A Black Library Newsletter...
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The Ambassador
by Graham McNeill
Chosen by David Guymer
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| "I’m not sure if I can really describe a novel by one of Black Library’s longest serving and most popular authors as a hidden gem, but The Ambassador does seem a tad under-appreciated whenever the ‘My top 10 BL novels’ lists go around. |
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This book should be high in anyone’s list. It should be in continuous print. There should be fans picketing Graham’s house demanding another sequel (though it already has one in the equally goodUrsun’s Teeth).
One of the first things to strike me about this book is that its a great "grimdark" novel that just happens to be set in the Old World. There are battles and brawls aplenty, of course, and bone-jarringly realistic they are too, but they’re secondary to the plots, intrigue, and threat of war that Ambassador Von Velten finds in the Kislevite capital. And all without a tabletop character in sight – unless you count Tzarina Katarin! |
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Read it for an immersive encounter with Kislev and its people, a little-reported region of the Old World, from its palaces to its taverns, via its stables and its sewers and even an asylum. There's no question that Kinslayer would have been a much hollower experience had I not read this book. Read it for one of the great fantasy characters in retired general-turned-ambassador, Kaspar von Velten.
In fact I might just go and read it again (alongside Dan Abnett’s Riders of the Dead for more Kislev flavour). Just read it. Read it now. You’ll wonder how you missed it all this time."
– David Guymer
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Last month, David Annandale nominated
Path of the Warrior
by Gav Thorpe
"The task of this book is not an easy one – there are no human characters here to speak of, except as antagonists, so the challenge is to give us protagonists who feel properly alien while still inviting our engagement and sympathy. Path of the Warrior does this admirably."
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