The Warrior King [Paperback]

Chris Bunch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1999

The wizard Tenedos transformed decaying Numantia into a mighty empire, but his lust for conquest destroyed his land. Only General Damastes, imprisoned and exiled, knows Tenedos well enough to predict his schemes. And only Damastes can forge an army to challenge Tenedos and save a ravaged and hopeless land.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The conclusion to Bunch's well-received fantasy trilogy (The Seer King; The Demon King), this brawny story of war and power?both political and supernatural?offers much enjoyment but no satisfying closure. Ex-Tribune Damastes frees himself from prison, only to resume the war that put him there. He confronts or is courted by various factions, including Tenedos, the demon-commanding emperor he betrayed, and the Tovieti, the secret society that killed his lover. As he fights, Damastes heals old wounds and finishes old business, falling in love with a Tovieti sorceress named Cymea, with whom he combines forces against Tenedos. Yet Damastes's experiences also affirm that he is born to be a warrior, not a politician, and the novel ends with Numantia's future leadership uncertain. Is Bunch laying the ground for another trilogy? The author's writing is clear and vivid; his well-delineated battle scenes are especially strong, presenting unexpected combinations of sword and sorcery. Though the magic here lacks some of the grandeur and strangeness of that in other fantasies, Bunch's depictions of town and military life offer the consolation of a welcome realism.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Final installment of Bunch's military sword and sorcery trilogy (The Seer King, 1997; The Demon King, not seen), again with regulation plotting and magics, graphic sex, and lots of well-handled, gory action. This one describes the final showdown between the good-guy narrator, General Damastes, recalled from imprisonment and exile, and his former friend, the evil wizard Tenedos. At stake is the soul of Numantia, a kingdom that has been occupied by a foreign power, Maisir, following Tenedos's disastrous invasion attempt. Here, Tenedos wants it all: he's lean, mean, back from the dead, and demon-powered; and only Damastes, who knows Tenedos so well, might stop him. A pale, barely differentiated shadow of what started out as a limited but reasonably satisfying yarn; still, fans of the previous will want to give it the once-over. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Aspect (February 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446674567
• ISBN-13: 978-0446674560
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #641,251 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still seems interested in his characters - amazing..., February 28, 2000

By 

Leigh Loveday (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Warrior King (Mass Market Paperback)

A surprisingly decent end to the series, going against the standard law of fantasy trilogies (in which the author has generally stopped caring by halfway through the second book) as well as the less-than-promising "hang on, it's not over after all" last page of The Demon King.

Probably the book's greatest strength lies in the fact that it charts one long drawn-out battle campaign from start to finish, always the strongest aspect of the series. All the other strengths (and weaknesses - though thankfully the sex scenes haven't gotten any worse since last time out) are here too, so you can expect to see some of the major players killed off without a second thought, more emphasis on characters and relationships than a tedious parade of ugly monsters from the fantasy gene pool, and even a fair old helping of allegory (Russian inflections of the word 'Tovieti' aren't likely to be coincidental). Maybe the final confrontation between Damastes and Tenedos is a bit perfunctory after the enormous build-up, but it's nowhere near disappointing enough to sabotage the entire book, let alone the whole trilogy. Credit due for the interestingly ambiguous (and realistic) ending, too, where it would have been easy to paste in the usual happy-ever-after inanities and leave it at that...

Not entirely without its faults, then, but it's not often you come across a trilogy so consistent, thorough and downright entertaining which also has something to say beyond "kill the nasty wizard".

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I thought I liked this series...until I read this book., July 19, 2001

By 

D. Carlson "vaelmont" (Scenic Jersey City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Warrior King (Mass Market Paperback)

Welp. Where to begin?

I thoroughly enjoyed the first book, began to get distracted by the end of the second, and wished I hadn't read the series by the third.

Bunch likes to write about sex. A lot. In lurid detail. In romance novel fashion. That's not a problem for me, personally, but it gets really repetitive.

Worse than that, however, toward the end, I started seeing the characters as their function. Yonge was replaced by "Stereotypical unkillable thief guy", and Tenedos by "Evil Crazy Wizard muhahaha". Only Damastes remained somewhat three dimensional. Perhaps this is simply a failing of the first person narrative, or perhaps the series should have ended after two books. That will have to be left as an exercise for the reader.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars less spectacular than parts 1 and 2, but still recommendable, October 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Warrior King (Paperback)

The last part of Bunch's 'King'-trilogy. Again, Numantia is threatened by war, but this time three sides are struggling for power. Tenedos has created an army of his own, after having risen from the dead; Damastes is the leader of his rebel army; and the Grand Council (previously known as the Rule of Ten) represents Numantia's own 'legal' army. This again spawns various battle scenes, Bunch's speciality. Damastes is also engaged in guerilla warfare (in Cimabue), a welcome change from the enormous army battles. Of course, sex also plays a part in this book, though it used less often than in the previous 2. Honour is an important issue as well, and Damastes is a paragon when it comes to this. I especially liked a particular scene in which Damastes has a dream about the 'origin of man'. This is the kind of philosophical pondering I would like to see more often in fantasy novels. Overall, I would say it is a satisfying round-up of the trilogy, although the ending suggests that the adventures in Numantia may one day be expanded by Chris Bunch... I will definitely read his next fantasy novel (I read something on the Internet that it will star a dwarf this time!).