Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio (Audiobook – 29 March 2022)

Series: World of Warcraft

Length: 15 hours and 38 minutes

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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Prepare to find out everything you every wanted to know about one of Warcraft’s most complex characters with the brilliant Sylvanas by the always impressive Christie Golden.

There have been some great tie-in novels coming out this year across multiple franchises.  While I have mostly been sticking to Star Wars and Warhammer novels, I recently decided to dive back into the fiction surrounding a personal favourite franchise of mine, the Warcraft games.  It may surprise some people to know that the Warcraft games, which includes the absolute institution that is World of Warcraft (WOW), has a massive extended universe surrounding it, with multiple novels and comics working to enhance and support the game’s already impressively deep lore.  I have had a lot of fun with some of these over the years, but I was particularly intrigued when I managed to get a copy of the latest tie-in novel, Sylvanas by Christie Golden.  Not only did this book cover the life of one of the best characters in this franchise, Sylvanas Windrunner, but it was also written by the amazingly talented Christie Golden, an absolute master of tie-in fiction.  Golden has written some impressive Warcraft novels, including Before the Storm and the brilliant War Crimes, and she has also written tie-in novels to multiple other franchises, including one of my all-time favourite Star Wars novels, Dark Disciple.  As such, I am always really keen to check out any of Golden’s additions to this complex canon, and this turned out to be a particularly great book.

Few inhabitants of the world of Azeroth have had more of an impact on its recent history and the devastating events that have befallen it than the infamous Sylvanas Windrunner.  The Banshee Queen of the Forsaken, Sylvanas has held many titles, names and positions as she has witnessed and manipulated the entire realm for both her people and herself.  However, Sylvanas has a far deeper goal than power; she also seeks to realign the injustices of life and the meaninglessness of death, finally achieving the peace and happiness that she and the world deserve.  To that end, Sylvanas has aligned herself with the mysterious and otherworldly afterlife entity known as the Jailer.  Bound to his side and now a fugitive from both the Alliance and the Horde, Sylvanas seeks to bring his goals to fruition, no matter the cost.  However, her final task from the Jailer appears to be the most difficult, securing the fealty of imprisoned human king Anduin Wyrnn.

Reluctant to force service upon Anduin against his will, Sylvanas attempts to sway him to their side through subtler means.  To that end, she regales him with the story of her life, believing its lessons will convince Anduin of the necessity of her actions and help bind him to the Jailer’s cause.  With her captive audience listening close, Sylvanas reveals the key events from her life that shaped her, including her childhood and the tragedies of the Windrunner family, her death and damned resurrection at the hands of Arthas, and her eventual ascension to leadership of the Horde as Warchief.

However, amongst these tales of tragedy, triumph and a deep despair, Sylvanas also reveals her history with the Jailer and her first journey to the Maw.  Discovering a dark truth behind the veil of death, Sylvanas hopes to end the injustices and terrible consequences that awaits all souls, including her, by helping the Jailer achieve her goals.  But to achieve victory, Sylvanas was forced to become a force of destruction, bringing war to Azeroth and forcing another conflict between the Alliance and the Horde.  However, her worst actions may be yet to come as the Jailer’s plan for Anduin will require Sylvanas to become what she hates the most.  Daughter, sister, hero, unwitting pawn, rebel queen, Warchief, and monster, the truth of Sylvanas is revealed, and you’ll have to decide whether she is Azeroth’s greatest hero or worst villain.

Golden continues to add more and more depth to the Warcraft canon with this rich and clever novel that serves as the ultimate guide to one of the franchise’s best characters.  I had an absolute blast with this exceptional read that expertly turned the established history of Sylvanas Windrunner into a powerful and moving tale of family, tragedy and the consequences of choices.

Sylvanas contains a brilliant character-driven narrative that I think perfectly tells the tale of Sylvanas Windrunner, expanding out her life and providing details and insights about her that have never been shown in various other parts of the Warcraft fiction.  Starting during the events of the Shadowlands expansion, where Sylvanas is holding Anduin prisoner, the story soon morphs into a chronicle tale as the titular character recounts her entire life story to Anduin.  Starting off during her childhood, the first substantial part of the novel is focused on Sylvanas’s early life, the complex family relationships she had, her surprising rise to the rank of Ranger General, and her first encounter with tragedy.  This initial section of the novel, which covers most of Sylvanas’s life before her appearance in the games, is extremely detailed as Golden firmly establish this part of her life and show how her early relationships and losses would shape the rest of her life.  While this first part of the book is intriguing and vital to the story, it was a tad less exciting than I was hoping and ended up being one of the slowest parts of the novel, although once the first real tragedy occurs, it does speed up to an entertaining pace.

Following this substantial introduction, Sylvanas’s story starts to feature some major time skips, with the narrative jumping to her encounter with Arthas and subsequent death, which is shown a bit more theatrically and briefly than you would expect.  The rest of the story happens at a blistering pace, with many of the key moments of the character’s life briefly shown as the story powers through the events of the various games and expansions.  There are some fascinating moments and scenes in this second half of the book, and I had a great time seeing Sylvanas’s resurrection and enslavement to Arthas, her rebellion against her deathless master, her rise to become a leader of the Forsaken and her early days as a member of the Horde.  The story really skips along extremely quickly here, although it slows down at times to highlight Sylvanas’s interactions with the Jailer and the various things she did as his command.  These scenes are some of the most important parts of the book, as they try to highlight when and how Sylvanas started working with this villain, as well as her motivations for joining him.  These pivotal scenes are extremely interesting, and Golden masterfully works in the novel’s earlier character development into Sylvanas’s reasons for her actions.  The rest of the novel showcases Sylvanas’ more villainous turn, until she completely becomes the antagonist we encounter in Shadowlands and the end of Battle for Azeroth, which brings us full circle to the interludes between Sylvanas and Anduin.  The book ends on a fantastic and compelling note, recreating a scene from the game, and serving as a fitting conclusion to Sylvanas’s story, while also providing the reader with some much needed hope and satisfaction at a potential happy ending in the future.

Golden used some interesting storytelling techniques throughout Sylvanas, and most of them paid off extremely well to create an intense and exciting story.  While many Warcraft novels are more concerned with immediate action and intrigue, Sylvanas works well as a chronicle story which focuses on its protagonist’s complex and damaged psyche, as well as an intense portrayal of family and the difficulties and joys associated with it.  Through her reminiscing, the protagonist highlights her story extremely well, and I liked the clever use of several interludes to take the story back to the present for Sylvanas to debate her actions and choices with Anduin, whose pensive and compassionate insights add to the emotional weight of the narrative.  Both these past events and the storyline set in the present have some great moments, and I loved the novel’s overarching theme of the importance of free-will and choice, especially as the protagonist is a person who often found the events of her life and death, controlled by others.  There is an excellent balance of story elements featured throughout Sylvanas, with Golden featuring a great blend of intense character moments with cool action scenes, fun interactions and attempts to bring the novel into the established events of the wider Warcraft universe.  However, I did have some issues with the pacing of the novel.  While most of the novel flowed well, I really disliked how the author would spend a substantial amount of time going over some periods of the characters life in high detail, before quickly jumping through multiple years of subsequent events in extremely short order.  While I could see the author’s reasons for doing this, it did limit the impact of the narrative and there were multiple interesting events and characters that were only lightly featured.  Still, I had a great time getting through the plot elements that the author included, and they ended up resulting in an excellent and intense character driven story that featured some very powerful moments as the protagonist goes through absolute hell and back.

Sylvanas ended up being a particularly interesting inclusion in the wider Warcraft canon and it is one that I am extremely glad I decided to check out.  Due the multiple appearances and impacts that this titular character has had, the plot of Sylvanas encompasses the events of all the Warcraft games, including the entirety of WOW (at this point).  At the same time, the novel also ties into some of the other books, comics and other pieces of extended Warcraft fiction that are out there, particularly some that were written by Golden.  As a result, there are an awful lot of references, locations and iconic events going on in here, and Golden does an excellent job to bring all of these to life throughout the novel, with a focus on Sylvanas’s role in them.  I loved seeing so many key moments from the games and the other extended fiction re-featured or referenced throughout this novel and it was fascinating to see how they connected with the events of this book.  While Golden does really try to explain the context or importance of all of them, some readers unfamiliar with the games (or who may have stopped playing in recent years), may have difficulty at times following what is happening.  This is partially mitigated by the fact that Golden chooses to avoid or only lightly feature multiple events, especially those covered in the games, other novels and comics (several of Golden’s books are only lightly brushed on).  While I can understand Golden trying to avoid unnecessarily rehashing events that Warcraft fans would have seen before, it was one of the main reasons for the pacing issues, as it ensured that the events of the character’s childhood, which has not really been seen before, got so much focus early on.  It also requires readers to have a bit of an idea of what happened in many of the other novels and comics, especially if you wanted to get the full emotional impact.  Still, attentive readers generally should not have any issues following the book’s plot, and established fans of the franchise will really love the intriguing world building elements and revealed character histories, especially those that help to fill in several of the gaps surrounding the Jailer and their actions.

Unsurprisingly, Sylvanas also proves to be a major character study of its intriguing protagonist Sylvanas Windrunner who serves as the main point of view character as she recounts her life story.  This was one of the main things that drew me to Sylvanas, as I have been a big fan of this character ever since Warcraft III.  Golden does a brilliant job featuring this titular protagonist here, and Sylvanas ends up being both a great recreation of the characters life and an in-depth study of one particularly damaged person’s darkest emotions.  I was really impressed with how much additional depth Golden added to this already well-established character, and there are some fascinating details included here that help to explain so much about her and her actions in the latest expansions.  Thanks to the chronicle style of the novel, you get an intense look at her life, and find out all her pivotal moments and the emotions she experienced throughout them.  Golden provides a particularly impressive focus on the character’s mostly previously unseen childhood and family life, which serves as a good basis for much of the character-driven narrative.  Her earlier tragedies and heartbreaks have a great lasting impact on her and serve as some of her motivation for serving the Jailor.  From there the story covers most of her appearances in the various games, and it is fascinating to get the new Sylvanas-orientated perspectives of these events, which adds substantially to the novel’s drama as you see Sylvanas reacting to the various terrible events, including her murder and subsequent enforced enslavement by Arthas.  Golden does a brilliant job of highlighting the character’s despair, anguish and helplessness during this period, and the change into the life-long hatred that infected her was extremely powerful, and many of these moments tie into the book’s overall them of choice and free will.  However, some of the most fascinating moments occurred after the Lich King’s death (at the end of the second WOW expansion), when Sylvanas, cheated of her revenge, takes some drastic actions never seen in the games.  These actions lead her to first meet the Jailer and her eventual villainous actions, and I think that Golden was extremely successful in finally showcasing the character’s motivations, which were a little clouded in the actual game.  As such, Sylvanas ends up being show as a far more sympathetic character in this novel, which ties into her great redemption arc in the game, and you end up getting very attached to her story.  This novel really was the ultimate Sylvanas Windrunner experience and I loved learning even more about this brilliant character.

Aside from Sylvanas herself, this novel contains a massive cast of supporting characters who have varying degrees of impact on the overall story.  Due to the scope of the book’s plot, this supporting cast ends up encapsulating most of the major characters from the various Warcraft games, which is a bit excessive.  Many of these characters are only included for brief moments or are featured merely as mentions, and it can be a bit overwhelming to be bombarded with character names, especially from some more obscure figures.  However, I liked how the use of all these characters and the various interactions they had with Sylvanas helped to set up her place in the universe, and Golden does ensure that the reader is aware of the reason why the character is there and what role they play in Sylvanas’s life.

While there is a huge cast of supporting characters, several do shine through in the plot, and it was great seeing the various relationships they have with Sylvanas.  For example, all the members of Sylvanas’ family are featured throughout the book, particularly in the first half, and Golden really captures the impact, joys and struggles of family, and showcases how the extreme nature of these can really impact a character’s life.  The inclusion of the least famous Windrunner sibling, Lirath, really adds to the overall story, especially due to the unique relationship they had with Sylvanas.  I have to say that I really enjoyed how much Nathanos Marris (eventually becoming Nathanos Blightcaller) was featured in this novel, and Sylvanas contains an in-depth exploration of the unique relationship they had with the protagonist both in life and in death.  This adds some intriguing depth to the actions of this supporting character, and it was fascinating to see how the loyalties and attachments of this character were formed, as well as the unusual romance they formed which lasted lifetimes.  The brief scenes of iconic villain Arthas were pretty intense, and I appreciated the look at the torment he inflicted upon Sylvanas, especially as it becomes such a big part of her life story.  The use of Alliance leader King Anduin Wyrnn as Sylvanas’s audience for her story was extremely good as well, especially as the kind and hopeful Anduin serves as a great foil to the more cynical Sylvanas.  Watching these two jab at each other in the interludes was an excellent and emotional part of the novel, with Anduin trying to convince her back into the light at the same time she’s trying to bring him towards her side.  These scenes get even more intense and emotional when you realise that the entire reason for these conversations is that Sylvanas is trying to be merciful and give Anduin a choice to serve, something Sylvanas was never given.  All these characters, and more, really help to tell the full story of Sylvanas and are an impactful and powerful inclusion in the overall narrative.

Like most tie-in novels I enjoy, I chose to check out Sylvanas in its audiobook format, which was outstanding.  This was mainly because Sylvanas was narrated by legendary voice actor Patty Mattson, who voices Sylvanas Windrunner in WOW.  There was absolutely no way I was going to turn down listening to a story about Sylvanas that is narrated by the ultimate voice of the character, especially after her epic performances in some of the recent cinematics.  Unsurprisingly, Mattson did an incredible job with this audiobook, and hearing Sylvanas telling her own tale really helps to bring you into the narrative in a big way.  Mattson does some excellent alterations to her voice to portray a younger Sylvanas in some of the earlier scenes, and it was also extremely cool to have Mattson recreate some of the most awesome lines from the games and cinematics throughout the plot.  Thanks to this impressive narration, the Sylvanas audiobook has an amazing flow to it, and you will swiftly find yourself powering through it, even with its 15 hour and 38 minute long runtime.  The ultimate way to enjoy Sylvanas, the audiobook format comes extremely highly recommended as it really enhanced my enjoyment of this novel.

Overall, Sylvanas by Christie Golden is a brilliant and impressive novel that serves as an excellent tie-in to the Warcraft franchise.  Containing a powerful and entertaining character driven narrative, Sylvanas serves as a definitive study of the damaged and brilliant game character, Sylvanas Windrunner, and I had an outstanding time seeing their entire character arc come together here.  A must-read for all Warcraft fans, especially those enjoying the recent expansions, Sylvanas is an amazing read that I had so much fun with.

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