‘Cursed City’ – C.L. Werner (Black Library)
I’m not going to tell you how long ‘Cursed City’ was sat in my loft, lets just say it was long enough for me to totally forget it was there and buy myself another copy… Oh well. I found it on the shelf the other day (only the one copy now) and figured it was way overdue a read, let me tell you about it…
Ulfenkarn is a city of nightmares. Its vampiric rulers have indulged their bloodlust in every shadow-clad alley, turning the once-proud metropolis into a charnel house. Already crushed beneath the tyranny of Radukar the Wolf and his Thirsting Court, a spate of vicious murders plunges the mortal inhabitants into fresh terror. Emerging to uncover a connection between the attacks is an unlikely group of heroes: a vampire hunter from Carstinia, a slum-born vigilante, a ruthless wizard, and a soldier who is the last survivor of her noble bloodline. Arrayed against them are the undead monsters that thrive upon Radukar's gory regime. But a daring search for answers turns into a fight for survival when the Wolf himself descends his Ebon Citadel and joins the carnage in the streets…
I’ll be honest, I approached ‘Cursed City’ with a little trepidation. I love Werner’s Warhammer output but I tried his ‘Zombicide’ book, around this time last year and that didn’t work for me. It felt like ‘Cursed City’ could go either way then and luckily for me, it fell firmly in the ‘gritty horror-fantasy’ camp where Werner’s Warhammer books all seem to end up. Maybe there’s a lesson there for me, stick with the Warhammer stuff.
I’ll talk more about the book in a minute but lets get the main issue out of the way at the start. ‘Cursed City’ serves as a prequel to the events that will play out in the game, of the same name, and what that means is that you may find that the ending of the book is a little too open-ended. The real ending is in the game but if, like me, you’re not going to spend a couple of hundred quid on it… Well.
For me? I thought Werner struck a very good balance between tying up the loose ends of the plot while leaving things open for the gamers to pursue their own ending. There’s a mystery to be solved and not only is it solved but it comes with at least one twist that casts certain events in a new light. I personally can’t ask for a lot more than that these days and Werner hits that target with some aplomb.
The mystery itself is worth the price of admission but is also interspersed with moments of combat that give the plot fresh impetus at just the right time. What really got me though was the sense of creeping horror that Werner likes to play with, especially when someone is about to die. These deaths are signposted pretty heavily but even so, I still found myself on edge as things were ramping up to the inevitable. And the plot and counter plot around each death was superb, it really keeps you guessing as to what is happening, and why…
The only (small) quibble I had was that perhaps the city of Ulfenkarn itself didn’t have the same sense of dread about it, as the events taking place on its streets, and that isn’t so cool when you’re talking about a city literally overflowing with the undead. The plot makes up for a lot but I love a good cityscape and Ulfenkarn had potential that wasn’t quite realised.
That’s a small quibble though when you take into account everything else that Werner packs into ‘Cursed City’. It hasn’t quite persuaded me to buy the game (my bank balance had the final word there) but I had a lot of fun with the book in the meantime and that counts for a lot these days. Definitely worth a look if you get a chance.
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