‘Golfag Maneater’ Double Bill! ‘Golfag’s Revenge’ and ‘The Battle of Whitestone’ – Justin D. Hill (Black Library)

I wouldn’t count this week amongst my favourites but we got through it and it’s almost done. I don’t know about you but I’m really looking forward to a lie-in tomorrow and catching up with some unfinished books 😊 It hasn’t been the best week for reading, very much one of those weeks where you peck away at your books as and when you can. Thanks be to Black Library then for their range of ‘Short Reads’, a teeny bit overpriced but very much what I turn to when I have half an hour spare and want to read something that I know I’ll finish.

If you’ve been around these parts recently, you’ll know that I’ve got a real thirst to read anything in the original Warhammer Fantasy ‘Old World’ setting. Well, I’m dipping in and out of a few at the moment (just to see which one I will stick with) but those ‘Short Reads’ came to the rescue once again and I’ve actually been able to finish a couple, this time about an ogre mercenary captain, a premise that had me intrigued because, well… I thought mercenaries generally killed ogres and besides, whoever heard of an ogre bright enough to handle their own mercenary company? Let me introduce you to Golfag Maneater with some quick thoughts on his ‘Revenge’ and ‘The Battle of Whitestone’ (quick thoughts because, well… they’re quick reads)… 😉

‘Golfag’s Revenge’

The legend of Golgfag Maneater begins! Trapped in a sinister castle, prisoner of an insane creature of the night, Golgfag, ogre of the Sabreskins tribe, is in trouble. As death draws ever nearer and he recalls the events the conflict with his fellow ogres that brought him to this precarious situation, Golgfag must call upon all of his might and cunning if he is to escape and embrace his destiny as the greatest mercenary in the Old World.

The thing you have to get your head round, pretty quickly, is that ogres are straightforward creatures and Golfag is no different in this respect. This comes across very heavily in the story, both in Golfag himself and the plot itself. Stick an ogre in a castle full of the undead and you can’t reasonably expect sparkling repartee… What you can expect though, and what you get loads of here, is bone crunching action as Golfag makes short work of the castle’s occupants as well as the ogre that put him there in the first place. Revenge is sweet and so is this read

‘The Battle of Whitestone’

On the eve of battle, many strange things can happen. As the Grand Army of Averland prepares to destroy the forces of the sinister Brazak, a servant of dark and terrible gods, they are bolstered by unlikely allies - the Thirteenth Licensed Company of Mercenary Ogres, better known as Golgfag's Maneaters. But when the payment promised to Golgfag doesn't arrive, his anger threatens to lose the battle for the Empire army before it ever begins.

Never work with children or animals… Or ogres.

You would have thought that that the Marshal of the Averland army would know a thing or two about ogres and that if you hire a company of them, you need to keep an eye on what they’re up to. Not this Marshal though, oh no… What we get here, as a result, is a tale that verges on becoming the first ‘Warhammer Fantasy Comedy’ as misunderstandings, and ogres just being ogres, all combine to leave us with an army in no fit state for anything, just when they’re really needed, which is a great cliffhanger. It’s a good job that Golfag stuffs his boots full of everything that he might need, which makes him fantasy’s first ‘Swiss Army Ogre’? 😉 Either way, ‘The Battle of Whitestone’ is a good mix of fighting and… Well, just fighting really but different groups of people fighting each other, sometimes they even know why. Another ‘Short Read’ that I ended up enjoying.