World of Warcraft Wednesday! ‘Death Knight’ – Dan Jolley & Rocio Zucchi (Tokyopop)

It’s only going to be a little ‘World of Warcraft Wednesday’ today as there was only the one book that came through the post. It’s not a bad one though…

The Lich King’s Scourge rampages through the land of Azeroth, led by his fearsome Death Knights. Thassarian is one such knight who will commit the foulest crimes until the day that an attack on a temple causes the Lich King’s control to vanish. Thassarian is now free to use his own considerable powers to avenge himself on the Lich King but finds himself hard pressed to gain the trust of his new allies, especially when some of them are more than they seem. While Thassarian seeks to establish himself, his past is trying to make itself a part of his present once more…

Any book about a character from a computer game is only really going to strike a chord with readers who have already met that character in the game itself. To be fair to ‘Death Knight’, the book doesn’t try and get away from this fact, making no secret about embracing its target audience fully. Not being part of that target audience however, I found myself wondering if I should have been playing the game to totally ‘get’ just how ‘tragic’ Thassarian’s story really was…

To be blunt, things really weren’t that tragic at all apart from one moment where Thassarian’s dark master made him kill someone very close to him. The events leading up to Thassarian’s fall will be familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of ‘falling into evil and then gaining redemption’ in fantasy literature. Thassarian is likeable enough as a character but he’s not engaging enough for it to really hammer home when the inevitable happens to him. The guy is basically a generic sword swinger with not a lot else going for him…
Not being overly familiar with the background setting I also found myself a little confused at the motivations behind certain characters and what they did. To be fair again, I think this was down to my never having played the game. If I had then perhaps things would have been a little clearer.

Despite all this though, ‘Death Knight’ was a read that (although a little formulaic) was a lot of fun. Jolley struck just the right balance between scene setting and moments of outright carnage, creating a story that flowed very smoothly and made sense at the same time. He was more than ably assisted by Rocio Zucchi whose artwork made the story come alive in more ways than one. The characters may have been formulaic but I came away from the book with a real idea of who they were and Zucchi’s action scenes were brutally rendered on the page. A good combination that kept me focussed.

‘Death Knight’ is by no means ground breaking fantasy and it is very much one for ‘World of Warcraft’ gamers. Don’t let this put you off too much though, if you’re after a quick read that’s both light and fun then I don’t think you’re going to go too far wrong here.

Seven and Three Quarters out of Ten