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reviewed Night of the Dragon by Richard A. Knaak (World of Warcraft, #5)

Richard A. Knaak: Night of the Dragon (2008, Pocket Star Books) 3 stars

Grim Batol: its dark legacy stretches back into the mists of Azeroth's past. But most …

Of all the terrible Warcraft books Tommy Wiseau has written, this has to be somewhere in the middle

1 star

"'Have I not changed, then?' she mocked. 'A female likes to think she's kept her beauty even after so long...'" This is such a Wiseau line. He uses "female" in this manner more often than regressive ferengi. It was at this point in the story that I started actively rooting for Sinestra.

Theory: Tommy Wiseau has never really played any Warcraft game or talked with his fellow authors or consumed any related media. I think Wiseau was briefly told the story of Warcraft verbally and assumed he needed no follow-up questions. Perhaps with a casual "Don't worry about it."

Even within Wiseau's own story telling though, Vereesa the elf ranger comes across like a privileged jerk. Wiseau explains that Rhonin helped Vereesa through the loss of the Sunwell in the midst of explaining how she despises all blood elves for turning to demons to survive. Vereesa even says that she survived because of her relationship with Rhonin and blood elves are gross for... not also having a relationship with Rhonin? Vereesa is the kind of person who escapes to her chalet during a hurricane and then looks down at people who break into shuttered stores for food. She's not a likeable character.

Rhonin is present and he does things. He is very boring per usual. Krasus is also present. He does things that only matter because they were invented to matter. Kalec is there. He snaps at Krasus a lot. He's still obsessing about Anveena... who was a magical construct in the Sunwell trilogy that he fell in love with somehow. The feud is stupid and very strange. You might think Kalec is upset that Krasus made a magical homunculus programmed with basic compassion that Kalec fell in love with. That's more embarrassing than a right to be angry, but still. No, Kalec is upset with Krasus for letting the homunculus restore the Sunwell and help an entire species survive rather than... marry Kalec? The relationship between Kalec and Anveena is NEVER satisfactorily established, so this all feels very false and tedious.

Speaking of tedious, Wiseau always refers to dwarven men as "dwarf" and dwarven women as "female dwarf." You get the sense that the author would also tell you that a hospital is full of doctors and female doctors.

At one point we read that Rhonin just wants to spend time with his family. Both he and Vereesa have separately left home to pursue some threat that only they can face. They leave their children with "Jalia, a stout midwife who was both like a grandmother and a second mother to the twins." After reading that quote I briefly died. I have come back to life though. No worries.

Wiseau really likes to mention little attributes of the different species involved in the story more than usual in this book. These are things that aren't at all in the games or any other book. Dwarves apparently have thick skulls that can usually withstand rocks being whipped at them with a sling. They also have light sensitivity. There is no mention of this before or since a single sentence saying that skardyn (dragon-dwarf hybrids) have even more sensitivity. This adds nothing and is just weird.

Speaking of weird. The skardyn have a long convoluted backstory that is boring and not linked to anything else. Wiseau just had an idea for these creatures and injected them into the book. They appear nowhere else. They were meant to appear in the game at some point, so there's concept art. Upon looking at the concept art, however, you can see that it was a wise choice to leave them out. There is no emotional reaction to them from the characters aside from "gross!" Why would they? Nobody cares about them.

I could keep going and going, but you get the idea. It has all the usual weak points that drive me insane: Things happen in this book, but the reader isn't given much reason to care. We are told of relationships but none are shown. It's disconnected and boring. More time is spent on magical properties of made up objects than people interacting in a meaningful way. They kill a child because of what it might do in the future. You know. Usual stuff.