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Title: Death’s City
Series: Blood on the Reik #2
Author: Sandy Mitchell
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 416
Format: Kindle Digital scan
| Synopsis: |
When we last left our heroes, they were surrounded by the Witch Hunter’s forces with no escape. So the beginning of this book they obviously get captured, Hanna gets a sigil that seals her powers and she’ll literally explode if they can’t get it off. But they do escape, thanks to Fritz’s now fully transformed chaos brother.
The trio hooks up with an old wanderer who helps them to Marienburg, where everyone gets various jobs to survive. Rudi continues his hunt to find his real parents and to figure out just what this “heir” thing is all about. City adventures ensue and by the end of the book the trio have to run again, as the Witch Hunter has caught up to them.
| My Thoughts: |
Rudi has got to be the dullest clod of dirt in the whole field. He runs right into the arms of the chaos worshippers who just keep on trying to kill him and sacrifice him. I’m hoping that this time around he learned his lesson. There is obviously a schism within Chaos’s ranks [big surprise there, right?] about what do with Rudi. One group wants to sacrifice him for some reason and the other group doesn’t want to sacrifice him, but we have no idea what they DO want. With the Witch Hunter and the powers of the Empire behind him, you have a very big 3rd player.
Near the end, the Witch Hunter kept trying to talk to Rudi about something but Rudi wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise. I can’t say I blame him but still, the stupid Witch Hunter should have just yelled “I know ‘Information X'” instead of trying to “talk” to Rudi. You can’t kill someone’s relatives and friends, then capture them and once they escape expect them to sit quietly while you explain “what is really going on”.
On the writing aspect of things. Too may little pointless details were included. I know they were written in to give the book depth and all that malarkey, but it really came across as padding. I don’t need to know about breakfast, break, lunch, afternoon, dinner and night time details of their journey on the road.
With all of that, this was a fun read. Rudi being on the City Watch gave rise to some good action scenes. I do feel like I need to hunt down a Warhammer wiki page and start reading these in more of an order than I have with the Forgotten Realms books. Random isn’t the best way to read a vast collection of books.
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
I was never able to find these game-based series interesting, thinking it would be something like video games based on movies (I really hate those). So far the Dungeon & Dragon series is something I’m now definitely willing to give a shot. Do you feel the Warhammer books are worth checking out? Oh, and I hope I’m not making a mistake thinking this is part of those tie-in/spin-off books of the famous Warhammer games..
– Lashaan
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Yeah, these books are based on the world of the game. Much like Forgotten Realms is based on the world of D&D.
FR is used to move the overall narrative of the world. When changes are going to be made to the rules of the game, or a new edition is coming out, a series of books will be written to explain the story behind the changes.
But it is all fluff. As for Warhammer being worthwhile, the jury is still out on that. I know that the Warhammer story is over, as something cataclysmic happens, but I don’t know much else beyond that. Never played the game, so I’m just going into this series blind 🙂
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