Customer Reviews

Fell Cargo (Warhammer Novels)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Captain Luka Silvaro, a.k.a. Silvaro the Hawk, was thought to have been dead a year. Yet he appears, with an unknown at his side, to reclaim his ship, the Rumour, and his men, the Reivers. The high seas are now more dangerous than ever. This new menace is called "The Butcher Ship". Captained by a daemon lord and his band of zombies, the daemon ship sails the seas killing all it meets, giving no quarter. No ship dares sail and trading has come to a full halt. Therefore, there are no ships to pirate. Luka announces to his crew that he carries a letter of marque and reprisal, signed and sealed by his grace, the Prince of Luccini. The pirates are turning privateer! They are going to hunt and sink the Butcher Ship. The unknown gentleman is Sesto. Sesto will witness the job done. Upon completing the quest, Luka will return Sesto to the prince for report and claim his crew's reward.

Luka and his men must face daemons, curses, zombies, treachery, and even a leviathan before they can even clash swords with the Butcher. But Sesto is more than he appears, much to Luka's surprise and delight. They may have a chance after all.

***** If you enjoyed The Pirates of the Caribbean then you will LOVE this tale of horror, daemons, zombies, and pirates! Luka's attitude and wit is very much like Captain Jack Sparrow's! I used Johnny Depp's imagine as I read and could see little difference. In fact, I found quite a few similarities between this read and the "Legend of the Black Pearl". Consider this a MUST READ for fans of Depp's movie (soon to be two pirate movies). But those who simply enjoy the chaotic and bloody realm of the original Warhammer will find a strong attraction to this novel as well. Out-freaking-standing! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Fell Cargo is a new Warhammer Fantasy novel that features a lively cast of jaunty pirates, demons, vampires, and zombies, and that's just the beginning in this rousing new fantasy adventure by Dan Abnett. Abnett is perhaps best know for his Warhammer 40,000 novels and his tales of Gaunt's Ghosts but shows he is equally adept at swashbuckling adventure. Captain Luka Silvaro, thought dead by his former crew, returns to challenge his would-be usurper who just happens to be his brother. After defeating his sibling he reclaims his ship "The Rumor" and his rightful place as leader of his band of cutthroats known as The Reivers. Soon the crew is out to sea but not to plunder and pillage this time. Luka and his crew are given a letter of marque from the Prince of Luccini and offered amnesty for the past crimes as well as a thousand gold crowns. All they have to do is find the marauding demon ship known as the Butcher ship and sink her. The Butcher Ship has been attacking ships throughout the seas and taking no prisoners.

Joining the crew is Sesto, a special envoy from Luccini who is working for the Prince to verify that Silvaro's crew follows through with their end of the bargain. The ship is filled with as lusty a band of pirates as one could ever hope to meet and include Tall Willm, Roque, and the creepy Sheerglas, the ship's master gunner. The crew discovers the ship of another notorious pirate Reyno Bloodlock, lying in a harbor seemingly deserted. A small party goes to investigate and discovers what's left of Reyno's crew. As the small band attempts to return to their ship they find themselves pursued and battling a horrific demon as several of the crew are killed. Only the intervention of Tende, a member of the crew familiar with the dark arts, manages to save them. Tende manages to destroy the demon but not before finding out that the demon was none other than Reyno himself, horribly twisted into this foul form but able to at least tell Silvaro who the captain of the Butcher ship is.

Before Silvaro can continue his quest to find the demon ship his crew are running low on supplies and visit the tiny port town of Porto Real to stock up. The Governor of the Island greets them warmly and invites the entire crew to his mansion for a feast. There the Governor relates how the small town is dying because there is no trade coming in thanks to the Butcher Ship. The crew is having a marvelous time until they discover the sinister secret of the island. Will Silvaro and his crew survive to even have a chance to sink the Butcher Ship?

Fell Cargo is a marvelous fantasy, combining the fun and adventurism of old Hollywood swashbucklers and colorful, salty pirates, in a fantasy setting very different than what you see in most books. Moving from one adventure to another, Abnett paces the story quickly, allowing the reader to come up for a brief breath of air before plunging into the next thrilling exploit. The book is very character driven with animated dialog and the ever growing shadow of the menace of the Butcher Ship. Fabulous Story!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Captian Luka Silvero and his bloody Reivers are the most despicable, cut-throat, greedy, sea-wolves of the Old World and they're just the right stuff to rid the seas of something even more evil, the cursed Butcher ship. Of course it takes the right incentive of a hefty reward and for Luka, it's either sink the Butcher Ship or face his just reward at the end of gibbet. After all, a buccaneer does have his reputation to think of and there is always the unbreakable pirate code.

I don't know what it is about pirates, but we can't help but love them and Abett captures the salty ol'heart of a pirate story.

Wrap one fist around a cut-lass and the other (unless that ones is a hook) around your flint-lock pistol and prepare to board. Take on other pirates, zombies, vampires, sea-monsters and thrice-damned curses, not to mention, watch for a dirk in the back too. Pray to King Death that you'll survive to get the treasure.
Yo-ho, it's pirates life for me :)

Any story with zombies is a good one for me. Don't care much for the movies about them lately but this book kept me riveted and found it hard to put down. Warhammer novels are the best.

If you like books like this one, might I suggest another I've recently come across. The Unsuspecting Mage by Brian S. Pratt. It's another fantasy adventure sure to please. I highly recommend it. It's available in e-Book too.

I picked up Fell Cargo because of its obviously piratical title. This book has maybe the best back cover hook of all time:

"Long believed dead, pirate Captain Luka Silvaro returns to reclaim his ship and embark on a deadly new mission. But the high seas are now more dangerous than ever, and the captain and his scurvy crew of rogues must face pirates, curses, sea monsters and even worse foes. Can Silvaro and his allies track down the dread Butcher Ship and defeat her gruesome undead crew before they too are turned into mindless zombies?"

Who could turn that down?

So I got the book. Devoured it in two days. It has a density of incident that would make Edgar Rice Burroughs blush. In 250 pages, there are four major naval engagements, each involving at least three ships and each ending in a bloody boarding action. There is a treasure map, a stowaway, a voodoo ritual, a prophetic dream, chum in the water, kidnapping, a witch, a sea serpent, a cursed mummy, and a case of hidden identity revealed at the dramatically appropriate moment. Duels of honor decided with swords, drugged wine, sharks, walking the plank, abandoned death ships, and vampire feedings (yeah, that's right) each appear more than once.

Oh, and zombies. Fighting pirates!

Now, here's the crucial part: I read the whole book without gagging once. Years of grading student termpapers have given me an unusually low tolerance for bad writing. I suffered through Robert Jordan's Eye of the World, and Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule, but I'll go no further. I don't care what happens in the second book (or the twelfth, in Jordan's case), if I have to slog through prose that bad to find out.

But back to task: Dan Abnett's writing is, er, _good_. That is, at no point did I wince or groan, and twice I was so moved that I copied down passages into my "favorite quotes" files.

In conclusion, you can go to bed with Fell Cargo and not feel guilty in the morning. I'm going to go read a ton more of Abnett's books, and you should, too.

Great Pirate book. If you like the High-Seas, it is a must read mate. The book ending was a bit predictable, but the ending could have been better if the book was longer. It seems that, like a good movie, it had to be wrapped up rather quickly so that explains the quick end. Other than that, the book was a great read. Don't expect "real" pirates etc, this is after all a fantasy book in the warhammer world.

Since 'Pirates of the Caribbean' boosted everybones interest in pirates, I wasn't surprised to see a Warhammer does pirates novel. In this case it is penned by Dan Abnett who has a considerable reputation as a writer of Warhammer 40K novels. My experience is that the book didn't flow that well, although it is reasonably short. It feels a little like it was written just for the money rather than something the author deeply cared about. One of the ships is named 'The Lightning Tree', which is of course the symbol for 'Jerry Bruckheimer' who produced the 3 Pirates of the Caribbean movies. This is the only book by Dan Abnett I have read, and I will be reading others in the future, but this is far from the strongest entry in the 'Warhammer Fantasy' series. If you are new to the series look for somewhere else to start reading.

Dan Abnett, Fell Cargo (Black Library, 2006)

I come into this as a complete Warhammer 40K novice. I know nothing about it but the name. But I read a description of this, and how could I not read a book about pirate zombies?

Unfortunately, that description (which, I found out, was taken from the back cover copy) is a major spoiler, as the fact that the bad guys are zombies isn't revealed until the climax of the book. Now, it's possible this is common knowledge among gamers who are familiar with the WH40K universe and I'm unfairly penalizing the book, for giving away something that every reader of the novel should know-- but I think that no matter how far enmeshed you are in a particular fantasy world, there should still be basic literature rules to shore you up, and one of those is "thou shalt not spoil the climax on the back cover".

Still, revelations about the undead aside, I did enjoy Abnett's writing style, which kept things running smoothly while giving us enough character depth to make the book enjoyable. It did suffer a bit from questitis (that disease, most common in fantasy novels, that results in an episodic and overly linear feel) at times, but one can overlook that if one's having a good time with the book in question, and in this one, I was. The main thing I wanted was, well, more zombies. Thanks, back copy writer! ***

Abnett can make the most vile of characters, including pirates, into people we can like or even relate to. The hero this short and fast read is just such a character. Look for more to come about Luko and his crew of rapscallions as Abnett does not bother to disguise or hide the hook for the sequel(s). As always, it is fast paced, well researched and put together. If you need something for a plane flight or a long drive this is the book.

it was a very good book of warhammer I enjoyed it from cover to cover. Thougth I am a native spanish speaker and had to look up in the dictonary some of the naval words, I got envolved with the story and read it in only 2 weeks