BOOK REVIEW: The Legend of Deathwalker (David Gemmell)

Book: The Legend of Deathwalker

Author: David Gemmell

Rating: 8.5/10


A story from the past of Druss the Legend, One of Gemmell's best characters.

In this story it starts with Druss on the walls of Dros Delnoch speaking to a fellow soldier facing Ulric and his Nadir horde( the setting of another book) and he starts telling the story of this book and thus the main story begins....
Druss is competing in a game of nations in Gulgothir as the Drenai wrestler after injuring the real one in a practise fight, he is his usual
un-defeatable self and against the odds makes it to the final. Now he is against the Gothir fighter Klay and it is set to be a contest of giants,
There's just one set back; The mad king of the Gothir has decreed that Druss will lose in a "prophecy" and if he wins it could be seen as a Drenai attempt to destabilise the Gothir nation.

Or so the Drenai diplomats tell him.

However the people behind the mad-king on the throne need to make sure that Druss loses and send armed fighters to injure or kill him outside a bar.

This plan backfires drastically when Klay witnesses the attack and gets involved to save Druss, and is badly wounded.

When news of this reaches the public all bets on the fight are cancelled and riots break out all over the city,


In the following chaos Druss learns of healing stones said to be hidden in the lands of the Nadir, only these will restore Klay, if they exist.


So Druss and his friend Sieben the poet travel to the shrine of the father of the Nadir to find the stones, but when he arrives he finds himself entangled in a battle between a few hundred nadir and a few thousand Gothir warriors trying to crush their sacred site.

and while the battle rages Druss must walk the land of Death to save spirits trapped by demons, If he wants to find the jewels on top of fighting a Gothir army that outnumbers them 100-1

Can Druss succeed?
and find out how he gets his nadir name, read it.


The twist with the combat and magic in Hell is also nice, but I don't want to spoil that for you...






I can't get enough of David Gemmell and his various books set in the same medieval land.
  This is yet another brilliant one, It's a good stand alone story but I think it would be better If you also read Legend, but either order would work, they're both about Druss.
If you haven't started reading Gemmell yet your missing out big time ! check out my other reviews of his books and then get them and read them :)

Hope you found this review helpful, (and sorry I haven't posted in a while and  if it's a little short and light on the details than usual,)
The Devonian Book Reviewer

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BOOK REVIEW: Aftershock(Mark Walden) H.I.V.E

Book:  Aftershock-H.I.V.E

Author: Mark Walden

Rating:   8.25/10


Otto Malpense is back again for another adventure at H.I.V.E ( The Higher Institute of Villainous Education) and Mark Walden has done another good job.

Dr. Nero ,the head of H.I.V.E and the leader of the Global League of Villainous Enterprises(G.L.O.V.E)
has made some very powerful enemies after his decision to disband G.L.O.V.E's ruling council after the events of Overlord in the previous books.


Meanwhile Otto and his fellow alpha students are preparing for end of year tests, including  one of the hardest assessments in H.I.V.E:
- The Hunt

An arctic survival challenge where the students must avoid Raven and a team of GLOVE agents for as long as possible.


But all at H.I.V..E is not what it seems,  somewhere there is a traitor, feeding information to the treacherous former members and the Disciples, the former followers of Overlord.

So when the Hunt is ambushed a survival exercise becomes more than a game. Otto and his friends must escape the ambush then flee through the wilderness,  the others are captured or dead,
can they make it back to HIVE alive?

Pursued, they must try to reach a safe point to call for help, but is there such a thing as a safe point when Otto knows there's a traitor in their midst?


A feature I really like about this book is that not only does it give you the main story but also little insights into Raven's training as an assassin and how she became the operative she is. There's a number of chapters dedicated to her harsh treatment and becoming the killing machine she is.






This book is good. It's what hopefully appears to be a start of a new storyline.
Mark Walden is a masterful writer of HIVE books and I have read and enjoyed all of them so far, it's not to complex to read and some of the detail is a little light in places but that's made up for because it's  full of action and suspense. The number of crisises they have and the twists and turns how can you fail to like an action book about kids learning to be villains that includes abandoned Russian military facilities in the middle of nowhere.
It doesn't require you to have read the books before but it does help you understand some of the references.

If you haven't already started reading this series then you should start now.


Hope you found this review helpful,
The Devonian Book Reviewer

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