White Wolf

David Gemmell is Britain's most popular writer of hard-edged heroic fantasy. White Wolf opens a new subseries, "The Damned", set in the world of his Drenai saga and featuring the invincible axeman Druss the Legend--now well into middle age. But the central character is Skilgannon the Damned, deadly wielder of a very special pair of swords and a former general whose nickname comes from a war atrocity that he does not deny. His attempt to make a new life as a monk ends abruptly when civil unrest threatens the monastery and Skilgannon's old fighting skills come into play with appalling effectiveness. In flashbacks to decades earlier, a young Skilgannon painfully and plausibly learns the warrior's art, until his boyhood finishes in a blaze of horror. He finds true love, but his lady is also in love with power and gives the orders for a city-wide bloodbath that makes him forever The Damned. Now known as the Witch-Queen, she won't forgive him for leaving her...

Other stories intertwine with Skilgannon's. There's a young lad who wants to be a swordsman; a fey girl haunted by voices; twin brother fighters, one with a personality ravaged by brain cancer; and Druss the Legend, still indomitable but beginning to worry about his heart. Their paths entwine in a land full of disorder, hostile troops, desperate refugees, and escaped arena beasts (sorcerous hybrids of man and animal). Gemmell excels at combat scenes, with a pace, timing and gripping conviction rare in the genre. He makes it clear, with grim compassion, that opponents aren't just straw men to be knocked over. Skilgannon is forced to kill people he admires, or who admire him; even legitimate self-defence turns sour when we hear the version told by the dead man's fiancée. At the climax, Skilgannon, Druss and their surviving companions stage an audacious assault on a particularly obnoxious villain's well-defended fortress. Much bloodshed follows, with satisfactory settlement of many debts and a final gleam of hope for the future. More tales of Skilgannon will surely follow. --David Langford

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Read the Damned book... - Rated
I loved these Skilgannon books so much that I, literally, came to the end of one and immediately started reading the next!

Great story-telling at its absolute finest. Five great big golden stars!

All-seeing history is blind to us ! - Rated
It is fantasy for sure but without those strange Hobbits and peoples from another planet and yet on the earth. The characters are mostly human, but humans from different walks of life, different peoples, different areas and regions. But the most interesting element is that the author tries to center his approach onto those who apparently make history in a world dominated by war. These few men or women can change the future by only winning or losing a battle, which depends mostly on accidental elements. The book is very clear about the haphazard work of fate that keeps in store many possible outcomes to any present situation. Skilgannon wins two battles between himself and Boranius, aka Ironmask, only because of one element that de-concentrates the attention of Boranius. The first time a spear from some soldier of Skilgannon's and the second time a menacing move from a dying monstrous Joining, and Skilgannon is able to take advantage of this situation and lethally attack Boranius. At the same time, even if it is postmodern to state history is entirely open, the book is deeply inhabited with the belief that some forces are beyond human understanding and possibilities of control, which means history has its own pace and human beings can only eventually influence it within the limits it sets itself. And in this novel it is quite clear women are the central axis of history, either as a witch that influences the world along her own desires, or a descendant of that witch that manages, with the help of this very witch and Skilgannon, to escape her death when a teenager and to become the Witch Queen able to reunify the world under her ruthless authority when all the other actors will have been eliminated. Then two of the main warriors are moved into defeating the main opponent to this evolution when he destroys a father by making him a Joining (joining him just after death to a wolf), seducing the mother that he will eventually torture and kill and kidnapping the daughter as a defense against his eventual defeat. And this Boranius will fail and the girl will be saved. A long time before Skilgannon, known as the Damned, had been ordered to annihilate a defeated city by the Witch Qiueen. Only one girl survived and she becomes haunted. The witch we have spoken of already manages to capture her vengeful desire in order to turn it against Skilgannon. And yet that will fail. This girl Garianne will try to commit suicide instead of fulfilling the manipulation. She will be saved by Skilgannon himself with some help from Druss and Skilgannon will be saved in this predicament by the Witch Queen, though she will be unable to get him back into her military service. Furthermore a priestess of some mythical temple will actually help Skilgannon and his companions, another woman in the story, Ustarte. So David Gemmel's history seems to be pretty dominated by women and his history seems to have its own rules that have little to do with our desire to make history what we would like it to be. And beyond these dominating women we feel history is an unescapable, unavoidable battle between hostile forces with some kind of a promise to see the whole humanity reunify in a way or another: a trend to unity that can only progress through and beyond constant strife among hostile forces and peoples. Hence history is a unifying and pacifying trend that can be neared only through military battles and political struggles among the leaders of the world who are mostly haphazardly chosen by obscure forces that have little to do with reason and logic. And I can assure you the psychology of these warriors is nothing simple like in Hubbard's science-fiction, but extremely complex and contradictory, and that is the main charm of this book.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

You want Action? You came to the right place. - Rated
Both Skilagon and Druss show how real heroes are supposed to fight. Druss's Axe cleaves though many men as do Skilagon's swords. The story line has lots of twists and new problems that arrive. As always he brings you and keeps you into an interesting and exciteing story line where you want to read so fast you'd almost rip the pages out when turning them.


--SPOILER--


Even back tracking and talking about Skilagon's past when he was just the child of a hero known as Fire Fist. In no way is this boreing however. It explains in detail of his life and even tells of his meeting with the current queen of the land he came from and the horrific things he witnessed when he became recognised as a traitor.

Compelling Gemmell - Rated
I thought this is one of David Gemmells best novels. The main character is Skillgannon the Damned, a character that really captured my imagination.
Not only is it great heroic fantasy, but funny in parts. It also includes Druss the Legend, probably Gemmells best known character, and it is set ten years before 'Legend', Gemmell's first novel.
A very good read.

Still Good - Rated
Yes, Druss is back!. The book as a whole is good but does stick very much to the classic Gemmell formula. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The book is well and solidly written but nothing spectacular. Anyone who is a Gemmell fan will find this an enjoyable read.