Blood for the Blood God

As soon as I saw the title of this book, I couldn't wait to read it. I had been waiting for a Warhammer novel focusing on the Chaos Wastes ever since William King's Felix & Gotrek ventured into them in their unforgettable adventure "Daemonslayer". This time out, C.L. Werner takes us far away from the Chaos borders with the Empire and turns the focus far, far north into the deep reaches of the Chaos Wastes where they border the region known as the Shadowlands. In this locality live eight tribes of warriors that become the focus of this book, each with their own distinct culture and way of life. A thousand years earlier, a great khan had risen up and united these eight tribes under one banner, laying the foundations for his dream of an empire. But the Blood God Khorne had felt that this khan had strayed from loyalty to him and had begun to care too much about his own glory, so he sent his champion, an undefeatable and deadly warrior known as the Skulltaker, to test the khan and mete out punishment on him. It was only with his own dying blow that the khan was finally able to defeat the Skulltaker, but thereby also shattered the khan's legendary sword. Now, a thousand years later, those events have faded into distant legend and the late khan's once great empire has turned to dust, the eight tribes now at constant war with each other. But suddenly, to everyone's surprise and alarm, the Skulltaker reappears, this time seeking to harvest the skulls of the heads of each of the eight tribes. Can the tribes overcome centuries of hatred and mistrust to defeat this unstoppable killing machine? C.L. Werner does a great job of creating distinct and interesting cultures for each of the tribes. But my reason for giving this book only 4 stars is that I felt that, like a lot of Warhammer novels, it was a bit weak at times in the characterization department. While the main character, Dorgo of the attack mammoth-riding Tsavag tribe, and his father Hutga Khagan are fleshed out well enough, unfortunately the other characters just seem to be sketched out in thumbnail. I kept hoping for a deeper glimpse into the psychology of some of the book's main villains, but in the end they remained one-dimensional. Most of them were nothing more than fodder for the Skulltaker's sword. In particular, I was very disappointed that a certain female main character's psyche was never explored, as I felt that she was an especially interesting character with much potential for complexity, who was just completely wasted by being given a very cursory and formulaic end. Overall, I finished this book feeling disappointed that more was not done with some of the very interesting characters that Werner created. The focus seemed to be mainly on action and battle sequences (which Werner does do very well). While what he did write was okay, with a little deeper probing of the minds of characters besides Dorgo and Hutga Khagan, I feel that this book could have been a classic.

The action described in the book happens in a northern region between the Shadowlands and the Chaos Wastes and describes how the inhabitants of the land see an almost forgotten prophecy come alive again thousands of years after its first events took place. The tale is one of confrontation, wanton violence, deception, revenge, overwhelming hate, bloodspill and carnage and is totally devoid of humor. The author shows a vivid imaginery when it comes to depicting intense dramatic scenes and in a manner that -in my opinion- clearly surpasses other authors. However violent, the story is very well-tailored, with interesting turns and develops at a solid pace. The important details of the story are unveiled when needed and only at the last third of the book do the pieces start to glue together. In another matter, being myself quite new to the Warhammer world I can make out that this novel must be a cornerstone of the Warhammer fantasy world for it fueled the imagination of the authors of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning: champions of Khorne, bloodletters, the very Skulltaker and a certain bloodthirster can be found in a very atmospheric Khorne-themed dungeon inside the game, located in the border between the city of Praag and the Chaos Wastes.

This book by C.L. Werner is a fantastic read. It shows the Chaos tribes as human. Unlike the perception that they are all Axe-Wielding Barbarians bent on destruction, the book shows that they are just trying to survive a harsh land, they have fear for their children, and admiration for their comrades.The Skulltaker has come back from hundered's of generations to destroy the tribes of Teigeotyi's empire. The book shows the tribes playing politics sometimes working togther sometimes agianst each other. The Bloodeater the only weapon that can kill the skulltaker must be reforged and in the end the two main charachters in the story, the protagonist and the antognist collide. All in all this was an excellent book and its puts C.L. Werner up their with Black Library heavyweights such as Dan Abnett, Graham McNeil and William King. Also it is good primer for anyone playing a chaos army in warhammer.

I found this book from C.L. Werner much better than Palace of the Plague Lord. It presents a political game and a series of adventures between Chaos Horde tribes to counter a classical champion of Khorne who come to threat those tribal factions. The Horde tribes created to compose the politics in this story are interesting and well presented in the appendix and throughout the story. The book depict the Hung, the Kurgan and the Tong with lots of humanity. This point of view have its merits and flaws. It creates a sens of familiarity, which can be interesting and useful when it comes to give reasons and believes to these people. It shows, also, an interest when it comes to shake the common point of view of the Empire about these folks. However, by injecting humanity in Chaos worshipers, we can also reach a point where the Ruinous power and their followers doesn't present much differences anymore with the other classical cults (Morr, Sigmar, Ulric, etc). I think this orientation took by Werner toward the followers of Chaos in his book is valuable and open some interesting avenue. However, sometimes he doesn't seem to succeed to extract all the possibilities and the ambiguity that come with this perspective given his subject. When it happens, his Horde protagonists become either too conventional or too simple, if not cliché sometimes. By depicting the Chaos Horde with some humanity, the Chaos side loose a great deal of his strangeness and horror. There is some of those moments in the book, but the author doesn't succeeds all the time to find the right combination and blend between humanity and alienness with the character of his Chaos protagonists. Still, the book present a nice adventure to read. His Khorne's champion really radiate dread and doom. He doesn't stand as the main character, but, rather, as the central menace around which the story will evolve. The main character stand rather with the Horde's tribes themselves, since they are those who act against this common enemy. The author give his best lines, to my view, with the ending. He have draw a grandiose one which will reward the reader very well. In this conclusion, we find absolutely all the peculiar and the horror of Chaos.