Book Review: Sylvannas by Christie Golden

If there is one genre of books that I could read for the rest of my life out of pure guilty pleasure, it would be fantasy. The ability to reach deep into your imagination to visualize a world completely different from your own demonstrates the level of empathy that you will see within yourself as you start to understand the plight of different races and the humbling understanding that, of all the worlds that you can live in, life chose for you to live in this one. Whether or not alternate universes exist is a mystery, but I like to believe that somewhere a world of fantasy, dragons and magic resides. After a while, you start to realise that your imagination stretches beyond your mind’s eye and becomes your reality as you get lost in the lives of elves, dwarves and humans, and the tumultuous world that they live in.

There are many different fantasy genres. There are the epic fantasy’s of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”, gothic fantasy like Sarpowski’s “The Witcher” series, but World of Warcraft is High Fantasy; easily the most immersive. Not only that, but I’ve lived in the World of Warcraft world most of my life, and grew up alongside the characters in a ever-changing story that started 20 years ago. The story is deep, touching and sometimes goes awry but to me the characters feel as real as the ones in this reality. It is sad whenever I read a book that goes into detail about the life of one of those characters because chances are, you already know how it ends, and it is almost always sad.

The one that Golden has published this year (2022) is one of Sylvannas Windrunner, the Ranger General of Silvermoon who dies at the hands of Arthas and raised as an undead Banshee. Sylvannas then fights Arthas and manages to gain her free will, where she uses it to commit large scale genocide, essentially declaring war on the rest of Azeroth. By the publication of this book we know that she is doomed to the Shadowlands to retrieve the soul of everyone she’s ever killed. In other words, she is doomed to an eternity in hell.

Golden’s book tries to show us the complexity of her character, and the reasons for her change. We go deep into Sylvannas’ childhood, her teenage mischief and her romances. We learn about her relationship with her parents, sisters and brother, and how the love that bonded them that was stripped away piece by piece due to circumstances surrounding the Horde and the rise of the undead. Knowing that these calamities will happen makes the happy moments of the book even more bittersweet, and the sad times of the book a relief, for you know that Sylvannas can no longer be hurt anymore than she already has. Golden shows us that this is wrong, and there is always a ledge that one can fall off of.

Golden’s story centers around the idea of hope, and she shows us that despite the hardest of calamities, we cannot lose it. Sylvannas, an undead that was initially rejected by her own kind and family, still clings to the hope that everyone she loves can all be together one day, whether in life or in death, and that she will learn to love again, an emotion that she has long forgotten. The story ends with the hope that, after spending an eternity in the shadowlands in repentance of her crimes, she will live to see a brighter day.

Of all the books that I’ve ever read, nobody writes as smoothly, simplistically yet so detailed like Golden. Her ability to craft a story out of a character so broken and deranged shows her deep understanding of the character, and this can be seen so well through the book. I am definitely looking forward to her next instalment, which will probably appear with the next installment of the World of Warcraft expansion.

This book has a high rating, but it is impossible to fully appreciate the book without understand the entire lore of the world, and this is something that I highly recommend. From the games, to the podcasts, to the books. This world has been life shaping and life changing, and I do wish you would share in the experience with me.

Shorel'aran, until next time!

Matthew Tan