Defenders of Ulthuan [Mass Market Paperback]

A lone member of the Asur washes ashore, bearing a message of importance for the Loremaster of Hoeth, Teclis. This is part of a chain of events that will lead to the worst invasion of the elvish homeland since the time of Chaos. At least thats what they imply.

Several things detracted from what could've been a fantastic storyline. Though the plot is rather obtuse, its only by virtue of a third person perspective that we're awre of it. But other elements concerning a romantic subplot are so blatant they might as well has had a glowing sign above them. Several characters are painfully cliche, and the only ones that die are those that have more than two dimensions. Teclis, arguably the most powerful mage in the Warhammer world, gets his booty handed to him in a sack all because... he's curious? I'd think if half the planet was out for your blood, you'd behave more like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

The central plot follows Caelis, one of the few decently written characters who follows the central theme of the GW verses: the roads to ruin are paved with the greatest of intentions. Caelis is ferryed around the isles of the High Elves to help determine who he is, as it becomse appparent that he possesses knowledge of great import, and given the recent invasion of the land, is of paramount importance.

The high points of book are the fluff and backstory of the land. The side threads and conversations describing where the characters are and what the area is famous for was better than the character interactions themselves.

All told, the book is decent, and a far stripe better than some of my initial forays in Fantasy novels. You'll love it if you love High Elves, but otherwise, its just an average story.

It is a time of endless war, a struggle for very survival, when treachery and deception lurk around every corner. Unless of course you are an elf. Then it is a time for gazing at clouds while sitting on very tall pretty towers.

I always liked the warhammer books because of their grit and harshness. A world where conflict reigns and all nations are honed for battle. It's in the name after all, WARhammer. However this doesn't seem to apply to Defenders of Ulthuan. Which sadly, is not only an incredibly predictable book, but also a deeply disappointing one in that the High Elves fall very short of their Warhammer-esque promise.

The general sense of elves in generic fantasy-land is that they are nature worshiping, prancing, head in the clouds artists. The Warhammer elves are supposed to be militarily strict, hard edged, stern, disciplined warriors. At least, that is what I thought. Defenders of Ulthuan seems to contradict that with elves that are nancy-boy saps.

I know that the dark elves are a big favorite of fans of Warhammer. But if you want to read a darkelf book, there is Malus Darkblade. Frankly I am tired of whenever a dark elf is involved in a story, they are always the most clever force present and always get the upper hand. This is the same case in the Defenders of Ulthuan. We once again have dark elves who are 10 steps ahead of everyone, more powerful, more intelligent, more ruthless and simply just better. How the high elves survived thousands of years is beyond comprehension when they act so stupidly. It is almost as if they don't even realize they even have a mortal enemy. We are treated to characters that skip about never expecting deception, when their entire current culture has been created by an ancient deception from their brethren. If you were a high elf, I would assume that your bread and butter would be deep study of just exactly who the dark elves are and what they are capable of.

I would have simply renamed this book, Attack of the Smart Elves and changed the entire perspective to that of the dark elves and be done with it. If a black library book starring the high elves paints them in such a pathetic light, then you should expect nothing more from any high elf appearance in any warhammer book to be that of mere cannon fodder. If a high elf shows up as a character, treat them as you would a star trek red shirt. If you wanted to finally see high elves who are brilliant thinkers, powerful mages or swashbuckling adventurers then prepare to be disappointed.

As to the mechanics of the writing of Defenders of Ulthuan. It is very poorly done. The chapters skip perspective around without any sense of reason. The flow is confusing and haphazard. There is no sense of storytelling here at all. I found myself skipping entire pages at a time in order to finish dialogue as paragraph upon paragraph simply described a room or setting of little importance. The characters have no depth or motivation beyond those blatantly painted upon them. We are left to discover nothing for ourselves in the act of reading, we are simply told "this person is upset", "this person is happy". At times I felt as if I were reading the work of an adolescent writer. If this is the fault of the author or the fault of strictures placed upon him, I cannot say.

The only recommendation I could make for this book is for anyone who is so engrossed with warhammer elves that they wish to have additional library materials for playing warhammer. Fans of decent science fiction, decent writing, or common decency just steer clear.

I've loved Mcneill's work on the Ultramarines and the Uriel Ventris character, but I found this work lacking.

One of the issues I have is the formulaic plot. The bad guys(Dark Elves) invade and of course their big bads(Witch King and the Hag) kill hundreds of mundane, overmatch warriors single handedly while the biggest guns of Ulthuan are doing nothing and sitting on their thumbs. The pathetic thing is the powerfully wise and magic High Elves have faced this sort of invasion before and apparently didn't learn from the last one and so are as unprepared as before. Of course, they stand a better chance this time because Malus Darkblade is (conspicuously nowhere to be found).

So while the Dark Elves are killing off all the defenders, some idiot named Caelus or whatever is allowed to run rampant (even by Teclis who could squash this guy like a bug) with an equivalent of the Manchurian Candidate syndrome warped into his mind by dark magic, sabotaging the defender high mages and attempting to assassinate the Everqueen.

Which begs many questions that make no sense?

Why were most the elves views in this book racist, towards the humans in particular? Teclis is seemingly one of the few elves to even interact with humans in the past centuries.

Why is the time frame for the book so vague? There's a mention of the failure of Archaeon(from the terribly executed storm of chaos campaign of 2004), but that's it.

Why did Teclis fall for such an easy trap? For the most powerful wizard on the planet(except maybe Nagash) he fell for an easy ruse and the attack against him that felled him is something he could have easily dealt with(see Giantslayer)

Telic makes no mention of Gotrek and Felix, though they probably could come in very handy as his kingdom is being destroyed? Why not call on them? I know this isn't a comic book, but it is a shared universe.

Why didn't Teclis mention any of the events from Giantslayer, his first novel appearance? Like how the whole world is collapsing and the elves need to find a way to fix it?

Why are all the big time legendary elves a dollar short and a day late? Tyrion doesn't show up until the Witch King has pretty much taken a port and Eltharion is nowhere to be found as the Hag is carving up the Eagle gate defenders! And all this from High Elves that can teleport anywhere.

Why are the High Mages not defending their homeland from invasion when their most powerful magical foes(Witch King and his mother and their sorcerers are attacking)? Not all of them fell for the lame trap set in Caelus mind by the Hag? The Witch King will own Ulthuan by the time they do any thing.

Why didn't Teclis use healing magic to get himself back towards 100 percent?

Why is the old formula of having the bad guys dominate the entire first book while the defenders get mauled used yet again? Its become a tired device in novels and comic books and has become a cheap way to raise the fan's hackles?

Why do main characters spend more time traveling than any thing else? The only ones fighting and winning are the bad guys.

Why does this book end in a cliffhanger? The action is barely started and then it ends. There was no reason this could not have been one book.

This book had a lot of potential, but most of it drained out through the plot holes, lame characters, and just cookie cutter plot. I've noticed a fall in the workmanship of the black library over the past couple of years and I am at a loss to explain it. Hopefully the next installment is better?

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