The Last Guardian by Jeff Grubb (World of Warcraft)

7/10

The guardians of Tirisfal are a line of champions gifted with godlike powers, each one through the ages charged with fighting a lonely secret war against the Burning Legion. Medivh was fated to become the greatest and most powerful of this noble order.

Licensed properties seem not to concern themselves much with overburdening the reader with too much information. Everything seems to happen very fast and with very little explanation. This, I’ve found, is both a blessing and a curse.

The third book in the Warcraft series is entitled ‘The Last Guardian,’ and tells the tale of Medivh, the aforementioned last guardian of the Tirisfal. I imagine that I have come across this storyline maybe once before as I played World of Warcraft, but I honestly can’t remember anything from it; it’s just a law of statistics suggesting that I should have.

So I really enjoyed this book. Author Jeff Grubb does a superb job of revealing the magical workings of Azeroth, home to Warcraft. It keeps me interested in what I’m reading while simultaneously making me want to go and play the game (probably the exact response Blizzard were hoping for).

The writing is a little shoddy in places, which makes me wonder at the level of quality required to write a licensed property such as this, but these mistakes are easily overlooked when you compare them with the fast-paced story that is played out in these pages.

Despite being a quick and almost haphazard licensed property book, several of the main characters are rather well fleshed out, making for realistic and tantalizing heroes and villains. The twists are actually twisty, keeping me guessing until the very last page. I was actually surprised at the unpredictability of this book, and would definitely recommend it to any fans of the Warcraft video games series.

Additionally, this book is a nice companion piece to its predecessor, Lord of the Clans, by Christie Golden. Without needing to read either before or after the other, if you are new to the world of Warcraft or just want to learn more about the place that has stolen so much of your time, then these two books are definitely worth reading.