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Warhammer Age of Sigmar
The Last Volari
It’s a fascinating look into the twisted nobility of the Soulblight vampires, and the curse they carry in their blood.
Nyssa Volari is dying. But that is impossible, because she is a Soulblight vampire, blessed by Nagash with blood-fuelled immortality. More than that, Nyssa is a fighter – one of the handful of Kastelai vampires not dissolved into true death when the Crimson Keep abandoned them a century ago. With her blades and her will, she carved a kingdom out of the Broken Plains of Aqshy.
These things matter little, for Nyssa's blood is cursed. It destroyed the vampire she called father, and as it threatens to do the same to her, Nyssa's allies abandon her one by one. Worse still, an army of zealots led by a brutal priest of Sigmar comes to destroy the vampire lord and claim her birthright.
Nyssa Volari is dying. But that is impossible, because she has spent every moment of her second life refusing to lose.
Nyssa Volari is dying. But that is impossible, because she is a Soulblight vampire, blessed by Nagash with blood-fuelled immortality. More than that, Nyssa is a fighter – one of the handful of Kastelai vampires not dissolved into true death when the Crimson Keep abandoned them a century ago. With her blades and her will, she carved a kingdom out of the Broken Plains of Aqshy.
These things matter little, for Nyssa's blood is cursed. It destroyed the vampire she called father, and as it threatens to do the same to her, Nyssa's allies abandon her one by one. Worse still, an army of zealots led by a brutal priest of Sigmar comes to destroy the vampire lord and claim her birthright.
Nyssa Volari is dying. But that is impossible, because she has spent every moment of her second life refusing to lose.
336 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2023
15 people are currently reading
121 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 18, 2023
It didn't take me a lot to enjoy this one. Vampires are cool. Period. But let's talk about it anyway, 'cause why not.
It's nothing groundbreaking, is what I'd begin with. However, it most certainly is a cut above the rest in Black Library's novelist-department. It's the tried-and-true formula of “morally-grey-good” VS “good-grey-evil” that's superimposed toward the middle and ending by a “greater-and-insane-evil”. You'll see what I mean once you start reading the thing. Oh, and before you call spoilers! Know that you would've seen it coming from a mile away by the tack of about CH. 3 to 5. All, might I add, without me ever telling you about it. Moving swiftly onwards!
You are learning to make your anger a tool, instead of being a tool for your anger. And that, Nyssa Volari, is what makes you a true Kastelai.
It really doesn't, however, have to be that for you or me to enjoy it—it's a Black Library novel. No one typically reads these for wholly unexpected narratives built around the author's Self and the literary-prowess that springs from that. (although Dan Abnett would like to have a word on that, since he's a rare exception. Man paints sensations into the mental-retinal photograph he keeps snapping shots of in your head!).
it's really badass and enjoyable, and one of the far more well-written works in the Warhammer-verse. The gist is: Vampire goth-chick being haunted by her vampire mommy that lives inside her head, belittles her inside her head, encourages inside of it too occasionally! Oh, whilst vampire daddy is sinking his teeth into the dust and becoming rust. No augur or theme of philosophy running in this beast's undead veins. There's nothing nothing that'll make you awed by the thought put into the passages and the sense inside their trusses of words leading to it, but that's not what this is. It doesn't have to be. Most importantly, it's the sort of fun read you giggle over under the sheets before bed. It's not just cool, but cold as heck in the way it was written! The fight-scenes were so good…
It's also clear that this novel was written with pure nerdgasms in mind and a borderline unhealthy attention to detail over warfare; they were written with such formation and precision I could instantly tell this man—Gary Kloster—must've read about diorama formations when he used it to fourth-wall-break in particular chapters where strategy-meetings happened; I say this because Warhammer is also a board-game and at times the descriptions felt eerily similar to that in mind, but with the story and its reality to back it up. Pure nerdgasms. Loved it.
They marched towards the Spears of Heaven, steaming eyes empty of fear, and where the mortals met the dead of the Irewater, their perfect formations faltered. Their advance ground to a halt against a tide of bone and rust that drowned the Spears of Heaven in fear and death.
Massive-scale battle-sequences. Some of the best I've read this year, right next to Ryan Anthony's mighty and powerful Blood Song. The way Gary defined such epic-proportion into bite-sized descriptors takes a certain kind of talent and esoteric-study behind the scenes before we ever read it. Substrates over substrates, from phalanxes to the blocks of units they form, their respective formations and wedges. Very exact. Very thorough.
Not all is cool, though. There are some boilerplate issues: they don't make for a horrible experience, it really is just a lot of lacks made up for by how expansive and awesome the universe this story takes place in is, really letting it carry it on its back. Which is fine. It serves, and it serves its purpose well-enough.
What does child-abuse, unresolved daddy and mommy issues, and a very pernicious obsession with fascism rested on religion making all those parts tick give you?
“Twlight!” I hear you say. (Minus the part on fascism and religion, but I didn't read the book that far ahead. Gave up at the “I felt the Queen inside me dance as I shoved anal beads up my ass” part. True story…).
Trick question, anyway, since that's everyone in this universe. But it gives you The Last Volari! The name of this book if the Japanese LN authors had their way would've been: Fucked Up Family, Will I Really Survive as the Last Volari?! Snarling Myself to the Top!
That furious, stubborn resistance to any reality that wasn't you winning is one of the things that endeared you to your father. It was one of the things I couldn't stand about you.
My suspension-of-disbelief had to work really hard to cope with the fact that Nyssa is supposedly a hundred-year-old—blah, blah, blah, vampires age different and all, they're still they're still (or were formerly) human!—yet acts like a toddler. I'm not even talking about being bold and courageously stupid, just plain dumb at times. Her mother had been drilling etiquette and diplomacy into her for eighty-years straight, still does inside her head, and…this is the result? Either her mother was sucking a bit too much of her own blood, or she sucked as a teacher, or maybe this is just Nyssa's design to overcome in later books, but considering seven-years is plenty time enough to master things, she really turned into a princess by disgrace and laughability, didn't she? (Note: there is a scene toward the end that makes my point over her mother overestimating herself more apparent, and it was a nice touch.)
A good part, though, is that she's justified in the narrative as being bratty and annoying because she's a comparatively younger vampire than the others—a hundred VS the centuries the bloody lot usually are portrayed as—but she had eight decades after her resurrection to get the gist of how to control herself! The pedagogue of Count Dracula and Misses Dracula herself—one for martial-arts from thousands of different battle-tactics and strategies (the Kastelai have such a badass background), and from the other reasoning and logic—and this is the result?! Oh well, I guess Gary did a great job because he really made me feel equal parts abhorrence and love for Nyssa!
The second-lead also behaves with fatalistic stupidity, but it was more believable because of her experiences this time around. Still, she's fifty? I guess being mopey and bitchy is justified-enough when you've fought in a stupid war for twenty or thirty-years straight. Characterization, as you'll note, is a relative weak-point for this novel that does end up redeeming itself toward the end for some of these people.
What I take an issue over is how stupid Nyssa ends up becoming because she has trouble with leashing herself. It's not that bratty and immature characters are unlikeable, they're not, it's that being emotionally volatile as a grown man or woman doesn't mean you're back to being a teenager again. This, again, is explained by her resurrection having happened when she was hardly twenty. Kelsier, from Mistborn, is a good example of what I mean. He's volatile, emotional, immature and bratty most of the time, yet he's a thirty-eight-something-year-old grown man, and it shows in the way it was written. (Maybe because he Snapped when he was older helped out?). He doesn't go back to being a monkey each time someone spites him, jokingly or otherwise. This weakness is somewhere in all of them, and it makes all the characters feel like they're operating under the guided expectation of their universe and background apropos to it, and aren't a dynamic personality in and of themselves.
The baddies being bad just for the sake of schizo and both female-leads coming across as insensate does dampen it, but overall for the purposes of moving the plot forward in the name of time and interest it works. Man has about a single book to give you a self-contained story in, can't blame him much. It was a commendable enough romp. Who doesn't enjoy the Kestalai, martial-vampires that they are?
I feel this might've been because Gary either wasn't allowed to do that level of character-building or he played the safe-game on purpose: it's an established-universe and Black Library might've wished it to be this way for them, really controlling the lore and all, masters that they are. Either way, I hope he's given a freer hand in the next book. It's certainly possible this was done on purpose, because I can't believe after reading this that Gary is a weak writer or something insane like that, since he's very awesome at his work.
If you taste and savor this book like a movie and not a novel, it works. I've heard the audiobook is really well-voiced and acted; maybe if I'd listened to that, these issues I discovered wouldn't even have been noticed. It's just that good, since each scene does flow like the take of a live-action screenplay. I enjoyed it laid in bed and lazing away enough to worry over all this, so you should be okay.
What else… Oh. You're telling me these vampire houses that act like medieval-nobility have been fighting for generations across so many vast and vile, dangerous realms, wildly different planets and all manner of foes, and have assimilated the knowledge of thousands of martial-techniques and tactics—so much so that the Kastelai are famous for sparing their foes in battle if they became curious enough over the way they fought, the skills they used against them. All of that for a chance to learn them in exchange for the adversary's life. And yet, they too act like squabbling children otherwise when danger happens? Okay, they did lose their time-warping and shifting Crimson Keep a century ago; I guess that was enough to rile them over some. You might think that was a complaint, but if anything, I enjoyed it.
The saving grace is that the author does humanize those flaws and justifies them as being the edge that makes the characters tick; and for the ride along, it works in the long-term. Even if in the short, I know it for what it is. The leeway is less in such a big franchise, and it's a miracle he fit so much in here and gave us a complete novel from start to finish. Relatable characters—even stereotypically—work well when the execution is set just right.
Right as my mood started going toward ennui more and more as I read, the thing picked back up again, and it became badass enough to make me ripple through the last fifty pages. The fight-scenes rehearse extremely-well with the feedback into how down you'd seen Nyssa the majority of the book, and it really makes the blood she's spilling seem even more plentifully powerful and vivid in your mind by comparison toward the end. She overcame such major issues, she deserves the barnstorming of her bloody successes! I found that it was really well-done and handled.
Gary's portrayal of the self-righteous Followers of Sigmar was developed throughout. The way he managed to simultaneously show off how strong and insanely religious, yet still keeping in touch with rationality around it when called for, levelized them to believability for me. The difference in their outward beliefs and Celesian's desires around it as a man was a show and kept me excited for what he'd do next. Next to Nyssa, he's one of the more well-rounded, if not at all developed, characters. A tad cliché here and there, though; which is fine, since all stories operate finely under clichés when executed with freshness.
It's not really well-explained till the very tail-end of the story why and how exactly Nyssa can talk to her dead mother, but the mystery was elegant enough that I couldn't help but go along with it the way the author intended.
Oh, and the relationships in the story are unadorned by any real affection outside of messy and beguiling political-struggles and vested-interests, which was refreshing. There really isn't a single one I can vouch for as being otherwise. Unhinged and completely fucked up. I really can't hammer this home enough: the family dynamics are so dark and fucky that I loved them.
To summarize: The story is filled with some light dosages of politics, tons of heavy and hotblooded battle sequences, and a pizzazz of badassery that's typical of the Warhammer-franchise, but is atypical generally in the stories and writing on display in most Black Library books. This one really served all that up and then some, and I appreciated that. For the rule-of-cool alone, this deserves a five from me. It's not easy taking a massive franchise like this and carving it into your own niched specialty of words and scenery. It takes a courageous man or woman to be able to pull that off, and so Gary has me interested for the next book in the series. I'm also expecting he ups the bar for this trial-run he gave us of his capability; he can do so much more awesome stuff with this world he's created!
5/5.
It's nothing groundbreaking, is what I'd begin with. However, it most certainly is a cut above the rest in Black Library's novelist-department. It's the tried-and-true formula of “morally-grey-good” VS “good-grey-evil” that's superimposed toward the middle and ending by a “greater-and-insane-evil”. You'll see what I mean once you start reading the thing. Oh, and before you call spoilers! Know that you would've seen it coming from a mile away by the tack of about CH. 3 to 5. All, might I add, without me ever telling you about it. Moving swiftly onwards!
You are learning to make your anger a tool, instead of being a tool for your anger. And that, Nyssa Volari, is what makes you a true Kastelai.
It really doesn't, however, have to be that for you or me to enjoy it—it's a Black Library novel. No one typically reads these for wholly unexpected narratives built around the author's Self and the literary-prowess that springs from that. (although Dan Abnett would like to have a word on that, since he's a rare exception. Man paints sensations into the mental-retinal photograph he keeps snapping shots of in your head!).
it's really badass and enjoyable, and one of the far more well-written works in the Warhammer-verse. The gist is: Vampire goth-chick being haunted by her vampire mommy that lives inside her head, belittles her inside her head, encourages inside of it too occasionally! Oh, whilst vampire daddy is sinking his teeth into the dust and becoming rust. No augur or theme of philosophy running in this beast's undead veins. There's nothing nothing that'll make you awed by the thought put into the passages and the sense inside their trusses of words leading to it, but that's not what this is. It doesn't have to be. Most importantly, it's the sort of fun read you giggle over under the sheets before bed. It's not just cool, but cold as heck in the way it was written! The fight-scenes were so good…
It's also clear that this novel was written with pure nerdgasms in mind and a borderline unhealthy attention to detail over warfare; they were written with such formation and precision I could instantly tell this man—Gary Kloster—must've read about diorama formations when he used it to fourth-wall-break in particular chapters where strategy-meetings happened; I say this because Warhammer is also a board-game and at times the descriptions felt eerily similar to that in mind, but with the story and its reality to back it up. Pure nerdgasms. Loved it.
They marched towards the Spears of Heaven, steaming eyes empty of fear, and where the mortals met the dead of the Irewater, their perfect formations faltered. Their advance ground to a halt against a tide of bone and rust that drowned the Spears of Heaven in fear and death.
Massive-scale battle-sequences. Some of the best I've read this year, right next to Ryan Anthony's mighty and powerful Blood Song. The way Gary defined such epic-proportion into bite-sized descriptors takes a certain kind of talent and esoteric-study behind the scenes before we ever read it. Substrates over substrates, from phalanxes to the blocks of units they form, their respective formations and wedges. Very exact. Very thorough.
Not all is cool, though. There are some boilerplate issues: they don't make for a horrible experience, it really is just a lot of lacks made up for by how expansive and awesome the universe this story takes place in is, really letting it carry it on its back. Which is fine. It serves, and it serves its purpose well-enough.
What does child-abuse, unresolved daddy and mommy issues, and a very pernicious obsession with fascism rested on religion making all those parts tick give you?
“Twlight!” I hear you say. (Minus the part on fascism and religion, but I didn't read the book that far ahead. Gave up at the “I felt the Queen inside me dance as I shoved anal beads up my ass” part. True story…).
Trick question, anyway, since that's everyone in this universe. But it gives you The Last Volari! The name of this book if the Japanese LN authors had their way would've been: Fucked Up Family, Will I Really Survive as the Last Volari?! Snarling Myself to the Top!
That furious, stubborn resistance to any reality that wasn't you winning is one of the things that endeared you to your father. It was one of the things I couldn't stand about you.
My suspension-of-disbelief had to work really hard to cope with the fact that Nyssa is supposedly a hundred-year-old—blah, blah, blah, vampires age different and all, they're still they're still (or were formerly) human!—yet acts like a toddler. I'm not even talking about being bold and courageously stupid, just plain dumb at times. Her mother had been drilling etiquette and diplomacy into her for eighty-years straight, still does inside her head, and…this is the result? Either her mother was sucking a bit too much of her own blood, or she sucked as a teacher, or maybe this is just Nyssa's design to overcome in later books, but considering seven-years is plenty time enough to master things, she really turned into a princess by disgrace and laughability, didn't she? (Note: there is a scene toward the end that makes my point over her mother overestimating herself more apparent, and it was a nice touch.)
A good part, though, is that she's justified in the narrative as being bratty and annoying because she's a comparatively younger vampire than the others—a hundred VS the centuries the bloody lot usually are portrayed as—but she had eight decades after her resurrection to get the gist of how to control herself! The pedagogue of Count Dracula and Misses Dracula herself—one for martial-arts from thousands of different battle-tactics and strategies (the Kastelai have such a badass background), and from the other reasoning and logic—and this is the result?! Oh well, I guess Gary did a great job because he really made me feel equal parts abhorrence and love for Nyssa!
The second-lead also behaves with fatalistic stupidity, but it was more believable because of her experiences this time around. Still, she's fifty? I guess being mopey and bitchy is justified-enough when you've fought in a stupid war for twenty or thirty-years straight. Characterization, as you'll note, is a relative weak-point for this novel that does end up redeeming itself toward the end for some of these people.
What I take an issue over is how stupid Nyssa ends up becoming because she has trouble with leashing herself. It's not that bratty and immature characters are unlikeable, they're not, it's that being emotionally volatile as a grown man or woman doesn't mean you're back to being a teenager again. This, again, is explained by her resurrection having happened when she was hardly twenty. Kelsier, from Mistborn, is a good example of what I mean. He's volatile, emotional, immature and bratty most of the time, yet he's a thirty-eight-something-year-old grown man, and it shows in the way it was written. (Maybe because he Snapped when he was older helped out?). He doesn't go back to being a monkey each time someone spites him, jokingly or otherwise. This weakness is somewhere in all of them, and it makes all the characters feel like they're operating under the guided expectation of their universe and background apropos to it, and aren't a dynamic personality in and of themselves.
The baddies being bad just for the sake of schizo and both female-leads coming across as insensate does dampen it, but overall for the purposes of moving the plot forward in the name of time and interest it works. Man has about a single book to give you a self-contained story in, can't blame him much. It was a commendable enough romp. Who doesn't enjoy the Kestalai, martial-vampires that they are?
I feel this might've been because Gary either wasn't allowed to do that level of character-building or he played the safe-game on purpose: it's an established-universe and Black Library might've wished it to be this way for them, really controlling the lore and all, masters that they are. Either way, I hope he's given a freer hand in the next book. It's certainly possible this was done on purpose, because I can't believe after reading this that Gary is a weak writer or something insane like that, since he's very awesome at his work.
If you taste and savor this book like a movie and not a novel, it works. I've heard the audiobook is really well-voiced and acted; maybe if I'd listened to that, these issues I discovered wouldn't even have been noticed. It's just that good, since each scene does flow like the take of a live-action screenplay. I enjoyed it laid in bed and lazing away enough to worry over all this, so you should be okay.
What else… Oh. You're telling me these vampire houses that act like medieval-nobility have been fighting for generations across so many vast and vile, dangerous realms, wildly different planets and all manner of foes, and have assimilated the knowledge of thousands of martial-techniques and tactics—so much so that the Kastelai are famous for sparing their foes in battle if they became curious enough over the way they fought, the skills they used against them. All of that for a chance to learn them in exchange for the adversary's life. And yet, they too act like squabbling children otherwise when danger happens? Okay, they did lose their time-warping and shifting Crimson Keep a century ago; I guess that was enough to rile them over some. You might think that was a complaint, but if anything, I enjoyed it.
The saving grace is that the author does humanize those flaws and justifies them as being the edge that makes the characters tick; and for the ride along, it works in the long-term. Even if in the short, I know it for what it is. The leeway is less in such a big franchise, and it's a miracle he fit so much in here and gave us a complete novel from start to finish. Relatable characters—even stereotypically—work well when the execution is set just right.
Right as my mood started going toward ennui more and more as I read, the thing picked back up again, and it became badass enough to make me ripple through the last fifty pages. The fight-scenes rehearse extremely-well with the feedback into how down you'd seen Nyssa the majority of the book, and it really makes the blood she's spilling seem even more plentifully powerful and vivid in your mind by comparison toward the end. She overcame such major issues, she deserves the barnstorming of her bloody successes! I found that it was really well-done and handled.
Gary's portrayal of the self-righteous Followers of Sigmar was developed throughout. The way he managed to simultaneously show off how strong and insanely religious, yet still keeping in touch with rationality around it when called for, levelized them to believability for me. The difference in their outward beliefs and Celesian's desires around it as a man was a show and kept me excited for what he'd do next. Next to Nyssa, he's one of the more well-rounded, if not at all developed, characters. A tad cliché here and there, though; which is fine, since all stories operate finely under clichés when executed with freshness.
It's not really well-explained till the very tail-end of the story why and how exactly Nyssa can talk to her dead mother, but the mystery was elegant enough that I couldn't help but go along with it the way the author intended.
Oh, and the relationships in the story are unadorned by any real affection outside of messy and beguiling political-struggles and vested-interests, which was refreshing. There really isn't a single one I can vouch for as being otherwise. Unhinged and completely fucked up. I really can't hammer this home enough: the family dynamics are so dark and fucky that I loved them.
To summarize: The story is filled with some light dosages of politics, tons of heavy and hotblooded battle sequences, and a pizzazz of badassery that's typical of the Warhammer-franchise, but is atypical generally in the stories and writing on display in most Black Library books. This one really served all that up and then some, and I appreciated that. For the rule-of-cool alone, this deserves a five from me. It's not easy taking a massive franchise like this and carving it into your own niched specialty of words and scenery. It takes a courageous man or woman to be able to pull that off, and so Gary has me interested for the next book in the series. I'm also expecting he ups the bar for this trial-run he gave us of his capability; he can do so much more awesome stuff with this world he's created!
5/5.
May 11, 2025
I actually really enjoyed this novel, especially the first half. The use of a dual first person perspective (from the point of view of two enemies) was a unique and engaging storytelling choice. It offered an intriguing look at how each character interpreted the same events differently, adding depth to both their characters. The story works well as a standalone, while also enriching the broader lore of the Warhammer Age of Sigmar universe. I found the political dynamics of both factions and the battle scenes to be interesting and well written. 4 stars.
January 7, 2025
An epic fantasy standalone with a goth lady vampire lead. And some humans. It had interesting world-building, as expected from most books written for tabletop games. Very nice.
April 18, 2023
This is the best Warhammer book I’ve read, or listened to, and it’s “voice actors?” are both excellent as well. It would’ve held up as an excellent novel on its own, even without the Warhammer tie-in, but it also does a really great job of putting the game into the novel, from the battle tactics to the characters and their history.
The characters are all interesting and they basically all evolve and learn through out the novel, which is sort of rare in Warhammer book and it’s just awesome! There is a little bit too much of “what would happen if you had teenagers lead armies” from time to time, but the author manages if ok, sometimes even calling characters out when they’re being stupid. Maybe that’s a little meta, but I think I would’ve disliked the book if it hadn’t done that.
The story is simply great. It’s interesting, it’s well paced and it takes you around the world of the Soulblight Vampires in a way that I think is going to define how a lot of people feel about the faction. It’s soooooo nice to have the Gods step back in this one, and let the characters have full agency. Or at least some what, because controlling others is part of what the Vampires do and its just really well written here. It’s rare that I think the Table Top tactics are at all represented in any Warhammer book, but the way the author has written the planning and the actual battles in this one makes me wonder if they’ve studied a bit of classical history, because it’s frankly brilliant. Much more so than any other Warhammer novel I’ve read, but what makes it truly great is how you could read this without the Warhammer tie-in and it would all still make sense.
I’ve read a lot of Black Library books now, and I hope this author and this book become a role models for how they tell their stories! It’s what all of the ones that aren’t comedy should aspire to be!
If you like Age or Sigmar you’ll like this book, and if you’re interested in the Soulblight vampires you’ll frankly have to read it.
The characters are all interesting and they basically all evolve and learn through out the novel, which is sort of rare in Warhammer book and it’s just awesome! There is a little bit too much of “what would happen if you had teenagers lead armies” from time to time, but the author manages if ok, sometimes even calling characters out when they’re being stupid. Maybe that’s a little meta, but I think I would’ve disliked the book if it hadn’t done that.
The story is simply great. It’s interesting, it’s well paced and it takes you around the world of the Soulblight Vampires in a way that I think is going to define how a lot of people feel about the faction. It’s soooooo nice to have the Gods step back in this one, and let the characters have full agency. Or at least some what, because controlling others is part of what the Vampires do and its just really well written here. It’s rare that I think the Table Top tactics are at all represented in any Warhammer book, but the way the author has written the planning and the actual battles in this one makes me wonder if they’ve studied a bit of classical history, because it’s frankly brilliant. Much more so than any other Warhammer novel I’ve read, but what makes it truly great is how you could read this without the Warhammer tie-in and it would all still make sense.
I’ve read a lot of Black Library books now, and I hope this author and this book become a role models for how they tell their stories! It’s what all of the ones that aren’t comedy should aspire to be!
If you like Age or Sigmar you’ll like this book, and if you’re interested in the Soulblight vampires you’ll frankly have to read it.
February 10, 2024
This was such a great fast paced read. It had great characters, really fast paced plot and epic battle scenes. I didn’t think I could sympathize with vampires over Sigmarites but the writing and characterization was so very good. I definitely want to read more about this cast of characters.
January 21, 2025
3.5 ⭐️ for me. I think I would’ve enjoyed it more if i knew literally anything about the warhammer world/lore prior to reading this. But i went into this completely blind but still was solid to read Excellent world/creatures. Bloodshed. Vampires being ruthless. 🩸
October 7, 2023
A solid fantasy novel with all the gothic vampire imagery and scenes you could ask for. Kickass, enjoyable, and memorable.
July 19, 2024
"Nyssa Volari is dying. But that should be impossible. She's a vampire, one of the warlike and martial Kastelai bloodline, but she's succumbing to a dark curse that has already claimed her sire. As her family's power crumbles in the face of rivals' ambitions and a fanatical army of crusaders marching to wipe out every vampire in their territory once and for all, Nyssa must muster all her strength to break the curse, bring her detractors to heal and crush the mortal threat for good and all...)
I'm still a little on the fence about Age of Sigmar, but this was a very captivating read; Nyssa is an intriguing, well-written protagonist; she's not invincible, she makes mistakes but she picks herself up and keeps going. Her backstory about having brought herself up from the vampiric equivalent of the gutter to become a name spoken with fear is compelling, and the back and forth between her and the disembodied spirit of her 'mother' make for some of the most amusing moments in the story. I'm used to the Sigmarites being the good guys in Age of Sigmar, so the villains were a nice twist on what I usually expect in this setting from characters of their persuasion... The battle segments were gripping and edge of your seat reading, and I'd not be averse to seeing Nyssa return in future...
I'm still a little on the fence about Age of Sigmar, but this was a very captivating read; Nyssa is an intriguing, well-written protagonist; she's not invincible, she makes mistakes but she picks herself up and keeps going. Her backstory about having brought herself up from the vampiric equivalent of the gutter to become a name spoken with fear is compelling, and the back and forth between her and the disembodied spirit of her 'mother' make for some of the most amusing moments in the story. I'm used to the Sigmarites being the good guys in Age of Sigmar, so the villains were a nice twist on what I usually expect in this setting from characters of their persuasion... The battle segments were gripping and edge of your seat reading, and I'd not be averse to seeing Nyssa return in future...
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