Product Description

The orc War Chief Blackhand is dead, but the Orc Horde has not crumbled as expected. Instead, a new War Chief, Orgrim Doomhammer, has risen to power, and his forces are stronger than ever. The free peoples of Azeroth are scattered and unable to stop the orcs' advance. The human lord, Sir Lothar, knows his people stand little chance against the dark tide of the Orc Horde, so he hatches a desperate and unlikely plan: to enlist the aid of humanity's rivals, the mysterious Elves and the wily Dwarves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23449 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 384 pages

Customer Reviews

An Epic Tale of Horde Vs Alliance
I'm a great fan of the Warcraft universe and play a level 60 Alliance Mage of Stormwind in the online version - World of Warcraft. In this tale, Aaron Rosenberg brings the World of Warcraft universe to life in the telling of the time when the Horde first crosses the Dark Portal and unleases mayhem on the world of Azeroth.

The tale is of the Orc warchief Doomhammer and the assault on my beloved Stormwind; it is the time when the Alliance is formed to meet the Horde challenge. Rosenberg keep faithfully to the background plot and brings all the characters from the World of Warcraft alive. If you play the game (especially if you play a Paladin), you will recognise many of the places (perhaps even been there) and many of the characters. If you don't play the game, you'll be itching to buy a copy.

Overall, a well-crafted fanatasy novel, keeping faithfully to the Warcraft theme and adding much to my overall enjoyment (some say obsession) of the game. If you are thinking about buying this, I would recommend reading the book 'The Rise of the Horde' first as it sets the scene to the Horde's journey through the Dark Portal and The Burning Crusade.

For the Alliance!

A gripping story from both Horde and Alliance perspective
After playing WoW for almost 2 years, but not having played the previous installments in the warcraft series, I wanted to find out more about the history of Azeroth. And although this isnt the very beggining of the story, it was a fantastic introduction to how the Alliance and Horde were forged. The prologue gave me enough of the history to have a fair understanding of how the Dark Portal came to be, and from there on in I was gripped. With each chapter swapping between Horde and Alliance, I began to feel compasion for "both" sides. I'm an Alliance player, but this story really changed my perspective of the Horde, and thier leader into Azeroth, Orgrim Doomhammer. Compassion, loyalty, betrayal and self confidence are realised from both sides, and as the battle continues you could be torn between which side you align with. An absolute MUST read for anyone who, like myself, feels a little bit ignorant not knowing the real history of the world which we visit everyday in our gaming lives. And by the end of it, you'll know a little bit more about the statues at the gates to Stormwind!

A fair attempt at Warcraft story writing but......
This is a fairly well written story, but lacks the depth of either Knaak or Golden's stories. I really felt that Aaron was too inexperienced to write something like the death of Gu'ldan, he gave no more information about it than the game. Even the capture of the dragonqueen was written in a rushed manner, there no attention to detail, no eloquent writing style.

The whole book seems to have been rushed with seemingly long portions of the story covered in a few lines. It doesn't really do justice to the epic tale being told. There is no capture of the emotion of the moment, no attempt to extend the story anymore than the basics.

About on par with the lesser Warcraft books like The Last Guardian and Cycle of Hatred, but cannot be counted alongside the works of Knaak or anywhere near the pen of Golden, not even upto the level of Road to Damnation.

If you're reading this book to fill in the gaps of Warcraft lore, it fulfils that, but there are much better warcraft writers out there. Don't write any more, Aaron.