Before the Storm (World of Warcraft) Hardcover – June 12, 2018

Amazing book with alot of good set piece moments that reunites characters and allows them to finally have closure that has to this point been absent. There are several moments that are very tear jerking and makes you feel for the characters in the moment. Sadly most of the positive events and best parts of the book are exclusive to the Alliance side and one short side story, the Horde perspective parts well.....they almost all written in a way that makes it very clear that 'Sylvanus is not good and they REALLY want you to know that' so if you were hoping for some insight or possible intrigue that makes the actions of the Banshee Queen something you could understand or empathize with well you wont find it here. Conclusion good read not my favorite thats a toss up between Warcrimes and Illidan but theres a VERY CLEAR 'Anduin wants everyone happy' which I don't mind i'm a sucker for a altruist and 'Sylvanus IS BAD and you should think shes BAD'.

I enjoyed this book, but would like to warn people that it has a very specific purpose: to educate you about the characters and political environment leading into World of Warcraft's Battle for Azeroth expansion (released on Aug. 13th, 2018),The story alone is pretty slow and isn't really all that good. Much of the narrative is spent describing the people involved, including their past events in the WoW lore. The best way I can put this is that if you weren't playing WoW, the story would be somewhat boring and not very interesting.That being said, I enjoyed the book because I'm fairly new to WoW and nearly all of the information presented was new to me. I learned quite a bit of the lore and am now much better prepared to understand and enjoy the expansion. If that's your goal, then this will be a great book. Otherwise I don't recommend it.

This book could have been a 4 star read had it not been for the concerning trend that the warcraft books seem to be moving toward. The earlier books told stories, complete stories. With a beginning, climax and conclusion. The last four WoW books I've read have no beginning, a weak, predictable and often boring or confusing climax and absolutely no conclusion. These aren't stories. No character development, no clear plot and tons of missing information. I don't play the games, never have, and I understand that everything they don't include in the book is supposedly in the game. But that's my point. The earlier books were great! They told complete stories that were interesting and well written. You didn't need to play the game to enjoy the books. Even if I did play the games I still would not enjoy a story with this much missing information. A book should be complete. This reads like an old video game strategy book from Nintendo. This particular book ends at what should have been the climax. It was well written and mostly interesting. Unfortunately, it was confusing at times, too. Many characters that are introduced are not mentioned in any of the previous books. They're thrown in this book with no back story as if I'm magically supposed to know about their past and their motivations. That is bad story telling and makes for a confusing book. The characters that I am familiar with seem to have gone through major life-changing events that are also not mentioned in previous books. Entire plot lines are started in this book and never concluded. I thought this book was about azerite. That's what the summary leads us to believe. Through the whole book the main plot is the azerite. Then 3/4 of the way through the story veers hard into a subplot about reuniting undead with their living family members and then the book ends without ever mentioning azerite again and never coming back to characters and plot lines that we invested 200+ pages of reading. Awful story telling. Again, I realize the story was probably hashed out in game play but it's super lazy writing and alienates a portion of what could have been a larger audience. I've read every warcraft book that has been written and sadly they only get worse with each new addition. Extremely disappointing to read half a story, a book that will never be finished. Unless I want to devote years of my life to a computer game.... and I don't.

Something I've always loved about World of Warcraft is how there is no true right or wrong side of the Alliance/Horde conflict. They each have their own justifiable reasoning for their actions.The same still holds true for this book. We can see how decisions were reached, even if we may not agree with them. It's a fine balance, making both sides relatable, and Christie Golden has done a excellent job at that.This book also read almost like a mystery: we knew something terrible was going to happen but we're kept waiting to the very end for the "who done it". Which side was responsible for starting the Battle for Azeroth? I had my guesses, but I didn't see the end coming, not like that.Excellent book, although (obviously) only for WoW fans. I don't see anyone else being quite as impacted as we are.

Not a bad read for this genre. The writing was good and it kept me interested until the end. I would even encourage fans of the Horde to read it. It confirmed for me that the new WoW expansion is going to be revolve around a ruthless Horde warchief who tries to use an exotic substance to destroy his/her enemies. Sound like a reboot of a prior expansion?

It wasn't what I expected, but I was still pleasantly surprised. I expected the book to focus on war and conflict, but it didn't. It instead focused on the development of Anduin and the relations between the humans and Forsaken, which was extremely interesting. Would you still love a family member or close friend if they came back as undead? It was something I never really thought about and was really interesting to explore in the book.Also this book made me felt genuine emotion. Not just happiness or sadness. It triggered thoughts, sympathy and an array of other things fiction generally can't get me to do.While it's not necessary to read to play the new expansion, while something like War Crimes was very important, it's still a nice read and gives a lot of insight to Anduin and Sylvanas

I was so eager to read this before the new WoW expansion came out as it was directly related to what was going on in the game. I like Christie Golden's writing, it was immersive, enticing and well paced.Obviously if you haven't played World of Warcraft or aren't familiar with any of the characters then the book is unlikely to make any sense.If you have played WoW but haven't read any of the books, this is a good one to start with. Particularly if you've played through the Battle For Azeroth content, you'll find it directly relevant.

I’ve enjoyed a lot of the previous Wow books. They add colour and context that you don’t often get in the game itself. Unfortunately this one seems to suffer from what the general feeling about BfA is across the community.....no one is really sure where it’s going.I won’t post any spoilers as such but this book felt more like a filler. Nothing revolutionary happened. No hints were dropped of any major lore changes or revelations. To be honest I was just a bit bored. A lot of the dialogue is very bland and again doesn’t really do anything for the overall story.I hope this was just this book and Blizzard have more up their sleeve for this expansion. Legion was a great expansion and had some tremendous emotional and heart wrenching moments. Currently based on this books very weak lore discussions around Azerite, and the horde/ alliance conflict, BfA is going to struggle to deliver anything close to the same kind of punch.

I bought this book to divulge an eagerness for the WoW franchise having not played in a few years. I would say that, after reading, it has made me want to play the game even more. Other than that, it's quite... well, boring.The story focuses on the faction leaders, Sylvanas and Wrynn and their discoveries of this magical rock substance called Azerite.As far as drama and action go, there is none. It simply darts the characters between capital cities and meetings with their respective leaders.The writer does a relatively good job at drawing pictures, but unfortunately, it ends there.I got bored halfway through and I started to read a lot slower. I've finally finished and I'm happy with that.

Fantastic novel once again by Christie! So much so I had to buy it in Kindle format due to the delay with my hardcover edition.By far she is my favorite novelist for WoW and it's all the more better that she has taken over head story at Blizzard for World of Warcraft. If you play the game itself, you'll find that the story kicks off with a far too familiar take on both the Alliance and Horde introduction to Azerite - as seen in the in game cut scenes.Christie is a beautiful writer, there is so much depth to the characters that she writes. I'm left at the end of the book, having shed a few tears as well as being overjoyed with the ending. I can't highly recommend her work enough, if you've ever wanted to get into understanding the story behind the game then please do pick up her work!