Ishnu-alah.
I’ve wanted to try the wow lore books for some time now, so im thinking of buying “Wolfhearth” to start, the story seems quite interesting.
A while ago I was thinking of buying the “War of the Ancients” books since im a sucker for Nelf lore, but I’ve seen some reviews saying that the books aren’t so good and a bit boring, what do you think?
I would love to hear your opinion regarding this books, and also your favourite one.
I Think War of the Ancients were good books . I`ve read them i think at-least 2 times , so you might like them . What I think most people complain about is that there have bene so many small or big retcons and changes , that the books feel like “original work” rather than cannon , but if you take them for what they are an immerse yourself in the story , they are fairly good .
Overall the first 6 books in the warcraft series is good . AK. Day of the Dragon ,The Last Guardian , Lord of the Clans . They are old lore (vanilla / tbc / warcraft 3) before it got too soggy so perhaps that’s why they are good .
The same about the retcons and the authors freedom can be said about them too .
Overall good read .
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I think I read "Day of the Dragon"once, wasn’t it the one with Kalecgos and the blond hair girl?
And what about the Chronicle books? Are they any good?
I think what your talking about is probably the Sunwell Trilogy , Kalecgos and Aveena .
Day of the dragon is about Krasus , Rhonin , Vareeesa .
It is also kind of a prequel of War of the Ancients , as it explains how some characters met . You can read the trilogy without it , but it does give some context .
As for Chronicles I haven’t had a chance to read it , so someone else will probably be able to answer your questions about it .
I read the Last Guardian at some point, and I guess that was fine, but the Medivh/Khadgar-story as well as the cosmology have been changed afterwards, so it won’t exactly improve your understanding of any currently valid lore or characters. Apart from that… I read the Golden books on the main plot, from the Shattering onwards, as well as Lord of the Clans and Cycle of Hatred. Can’t recommend any of them over a summary of their content. I read Traveller 3 and Shadows Rising from Roux… and don’t see reason to recommend it either. And I read Wolfheart from Knaak, which was a positive surprise, mostly because I was used to Golden. There is some ridiculous plot magic and character reversals because of it, which I hear is quite typical for Knaak, but the setup was actually quite fine, which is more than I can say about the Golden stuff.
The only Warcraft books I remember and actually enjoyed were the first 2 of the Traveller-series which were blessedly untouched by any major plot events of the games, and gave a cool ground-level feel of Azeroth for non-superhumans. They are directed at a younger audience, though, so you have to deal with clumsy murloc antics and such… Not that they lack violence or darker tones, but it is a teenager’s adventure, not an adult one, as you might expect from the guy behind Disney’s Gargoyles and Young Justice.
Take all of that as you may, at this point I actually wouldn’t recommend getting too attached to the Warcraft story, if you aren’t already. It has been a journey of many disappointments. If you just want to read good fantasy, Warcraft isn’t it. If you want a better understanding of the Lore, getting deeper into the books mostly won’t help, because retcons, new depictions, and changes of direction have made them obsolete. And where they actually give you relevant content that you don’t get anywhere else, like Garrosh’s trial, or Sylvanas’ motivations… well, they suck bad.
The WoTA books are ok, but I feel that they now lack so much detail because of the Legion expansion.
Unlike those books, the chronicles goes into the minds of many other Night Elves across the Empire, such as the Elves of Suramar, the Elves of Azsuna etc.
As an Elf fan, I personally do like the Chronicles books - especially when it comes to Night Elf, Nightborne, High/Blood Elf and Naga lore.
Well, I love night elf lore and I don’t care what crap Blizzard is going to ruin next, I will still love Warcraft, I mostly clinge to the older lore as it seems more interesting to me.
I bought WC3 just a while ago so I could play the campaign, im not good at strategy games, but I want to know more about the world and the history of the various factions and races.
I have heard a lot of good things about the chronicle books, I might try those along with Wolfhearth.
Thank you, from a fellow nelf fan.
If it’s about information, I recomment clicking your way through the sections of wowpedia that interest you. Be it novels or summary-books like Chronicles, none can compete with an eerily obsessed fandom. If you like some worldbuilding fanfiction with Metzen’s personal approval, you might even like the discontinued and de-canonized RPG-books, since they at least gave one vaguely coherent version of the world, and are to this day the most complete version of actual cultures of the World of Warcraft. Yes, some basic D20-books go deeper into the cultures of Nelves or Gnomes than Blizzard has in 20 years. Which isn’t deep at all.
But with the official novels and supplementary materials I guarantee you, you’re not on a journey to learn to love the world behind Warcraft, but a journey to detangle what’s actually still canon and what isn’t. And the journey isn’t enough of a literary treat to make it very worthwhile.
Personally i hate Knaak’s writing, with a passion no matter which IP he gets his fingers on, because of the massive damage to worldbuilding he always ends up doing. As for the stories themselves they’re written competently enough, in isolation of the previously mentioned and subsequent retcons.
Golden is a bit hit and miss, while she doesn’t usually do nearly as much harm as Knaak neither does she impress most of the time and you can clearly tell which characters she favors, even when the book is not about them.
The comics overall just skip.
Chronicles are somewhat of an encyclopedic take on the whole history of Azeroth (before retcons), which i’d still say is probably the best you’re going to get, if you want to get your barings regarding the broad strokes story, where you can then put in the details as you learn them.
Exploring series is about showing the state of things, in azeroth around the end of Shadowlands.
With thatin mind i have to agree with Wimbert that this is about the worst possible time to try and get into Warcraft lore, as it has been on a downward spiral for a long time and shows no signs of stopping.
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When I think of what really defined legacy Warcraft it’s books like the Last Guardian, Lord of the Clans, Rise of the Horde, Tides of Darkness, Beyond the Dark Portal and Blood and Honour. While I’m not a huge fan of anything Knaak wrote because of his obsession with his self insert I would take his writing any day over what Danuser puts out, Day of the Dragon is honestly quite a competent novel for what it is. Christie I feel used to be a much better writer but she seems convinced every character being a different variation of Anduin is for the best.
If I had to pick my favourite? It’s definitely the Last Guardian because I feel that’s the essence of what Warcraft used to be, it perfectly sums up the legacy setting. Anyone familiar with my posts will probably see me being negative often but I think if you read the Last Guardian you’ll realize how steep the drop in quality is. We’ve essentially gone from a passable tabletop setting during the legacy era, to dark comics from Cataclysm up to Legion and now it’s Steven Universe meets millenial writing.
Anything were alliance isn’t involved.
Sunwell trilogy manga.
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