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WarCraft War of the Ancients Archive Description:
Months have passed since the cataclysmic Battle of Mount Hyjal, which put an end to the Burning Legion’s invasion. Most Legion forces on Azeroth have been slain or driven into hiding. Yet now a mysterious energy rift in the mountains of Kalimdor propels three heroes to the distant past: the dragon mage Krasus, the human wizard Rhonin, and the weathered orc veteran Broxigar. It is a time long before orcs, humans, or even high elves roamed the world. A time that marks the Legion’s first invasion of Azeroth, brought about by Queen Azshara and other night elf nobles. A time when the Dragon Aspects are at the height of their power — unaware that one of their own will soon turn on the world he was charged to protect.
- Amazon Sales Rank: #25789 in eBooks
- Published on: 2007-12-11
- Format: Kindle Book
- Number of items: 1
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Customer Reviews:
Timeline
This review is for people who are about to start reading somw Warcraft books. I have created a chronological list of the Warcraft novels for people to get an overview of all of the books and for people to know where to start:
Warcraft books timeline
1. Warcraft War of the Ancients Archive
-Trilogy Book One: The Well of Eternity
-Trilogy Book Two: The Demon Soul
-Trilogy Book Three: The Sundering
-Rise of the Horde (about the horde in Outland)
2. Warcraft Archive (Warcraft 1)
-Book One: Day of the Dragon
-Book Two: Lord of the Clans
-Book Three: The Last Guardian
-Book Four: Of Blood and Honor
-World of Warcraft: Tides of Darkness (Warcraft 2)
-World of Warcraft: Beyond the Dark Portal (Warcraft 2 exp)
3. Warcraft The Sunwell Trilogy Archive (Warcraft 3)
-Trilogy Book One: Dragon Hunt
-Trilogy Book Two: Shadows of Ice
-Trilogy Book Three: Ghostlands
-World of Warcraft: Cycle of Hatred (Right before World of Warcraft)
Warcraft Legends
-Volume One
-Volume Two
-Volume Three
-Volume Four
Others
-World of Warcraft: Night of the Dragon
Hope that you can use this. Cheers Martin!
They should’ve let Christie Golden write this.
Richard Knaak is the most average of all fantasy writers. He tells the story in a simple style that is neither bad nor extraordinary. His books always contain the following; a good storyline, some excellent characters, some shallow characters, irredeemable more-ruthless-then-Satan villains, tons of action scenes, and no food for thought whatsoever. Knaak’s WarCraft novels follow this pattern to a fault. They won’t impress you, but they won’t bore you, either.
=SPOILERS AHEAD=
As of this writing, War of the Ancients trilogy is Knaak’s largest work set in the world of Azeroth. It puts the reader into the midst of the first demonic invasion, ten thousand years prior to the events in WarCraft III:Reign of Chaos. In addition, the books feature Neltharion’s fall from grace, a time-travel subplot, and a twist that introduces an even greater evil into the story.
Speaking of the time-travel thing, one has to wonder; was it necessary? If Knaak had to have a character of his own in the trilogy, he could’ve just used the young Korialstraz. More “screen time” dedicated to Xavius, Azhara (two characters in desperate need of some depth), Jarod, Maiev, Malfurion, Illidan, Tyrande and Cenarius would’ve been preferable.
My greatest gripe with the War of the Ancients comes from the terrible presentation of the Burning Legion. In WarCraft storyline and games, demons and their creations are by far the most destructive force in existence. Single demons often posses tremendous powers – for example, Doomguard can rain fire on their opponents, felbeasts are nigh-immune to magic, Eredar sorcerers can corrupt a man’s soul with a mere glance, Archimonde single-handedly destroys Dalaran, Nathrezim can dupe entire armies into serving them, the Daemons were the most powerful units of WarCraft I, etc. In the climax of WarCraft III:Reign of Chaos, alliance, horde and night elves are forced to unite and suffer crippling casualties, just so they could slow down the Legion’s advance for forty five minutes.
In Knaak’s trilogy, however, the Burning Legion is the least menacing faction of them all. The only times they ever truly dominate is when they are killing unarmed civilians. Otherwise, they regularly get routed by mortal armies. Fel Guard are nothing but a nuisance, Doomguard get slaughtered en-masse, and felbeasts enjoy being petted by beautiful night elf women. Even Eredar and Nathrezim are laughably incompetent. Archimonde almost lives up to his name… but then he is forced to flee from a novice druid.
This is further accentuated by the apparent disinterest of “greater” races (dragons & demigods) to defend the world from the demons. Believe it or not, the demigods spend the first two books deciding whether they should trouble themselves with the conflict at all. And don’t get me started on the Demon Soul.
With the Burning Legion trivialized, the entire trilogy loses its epic feel. Instead of depicting a desperate struggle for survival, War of the Ancients presents us with a stalemate that could be easily resolved, if only the greater races could be bothered to join the fight from the start. Deathwing is cool, but he is not the focus of the story and thus cannot make up for the Legion’s feebleness. The Elder Gods are bland and forgettable, their only purpose to further belittle Sargeras and his underlings.
War of the Ancients is as middle-of-the road as it gets. On the good side, it is fast paced, filled with interesting characters, and overall highly entertaining. On the bad side, it is a letdown because it lacks the epic feeling it deserved, and because it often stretches the willing suspension of disbelief (the way Tyrande is spared from being tortured to death by the demons is the most heavy-handed (and most literal) Deus Ex Machina I’ve seen in years).
Even if you don’t buy this collection, you should consider reading the first book in the series (The Well of Eternity) just for the laughs. Everyone in that novel falls unconscious all the time. After a while the reader starts expecting the characters to get knocked out, and when it happens it creates a lot of unintentional hilarity.
Good read, a few details which feel wrong
This book was, without a doubt, a good read, especially if you are a fan of Warcraft lore and/or if you played Warcraft 3 (classic and expansion).
The sad part is that the Burning Legion is treated like the Scourge. The Scourge is a big, I mean really big, bunch of walking corpses, whose power is given by their numbers and not by their individual strength.
The Burning Legion is an almost as big bunch of extremely powerful individuals, individuals who, together, brought the end to thousands of worlds. It might take an army to stop 3-4 demons from their plans. In these books even 12 years old Night Elf girls with a bow in their hands are able to headshot demons. I must say I was very dissapointed by the presentation of the Burning Legion, being almost opposed to how I imagined it and how it is showed in fan arts.
It’s really unrealistic how Rhonin, who is around 30 years old, pew pews demons thousands of times older than him, demons which are by every aspect superior to Rhonin. Seemingly, Rhonin was able to amplify his powers immensely because of the Well of Eternity, but for some reason, that didn’t happen to the Eredar, their magic being hardly a challenge for Rhonin’s. I would have expected a single Eredar to be able to kill a dozen of Rhonins with 1 spell, and not viceversa. The same thing goes on when Malfurion, a beginner druid, even if very talented, defeats one of the most powerful beings in the Universe, Archimonde.
It seems that Knaak didn’t take all factors in consideration when he wrote the book, and that’s a big minus.
The “time travelling” idea seems really forced and unrealisthic, even if well-motivated by existing lore characters. I would have been absolutely perfectly happy with a description of the War of the Ancients and how it was won in thruth. That was the thing I wanted to discover when I bought the book and, sadly, I haven’t, because Knaak’s character were practically everywhere and changing history everywhere at everytime, but, OMG, in the end all is like if the characters never actually intervened, except maybe for the death of Hakkar the Houndmaster, a minor demon if you ask me, as he wasn’t heard of in any other writing.
Another big minus is that in Knaak’s story it just seems that there are too many “Alice and the Wonderland”-like events are going on – going to the big good Mother Tree, flying with the dragons, etc… which seems very non-Warcraft in my opinion.
I told you the bad parts, but there are good parts too. Even if Azshara could get more attention, the attention she got was enough to give us insight about this character which is met not in many but still in enough quests in WoW to make lore fans think: “Who the heck is Azshara?”. The scene where Hakkar was defeated was really well written, in my opinion. I don’t know why I think that, because I can’t remember the scene very well, I just recall it made my hearth beat faster, thing which doesen’t happen to me very often. While the main focus wasn’t on Malfurion, Tyrande and Illidan, as I would have liked it too, they still got enough attention to make me think that I actually found out something new about my favourite characters after reading this book.
In the end, I would recommend this book if you are a fan of any of the main characters presented there – Tyrarnde, Malfurion, Illidan, Krasus, Rhonin or even Cenarius or Maiev (even if she doesen’t have an important role), or if you want to get some insight over one of the coolest Warcraft events, even if they could have been presented better. But, remember, there may be hundreds writers better than Knaak, but there are thousands who are worse.
Short version of what I said – buy the book.
About the Author
Richard A. Knaak is the New York Times bestselling author of some three dozen novels, including the The Sin War trilogy for Diablo and the Legend of Huma for Dragonlance. He has penned the War of the Ancients trilogy, Day of the Dragon and its upcoming followup, Night of the Dragon. His other works include his own Dragonrealm series, the Minotaur Wars for Dragonlance, the Aquilonia trilogy of the Age of Conan, and the Sunwell Trilogy — the first Warcraft manga. In addition, his novels and short stories have been published worldwide in such diverse places as China, Iceland, the Czech Republic, and Brazil.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Well of Eternity
ONE
The tall, forbidding palace perched atop the very edge of the mountainous cliff, overlooking so precariously the vast, black body of water below that it appeared almost ready to plummet into the latter’s dark depths. When first the vast, walled edifice had been constructed, using magic that melded both stone and forest into a single, cohesive form, it had been a wonder to touch the heart of any who saw it. Its towers were trees strengthened by rock, with jutting spires and high, open windows. The walls were volcanic stone raised up, then bound tightly by draping vines and giant roots. The main palace at the center had originally been created by the mystical binding of more than a hundred giant, ancient trees. Bent in together, they had formed the skeleton of the rounded center, over which the stone and vines had been set.
A wonder to touch the hearts of all when first it had been built, now it touched the fears of some. An unsettling aura enshrouded it, one heightened this stormy night. The few who peered at the ancient edifice now quickly averted their gaze.
Those who looked instead to the waters below it found no peace, either. The ebony lake was now in violent, unnatural turmoil. Churning waves as high as the palace rose and fell in the distance, crashing with a roar. Lightning played over its vast body, lightning gold, crimson, or the green of decay. Thunder rumbled like a thousand dragons and those who lived around its shores huddled close, uncertain as to what sort of storm might be unleashed.
On the walls surrounding the palace, ominous guards in forest-green armor and wielding lances and swords glared warily about. They watched not only beyond the walls for foolish trespassers, but on occasion surreptitiously glanced within…particularly at the main tower, where they sensed unpredictable energies at play.
And in that high tower, in a stone chamber sealed from the sight of those outside, tall, narrow figures in iridescent robes of turquoise, embroidered with stylized, silver images of nature, bent over a six-sided pattern written into the floor. At the center of the pattern, symbols in a language archaic even to the wielders flared with lives of their own.
Glittering, silver eyes with no pupils stared out from under the hoods as the night elves muttered the spell. Their dark, violet skin grew covered in sweat as the magic within the pattern amplified. All but one looked weary, ready to succumb to exhaustion. That one, overseeing the casting, watched the process not with silver orbs like the rest, but rather false black ones with streaks of ruby running horizontal along the centers. But despite the false eyes, he noted every detail, every inflection by the others. His long, narrow face, narrow even for an elf, wore an expression of hunger and anticipation as he silently drove them on.
One other watched all of this, drinking in every word and gesture. Seated on a luxurious chair of ivory and leather, her rich, silver hair framing her perfect features and the silken gown — as golden as her eyes — doing the same for her exquisite form, she was every inch the vision of a queen. She leaned back against the chair, sipping wine from a golden goblet. Her jeweled bracelets tinkled as her hand moved and the ruby in the tiara she wore glistened in the light of the sorcerous energies the others had summoned.
Now and then her gaze shifted ever so slightly to study the dark-eyed figure, her full lips pursing in something approaching suspicion. Yet, when once he suddenly glanced her way, as if sensing her observation, all suspicion vanished, replaced by a languid smile.
The chanting continued.
The black lake churned madly.
There had been a war and it had ended.
So, Krasus knew, history would eventually record what had happened. Almost lost in that recording would be the countless personal lives destroyed, the lands ravaged, and the near-destruction of the entire mortal world.
Even the memories of dragons are fleeting under such circumstances, the pale, gray-robed figure conceded to himself. He understood that very well, for although to most eyes he resembled a lanky, almost elven figure with hawklike features, silvering hair, and three long scars traveling down his right cheek, he was much more than that. To most, he was known as a wizard, but to a select few he was called Korialstrasz — a name only a dragon would wear.
Krasus had been born a dragon, a majestic red one, the youngest of the great Alexstrasza’s consorts. She, the Aspect of Life, was his dearest companion…yet once again he dragged himself away from her to study the plights and futures of the short-lived races.
In the hidden, rock-hewn abode he had chosen for his new sanctum, Krasus looked over the world of Azeroth. The gleaming emerald crystal enabled him to see whatever land, whatever individual, he desired.
And everywhere that the dragon mage looked, he saw devastation.
It seemed as if it had only been a few years ago when the grotesque, green-skinned behemoths called orcs, who had invaded the world from beyond, were defeated. With their remaining numbers kept in encampments, Krasus had believed the world ready for peace. Yet, that peace had been short-lived. The Alliance — the human-led coalition that had been the forefront of the resistance — had immediately begun to crumble, its members vying for power over one another. Part of that had been the fault of dragons — or the one dragon, Deathwing — but much had simply been the greed and desire of humans, dwarves, and elves.
Yet, even that would have passed with little concern if not for the coming of the Burning Legion.
Today, Krasus surveyed distant Kalimdor, located on the far side of the sea. Even now, areas of it resembled a land after a terrible volcanic eruption. No life, no semblance of civilization, remained in those areas. It had not been any natural force, however, that had rent the land so. The Burning Legion had left nothing in its wake but death.
The fiery demons had come from a place beyond reality. Magic was what they sought, magic they devoured. Attacking in conjunction with their monstrous pawns, the Undead Scourge, they had thought to lay waste to the world. Yet, they had not counted on the most unlikely alliance of all…
The orcs, once also their puppets, had turned on them. They had joined the humans, elves, dwarves, and dragons to decimate the demonic warriors and ghoulish beasts and push the remnants back into the hellish beyond. Thousands had perished, but the alternative…
The dragon mage snorted. In truth, there had been no alternative.
Krasus waved long, tapering fingers over the orb, summoning a vision of the orcs. The view blurred momentarily, then revealed a mountainous, rocky area farther inland. A harsh land, but one still full of life and capable of supporting the new colonists.
Already, several stone structures had risen in the main settlement, where the Warchief and one of the heroes of the war, Thrall, ruled. The high, rounded edifice that served as his quarters was crude by the standards of any other race, but orcs had a propensity toward basics. Extravagance to an orc was having a permanent place to live at all. They had been nomads or prisoners for so long that the concept of “home” had been all but lost.
Several of the massive, greenish figures tilled a field. Watching the tusked, brutish-looking workers, Krasus marveled at the concept of orc farmers. Thrall, however, was a highly unusual orc and he had readily grasped the ideas that would return stability to his people.
Stability was something the entire world needed badly. With another wave of his hand, the dragon mage dismissed Kalimdor, summoning now a much closer location — the once proud capital of his favored Dalaran. Ruled by the wizards of the Kirin Tor, the prime wielders of magic, it had been at the forefront of the Alliance’s battle against the Burning Legion in Lordaeron and one of the first and most prized targets of the demons in turn.
Dalaran lay half in ruins. The once-proud spires had been all but shattered. The great libraries burned. Countless generations of knowledge had been lost…and with them countless lives. Even the council had suffered badly. Several of those Krasus had counted as friends or at least respected colleagues had been slain. The leadership was in disarray and he knew that he would have to step in to lend a hand. Dalaran needed to speak with one voice, if only to keep what remained of the splintered Alliance intact.
Yet, despite the turmoil and tribulations still ahead, the dragon did have hope. The problems of the world were surmountable ones. No more fear of orcs, no more fear of demons. Azeroth would struggle, but in the end, Krasus not only thought it would survive, he fully believed it would thrive.
He dismissed the emerald crystal and rose. The Dragon Queen, his beloved Alexstrasza, would be awaiting him. She suspected his desire to return to help the mortal world and, of all dragons, she most understood. He would transform to his true self, bid her farewell — for a time — and depart before regrets held him back.
His sanctum he had chosen not only for its seclusion, but also for its massiveness. Stepping from the smaller chamber, Krasus entered a toothy cavern whose heights readily matched the now lost towers of Dalaran. An army could have bivouacked in the cavern and not filled it.
Just the right size for a dragon.
Krasus stretched his arms…and as he did, his tapering fingers lengthened farther, becoming taloned. His back arched and from near the shoulders erupted twin growths that quickly transformed into fledgling wings. His long features stretched, turning reptilian.
Throughout all these lesser changes, Krasus’s form expanded. He became four, five, even ten times the size of a man and continued to grow. Any semblance to a human or elf quickly faded.
From wizard, Krasus became Korialstrasz, dragon.
But — in the very midst of the transformation — a desperate voice suddenly filled his head.
Kor…strasz…
He faltere…
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