I would not want to spoil it by revealing too much of the plot, but to sum up briefly: A playwrite who was abducted by goblins and now sits in an asylum reveals his story to a scholar (and the scholar's companions), and thus we get the story of Skarsnik the goblin king, as told by a human, an epic (?) tale of a rise to power.
Over all the book is well written. The language is diverse, the plot is decent, if not terribly exciting. This seems difficult to avoid when choosing this "teller within the tale"-format, and the ending is somewhat predictable and not very climactic. I put the book down with a sense of "that's that then" and a bit of a shrug. The attempt at a double climax, both the end to the book, and a big battle left me unimpressed.
The book's strength is its wealth of information about goblins and their society and culture. If the book had been a bit more consistent ("goblins don't have friends as much as favourite rivals" ... and yet "bromance" abounds) it would have been even better in that regard. Let me stress that point: It's worth the read JUST for the information, and there is an inspired vision quest along the way.
Skarsnik himself could be a far more interesting figure if Haley had truly gone all out with the "frustrated genius, surrounded by idiots"-angle, and avoided the pitfall of just trying to make him really cool. It falters at times, and the book struggles a bit to give an accurate picture of how smart Skarsnik is. His cunning plans seem somewhat trivial, and his ruthlesness has become quite a fixture in Warhammer-books where dim readers need reminding that the evil main character is indeed NOT to be cheered for. That a reminder is needed that this is indeed a nasty character is not... great.
Balancing goblins between cute, comical, and really nasty is tricky. Haley manages that, but mostly by correcting imbalances with the opposite. ie when the goblins become too cute, he lets them do something extremely brutal. It works somewhat okay.
The dialogue... I hated a lot of it, I must say.
The supporting cast is largely weak. Some of the characters have very little depth, others have stories that just seem to flop without development. That said, there is a pretty cool shaman that goblin-lovers will no doubt love for his stereotypical greatness, and a few others.
I hate it when I read Warhammer books and see game mechanics at work. There's a big battle that reads like a battle report in White Dwarf. There are challenges, descriptions of weapons (fit for a card) and encounters with monsters that never really come to life. Like holding the recipe for the dish you're eating. A strong sense of "I see what you did there" is impossible to shake. To my mind, the writing MUST be strong enough that I don't sit there guessing stats for characters.
"Skarsnik" is a good read, if you like goblins.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment