Customer Reviews

The Broken Lance (Warhammer Novels)

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As a long-time reader of Nathan Long's work (no pun intended, but it's rather nice, no?) and a noisy fan his first Blackhearts novel, Valnir's Bane, I thought I knew what to expect from this book. An anti-hero who schemes and winces and reluctantly -- sometimes accidentally -- makes smart choices. A misfit or two so maladroit and creepy that I want them to die. At least one horrible quandary that makes me think uncomfortable thoughts. And huge, gory battle scenes involving every bashing tool but the kitchen sink (oh, wait, there's a skaven just getting bashed over the head with a kitchen sink). Did I get what I expected? Absolutely! In overflowing pagefuls. Pages full? Anyway, in heaps and heaps.

I expected to like most of the characters. What I did not expect was to admire any of them. What I did not expect was a hero. And Long, damn his eyes, wrote a hero into this book. A traditionally tragic hero, to boot. So right in the middle of all my glee at the gore, I was also smearing away tears at moments of pathos.

Nathan Long, I hate you. Do it again.

Nathan shows an excellent knack for complex plotting, especially for creating situations in which his characters are pulled in multiple directions by various loyalties and predilections. In The Broken Lance almost everyone is contemplating betraying everyone else, which results in a lot of enjoyable tension between the characters and suspense in the reader. It is a page turner. However, and I realize this is a sword and sorcery novel, at some points I found myself wishing the action scenes would get done with so as to get onto the more interesting plot considerations. On the other hand, that's probably just be my own preference. Action junkies likely will not be disappointed.