Customer Reviews

The Warcraft: The Last Guardian: Last Guardian No.3

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Of all the books in the Warcraft line, I cannot say that this is my favorite, however it was one of the most intriguing.

Going way back into the days of the first Warcraft game, The Last Guardian tells the tragic story of Medivh. Since it was not well explained in the first Warcraft game, I found the chronicle of Medivh and his apprentice Khadghar to be an excellent read, and very insightful to the long history of Warcraft.

When the young wizard from Dalaran, Khadghar, is sent to Medivh's tower to be his understudy, young Khadghar is in for the greatest trial of his life. The great magus himself, Medivh, welcomes Khadghar into his tower, and Khadghar becomes his apprentice. The days and months that follow prove to be some of the most influential in the war against the Orcs.
Since there are many twists and surprises in this story, I do not wish to further my synopsis. Though it is vague, the general idea is there.

This book is very different from the others, in that it does not really focus on the war between Orcs and Humans...it centralizes on Medivh and Khadghar. Although the war is a crucial part, it is not the main subject of the book. Instead, the book is entirely about Khadghar's trials within the tower and Medivh's struggle within himself. It was very different...and very good. I was pleased to see a story based on the early days of Warcraft. There are familiar characters, and the book even dabbles into the origins of the half-orc Garona, a key figure in the first Warcraft, who unfortunately was never truly explained. Her motives and origins were completely ignored in the first game, so much that even true, veteran Warcraft fans have probably long forgotten about her and her actions by now. This book does a great job of explaining her, and her ties to Medivh and Khadghar. Furhtermore, the book also successfully explains Medivhs re-emergence into the Warcraft 3 storyline. Personally, I was extremely disappointed to see that the storyline with Medivh was ignored in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Though good, the expansion ignored both the Orcs and Medivh, which is troubling, considering how great The Last Guardian is, and how much it makes you appreciate and realize just what Medivh actually is.

I give this book only four stars because the book is packed with spelling, grammatical, and Warcraft lore errors. While the errors of Warcraft lore are kept to an absolute minimum (there are no more than a handful, if even that), the sheer amount of spelling and grammatical, and even negligent errors are very noticeable and drag the book down as a whole. Having read Jeff Grubb's work before, I can affirm that he is very prone to this. Otherwise, this book was excellent, and I hope to see another Warcraft book in the future.,

As usual I recommend this book only to those versed on Warcraft lore. However, this book is based in the early days of Warcraft...if there is one thing the author did very well, it was of keeping the story accessible to newcomers as well, since it is very descriptive, and doesn't refer too much to things that only seasoned Warcraft veterans would know. Definitely a great read. Finally, the origins and secrets of Medivh are revealed, and I was very impressed.

While this is the quickest read of the three Warcraft books (with less pages and larger type set) it still does a lot to reveal some of the core history behind the world of Azeroth. The mad wizard Medivh has been a cornerstone of the Warcraft story from the begining and this book does a great job of processing the lore into something easily understood.

While Jeff Grubb isn't my favorite author, he gets a passing grade on this one. The characters are intriguing and the plot engaging. The character:character interactions were my favorite aspect (between Medivh and Khadgar, Khadgar and the orc emissary).

Quick and easy to read, but also enlightening.

An excellent addition to the WarCraft series of books. In fact this is where I wanted to see the books start when I picked up the first one and read it. There is so much rich history in the WarCraft games I don't understand why they wanted to start them off at beginning of the WarCraft 3 storyline.

Anyway, this was a well written book and really expands up on the WarCraft history. The characters are addictive and the story pushes you on from page to page. About 4 days to read this book if that.

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. Very well written.

This book was pretty good, for what it is - if you are expecting high blown literature you won't get it here....but you won't get it from any WOW book, or from most Sci-Fi, for that matter. It was an entertaining story, and it was interesting to understand the background to the Karazhan raid. It certainly portrayed Medivh in a different light, and gave me a much greater understanding than I had from in-game. It was not as good as some of the other WOW books (although I am just getting started), but definitely worth the quick read (it is very short). Khadgar and Medivh were well developed, although some of the other characters could have used a bit more character development (I would have liked some more background on Garona, for example, especially given her pivotal role later in the series). All in all a good background story, and worth reading.

Received product as described. Thanks for a fast, easy and smooth transaction. Great experience and A+++ quality product would repeat anytime.

I couldn't figure out what the point of this book was until I was more than two thirds of the way through it, but the good characters kept me with it.
Overall, the story is somewhat weak, but it's still an interesting read.

The story of Medivh, from Magna Aegwynn's tainted womb to his ultimate betrayal by bringing the orcs into Azeroth and then to his death at the hands of Khadgar (not really a spoiler, since it's all in the game if you play, but sorry to anyone who deems it as such) is really one of the best Warcraft has to offer. This book at least gives you those details of his life (though, too bad, at the time this was written, the future of Medivh as a prophet doesn't get included) and a good solid foundation about the Guardians of Tirisfal. Sadly, Medivh's life, The Guardian's of Tirisfal, the mages of Dalaran, get lost in overdrawn, sophomoric prose that seems to drone on. Almost nothing compelling happens in the first part of the book, just more wistful flowery descriptions of Karazhan, Swamp of Sorrows, and the hum drum of Khadgar's first few days apprenticing. I haven't read all of the Warcraft books, just a handful, and so far Jeff Grubb is at the bottom of writing styles in the series that I prefer. At times while reading I had to force myself to not just skip ahead a paragraph or two just so I could get to something, anything, more than a description of a hallway that seemed to go on forever. I will say the last part of the book picks up pace nicely, about the time Garona shows up.

Story - 4
Writing - 1
Continuity within the series - 2
So I went ahead and gave this a rating of 2 stars.

This book would've been much better if it had been revised after WoW came out. There are a lot of little details that changed when when WoW was released. It was worth reading just to get the back story, but I was annoyed that this book wasn't updated, especially since I bought the Kindle version. If you're a longtime WoW player, prepare to be annoyed by things that dont match up. If you haven't played WoW, and you're reading this book for some odd reason, you'll probably enjoy it.

I read this story thinking it would be a nice prelude to WoW's first expansion. Little did I realize how blown away I'd be.

The author gives such personality not only to the characters, but the environments and settings as well. Karazhan is depicted in such detail that I found the in game version lacking to the story's. The lore characters present are compelling and given personalities that match with the older games which they are present in. And most of all, the story made me fall in love with the complexity and internal turmoil that Medivh faces daily. This is a must read for any Warcraft fans and those looking to get into the lore.

awesome story, quick and short read, really opens your eyes to some background information for those who love the world of warcraft story and game