I have been quite busy lately, both with life/work/etc and with "The Hobby", so this blog is due for some attention at last.
I have read Knight of the Blazing Sun by Josh Reynolds, a popular Black Library writer who has also written some of their 40K-stuff as well as some other books about knights in his Bretonnia-books. I like his stuff, generally speaking, though the Word Bearers books got a little too heavy on the blood and battle stuff for my taste. But back to the book at hand...
Whenever someone is sent to investigate the death of an emissary anywhere in a Warhammer setting or perhaps in general, we can all be sure that dark powers are afoot and that larger/further misdeeds are planned. Every single time. It is never just a case of some guy having an actual accident, so that our hero gets to turn around and go back home again having found nothing interesting to see. So, same old in this book, but we do accept that, and the plot here is never hard to unravel for a keen mind (ie not absurdly drunk or mentally disabled): A knight of the Blazing Sun is sent to check up on his brothers on an island off in the North (Danger! Danger!) near Marienburg, after the death of the previous guy that the grandmaster sent to do the same, and all is not well there. Lets leave it at that.
Reynolds knows his history for sure. This comes through in his Knights of Bretonnia-books, and here as well. He knows his Templars, and he's boned up on "norse" as well, sprinkling the narrative with some norse words for colour. Well done, mr Reynolds, as so much is indeed won with a few details. One might cheekily suggest that a not TOO extensive re-write could have transported this story to 40K, where inquisitors, rogue space marines or guardsmen etc might all have substituted the characters in this book and seen the plot survive almost intact nevertheless. Here we have knights of the South with the interesting goddess Myrmidia as their patron pitted against the norse who continue to be the most interesting people in Warhammer, stuck as they are on the edge of Chaos and in religious turmoil.
We are not treated to terribly much detailed info about particular exotic locations in this book. There IS a bit about what Myrmidia and her knights are generally all about, and this is weaved into the narrative in a rather succesful way where it doesn't come off as too contrived for the characters to either be explaining themselves or thinking about stuff that is obviously already a fairly strong presence in their lives. There are quite a few other examples in books like this where some random character sits around thinking more or less out loud about what his role is... as you do. Not. I think I can give a passing grade to the effort made in that regard in this book.
Random things that I did not like in no particular order: The meeting of the chieftains with its slapstick squabbling, guy transforming into a bear, random riverboat tryst, trident-hand knight.
The book is well written, never boring or predictable beyond the acceptable, and descriptions are vivid and crisp. Perhaps Reynolds is experienced enough to know exactly what he can fit into a book of about 400 pages, or perhaps his editor sliced it just right, because it seems to have neither too much or too little fluff, and the characters have just about the right amount of depth and development for a book of this type.
I give this book four stars or skulls or what have you, and a spearhead pointing up. For it to reach five, it would have needed more obscure nods to templars and such, and some weeding out of the stuff that annoyed me. All in all, a very good Warhammer-book.
