Customer Reviews

Vampire Wars: The Von Carstein Trilogy (Warhammer Novels)

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

 

 

I am well into the second book of this trilogy and I like it very much. It is dark gothic horror in a world where people are basically thought of as food for the vampires. It is late middle age life in Germany with its petty principalities and struggles for power both in the human world and vampire world. Very dark and moody as there doesn't seem to be much hope to conquer the vampire menace. A sort of allegory for the time of plaques that attacked humanity during history in which religion was useless and there seemed to be no end to the day to day horrors of living. If you like your stories dark this should appeal to you. Wish there was more stuff like this to read. I went into this book blindly and am glad I did.

Background: 1) I have no interest in Warhammer, and I certainly have never played the game. 2)There have been so many awful Vampire books written, I always end up comparing everything to Bram Stoker.

I thought Twilight was a decent Vampire book, it was well written and there was substantial character development, although it was more like Bram Stoker "light". This epic by Steven Seville was the complete opposite end of the spectrum. This book had a constant barrage of gore--far beyond that of Stoker. If you like books that are overly embellished and leave little to the imagination then you should stick with Anne Rice, or maybe skip the genre altogether and read James Joyce. There have only been a couple of Vamp books that qualify as literary genius.

I am not so sure why some people say it was very poorly written. I thought the writing was fine compared to most horror writers. I am sure the writing style or level had to appeal to gamers whose target audience comprises of 18-25 year olds. The book was not overly wordy like the Anne Rice novels and the pacing was much quicker than Stoker.

I would recommend this book as one of my favorite gore filled vampire novels. I think some folks are turned off because of the Warhammer affiliation, but this book holds its own.

I tried to find the author's three Stoker Award nominations, it would be great if they were posted here somewhere...I wouldn't mind reading those as well.

As a big Vampire Counts fan and former addicted player of Warhammer, I am a bit biased when it comes to this type of book. But, hey, this is why we read what we read, is it not?

I found the style very interesting. The author has a way of bringing you into this dark world with confidence. There is a grim brutality to the world and I enjoyed that a great deal. I have always wanted to see in more depth the history of the von Carsteins as they are my favorite of the bloodline powers and this book delivered.

As other reviewers have noted, there is a bit of disjointed flow to the narrative but this is a huge amount of history/time to cover in a novel, even trilogy of novels. It is not a history book, it is a story. Written with this in mind, I think he did a good job of conveying what happened. I would have liked a bit more character developement(too many come and go without knowing them well enough) but I think with the time and space he had availible, he did a solid job.

This book is nothing short of amazing. Excellent characters, plot writing style... extremly dark and grim world, detailing a long epic struggle many heroes face against the most evil of foes. So many of the heroes are killed hopelessly, it seems through out the book that good will never triumph, I hate predictable, bland reading, this story is far from that... bloody, gruesome, oppressively dark, epic. I reccomend this book to any and everyone. 5 stars.

The author creates multiple characters with depth and it is this complexity that makes this trilogy difficult to put down. I read "Twilight" and it was the most predictable book I've ever read (you are better off reading Nicholas Sparks). This book is not predictable, he crafts great characters and has the strength to end their lives (in not heroic ways, sometimes). This trilogy is as much character driven as it is plot driven, which is rare oftentimes in this genre.

I am still in the process of reading this but I am through the first two books. I really do enjoy them. The world is dark and brooding. Day to day life is not easy. The hero's are not always perfect and have many doubts of themselves. The story is interesting and is not always what you expect. Well worth the read.

I didn't expect to care for it, since it's about vampires & werewolves, so if people think I'm being unfairly biased, they're probably right.

But, seriously, this collection of stories is just not -- IMO -- up to the standards of Warhammer Fantasy. It's just nowhere near as good as books like the Blackhearts Omnibus, or Mathias Thalmann: Witchhunter, or Brunner the Bounty Hunter, much less true classics like Gotrek & Felix. The characters are merely average, the stories seem like standard European vampire tales transposed to Warhammer, the only heroes worth cheering for are relatively minor characters (one of which isn't even truly worth cheering for), & worst of all, there isn't even the sort of "enjoyable" evil you'd get with Skaven -- no sense of fun or joy, just dull, drab, dreary vampires.

Blecch. I was hoping for something like Mathias Thalmann: Witch Hunter.

...if it didn't kind of fall apart at the end.

Out of the gate I found myself really getting into this book. Chronicling over a span of many years the rise, fall and rise again of three oppressive Vampire Counts of the Warhammer world, the vampires Von Carstein. The first book was really good focusing on Vlad.

The second novel was also good focusing on vampire Konrad as well as a powerful dwarf named Kallad.

The third novel is where things fell apart in my opinion. Not that it was really 'bad', I just felt myself asking when it would be over. The series builds towards Mannfred, the last and mightiest of the Von Carsteins to wage his undead battle against the living. But it's a LOT of undead battles. Characters that were pivotal in the first two books play more bit parts in the last novel and characters that were never introduced in the first two books come out of nowhere and play very pivotal roles.

It honestly felt as if the last book were rushed, as if the author wanted to tell an even bigger story but had to wrap it up in a relatively small (250 or so pages) third and final novel.

The parts that focus on the reoccurring characters were good, but I could only take so much of undead siege battles and the laments of the living as they're cut down and brought back into the unlife as mindless soldiers. There was just too much focus on these been there done that wars and in turn it took away from the best parts of the novel: the characters and their fights against the vampires whether it be for retribution, revenge, or honor.

Could have been really great but a weak third act made it just okay overall.

This is a semicolon ";"

Take a good look at it because you won't see one at all in this omnibus. I don't know whether it was the writer or the editor's fault but this book has some of the worst punctuation I have ever seen. This makes for some awkward run-on sentences and choppy descriptions that generally make the story annoying to read.

For those who could care less about punctuation this trilogy still has little to offer. It is really more of a series of short stories masquerading as a trilogy of novels. While any individual part is decent dark fantasy fiction the overall plot of any given book is hard to find as scenes are mashed together with poor transitions. For example, the first hundred pages or so starts as a fairly interesting (if cliche) vampire hunting story, but then that admittedly good storyline is just outright abandoned and whammo! Now we're fifty years in the future and the vampires are taking over! Just as you settle into the new setting and characters it happens again, jumping right ahead to the end of the so-called Vampire War. Then you start Book 2 and it jumps back in time again to about the same time Book 1 started, and it generally goes downhill from there.

Oh yeah, saying that the vampire "Unleashed the beast within" was alright the first dozen times one transformed, but after that...

The reason I bought this book was to learn more about the von Carsteins as I play the vampire counts in warhammer fantasy. This isnt a von Carstein history book, which I thought it was going to be.

Im not one to read books. But this book I am enjoying. Im about half way into it and its a different book due to the jumping around and reading this book from many different characters points of view.