C. L. Werner

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Thanquol's Doom
Series: Warhammer: Thanquol & Boneripper #3
Author: C.L.Werner
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 304
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Due to Skaven politics, Thanquol's show more success at staying alive and reporting the death of the conjurer from his previous expedition is now a mark against him. Everyone wishes he had died so as to not remind them of the expedition at all.

Now Thanquol must “lead” an expedition against a Dwarven stronghold. He is allied, this time around, with the skaven scientists/alchemists and they have supplied him with a mechanical Boneripper built from the remains of his original one. Unfortunately for Thanquol, he is saddled with another Grey Seer who has secret instructions of his own. And of course, the Alchemists have their own hidden, true agenda.

Turns out Thanquol is simply a diversion for the dwarves to focus on while the alchemists and the other grey seer do their own thing. The grey seer is going after a powerful magical item, the paw of something or other and the alchemists are building a Doomsphere, meant to destroy the dwarven stronghold totally and completely. The fact that it might destroy the skaven city as well is just incidental.

Thanquol schemes how to make use of both of these agendas. He ends up releasing a chaos demon of almost uncontrollable power, by accident, and the doomsphere destroys itself due to the dwarves machinations.

The book ends with Thanquol still alive and figuring out how to survive this latest debacle.

My Thoughts:

This was a decent end to this trilogy. Since this was a spinoff of the Gotrex & Felix series I wonder if Thanquol ends up being killed off in that series? As a skaven, he certainly deserves it!

I've been considering why I enjoyed this Warhammer trilogy as much as I did while I haven't really enjoyed the others I've read. Part of it is the humor. Werner does a fantastic job of showing how cowardly, two-faced and constantly backstabbing the Skaven are and it is just really hard to get depressed when reading about their antics. It's like watching a clown car at the circus. The humor was ironic in nature, with Werner showcasing the worst of the skaven nature through Thanquol but it was so ridiculous that I couldn't help but laugh. Much like the clown car I mentioned or seeing clowns beat the crap out of each other. Objectively, it is unpleasant, but in the right situation, it is great humor. It mitigated the depressing side of the Warhammer universe. In comparison, Werner wrote some of this book from the dwarves perspective and my goodness, now THAT was depressing. A Book of Grudges, Berserkers who live only to die in battle, a declining population due to birth rates and attrition? Ugh, ugh and ugh.

I was about to give up on the whole Warhammer universe after my run in with Tyrion & Teclis. Thankfully, this turned things around so at least I'll try another Warhammer trilogy. Bookwraiths has reviewed another Warhammer trilogy by Werner and if my next choice (the Legend of Sigmar trilogy) doesn't pan out, I might try that. But if I hit 2 stinkers of a series in a row, or they are just too depressing for me, I'll probably be done with Warhammer.


★★★☆½ show less

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Temple of the Serpent
Series: Warhammer: Thanquol & Boneripper #2
Author: C.L. Werner
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 416
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Thanquol is blamed for the loss of show more the warpstone in the previous book and various skaven faction leaders all plan on killing him. To survive, he goes on a mission with the assassin faction to wipe out the leader of a city sacred to that faction. The assassins were driven out long ago and a race of lizardmen took it over. Now it is up to Thanquol and a small army to penetrate a dangerous jungle, find the city, kill the leading magician and make it back home. Hopefully with loads and loads of loot.

There is a magic toad, who has the power of mathematics from the higher powers, that is orchestrating many strings. In response to the skavens coming to the city, he brings a boatload of humans to balance out the equation and to see what the final solution will be. The final solution? Every single human dies by the end of the book. Almost every single skaven is killed and the lizardman magician dies as well. The toad goes back to contemplating mathematics.

Thanquol gets back to the ship and after a fight with zombie pirates, abandons the ship in a lifeboat and the magic toad magically has it go back to the skaven capital. That is how the book ends.

My Thoughts:

I rather enjoyed this dark fantasy. Having a villain as the main character allows me to root against him and when things fall apart around him, it isn't a bad thing but a good thing. It also helps that skavens as a race are just despicably cowardly creatures and the author does a fantastic job of getting into Thanquol's head and showing how he can switch his thought process on a dime. Each skaven is completely self-centered, so what is good is what is good for them at that moment.

I knew that the human storyline was going to be a bloody mess, but I figured the mercenary guy, Graetz Adalwolf, might survive. I did not see him killing himself to escape the attention of the magical toad. Good call though, as that would probably end up having been hell on earth for Graetz. There was only one female human character, so she was the obvious love interest, but it was written in such a desultory manner that it was no surprise when she bites it at the end. In fact, with just a very small re-working, the whole human storyline could have been done away with. But since they provided at least half the blood and entrails, this story would only have been half as fun without them.

Boneripper. Once again, not really a character but a name. Thanquol seems to have quite the limited imagination when it comes to naming his rat ogres, so when they unsurprisingly die in one violent way or another, he just names the new one Boneripper. Bonerippers remind me more of a force of nature than a character. Kind of like a super violent magical spell that Thanquol has, but in the shape of an ogre.

Now, like I stated at the beginning, I did enjoy this. I only rolled my eyes once, right near the end. Some human zombies that the skaven army had encountered takes over the ship that Thanquol needs. Can anyone say “Pirates of the Caribbean”? Sigh. But it did allow the current Boneripper to die and become a food source for Thanquol on his magical boat ride back to his home. Ok, that whole “magical boat ride back home” thing had me rolling my eyes too.

But I still want to read the final book in the trilogy. Considering how I've felt about previous Warhammer books, that counts as a stunning success for me.

★★★☆☆ show less

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Grey Seer
Series: Warhammer: Thanquol & Boneripper #1
Author: C.L. Werner
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 296
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Thanquol is a skaven magician, one of the Grey show more Seers. After having several of his plots foiled by Gotrek and Felix, Thanquol is sent on a dangerous mission to Altdorf, capital of the Empire, to recover the Wormstone, a huge piece of warpstone that will give its user tremendous power.

Of course, being skaven, Thanquol plots how to seize the stone for himself or at least how to use it to climb up the rungs of power. But since his “allies” are skaven too, they all are also planning on how to take it for themselves.

Upon finding out that the Stone is actually weapon more effective against skaven than humans, Thanquol plots on how to wipe out the city of Altdorf AND the skaven city of Under-Altdorf, thus gaining prestige and favor with the Council of 13. A human wizard of Altdorf has been keeping an eye of the skavens and with his cronies does his best to stop said plan. The other skavens of Altdorf also do their best to stop Thanquol, since dying isn't really what they want to do.

The book ends with Thanquol's plan going awry yet again, most of the skavens fighting him dying and most of the humans fighting the skavens dying.

My Thoughts:

First off, Boneripper is just a name that Thanquol gives to his current giant rat bodyguard. It's almost more of a title than a name, as he seems to go through them at a pretty rapid pace. Now that I know that, I won't be expecting a real duo as main characters.

I've not read any of the Gotrek and Felix books, which I gather is where Thanquol is originally introduced. From the little bit that is referenced, I'm not sure I WANT to read those books. They sound like a right pair of brutal thugs. Given, I'm getting that from Thanquol's viewpoint, but even still.

So, I finally read a book about the skavens. Giant magical rat people with all the characteristics of rats. Cowardly, self-serving, backstabbing and generally bad guys. You'd think that would depress me but for some reason it really didn't. What DID get me down was how the humans opposing the skavens were just as much scumbags, even the wizard guy. With characters like that fighting against Chaos, I'm kind of glad Chaos ends up taking this world.

I keep going into these Warhammer books thinking they're alternates to the Forgotten Realms books. Ha, not even close. Warhammer is bleak, bleak, bleak. It is a good thing I have a month or two between them. Any sooner and I'd be overwhelmed and have to defenestrate myself, which just wouldn't be cool.

I'll definitely be finishing this trilogy. I've also got 2 more Age of Legends trilogies to work through but after that, I don't know that I'll be staying in this world anymore. It's just too bleak and depressing for me.

★★★☆☆ show less

On one hand this is the story of a man trying to prove his value to his family. On the other hand it's a story about a man trying to prove that his pride did not put him in a position that he cannot handle. And then there's his half brother who goaded him into the whole situation in the first place just to start a fight between himself and his younger brother. Tyr going through the realm of fire all for a sword was a good story. I'm familiar with the Marvel comics Thor stories and Tyr rarely show more shows up. Having the spot light on him actually expanded on the realm of Asgard more then Thors comics have done. The story is simple enough for a young comic reader but also good enough for someone who has read comic books for decades. show less