Shadows Rising

I\’ll get the mildly amusing okay thing out of the way: Zekhan is referred to as zappy boy by Bwonsamdi. Bringing an internet meme into the book isn\’t great for immersion, but it was kind of funny. I\’m a sucker. Between my long investment in the game and my raiding guild, I keep playing WoW and I keep buying and reading the novels so I can find out what happens next. There are occasional gems like Vol\’jin and Illidan, but mostly, they\’re mediocre (most of Christie Golden\’s stuff) to bad (a lot of Richard Knaack\’s stuff). The mediocre ones get the job done of moving the story along and giving us some insight into upcoming events, but that\’s about all they do. The bad ones assassinate characters and have events that just make no sense, not in our world and not in Azeroth. This is one of those. Spoiler warning, as it\’s hard to talk about much of the badness without at least some. Jaina is a mewling version of her pre-Cata self. When she\’d just come off working with Thrall and he was in charge, her peace loving ways made sense. They haven\’t made sense since Theramore\’s bombing, however, and setting her back to square one is ridiculous. Turalyon holds people down with chains of light while Alleria mind rapes them with the void. That\’s totally within their characters, right? Right? Talanji has a vendetta against everyone, including the rest of the Horde, because of Jaina\’s involvement in the siege of Dazar\’Alor. Her being mad at Jaina makes sense…but putting the blame solely on Jaina does not. And expecting a reeling Horde to invade Kul Tiras with almost no ships and decimated armies does not make sense. Her empire almost gets overthrown by the actions of less than forty trolls (forty being the number that they reach after a great deal of success and recruitment through the novel) and twenty dark rangers. She can only field an army of forty against those troll rebels. The Horde as a whole can only send her forty orcs, tauren, trolls, and nightborne to support her. But she expect an invasion of the Alliance (nevermind that the numbers involved here make no sense whatsoever at all). Tyrande is a woman and she is angry, so she is treated as an unreasonable, crazy bitcah. Women cannot be angry in the Warcraft universe without being treated as unreasonable, crazy bitcahs, and we see that trend continue now. Jaina is nice and peace loving, so she\’s no longer treated as crazy. Maiev, someone whose actions in the past have been genuinely crazy, and someone who is a murderer of her own people, is nice and reasonable now and trying to stop the Unreasonable Crazy Tyrande from being unreasonable and crazy. Shandris Feathermoon, who was blood-thirsty and seeking revenge through the whole of the war campaign in BfA, is magically no longer angry and so she too is not unreasonable and crazy and has to try to stop Unreasonable Crazy Tyrande. Because you know, when most of your people have been massacred, it is clearly crazy to be angry. Argh, this book made me so mad. It was so actively bad. Unless you\’re a sucker like me and buy this stuff when it comes out, regardless of the badness, you should avoid it. Since they\’re so concerned with not having things happen in the novels that aren\’t explained in game, nothing interesting happens (nevermind that this sort of thing could be an introduction to stuff that we then see happen in the expansion when it comes out in four months) and a lot of what happens doesn\’t make sense. It\’s honestly baffling how bad it is. I haven\’t read her Traveler stuff, but the short story the author wrote about Lor\’themar and Thalyssra a couple of months ago was awesome. This novel, though, was trash.

I\’ve never seen the amount of character destruction and assassination in one book before. Has the author played the game at all? Christie Golden would have never let this happen, which I suspect is why she wasn\’t the one to write it. I understand the story-beats were probably not up to the author, but the childish way they write is something I would expect to read on fanfiction.net. Given they\’re known for a WoW children\’s book, this makes sense. Please stick to what you know. Typos and grammatical errors litter the pages, so I fear this had next to no editing done to it. Very sad. If you want to read a book essentially about nothing, where nothing happens, that adds nothing to the World of Warcraft, and see your favorite characters act wildly against their established personalities, this book is for you. I returned it and went and bought the \”World of Warcraft: Exploring Azeroth: The Eastern Kingdoms\” book instead. Looking forward to how Shaw and Fairwind (and their promised relationship) are properly portrayed by an author who really gets the characters of WoW.

The first thing you need to know based on what I\’ve seen from other reviews is: they are not mischaracterizing the characters in this book. One of the biggest complaints I\’ve seen relates to the actions of Alleria and Turalyon. First of all, they are wed, so their bond to one another is more complex than most, by default. Turalyon is going to go out of his comfort zone BECAUSE of Alleria. Also, Anduin literally orders them to do whatever must be done to find Sylvanas. Jaina thinks Anduin wouldn\’t condone their actions, but he does. He actually almost uses the technique himself on Sira. The entire point of Alleria \”mind raping\” people with the Void is to illustrate a change to her character. The Void and her quest to find Sylvanas is driving her to commit unspeakable acts and Turalyon is being coaxed into it. It\’s meant to further elaborate on the relationship between Light and Void as well, but once again… some readers are clearly one dimensional thinkers and don\’t understand what\’s being shown to them. The Light is complicit to the actions of the Void. They aren\’t equal opposites. They work together and will lead to the same end point no matter what. Characters aren\’t static, but some readers clearly want that to be the case. Maeiv doesn\’t act the exact same in every situation, nor Tyrande, nor Jaina, nor Talanji, nor literally any character who is meant to be relatable. This book makes this evident. Tyrande is supposed to feel scary, callous and cold. That\’s the point. Talanji is supposed to feel angry and vengeful. That\’s the point. This isn\’t fan fiction. It\’s not fan service. It\’s not your romanticized vision of what the characters are \”supposed\” to be or how they\’re \”supposed\” to act. If you take the book for what it is, let Roux paint the image in your head through beautiful descriptions and allow the emotions to take hold, the book is very good. As someone who has read and frankly knows more about the WoW universe than most people, I will say the book does a solid job of bridging post-BFA to Shadowlands. That\’s what the book is for. It\’s a bridge. A bridge that juggles the perspectives of many characters in many different settings in an easy to follow and relatively cohesive manner. It was an enjoyable read for many reasons. However, it\’s evident that some reviewers are looking for reasons to be upset. Welcome to the WoW community in general anymore. If you like the idea of learning more about Talanji, Nathanos, Bwonsamdi or Death in general, pick up this book. Read it thoughtfully and don\’t get stuck on a high horse like other people.

Would have been Good if not real good, but pushing the lgbtq agenda way too much. I don\’t read books for propaganda, but for fun or knowledge. World of Warcraft sjw book. I won\’t be buying any more wow books. If I hadn\’t paid the 6 month game deal. I would quit playing. I don\’t want political or agendas pushed on me.

Terribly written. Adds nothing to the lore. The forced inclusion of LGBT was badly done. The story was a jumbled mess of irrelevancy and ultimately forgettable.

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