excellent writer, able to create great scenes, moments of humour (Of the laugh out variety, I found) and well characterised personalities, especially Medivh.

Even non-WarCraft players should enjoy TLG as there isn't a great deal needed to understand it, though fans will appreciate the explanations and links Grubb has created much more. This comes extremely highly recommended.

Rating: 5/5


Rommel's Review
Wow, that one REAL Warcraft novel! Not only it's very well written, it also explains many things of its history, i.e. why did Medivh return as a good guy and what's the real story of Aegwynn's war against Sargeras (I only didn't realise how did the Daemonlord simply appear in Azeroth without any preparations). I also found out many things about Garona. I thought that she was a mere spy/assassin, but she also worked for the humans, remaining loyal to Gul'Dan at the same time. The only thing I didn't like was the book's cover. Sammy could've drawn a new pic, instead of using the old concept art!

Rating 8.7/10

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'ARTY'



Art of WarCraft
Game: WarCraft
Author: Blizzard Entertainment
Summary: Never before seen, large and finely-printed artwork of the WarCraft universe.

This is not a novel but a collection of artwork with annotations from various WarCraft games, mainly WarCraft 3, Lord of the Clans and World of WarCraft. There are a mass of images - twin page versions of major artwork (Usually of the WC3 desktop wallpapers), concept art, unseen pictures and more.

It's split up into various sections - one for each race (Human, orc, Night Elf, Undead, Demons), Visions of Azeroth (Geography and scenery), World of WarCraft (The new MMORPG game) and Misc. (WarCraft Novel cover art, holiday images). There are computer generated, concept art, 3D renders, cinematic shots and paintings and all are very well made as we've come to expect by Blizzard's very high standards. The book itself is more expensive than the others I have reviewed, by at least three times for myself (£18.99, compared to under £5) but it's evident why with the actual size and quality of the pages. The artwork is extremely beautiful and printed very finely - I could not imagine it possibly being any more so.

While the quality is fantastic, I was disappointed at the lack of text in the book however - the most you see is a typically few, short paragraphs on a page, and there's rarely a major insight into the creation process or anything else. There are some interesting details and tidbits for fans (Concept art for Burning Legion units anyone? Ever realised the Hitchcock-inspiration for the Human's ending cinematic in WC3?) but not as much as you want, or at least fans like myself. There's no major breakdown of a cinematic with notes by the animators on their methods or anything, which sometimes makes me think someone ordered a book to be made with all the WC artwork and anything else, like notations, isn't really as important. The book sticks firmly to being a collection of artwork, though, even if I was longing for some deep insight.

Unlike novels such as Day of the Dragon, I would not go as far as to say this is 'essential'. It's simply an expensive collection of WC artwork (Some of which you may have seen off Blizzard's website or in-game), so try not to get your hopes up for much more It won't entertain you as long as the WarCraft books - unless you study each page for a great length of time - so I'm at odds who to recommend it for. I'll say Art of WarCraft is only for major fans.
With spare cash to spend.
And an appreciation of great art.

Rating: 3.5/5

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