Iron Company - Warhammer Fantasy Book Review
Iron Company by Chris Wraight is immediately interesting to me just from the cover. I have never read any books about EMpire engineers before. I like the lore behind the Dwarves and the Chaos Dwarves and their war machines.
At the beginning of this the lead protagonist is Magnus Ironblood, who is a downtrodden emotionally unstable drunk. The over-arching story is his return to being a master engineer in an empire army. There is a huge amount of mystery as to what the enemy army really is, but we are told it is a mad female ruler that is rebelling and breaking away from the Empire, because her post is in a remote fortress on the top of a mountain with lots of natural resources.
You are interoduced to a league of different characters. A zealot of sigmar that hates Magnus because priests hate technology and ranged combat. A commander that does not trust the safety or effectiveness of ranged combat or machines. A apprentice engineer that is rebelous, arrogant and apriring. A old friend engineer that is bro-tier, coming back for just one for job. A Dwarf warrior that has a score to settle on the mountain. Also lots of other sub characters and lesser troops.
A majority of the story takes place on the long journey up the hill to the battle and all the setbacks from getting ambused, attrition from the elements and self-sabotage,
The lengthy end of the book is the siege of the fortess and the reveal of who the enemy is and their motivation. I won't ruin the book, but I was underwhelmed by the reveal. I thought it would be much more crazy or evil in motivation. Although, looking back on some of the conversations, it seemed like it should have been an obvious conclusion.
The main themes in this book are, the dangers of technology and the ultimate mass destruction of prototypes. The struggle betweek ranged and close combat culture. Friendship between warriors, and rank structure between armies. The return from ruin to honor, and dealing with alcoholism.
One of the best things about these books from the 90's are they are obviously written for men. The themes are very masculine and have positive messages for boys. There are no stupid love stories and emotional entaglements, but substance and overcoming larger problems in life than women, courting and pursuit of marriage or lust.
This is a grungy and bleak book about midevil combat. This is a war book and leadership story. This a typical early 2000's warhammer novel. the reveals were dull and the outcome was predictible, but the well developed characters and lessons more than made this book above average in value as a book. Which is why I love these kind of books, they are generally good. This book was over 400 pages, but felt too short somehow.
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