A Tale of Two Factions: Elegy and A Good War

World of Warcraft #16

by Christie Golden, Robert Brooks

Tension and drama unfolds between the Horde and the Alliance in the Battle for Azeroth novellas Elegy by Christie Golden and A Good War by Robert Brooks. These two tales explore the Horde and the Alliance versions of a fateful event, but only you can decide which faction tells it best.

While Azeroth bleeds, the armies of the Horde and Alliance meet again on the fields of battle. Prepare for all-out war with this limited edition collector’s set, featuring rare and commemorative items to boost morale for the coming conflict.

Double-Sided Story Book: Elegy & A Good War

Every great war story has two sides. This limited edition hardback version collects two new World of Warcraft novellas depicting the Burning of Teldrassil from the point of view of the Alliance (Elegy, by Christie Golden) and the Horde (A Good War, by Robert Brooks). Each story includes original artwork exclusive to this edition.

Genres: Warcraft, World Of Warcraft, Fantasy, Short Stories

181 pages, Hardcover

First published August 14, 2018

About the author

Award-winning author Christie Golden has written over thirty novels and several short stories in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror. She has over a million books in print.

2009 will see no fewer than three novels published. First out in late April will be a World of Warcraft novel, Athas: Rise of the Lich King. This is the first Warcraft novel to appear in hardcover. Fans of the young paladin who fell so far from grace will get to read his definitive story.

In June, Golden’s first Star Wars novel, also a hardcover, sees print. Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi—Omen is the second in a nine-book series she is co-authoring with Aaron Allston and Troy Denning. Also in June comes the conclusion of Golden’s StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga with the release of Twlight, the third book in the series. The first two are Firstborn and Shadow Hunters.

2004 saw the launch of an original fantasy series called The Final Dance, from LUNA Books. The first novel in the series, On Fire's Wings, was published in July of that year. The second, In Stone’s Clasp , came out in September of 2005. With In Stone’s Clasp, Golden won the Colorado Author’s League Top Hand Award for Best Genre Novel for the second time. The third book, Under Sea’s Shadow, is available only as an e-book

Golden is also the author of two original fantasy novels from Ace Books, King's Man and Thief and Instrument of Fate, which made the 1996 Nebula Preliminary Ballot. Under the pen name of Jadrien Bell, she wrote a historical fantasy thriller entitled A.D. 999, which won the Colorado Author's League Top Hand Award for Best Genre Novel of 1999.

Golden launched the TSR Ravenloft line in 1991 with her first novel, the highly successful Vampire of the Mists , which introduced elven vampire Jander Sunstar. Golden followed up Vampire with Dance of the Dead and The Enemy Within . In September of 2006, fifteen years to the month, The Ravenloft Covenant: Vampire of the Mists enabled Jander Sunstar to reach a whole new audience.

Other projects include a slew of Star Trek novels, among them The Murdered Sun , Marooned , and Seven of Nine , and "The Dark Matters Trilogy," Cloak and Dagger , Ghost Dance and Shadow of Heaven .

The Voyager novel relaunch, which includes Homecoming and The Farther Shore , were bestsellers and were the fastest-selling Trek novels of 2003. Golden continued writing VOYAGER novels even though the show went off the air, and enjoyed exploring the creative freedom that gave her in the two-parter called Spirit Walk, which includes Old Wounds and Enemy of my Enemy .

Golden has also written the novelization of Steven Spielberg's Invasion America and an original "prequel," On The Run , both of which received high praise from producer Harve Bennett. On The Run, a combination medical thriller and science fiction adventure, even prompted Bennett to invite Golden to assist in crafting the second season of the show, if it was renewed.

Golden lives in Loveland, Colorado, with her artist husband and their two cats.

Reviews

[Helena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Behold, for this review might be biased.

This was difficult to read and difficult to rate. Why? For many years in the past I've played both factions, never prefered one or the other since I saw no point in it. However, since the beginning of BfA, I simply couldn't play Horde.
The whole plot of the book and the game barely makes sense. Sylvanas is a cartoon villain to me: what drives her? Power? Insanity? Who knows, she's just bad. Bad, bad, bad. Yes, her strategies are brilliant but she as a character right now is so damn boring. They just finished a war against the biggest force they've ever faced and had many of their people die but after like a week she decides to start a faction war? Sure, there were misunderstandings and there's also azerite but ANOTHER WAR? Also, burning of the tree gave her NO ADVANTAGE over Alliance, it just gave her a sadistic pleasure to commit a genocide or a feeling of power over a dying night elf. Like at this point you can call her what she is: Garrosh 2.0, already seen and nothing new. It pisses me off because there were many ways they could go instead of repeating the plots but nah. Another warchief gone bad or will end up dying, heck yes!
The only POV on the Horde side I enjoyed was Saurfang's. To me, he and Baine are the true Horde. But God forbid Horde as a whole does anything good and Alliance does anything bad, the whole world would implode.

The Alliance side was well written but maybe hard to follow at times. Different POVs were kind of hard to navigate but at the end it hurt even more since you get invested in all of them. It hurt my soul honestly because if I could pick one favourite race, despite the factions, it would probably be night elves. But whenever I see Tyrande's or Malfurion's name, I want to roll my eyes. My brain just goes back to the scene of "Malfurion! Where are you my love?!" and I just can't. How did these two incompetent morons become leaders of the night elves? They're so overhyped, even though they're much better in the books than in the game. Also, the thing I didn't understand is how were there so little portals and why did it take SO long to move people? They moved HUNDREDS out of thousands of people. Did they lack mages? Is it a plothole? I don't know, I just know I wanted to go there myself and move people FASTER than these incompetent mages.

Overall, these books are decently written, there's no doubt in that. However, they still belong to Blizzard entertainment and they decided to go this path. Writing itself would get a 4 but consider all the things, it's between 2 and 3.

[Elril Moonweaver · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am an opportunist at heart, thus cannot pass off downloading and reading a book for free! :D Especially if it is a novella bind-up of the events of the Burning of Teldrassil, arguably my most discussed and favorite part of the Battle for Azeroth expansion.

Will contain spoilers! Read at your own risk!

I have started reading these novellas quite a while back and have only now gotten around to finishing them. At the same time, my enthusiasm for Battle for Azeroth has waned significantly and I have cancelled my subscription for this month in order to focus on more pressing matters such as thinning my ever growing TBR pile >.> Cuz I want to read! And I just remembered I don't wanna pay a massive electricity bill, because of my playing WoW so I decided to take yet another hiatus.

Ok, ok, sorry. Back to the reviews of these novellas. I will review and rate them separately.

Elegy - 3 stars



While I can appreciate what Christie Golden was going for in this novella, I have to say: Holy crap! Those are a fuckton of viewpoint characters! And most of them added nothing to the narrative ESPECIALLY Cordessa, Ferryn, Tyrande, Malfurion and Genn.
Well no, that's probably my personal hatred for Tyrande and Malfurion talking, but really why couldn't the narrative be limited to the POVs of Summermoon (for the battles), Anduin (for Stormwind), Mia (for the evacuation of Darnassus) and Astarii (for the Burning of Teldrassil)? Did we really need to get characters praising Tyrande and Malfurion for being all powerful while they sit on their asses and practically let their people be slaughtered/burned?!

See here, I don't understand the night elf leadership! What other important things do they have to do that they DON'T! just in and save their people as soon as the moment arises! Genn was willing to go and oversee the evacuation of his people from Darnassus, HIMSELF if it meant their safety, but Malfurion and Tyrande just arrive when they see it fit! If Malfurion was so powerful why didn't he single handedly crumble the Horde forces marching on Astranaar instead of waiting to corner Saurfang?! He's supposedly 10,000 years old and the most powerful druid and yet he admits defeat without even striving as hard as Commander Summermoon who was willing to die if it meant keeping her people safe.

The writers try so desperately to make me like Malfurion and Tyrande and yet everything they show has the contrary effect! I hate them more now, because they were too narrow-sighted to piece out that the Horde had other plans in mind. Even Tyrande said that them amassing in the Barrens made no sense, so why for the love of Elune did she not dig deeper?! Why did she sit on her ass!

Look, I like the Alliance and the night elves and all, but with such poor leadership it's no wonder the night-elves and Darnassus fell in a matter of days! It's clear to me now, that the Alliance can simply not understand how far Sylvanas is willing to go in order to achieve victory!



The POVs I enjoyed very much were Delaryn's and Astarii's PoVs. Delaryn's because through her eyes we see how relentless the Horde is and how unbelievably well organized in their assaults they are. Astarii's PoV made me really sad, when she is asking Elune for mercy as she takes her final breaths in the burning Darnassus.

Because this all could have been avoided if the evacuation wasn't bottle-necked into merely one portal to Stormwind! That was a horrible strategy! Commendable, but whoever came up with it should be fucking fired! Because 1 portal cannot help the evacuation of tens of thousands of innocent people. Why not set more mages across Teldrassil to evacuate the people from there too!? I mean seriously, the Highborne couldn't have conjured more than one portal and had to rely on human mages?!

Rating -6.8 /10
Setting and Atmosphere - 8
Main Characters - 6
Antagonists - 8
Writing - 6
Believability - 6

A Good War - 4 stars < Bias has kicked in most likely :D



I felt like the characters and the actions presented on the Horde side of the battle made much more sense, from a warfare standpoint. The fact that Saurfang constantly admits the fact that Sylvanas' strategies are sound, is yet again proof of what I said in my Before the Storm review wherein I stated that Sylvanas is an excellent strategist. Here we actually see her presenting her plans to her second in command, Varok Saurfang, and I gotta admit those strategies are pretty foolproof.

I've stated before that Sylvanas seems to always be one or two steps ahead of the Alliance, and the conversations she has with Saurfang clearly demonstrated her capacity to anticipate possible moves from the Alliance.

She is also really fun to read about, if not from her own PoVs at least from the perspective of other characters. Interesting tidbit, I didn't know that Nathanos Blightcaller's new model upgrade coincided with his getting a new undead body in the lore.

Now as for the battles themselves I can't really comment much on them. But I will reiterate how much I fucking hate Malfurion Stormrage. Illidan Stormrage is one of my most favorite characters in the Warcraft Universe however the same cannot be said for his twin brother, who's probably the most overwritten, boring and most passive character I have read about (alongside Tyrande). All the while I read the confrontation between him and Saurfang at the inn I was just sneering everytime Malfurion had a line of dialog. I just can't stand the Night Elf leadership. I just can't.

Now, Saurfang was really enjoyable during this novella, but what made him stand out was his reaction to the Burning of Teldrassil (which isn't presented in Warbringers: Sylvanas short film and presented only briefly - and gruesomely - in the Old Soldier cinematic). Here we get to see what he felt in those moments and how his faith in Sylvanas and the Horde is completely shattered by just two words: "BURN IT!"

Rating - 7.8 /10
Setting and Atmosphere - 7
Main Characters - 9
Antagonists - 7
Writing - 8
Believability - 8

Sidenote:
A Tale of Two Factions: Elegy and A Good War is a read I wished to track myself in Goodreads :D So I added in the book, the cover - which I made myself replicating Battle for Azeroth Collector's Edition poster and details (dunno the ISBN tho :()

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great look at the in game events which should almost be mandatory for players. The in game scene and cinematic do not do the events justice.

[Dottie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing is just WoW. It will leave you wanting more. I would suggest reading A Good War first. I’m not familiar with the author but it was well written. I’m all about the Horde but I’m feeling for the Alliance right now. Christie puts you in their shoes and does not disappoint. What an ending, be prepared! Also The graphics and design of this book is just marvelous definitely a collectors.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great tie in. A Good War was the better of the two novellas.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

While not as engaging as other books from this universe, these short novellas do a good job of describing the events leading to the major conflict of the Battle for Azeroth expansion.

The twin-story perspective is interesting and offers the motives of the faction for the actions undertaken.

In my opinion, every race in WoW spawned a major evil, a destroyer, as well as a healer. For the Alliance we had Arthas, the Lich King and somehow at the end of that spectrum, Anduin, a healer, then the worgen themselves are of dual nature, destructive but also honorable and merciful, Genn being an example of both, the night elves had Malfurion and Tyrande as opposing Azshara and later misguided Illidan, so on and so forth.

However, the Forsaken and their Dark Lady are the only exception to this trend, they never had a healer, or a wise and peaceful example of their kin, they are the anti-thesis of all that is alive, since they are both undead and unalive, clinging somewhere on the cusp of life and death, conquering both but belonging to none. As such, they are a unique element, a joker amongst the cards laid out in the game, the wildcard that can trump most things. The only constant in their behaviour is their unwavering loyalty to their Banshee Queen and her eternal thirst for death as a means of reforming Azeroth.

This leaves room for a wild amount of new lore, Sylvanas is now known as the enemy of life, hence giving her a unique position, beyond the material world, she seems she is seeking something and we might be astounded by what her real motives are.

[Dianthaa]

Probably only for WoW fans, but I really liked the idea of having two novellas showing the opposing sides before Battle for Azeroth. They’re free and they do a good job of getting in the character’s heads. For the Horde!

[Jonathan Cassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The entire Horde section of this great publication should have directly informed the quest text and story development of Battle for Azeroth's early days. The strategic conversation between Sylvanas and Saurfang was such a master class from her on her vision for the future of the two factions...

[Matthew Harwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping tale in the World of Warcraft series. This book follows both sides for a major event with lots of action and intense stories. I would recommend reading the section following the Alliance perspective first to avoid spoilers.

[Susanne Kali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad for a free read.