Book Review: Nagash the Immortal (Really this time)

Ok, so I totally dropped the ball on this last week, so I am here to make amends.

This is the third book in the Time of Legends, Nagash series, and I think it might be the best. You may recall, but I didn't think too highly of the first book. In my opinion, the jump in time and too many characters was just too much for my poor little brain to follow. The second book made up for this due to being all during the same time, an cutting down on the number of major arcs. The third book follows this trend.

In this book the two major (I shudder to call them) protagonists are Alcadizzar, the prince of Rasetra, and Nagash the old dried up Liche himself.

In the second book, Queen Neferata of Lahmia, who had become the first vampire, persuaded all of the other city-states in Nehekhara to send their child-royalty to Lahmia to be schooled. The first story arc tells us about how Neferata has her eye on Alcadizzar and wants him to become her king. If you know the fluff from WHFB, you know how that turns out. I don't think it is much of a spoiler to tell you that he doesn't take it well. Alcadizzar eventually unites all of Nehekhara under his leadership and brings about a golden age.

The second part of the story is about Nagash and his war against the Skaven for all the warp stone located under his fortress, Nagashizzar. It is very cool to see a battle between the unlimited numbers of the Skaven versus the pretty much unlimited number of undead. I mean even Skaven have to get a bit freaked out when the rats they were fighting tail-to-tail with yesterday, come back today as an glowing-eyed zombie.

There were quite a few secondary characters in this book, but they all contributed to the two main story arcs. When we see through the eyes of the Skaven commander, it is directly related to the battle for Nagashizzar. When we see through the eyes of Neferata or another one of her inner-circle vampires, it is driving the Alcadizzar story. I think Mr. Lee did a very good job with this.

There was quite a good balance of fighting in this book. For the first half, the fighting was all on the Nagash side of the story, and the Alcadizzar story was more about politics and intrigue, and then it switches and you get to see some grand battles from the Nehekharans. 

In the end this was an excellent story. I was truly sad to see it end. I know that Nagash pops up again (see the third Sigmar story) and I wish that Mr. Lee would continue his trilogy (I mean the Hitchhiker trilogy has like six books in it!). But the end in this book while not exactly happy, was very satisfying. While I knew what was going to happen, as with all the Time of Legends and Horus Heresy books, it is how you get there that makes the story great.

I give this five, green glowing-eyed skaven zombies out of five.