Customer Reviews

Magestorm (Warhammer)

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This book is not typical fair from Jonathan Green. The plot( such as there is) details the events of various participants who are caught directly or indirectly in the path of the first invasion of the Storm of Chaos. Pretty much from page one where you are thrown into a confusing and improperly explained battle scene that is obviously supposed to be gut-wrenching and knee biting yet is more accurately described as confounding and boring.

As the reader you don't have time to become attached to the participants in this oddly placed first page struggle, you do not feel or care about their conflict or their long standing rivalry (that gets a sentence of mention and no further explanation). Rather than reading the beginning of novel this first scene is more akin to reading a sports commentary (involving teams you have never heard of in a sport that you know nothing about). This work is merely play-by-play of events and a bad one at that. The book does not improve after these first few pages.

While there are some Warhammer fans who are content with any book as long as it's Warhammer. Most of us have come to appreciate finer writing: a gracefully constructed story arch that includes characters who whether conflicted, good, or evil we become attached to, pages of setting (including politics and insights into how the world works) and struggles in which you feel apart of. Most importantly we have to come to appreciate more than just a poor-excuse for a novel that is really nothing more than a series of combat scenes barely connected to one another which barely meets the word count requirements for publication.

For those Warhammer readers who are looking for more than Magestorm has to offer then please refer to Hammers of Ulric, the Gotrek and Felix Trollslayer saga, Star of Erengrad, and a host of others.

This book is set in Imperial year 2521. The background is Surtha Lenk's siege of Wolfenburg.

The book has a strong tie-in with the offical GW timeline (useful for fans of the Warhammer RPG).

The main character, Gerhart isn't especially well-developed (beyond having a bad temper) nor especially interesting. Of the other characters, the warrior priest character Wilhelm Faustus is the most interesting.

The plot is disjointed. Badly disjointed. The reader is simply dropped into situations with no context or idea of what is going on. Then the book jumps to another unconnected situation. Some of the various plot elements & scenes eventually tie together, but some feel just stuck on. For example, the entire subplot having to do with Gerhart & the witch hunter serves no useful purpose except to demostrate the wizard's bad temper.

The battle scenes are well written with good action. The part of the book dealing with the actual siege is the best & I did like the insights into the character of the various chaos leaders. If you are familiar with the official Warhammer timeline, the outcome of the siege is a forgone conclusion.

Read if you are a fan of the RPG & want the background, otherwise there is better Warhammer fiction out there.

I would recommend Magestorm for those die hard fans of Warhammer Fantasy. Specificly those who wish to know more about magic in the Old World, both priest and mage. The book in itself revolves around two main characters. One Gerhart Brennend a pyromancer (mage who controls fire), and the lector/warrior priest Wilhelm Faustus. While these two characters keep the book interesting. They can't seem to save the story from a typical end in the Warhammer world. Also while the back of the book mention a mysterious and tragic history for Gerhart. His past is only mentioned in the last few pages of the book. And while it is tragic, not much is time is spent on the subject which is a shame, because it was good material. Further more the plot seems to fall flat toward the end, what happened to the other characters, Jade mage elector count of Wolfenburg etc? Overall a decent adventure, with interesting characters, that sadly falls flat in the end.

I personally would have liked to see more of this character and additional books,most of the Warhammer books dont cover much of human mages besides the Felix and Gotrek books.

More mage stories requested:)