Customer Reviews

Chronicles of Malus Darkblade (Warhammer)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ahh, Malus. This title contains books 4 and 5 in the series. Malus is getting ever closer to the one year mark and things are happening very quickly. The primary difference, and perhaps disappointment, is that he has less opportunity to be evil- he seems more like the average fantasy hero. Still, the story is good and the action plays out well. Malus evolves through these stories, growing from his experiences and even (gasp) learning from his mistakes. There are some surprises from old friends along the way, too. If you enjoyed the first three books, you'll probably enjoy these.

Malus Darkblade is the ultimate anti-hero, the epitome of ruthlessness. By far my favorite elf character (and I don't like elves at all). Hope that Mike Lee can write up the rest of Malus's story to fill in the gaps of how he got Tz'arkan trapped within him again. Good read the whole way through.

Phenomenal book, but not for everyone. I picked up the first book in the series and couldn't put it down. It is incredibly written, fast paced, and the characters are well developed. With that said, this is a dark, violent, gorry, and disturbing book. The black elves are the most base and violent characters in fantasy and their bloody lifestyles surprised and shocked me. Don't let that detere you from checking out this whole series. I was totally enthralled with the story line and wish the authors would continue the adventures of the main character. Just be aware that some of the scenes might be considered disturbing. It is a fantastic read and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes that kind of fantasy.

I love these books. Talk about something different. Now if only they would put them all on kindle I would be really happy. I have read fantasy for many, many years and I really like Glen Cook and his Black Company and Dan Abnett has taken the dark fantasy to a new fantastic level. Try them - they are addictive. Read one you have to read them all. Please get them on Kindle.

I was struggling to describe what was so hilarious about Malus Darkblade to a friend of mine. Calling Malus paranoid, violent, belligerent, cruel and ruthless really don't capture him. Then it finally hit me. He's Invader Zim with an MA rating and a fantasy setting.

So yes, Malus starts off as a delightfully cruel sociopath. The very model of dark elf society. And he has some incredible schemes. One of the best parts of these novels are the mad schemes that fail, go to plan B, that fails too, onto plan C. And so on, and so forth until by some stubborn miracle Malus wins out. Sort of. Maybe not.

Along the way you meet some fantastic characters and Malus slowly begins to grow, mature, and realize his actions have consequences. In some ways, that sort of ruins the delightful sociopath he used to be. In other ways, it makes him a more relate-able character. I suppose that is just the trade off that must be made when dealing with a character as far out there as Malus.

The only downside to these novels? They are depressing. Horrifically so. Through at least 2/3rds of the narrative Malus is being beaten, tortured, abused, chased, hunted and conspired against. Which feeds into the double edged sword of making him relate-able. When he was this crazy alien creature, it was hilarious to watch these things happen. As he became more and more of a real person, with depth and feelings, you actually start to get worn out watching him suffer.

All in all though, I really enjoyed this view of the warhammer world. Seeing things from the Dark Elf perspective was certainly interesting and does a lot to flesh out the Warhammer fiction.

*** This review may contain minor spoilers ***

I really, really, REALLY wanted to like this book. But I can't. I simply can't. Mike Lee manages the impossible by making gory action boring. I found myself skipping whole pages of this book, simply because there was one stupid, unnecessary fight after another...and the end result was almost ALWAYS the same. Malus gets hurt (kinda), is tempted by the deamon to use his strength to be healed (which he has a 50/50 chance of refusing), and continues on his path to find those stupid relics.

One particular fight stands out, in which Malus is hurt BADLY (at least, he himself and almost EVRYBODY else points out that "Your wounds are grave, and you will die unless you give in to the deamon and get healed")...and 20 pages later (after leading a heroic outbreak, slaughtering dozens in the process) he just...seems to have forgotten about this grave injury...it never really is explained why he didn't die.

Another example for stupid "by-the-book"-Malus-formula comes at the end of the fourth book, when Malus has to fight three champions of Chaos at once...which is not only stupid, but also, again, unnecessary, since apparently, they have been waiting for him all along. Oh yeah, and just to "spice things up a bit", he does not only fight other Dark Elves, but also the occasional Chaos Spawn/Monster/Abomination/Insert Enemy Here.

Mike Lee knows how to describe a good fight, I have to give him that. But apparently he forgot how to do ANYTHING else. The relationship between Malus and the deamon does not grow one iota from the day they are bound to the conclusion of the story (which is to say, for more than a year), his dialogues are wooden and awkward one-liners ("Damnation!", "Mother of the Night!", "Blessed Murderer!") and he seems to introduce new characters at will, if it helps his protagonist move along, which just feels really stupid.

But what really ruined this whole story for me was the lack of realism. Especially in a fantasy-novel, realism IS important. If your character is able to shrug off any wound, overcome any enemy, solve every riddle (more often than not by killing something), it's just not possible to identify with him. And Malus shows SO much unrealistic behaviour (riding non-stop for 4 days would make ANYBODY tired, but Malus orders bottles of wine and holds a cvouncil of war) and lucky escapes, it just becomes boring.

Also, just a minor annoyance in this novel it the language. It may just be me, but when you're writing about another race, words like "man", "woman", "gentleman" do seem inappropriate when you're talking about male/female/highborn elves...

So it's not entirely unreadable, though I can't recommend it that much either...

If you have read "Warpsword" and "Lord of Ruin" then you may not want to purchase this book. I received this as a Christmas gift and was frustrated when I found out that the 6th book was not a part of this chronicle. This chronicle includes the books "Warpsword" and "Lord of Ruin." This chronicle also has an original Darkblade comic strip. If you do not care anything about the comic strip and have already read "Warpsword" and "Lord of Ruin" then I do not recommend purchasing this book.