Title: Vorodin’s Lair
Author: J. V. Hilliard
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 448
Rating: 4/5
Full disclosure here: I work with J. V. Hilliard as an editor and had an input on this book, although Hilliard did most of the work and so I can only claim responsibility for any errors.
Vorodin’s Lair is the second book in Hilliard’s Warminster series and continues to build on the work that he’s already done. By this point, the characters have already gone through a heck of a lot and so it’s difficult to talk about the plot for fear of sharing spoilers of the first book.
What I can say is that all of the awesome story lines keep going in this one, and we also get a bunch of new characters and locations to enjoy. Warminster already felt like a real place, but the work that Hilliard does here helps to take it to the next dimension. The result is one of the most vivid fantasy worlds that I’ve ever come across.
I think that part of the reason for that is that Hilliard started out as a dungeon master in Dungeons & Dragons, and so he’s spent so much time with these characters already that it’s easy for him to write convincingly. Like Tolkien and Martin, you get the vibe that Hilliard is just a historian who happens to have travelled to a fantasy world and then come back to tell us what he learned about its history.
One of the things that I enjoy the most about his work is that he’s equally good at writing about good characters as he is about the bad guys. In fact, there are also one of two of them who are morally grey – something that I always enjoy – and there are others whose motives are so far unclear. I can’t wait to learn more about it.
The good news is that there are more books coming from Mr. Hilliard, and he’s been working at a pretty rapid pace and so we shouldn’t have to wait for too long before we hold a copy of book three in our hands. He’s also been doing all sorts of cool stuff both on his social media and elsewhere, including by teaming up with a game provider to really bring Warminster to life.
And so if you haven’t discovered Warminster yet then consider this your reminder to do so. As with most fantasy, you’re going to want to read the books in order, so get started with The Last Keeper and then move on to this one once you’re ready. If you’re a fantasy fan, you’ll love it.
