Another one of the older Warhammer books fell into my lap, and I was not disappointed!
The cover is a bit arse. Sorry, whoever the artist is, but while I can see how this deserves some praise for actually being a relevant cover, as opposed to some of the other older books that just got a random badass on the cover, I can't say that I am impressed with the quality of it. The style is somewhat wrong, and it doesn't quite fit the mood of the book either.
I expected it to be a bit of a Warhammer Fantasy BATTLE book featuring the White Wolves prominently. I was wrong. While they are indeed featured heavily, there is far more complexity to the story. First of all, it ties together several "main characters" who each star in different tales spread out over the seasons of a year in Middenheim. This works well, and it may take you a while to realise that these are in fact interconnected and not simply novellas thrown together based on a shared location. Obviously now I have 'spoiled' as much for you, but still. This means that some parts are more of a detective story, other parts are about templars and heroism (or lack thereof) and other parts are harder to pin a genre to. It all comes together in a climax that one may or may not find enjoyable, but it's quite grand and neatly bundles up the story, while leaving enough open ends that they could make a sequel to the book, or indeed a whole series. I have not bothered to find out if they did, but I would read on if they did. All in all, it was more of a Warhammer Fantasy ROLEPLAY novel, as the older books tend to be, and there is no army gathering in the North and no big battlefield where army lists are made flesh for readers/consumers to enjoy.
There are a few characters who lack depth in this, but to be fair, there is a large cast of supporting characters, or low-level main character. Some of these are obviously a bit cliche, but if you read enough fantasy novels, you come to accept that or switch genres. Other characters are quite good or even very good, and the plot is good enough to keep them all afloat. Too often the Warhammer books have either a decent plot with two-dimensional characters, or a bad plot where strong characters end up lost in idiocy. This book has a pretty good balance. Dieter Brossman, the priest of Morr, is perhaps the strongest character, and the knights - some of which seemed Dumas-inspired - are largely decent, except for a few "Red Shirts" that a can reader can perhaps pick out as filler marked for death...
There is an enjoyable amount of info about Middenheim, one of the cooler settings of the old Warhammer world. Maybe you can't quite smell the place based on the descriptions, but it's a solid backdrop for the story, and it has a little info about the White Wolves and the Knights Panther that readers may welcome, though the Panthers largely come off as a bit naf. Fair enough, I suppose, as it's not a book about them, but they did seem a bit too useless for my taste. Why do templars of Ulric use the warhammer (of Sigmar) anyway? Best not wonder.
The book is supposedly written by Dan Abnett, Nik Vincent and James Wallis. How that worked, and who did what, I don't know. It's a fairly seemless blend, or at least they've managed to edit it together with consistency.
I give this book four skulls out of five and recommend it as solid.
