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Title: Heldenhammer
Series:
Warhammer: Legend of Sigmar #1
Author: Graham
McNeill
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Fantasy
Pages: 341
Format: Digital
Edition
Sigmar, son of a
local king, has a dream. A dream of uniting all the various tribes as
a single united human empire to withstand all the creatures of chaos.
This is his story of how he unites the warring tribes whether with
force, guile or brave deeds.
He loses his
bloodbrother in a fight against orcs and the twin brother, Gerreon,
holds it against Sigmar for years. Sigmar is betrothed to Gerreon's
sister Ravenna but Gerreon ends up killing her as well when he
attempts to kill Sigmar. Gerreon flees and is seen no more.
Sigmar is turned
back from the doors of death by his father and told he has a destiny
to prevent the end of humanity. Once king, Sigmar begins uniting the
tribes and providing mutual protection against the various orc
raiders and wild animals, etc. A few human clans resist and are wiped
out. Then an Orc Warlord arises and unites the orcs and goblins into
one massive army and descends onto the human occupied lands to wipe
them out. Sigmar and all the kings, along with some of the dwarves,
face off against this monstrous horde. Sigmar kills the orc Warlord
and breaks the horde and all the kings bow to him as Emperor.
The book ends with
the remnants of the tribes destroyed by Sigmar taking Gerreon in and
plotting vengeance.
This didn't do much for me. The big things, the action and adventure,
those are gone into. But the little things, like why does Sigmar have
a comet with two tails as his emblem, is completely ignored.
Obviously McNeill has a lot to pack into 3 books and can only make
room for a certain amount but why did a boy getting cut with a sword
on a training field take precedent over the freaking symbol of Sigmar
himself?
If you've ever read Dicken's A Childes History of England,
you'll get that same vibe here. “This” happened and then “that”
happened and then Sigmar did “Exploit” and then everybody made
him Emperor.
Part of why I'm so pissy about this is that I went into this with the
attitude that this trilogy had to really impress me for me to keep
reading in the Warhammer universe even while I KNEW it couldn't and
wouldn't. So I'm feeling hypocritical. Bleh. At the same time, I DO
want to know how Sigmar became a god and I'm hoping why he didn't
stick around and save the bloody world is answered. Just in case you
didn't know, the world that Warhammer takes place in was destroyed by
the forces of chaos when the creators of Warhammer ended the
Warhammer game.
This was very much the quintessential media tie in that I've come to
expect from most franchises. In other words, if you're invested in
the game, media, whatever, you'll like the books simply because it
tells more. If you're not invested in Franchise X, it probably won't
do much for you.
I did give this the Ultra-Violence tag because the hammer of Sigmar
really does some damage and McNeill doesn't shy away from describing
it. Lots of brain matter enters into the equation, yuck.
★★★☆☆