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morvrun's review
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
kevinseb's review
3.0
After reading Blood Money (the first in the series) I was left feeling a little disappointed that there was very little that connected each of the individual stories in the collection. I was hoping that Blood and Steel would come up with some way of continuing the same concept of recounting Brunner's journeys, but with more connection between them all.
Instead, Blood and Steel takes the opposite approach, and does away with the framing device that was present in the first book. We are no longer following the life of a writer who keeps running into Brunner, getting the bulk of our knowledge of Brunner through the stories the writer tells. This is just a few unconnected stories told one after the other with nothing in between.
I found this decision a very disappointing one. That writer's tale and his relationship with Brunner was something that made me feel much more immersed in the first book, and its absence here makes it much harder for me to really get into the stories.
In terms of the stories themselves (because this really is a short story collection, not a novel), they're pretty good for the most part. Werner does a great job of describing these diverse and incredible locations Brunner traverses, and the casts of characters that he meets along the way are usually very interesting.
There's really nothing wrong with Blood and Steel, it's all fine. But that's it, I think it was fine and nothing more. The individual stories stand on their own, but have very little linking them to each other except for a few throwaway lines here and there about certain events that transpired or characters Brunner has encountered. It's still worth a read, even for someone who has very little knowledge of the Warhammer universe (like myself, for instance), it's nothing mindblowing.
Instead, Blood and Steel takes the opposite approach, and does away with the framing device that was present in the first book. We are no longer following the life of a writer who keeps running into Brunner, getting the bulk of our knowledge of Brunner through the stories the writer tells. This is just a few unconnected stories told one after the other with nothing in between.
I found this decision a very disappointing one. That writer's tale and his relationship with Brunner was something that made me feel much more immersed in the first book, and its absence here makes it much harder for me to really get into the stories.
In terms of the stories themselves (because this really is a short story collection, not a novel), they're pretty good for the most part. Werner does a great job of describing these diverse and incredible locations Brunner traverses, and the casts of characters that he meets along the way are usually very interesting.
There's really nothing wrong with Blood and Steel, it's all fine. But that's it, I think it was fine and nothing more. The individual stories stand on their own, but have very little linking them to each other except for a few throwaway lines here and there about certain events that transpired or characters Brunner has encountered. It's still worth a read, even for someone who has very little knowledge of the Warhammer universe (like myself, for instance), it's nothing mindblowing.
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