Warcraft: War of the Ancients #3: The Sundering [Mass Market Paperback]

Warcraft, War of the Ancients 3: The Sundering, by Richard A. Knaak

"The Sundering" is the final installment in the War of the Ancients trilogy, a series set in the universe of World of Warcraft. The night elves and other races of Azeroth are perched on the edge of losing their lives and their world to the Burning Legion...

Knaak created a truly epic story in this trilogy, taking the story and universe of Blizzard's award winning game series and creating memorable characters, an intriguing plot, and fantastic battles. He had to play in a world where many readers will already know most of the storyline, but didn't let that stop him from delivering a very enjoyable series. "The Sundering" has to wrap up all the loose ends of the previous two books, and it does that in a very nice manner. I read most of this book in 2 sittings, as I was eager to know how everything would finish up. And normally I'm not a real fan of too many battle scenes, but the final battle in "The Sundering" is very enjoyable; Knaak has a knack for writing good battles. I would say it isn't a fight that should be missed.

As I've said about the other books in the trilogy, "The Sundering" is full of lore that will make any Warcraft fan happy. I loved knowing what happened to Illidan...how he went evil. How Malfurion became the first of the druids. Why Mount Hyjal is an important part of the landscape. Little things will likely click into place in your mind as you read the book; I know I have some new questions and theories about why things are the way they are in the Warcraft universe.

The War of the Ancients is a trilogy I'm apt to read when I'm a little sick of playing World of Warcraft, and it almost always generates interest in playing again.

5/5.

Based on the other reviews, I am in the minority on this but I found this whole trilogy a massive disappointment. I can only assume that others liked these books because they were so entranced by the lore, that they overlooked the many deficiencies. I've read a lot of fantasy novels, some good, some bad, and this was among the very worst. The only reason I slogged through this tedious, poorly written trilogy was to get at the lore, most of which is merely hinted at in the game.

Knaack is either a poor writer, or simply wrote this as a work-for-hire and gave it only the minimum attention required to get his pay check. The quest text and cutscenes in World of Warcraft are better scripted and edited than this novel. His syntax is frequently atrocious. One jarring example came early in the first book, when he describes a dragon aspect as "humongous". This word is pure 1960s slang, on a par with "ginormous", and is a poor choice to describe the majesty and scale of the Titans' hand picked guardians of Azeroth.

His characterization is paper thin. Only Broxigar stood out as having any depth, a warrior suffering survior's guilt and feelings that he is not worthy of the accolades bestowed on him by Warchief Thrall and others. Shandris Feathermoon was intriguing but never really got enough time on the page to develop. Azshara, queen of the night elves, is vapid, self absorbed and easily duped. Malfurion and Tyrande, while likable enough, are mostly characterized by the fact that their intentions are always good, and they always do the right thing. They are heroes, yes, but they're never really conflicted or complex enough to be very interesting. Sargeras, as a rogue Titan, could have been interesting, but his history, motivations and character were barely touched on; the WoWWiki article does a better job of conveying the character, a dutiful champion of the Titans, who after millennia despairs of his task and slips into madness. In the book, he is a one dimensional anarchist intent merely upon destroying all life.

His plotting is mediocre and meandering, consisting of the heroes running between various points in Kalimdor, never quite accomplishing what they set out to do, and returning in time to prevent the succession of battles from turning into complete defeat. In this he gets a partial dispensation in that he is constrained not to step too far from the boundaries of known WoW lore. This fault taken by itself would not damn the whole. But taken with his other deficiencies, however, this was simply the final nail in the coffin.

Some may argue my expectations for a novel based on video characters is too high, but I'd counter that the depth of the narrative and characterization of WoW is a huge part of its success. A novel offers so many options for extending the depth and breadth of what is often only hinted at in the game, that it ought to do a better job than the video game. Knaack had three novels to work with, but failed to improve in any way upon what came before.

This review is for the Kindle version only.

The formatting of the Kindle version is atrocious. None of the paragraphs are indented and the only breaks are between chapters. When the scene shifts during a chapter, and with at least three plot threads this happens a lot, there are no breaks - not even a simple blank line.

I returned this book and Amazon said they were going to pass on the feedback to the publisher. Hopefully this will be fixed soon, but just be aware when considering buying this for your Kindle.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 19 reviews  4.1 out of 5 stars