Blood Money

Brunner the Bounty Hunter #1

by C.L. Werner

Their world is one of deceit, treachery and random violence, where words are cheap and life even more so. Survival depends upon a unique blend of intelligence, animal cunning and brute force, with pain and the promise of pain maintaining their aura of fear.

Brunner is one such man, a ruthless individual who will stop at nothing to catch his prey and claim his reward.

After a chance encounter with Tilean writer Erhard Stoeker, Brunner relates some of his adventures from nobleman to slave to apprentice bounty hunter and beyond. The tales he tells are nothing short of epic -- the treachery of the blackheart Viscount Augustine De Chegney, battles against the mutated skaven ratmen, tracking down vicious orc warlords and battles against the legendary bandit, the Black Prince.

But Brunner has scores to settle from a previous lifetime. The smouldering desire for revenge constantly burns away at him until he can claim final vengeance.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jason Ray Carney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awesome Warhammer Fantasy novel set in Estalia and Tilea, a kind of Renaissance Spain and Italy. The first half consists of a group of related short stories and the second half is a novella about a revenge conspiracy involving Nurgle, Slaanesh, Khorne, and Tzeentch. The main character, Brunner, the Reiklander Bounty Hunter, is really interesting, a true bad ass. He's a fantasy-version of the intractable Judge Dredd (except Brunner is motivated by coin rather than justice--truly appropriate for the setting). These tales are grim, bloody, action-filled, and engaging: true escapist spectacles with the sword and sorcery intensity set to 11. C.L. Werner is one my favorite Warhammer Fantasy novelists. In my opinion, he gets the themes of the "Old World" and hews closely to them while keeping things fresh. A lot of the Old World (most of it, honestly) analogizes European nations and historical periods, and one gets the sense the author knows the relevant literary history. For example, in this novel, you get the sense that this is modeled on an Italian Renaissance revenge tragedy, except the protagonist isn't seeking revenge but has nevertheless gotten caught up in the bloody machinations. To summarize: looking forward to reading more of Brunner's adventures. There are several more after this.

[Bart Landman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good!

[Paulo "paper books only" · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to come

[Shaun Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

At long, long, long last I finally delved into the Warhammer universe. Deciding where to jump into this franchise is its own homework assignment and I settled on this collection of tales.

Selecting the tales of Brunner the Bounty Hunter was a great place to begin the Warhammer journey as following his exploits doesn't require any deep knowledge of existing lore as we spend this book following him over the course of several short stories and one medium-length tale.

Strangely, I typically don't enjoy short stories as they usually end just as they begin, but I found the format to work very well this time. Werner is a great writer who provides just enough detail and immersion in the Warhammer world to pull me along and keep me entertained.

This book is comprised of seven tales, with the last one being the longest at almost triple the length of the others. Their overall qualities vary from good to great, but I did ultimately knock a star off because all seven stories basically have the same set up. Brunner is a bounty hunter/killer, so you can probably imagine how most of his tales go: something bad happens to someone, they find Brunner and hire him to Do the Thing and Brunner, being the badass he is, Does the Thing without fail.

So, while the stories are repetitious, they are still entertaining, and I found it a great entry point for this franchise. I am hooked and have already bought more books.

Onward to Blood and Steel!

[Jeff Powers · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the better Warhammer books I have read. I'm really giving this a 3.5, but giving it the full 4 felt a bit too generous. The characters are great, and I quite liked the bard framing device used to connect the short stories. It reminded me a lot of the first Witcher novel, collecting short stories to tell the exploits of a hunter and develop the character. Much like other WH novels, the stories go through and depict the protagonist fighting each of the groups of baddies (orcs, skaven, chaos, etc). This is kind of old hat by this point, but each story has enough of its own flavor to keep them interesting and not feel like they are recycling the same plot over and over. I will definitely be reading the second set of stories when I get a chance. Recommended for fans of Warhammer Fantasy or fans of the Witcher.

[Roger L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outside of William King’s Gotrek and Felix novels, I firmly believe the Brunner series is the best place to start reading Warhammer Fantasy. It’s about a “one-dimensional” complete badass bounty hunter. It has a lot of American Wild West vibes.

As good as the first Brunner novel is, I also think the 2nd novel gets significantly stronger; I have Blood & Steel a solid 5 stars.

Both books offer a diverse micro-experience of different foes. In Blood Money, Brunner encounters:
- Orcs
- Beastmen
- Skaven
- A Mutant
- Dark Elves

I look forward to reading the final book in the series.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

**1/2: this is not a novel but a string of repetitive short stories when the thinnest gossamer of through-line to stitch them together. Taken individually, they are enjoyable. But to read through the whole book in one-go would be a total grind.

[Tonet · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5/5 Me encanta volver a ser niño de vez en cuando y sin duda Warhammer Fantasy lo consigue. ¿ Porque pasa esto o aquello ? Pues porque si o acaso no mola!

[Vojtech Sroub · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy, nice, gritty read, book of stories about Brunner, hopefully in later instalments se will get to know him better, but from what I have seen of him, I liked that a lot

[Student Teacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

C.L. Werner is fast becoming my favorite Warhammer Fantasy authors. Blood Money is the first book of the Brunner the Bounty Hunter Omnibus. It tells the story, oddly enough, of Brunner the Bounty Hunter.

Talk about the quintessential anti-hero. This guy is a total D-bag, but I couldn't help but love him. This book is a series of short stories that tell of Brunner's adventures in Bretonnia and the Border Princes, penned by a writer from the Empire.

I like the use of the short stories with Brunner as they give us many views of how he plies his trade and all the different ways he can be a bastard.

I think that what I like the most about Brunner is that he doesn't appear super-natural like many of the fantasy heroes such as Gotrek, and he doesn't rely on magic. What he does is use his mind as a weapon along with his very prodigious fighting skills.

I am very much looking forward to continuing to the next story Blood and Steal.

I give this book four collected bounties out of five.

[Matt Kruse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Warhammer fantasy at it's finest: dark, gritty, with an interesting protagonist. However, I couldn't go over three stars because a) as with basically all of the Warhammer books, it's a pretty light read without much depth and b) there were a number of small typoes and odd word choices that bugged me.