Come Along Manling

Every time I avoid grading my Ninth graders' essays, Optimus Nerd tells me the same thing:  "What a perfect time to read Gotrek and Felix."

Gotrek and who? Actually if I asked him that, he'd probably hang up on me.  You see, Gotrek and Felix: The First Omnibus is a Warhammer novel by the author William King.  For those of you who don't know, Warhammer is a fantasy world similar to Warcraft.  Both were based off board games nerds adore, and both later became a series of novels.  Phew. Also, there is a Warhammer game similar to WOW (World of Warcraft).  And I'm sure most of you know someone who spends too much time playing WOW, and not enough time socializing with live people. These are the nerds who don't have girlfriends.


It's my fault really.  After I finished The Watchmen and he finished Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (my favorite novel), I thought it would be fun to continue our book trade.  I picked Austen's Northhanger Abbey and he chose G & F.  The latter is (hold on let me find it at the bottom of my bookshelf) 763 pages.  The former novel is obviously shorter, so you can imagine my reaction when he handed his choice to me.  After my eyes bugged out at the sight of the tattooed muscular dwarf with a red mohawk on the cover, he explained that it was actually three books in one.  That meant that he would not only read Northhanger Abbey, but Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility as well. That's fair.

Now before I continue, I must admit that the book is not nearly as bad as it looked to me that day.  Gotrek and Felix are likable characters and King writes them very well.  Gotrek is this fierce dwarf with a giant battle ax who is trying to seek his doom.  Basically he wants to die a heroic death in battle.  Gotrek is all about the glory.

Felix is a poet and former aristocrat who wants to capture the dwarf's life in a captivating epic.  They get into interesting adventures, and the novel is actually a page turner.  But OMG it's so long, it's overwhelming.  As an English teacher, who is basically paid to read for a living, I already find it hard to finish any book on my reading list.  And the proper nouns in the work are abstruse to say the least.  The people and cities sound Germanish, so it's hard to keep anything or anyone straight.

G & F is like a mountain to me.  I'm struggling to get up the hill, but it's a fun hike.  I mean, I want a dwarf to drag me around and call me "manling."  I want to fight skaven (rat-like monsters). I should convince Iron Nerd to read passages of the story to me every time he visits.  Sometimes he does voices. Oooh.


To my former students who read this blog-note my use of metaphor...don't think I haven't forgotten about you.  Do your homework.