For decades, Gotrek and Felix have been thrilling Warhammer fans, and now you can experience the end of the journey in the Old World.
For many long years, Felix Jaeger has followed the dwarf Salyer Gotrek Gurnisson across the world. Their adventures have been extraordinary; their heroic partnership the stuff of legends. Now it ends. With their friendship in tatters after a series of betrayals, the pair marches south at the head of a ragtag army, intent on driving the forces of Chaos out of the Empire and returning Felix to his wife. But Gotrek's doom is at hand, and great powers are at work to ensure that he meets it. With enemies on all sides and destiny calling, Felix must make a choice - to follow Gotrek into the darkness that awaits him, or to abandon his oldest friend once and for all.
Nathan Long is a screen and prose writer, with two movies, one Saturday-morning adventure series, and a handful of live-action and animated TV episodes to his name, as well as eleven fantasy novels and several award-winning short stories.
He hails from Pennsylvania, where he grew up, went to school, and played in various punk and rock-a-billy bands, before following his writing dreams to Hollywood - where he now writes novels full time - and still occasionally plays in bands.
His latest novel is Jane Carver of Waar, available March 6th from Night Shade Books. Visit his blog at www.sabrepunk.com.
The fourth entry of the Gotrek and Felix series is one that was a rather good read. As per usual, Gotrek was still the lovable slayer and Felix was just kind of there. The first of the tales, Elfslayer, is probably the best out of the collection. The action was fantastic, the tension was extremely enthralling, and there were actual consequences to the action of the characters. It felt like there was a proper end goal for the narrative, and some very captivating minor characters.
Shamanslayer was one that also was well done, the threat of the beastmen incredibly thrilling, and the minor characters still managing to be captivating. Not to mention the lead into the third story was very well done.
Zombieslayer is the weakest of the three in my opinion. The threat of the necromancer isn't exactly... threatening, especially after the massive battle at the end of Shamanslayer. It just kind of falls flat, but the threat of other humans sabotaging our main cast is still an interesting read. Kat and Felix's relationship feels a bit more natural than it was in Shamanslayer, mostly due to the fact there was enough room to focus on it within the town. Honestly, this is probably the most natural romance of Felix, as his obsession with Ulrika makes it far more of an interesting read.
My criticisms mostly lie in how the humans are portrayed, as they just feel useless in the narrative. I'm not expecting the humans to be on par with the humans from Warhammer 40k, since its 40k, but humans are just the worst race to be in this world. I mean, they just get utterly annihilated within the verse and just don't stand a chance against the other races. I mean its Warhammer, and that is kind of the whole point, so that kind of makes my point mute. With Felix it kind of makes sense (somewhat), since he joined reluctantly, in order to uphold his oath to Gotrek; but he doesn't feel like the main character. Even when we follow Felix's thought process, he just doesn't feel like the 'main guy'; he feels like a really focused on background character. Even with what happens with the skaven, he doesn't exactly keep going with that revenge plotline; it is just a plotline that happens, and then its over as soon as it began.
Again, it makes sense since he is an observer of Gotrek, but it doesn't feel right to have him as the main character. I was fine with Felix attracting woman, because he is in good shape for being forty, but it feels forced at times. With Kat it makes sense due to her experience with Felix, and with Claudia it was all for the sake of shallow sex; it annoys me because of his personality. Felix lacks chemistry with his interests, they don't feel natural. Like there's something missing, like all they could form is the most basic form of surface level attraction. That's really the problem: lack of a connection with our main character. Closest realistic relationship is just Kat, and even that one feels forced.
Speaking of which, Felix and Gotrek's friendship isn't the greatest in the world honestly. I love Gotrek, but he lacks a lot of chemistry with Felix. Yes, Felix is reluctantly with him, but at the same time he is still going on with this out of the care for his 'friend'. Issue there is that the two 'friends', don't feel like friends. The chemistry is there, but it really isn't. We are told their friendship rather than shown it; which saddens me a lot since Gotrek is just a blast. More of the dwarves and less of the humans; hell, I'll take the skaven over the humans, they have a lot more chemistry with each other than every single one of Felix's relationships.
A good read, but not without it's faults. I will not discuss the side-stories, as the titles alone spoil everything.
after 4000 pages of gotrek and Felix the saga ends (although there are many ebooks to be read). the first part is concerned with dark elves and a floating city which is punished and destroyed as usual. then there is a short story about some sea god cultist which is killed of course. then the heroes move north in the endless woods to fight beastmen which are defeated but then a zombie horde threatens the realm. the zombies are destroyed Felix continues to whine like a frightened boy and gotrek cant find his doom no matter how impossible odds he faces. at the end of the book are a couple of short stories not related to the timeline and a gazetteer of characters. the mood is the same in all books allot of mayhem and gore but few other interesting things. fun good read nonetheless, glad its over though!
Final de la saga, al menos de los libros antiguos. Si bien estás tres historias no me han parecido tan interesantes como las de las primeras entregas siendo las historias algo repetitivas y los enemigos bastante planos. Si bien me gustaría comentar algo de la edición del libro que me parece pésima. Está llena de faltas de ortografía, palabras movidas y fallos en el justificado del texto, sin hablar de la tapa blanda que me parece inadecuada para un libro de estás dimensiones. Ahora sacan ediciones nuevas, esperamos que mejoren estos aspectos.
Another entry to the series, more or less the same formula (find a threat to the Empire/world/etc, kill hundreds of minions, Gotrek fights something big and nasty in the end) - which is just fine, because why else would one read a Gotrek and Felix book ;) For a change, there even is a consecutive narrative (Shamanslayer and Zombieslayer). Zombieslayer became somewhat of a grind towards the end - I lost count how many times Gotrek fought Krell, only to have Krell escape via deus ex Kremler. And after all, there are only so much ways to kill a zombie, and it all grows old pretty fast by the time the kill count moves in the triple digits (single zombie is not much of a threat to even Felix, so Nathan Long went for quantity).