# Orion: Vaults of the watthefrontdoor have I just read?



## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

I have just made my way through Darius Hinks’ The Vaults of Winter, depicting the actions of the Asrai, and I am extremely disappointed. I have come to expect the Asrai to be as much a force of nature, a neutrality akin to the Nehekharan’s and the Ogre Kingdoms, who defend their lands with the casual brutality that is similar to the harshness of their forest home, residing on bitter peaks.

Instead we get ineffective Elves, a Forest attempting to destroy itself, a bullshit “villain” who is not even a footnote in history, another villain who manages to share the same name as one of the biggest baddies in Warhammer’s 15,000 year history who was capable of tricking Tzeentch… Jesus, it’s a mess all over.

They reek as High Elves in a forest. They should if possible be darker than Dark Elves. The Dark Elves are civilised to a certain extent – there is a hierarchy to their lives. The Wood Elves? They are currently the wood elf hippies making easy love in a commune frequent to fantasy novels outside of Warhammer. They are ineffective in battle to the point of utter retardation by Hinks’ insistence on their “reliance” on the forest – utterly undermining their skill during winter.

His portrayals of fighting are terrible; his depiction of character are atrocious. I feel as if I am reading humans in the forest. He speaks of a time when a Wardancer makes his way into a glade, by telling a joke based on word-play – yet that wordplay works purely on the English language – and yet according to the commonly accepted topographical allegories, the UK is populated by retarded inbred giants, and then goes on to suggest that a harpist who out of all the Asrai in Loren is chosen by Ariel to play at her side AND has probably around ten lifetimes of human experience of playing a harp makes a “mistake” during a “solo flourish” that she added into an almost funereal dirge… The only mistake I see is letting Darius Hinks mangle the Asrai lore which is among some of the best in the world.

Then factor in that we elves who “snore”, “grin like an idiot”, “fumble”… Fuck me does it get any better? No, instead we have a Biography at the front telling us a who’s who of the book – in it I see Dragons (who breathe fire, despite all Forest Dragons pointing towards breathing poisonous fumes – the Wood Elves Army Book, for one), and yet they are not present AT ALL in the story aside from little background nonsense and shouldn’t even register at all, we have a King in the Woods who is immortal and reborn every spring solstice using the blood of a sacrificial vessel/subject to germinate his transition back to Loren (Awesome, although no mention of the Briarheart everyone is “praising”), with the wealth of nearly 4,000 years’ experience, and being the chosen vessel of a god’s power being portrayed as a retard reliant on his “guardian” Atolmis, and still being deemed fit to rule the Asrai?

I have really begun to despise Darius Hinks work – Island of Blood – total mess, Sigvald, disgraceful, Storm of Magic novella… about sums up my feelings of it.

He is the Graham McNeil of Fantasy (who I strangely cannot stomach for the most part in 40K, his High Elves and his Sigmar novels are dire, and yet his Ambassador novels are among my favourite); an overly praised bullshitter who seems to miss the point of Warhammer, and just writes about generic Wood Elves/A. N. Other army. At least the author of Genevieve had the balls up front to say that he wrote a Vampire story and then changed it to fit Warhammer. 

One quote struck me as my favourite;



> The wood was draped with an odd collection of trophies and fetishes: snail shells and bird skulls clattered against gore-drenched rags and the remnants of a human ribcage.


It about summed up my ideals about the Asrai. It really stated; Really, no really, just don’t go down to the woods.

But fuck me, it talked about Beastmen at that point. Sadly, Hinks has fallen into the trap of Baddies must wear black/Goodies must wear white. CL Werner gave us Wulfrik. A semi-likeable antihero that you followed because he was the protagonist in the story. Here, we could do with another anti-hero – a ten-foot tall immortal demi-god, patriarchal ruler of an entire race and chosen vassal of that races primary masculine deity who slaughters Orks and Beastmen by the thousands, and has the stat-line in game that rivals a Greater Daemon. Instead we get a naïve bumbling snoring elf.

I would also like to wonder exactly why an entire story could be written about the Vaults of Winter and Orion’s “trespass”, and have no mention whatsoever about Cirenevil or whatever his name is getting in; or even why that itself wasn’t the focus of the story.

Darius Hinks joins in with my most loathed authors – I have Graham McNeil, Nick Kyme, Ben Counter, Sarah Cawkell, and honourable mention; despite not being Black Library; Talima Fox from Forge World as being some of the worst authors and plot writers to date.

My favourites, however; Mike Lee (the stories of Nagash were among my favourites despite breaks with previous canon), Dan Abnett (Riders of the Dead, Double Eagle, Know no fear), CL Werner (Dead Winter is by far the best of the Time of Legend’s books so far, although I will express distaste for The Hour of Shadows depicting the Asrai once more again as useless twats reliant on a Zoat and the forest to actually do anything remotely useful while the elves bumble about like children pressing buttons in a nuclear power plant while Greater Daemons are casually left lying in buried pools that nobody anywhere has ever heard about), Gordon Rennie (Zavant and the Gothic War), and honourable mention to Forge World’s new fat bloke, Alan Bligh (despite Tamurkhan’s arguably retarded “it was all a dream”).


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## March of Time (Dec 4, 2009)

Soo you didn't like it then ?


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Vaz said:


> I have just made my way through Darius Hinks’ The Vaults of Winter, depicting the actions of the Asrai, and I am extremely disappointed. I have come to expect the Asrai to be as much a force of nature, a neutrality akin to the Nehekharan’s and the Ogre Kingdoms, who defend their lands with the casual brutality that is similar to the harshness of their forest home, residing on bitter peaks.
> 
> Instead we get ineffective Elves, a Forest attempting to destroy itself, a bullshit “villain” who is not even a footnote in history, another villain who manages to share the same name as one of the biggest baddies in Warhammer’s 15,000 year history who was capable of tricking Tzeentch… Jesus, it’s a mess all over.


Ok first off. Which villains there are Alkhor and Ordaana? 



Vaz said:


> They reek as High Elves in a forest. They should if possible be darker than Dark Elves. The Dark Elves are civilised to a certain extent – there is a hierarchy to their lives. The Wood Elves? They are currently the wood elf hippies making easy love in a commune frequent to fantasy novels outside of Warhammer. They are ineffective in battle to the point of utter retardation by Hinks’ insistence on their “reliance” on the forest – utterly undermining their skill during winter.


I disagree. The Dark Elves are cruel for the sake of cruelty, they are slavers and monsters who delight in torment just for the enjoyment of it, and in the end they don't do it for Khaine, they do it because they can. The Wood Elves are a mercurial force in my opinion, neither good nor evil but capricious and fey. They have both good and evil but are fully neither. And why would they not be reliant on Athel Loren? They've become so intertwined with it that it has practically become their life-giver, it's what keeps them safe and they have indeed come to rely on it to protect them and to provide them with their, mostly, safe homes.



Vaz said:


> His portrayals of fighting are terrible; his depiction of character are atrocious. I feel as if I am reading humans in the forest. He speaks of a time when a Wardancer makes his way into a glade, by telling a joke based on word-play – yet that wordplay works purely on the English language – and yet according to the commonly accepted topographical allegories, the UK is populated by retarded inbred giants, and then goes on to suggest that a harpist who out of all the Asrai in Loren is chosen by Ariel to play at her side AND has probably around ten lifetimes of human experience of playing a harp makes a “mistake” during a “solo flourish” that she added into an almost funereal dirge… The only mistake I see is letting Darius Hinks mangle the Asrai lore which is among some of the best in the world.


The only problem with the fighting imo was that the environments were tough to picture due to a lack of description, which I mentioned in my review. The characters were nicely written and did feel appropriately elvish yet more grounded than the others, as earthy as the Wood Elves have become. I missed those two moments you refer to so I can't comment on them. And I disagree, I think Hinks has done a good job with the Asrai and I look forward to _The Tears of Isha_.



Vaz said:


> Then factor in that we elves who “snore”, “grin like an idiot”, “fumble”… Fuck me does it get any better? No, instead we have a Biography at the front telling us a who’s who of the book – in it I see Dragons (who breathe fire, despite all Forest Dragons pointing towards breathing poisonous fumes – the Wood Elves Army Book, for one), and yet they are not present AT ALL in the story aside from little background nonsense and shouldn’t even register at all, we have a King in the Woods who is immortal and reborn every spring solstice using the blood of a sacrificial vessel/subject to germinate his transition back to Loren (Awesome, although no mention of the Briarheart everyone is “praising”), with the wealth of nearly 4,000 years’ experience, and being the chosen vessel of a god’s power being portrayed as a retard reliant on his “guardian” Atolmis, and still being deemed fit to rule the Asrai?
> 
> I have really begun to despise Darius Hinks work – Island of Blood – total mess, Sigvald, disgraceful, Storm of Magic novella… about sums up my feelings of it.


So Elves are so inhuman that they have no gestures we could recognize? They have an entirely different range of gestures and actions that dictate their lives? That would make for boring and unfeasibly confusing reading if it were done that way. As for the Dragons I don't recall it mentioning them breathing fire but if they do where does it say they are Green Dragons? Perhaps some Red Dragons live in the forest as well, or perhaps these are very old Dragons that can breathe more than one element. Orion's rebirth makes him more interesting because he is not the all-knowing god that he should be, if he could just get up and do everything himself and know everything then it would be boring as Orion could just walk up to the enemy, hit them and declare victory.

I haven't read _Island of Blood_ so can't comment, but _Sigvald_ was brilliant and has one of the best depictions of Slaanesh and his/her worship ever written.



Vaz said:


> He is the Graham McNeil of Fantasy (who I strangely cannot stomach for the most part in 40K, his High Elves and his Sigmar novels are dire, and yet his Ambassador novels are among my favourite); an overly praised bullshitter who seems to miss the point of Warhammer, and just writes about generic Wood Elves/A. N. Other army. At least the author of Genevieve had the balls up front to say that he wrote a Vampire story and then changed it to fit Warhammer.


Ambassador novels? Never heard of them. The High Elves and Sigmar books are good, particularly the Elf books, and McNeill's 40k work is great.



Vaz said:


> But fuck me, it talked about Beastmen at that point. Sadly, Hinks has fallen into the trap of Baddies must wear black/Goodies must wear white. CL Werner gave us Wulfrik. A semi-likeable antihero that you followed because he was the protagonist in the story. Here, we could do with another anti-hero – a ten-foot tall immortal demi-god, patriarchal ruler of an entire race and chosen vassal of that races primary masculine deity who slaughters Orks and Beastmen by the thousands, and has the stat-line in game that rivals a Greater Daemon. Instead we get a naïve bumbling snoring elf.
> 
> I would also like to wonder exactly why an entire story could be written about the Vaults of Winter and Orion’s “trespass”, and have no mention whatsoever about Cirenevil or whatever his name is getting in; or even why that itself wasn’t the focus of the story.


But that would be boring, having a character who can overpower everthing and out-think everything without even trying just makes for a predictable and cliche protagonist that removes any real tension from the story and just makes it dull.

If you make Cyanathair then I am sure he might play a part later, perhaps he is the driving force behind Alkhor's plan, and I would dearly love to see him become a part of the trilogy but if he is not then so be it, Alkhor is an interesting villain and I look forward to seeing more of him.



Vaz said:


> Darius Hinks joins in with my most loathed authors – I have Graham McNeil, Nick Kyme, Ben Counter, Sarah Cawkell, and honourable mention; despite not being Black Library; Talima Fox from Forge World as being some of the worst authors and plot writers to date.
> 
> My favourites, however; Mike Lee (the stories of Nagash were among my favourites despite breaks with previous canon), Dan Abnett (Riders of the Dead, Double Eagle, Know no fear), CL Werner (Dead Winter is by far the best of the Time of Legend’s books so far, although I will express distaste for The Hour of Shadows depicting the Asrai once more again as useless twats reliant on a Zoat and the forest to actually do anything remotely useful while the elves bumble about like children pressing buttons in a nuclear power plant while Greater Daemons are casually left lying in buried pools that nobody anywhere has ever heard about), Gordon Rennie (Zavant and the Gothic War), and honourable mention to Forge World’s new fat bloke, Alan Bligh (despite Tamurkhan’s arguably retarded “it was all a dream”).


Once again we disagree. I enjoy Hinks's work, what i've read of it, Kyme is a good author as well though not a favourite of mine, McNeill is definitely one of my favourites and Sarah Cawkwell is a great author as well.

Mike Lee I agree with you is one of the best, though I disagree on Abnett. The only two works of his I actually really loved are Eisenhorn and Know No Fear, the rest are hit and miss for me. C.L Werner I agree is one of the greatest and is my favourite Fantasy author, Long Live great-mighty Thanquol! And I have not read Gordon Rennie yet so I can't comment on that.

But ADB beats them all. 


LotN


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

> Ok first off. Which villains there are Alkhor and Ordaana?


I was referring to the Blooded Kin/Beastmen there. Belakhor, while the Bull Headed Centigor is apparently able to single handedly just draw hundreds of wood elves out of the trees by pointing his cleaver at them. It becomes a bit mary-sue; and my one complaint about Caledor Time of Legends novel when Morathi just cast a single spell and crushed a Dragon out of the sky. Yes, I get that she's an immensely powerful individual, but it was an incredibly poor way to write out the death of a major character (which according to the Lion, IIRC, was another issue that people had with Gav Thorpe's writing). Immensely powerful individuals are all common; but simply eradicating vast swathes of troops/other supremely powerful individuals is a crap literary mechanism. Think about the Jedi - ultra powerful individuals, arguably the strongest ever, Anakin Skywalker had to focus for a few seconds to simply strangle someone to death with the force - and yet Bull Centaur randomly created unanotated individual can simply type "cast: removeallenenemy" into their own personal real life console, and they win.

If someone created their own Chapter Master/Psyker in 40K Homebrew Fluff and wrote a story like "he beat khorne in single combat and he outwitted tzeentch and survived every single one of nurgles poxes and made slaanesh fall in love with him, then killed the emperor after fighting off terra single handedly before summoning him back to life as the star child and then eradicated the orks, stole the webway off the eldar, destroyed comorragh, and made the tau empire kneel before his own greater good", you'd think "what a pile of shit". When the same happens in a novel/army book, it seems as if everyone falls over themselves to praise them (unless it happens to be Mat Ward). The Beastmen armybook in particular is the worst at this - Gorthor, and the sacking of Karak Hirn caravans.



> I disagree. The Dark Elves are cruel for the sake of cruelty, they are slavers and monsters who delight in torment just for the enjoyment of it, and in the end they don't do it for Khaine, they do it because they can.


There's a difference between Evil and dark though - dark is the reason why you were scared as a child of looking under the bed or the monster in the cupboard. The dark of the wild hunt coming to steal your babies on midsomers eve, or Drycha who destroys human villages for no apparent reason.



> The Wood Elves are a mercurial force in my opinion, neither good nor evil but capricious and fey.


Precisely. yet they came across as inadequate, bumbling infighting, useless, self absorbed and I'm running out of adequate words to actually describe how utterly _benign_ they are. They might be dependent on the forest, but instead of having ever watchful guardians, roaming bands of deadly wardancers, eternal guard who guard the most sacred of places during the winter months, kinbands of eagle/hawk riders spying from the skies, while glade riders and glade guard harry the invaders to their doom, we have happy go lucky, shag me senseless fuck the world narcissistic nihilists who don't care that they are about to lose everything that makes them who they are.



> They have both good and evil but are fully neither.


And yet it doesn't come across that way. In the wake of showing exactly how "evil" the Beastmen and Alkhor are, the Asrai come across as being white knights.



> And why would they not be reliant on Athel Loren? They've become so intertwined with it that it has practically become their life-giver, it's what keeps them safe and they have indeed come to rely on it to protect them and to provide them with their, mostly, safe homes


There's reliant on the forest for their livelihood, but that does not explain how inept the Asrai are, particularly when they are meant to have fought off "ultra evils" like Morghur, and Kemmler, and defeated the Dwarfs on their own during winter time. As it stands, I empathise more with the forest, as the wood elves are utterly parasitic.



> The only problem with the fighting imo was that the environments were tough to picture due to a lack of description, which I mentioned in my review. The characters were nicely written and did feel appropriately elvish yet more grounded than the others, as earthy as the Wood Elves have become. I missed those two moments you refer to so I can't comment on them. And I disagree, I think Hinks has done a good job with the Asrai and I look forward to The Tears of Isha.


Surely the point of writing a book detailing a fight in a fantasy world of which there is no allegory relevant to the particular area, involving fantasy races, and pertaining to ultra high fantasy is to include description? I found this rife in Sigvald. The two moments I refer two happen within a short space of time, about page 155-157 in the ebook.

The Wood Elves have been one of my favourite armies for exactly the reason that made them different from Dragonlance, made them different from Lord of the Rings, made them different generic woodland living archer heavy wood elves living in harmony with a sentient forest. They were pretty fucking awesome for the fact that they had to fight to be accepted by the forest to live there, and were at risk from the forest until they proved themselves. Now they're returned to a parasitic nihilistic race, which is not exactly harmony. Considering the elves are a dying yet long lived race, for the most part they seem more hurried than any particular rhyme or reason that is properly explained within the novel.



> So Elves are so inhuman that they have no gestures we could recognize? They have an entirely different range of gestures and actions that dictate their lives? That would make for boring and unfeasibly confusing reading if it were done that way.


I sincerely doubt that. Consider ADB's depiction of Astartes - transhuman psyco- and socio- pathic killers; utterly inhuman and yet still able to relate to as part of a story; Helsreach and The Emperor's Gift explaining perfectly the difference between essentially two different races; the different customs and attitudes and acceptance that are both as culturally different from a south African Christian community to a hardline Pakistan Mountainous region muslim; hell even the difference between a Chimpanzee and a Human.

Can you imagine how crap it would appear if Elrond "grinned like an idiot", or Galadriel "snored"? Both utterly graceless behaviour; I work with hairy arsed smelly grunts who snore in their sleep and grin like an idiot when they do something stupid - not nigh immortal magically sensitive, 10 foot tall demigods taking the aspect of a deity.

Not Cyanathair, but Cirenivel, funnily enough a Wardancer 



Army Book Timeline said:


> 1203 - The War Dancer Cirenivel travels deep into the vaults of winter. She defeats the guardian of the caves and retrieves many lost elven artefacts


.

Throw into the rest of the rich history of the elves, and you get thrown a story "that's cool", yet doesn't advance the timeline, or expand upon the history of the elves. An issue that occurs too much with Black Library novels, but isn't too much of an issue if it occurs purely with a character that's created outside of the existing canon; to involve such immense characters and well known locations such as the King and Queen in the woods and the Vaults of Winter for a nonentity story is just... bleh. A cop out. You wonder exactly what is the point of the story. Maybe I'm spoiled by stories like the Time of Legends or the Horus Heresy, which expand the fluff.



> But that would be boring, having a character who can overpower everthing and out-think everything without even trying just makes for a predictable and cliche protagonist that removes any real tension from the story and just makes it dull.


You mean like the Primarchs? They are well written so that despite being near undefeatable there is always effort behind their actions. While I can see that the need for have a "newborn weakling" prince struggling to "regrow" (I like the metaphor), to have him as an utter parasite on the abilities of his equerry makes him pointless as a ruler.

As for Kyme - I stuggle to come to terms with his Firey Fire Marines of Firey Flaming Death caused by Flaming Fires hotter than a Firey Furnace with a flaming star burning hotter than a flaring fire, or his Dwarfs, which again are simply small humans (like the Elves are simply tall humans).

If you aren't a fan of Abnett, try Riders of the Dead. Adequately described, High Fantasy but not too much, and a story that is not "AND HOLLYWOOD SAVES THE DAY WITH THE BOMB TIMER AT 0:00:01".

Sarah Cawkwell started off decently but was not a fan of Valkia by half way through. Sadly, something that happens too often in fantasy novels.


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## increaso (Jun 5, 2010)

Hmm. I think i'm going to read this anyway, but it's good to hear different views.

Vaz, outside of the army books, have you read any Wood Elf stories that have satisfied your view of the Wood Elves. I can only think of Guardians of the Forest (which I have, but have not read) and CL Werner's Storm of Magic novella as stories involving Wood Elves (though I am sure they will have appeared in Gotrek and Felix).

I enjoyed Werner's account even though I thought his were a little highborn like, rather than capricious creatures that had become one with the forest. I put that down to there being many Kindreds and some will be more attuned to the forest and others less so, but I appreciate that there would be an expectation that an Orion story might involve those that are more like a force of nature.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Im not too keen on Guardians atm. Mcneil is so hit and miss for me, im not too sure its worth hunting it down. Its not exactly one of the most praised books from fantasy, and isnt ebooked (yet), until then im holding off judgement.

CL werners wood elves, I predered over hinks. far more so.

Im not interested In G+F, im a bill king purist, nathan longs novels are piss are poor. Orcslayer, what the fuck?


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Hm, well different strokes I suppose.

I mean hell i'm probably one of the few people who dislikes _Gaunt's Ghosts_ and thinks that it's highly overrated. And i'm sure that 98% of the forum who read BL books would think i'm mad for that.

Does this mean you won't read the next book, _Ariel: The Tears of Isha_?


LotN


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## Lord of Ruin (Jul 22, 2012)

Wow i was debating about getting this, now im not too sure. I thought G Mcneils 'Guardians of the Forest' was really good.

LoN if you have not read the Ambassador chronicles you really are missing out, its a very grounded and more political novel than any warhammer book out there, other than the new time of legends book 'Dead Winter' which is phenominal by the way, but seriously check them out they were written as two separate novels that later got put together into a collection called 'The Ambassador chronicles'.


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## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

Lord of the Night said:


> Hm, well different strokes I suppose.
> 
> I mean hell i'm probably one of the few people who dislikes _Gaunt's Ghosts_ and thinks that it's highly overrated. And i'm sure that 98% of the forum who read BL books would think i'm mad for that.
> LotN


Oh, you're not alone in disliking Gaunt's Ghosts. I like the world building we get from them, the books themselves are well written, it's just the Ghost's themselves i loathe.


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