Silver Nails

Rating:
Summary: Some stuff I'd seen before, but worth the money...
Review: I'm fond of "Jack Yeovil's" Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay-related novels, not least because he does a good job of bringing the rather grim, Gothic-Renaissance-Europe-meets-Middle-Earth atmosphere of the game's world to life. Although some of these stories have been in other collections, the two new ones (featuring the Warhammer answer to Dirty Harry, Filthy Harald Kleindienst, and his perennial vampire heroine, Genevieve Dieudonne) take up more than half the book, and are worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Some stuff I'd seen before, but worth the money...
Review: I'm fond of "Jack Yeovil's" Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay-related novels, not least because he does a good job of bringing the rather grim, Gothic-Renaissance-Europe-meets-Middle-Earth atmosphere of the game's world to life. Although some of these stories have been in other collections, the two new ones (featuring the Warhammer answer to Dirty Harry, Filthy Harald Kleindienst, and his perennial vampire heroine, Genevieve Dieudonne) take up more than half the book, and are worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat lame
Review: Maybe it's me and I don't fall for this style of short tales, but having read Yeovil's previous Warhammer books I came to expect more. Except for 'Warhawk' (a dirty Harry / Sherlock Holmes style depicting Filthy Harald in another chase after a lunatic murderer), the stories were rather boring. In order for a short story to deliver an impact it must focus on events and include at least one twist or surprise at its end, something to look for. Read O.Henry short stories and you'll see what I mean. When there is no space for character development and lengthy descriptions (IE: in an environment where the author skill cannot be fully utilized) the plot has to count. But 'silver nails' suffers from sad phenomena I've encountered in most Warhammer books; the plot is either an artistic steal or just plain simplistic and bland. No twists, no subplots, no surprise ending. Two heroes set out to stop an assassination and they succeed by staying the hand of the 'would be assassin'. A vampire sets out to kill a band of evil kidnappers, and kills them one by one. Both could have been nice as a complete book but get wasted on a short story. The last Genevieve story was a real disaster. No plot, no climax, no nothing. Yeovil can't decide if he is writing a Warhammer gothic genre or a comical Disc-world chapter. I would advise you Jack (or Kim Newman), leave Pratchett to the Pratchetts.

I gave the book two stars because the WarHawk story.