After completing the Tides of Darkness over my vacation, I could not wait to dive into Beyond the Dark Portal. Aaron Rosenberg returns to pen his second Warcraft novel, this time teamed with long-time Blizzard novelist Christie Golden. With my appreciation of ToD well documented, I was in heavy anticipation to get to the other side of the portal and be re-introduced to Outlands from a whole new perspective. Having Beyond The Dark Portal's plot pick up almost exactly where it left off in ToD seemed like it would be quite a treat.
The deep connection to the previous novel wasn't all that gravitated me toward reading the series back-to-back.
Beyond the Dark Portal, developed by Cyberlore Studios and not Blizzard Entertainment, was the game that managed to pull me away from
Command & Conquer camp and into the Warcraft universe. Therefore, good ole nostalgia played a hefty role in my decision.
Enough about why I chose to read the book and more about the book. Originally, I believed that I would enjoy reading more about my favorite characters from Tides. However, I think the writers went a little overboard, relying too heavily on the previous characters and not introducing any new noteworthy persons. If you haven't read any of the previous novels then there are new focuses -
Ner'Zhul,
Deathwing,
his three children and the rest of the
Black Dragonflight for instance - but they are the only worthwhile characters. For those that have read the previous novels, then minor characters like
Kargath Bladefist and
Danath Trollbane will be the most notable new faces.
While the returning characters may annoy some, we are treated to the addition of some other races, including the Gnomes, Draenei, Naaru and a more in-depth look at Goblins than ever before. Despite the lack of all-new major characters, Rosenberg and Golden kept the epic plotline of the game moving with added detail, numerous details and links to World of Warcraft's incarnation of Outlands, sticking with the mature action sequences and solid dialog. I was pleasantly surprised that Rosenberg was able to keep BtDP's dialogue in check. In my opinion, Golden's dialogue is always her weak point.
If you haven't read any of the other Warcraft-inspired novels, then this is not a good starting point. There are several reasons why one should avoid Beyond the Dark Portal as their introduction to the written Warcraft universe. This is mostly because it is a direct sequel to the aforementioned Tides of Darkness, reusing many major characters from that novel and continuing the plot. It also continues Khadgar's story from
The Last Guardian. Simply put, this isn't the strongest book in the series, period.
If you want to get started then grab the compiled introductory trilogy. It'll start you off on three separate storylines and you can go from there. The Archive, rather than the separate books, also comes with Chris Metzen's short story - 200 pages - Of Blood And Honor which details major events in Tirion Fordring's life.
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