BOOK REVIEW: Never come between a Dwarf and Revenge

Having been drawn back to the Games Moneyshop for no real apparent reason ….. OK, OK I wanted to get a couple of Dwarf miniatures to use for a Mordheim game and I was curious to find something to read as well.

I found Grudgebearer, a book about the dwarves of Warhammer setting. I purchased the book and minis and promptly started the reading frenzy.

Grudgebearer is written by Gav Thorpe, who will be a well known name in Games Workshop circles as the chief game developer of the Warhammer design team. He has also written a batch of stories for the bimonthly anthology Inferno! (which may or may not be dead now), a number of other novels and he also worked on the Inquisitor game.

The blurb on the back of the book goes as follows,

Dwarf King Throndin Stoneheart of Zhufbar is dead; betrayed upon the field of
battle. as his son barundin takes up the mantle of King, he must fulfil a mighty
oath of vengeance. In an epic tale that spans centuries, Grudge Bearer follows
Barundin as he battles his way through enemies on a desperate quest to avenge
the wrongs against his father and save his people from a terrible war against
the dark forces of Chaos

Interesting, I thought.

Basically Barundin fights beside his dad, dad is killed when allies run like the clappers from a battle with orcs, White Dwarf appears then disappears a couple of times, Barundin declares a grudge against said allies, becomes king of Zhufbar, has a fight against skaven lasting 17 years or so, tracks down a rogue dwarf engineer for the Zhufbar Guilds as said engineer blew up the dwarf holds brewery (sacrilege), engineer comes back and makes amends, dwarves attack goblins and have a big fight to reclaim an overrun dwarf hold, Barundin gets a sharp axe to kill things with as a present from his dead dad (only took 170 years to make!), wants to get married, finds a female to marry, goes on stag do and brings back a dwarf version of a traffic cone, has nasty hang over, gets told to cancel wedding, goes to try and sort out problem so he can get married and ‘get some loving’, has a big fight with chaos marauders and evil dwarves, wins and gets told by the Slayer King to piss off home and have a good shag.

I have to say overall, I enjoyed the novel as it was easy to read and small. A good holiday read, you might say. Gav isn’t a bad writer, and he does go into a bit of nice description. I think the subject matter was difficult and Gav didn’t quite hit the mark with this novel.

The characters float between one dimensional and two dimensional. It is excellent background material for the dwarves of Warhammer and feels a little like Gav was asked to write a wee bit of a background story for the Dwarf Army source book and he got carried away.

The whole episode takes place over a period of about 70 years and I can understand why he did not want to write about every little bit of life but it did feel like something was missing.

Tharundin feels like a Conan with a height inferiority complex as between fighting, threatening to fight, killing, threatening to kill, drinking, killing, drinking, and fighting he seems to constantly brood.

There are a few parodies thrown in, though no where near the number in Blood Bowl, that did fit – though I really think they are taking the piss when a mountain with a bad reputation for being the home of goblins and orcs is called Mount Gunbad is a tad close to Tolkien’s Mount Gundabad which is a mountain with a bad reputation for being the home of goblins and orcs. But then Warhammer always did have a certain ‘tongue in cheek’ mischievousness.

Again bad editing, as with Blood Bowl, let the book down a bit.

Gav, nice book, really enjoyed the background, just didn’t grip me as a story.

I would give this book a 5 out of 10. It wasn’t bad, I did read it all, it just didn’t really stand out and there was not a lot of character development.

Oh, yes, the proof readers in the Black Library need glasses.

Bloody Hell! Blood Bowl the novel

I was suckered into the dark domain of my local Games Workshop, er, shop the other day and convinced myself to purchase a copy of ‘Blood Bowl’ by Matt Forbeck, an American writer I believe. I have long been a fan of the game of Blood Bowl and I am currently joining the TableTopNorthleague for ’06.

So was it worth the dosh? Well, i did go and buy the second book, ‘Dead Bowl’, for another evening's read. So is this a ringing endorsement of a series that I go back the next day to get the other one?

Not really.

Now I like Blood Bowl, its backstabbing, the gore, the power, the evil deals, the destruction, the disembowelling, and that’s just in the locker room. So in that respect the books are good.

When I was in the GW shop a guy sitting painting a miniature said he had read them and found himself laughing out loud and that they were very funny. All I can say is dear god, don’t let him go near a Terry Pratchett or Tom Holt book, he will explode.

OK, the books are funny, but only in the wry smile very odd groan come chuckle kind of way, not the maniacal laughter induced by Mr Pratchett or Mr Holt or Mr Rankin (Robert that is, in his Apocolyse the Musical time traveling sprout kind of way). There are puns flying all over the place, parodying real life people and places. There are in jokes on American Football, apparently, but I wouldn’t know cause I’m not American. I did play American football when I was wee. Much fun we had in smacking each other around. It resembled less American Football and more the Kindergarten version of Blood Bowl…. But I digress.

There are GW puns, some of which I get. Then there are puns from UK real life. Which I found interesting.

The hero of both books (Blood Bowl & Dead Bowl) is Dunkel ‘Dunk’ Hoffnung, a reluctant Blood Bowl recruit persuaded to stop fighting dragons, where he will end up poor and dead, and join the ranks of Blood Bowl players where he will end up rich and dead.

His agent is a Halfling called ‘Slick’ Fullbelly, who recruits him for the Bad Bay Hackers (I may be a bit slow but I did get this one – if you are not up on American football check a team called the Green Bay Packers).

Book one – Blood Bowl

It actually starts off quite well. I wonder if Matt read Pratchett???. I liked it. It set the scene very well, with a little of human nature gazing thrown in.

Then it moved on to Dunk joining the Hackers and the hilarious antics that ensue, or not hilarious antics as the case may be. He fights against insurmountable odds, becomes the best friend of the team Ogre, has a fight with an evil spellcaster, is threatened by a Black Orc desperate to keep his all time completion record, falls in love with the catcher of the Reikland Reavers while he meets up with his brother after a falling out who just happens to be the Reavers star thrower, gets embroiled in match fixing, stands up to the ‘Black Jerseys’, gets thrown out of a game for killing the team captain of the Chaos All-Stars at half time, has a bounty on his head from the Games Wizards, gets framed for murder, catches the real murderer, gets drunk, gets laid, and gets to the final of the Blood Bowl. Phew.

Not to mention the wonderful commentary from Bob and Jim.

It is a good tale, it kept my interest for the evening, indeed enough for me to go and buy ‘Dead Bowl’. It is like one of those movies you watch to zone out and not to think.

Now the bits that left me unfulfilled.

The editing is atrocious.

1. Camera is constantly misspelled as camra.
2. At one point Dunk is talking to M’Grash. Then its Dirk. Then its back to Dunk. Yet Dirk is not in this conversation. Sloppy.
3. Very few games described, but it’s not a major gripe.
4. The humour was very hit and miss, and even when it hit it was a bit cheesy.
5. Only Dunk seems to be vaguely 3D.
   

Overall, I have to give the book a 6 out of 10. For all it’s faults I had to keep reading. Damn you Matt!!!!!

I would recommend it to readers. It’s a good pulp fiction type book and fun(ish) to read.

Matt, it’s a good effort, fair play for taking that step forward to put it in the public domain and wish you the best in the future.

I will review Dead Bowl at a later date.