Last year, during a visit to a second hand book fair, I came across a novel dressed in eye-catching artworks. The book, titled, Blood for the Blood God, costed a dollar. Its front cover depicted a mighty-thewed warrior cladded in a suit of dark armor, and his hands were clutching the haft of a menacing battle axe.
"My, oh, my", I thought, "An adventure of blood and thunder! This stuff should be right up my alley."
I took a closer look at the printings on the cover and read, "Warhammer Fantasy".
Warhammer? I have heard of this franchise, it is something to do with the tabletop miniature games, but I don't know anything of the story behind it. The book costed only a dollar, and so I decided to give it a try. Over the next 7 months, Blood for the Blood God sat on my over-crowded bookshelf, forgotten. Last week, though, the book popped into my mind while I was rearranging my shelf. This time, I decided to read it straight away. Feeling excited, I opened the book and ventured into the world of Warhammer for the first time.
My afterthoughts? This book was a hit and miss for me.
This book started with a memorable fight scene - A powerful, brutal warrior known as Skulltaker emerged from the desert wastelands. He then challenged a mighty chieftan to a mortal kombat. Both combatants died in the duel. The chieftain's death led to power struggles, and his legacy was divided into smaller tribes. Eons later, the Skulltaker returned to the mortal world, and he resumed the quest to vanquish all ruling chieftains in the chaotic desert. The next 380 pages of the book narrated the story, of how the desert tribes united in a desperate attempt to stop Skulltaker's killing sprees.
The world in this book is very grim and very dark. The story itself is a feast of violence and treachery (which translates to plot twists and turns). None of the character is morally good and noble. In other words, this is not a typical Tolkienian fantasy novel about good versus evil. No, instead, Blood for the Blood God bears the hallmarks in the "grimdark" fantasy genre.
Grimdark fantasy may be my favorite genre, but I didn't like this book.
After the explosive prologue, the story dipped in its pace and the book became really boring. There were a lot of action scenes, but the characters were uninteresting and I didn't care for any of them. I lost interest in this book after reading one hundred pages of it. I wanted it to be over. Yet I persisted and finished the book anyway just in case it gets better. Did my persistence pay off? Yes and no. Granted, the last 30 pages of the story was interesting, and it delivered a surprised ending. But the memorable ending just couldn't outweigh the fact that 87% of this book was boring and a drag.
That is right! In my opinion, the good bits of the book were the prologue (20 pages) and the ending (30 pages), where most of the book (350 pages) was uninteresting and slow. I wanted to like this book because it is my first time reading a Warhammer novel. In the end, I came away from this book feeling disappointed. Will I be reading more Warhammer fantasy books? Yes, I will, because I found the world of Warhammer to my likings. Perhaps I will scout Goodreads for Warhammer books with at least 4 star ratings. Meanwhile, despite a setting in the world of Warhammer, Blood for the Blood God just didn't do it for me.
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