Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

I’ve just finished this, and it’s not for nothing that Warcraft is one of my favorite fantasy universes and Golden is one of my favorite fantasy authors.

This was absolutely amazing – and though I love all the Warcraft books written by anyone – Golden is simply superb.

To give you some plot: Thrall, former warchief of the Horde, now shaman of the Earthen Ring, is given a personal quest, by none other than Ysera, Aspect of the green dragonflight. Thrall must leave the Earthen Ring and his duties to heal Azeroth to go find Nozdormu, Lord of the Bronze dragons and Aspect of the bronze dragonflight, who’s gone missing. But Nozdormu isn’t missing just anywhere – being the Timeless One and guardian of the timeways – he is of course missing in time. With the help of first the green dragons, then the bronze dragons, Thrall ventures into the timeways, looking for Nozdormu and along the way he comes face to face not just with own past, but his past friend’s futures as well as horrible alternate realities.

The conclusion of this quest accumulates in the clashing of new Aspects, Deathwing, The Twilight Father, abominable twilight dragons, and a horrid revelation of the interconnectedness of all of it and the evil forces behind it.

To sum up, this is an amazing story with Thrall at the center, learning about his life from infant to warchief to shaman, while the whole of Azeroth is on the brink of destruction.

I’ll say it again, I love Christie Golden, her writing is just superb – and to have her write a big background story like this on Thrall, where we explore the past, the future, alternate timeways is just my every dream come true. Thrall is such a loveable character, a strong and deadly warrior at one end of the spectrum, but a caring, loving thinker at the other. Is arc is incredible to follow, and he’s had such an impact in this world that I’ve loved for the last 20 years, that every story about him is a gift for me.

If you’ve played the games – any of the games, I would absolutely highly recommend reading these novels to flesh out the background story. There’s so many cool details, so many puzzle pieces that fall into place, it’s just amazing.

But even if you’ve never played the games, or even if you’ve never heard of the games, I can absolutely highly recommend these books. Maybe start at the beginning then, to get a sense of who people are and what they’re roles are in the bigger picture, but like I said, this is probably my favorite fantasy universe ever.