Empire in Chaos bills itself as the novelization of the MMO game Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. I’m not sure how accurate that can be since by their nature MMO games don’t follow any single story. Each player's experience should be unique. However, the book works very well as an introduction to the convoluted Warhammer universe.

Though I don’t read much fantasy anymore, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Warhammer novels. They steal just as much from J.R.R. Tolkien as most other fantasy does, but they have married it to a grim and violent outlook that seems more at home with Robert E. Howard. For me, this formula works. Also, the writing tends to be of a higher caliber than many tie-in novels.

Anthony Reynolds' writing is well suited to Warhammer. The book is full of expert, vividly described scenes of battle. He is equally talented at describing small skirmishes between our heroes and rogue bands of goblins and large scale battles between armies of orcs and dwarfs.

The characters don’t have much depth to them, but are still interesting to read about. My favorite character was the elf, who has very few lines of dialogue in the novel. Mr. Reynolds did a good job of portraying the relationship between the silent and somewhat alien elf and the human woman whom the elf has sworn to protect.

One weakness of his writing is that he does tend to overuse some words. The dwarf must have been described as ‘dour’ fifteen times at least. Also the book shows signs of minimal editing in order to get the book out by the game's release. Lines that should have been caught ('A bony spine of bone' for instance) were common.

Still, I can forgive the lack of editing. The book after all is a product meant to advertise a game and had to be turned out quickly. The main problem with the book is that it functions better as an introductory guide to the world of Warhammer than it does as a novel. Though the book is full of interesting and enjoyable characters and exciting sequences, there is no real overarching story. No final goal for the characters to achieve. The characters just sort of go from event to event. This is similar to the style of MMO games, but does not make for an interesting storyline in a novel. ( )

http://dragonchasers.com/2008/10/26/empire-in-chaos/ ( )