By the time you see him, it's too late...

Greetings nerdlings! I'm back with another book review! Now hopefully you are all heeding my advice and checking out these books I have been reviewing, but if not, well, shame on you! This is going to be another quick review but I'll do my best to cram everything in.

Continuing in the theme of second books in great trilogies, Shadow King by Gav Thorpe is the second offering in the Sundering trilogy from the Black Library and is part of the Time of Legends series. Shadow King tells the story of Alith Anar, a prince of Ulthuan and resident of the kingdom of Nagarythe, which, if you recall, is the domain of Malekith, the protagonist from the first book in the Sundering trilogy. Alith is a carefree elven princeling who is devoted solely to hunting and to his family, until the war between Malekith and his mother Morathi over dominion of Nagarythe threatens to swallow his homeland of Elanardris whole. Alith and his family are staunch supporters of Malekith, and so they are forced to help the deposed prince regain his kingdom from Morathi's clutches. Yet despite all of the Anar's efforts, they are betrayed in the end by Malekith's forces, and Alith's entire family is slain, leaving him the sole surviving member of the Anar line. After that, Alith Anar swears vengeance upon the druchii, or dark elves, as the residents of Nagarythe under Malekith's command are known, and he takes on the title of Shadow King. Alith's brutal thirst for revenge leads him to slaughter the druchii wherever he can find them, and this quest leads him to the mysterious forest of Avelorn, where he is gifted with a bow blessed by Kurnous, the Hunter God, and Lileath, the Moon Goddess. With this bow in hand, Alith leads a devastating crusade against the druchii, culminating finally in a confrontation with Malekith himself. But just as Alith Anar is no longer the elf he once was, Malekith has changed as well...and his thirst for power may yet spell the end for the Shadow King...

As with all of the offerings from the Black Library, and from the Time of Legends series in particular, this is a superb book. The writing of Gav Thorpe is top-notch, and his characterization of Alith Anar as an individual wracked with guilt and consumed by thoughts of vengeance is nothing less of stellar. Alith's struggles against the druchii and his unreasoning hatred of the elves who took his family from him are rendered in amazing detail. The ongoing civil war between the druchii factions and how the Anars were caught in the middle was written in a spectacular fashion by Thorpe, who is one of the most prolific writers in all of the Black Libary. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in great fantasy or fans of the Warhammer universe. Shadow King gets 5 black-shafted arrows through the eye out of 5.