The Rise of the Horned Rat: Warhammer Chronicles: The End Times, Book 4

My favorite book in the series. Nothing better than Skaven destroying things. So much happens in this book I will be jumping right to the next.

I can't bring myself to put an extra star on this.I simply detest what they have done to the lore with these books. The only good thing that came out of this book was the greenskins, and that was just a couple of pages.Maybe the writing is not so bad when it gets you emotionally involved? Well I can say I hated the skavens with a passion, so the author got that part right.I will not give you any spoilers but I will say that the way some of the heroes (the gud ol' boyz) were treated was incredibly disappointing.I'm going to have to pretend I didn't read any of these books in order to enjoy TW Warhammer.One thing is for certain. I will never EVER buy or support any other novel that comes from this publicist. I'm done.

An interesting and action-packed read. Continuity was a bit tedious at times, but altogether very entertaining and a great time passer when one has nothing better to do.

The scheming and plotting never ends in this book as Skaven fight on two fronts to take the surface world.

Good book, very good conditions.

Gift

Love this series. Doesn't disappoint in its latest installment.

a great fantasy book with good action and suspense

I bought this when it was first released, but i didn't read it then because i'm not a huge fun of the dwarfs and i don't like the skaven. Generally i agree with RobC's review so i mention some things not found there..The main story (war at Eight Peaks): It can be read independently from other "end of times" novels. Its a war on the large scale story so the combatants use everything they got. The three main characters are the skaven warlord Queek Headtaker, the dwarf king Bellegar Ironhammer and the goblin king Skarsnik. There are several but not many secondary characters that make the story more interesting and not confusing in my opinion. The characters are "ordinary" and not got like creatures (like in the rest end of times novels) and i like that a lot. There are all kind of battles and tons of violence. Many sad parts, some funny and some hilarious scenes, like the one with the elite kings guard of the goblin king, or the philosophical quests of the goblins ("how many gods are there boyz ?")..The writing: Nice prose and the story flows. The story is told linear in time.The author tells the story from one point to a next from the point of skaven, then from the next from the point of dwarfs etc, so the reader gets to know all races. The dialogue is very good and the reader can clearly see the characters, the situations they are facing and even their society. There are very good landscape descriptions that are an essential part of the story and not just geography parts thrown here and there in the book..The secondary story (the war at Karaz a Karak), part 3 of the book at the last 50 pages. This is more like parts of a story. Each chapter is very well written but from chapter to chapter the story jumps from one point to a next. It is still though a very good read and the reader can see whats is going on. Obviously another one novel was needed to tell this story properly but obviously GW politics didn't allowed Haley to write it (more sadly they won't allow him to write any more stories like this because GW destroyed the warhammer world).Rating: Its an easy 5 stars for me. One of the warhammer books i enjoyed the most..For non warhammer fans: I think you should give this book a try if you like war stories and fantasy told from the side of non human races. The main races are: the skaven that are evil, always conspiring and backstabbing technologically advanced ratmen, the not so smart and very malicious goblins and the stubborn dwarfs. Too much violence so its not for kids.There are many words probably unknown to non warhammer fans,that most of them are not very essential to the story but appear frequently in the book, so the following glossary might help:Verminlord (skaven demon), Grey Seer (skaven wizard), clanrats (skaven infantry), stormvermin (elite skaven infantry), warpstone (material with evil energy, the main source of skaven power)Black orcs (heavily armored orc infantry), goblin wolf riders and goblin spider riders (goblin cavalry), squig (huge ball like creatures domesticated with partial success by the goblins, with two legs and a huge mouth filled with many teeth that hop around and devour everything).Quarrelers (dwarf crossbowmen), thunderers (dwarf riflemen), hammerers, longbeards, iron breakers and iron drakes (all are heavily armored dwarf infantry), gyrocopters (dwarf helicopters).

Slightly disappointed that this story references, but doesn't go into any detail at all about the enormous Skaven invasion of the Empire, or how the Skaven intend to escape the End Times.... but that is entirely made up for by the brilliant portrayal of Queek and Skarsnik (and to a lesser extent, the Dwarves, who may as well have interchangeable names).A really good read, and interesting introduction to the Verminlords and their philosophy.

No shaven novel is complete without Thanquol and Boneripper. This is an excellent End Times novel showing the full seriousness of the Skaven.

Item as described and arrived in good order

If you enjoy the Skaven, then you'll enjoy this book.It has all the backstabbing and politiking you have probably come to enjoy ( or love, if you are like me ) with the rat-men. Being more of a fan of the Skaven than the dwarves, I was not too sad to see the way this book progressed.That said, there is a great Skaven character that was introduced in some other literature that meets an (in my view) unfortunate demise in this book, so from that capacity, I find the book disappointing, as I am no longer going to have the pleasure of reading about this characters exploits unless they do 'prequel' literature. Other than that, I found the book very enjoyable, and anxiously await the next one in the cycle. I must also add that the Goblins also seem entertaining too, and will likely search out the 'Skarsnick' ( I think it was ) novels as well now.