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Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 2:48 pm
by Ralph
From the Wikipedia:

Drachenfels (1989)
Beasts in Velvet (1991)
Genevieve Undead (1993, three novellas published as a single book)
Silver Nails (2002, short stories)
The Vampire Genevieve (2005, compilation of the above four books)

I'm not exactly sure about the in-world timeline; if I remember correctly, at least one of the shorts comes first.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 2:57 pm
by Danke Dave
I really enjoyed the Runefang and Vermintide books, and the comics if you can find any of them.Think you can find a collection called Tales from the Ten Tailed Cat for the comics

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 3:16 am
by Karanthir
[Oops, I missed that there was a second page. This post was in response to totsuzenheni at the bottom of page 1.]
Drachenfels and Genevieve Undead (the first short story collection). There's another short story collection, Silver Nails, but I don't know whether you'd need to read that before Beasts (it's been so long I can't remember). One of the stories in Genevieve Undead does refer to the events of Beasts in the past tense (I think), but not in a sense of there being any spoilers to worry about.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 4:09 am
by Totsuzenheni Yukimi
It wasn't only stories involving Genevieve. The other short story i'm referring to appeared in an anthology. I think it was Ignorant Armies. There is a list here: http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/List_of_ ... hologies_2 .

And i found a list of the short stories in the Ignorant Armies anthology here: http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/201 ... books.html . I would think that the story i'm referring to is 'Ignorant Armies' by Jack Yeovil.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 4:30 am
by Karanthir
Yeah, Ignorant Armies (as in the short story, not the anthology) was reprinted in Silver Nails along with the other Jack Yeovil short stories from various anthologies.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:54 am
by Pan_Carlo
While its not essential to read the Jack Yeovil stories in any order, the following, I think, contains the correct chronology:
1. Drachenfels (Prologue)
2. Red Thirst
3. The Ignorant Armies
4. No Gold in the Grey Mountains
5. Drachenfels (Main Part)
6. Beasts in Velvet
7. Stage Blood
8. Cold Stark House
9. Unicorn Ivory
10. Warhawk
11. Ibby the Fish Factor

I think that's the correct order. I wonder if Mr Yeovil (Kim Newman) could one day be persuaded to write some more Warhammer stories.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 4:45 am
by Jackdays
Pan_Carlo wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:54 am I think that's the correct order. I wonder if Mr Yeovil (Kim Newman) could one day be persuaded to write some more Warhammer stories.
Probably not in the World-That-Was, as it was destroyed... It has huge possibilities to write more stories before The End Times, but GW probably focuses now all the new writing only to AoS...

Nice that Black Library still publishes old novels too.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 5:23 am
by satakuua
Pan_Carlo wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:54 am While its not essential to read the Jack Yeovil stories in any order, the following, I think, contains the correct chronology:
1. Drachenfels (Prologue)
2. Red Thirst
3. The Ignorant Armies
4. No Gold in the Grey Mountains
5. Drachenfels (Main Part)
6. Beasts in Velvet
7. Stage Blood
8. Cold Stark House
9. Unicorn Ivory
10. Warhawk
11. Ibby the Fish Factor

I think that's the correct order. I wonder if Mr Yeovil (Kim Newman) could one day be persuaded to write some more Warhammer stories.
I have Drachenfels, Ignorant Armies, and Beasts in Velvet. So I’ll start with the prologue of Drac!

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 8:36 pm
by TheHistorian
I generally enjoyed the original group of books published by GW and Boxtree. The hundreds (?) of books by Black Library and whomever else later were more of a mixed bag, and I eventually gave up on them and sold them. Saved the originals though.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 10:35 am
by satakuua
I skipped the prologue of Drachenfels, started Beasts in Velvet.

What a difference compared to Zaragoz! It feels like Warhammer from the get-go. Cannot yet be sure it will be better than Zaragoz, but at least I feel it will be a lot more entertaining.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2019 3:29 am
by Karanthir
I've just finished re-reading Beasts in Velvet and thoroughly enjoyed it (again). If I could make one complaint, it's that there's probably a few too many red herrings/potential suspects for The Beast. Also, the revelation at the end is incredibly dark and disturbing, even for Warhammer. That's not necessarily a complaint though.
Pan_Carlo wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:54 am While its not essential to read the Jack Yeovil stories in any order, the following, I think, contains the correct chronology:
1. Drachenfels (Prologue)
2. Red Thirst
3. The Ignorant Armies
4. No Gold in the Grey Mountains
5. Drachenfels (Main Part)
6. Beasts in Velvet
7. Stage Blood
8. Cold Stark House
9. Unicorn Ivory
10. Warhawk
11. Ibby the Fish Factor

I think that's the correct order. I wonder if Mr Yeovil (Kim Newman) could one day be persuaded to write some more Warhammer stories.
Thanks, this is great. I'll definitely make use of it next time I do a re-read. I'd love to see more of these style Warhammer stories published one day.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2019 8:00 am
by Theo
I'll just pop in to second the recommendations for Drachenfels. It's great stuff: both a good story in itself, a fun gothic horror pastische and an interesting riff on stories and storytelling themselves. Of course, it's wildly out of sync with the later Warhammer canon (and played pretty fast and loose even with the canon of its day). :)

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:44 am
by Wolf
Obviously, as everyone else has said the answer to these questions is always Drachenfels. It is the only Warhammer book I would happily recommend to someone without any interest in the Warhammer world. It was groundbreaking in terms of what fantasy novels, let alone game world tie-ins, could be at the time and still is significantly more interesting than the vast majority of current fantasy.

And I agree that Beasts in Velvet, whilst not quite as good, is definitely up there too. Of the other Kim Newman/Jack Yeovil stories, none are quite so good. That said the short stories Ignorant Armies and No Gold in the Grey Mountains are good. Others, such as Red Thirst or Stage Blood, are amusing enough but a something of a disappointment after the others.

Other Warhammer stories worth a pop include James Wallis’s Mark of... novels - especially for anyone with a grounding in WFRP 1st edition. Robert Earl’s Florin and Lorenzo stories are good fun adventures, featuring Lustria, the Ogre Kingdoms and Bretonnia. Barring an unfortunate moneylender character who appears to display the sort of characteristics that raise uncomfortable questions, they were easy uncomplicated fun. Guy Haley’s Skasnik was an amusing take on a story with a goblin central character. With an obviously unreliable narrator it skips happily by any awkward issues and it works much better than other fantasies with orc lead characters, where their non-human thoroughly unpleasant natures are forgotten or watered down. Zavant works fairly well as a transplant of Sherlock Holmes short stories to the Empire.

I would recommend Brian Craig’s novel The Wine of Dreams, too. I thought it excellent, with a neat subversion of our expectations for these books. Even the final battle manages to be obviously less significant than the more personal aspects of the book. If you weren’t so gone on Zaragoz, you may wish to approach with caution, but I’d say well worth a try.

Brian Craig/Stableford’s best work is probably his short stories. If you can pick up a collection of the early short stories (or BL’s later best of collections) these might be worth a gander. Tales of the Old World collected stories from the Inferno mag and has some good stories (mixed with other less successful ones).

Gotrek and Felix books though iconic are hit and miss affairs, in my view. I loved the stories Wolf Riders and Dark Beneath the World, when these first came out but thought they were diminished when read back to back with other very similar shorts in Trollslayer. Skaven’s Claw, the first story in the next collection, was great in its own in WD but a whole book of Skaven short stories was less fun. That said, Daemonslayer and Vampireslayer are more successful whole novels.

Finally, despite the occasional warm words they get, approach the Konrad saga with caution. I vividly recall how disappointing these books were. They promised plenty but went nowhere and seem to peter out in the last book.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:58 am
by Wolf
Pan_Carlo wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:54 am While its not essential to read the Jack Yeovil stories in any order, the following, I think, contains the correct chronology:
1. Drachenfels (Prologue)
2. Red Thirst
3. The Ignorant Armies
4. No Gold in the Grey Mountains
5. Drachenfels (Main Part)
6. Beasts in Velvet
7. Stage Blood
8. Cold Stark House
9. Unicorn Ivory
10. Warhawk
11. Ibby the Fish Factor
Whilst it might be fun to reread these in this order can I strongly recommend that no-one approaches them in this order for the first time.

There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, some of the stories are fairly indifferent, whilst others are excellent. You should concentrate on the really good stuff first and check out the less satisfying work later. Starting Drachenfels and not completing it until you’ve read some other stories unconnected to the main arc of the novel is not something i’d suggest.

Second, a story like [/i]Re Thirst [/i]was published later but relies on you knowing characters from stories Newman had already written. Your enjoyment of that story will be lessened if the characters are not already familiar and your enjoyment of Beasts in Velvet May well be undermined if you are already familiar with one character.

Try and read them in the order published/written therefore: Drachenfels or Ignorant Armies first, then moving on to Beasts in Velvet, slotting in No Gold in Grey Mountains somewhere. After that, it matters rather less.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2019 12:36 pm
by Knight of the Lady
Here's a question; are the books about Malus Darkblade any good? I know that Dan Abnett was involved with them and everything I've read so far by him have been good as far as I'm concerned.

And do you think there could be hope that they would be released as part of the "Warhammer Chronicles" series of omnibuses (or in other words, were they popular enough to warrant a new printing?)?

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2019 2:21 pm
by Danke Dave
I liked Darkblade when I was a teen, so take that as you will. Some of it is super edgy as you would expect, but some moments from the books still stick out to me to this date. Warpsword was my favourite of the Darkblade series, but the comics trump them entirely because of how filled with cheesey goodness some of the pages were.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2019 4:13 pm
by dry_erase
I agree with everything Wolf said above. I'd also recommend the Black Plague series by C.L. Werner if you're interested in a historical setting which shows a truly venal and corrupt Emperor. There's some high fantasy business with Van Hal and his undead, but it starts fairly small scale.

The Luthor Huss one wasn't bad either, although he's more of a superhero than he appears in James Wallis' treatment of the same character.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2019 10:27 am
by Knight of the Lady
Danke Dave wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 2:21 pm I liked Darkblade when I was a teen, so take that as you will. Some of it is super edgy as you would expect, but some moments from the books still stick out to me to this date. Warpsword was my favourite of the Darkblade series, but the comics trump them entirely because of how filled with cheesey goodness some of the pages were.
I can't say that I am really a fan of edgy stuff but its the only books from a Dark Elf perspective that I know about so I may try to get hold of it and see if I can get into it or give it a pass.

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2019 12:57 pm
by satakuua
Are they proper nasty or the "good evil" kind?

Re: Warhammer novels, and short stories

Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2019 1:25 pm
by Knight of the Lady
satakuua wrote: Mon Apr 29, 2019 12:57 pm Are they proper nasty or the "good evil" kind?
I took a quick look at the Lexicanum and, from a potential ignorant perspective, it seems to me that Malus is probably a pretty nasty piece of work, but it seems he's primary positioned in the Chaos Wastes and Chaos-influenced north and so put against various creatures of Chaos and thus don't come off as badly as he would be if he was terrorizing or fighting High Elves, the Empire, Bretonnia etc.

So it seems its kind of "PoV of lesser evil fighting a greater evil".

And I thought I detected a bit of Elric-inspiration over him as well.