‘Warqueen’ – Darius Hinks (Black Library)

Why is it that the week after a Bank Holiday somehow feels longer than a regular working week? I’m guessing it has something to do with trying to jam five days of work into four days… Oh well, almost the weekend 😊

Work being what it has been, I’ve only had time for shorter posts (and reads) this week. I do have a nice little HBR (Has Been Read) pile building up though so I will be getting back into longer reads/posts over the next few weeks. In the meantime, yesterday saw me looking for a quick ‘journey home’ read and that inevitably lead me to Darius Hinks’ ‘Warqueen’. The Warhammer ‘Quick Reads’ (for want of a better phrase) haven’t let me down yet and Darius Hinks is one of my ‘go to’ fantasy authors, it was the perfect combination… or was it…? I’m joking, of course it was 😉

In the scarred wastelands to the south of the Great Parch, the Darkoath Tribes dominate through ritual and slaughter. Devoted to Tzeentch, the Chaos God of Change, their wild savagery has been transformed into something far greater and more potent. For centuries, the tribes have ruled the Arad Plains, unbeaten and untamed, even as kingdoms rose and fell around them. But now, with the Blood God’s legions massing at their borders, Darkoath Warqueen, Vedra the Sworn, finds treachery and deceit at the heart of her own army. Years of dark service to Tzeentch have left her warriors obsessed with strange creeds and wayward cults. As she battles to forge a nation, Vedra must put her own faith to the test, and learn the true nature of sacrifice and power.

‘Warqueen’ is a novella that really wants to be a full on novel, you can tell that it’s just itching to bust out and really explore some characters and get into details that there just isn’t time for here. The funny thing though is that it doesn’t come across like you’d expect in this sort of situation, potential not realised and so on, just a very energetic piece that has to be reined in every now and then to satisfy wordcount restrictions. Considering this is a tale of pretty much constant warfare, with occasional breaks for courtly intrigue, ‘energetic’ is just what this book needs and exactly what it gets. Would I have liked to seen what happened five minutes after the end? Of course I would (there’s a big unanswered question, at least there was for me) but fair play to a book that successfully leaves you wanting more, I can’t complain about that.

Leading up to that is a story that isn’t particularly deep but is full of enough action (all delivered by characters who really leave an impression) for that not to be a huge deal. Having said that… ‘Warqueen’ does offer an interesting sideways glance at the nature of Chaos, in Warhammer, and its striving for power and this asks questions of Vedra, I’m pretty damn sure that the answer isn’t as clear-cut as the story says it is though. I’d love to see a sequel, just to see what happened next.

‘Warqueen’ is a lot of fun, a little bit thoughtful but mostly fun as we get to see various factions kick the absolute shit out of each other and also a little confirmation that following Tzeentch isn’t just about the intrigue, its followers are just as happy to pick up as sword as anyone else (apart from the guy with the bird in his chest, useful guy to have around but all he seemed to do was eat berries, takes all sorts I suppose). If you want a quick shot of fantasy that’s also an introduction to a large chunk of the factions in ‘Age of Sigmar’, you could do a lot worse than pick up ‘Warqueen’.