[Time of Legends] The Great Betrayal de Nick Kyme- The War of Vengeance I

Yep, you guessed it (which, let’s face it, wasn’t that hard was it…), it’s Time of Legends The Great Betrayal. It’s book one in a six part series about the War of Vengeance (that’s when the elves and dwarfs knockedf seven shades of shinola out of each other to dominate the Old World, the fools…) that I am writing with fellow author and all round good egg, Chris Wraight.
I have been writing the synopsis for what seems like eons. There is so much to consider, though. I should be writing it now but I needed to blog, damn it! Phew! That’s better. Can’t beat a bit of a vent now and then.
So, yeah, I’ve been working on the synopsis, trying to set up plenty of story to come in the next books, while being faithful to the established canon as written in the various Dwarf and High Elf Army Books down the years (oh, and Grudgelore that modest background book as penned by yours truly and Mr Gav Thorpe). Not an easy task I tells ya. Nope. Nope.
Anyway, having wrestled with the timeline, figuring out what I’m doing in the rather large twenty-odd year gap, I think I have it licked. But it has taken ages. This book, thus far has been a beast and I’m not even writing it.

Cacophonous thunder rolled across the slopes of Karag Vlak. Earth trembled for miles. Fire wreathed the darkling sky. It warred with the furnace at the mountain peak, glowing hot and angry through swathes of pyroclastic cloud. Shadows lurked within it, drifting against the wind on thin, membranous wings…
Thurgin Ironhand eyed the enemy racing at his throng across the hellish plain and scowled.
‘They are swift,’ he said, feeling the tremor of their hoof beats through his iron wrought armour. Runes of warding fashioned into its breastplate began to ignite in a chain of forge-bright flares that painted the metal like parchment.
Never before had the dwarfs waged war against such a foe. All of the urk and grobi festering beneath the Worlds Edge could not come close in number to the glistening horde riding down upon them now.
Two hundred feet away from bloodying his axe and Thurgin gave an order, growled through the mouthpiece of his war helm and carried to every warrior of his throng through its runecraft.
‘Lock shields!’
Across the slopes of Karak Vlak, ten thousand dwarfs obeyed.
That was but the first rank.
Deep into the valley, standing upon the Fist of Agrin, Thrugin knew the High King fought alone. It was said of him that he could break the stars. To witness that rune blade he bore, gripped two handed and splitting heads as effortlessly as barrels, Thurgin could believe it.
The enemy closed, coming fast and hard on hooves of silver flame.
Thurgin, thane-king, felt the solidity of his clan brothers at either shoulder and smiled.
This would be a good day for the dwarfs.
Vengeance would be won.
He bellowed, his voice louder than a hundred war horns, ‘Khazuk!’
The throng answered, its many ranks adding to the fury of their reply, ‘KHAZUK!’
Axes and hammers began to beat shields, rising in tempo as the riders closed.
‘Khazuk!’
Thurgin slid the ornate faceplate over his eyes and nose until it clanked and the world became a slit of honed anger.
His brothers’ chorus resonated through his helm, chiming with the clash of arms.
‘KHAZUK!’
It meant death.
Death to the enemies of the dwarfs.
Glarondril the Silven spurred his riders to greater effort. The enemy was close, a thick wedge of mailed warriors clutching blades add shields.
Twenty thousand noble lords at his command, armour glittering with the falling sun, lowered their lances.
They had ridden hard and far to reach this hellish plain. Glarondril would not be found wanting on the slopes of the mountain. He would see it through to the end, even if that meant his death. Whispering words of command to his mount, he drew the riders into a spear tip of glittering silver.
‘In the name of the Phoenix King,’ he roared, unable to keep his battle lust sheathed any longer. A sword of blue flame slid soundlessly from his scabbard. ‘For the glory of Ulthuan!’
So close… Glarondril saw their hooded eyes, shimmering like moist gemstones, and smelled the reek of their foul breath, all metal and earth.
‘None shall live!’
The blue fire sword was held aloft as a thicket of lance heads drew down upon the enemy.

Maestitia a écrit:T'es certains? Ca serait top et dans ce cas je vais peut être m'en prendre un....
Mais regarde le lien ils disant, début de la trilogie...

http://www.blacklibrary.com/France/time-of-legends

Maestitia a écrit:T'es certains? Ca serait top et dans ce cas je vais peut être m'en prendre un....
Mais regarde le lien ils disant, début de la trilogie...

http://www.blacklibrary.com/France/time-of-legends

‘War… huh, yeah, what is it good for?

Absolutely nothing!’

As I was writing The Great Betrayal, the first volume in the epic War of Vengeance series, I often thought that it’s a pity the dwarfs and the elves didn’t heed those lyrics. Ah, what could have been if they’d just learned to get along…

Then again, poetry readings and beer festivals wouldn’t make a very exciting novel series now, would they? Bring on the death!

All japery aside (and there’s a word that needs to come back with a vengeance - see what I did there? - much like criminy, incidentally… sorry, digressing again), it’s a pretty serious honour to be allowed to take on (in partnership with fellow author Chris Wraight) a fundamental part of the Warhammer canon.

The war between the elves and the dwarfs has been around since the early days. It’s ‘the big one’ as far as I’m concerned. Call it the War of Vengeance or the War of the Beard (depending on the thickness of your facial hair), it’s a Big Deal.

With great power comes great responsibility (so says Uncle Ben and I’m not about to argue with that guy - his nephew would beat me senseless!), but there is a LOT of responsibility writing about the War of Vengeance, and a great challenge too.

The Warhammer background, its canon, is some of the richest and most gripping you’ll find in any fantasy world. It practically breathes, it’s so real and vital. Here, then, was a magnificent canvas upon which to begin painting my tale.

Writing the first book in a long series (six books in this case, or at least that’s the plan at the time of writing) is always tough. Here’s where you set the tone for what’s to come, and it’s a lot of set up too. But it also needs to have its own narrative line; it needs to be satisfying as a story in its own right as well as tantalising the reader with enough dangling threads that they can’t wait for the next instalment.

So, there’s a bit of pressure.

Having a chronology, a series of ‘known’ events and milestones helps with this. It gives you something to hang the story on, but it can also be quite constricting. What works for gaming background, where there are great, wonderful deeds of heroism set against a backdrop of impossible odds, and the vast tranches of time between them (particularly where Time of Legends is concerned), doesn’t always make sense for the plot of a novel. Here’s where the writer’s craft comes in, the ability to sift through the timelines and the lore and find the story within it, and the untold story too. If I’d written The Great Betrayal as purely a translation of what was in the timeline then it would not only be a short novel but a pretty ordinary one, bereft of surprise. It has to be epic and tell the reader something they didn’t know. What else was going on around the time? What was it like in the dwarf realms? Did they really go to war over a caravan being ambushed? All of these questions and more needed answering.

Probably chief amongst my initial concerns was ‘whose story is this?’ Fortunately, I nailed this down fairly early on. Snorri was my main protagonist. This is his story (it’s actually his-story, but you get the idea), but it’s also about all the people that are in his story and have an effect on it. Gotrek, his father; Morgrim, his cousin; Caledor, his nemesis – all have a significant part to play, as well as a host of characters you will never have heard of… until now. That’s the great thing about taking on these epic swathes of the Warhammer background and interpreting them through a novel – you get to embellish and develop them in ways that are simply inappropriate and not needed for a war game.

If I were to signpost the pitfalls of writing a story that comes directly from the background, I’d say this: make sure you have a plan and read the heck out of the lore. Be wary of trying to incorporate or rationalise all of it, though. Multiple writers, across multiple editions, have created a lot of contradiction over the years and trying to balance all of this and make sense of it will drive you insane. So don’t. Pick the best course, the one that makes the most believable and compelling story and stick with that. If you can nod to this slightly diverse canon then great, but don’t be a slave to it. Trust your core sources (i.e. the relevant army books) and let that be your lighthouse through the rocky waters of lesser rulebooks and appendices.

I certainly found writing The Great Betrayal a massive challenge. Negotiating an immense cast, a vast and sprawling story, the epic nature of it all was daunting. I won’t lie, I wrote a thirty-five page synopsis for the book that I had to trim to ten pages for my editors, and even then I didn’t stick to that religiously. I remember the moment well that Chris and I realised there was first an eight year and then a twenty-seven year gap in our thinking that sort of torpedoed what I had planned. The workaround turned out better than the original (after lots of head scratching and chin stroking) but it really highlighted to me the importance of having the background down, and that it can sometimes make little sense in the context of writing a plot for a novel. I guess if I had a final, parting piece of advice on that score it would be to read it and know it, but also to understand the difference between the two.

The Great Betrayal is an immense book (in many ways) and captures for me the epic days of this tragic war between the dwarfs and the elves. But it’s also a very personal story, of Snorri Halfhand and how seeking out your destiny can often take you down a very dark road. If you’re a Warhammer connoisseur, there’s a lot in here you’ll be familiar with (although possibly not presented in a way you know) and a lot you will never have read before.

The journey I’ve undertaken with the War of Vengeance is an epic one. Chris and I are crafting a story of such scope that it scares me a bit sometimes. Stump up your courage though, dear reader, and join us...

Wow, a huge blog post for what promises to be an epic book. Thanks, Nick.

With all the excitement of the 'Brotherhood of the Storm' release last week, we’ve not really spent much time talking about our new pre-orders for this month. To remedy that, we caught up with Nick Kyme, author of The Great Betrayal, the first novel in the War of Vengeance saga over a few beards. Sorry, beers. Well, a cup of tea. Anyway, here’s what he had to say:

We all know you from the fantastic Tome of Fire series. How does writing Warhammer stories differ from Warhammer 40,000?

In a lot of ways it's easier as the geography is smaller (a single world, as opposed to a single galaxy), but strangely the scope is exactly the same. Though I love writing about both settings, I always feel like I'm coming home to an old friend whenever I write fiction based in the Old World. My first experience of wargaming was with Warhammer, and the old high elves versus night goblins boxed set. There's something special about that, something that feels familiar and exciting. It's weird, the tone is actually quite similar: grim, medieval, dark and superstitious. There's a lot of grit and potential in a setting like that. Warhammer, in many ways, is really quite up close and personal - death at the end of sword, more often than not, instead of the muzzle of a bolt gun.

You've written about dwarfs before. How is it different when tackling them for Time of Legends?

The scale is bigger, the stakes are higher. Time of Legends needs to be even bigger, have even greater import and gravitas than a Warhammer novel told in the current age. I ask questions such as: How did they interact with the world? What was the world like back then? Where did the dwarfs think they fitted into it? Then, I add on the layer and background of the war and try to think what could have brought this terrible event about that two great races near the apex of their power and influence were to be irrevocably damaged by what followed. Who are the personalities and what did the armies of these two great nations look like when they went to war?

It's about adding a layer of 'legendary', of scale and immensity, about trying to envisage and articulate a world that could not exist in the now but was at the height of its power several thousand years ago. There's a deeper sense of tragedy to it, a realisation that this is how it could have been but for a terrible confluence of circumstances. Time of Legends is about capturing the essence of a previous age and making it feel familiar, yet different from the current Warhammer time. That brings challenges, lots of them, but if you can negotiate them with research and careful thought about your story, it can yield some incredible opportunities.

You're working with Chris Wraight on the War of Vengeance saga, how is it working with another author? What do you need to do differently?

It's a great experience, though does require a lot of planning and careful interaction. Luckily for me, I am working with a very talented and thoroughly professional writer in Chris Wraight. The process of sharing ideas, setting up story lines and working with each other's characters has been extremely gratifying, though the pressure of not letting your counterpart down and ensuring you're doing everything he needs to continue the story as well as tell your own part of the narrative is ever present. It makes the story deeper and more complex as a consequence, but getting feedback all the way along is really encouraging and it doesn't feel quite so isolated as writing solo normally does. The ideas generated as part of a collaborative work are often surprising and richer - that whole maxim of two heads being better than one, and all that. Although it takes more prep work and more consultation time, the results - I believe - are worth it, and I think we've got an amazing story to tell with the War of Vengeance, such phenomenal source material and a great team writing about it.

Our Time of Legends series continues this month with The Great Betrayal, Nick Kyme’s first novel in the War of Vengeance saga. As with all of the Time of Legends stories, this tale focuses on a well-known period in the history of the Old World, shedding light on motives and heroic deeds in greater detail than any previous accounts.
Here’s an exclusive extract:

Snorri could hardly contain his excitement.
‘Are you ready, cousin?’ He brought up his axe level with his chest and clutched it two-handed. There was a spike on the end of it that could be used for thrusting, a useful weapon in a tight corner. For the last mile the dwarfs had been forced to stoop, and the prospect of standing straight was abruptly appealing. At least, it was to Morgrim.
‘As ready as I was when you defied your father’s wishes, slipped your retainers and dragged me along on this rat hunt.’
‘See,’ Snorri explained, inching closer to the cavern entrance, ‘that’s what I like about you, Morgrim. Always so enthusiastic.’
Snorri touched a finger to the talisman around his neck, muttered, ‘Grungni…’ and peered around the edge of the tunnel.
Several large rats were gathered in the middle of a vaulted chamber. It might once have been the old entry hall to Karak Krum. Gnawing frantically at something, chattering to one another in high-pitched squeaks and squeals, the creatures seemed oblivious to the presence of the dwarfs.
‘Are they wearing rags?’ Morgrim was so incredulous he shone the lantern closer.
‘Hsst!’ Snorri hissed, scowling at his cousin. ‘Douse the light!’
Too late, Morgrim shuttered the lantern.
One of the rats looked up from its feast, fragments of cal¬cified bone flaking from its maw as it screeched a warning to its brethren.
As one the others turned, snarling and exposing yellowed fangs dripping hungrily with saliva.

Uriel Ventris a écrit:Et voilà ma critique:

- Scénario et mise en scène = 4/5 Soyons clair, les 4 points que je donne sont principalement pour la mise en scène car le scénario c'est pas vraiment ça, en tout cas la première partie. Une déception dans le scénar, car je trouve que l'histoire n'est pas assez grandiose à mon goûts en tout cas le pourquoi de cette guerre. Bon après ça donne un côté plus "réel".
- Style et écriture = 3.5/5 Kyme est pas trop mauvais, bon je trouve qu'il se disperse un peu trop, sûrement pour la suite de la trilogie, car il me semblait que c'était un livre unique mais vu la fin ça m'étonnerait. Pour une FOIS dans un livre BL les pertes semblent enfin normal, on a pas les éternels millions de morts pendant tel ou tel siège et c'est un plus appréciable. Kyme n'ont montre ici des Elfes complètement arrogants, racistes(enfin on parle plutôt de suprémacisme ici), un roi Caledor très proche d'un certain Joffrey Baratheon mais en beaucoup plus vieux. Les Nains sont aussi présentés comme racistes et d'une certaine manière arrogants, mais on peut pas dire que c'est à cause d'eux que tout est parti en couille.
- Intérêt fluffique = 4.5/5 Rien à redire on en apprend beaucoup sur les nains pendant cette période et surtout sur leurs "Holds". Aussi quelques trucs sur les nains des collines.
- Appréciation personnelle = 3.5/5 J'ai eu un petit problème avec la première partie, mais bon je pense qu'il y a moyen de rendre une bonne saga, je vais définitivement acheter la suite quand elle sortira.

- Note globale = 15.5/20