Richard A. Knaak

Well, after what seems like an eternity (not really, just couldn't resist) I've finally finished this truly excellent trilogy by prolific fantasy writer Richard A Knaak. I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to finish all three, I blame it on my local library sticking fun stuff in their quick reads section. According to my "Read" shelf I read 10 other books between when I started the trilogy in October last year. I started reading it because I needed a fantasical escape from my (at that show more point) shitty life. I always hit fantasy at times like that and boy did Mr Knaak deliver.

What I started nearly 6 months ago was a rollercoaster of a story which filled in questions about WoW lore I had, made me care more than I ever thought I would for an Orc (even the alliance will sing songs of Broxigar the Red) and showed that power when taken forcibly will nearly always corrupt.

The Well of Eternity Trilogy is perfectly paced, each book of the three having a great beginning, an exciting middle and just enough of a cliffhanger ending to leave me wanting more. The only reason that I can imagine for the guys making the Warcraft movie not picking this story is that they don't have enough respect for the fantasy loving audience. I'm sure the new Warcraft film will be great (for people who know nothing of WoW) but this story would've set up the world in so much more of a substantial way. It introduces most of the races that dwell in Azeroth, introduces many major characters who will be important in the future as well as the big big evil and gives us a view of the world before the Warcraft. show less

Let’s keep it short, shall we? If you like the combination of historical-urban-fantasy, stop reading this review and start reading the book.
Still not convinced? Let me share some more details then.

What to Expect

Black City Saint is the first novel in the series from Richard Knaak. Set against the back-drop of Prohibition-era Chicago, Nick Medea is a private detective of sorts, dealing with paranormal cases.

Not that it’s as straightforward as that. Nick has a checkered past, and some show more unusual companions. He’s also tasked (cursed?) with a larger-than-life role in this universe, which is built up and explained as the novel progresses.

What I liked

The attention to detail. If you know me, you know my love of little historical trivia that goes into world-building. Black City is rife with such details, to the point that even though the date is not specified you can get a pretty exact estimate based on what is happening in the bootlegger wars in the background. There are also plenty of other little tidbits – such as arts, architecture, sports, politics, slang – that makes you love the realism and richness of the setting.

The pacing is wonderful. The plot slowly builds up over the course of the novel, continually picking up pace through twists and reveals, till you just can’t let go. Between the bootlegger wars of Capone, Bugs Moran, et al, purloined Christian hagiography, and Feirie Court politics there is plenty of material to provide unexpected developments.

What to be aware of

This is a noir mystery, set in the classical era for such stories. It’s written in first-person POV with the protagonist narrating events. Don’t expect the touchy-feely characters in contact with their inner child. Men were men, and women wore skirts. (Not that the women in the story lack spunk – but the story and characters fits the era and genre.)

The foremost topic are the Feirie creatures – this isn’t the place to learn about the gang wars of the Outfit, nor about Christian mythology. Those play an important role, but not the main one.

Summary

Unsurprisingly, I love the combination of history, mystery, and fantasy. The 1920’s were a fascinating era, and Mr Knaak makes full use of that background. From the Art Deco elevator doors on the cover, to the slang of the low-lifes, the world in Black City Saint is alive.

Amongst the ranks of historical-fantasy-detectives (or any two out of the three – you know I’ll read anything from Ruth Downie’s Medicus Roman Mysteries to Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files), Nick Medea and Richard Knaak deserve a place of honour. This is fast becoming one of my favourite series.

So what are you waiting for? yourself a favour, and get a copy Black City Saint now. You won’t regret it. Me, I’m just going to keep on reading with Black City Demon.

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Assaph Mehr, author of Murder In Absentia: a story of Togas, Dagger, and Magic - for lovers of Ancient Rome, Urban Fantasy, and Detective mysteries. show less

The Dragonlance Chronicles were so popular that they spawned dozens of prequels, sequels, and "histories" set in the world of Krynn. Unfortunately, most of those not written by Weis and Hickman were mediocre at best. This was one of the rare exceptions - almost as compelling as the original trilogy. Knaak has written other Dragonlance books, and I actually enjoyed them all, but this is his best. Mostly due to the rich subject. Huma was mentioned in the Chronicles as being the hero of Sturm. show more A legendary Knight of Solamnia, Huma sacrificed himself, and his beloved (a silver dragon) to save Krynn. Knaak gives us the legend, but also the man.

Huma was a flawed human being who rose to great heights on courage and honor. He is a three-dimensional character who is engaging, annoying and riteous at times, and a worthy hero to the story. But, I have to admit, my favorite character here is Magius. Magius may be more well-known simply because Raistlin (my favorite of the original companions) carried "The Staff of Magius" throughout the Chronicles and Legends before it was inherited by Palin. In some ways Magius, as characterized by Knaak, is a rip-off of Raistlin. He's sly, self-centered, incredibly gifted but with a heart buried somewhere beneath the lies. Sound familiar? Yet, he works well for many of the same reasons Raistlin did. Every heroic crusade needs a cynic! His relationship with Huma, while bearing some superficial resemblance to Raistlin and Sturm, is far deeper. Magius truly is Huma's friend, and though he considers Huma a fool most of the time, he stands by Huma's side when it matters most. Magius is the perfect foil for Huma's blinding heroism. He reminds readers that courage and honor come with a high price that most ordinary people are unwilling or unable to pay. Their dialog and interaction provide great humor, as well as making the story flow. It also made the ending bittersweet as well as a bit surprising (despite knowing Huma would die). Another bonus of this novel is that more of the evolution of magic, in terms of the towers, heirarchy, etc, are explored.

Overall, this was an exceptional entry to the Dragonlance Saga. Well worth reading! show less

AUGH!

Let me explain... but first let me warn you, spoilers are incoming. I suggest you read it all anyway, because I will be saving you money. A conclusion is at the bottom if you don't want to slog through this rage fest.

Alright, so the novel Stormrage aims to cover a part of lore that has existed in game since vanilla and was as big a deal for Druid fans as Frostmourne was to the general public. It covers the mystery of Malfurion's disappearance, the sickness of the great tree Teldrassil, show more and the identity of the Nightmare Lord. I am not just a WoW fan, but a WoW fan who RPed a Night Elf Druid for three years straight, so for me there was a certain amount of personal investment in the outcome of this book. If you don't know what I just said, don't worry, the rest of the review will be legible to you.

As much as I was curious to see what Blizzard would do with all of these as of yet unembellished plot elements, I was also wary, because they had brought in Richard Knaak to do the writing. Knaak has a very divisive reputation among fans for his penchant for inserting non lore characters that steal the show with their super powers. He also isn't a very good writer.

So my attitude going into the book was one of hope and trepidation. It did not take me many pages to realize that I was in for a nightmare that did not have anything to do with Satyrs bent on world domination.

The first thing I noticed was that Knaak seems to mistake italics for a writing style. I don't exaggerate when I say that on almost every other page some word or another is -emphasized- to mark some sort of -emphasis-. I don't have the book anymore (borrowed it from work, no way I'm paying for that crap) so I must paraphrase, but stuff like "The axe was not made of metal, but was crafted -from wood-" or "She struck at her foe, and then -disappeared-." When I read I hear what I am reading in my head. The awkward and constant placement of -emphasis- turned the voice reading to me into a ten year old that couldn't wait to tell me about all the -cool- stuff that happened in his backyard -yesterday-. If every other thing is so damn special, none of it is now is it?

Reading this book in plain text would not help much. There is no style (unless you count stiff sentence reassignment like, "Worry not about your friends," style) to speak of in this book. The writing is just bad. No imagery, no evocation of any emotions whatsoever (besides rage. More on that later.) and so much telling that I was literally saying out loud, "I know, I know!" Where Knaak does try to be a little creative, he usually ends up just being wrong. Take this gem: "The storm unleashed."

Storms don't unleash. Storms are unleashed. Luckily, shit like this did not happen once every other page like his overeager italics, but it happened often enough to be a trend.

Besides simply being badly written, Stormrage manages to take some of the most iconic characters of WoW, stick them in a blender, and make them either boring or insufferable. Malfurion Stormrage, the namesake of the book, is a powerful Night Elf Druid, the first Druid, in fact, who fought in almost every major conflict in Azeroth's history, defeated legions of foes, and has an entire order that calls him teacher and master. In the game Warcraft III he sacrifices the immortality of his people to defeat the burning legion and says something rather decent for a game character. "If pride gives us pause, my love, then perhaps we have lived long enough." He's humble, but with strong conviction, and devoted to his calling.

Stormrage in the book is an utter pussy. Almost every choice he makes in the book he feels bad about. How do I know this? Knaak tells me. Every time. Stormrage reaches out and manipulates an orc, which he feels bad about. He gathers his druids together and has them aid him in a spell, which makes him feel bad about putting them at risk. Every order he makes is accompanied by either, "I feel so bad about this, but..." or "It's all my fault it's going down like this, but..."

And almost every other character is almost the exact same way. Everyone feels sorry for themselves in this book. They could be literally conjuring a storm over the entire god damn world -and- a parallel universe while thinking to themselves, "man, I'm such an inadequate jerk." Yeah, I know you've won multiple wars almost single handedly and save the world in this book, but you're such a loser, Malfurion.

Actual character conflict is also non existent. The only bit of 'conflict' you get is when someone gives a command, someone else is like, "No! I will come with you!" the two characters look at each other for a moment, and then all is resolved, because one of them knows in their heart that the other is right. This happens constantly.

When characters are not giving orders, being obeyed, and feeling bad about it, they are making decisions that are either "wrought with danger, but the only possible option." or "what so and so knew must be done to finally end this nightmare." during the first three quarters of the book almost every decision is followed up by the first statement in some form. Over the last quarter the second phrase starts seeing a lot of play.

So about halfway through the book I was going through at a generally decent pace, lamenting the fact that the writing was awful and characters were as flavorful and diverse as dry leaves. But I consoled myself with this: at least the plot wasn't a disaster. And about halfway through the book this is true. Ok, so Malfurion is turning into a tree in the dream and needs a magic axe to cut him down. Staghelm is crazy and using the druids against their knowledge to feed the Nightmare Lord. A rescue mission is attempted, Stormrage gets free and confronts Staghelm, Staghelm gets carried out by the now enlightened druids ranting and raving. Not the best, but ok, I can deal with this.

And then things got stupid. The plot essentially ends in the middle of the book, when all the questions people want the answers to are answered, Malfurion is free, and Teldrassil is not only cleansed but blessed by the aspect of life. The only thing left is to either clean up or push back the Nightmare. One half of the book is devoted to this, and it makes for the most frustrating, hectic loop da loop I've ever had to read.

The good guys exceed the bounds of anything they thought they could ever do, and then they falter, and then the exceed the bounds of anything they thought they could ever do, and then they falter, and then they... The last four of five times of this (all usually coinciding with that, "what so and so knew must be done to finally end this nightmare," phrase to mark the start of a new loop), I wanted to strangle the heroes and tell them to just win the damn thing already! How many times can you almost win just to realize you have played into your enemy's trap before it becomes tedious? Fewer times than were in this book, that's for sure. And once people started breaking out the super powers all sense of urgency or danger was gone.

There is a character who's sole purpose is to shuttle everyone else around. He has the unique ability to teleport anyone not only to any point in the world, but any point in the parallel world of the Dream. Usually this requires druidic powers or a portal. He literally has no purpose in the book other than to get everyone to the next plot point. How lazy can you be?

Later in the book Malfurion is so powerful he's chatting it up through mind speak to everyone on the planet. It gets to the point where everyone is in different places, but they might as well be right next to each other, because the distance means nothing. At one point I thought it was over when the key to victory, an axe, was laying right at Malfurion's feet, and all he had to do with go pick it up and use it. Instead, when his 'beloved' Tyrande tells him this, he yells at her and makes them leave it. This is ironically the only assertive thing he does in the whole book.

I could go on. There are points where characters ponder why continuity has been bludgeoned again, and then give the reader some "it must be..." bone, as if the writer has just noticed that something is out of whack, but rather than fix it he figures a quick patchup will do.

The end is as expected. Although almost every character attempts to heroically sacrifice themselves once or twice, only one or two end up succeeding. Tyrande and Malfurion have a marriage that is presided over not only by every superpower in the book, but by some of Knaak's insertion characters that had minor or no facetime too. Some characters find new confidence that I'm sure will be gone the next time they face a challenge. The Nightmare Lord is defeated, but the Nightmare Lord's master is left untouched so we can go through all this bullshit again at a later date. If I remember correctly, Staghelm gets sent to the druid version of a sanitarium.

I admit that I was biased against Knaak when I started reading, but I really wanted this to be a good book. I wanted to see lore that I love come to life. Instead I had to sit through what amounted to officially sanctioned, terrible fan fiction. What frustrates me is that as bad as this book is, a lot of people will be buying it just for its association with Warcraft. It's not worth the money. If you are not a Warcraft fan, steer clear away, because there are no redeeming features to this book whatsoever. If you are a Warcraft fan and still really want to know what happens, I'll be providing an in depth synopsis in my 'comments' so you can save your time, your money, and your blood pressure. show less