Sir Rupert Triumff. Adventurer. Fighter. Drinker. Saviour? Pratchett goes swashbuckling in the hotly anticipated original fiction debut of the multi-million selling Warhammer star. Triumff is a ribald historical fantasy set in a warped clockwork-powered version of our present day ! a new Elizabethan age, not of Elizabeth II but in the style of the original Virgin Queen. Throughout its rollicking pages, Sir Rupert Triumff drinks, dines and duels his way into a new Brass Age of Exploration and Adventure. FILE UNDER: Fantasy [An Age of Alchemy / A Dashing Swordsman / The Queen Must Die]
Triumff
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"Triumff is a witch's brew of alternate history, hocus pocus, cracking action and cheesy gags. Reads like Blackadder crossed with Neal Stephenson. It's a Kind of Magick - don't miss it." - Stephen Baxter "Endlessly inventive, joyously irreverent, drenched with adrenalin and wicked humour, Dan Abnett's Triumff is a brilliant occult-comedy-historical-adventure that's true to the best traditions of the genres it so eagerly devours." - Mike Carey "He makes war so real that you want to duck." - SciFi.com "Abnett truly is the master of future war." - SciFi.com "Dan has imbued the art of waging war... with a vivid and brutal energy, infusing the action with a palpable sense of tension" - My Favourite Books, reviewing Titanicus "a highly cinematic read, in which Abnett delivers a convincing, intricately constructed future, filled with interesting characters, and the promise of much more to come. " - SF Site, reviewing Ravenor "Dan Abnett does not disappoint with his story telling skills. Not only does he write some believable characters, but he can get a battle pictured in your mind with astonishing ease." - Walker of Worlds, reviewing Titanicus
About the Author
Dan made his name in the tie-in SF and Fantasy fiction field, selling more than 1.2 million copies in English language of his Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 novels for Games Workshop's Black Library imprint. They've also been translated into ten other languages. He's also recently made the UK fiction charts with original Torchwood and Doctor Who novels. His comicbook scripts, for major publishers such as Marvel, DC Comics and the UK's 2000 AD, have attracted critical plaudits and strong sales on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.8 out of 5 stars
10 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Both laughs and groans await the reader
Oct 5 2010
By Wulfstan
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is a rollicking swashbuckling pastiche or parody, set in a modern alternate history where the technology never went much past the time of Queen Elizabeth ... the First. A form of magic has taken it's place, mostly run by the Church. Of course, this has been done before (and much, much better) by Randall Garrett, with his Lord Darcy pastiche fantasy mysteries (and if you haven't read them- NOW! is the time, these are by far the best in the genre). However, not being as good as Randall Garrett isn't much of a complaint.
This book does have flashes of excellent writing. Some of the humor had me chuckling quite often... but other "humorous" bits elicited a groan and much eye-rolling. There are a number of rather good swordfight scenes, which would be even better if they were serious (our Hero has a type of "Swiss-Army" sword which often exudes something like a rutabaga peeler instead of a rapier.) In fact, if it had not been cut short, one of the last swordfights in the book would have been comparable to that of "The Princess Bride".
It has been compared to Terry Pratchett but it's far more like Blackadder One. There are also a good number of Shakespearian references and jokes.
Only two Characters come to life with more than a single dimension- our Hero and Mother Grundy (who does remind me a bit of Granny Weatherwax ).
Note that the whole subplot with certain portions being "written" in the first person by "Master Beaver" is jarring and annoying, and could have been dropped with ease.
I am giving it 4 stars as I grinned more than groaned, but your mileage may vary.
This book does have flashes of excellent writing. Some of the humor had me chuckling quite often... but other "humorous" bits elicited a groan and much eye-rolling. There are a number of rather good swordfight scenes, which would be even better if they were serious (our Hero has a type of "Swiss-Army" sword which often exudes something like a rutabaga peeler instead of a rapier.) In fact, if it had not been cut short, one of the last swordfights in the book would have been comparable to that of "The Princess Bride".
It has been compared to Terry Pratchett but it's far more like Blackadder One. There are also a good number of Shakespearian references and jokes.
Only two Characters come to life with more than a single dimension- our Hero and Mother Grundy (who does remind me a bit of Granny Weatherwax ).
Note that the whole subplot with certain portions being "written" in the first person by "Master Beaver" is jarring and annoying, and could have been dropped with ease.
I am giving it 4 stars as I grinned more than groaned, but your mileage may vary.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some neat ideas but not enough of a plot
Feb 13 2011
By Kid Kyoto
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Set in a magical world where the Elizabethan age never ended, this book tells the story of Sir Rupert Triumff, an explorer recently returned from his discovery of Australia. Triumff is a drunk, a liar and a lout but quickly finds himself in the center of a conspiracy to bring down the United British and Spanish Empires and kill Queen Elizabeth XXX.
Abnett begins on a dark and stormy night, with prose more purple than anything Edward Bulwer-Lytton ever came up with. The first 5 pages are spend on an epic description of the rain.
From there the plot takes off like a rocket, we quickly have evil plots, magical weapons and dark secrets. But then it screeches to a halt and never really comes together again.
Part of the problem is Abnett never really takes the time to introduce his alternate history or how magic works. So we have people plotting to blow up the magical power plant but no idea what that means. Abnett also throws in a lot of puns based on our world that don't make sense in context and took me out of the story. For example an American Indian worried about his 'reservations' makes no sense when America was never colonized there never were Indian reservations. A character based on Dirty Harry named Clinton Eastwoodho and a spy master code-named 'Kew' (after the gardens) just knock me right out of Abnett's world and make it harder to get back in.
In the end it feels like the author tried to do too much. He has an adventure story, a new fantasy world, a new take on magic and a farce and the book just never succeeds in delivering any of them.
There's potential here but I won't be in any hurry to buy another Triumff book.
Abnett begins on a dark and stormy night, with prose more purple than anything Edward Bulwer-Lytton ever came up with. The first 5 pages are spend on an epic description of the rain.
From there the plot takes off like a rocket, we quickly have evil plots, magical weapons and dark secrets. But then it screeches to a halt and never really comes together again.
Part of the problem is Abnett never really takes the time to introduce his alternate history or how magic works. So we have people plotting to blow up the magical power plant but no idea what that means. Abnett also throws in a lot of puns based on our world that don't make sense in context and took me out of the story. For example an American Indian worried about his 'reservations' makes no sense when America was never colonized there never were Indian reservations. A character based on Dirty Harry named Clinton Eastwoodho and a spy master code-named 'Kew' (after the gardens) just knock me right out of Abnett's world and make it harder to get back in.
In the end it feels like the author tried to do too much. He has an adventure story, a new fantasy world, a new take on magic and a farce and the book just never succeeds in delivering any of them.
There's potential here but I won't be in any hurry to buy another Triumff book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
You have to either love the genre or the author to really enjoy this book
Jun 17 2012
By MuleHeadJoe
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this book mostly because I read a different book (Embedded) by this author which I liked. The descriptions / reviews of this book gave me the impression that it would be funny. I figured that the mixture of alternative history and humor would make this a quick and fun read, but after only a couple chapters I got bored.
Now I'm not the kind of guy that can only focus on short stories ... I've read quite a handful of seriously deep stories with hefty page counts per book (for example, Wheel of Time, Malazan Book of the Dead, Baroque Cycle). No, this book was boring because it had insufficient or poorly written action, characters that weren't very well developed, and lots of seriously long and boring dialogue or exposition using pseudo-Elizabethan or otherwise confusing dialect.
I expected the humor to be dry (i.e., British) ... but this book was dryer than the mojave in summer. I managed to crack a smile in a small handful of places, but not once did I get an real laugh. Compare that level of jollity to, say, the Discworld stories by Terry Pratchet ... I can't get through a Pratchet story without at least one serious belly-laugh. So ... Abnett is no Pratchet, that's certainly for sure.
Anyhow, I won't say it's a bad book -- the premise of the story was good, and I really wanted to enjoy it, but it just didn't click for me. Many reviewers are fans of Abnett's work in Warhammer stories, but I've not read any of that work so I can't compare. I can say the writing in this book was quite different from the one book I did read and enjoy, so this was a bit of a letdown.
Now I'm not the kind of guy that can only focus on short stories ... I've read quite a handful of seriously deep stories with hefty page counts per book (for example, Wheel of Time, Malazan Book of the Dead, Baroque Cycle). No, this book was boring because it had insufficient or poorly written action, characters that weren't very well developed, and lots of seriously long and boring dialogue or exposition using pseudo-Elizabethan or otherwise confusing dialect.
I expected the humor to be dry (i.e., British) ... but this book was dryer than the mojave in summer. I managed to crack a smile in a small handful of places, but not once did I get an real laugh. Compare that level of jollity to, say, the Discworld stories by Terry Pratchet ... I can't get through a Pratchet story without at least one serious belly-laugh. So ... Abnett is no Pratchet, that's certainly for sure.
Anyhow, I won't say it's a bad book -- the premise of the story was good, and I really wanted to enjoy it, but it just didn't click for me. Many reviewers are fans of Abnett's work in Warhammer stories, but I've not read any of that work so I can't compare. I can say the writing in this book was quite different from the one book I did read and enjoy, so this was a bit of a letdown.
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3.8 out of 5 stars
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