After reading the Sundering Trilogy...

[Norelle]

...I am left with this opinion. Alith Anar, is a spoiled, whiny, immature moron. Especially in Caledor. if he hadn't insisted they leave they probably could've gotten rid of Malekith and Morathi early on...but noooo, he had to be all stupid and make them leave or he'd attack them. And it seemed to me he didn't really do much during the war.

[Saintofm]

The Malekeith book also left me wanting more. I wanted to see the battle where his dragon died and so on. I also wanted to know how a man of hist stature, and one that was most likely never going to be phoenix king remained a bachelor. He's probably more eligible than Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark combined!

And he's on the other side of the world of his mother, so there isn't any immediate competition...

[Blaznak]

I enjoyed the writing. I enjoyed the story line. I did not enjoy the books.

It was too great of a time span and the viginettes that brought everything toghether never were tied together themselves. Dunnow how eles to explain it. The first and last books are the best, by far.

I think the problem was really the style of the books. It needed to be more encapsuloized stories with bridging material. Dunno..
Again, the actual writing was good, but I think he was trapped by the books' format.

~B~

[Norelle]

The Malekeith book also left me wanting more. I wanted to see the battle where his dragon died and so on. I also wanted to know how a man of hist stature, and one that was most likely never going to be phoenix king remained a bachelor. He's probably more eligible than Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark combined!

And he's on the other side of the world of his mother, so there isn't any immediate competition...

I kow, one of the main roleplays I want to do involves an OC that becomes his wife and bears him twin children. XD

[Syjahel]

Spoilers and quite a lot of irritation may be in this post Not with you, with Anar.

I am left with this opinion. Alith Anar, is a spoiled, whiny, immature moron.

I agree with you here. I wish I didn't. I wanted to read an in-depth story detailing how an idealistic young Elf becomes an ambiguous, tragic figure committing acts that imperil his own soul and Elven nature for the sake of the greater good. What did I get?

Whiny teen terrorist Alith Anar refuses to accept responsibility for anything, including his own life, never grows up and still doesn't die. He doesn't even choose to be the Shadow King; his mates make that decision for him. And as for ambiguous, even before the Witch King killed his family [TM], he was laughing at people on fire.

It's left me with a peculiar souvenir: every time I see or hear the words "Alith Anar" I have to swear loudly.

I'm afraid I disagree about the writing, though. I find it pedestrian, at times downright plodding, and there are elementary grammatical mistakes. People are stood at windows and sat on chairs. They lay down. Is someone moving them around? Sitting them in chairs and standing them beside windows rather than having them move themselves? This is not colloquial writing, it's a finished, published novel and there should not be mistakes such as these. I have now read enough Gavin Thorpe books to know that I do not need to read any more. I've read four and he is not going to get any better. That's it. Enough. He doesn't have sufficient grasp of Elven culture to make a decent job of it, or the English language to make it really shine. I can forgive a few little errors in a well-told story in either field. The Malus Darkblade books aren't perfectly 100% in accord with Druchii culture, but they get the feel of it right. There is at least one occasion where a light illuminates a room with light, but generally the writing fizzes and brings the culture to life in a way that "What I did on my holidays, by [fill in the blank: Alith Anar, Malekith, some Dark Angels etc]" does not.

There are things he does well. I prefer to be fair even when I've sincerely wanted the hours of my life and money I've spent back. He does a good job of describing a war veteran who wants to avoid more war at all costs, he sets the scene with Alith as a young pre-whiny teen well, and he can show a very believable and loving married couple. But these are not enough to make me want to read anything else he ever writes, in the vague hope that there will be a few well-done pages.

And how, exactly, is Alith Anar a hit with the chicks? Do Elven girls love a whiny, self-obsessed little prick with the charisma and magnetism of a small piece of cheese*? In Naggaroth that attitude would get him stabbed in the face and fed to the Harpies. And no, staring at Morathi's ceiling doesn't count. We've lost count of the number of people who've done that.

In fact, let him come back to Naggaroth for another holiday. I'll make the Harpies some dip.



*I'm pretty sure they don't.

[Saintofm]

And how, exactly, is Alith Anar a hit with the chicks? Do Elven girls love a whiny, self-obsessed little prick with the charisma and magnetism of a small piece of cheese*? In Naggaroth that attitude would get him stabbed in the face and fed to the Harpies. And no, staring at Morathi's ceiling doesn't count. We've lost count of the number of people who've done that.

Great, all we need him to do is have bishi sparkles, and we have a pointy eared Edward from the sounds of it.

[Norelle]

Spoilers and quite a lot of irritation may be in this post Not with you, with Anar.

I am left with this opinion. Alith Anar, is a spoiled, whiny, immature moron.

I agree with you here. I wish I didn't. I wanted to read an in-depth story detailing how an idealistic young Elf becomes an ambiguous, tragic figure committing acts that imperil his own soul and Elven nature for the sake of the greater good. What did I get?

Whiny teen terrorist Alith Anar refuses to accept responsibility for anything, including his own life, never grows up and still doesn't die. He doesn't even choose to be the Shadow King; his mates make that decision for him. And as for ambiguous, even before the Witch King killed his family [TM], he was laughing at people on fire.

It's left me with a peculiar souvenir: every time I see or hear the words "Alith Anar" I have to swear loudly.

I'm afraid I disagree about the writing, though. I find it pedestrian, at times downright plodding, and there are elementary grammatical mistakes. People are stood at windows and sat on chairs. They lay down. Is someone moving them around? Sitting them in chairs and standing them beside windows rather than having them move themselves? This is not colloquial writing, it's a finished, published novel and there should not be mistakes such as these. I have now read enough Gavin Thorpe books to know that I do not need to read any more. I've read four and he is not going to get any better. That's it. Enough. He doesn't have sufficient grasp of Elven culture to make a decent job of it, or the English language to make it really shine. I can forgive a few little errors in a well-told story in either field. The Malus Darkblade books aren't perfectly 100% in accord with Druchii culture, but they get the feel of it right. There is at least one occasion where a light illuminates a room with light, but generally the writing fizzes and brings the culture to life in a way that "What I did on my holidays, by [fill in the blank: Alith Anar, Malekith, some Dark Angels etc]" does not.

There are things he does well. I prefer to be fair even when I've sincerely wanted the hours of my life and money I've spent back. He does a good job of describing a war veteran who wants to avoid more war at all costs, he sets the scene with Alith as a young pre-whiny teen well, and he can show a very believable and loving married couple. But these are not enough to make me want to read anything else he ever writes, in the vague hope that there will be a few well-done pages.

And how, exactly, is Alith Anar a hit with the chicks? Do Elven girls love a whiny, self-obsessed little prick with the charisma and magnetism of a small piece of cheese*? In Naggaroth that attitude would get him stabbed in the face and fed to the Harpies. And no, staring at Morathi's ceiling doesn't count. We've lost count of the number of people who've done that.

In fact, let him come back to Naggaroth for another holiday. I'll make the Harpies some dip.



*I'm pretty sure they don't.

*applauds*
Well done, you accurately described everything. In Caledor he's even worse.
And whenever I hear Alith Anar, I want to find him and smack him, or choke the living daylights out of him, and then stick the Moonbow up a certain orifice as far as it can go...
>.<

[Norelle]

And how, exactly, is Alith Anar a hit with the chicks? Do Elven girls love a whiny, self-obsessed little prick with the charisma and magnetism of a small piece of cheese*? In Naggaroth that attitude would get him stabbed in the face and fed to the Harpies. And no, staring at Morathi's ceiling doesn't count. We've lost count of the number of people who've done that.

Great, all we need him to do is have bishi sparkles, and we have a pointy eared Edward from the sounds of it.

Oh sweet Heavens, no, we have one, that's enough. We don't need an Elf version. XP

[Syjahel]

*applauds*
Well done, you accurately described everything. In Caledor he's even worse.
And whenever I hear Alith Anar, I want to find him and smack him, or choke the living daylights out of him, and then stick the Moonbow up a certain orifice as far as it can go...
>.<

*bows* I refine my hate, like every good Druchii

[Norelle]

Hehehe, I use my hate to think of unique ways of how to kill somebody. XD

[Hainzy]

Holy moly!!!

Man, there's alot of Thorpe hate out there....

I've just finished reading Caledor and overall I've really enjoyed the series I have to say.

Apart from that terrrible chapter in Shadow King that's all dances with wolves like (seriously. I was expecting Kevin Costner to make a cameo in that chapter) the book aren't THAT BAD are they?

Yeah, Alith is a bit of a spoilt and moody emo boy. But then again Imirik, I mean 'Caledor', is a arrogant "Go on. Make me do it" tool. Even Malekith is an arrogant " I'm better than you" douche as well.

It's great to see people who love the history of not just the Druchii, but the tale of the Sundering, critically analyize the way Gav Thorpe has produced the tale. It's not classic literature, but hey, it's better than anything I could ever write. Surely credit where credits due....

In MALEKITH I felt the all consuming inner conflict of a character who was torn between his fathers legacy and duty to his own personal ambition. That's what I thought Malekith's story was about.

In SHADOW KING I felt the self destructive, uncontroable downward spiral of anger and vengence in Alith and felt the fear and duress the of Naggorthi as Alith extracted that vengence.

In CALEDOR I felt the aprehension of Imirik to take responsibiltiy for his destiny and for all those loyal to him. Imirik seemed more occupied with his own pursuits than the survival of his people.

Overall, even thought they are sometimes portrayed as almost gods or al least 'superelven' their flaws are equally magnified.

So anyway, there's my little speil. I enjoyed the books and I think Gav got most of it right IMO....

Thanks for reading.
H

[Bitterman]

Holy moly!!!

Man, there's alot of Thorpe hate out there....

the book aren't THAT BAD are they?

Part of the problem, IMO, is to compare the Sundering trilogy to what else BL is doing at the moment.

The Horus Heresy? Spectacular, galaxy-shattering revelations, and for the most part extraordinarily well written. (There are exceptions, and you get the feeling like they lost their way for a while and it was turning into a "How [insert Chapter name here] decided to side with [ Horus / The Emperor, delete as applicable]" which was getting boring; but largely they have got over that now).

Nagash? Phenomenal books exploring a part of the Warhammer history that has never really been seen before, with some splendid scenes and sensational characters.

Sigmar? ...OK well these books are only OK, they're not great, and for that reason I was disappointed, but they were decent enough in their own right.

The Sundering, though... ugh. The entirety of Shadow King made me want to puke. I'm only two thirds of the way through Caledor, but so far it's just "stuff happened. Imrik ponced about a bit. Stuff happened. Imrik said he was going to do something but didn't. More stuff happened. Imrik became Caledor. Stuff happened. Alith Anar acted like a dick". There isn't any common thread to it all beside the fact it keeps coming back to Imrik/Caledor, but his motivations are muddled in his own mind, there's never any sense of threat, it's just a list of events, one after another. The siege of Lothern is just "five years went by, then some guy we'd only just met decided to side with the Druchii, only he died and shortly afterwards the siege was broken". What? Who cares? You can't write a line like "five years later" and expect anyone to be remotely concerned about what's about to happen. It obviously isn't anything bad or it would have happened five years ago! No, it was awful.

Let me provide a more specific example of comparison. In Nagash (the first book IIRC) there was a scene where the combined forces of all the kingdoms brought their armies together to face Nagash the Necromancer. What followed was mind-blowing (highlight to view spoilers):

The army needed to fight its way to an oasis or risk dying of thirst. Nagash's army was in the way, so they made ready to fight their way through it. They knew there should be loads of zombies about, corpses from the fighting the previous day, but they couldn't see them, so were worried that they might have dug under the soft desert sand, ready to spring up and fight. Warily they approached the oasis... only to find that Nagash had marched all his zombies into it, and the water was now fouled and polluted by corpses! Instantly they knew all was lost. They had been out-witted by someone thoroughly, thoroughly evil (ie. Nagash), so evil he would poison the only water for a hundred miles just to defeat an army. The allied armies were forced to flee, to try to find water elsewhere, and most of them died.

That was "just" a fairly standard scene (it wasn't a major event in the history of the Warhammer World that we already knew about, and were waiting for) but it was shocking, it was unnerving, it was breath-taking.

Compare it to when Malekith tried to work through the Flame of Asuryan. This should have been a massive moment in the trilogy! This, beyond all else, was the defining moment in Malekith's life, indeed, the single moment that stands out as splitting the entire Elven culture right down the middle, and was the direct cause of several millennia of constant warfare and hatred; if one thing led to the Asur and Druchii being sworn enemies for all time, it was this. It should have been huge. But quite apart from the fact that this defining moment in Malekith's life didn't even happen in the book called Malekith, so we know practically nothing about what he was thinking at the time, the description of it was not very much more interesting than this:

"The Phoenix King was a cultist."
"No way! Don't believe you."
"Well he was. Now I'm going to be king. Watch me walk into the fire."
"You can't walk into the flames before we cast a spell to protect you!" (Wait... what? The Phoenix King is supposed to survive the flames due to the blessing of Asuryan, not due to someone giving him a 2+ Ward save against flaming attacks!)
"La la la, I'm not listeni- OW MY FLESH!!!"

And that was about it.

Frankly that's a crime against literature. This major, epoch-defining event in the history of the entire Warhammer World was described as little more than a vague description of what happened and some minor arguments among the princes. Then a bunch of people we didn't care about died. Ugh - what a massive, massive letdown.

We already know what happened, and all the novel gave us was what happened. Not what anyone was thinking, or why Malekith chose to do it, or how he thought he could get away with it even if the flames didn't burn him, or what Morathi's thoughts were at this time, and whether events up to that point had gone according to her plans, and how she had managed to concoct such intricate plans while spending her recent years locked up. None of the questions that mattered, got answered - we just got told what happened, in slightly more detail than in, say, the Dark Elf Army Book.

Are the books that bad in their own right? Shadow King is; Malekith was alright, Caledor so far is just about bearable. But compared to what they could and should have been, they are abject failures.

[Norelle]

Shadow King the only really good parts were when the Witch King showed up on the last few pages, and I was disappointed that he didn't get to smack Alith Anar around.

[Syjahel]

We already know what happened, and all the novel gave us was what happened. Not what anyone was thinking, or why Malekith chose to do it, or how he thought he could get away with it even if the flames didn't burn him, or what Morathi's thoughts were at this time, and whether events up to that point had gone according to her plans, and how she had managed to concoct such intricate plans while spending her recent years locked up. None of the questions that mattered, got answered - we just got told what happened, in slightly more detail than in, say, the Dark Elf Army Book.

That's it precisely. This would have been a great opportunity to show an insight into what makes Malekith and Morathi work, how they think. It was missed. That's a shame. I know the What, I want to know the Why

[Bitterman]

By the way, I've now finished Caledor.

What a sorry excuse for an ending. It's like he got bored, and just thought "hmm I've got to finish this now, but I've written my characters into a total stalemate, erm, OK, let's try this..."

After 25 years of chasing each other around Ulthuan with no particular purpose, the two sides decided to have a big battle just for fun. The Druchii were winning, but then Malekith's dying dragon landed on top of him so he ran away and the Druchii lost. Then Malekith tried to blow up the whole world, but failed so he decided to go and live in the North instead. The End.

"That should do it!"

Just dreadful, and inexcusably rushed.

[Blaznak]

I still think the issue really had to do with trying to write a story that spans 1000s of years. The characters need to grow and develop, but you can't' write 1000's of years of material. So... the books jump and get scattered.
Just me.
~B~

[Saintofm]

I still think the issue really had to do with trying to write a story that spans 1000s of years. The characters need to grow and develop, but you can't' write 1000's of years of material. So... the books jump and get scattered.
Just me.
~B~

Correction: You can't write a 1000 years of background in less then 400 pages. That's another thing. Something this immense should have been the size of a Darkblade omnibus

[Kalath'n'dhar]

"The Phoenix King was a cultist."
"No way! Don't believe you."
"Well he was. Now I'm going to be king. Watch me walk into the fire."
"You can't walk into the flames before we cast a spell to protect you!" (Wait... what ? The Phoenix King is supposed to survive the flames due to the blessing of Asuryan, not due to someone giving him a 2+ Ward save against flaming attacks!)
"La la la, I'm not listeni- OW MY FLESH!!!"

Pretty much the best summary I could make about those books - at least for the two first, I didn't have the will to buy Caledor anymore after reading those. The Sundering isnt' what I would call a trilogy of novels, it's a trilogy of fluff articles put together. Honestly, it's pretty much how Bitterman explained it : a succession of "this happens" then Malekith/Alit Anar(/Caledor I guess by reading those reviews) do something because it would be cool if he does it (we never really learn a lot about their thinking or their goals, at least not enough it the better case), then "this happens" then let's speak a little about Malekith/alit Anar and so on... I won't even speak about the good ol' "then 15 years passed" "and during a century, this happens" - yes I know it's a long period of time and it's hard to describe it in only 3 books... Thorpe should have found a better way to surpass this difficulty IMHO.

To summarize my point of view, we never feel any tension while reading those books. I know what some of you could say: "yes we already know that x will happens or that druchii will lose this battle etc." but I don't consider this a proper excuse. A good writer should be able to gives you goosebumps when something epic is happening, you should feel the anticipation of the battle when two huge armies of elves are marching against each other... but you never feel this way while reading the Sundering.

As Bitterman said : "something happens, some elves died, the bad ones lost because otherwise the world would have been crush and then it's over."

[Overmind]

I still think the issue really had to do with trying to write a story that spans 1000s of years. The characters need to grow and develop, but you can't' write 1000's of years of material. So... the books jump and get scattered.
Just me.
~B~

Correction: You can't write a 1000 years of background in less then 400 pages. That's another thing. Something this immense should have been the size of a Darkblade omnibus

This in my opinion is probably the greatest failure of the series.

[Sun-tzu]

Just finished the trilogy also. Pretty disappointed also.

Malekith was good.
Shadowking was just about some whiny emo elf
Caledor was so looking forward to the epic battle and sorely dissappointented.

Spoiler alert!


Seriously malekith and sulek wrecked Caledor and his dragon. Caledor was laying on the ground leaning on a dead horse with wrecked legs, his dragon left him because sulek got the best of him. Caledor randomly finds a magic lance and throws it! Come on seriously?! Into the mouth of the largest black dragon the world has ever seen and kills it! WTF?! Then sulek falls on malekith and suddenly the Phoenix guard are there to beat up on malekith. Where are the durchii during this time? It seemed like Caledor had everyone there to help him but never any mention of duruchii except when dragons where stepping on them during their rumble. The whole description of the battle was both sides were equal and it didn't seem like the malekith/Caledor fight was in the back of the HE line.

I expected malekith to lose but not as lame as that!