I bought The First Omnibus a few days ago and just finished Trollslayer. I give it a 1/10! The Dwarfs' name is first in the title, and all the books are call (something)slayer. But the author, William King, never tells the story from a Dwarfs point of view. King only tells the story from humans (or former humans) point of view, but NEVER any Dwarfs! Maybe 10% of Trollslayer is about Dwarves. Most of the time King doesn’t even talk about the Dwarfs, it all about Felix Jaeger.
Trollslayer is 7 short stories in 1 book.
The rest of this post is a spoiler about the book.
Felix Jaeger is Oath bound to follow Gotrek Gurnisson, a Dwarf Slayer, to write an epic poem about Gotrek’s heroic death.
Geheimnisnacht: Ends with Gotrek under a pile of bodies, and Felix saving the day by killing the main bad guy. Leading up to it, Gotrek was killing most of the little guys though.
Wolf Riders: Gotrek kills the more powerful bad guy, but Felix isn’t around. Felix is off killing the storyline bad guy. 15 sentences describe the “main” battle of the story. Only 15 sentences to describe how Gotrek lost his eye!
The Dark Beneath the World: Takes place in a Dwarf city mostly. But of course, 3 humans join Gotrek and Felix. Gotrek is main crowd control. The finial battle, Gotrek is too stupid to figure out how to kill the main bad guy. So Felix has to save the day by weakening the Troll so Gotrek can kill it. Dwarf Ghosts save them shortly after that from Orcs.
The Mark of Slaanesh: Gotrek gets hit in the head by a pebble from a slingshot and is as stupid as a retarded child the rest of the short story… After Felix fixes Gotrek, the author spends 4 sentences hinting at what they do the rest of the short story.
Blood and Darkness: Spends 1 sentence reminding the readers of the hint of what they did in The Mark of Slaanesh. Gotrek is crowd control again in Blood and Darkness. The main enemy is a Chaos Champion in the making, who is also a women. Felix and the Chaos Champion’s daughter kill the Chaos Champion. Gotrek is fighting the little guys again.
The Mutant Master: Gotrek is crowd control. Felix single handedly kills the main bad guy.
Ulric’s Children: Gotrek is only in the first 2 pages and last 5 sentences’. Felix does all the work.
Trollslayer book ends! You never even find out why Gotrek is called a Trollslayer! WTF!
Questions:
1) I’ll probably end up finishing The First Omnibus, but do they get better? They aren’t bad, just a HUGH let down with the lack of Dwarvish stuff.
2) Any better books about Dwarfs?
I personally enjoyed the Gotrek and Felix series, and yes, I do think they get better as they go on. Still, if you're looking for something more "dwarfy", then Oathbreaker and Grudgebearer are good books.
Troll Slayer was more like an prologue to the slayer stories. The next four books are way much better in comparison to the Troll Slayer: Skaven slayer (my favorite), Daemon slayer (much much dwarf-things in this one), Dragon slayer (much much slayer things in this one) and Beast slayer. Unfortunately after the beast slayer, the series starts to go downhill. Vampire slayer and Human slayer were just poor in comparison to books 2-5.
There will be some absolutely awesome characters in the later books that most people love: Greyseer Thanquol, Snorri Nosebiter (slayer), Malakai Makaisson (slayer engineer), Bjorni Bjornisson (slayer), Lurk Snicthtongue etc.
Now i never read any of the books i just know a little from this site. You say its from a humans point of view did u ever think that maybe felix is saying the story, i mean anit that the point that felix is with Gotrek. Please correct me if im wrong
The story is from Felix' memoires so it is from his perspective.
Apart from which, a story from the perspective of a slayer is going to be really boring "oh woe is me, I'm dishonoured. Maybe I'll drink this beer to make me forget. Oh look a big monster i'm going to kill it and hope it kills me."
I like dwarfs a lot, but if I had to read a book from the perspective of a slayer I think I'd vomit. They are about as emo as a dwarf can get.
Orcslayer was pretty good.
BTW did u see gotreks axe in the game ? Its a tiny little thingy. This is supposed to be a fearsome weapon?
I read First and second omnibus and i like them. At the end it was little too monotonish but i like whole story. Didnt read orcslayer but i hearf that snori died noo whyyy?
Trollslayer should never have been a book, it was just short stories (written widely apart time-wise) that they tried to cobble together, and so it's pretty iffy (although some of the stories themselves are pretty decent if considered separately).
The series gets better once it becomes.... well... a book series.
Plus you've got to remember that the Gotrek & Felix stories made Slayer lore in many ways, especially the early ones released in the late 80's and early 90's, so it may be a bit vague, because everything WAS a bit vague back then.
I also had trouble getting though Trollslayer, but keep on reading and if your anything like me you buy the second omnibus before your done.
Yeah the books come from felix point of view, but by the later books he really knows more about dwarfs then any other human, and understands and relates to them.
Well we also get a few others including a page or so of snorri as well of some other dwarfs and it's hillarious reading the story from Lurk, Thanquol, and the other skaven view.
Personally I like to think that for the most part we're reading Felix's journels. Which makes sense since we find out in the later books that his brother has been publising them and apparantly they are extremly succesful.
I've read the 2nd Omnibus on and just finished Elfslayer last week but I enjoyed them all. There's actually only been one Warhammer book I've read so far that I didn't like but I don't remember it's name. It was that forgetable.
Well, you just the first part of the first Omnibus. Its nothing special compared to what's to come.
Also you should try and understand the way in which William King is writing: he develops the narrative by the points of view of the different characters in the books (many times it's Felix) and never from Gotrek. This way he makes look Gotrek more like an unstopable force than a mere Dwarf.
It doesn't represents the story only by humans perspective, later in the series when other races get introduced you will see the story being seen by the perspective of different Skavens (Lurk, Thanqoul and a bunch more), vampires (in vampire slayer), Orcs (a Orc Warboss), Elfs (Teclis) and other Dwarfs (especially in Dragonslayer). It also shows the story from the perspective of many of their adventure companions that you will meet.
Edit. If you don't like the way William King develops the story you can always grab Nathan Long novels, where they start with a clean slate a couple of decades after their last adventures by William King. However, the stories aren't as well done as by William King and Nathan Long more or less reversed Felix character development. Some people like the books though. In my opinion only Elfslayer is as good quality material as William King novels.
Well, you just the first part of the first Omnibus. Its nothing special compared to what's to come.
Also you should try and understand the way in which William King is writing: he develops the narrative by the points of view of the different characters in the books (many times it's Felix) and never from Gotrek. This way he makes look Gotrek more like an unstopable force than a mere Dwarf.
It doesn't represents the story only by humans perspective, later in the series when other races get introduced you will see the story being seen by the perspective of different Skavens (Lurk, Thanqoul and a bunch more), vampires (in vampire slayer), Orcs (a Orc Warboss), Elfs (Teclis) and other Dwarfs (especially in Dragonslayer). It also shows the story from the perspective of many of their adventure companions that you will meet.
Edit. If you don't like the way William King develops the story you can always grab Nathan Long novels, where they start with a clean slate a couple of decades after their last adventures by William King. However, the stories aren't as well done as by William King and Nathan Long more or less reversed Felix character development. Some people like the books though. In my opinion only Elfslayer is as good quality material as William King novels.
Gotrek and Felix are some of the best books i have ever read! And thats all of the current ones...several times. its up there with Space Wolf and...erm...Pratchett. yeah. Saying that King is definitely the best writer out of the few who took over after him. Anyone know why he went AWOL?
i thought nathan long wrote them... info please?
You're telling me! You know how sickening it is to hear everyone who thinks their funny by calling the Dark Elves 'emo'? You cant be dark and twisted these days without beikng branded, apparently.
Emo: whiny peice of trash how cant see who shallow their 'problems' are, and whine about how horrible life is, while expecting everyone else to carry them through life, because its all so unfair.
Personally, I like the slayer idea, and not just because its stunties trying to off themselves. Honor is a big deal to dwarves, and yet, Ive never heard of a slayer whining about their life. Hell, never even hear them talk about what they did. and most of the time you hear about them, theyre having a gorram blast fighting. I dare to venture that if you took a seasoned slayer (one that didnt die after 2-3 battles as a slayer) and the high king offered them absoloution of their fault, they wouldent go back to normal dwarf life.
To each their own. I enjoyed the books and look foward to the future ones.
Sure there was a book or two that I found a little bit lacking, but I was always glad I read them.. well worth the time and money.