Shared by:kevinwang
David Bishop (Author)
I should first say that this is not necessarily a bad novel, as Mr. Bishop does possess some real skill, especially in his prose and horror-novel techniques, but the novel itself just has too many underdeveloped facets. And the true tragedy comes from the knowledge that this could have been a very good, if not great, book.
The plot is flat and soullessly linear, with the only real twist leaving the reader feeling cold and void at the end. You know what will happen and who will die. But their deaths, as well as much of the action in the novel, are utterly pointless. Like the hinted at oblivion after death, the novel's final ending is futile, dispiriting, and difficult to believe.
The main villain, Farrak the Curiously Sadistic, is one of the absolute worst examples of a stereotypical, trite, uninteresting and flagrantly facile villain as I have ever seen. It's as if Mr. Bishop just did not care. Rarely has a bad guy so failed to make an impression on me, especially a necromancer. Farrak is a... bad caricature of the evil wizard with a Received Pronunciation and pathetic-imitation of a droll sense of humor. He has all the personality of Michael Myers or Jason but lacks any their presence. His story is vague to the point of irrelevance and his actions equally meaningless. He wields vast power which is mostly spent in acts of pointless sadism - which neither furthers the plot nor deepens the character. His necromantic powers are at best a thin veneer of morbidity smeared over standard "evil sorcery" like dog excrement on the sole of my shoe.
Several elements in the story make absolutely no sense. None.
Such as the lack of wizards. There is not one "allied" or "good" wizard of any power or stripe anywhere within Marienberg as far as the novel tells us. (But there are more than a dozen Witch Hunters.) In fact in a large, permissive, metropolitan port city widely infamous for tolerating magic in ways that the Empire doe not, there just aren't any wizards. No apprentices. No master sorcerers. No witches. No hedge wizards of any sort. Not even a scholar of the subject. And so the most crucial weapon in a fight against a necromantic invasion isn't simply difficult to obtain, illegal, or dangerous - it is completely non-existent. At the time of the invasion there isn't even one Imperial Wizard from the Colleges of Magic present, even though all the other source material available for Warhammer (that I'm privy to) says that Marienberg contains not just rogue sorcerers but licit Wizards of the various Orders as well. Nor are any sent for!
Also, if we're going to have a Warhammer novel with magic, can we please retain the flavor of the setting? Magic - High, Order, Dark, what have you - is dangerous, as much to the caster, as to his intended victims. Much of the appeal of sorcery within this particular setting is that its wielders lack the frivolous nonchalance of spell-casters in other worlds. Let us not lose this wonderfully unique flavor!
It is with the necromancy that Mr. Bishop fails to truly give his villain depth. The Old World's rich and variegated sorcerous lore could have provided some real perspective to the villain - mentioning the Dark Lore of Necromancy (in that specific context), the Wind of Dhar, references to Nagash, anything along that line would have made a huge difference, adding depth and mystery to Farrak who turned out to be boring more than anything else. This villain could have been every bit as fierce and interesting as Heinrich Kemmler or Mannfred von Carstein or Tevek Thul or Vacharn or Malygris or Szazz Tam, but the author preferred him one-dimensional and as flat as the plot.
And why are very obvious situations and conclusions overlooked by nearly every character in the book, until they have a sudden, utterly unwarranted epiphany which is totally unreasonable considering their past assumptions and observations? These "revelations" are so timely, so informative that for a moment I thought I was reading the script to tentacle-porn hentai where all action is explained by the essentially brainless protagonists... just before their brutal violations.
And the elves simply refusing point-blank to aid the rest of the city in defending against a horde of skeletons, ghouls, wights, ghosts, wraiths, and other horrors...? It is not as if they aren't part of Marienberg - for good or ill. An entire section of the city possessed of the means to combat this tide of murder and brutality (even if only to a limited extent), simply says, "No" and is offended, nay FURIOUS, to have even been asked. This makes no sense whatsoever, and the elves' reasoning is not explained nor implied in any way. The reader is simply left aghast as the elves show themselves to be more inhuman than the one-dimensional monster impelling all this atrocity. Pathetic.
There are vague prophecies and a secret Order, both of which are integral to the story, but neither of which are interesting and didn't garner any empathy from me. Nor were they effective - if you have centuries to investigate a once beaten opponent, that the prophecies ASSURE you will RETURN, then by God, do a little research! One would think that a group of astute supernaturally dedicated individuals given enough time may find out something, some small sliver of knowledge that could help prepare future generations for Farrak's return, but no! Did they trot out scholars versed in forbidden necromantic secrets to use against Farrak? No! Priest-warriors specially trained to deal with a necromantic adversary? Certainly not! They instead trust to a mystical medallion, that the necromancer crushes without effort.
lit,htm,pdf,doc,lrf,epub,jpg
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| Warhammer - [Marienburg 02] - A Massacre in Marienburg by David Bishop (Undead) (v1.5) (lit,htm,pdf,doc,lrf,epub,jpg).rar 3.05 MBs | |
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