The Carnac Campaign - Eldargal Reviews Nightspear, Sky Hunter & Spirit War

[Nabterayl]

Which I think are fine, in principle - the eldar need (and narratively speaking, deserve) to have some cases where they follow the farseers' best guess, and things still turn out unexpectedly disastrous for them because eldar divination doesn't actually let you see how things will turn out. It's just when those costly victories are in the context of no victories that you start to say, "Hey ... wait a minute ..."

[troglodytesrus]

I don't buy the idea that simply being a tie-in novel is a negative factor for a novel's quality. If the editorial department at the Black Library is actually sabotaging the quality of their books (and maybe they are; I don't know), that's one thing; otherwise ... don't buy it.

There is no benefit of self-sabotaging ofcourse but its simply a matter of not assigning their best and brightest to tie-in works. Generally the authors tend to be those with less experience with 40k novels. I don't see Abnett or McNeil being rolled out to write a short novella to sell the new Riptide or Wraithknight or whatever pretty new kit it is this month.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

So, I read these, and I think I agree with EG's review. The biggest problem, from the offset, I think, is this. It's not the Eldar's story. I have absolutely no idea why they decided to set these three short stories, promoting the new Eldar miniatures (which, let's face it, they are) in an event which is taken from the Necron codex to show how awesome the Necrons are. The take-home message from these shorts is: wow, aren't the Necrons awesome? Look, they've even tricked Illic Nightspear! But not only is it not Illic's story, but we have no reason to think that Illic is remotely good at his job, if this is all you've read.

It would've been a much better decision, I think, to pick, or invent, a much better background scenario to use as the basis for a short story series. One taken from the Eldar book, or a past Eldar book, but at least one which lets us see how the Eldar like to fight. Not how they die in droves when the Necron Assemblage of Pure Awesome confounds all their plans and abilities.

With that said, the results themselves are a mixed bag. Starbane comes across like a prize moron. Maybe Alaitoc's farseer council feels like giving him the boot? Thirianna'd be a better bet. I disliked the writing style of the first story; maybe he'll mature, as I get that he's a young/starting writer. It seemed mostly about how great Deathmarks are. The second was alright, but the action is mostly pointless. Elarique isn't a dude. I quite enjoyed the Spiritseer character, but - why are Hemlocks being deployed? They don't do anything here. Not only that, but again, Starbane is initially extremely loath to use them, but then turns around and is all, yeah, sure, bring 'em out. The job of most of the Eldar characters, again, is to get dead in droves.

The third story is the best, I liked the characters and their dynamic, the Wraithseer is very cool, and it encapsulated perfectly something of the Eldar's plight: they're a race on the brink, forced to ever more desperate measures, calling upon fallen champions of ancient days to save them. And here, those ancient champions do well in a doomed fight. The Prince Ecliptic is great fun, noble, honourable, but arrogant to a fault. The Wraithknight is completely wasted (and then it gets wasted).

Overall: meh. I love the Eldar, and there's some stuff in here worth reading, but it's not an Eldar story. It's a Necron story from the Eldar perspective. Inconsistently written, too. Not worth more than £6 in total.