Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

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Review: Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects:

Being a big fan of Warcraft books in general and Christie Golden’s in particular, I was very eager to get my hands on her latest, “Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects,” which is a semi-sequel to the recent “The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm.”“Twilight of the Aspects” disappointed me in some ways, but it exceeded my expectations in others. It was oddly inconsistent.

One thing that stays true through the entire novel is that it is extremely fast-paced. This is, for the most part, a good thing, though there are some times when things happen so quickly that your head might spin just a little bit.

Otherwise, the book feels as if it’s split into two parts. The first is definitely the more enjoyable, and features Thrall traveling across Azeroth and through time itself in attempt to aid the dragonflights in stopping a mysterious catastrophe known as the Hour of Twilight.

This part of the book is epic, thrilling, and emotional. If it has any flaw, it’s that it too closely parallels the Elemental Bonds chain that was added to the game in the last patch, but it also includes some major revelations–not just about Thrall, but about the Warcraft universe as a whole–that weren’t in Elemental Bonds, so that still makes it more than worth reading for every lore fan. I don’t want to give anything away, but this is a very important installment in the greater Warcraft storyline; questions fans have had for years are finally being answered.

I found the second half of the book to drag a bit, though. I’m not entirely sure why I felt this way–it was still fast-paced and action-packed. Perhaps it’s that I’m starting to agree with the people who think Thrall has become too perfect–by the halfway point of the book, I fully expected him to bring all the Forsaken back to life, turn Tanaris into a garden, put Outland back together, and one-shot Sargeras with a dirty look. I think Christie Golden may also have tried a bit too hard to make things emotional. If I had to read one more description of some profoundly beautiful and moving epiphany…

I also found the villains underwhelming. One is a chromatic dragon, and I always thought the chromatic dragons were a silly concept–and doubly so now that we have the twilight dragonflight, which is supposed to be the more evolved alternative to chromatic dragons, the more refined model. The other is a mysterious figure called the Twilight Father–a confusing position, considering we have a pretty good idea of how the twilight dragons came to be, and he has nothing to do with any of it. There’s a twist at the end about the Father, but if you’re a hardcore WoW fan, it won’t come as much of a surprise.

Although this is more a of an inherent issue of shared universes than any blunder of Christie Golden’s, I found she didn’t quite capture the personalities of certain characters usually written by other authors, particularly Kalecgos and Deathwing. The cold, calculating Deathwing in this book bears little resemblance to the screeching headcase we’ve come to know and love to hate in Richard Knaak’s books and the game itself. As for Kalecgos, I’m not sure why he didn’t feel right to me, but I suspect it has to do with the fact no real mention was given of his grief over the loss of Anveena. I find it hard to believe an immortal being would get over so big a loss in so short a time.

Finally, (vague spoiler ahead–you’ve been warned), this book kills off a very major Warcraft character, and although his ending was rather spectacular, I still found it far too quick and abrupt for someone who has been so important for so long. It’s almost as distressing as the random deaths of Illidan, Magni, and Cairne.

Still, I don’t wish to give the impression “Twilight of the Aspects” was a bad book. It may have had its share of low points, but it also had some amazing highs. I’ve been intentionally vague about its better points because I think people will most enjoy them if they come in fresh.

Overall rating: 7.5/10

You can buy “Twilight of the Aspects,” as well as the rest of the Warcraft novels, on my Amazon Affiliate.

Review: Source Code and a WoW Rant

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Review: Source Code:

So I recently rented the sci-fi time travel thriller, Source Code. I’d heard a lot of good things about it, but it didn’t quite live up to expectations.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This was a good movie. But it wasn’t as good as it could have been.

Source Code follows a soldier–Coulter Stevens, ably played by Jake Gyllenhaal–who mysteriously awakens in a time machine, where he is forced to repeatedly take over the life of a man who died in a train bombing. His mission is to discover the bomber’s identity before he can strike again, which is complicated by his becoming attached to Christine–a women who also died on the train–and the obvious stress of repeatedly dying in the explosion.

The movie does stumble out of the gate with the pseudo science behind the time machine, which is so ridiculous it makes me pine for Star Trek technobabble. Basically, the idea as I understand it is that you can plug someone’s brain into a dead guy’s brain and thus create a magic time portal to an alternate universe.

The other main issue with this movie is that it is not nearly as long as it should have been. This is a very complex and intriguing story, and cramming it into 90 minutes made it feel quite rushed. I didn’t feel as much regret over Christine’s inevitable and repeated deaths or as much of the pain of Coulter living through that horror again and again as I should have.

But I’m being more harsh than the movie deserves. This is a very good premise, and there are some pretty good twists. The acting is good all around. The ending is a little too neat and tidy for my tastes, but also very enjoyable in some ways–I can’t be more specific without getting into major spoiler territory.

One surprise pleasure of the movie is the interactions between Coulter and Goodwin, the woman operating his time machine. Goodwin begins the movie as a very cold and mechanical-seeming character, but as time goes on and she bears witness to more of Coulter’s trials–well, you’ll see. It’s an interesting progression.

When you get down to it, Source Code is a good movie; it’s just that it could have been a brilliant movie with a few small tweaks.

Overall rating: 7.9/10

Rant:

I originally intended to devote this entry entirely to my Source Code review and my graphics, but my recent trials in World of Warcraft have required me to vent.

There seems to be something about leading a raid that robs people of all humanity and decency. I’ve always known this, but lately, the problem seems to be getting worse.

Half the time when you whisp someone who posts a looking for more message in Trade, they just ignore you. I can’t comprehend the immense rudeness that allows people to do this–on the rare occasions I’m a raid leader or assist, I respond to every single whisper I get–but that’s not the worst of it.

A few nights ago, someone asked for a ranged DPS for Cho’gall. I asked if a rogue would be acceptable–probably a stupid question, granted, but all they have to do is say no. But apparently this was a grievous insult on my part, because the raid leader only responded to call me a troll.

Then today I spotted someone LFM for a Nefarian raid. Lately I’ve been having trouble with people who say “LFM” when they mean “LFG,” so I asked how many people he already had–not a step I normally bother with, but I was short for time and didn’t want to wait on finding eight more people. But I guess this is a no no, since he got snippy and refused to tell me. I let my anger get the better of me and made a somewhat snide comment in Trade about how he would get more people for his raid if he answered questions, and proceeded to get insults heaped on me from many more players. My ignore list, once seldom touched, is growing quite large as of late.

Ignored, badgered, and insulted. This is why I will never join a raiding guild. I enjoy raiding, but the culture it creates is abysmal–second only to PvPers in awfulness.