Age of Legend by Christian Dunn (The Time of Legends)

8/10

Set in a world of constant war between warring races, where fell vampires prowl dark forests, hordes of beasts lay siege to mighty fortresses and grim dwarf warriors search out ancient treasures. There is no respite from violence and bloodshed but this is a perfect environment to set a compendium of short stories.

Black Library presents a collection of short stories based in the Warhammer fantasy universe. The book is part of the Time of Legends series and as such is based in the history of this world rather than the current timeline. The short stories are perfect for this series as they provide a variety of different tales based in different areas of the world and from the perspective of some of the creatures that do not often receive the full treatment of a novel to themselves.

The collection brings new authors to the fore placing them alongside veterans such as Gav Thorpe and CL Werner. For me the selection really got going around the third short story and from then on the stories were real page turners. Also, with the length of the short stories, it is quite easy to rush at a pace through the book.

All the stories are enjoyable and written in their own style. I must admit I struggled with ‘the City is theirs’ as a story but thought that ‘Blood Raven’ was a well written tale that made me want a novel dedicated to this tale and more from this author.

Awesome collection awesome idea to showcase shorter tales and new authors.