Customer Reviews

Inheritance (Warhammer: Von Carstein Trilogy)

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4 star:		(1)
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This is my first Steven Savile novel to read. And it won't be my last!

After devouring this awesome vampire dark fantasy epic, I have already purchased Book II: Dominion. Yes, it was that good.

In this novel, Book I:Inheritance, the evil dark vampire lord, Von Carstein, builds and creates his own massive army of the various types of the dead,from werewolves to wights, all marching to annihilate human civilization in a purely dark fantasy world.

There are numerous characters in this book, both monster and human, and all extremely interesting to read about. With loads of twists and turns, with various character's storylines, Steven Savile still manages to carry it all off with bloody panache.

With loads of blood and guts action, utilizing everything from magical swords that sing and hum for blood, to daggers and crossbows, (No guns, despite the futuristic years shown on each chapter), this is a purely dark fantasy sure to please bloodsuckers everywhere.

This dark and diabolical book is waiting for you to devour.

Go ahead. Take a walk on the wild side...

As usual, the beginning began at the end. It was late in the winter of 1797, within Drakenhof Castle, during the last few minutes of Otto van Drak's life. The old Count of Sylvania refused to die because his brother, Leopold, would inherit the title. So the old man held onto life, each breath filled with agony, in hope that something would change. His wish was granted by the arrival of a nobleman, Vlad von Carstein. By marrying Otto's daughter, Isabella, Vlad cheated Leopold of his title, only seconds before he cheated Leopold of his life. Vlad became Count of Sylvania. The ending had begun.

In the year 2009, Vlad finds one page from the nine Books of Nagash. The single sheet holds powerful necromantic magic. Thus Vlad begins raising the dead to create his own army. His legion of the dead soon begins its quest to overthrow the Empire. His vampiric wife, Isabella, stands at his side. His vampiric sword, keens in his hand, demanding blood.

Zombies, ghouls, and vampires kill the living. Then the newly dead raise and turn on the very people they had fought with only moments before. As each living person dies, Vlad's undead horde swells. Even though some of the vampires are slain for good by decapitation, Vlad remains standing. That is not to say that Vlad did not ever get decapitated. Yet somehow, Vlad always raises again, a scar on his throat being the only sign that his head had ever been cut off. There seems to be no way to stop him. Humans have become cattle.

***** This is the first in a trilogy. From the first page to the last, author Steven Savile brings you the stuff of nightmares. This book's tale goes until the late winter of the year 2051. (Book two will begin from there.) Readers are given the first chapter of the second book at the end. It promises more nightmares. There are so many chilling scenes that I am amazed the pages do not freeze into chunks of ice. All gothic, Vlad, and vampire fans simply MUST read this novel. *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

I've just readed this book. It was great. I know, this book only arrives at stores in USA at 31 march, but I've pre-order it from the Black Library and so I've received in middle february.

Well this is a great book that will enrich not only the fans of warhammer but also the fans of vampires. If you play with the Vampire Count I think you will liked it. It won't tell you anything you don't know (About the army) but It will give some depht and history to your army. I think you will like it.

Good Things : The characters and the plot itself.
Things to improve in the next books: I think Mr. Savile would do better to take some depht to the vampires and take more time developing it's history. (well this will be fruitless even if he reads it since the second book it's already written lol)


||Minor Spoillers Ahead.. Jump ahead||

Don't take me wrong. The characters are great... We've got, of course, Vlad von Carstein. We read about it's rise and grow of his empire. How he come to be the ruler of Sylvania and finally the strike on the empire.
Something on the story I didn't like. When the thief Felix Mann stole the ring that gave immortality to the Count. It was too damn easy. Then Vlad outburst and strike recklessly the empire fortress and died. It was too quick. Bah..
It was the only thing I didn't like.


||Minor Spoillers Ended||

Well we've got a lot of characters beside the Vlad and Isabella von Carstein. Inbetween the chapters of Vlad we've the history of this minor characters.
We've got Jon Skellan and Stefan Fischer the witch-hunters, Ganz the human chancellor of Vlad. Then we've got Krueger a knight of White Wolf and the thief Felix Mann. And of course other minor characters that appear in some chapters.

In the end it is a great book but it does not finish here. More two books to be released. The next in September. It will be great 'cause some of this characters histories didn't end. I will be awaiting.

About the writing: As you know Black Library has a majority of the writters from UK. This author is American. Some words were unknown to me (I am portuguese) but apart from that the book brings forth the characteristic mayhem of the Warhammer World.

This is the first book in the Von Carstein trilogy. The author is new to Black Library but not to the art of the written word, and with this novel Steven Savile makes a bold entrance onto the stage of Warhammer Fiction, demanding a place among the best of the Warhammer novelists.

This book begins with the rise of Von Carstein as the lord of all Sylvania and then launches on a intricate plot of war, sacrifice, and tragedy in the Old World. The tale of the vampire lords is not a happy one and Mr. Savile pulls no punches in this tale of a world on the verge of collapse and an empire that can barely stop infighting long enough to be conquered.

After the opening scene, we meet two witch hunters in a quest across the Sylvanian lands. Here Mr. Savile shows the most powerful tool in the writer's arsenal, one sorely lacking in game tie-in fiction these days: the ability to create yearning. We connect to these characters, share their pain and their loss. We see them heading farther and farther into the lands of the Arisen and follow them with a sense of dread. "This thing," we think to ourselves, "cannot end well."

Inheritance is an ambitious novel, jumping from character to character as the Old World falls to the might of Vlad Von Carstein. Mr. Savile does not quite create the uniqueness and richness of characters we find in the works of George RR Martin, but he doesn't need to. This is an ambitious work, but not that ambitious.

What he does draw is a vivid tapestry of pain and loss, of despair in the face of the hopelessness. Vlad is the unstoppable force and in this novel the Empire spends its time searching in vein (pun intended) of an unmovable object.

The only thing I can really say bad about this novel is a certain sluggishness throughout the beginning of act two. After those first brilliant chapters, his new characters don't quite connect to the reader with the same aching passion and while they are well executed, the lack stands out just when a novel needs a fresh shot of interest to carry the reader firmly into the middle. In fairness though, if the beginning was a little weaker I might not have had this problem. The introduction of the witch hunters, for me at least, created and internal hype the middle had a hard time satisfying.

But this novel comes through at the end, filling me with the desire to immediately pick up the sequel (which, alas, I wasn't able to do). In the end, the book brings the reader back to that initial connection of feeling, book-ending the entire plot very nicely.

It's not surprising, a quick search on Amazon brings up two pages of titles by Mr. Savile and his story in Writers of the Future XIX (later expanded and published as the novella Houdini's Last Illusion) was possibly my favorite story in the anthology. This isn't a first or second novel, with all their problems.

One piece of advice. I've read the history of this war at least five or six times, but I've never paid it enough attention to memorize the details. I didn't reread these events before devouring this book. I appreciated the sense of discovery, the anticipation of not knowing whether a historical character lived or died.

I recommend you do the same.