Tales of the Old World (Warhammer) [Paperback]

This anthology is a good way of acquainting yourself with the writing style of some of the more prolific authors (Gav Thorpe and Robert Earl feature heavily) as well as lesser known writers at BlackLibrary (Rjurik Davidson, Ben Chessell).

"Tales of the Old World" is a diverse and quick introduction to the Warhammer World: it's lands, peoples and various trepidations. The diverse narratives tell of Bretonnia, the Empire, Lustria (thus not just of the Old World), give accounts of marauders, Grail knights and the temptations of Chaos, among others.

Reading a short story every now and then (mostly between other books), I have come across authors whose themes and styles I prefer (such as the two adventures of Grunnsonn's marauders by Andy Jones) over others', which, I venture, will have an effect on my future purchase preferences.

The anthology is divided into seven themes, with five short stories respectively (six under 'Madness and Ruin')

(1) Tales of Honour and Heroism

(2) Tales of Adventure and Mystery

(3) Tales of Revenge and Betrayal

(4) Tales of Deceit and Obsession

(5) Tales of Tragedy and Darkness

(6) Tales of Death and Corruption

(7) Tales of Madness and Ruin

At the end of the book, there is a brief blurb about each of the featured authors, which I found quite interesting.

Let me start by explaining why I've given this book 4 stars rather than 5... simply because, with any collection of short stories, you're always going to find ones that don't appeal to you. Just like that tin of chocolates your Auntie Mabel got you for Christmas, there's always something nobody likes much, and it's usually the strawberry creams. Fortunately, there aren't enough strawberry creams in here to spoil it. And the rest is high quality. Some of it is exquisite! Each story is placed in a loose category which I won't bother listing, because a previous reviewer did that perfectly well already. Suffice to say that even when you know pretty much the general tone of the story from the section heading, there are enough surprises to keep you guessing.
Some of these tales are fun, describing seat-of-your-pants adventuring, others are dark and despairing, as noble souls falter in the face of evil. Some of them depict a never say die optimism, yet others a grim determination to give a good account before the inevitable gruesome end. Essentially, it's everything you expect from the Warhammer setting. And there's a lot of it too, so you can put it down and pick it up again as you fancy, or consume it all in one go, like that tin of choccies!
So my recommendation would be to enjoy this high quality feast, and don't be put off by the odd strwberry cream!

I have mainly read War Hammer 40k novels recently so I bought this to gain an introduction to the fiction of the Warhammer Fantasy world.

In some ways it wasn't quite what I expected. The description on the back of the book seems to suggest (to me at least) that the stories will be about huge wars and pitched battles raging across the old world. However, there was not one story involving huge armies of troops fighting a great battle. There were some battles, but they were small in nature and did not form part of a greater war or campaign. In other words, they were treated more as events affecting the main characters in each story.

However, the stories are quite decent and worth the read. Many of them cover common themes, such as knights on a quest and witch hunters investigating suspicious happenings. But other stories cover some of the other races, such as the high and dark elves and the dwarves (albeit there is only one story covering each of these). If there is one critisism is that the protagonists in all but a couple of stories deal with the civilised races; mainly men from the empire and Bretonnia. There are only a couple of stories where the protagonists are from the dark powers, such as the undead or chaos.

It would have been nice if we could have read more stories from the darker races such as orcs, skaven or chaos point of view. It would be nice to get a better feel of how these races live and interact with each other, rather than only reading about life in the human settlements all the time. But in the stories here, they are treated as the "enemy", rather than being given the role of the protagonist. In fact there is only one story involving orcs, but the main heros in that story are Dwarves and men. I suppose this reflects the fact that most authors feel more comfortable writing about the human world.

One good thing is that the stories do not all have happy endings. Some do, but others either end unhappily or ambiguously. This is welcome, as the ending is not always predicatable. In some cases the ending is shockingly brutal.

So in conclusion, a good selection of stories that give a feel to life in the old world, especially from the Empire and Bretonnian point of view. But don't expect description of major wars or massed military campaigns.