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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
First novel in Slayer series not from King or Long and the first letdown. I am truly heartbroken, the series had ups and downs of course but it was always an amazing Warhammer pulp. This is neither true Slayer entry nor is it true to the series characters. The End Times suck once again.
The longest-running series of Warhammer novels by far, the Gotrek and Felix series reaches novel number sixteen with David Guymer’s Kinslayer, book one of The Doom of Gotrek Gurnisson. Returning to the ‘nounslayer’ style books and set a year after Nathan Long’s Zombieslayer, we see Felix dragged from a quiet life in Altdorf by the appearance of the vampire Ulrika to help rescue the wizard Max Schreiber, who has been kidnapped by the Troll King and imprisoned in the enemy-held city of Praag. With his loyalties torn between helping Max and being with his frail wife Kat, and still struggling to deal with his feelings for Ulrika, Felix finds himself back in his old life of adventuring once again, and soon reunites with more familiar faces than just Ulrika.
Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/gotrek-felix-kinslayer-david-guymer/
Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/gotrek-felix-kinslayer-david-guymer/
I read this book away from the other Goteek and Felix novels and as a timeline book for The End Times after the Nagash book.
This is EASILY one of my favorite fantasy books of all time. The pacing is perfect, the twist is foreshadowed, yet produced soooo well. Phenomenally done. Sad it's over.
This is EASILY one of my favorite fantasy books of all time. The pacing is perfect, the twist is foreshadowed, yet produced soooo well. Phenomenally done. Sad it's over.
DNF.
The first of the David Guymer books..., and I'm not impressed.
The Gotrek & Felix (aka G&F) books have never been light and breezy (hell, what is in the Warhammer and Warhammer:40K universes?). But his take on the G&F line is so very dark and and so very grim, and his style and pacing is so sloggish, that I quickly found myself just not all that excited to keep on cracking this book open.
Kat in previous books was a well-rounded character, with lots of strengths and weaknesses and quirks. But here, old sick Kat has been relegated to a mere plot device: "Felix, go somewhere to fight to heal your wife, or else she dies". A rather hamfisted D&D-style motivation hook, eh?
Ulrika is back, and this time being all vampire'y outside of her usual city haunts. And like clockwork, here comes Felix's standard "I am torn between loving the old Ulrika and the new Kat" humming and hawing that he does every few novels. Felix here is a drunken and somewhat broken old man that I honestly didn't care much about. Him both pining for his younger glory days with Gotrek and his round-robin circle of love interests could have worked -- but here, it doesn't.
Gotrek: aside from introductory snippets (flashbacks?), I didn't even see him before I gave up on this book.
The *only* storyline that I could possibly give two Skaven asses about was Snorri's tale -- forced to stay sober and get healthy for his Slayer quest to finally resolve itself.
Maybe this is a slow burn, and I hit the ejection seat too soon. But no, sorry, my to-read stack is too high for sloggy and unappealing mush.
The first of the David Guymer books..., and I'm not impressed.
The Gotrek & Felix (aka G&F) books have never been light and breezy (hell, what is in the Warhammer and Warhammer:40K universes?). But his take on the G&F line is so very dark and and so very grim, and his style and pacing is so sloggish, that I quickly found myself just not all that excited to keep on cracking this book open.
Kat in previous books was a well-rounded character, with lots of strengths and weaknesses and quirks. But here, old sick Kat has been relegated to a mere plot device: "Felix, go somewhere to fight to heal your wife, or else she dies". A rather hamfisted D&D-style motivation hook, eh?
Ulrika is back, and this time being all vampire'y outside of her usual city haunts. And like clockwork, here comes Felix's standard "I am torn between loving the old Ulrika and the new Kat" humming and hawing that he does every few novels. Felix here is a drunken and somewhat broken old man that I honestly didn't care much about. Him both pining for his younger glory days with Gotrek and his round-robin circle of love interests could have worked -- but here, it doesn't.
Gotrek: aside from introductory snippets (flashbacks?), I didn't even see him before I gave up on this book.
The *only* storyline that I could possibly give two Skaven asses about was Snorri's tale -- forced to stay sober and get healthy for his Slayer quest to finally resolve itself.
Maybe this is a slow burn, and I hit the ejection seat too soon. But no, sorry, my to-read stack is too high for sloggy and unappealing mush.
As a Warhammer book, is really great. The End Times are closer and closer and it gets grimmer, building up events for the Chaos forces to go South. As a Gotrek and Felix book is very good but somewhat felt a little weird, but not that much as City of the Damned.
For Felix, the feeling I got was that on the City of the Damned he was just a weakling scared human, this time around he is as badass as Gotrek with just the same endurance. Gotrek character has gotten darker and never look up for a Doom so much or shout/complain about it, but I guess is quite normal after 1 year roaming Kislev with beastman or worse as the peak of social interaction.
I fell pity for Snorri during all of the book.
The jumps during the story, even numerous, were more palatable than with the last book. I was aware that there will be a lot of those and in this time I got the feeling of a more cinematic feeling with the jumps.
Combat was greatly detailed, fast, furious, dangerous and very enjoyable.
For Felix, the feeling I got was that on the City of the Damned he was just a weakling scared human, this time around he is as badass as Gotrek with just the same endurance. Gotrek character has gotten darker and never look up for a Doom so much or shout/complain about it, but I guess is quite normal after 1 year roaming Kislev with beastman or worse as the peak of social interaction.
I fell pity for Snorri during all of the book.
The jumps during the story, even numerous, were more palatable than with the last book. I was aware that there will be a lot of those and in this time I got the feeling of a more cinematic feeling with the jumps.
Combat was greatly detailed, fast, furious, dangerous and very enjoyable.
The longest-running series of Warhammer novels by far, the Gotrek and Felix series reaches novel number sixteen with David Guymer’s Kinslayer, book one of The Doom of Gotrek Gurnisson. Returning to the ‘nounslayer’ style books and set a year after Nathan Long’s Zombieslayer, we see Felix dragged from a quiet life in Altdorf by the appearance of the vampire Ulrika to help rescue the wizard Max Schreiber, who has been kidnapped by the Troll King and imprisoned in the enemy-held city of Praag. With his loyalties torn between helping Max and being with his frail wife Kat, and still struggling to deal with his feelings for Ulrika, Felix finds himself back in his old life of adventuring once again, and soon reunites with more familiar faces than just Ulrika.
Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/gotrek-felix-kinslayer-david-guymer/
Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/gotrek-felix-kinslayer-david-guymer/
The last third of the book is what bumped up the rating to 2/5 otherwise it would be a 1/5 type of book. These books usually take me a day to finish, this took several and most of it I had to force myself to read.
In the beginning it didn’t even feel like the book was about Gotrek at all. A lot was going on but none of it centered on the slayer himself. I feel like Long or King should have finished things up instead of a new author. There is a lot going on but it’s all just too...much and not in a good way. I remember enough about the past books to be surprised at the change here.
He took the worst parts of Gotrek (including the annoying “he ran his thumb across the blade until a single drop formed” line) and left out the rest. Leaving the slayer as nothing more than hard lines, grunts, blood and gore. He is less slayer than caricature. In previous books Gotrek faced near impossible odds and won, here he is simply invincible.
Also, while I was engaged in finding out Snorris’ shame it wasn’t believable. Snorri may not be all that bright but I doubt he’d mindlessly attack a group of rangers simply for some beer, especially to the point of rendering them incapacitated. I also disagree with the conclusion of this story, I don’t think what happened would have happened.
The last third is when things finally picked up and it started to feel like a Gotrek and Felix book. Even so, something was missing here, Snorris’ fulfilled prophecy should have been agonizing instead it simply felt like checking another item off a list. Felix was too fixated on Ulrika and seemed to completely forget what she was.
With all that was going on - it is the end of times after all - most of the book was strangely dull. I will read the last book to say goodbye to my old friends but I am disappointed.
2/5 - I guess.
In the beginning it didn’t even feel like the book was about Gotrek at all. A lot was going on but none of it centered on the slayer himself. I feel like Long or King should have finished things up instead of a new author. There is a lot going on but it’s all just too...much and not in a good way. I remember enough about the past books to be surprised at the change here.
He took the worst parts of Gotrek (including the annoying “he ran his thumb across the blade until a single drop formed” line) and left out the rest. Leaving the slayer as nothing more than hard lines, grunts, blood and gore. He is less slayer than caricature. In previous books Gotrek faced near impossible odds and won, here he is simply invincible.
Also, while I was engaged in finding out Snorris’ shame it wasn’t believable. Snorri may not be all that bright but I doubt he’d mindlessly attack a group of rangers simply for some beer, especially to the point of rendering them incapacitated. I also disagree with the conclusion of this story, I don’t think what happened would have happened.
The last third is when things finally picked up and it started to feel like a Gotrek and Felix book. Even so, something was missing here, Snorris’ fulfilled prophecy should have been agonizing instead it simply felt like checking another item off a list. Felix was too fixated on Ulrika and seemed to completely forget what she was.
With all that was going on - it is the end of times after all - most of the book was strangely dull. I will read the last book to say goodbye to my old friends but I am disappointed.
2/5 - I guess.