World of Warcraft: Stormrage

Loved it. I have always been a fan of the author although so many readers seem to look down on him for what characters he has chosen from the Warcraft universe to write a history for - something I have never understood as an author has to pick characaters, they can't not have characters nor can they choose all.

Anyway. I have read his previous Warcraft books, and especially loved this one for being up to date and set in the WoW universe that players are currently actually experiencing in game. So it's set after the fall of Arthas and relates to that in some ways. What I am interested in seeing is whether the events of this will be a part of the pre-Cataclysm events in game as Blizzard have mentioned there will be several different ones. Not to mention this would explain how Malfurion Stormrage was rescued from the Emerald Dream and is back in the game in Cataclysm.

One of the things I especially love about this author, and this book, is that he captures the beauty, power and intensity of the actual spells used by druids and priests, and transforms them into words. I especially thought the end was well written, beautiful and a long time coming. You'll have to read the book to understand what I mean by that ;)

You would probably have to be familiar with the Warcraft universe from Blizzard's games to truly appreciate this series, but the story stands on its own. The plot is somewhat predictable, but the characters are diverse and interesting. The artwork is gorgeous.

The book is enjoyable but I recognize that my prior involvement with the World of Warcarft attributed greatly to this. Overall it is pretty good but still has its flaws.

It's a good story but I would have hoped for a narrator who could properly pronounce the names of most people and places.

this was a great book from start to finish it kept me engaged

I have played World of Warcraft off and on now for over 5 years. This was the first fiction book that I have read based off of the game. It started slow but about halfway through the book really picked up. The second half was full of almost constant action. In the end I enjoyed it as it had to deal mainly with characters that were Druids and that is what my main character in WoW is. I would recomend this book to any fans of World of Warcraft.

This was a terrible book. I expected this. I read it anyway. I'm not sure why.

From the most generous possible perspective (meaning, let us assume that I care deeply about the subject matter, which is not particularly true) it's still a terrible book. The writing is godawful - stilted dialog, weird, artificial plot developments, confusing action and terrible pacing. Knaak spends far, far too many paragraphs describing in detail the clothing and/or armor of the characters in what appears to be an attempt to tie the story more closely to the game.

The actual plot of the story does nothing and goes nowhere, except in that it killed off one of the more annoying game characters in order that the developers could replace him with a less-annoying one. Seriously, that's... about it. If Knaak was a brilliant author, this might have been a delightful romp through a familiar setting. Sadly, however, he's awful, and it's a piece of dreck.

[begin geek rant]The nonsensical use of the "hearthstone" at the end about killed me, too. Seriously. that is a game mechanic. It's DESIGNED to be a deus ex machina, for god's sake. Introducing some heretofore unrevealed backstory that implies it's a rare and powerful artifact makes no bloody sense to anyone who is familiar with the game, and to anyone unfamiliar it's... a deus ex machina. Come on, man. My RP guild had more consistent rules than that.[/end geek rant]

World of Warcraft: Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak is the latest game-related novel I finished. I’ll admit I picked this one up solely due to my fascination with its eponymous protagonist because in fact, I am not a big fan of Knaak’s writing at all. The War of the Ancients trilogy, for example, is the last thing I read by him and it was a torturous ordeal just to try and force myself to get through all three books. I find his style overly simplistic and at times vapid and flavorless, though to be fair, I’ve only ever read his WoW-related books even though he’s known for being quite a gifted author for his works in many other titles in the fantasy genre.I decided to give this book a chance in the end, because if anything, my love for the Druid class made reading this a requirement. Malfurion Stormrage is also one of my favorite characters in WoW lore, and I figured maybe I’ll have a better time getting through Knaak’s writing when it’s not about Rhonin or Krasus/Korialstrasz.Anyway, my final verdict for Stormrage is that it’s readable, but I think avid fans and readers of more established fantasy authors will be very disappointed. I realize it’s a game novel and that it’s a challenge to write for a series intended for a wide audience which may include younger readers, but there were times where the simplistic writing style made me feel like I was reading a comic book, or a very bad fanfic piece.To Knaak’s credit, it’s clear he’s done a lot of research into the characters and locations of the WoW universe. In many ways, the book is also a nice follow-up to the War of the Ancients trilogy and ties in well with the WoW comics, though one doesn’t have to have read either to follow the story. I would still recommend Stormrage to any fans of Warcraft lore, since it provides answers to a lot of questions regarding Malfurion Stormrage and the encroaching Emerald Nightmare. WoW players will also be treated to a whole slew of appearances by well-known NPCs including Tyrande Whisperwind, Hamuul Runetotem, and the duplicitous Fandral Staghelm.

AUGH!Let me explain... but first let me warn you, spoilers are incoming. I suggest you read it all anyway, because I will be saving you money. A conclusion is at the bottom if you don't want to slog through this rage fest.Alright, so the novel Stormrage aims to cover a part of lore that has existed in game since vanilla and was as big a deal for Druid fans as Frostmourne was to the general public. It covers the mystery of Malfurion's disappearance, the sickness of the great tree Teldrassil, and the identity of the Nightmare Lord. I am not just a WoW fan, but a WoW fan who RPed a Night Elf Druid for three years straight, so for me there was a certain amount of personal investment in the outcome of this book. If you don't know what I just said, don't worry, the rest of the review will be legible to you.As much as I was curious to see what Blizzard would do with all of these as of yet unembellished plot elements, I was also wary, because they had brought in Richard Knaak to do the writing. Knaak has a very divisive reputation among fans for his penchant for inserting non lore characters that steal the show with their super powers. He also isn't a very good writer.So my attitude going into the book was one of hope and trepidation. It did not take me many pages to realize that I was in for a nightmare that did not have anything to do with Satyrs bent on world domination.The first thing I noticed was that Knaak seems to mistake italics for a writing style. I don't exaggerate when I say that on almost every other page some word or another is -emphasized- to mark some sort of -emphasis-. I don't have the book anymore (borrowed it from work, no way I'm paying for that crap) so I must paraphrase, but stuff like "The axe was not made of metal, but was crafted -from wood-" or "She struck at her foe, and then -disappeared-." When I read I hear what I am reading in my head. The awkward and constant placement of -emphasis- turned the voice reading to me into a ten year old that couldn't wait to tell me about all the -cool- stuff that happened in his backyard -yesterday-. If every other thing is so damn special, none of it is now is it? Reading this book in plain text would not help much. There is no style (unless you count stiff sentence reassignment like, "Worry not about your friends," style) to speak of in this book. The writing is just bad. No imagery, no evocation of any emotions whatsoever (besides rage. More on that later.) and so much telling that I was literally saying out loud, "I know, I know!" Where Knaak does try to be a little creative, he usually ends up just being wrong. Take this gem: "The storm unleashed."Storms don't unleash. Storms are unleashed. Luckily, shit like this did not happen once every other page like his overeager italics, but it happened often enough to be a trend.Besides simply being badly written, Stormrage manages to take some of the most iconic characters of WoW, stick them in a blender, and make them either boring or insufferable. Malfurion Stormrage, the namesake of the book, is a powerful Night Elf Druid, the first Druid, in fact, who fought in almost every major conflict in Azeroth's history, defeated legions of foes, and has an entire order that calls him teacher and master. In the game Warcraft III he sacrifices the immortality of his people to defeat the burning legion and says something rather decent for a game character. "If pride gives us pause, my love, then perhaps we have lived long enough." He's humble, but with strong conviction, and devoted to his calling.Stormrage in the book is an utter pussy. Almost every choice he makes in the book he feels bad about. How do I know this? Knaak tells me. Every time. Stormrage reaches out and manipulates an orc, which he feels bad about. He gathers his druids together and has them aid him in a spell, which makes him feel bad about putting them at risk. Every order he makes is accompanied by either, "I feel so bad about this, but..." or "It's all my fault it's going down like this, but..."And almost every other character is almost the exact same way. Everyone feels sorry for themselves in this book. They could be literally conjuring a storm over the entire god damn world -and- a parallel universe while thinking to themselves, "man, I'm such an inadequate jerk." Yeah, I know you've won multiple wars almost single handedly and save the world in this book, but you're such a loser, Malfurion.Actual character conflict is also non existent. The only bit of 'conflict' you get is when someone gives a command, someone else is like, "No! I will come with you!" the two characters look at each other for a moment, and then all is resolved, because one of them knows in their heart that the other is right. This happens constantly. When characters are not giving orders, being obeyed, and feeling bad about it, they are making decisions that are either "wrought with danger, but the only possible option." or "what so and so knew must be done to finally end this nightmare." during the first three quarters of the book almost every decision is followed up by the first statement in some form. Over the last quarter the second phrase starts seeing a lot of play. So about halfway through the book I was going through at a generally decent pace, lamenting the fact that the writing was awful and characters were as flavorful and diverse as dry leaves. But I consoled myself with this: at least the plot wasn't a disaster. And about halfway through the book this is true. Ok, so Malfurion is turning into a tree in the dream and needs a magic axe to cut him down. Staghelm is crazy and using the druids against their knowledge to feed the Nightmare Lord. A rescue mission is attempted, Stormrage gets free and confronts Staghelm, Staghelm gets carried out by the now enlightened druids ranting and raving. Not the best, but ok, I can deal with this.And then things got stupid. The plot essentially ends in the middle of the book, when all the questions people want the answers to are answered, Malfurion is free, and Teldrassil is not only cleansed but blessed by the aspect of life. The only thing left is to either clean up or push back the Nightmare. One half of the book is devoted to this, and it makes for the most frustrating, hectic loop da loop I've ever had to read.The good guys exceed the bounds of anything they thought they could ever do, and then they falter, and then the exceed the bounds of anything they thought they could ever do, and then they falter, and then they... The last four of five times of this (all usually coinciding with that, "what so and so knew must be done to finally end this nightmare," phrase to mark the start of a new loop), I wanted to strangle the heroes and tell them to just win the damn thing already! How many times can you almost win just to realize you have played into your enemy's trap before it becomes tedious? Fewer times than were in this book, that's for sure. And once people started breaking out the super powers all sense of urgency or danger was gone. There is a character who's sole purpose is to shuttle everyone else around. He has the unique ability to teleport anyone not only to any point in the world, but any point in the parallel world of the Dream. Usually this requires druidic powers or a portal. He literally has no purpose in the book other than to get everyone to the next plot point. How lazy can you be?Later in the book Malfurion is so powerful he's chatting it up through mind speak to everyone on the planet. It gets to the point where everyone is in different places, but they might as well be right next to each other, because the distance means nothing. At one point I thought it was over when the key to victory, an axe, was laying right at Malfurion's feet, and all he had to do with go pick it up and use it. Instead, when his 'beloved' Tyrande tells him this, he yells at her and makes them leave it. This is ironically the only assertive thing he does in the whole book.I could go on. There are points where characters ponder why continuity has been bludgeoned again, and then give the reader some "it must be..." bone, as if the writer has just noticed that something is out of whack, but rather than fix it he figures a quick patchup will do.The end is as expected. Although almost every character attempts to heroically sacrifice themselves once or twice, only one or two end up succeeding. Tyrande and Malfurion have a marriage that is presided over not only by every superpower in the book, but by some of Knaak's insertion characters that had minor or no facetime too. Some characters find new confidence that I'm sure will be gone the next time they face a challenge. The Nightmare Lord is defeated, but the Nightmare Lord's master is left untouched so we can go through all this bullshit again at a later date. If I remember correctly, Staghelm gets sent to the druid version of a sanitarium. I admit that I was biased against Knaak when I started reading, but I really wanted this to be a good book. I wanted to see lore that I love come to life. Instead I had to sit through what amounted to officially sanctioned, terrible fan fiction. What frustrates me is that as bad as this book is, a lot of people will be buying it just for its association with Warcraft. It's not worth the money. If you are not a Warcraft fan, steer clear away, because there are no redeeming features to this book whatsoever. If you are a Warcraft fan and still really want to know what happens, I'll be providing an in depth synopsis in my 'comments' so you can save your time, your money, and your blood pressure.