Customer Reviews

Zaragoz (Orfeo Trilogy, Book 1) (Warhammer)

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

 

 

Having recently returned to the fantasy genre, and with some familiarity of the Warhammer universe, I enjoyed this offering by Brian Craig and the Black Library. The story is interesting enough to qualify as a page turner, but most of all the dialogue is well written. I found myself chuckling at many of the characaters' words and actions, so as a work of "fluff" it hits the mark.

First, it is worth noting that Brian Stableford (using the pen name Brian Craig here) is one of my favorite authors. I was previously familiar with WH40 and Warhammer (via Abnett) prior to reading this or Stableford.

The story is only tangentially driven by the warhammer setting - I get the impression he had a lot of leeway in how he wrote the story. I can see how people expecting a conventional BL title would be a bit taken aback. Interestingly, having recently read all of his 1970's published works (it is like 30 books), this just felt like another Stableford story.

If you enjoyed this story, it is well worth checking out the author's other earlier published works. If you didn't like it, this may give a good explanation of why.

Sorry to say this was easy to put down...and I really enjoy Warhammer novels. The characters where uninteresting, the story line boring, I didn't even like the style of the tale. I've read most of newer stuff, love Gotrek and Felix, the Vampire novels, authors Nathan Long, C.L. Werner...just about any of the Omnibus books have been well worth it. I think I've only put down two novels from the Black Library and this is one of them.

Having recently returned to the fantasy genre, and with some familiarity of the Warhammer universe, I enjoyed this offering by Brian Craig and the Black Library. The story is interesting enough to qualify as a page turner, but most of all the dialogue is well written. I found myself chuckling at many of the characaters' words and actions, so as a work of "fluff" it hits the mark.

I really wanted to like this book...however the writing style is somewhat stiff and the story never really seems to get going. It's not horrible, but for Warhammer 40K fantasy, I enjoyed Jonathan Green's The Dead and the Damned much more

I'm just not a fan of Brian Craig. No offense to the writer if he visits Amazon and reads these reviews, but I have to agree with a previous reviewer and say that Craig's writing is stiff and much too sing-song at times. His prose falls into a very consistent pattern and what is most maddening about this writer's work is his love of the pronoun "which." In addition to using it way too much, he also tends to use it wrongly, and his work seems published without the application of a thorough edit. This goes for not just 'Zaragoz,' but for all of the Orfeo books, as well as his short stories in such titles as 'Laughter of the Dark Gods.'

I found myself becoming so distracted, in fact, by Craig's usage of the word "which" that I was having a very hard time reading for comprehension; instead, my eyes would scan along in anticipation of the next appearance of the word. I got into the habit of counting the "whiches (I think the record was something like 14 times on one page and four times in one sentence)".

Best to skip Brian Craig and read other more worthy Black Library authors such as Gav Thorpe, Graham McNeill, and C.L. Werner.