Slyvanas by Christie Golden was a long anticipated read that I received for my birthday. My birthday book haul can be view here. It is a direct tie to the Shadowlands expansion for World of Warcraft, WOW.

I am not currently playing WOW. I stopped playing at the beginning of Shadowlands, a very bad, very broken, very poorly executed expansion to WOW. I am also no a Sylvanas Windrunner fangirl by any stretch of the imagination.

Sylvanas is an exploration and retcon of the in-game character via novel. Over the years, Sylvanas has become the central villain that everyone loves to hate. I was never on the Sylvanas bandwagon, in fact her character always eluded me as to why she was so fascinating to millions of players.

What the book delivers for 90% of the novel, is a fascinating backstory for Sylvanas. It explores her life growing up, her family, her relationship with Nathanos, and her rise to Ranger General. It deals with her death by Arthas Menethil and her struggle and determination to break free of his control, and ultimately, her determination and drive to lead the Forsaken. All of this was a brilliant character study which helped explain the drive and motivations of Sylvanas.

That last 10% of the book is horrible. It isn’t horrible because of the writing or the character, rather it is horrible of Shadowlands. It attempts to make sense of an expansion that is nearly universally reviled by the player base. Unfortunately, this book, which was released around the same time as the expansion itself, fails to make any sense of the expansion. It fails to make sense of her underlying motivations for years in light of the expansion. It fails to convince anyone that there was a shred of logic or sense in the premise behind her motivations. Rather, that last 10% served to confirm already existing player bias pertaining to the expansion.

Had the book completely left off any mention of anything remotely related to Shadowlands it would have been a nearly flawless character study for a truly complex character in a video game. Instead, the author, who is a senior writer for Blizzard Entertainment, had to attempt to make sense of nonsense. As a result, the overall book was dragged down. She isn’t blameless in this debacle since she is a senior writer for the game.

Would I recommend the book? Yes, ultimately, I can recommend the book. It has made me incredibly nostalgic for the game and has brought back a ton of truly happy memories. Has it converted me from an Alliance to Horde player? Nope! Honestly, had it done that it would have a miracle.

Is Sylvanas Windrunner invited into the pub? As she exists in the novel? Hard to say, since she is emotionally and intellectually unstable at the best of times and her temper has a hair trigger. I also inherently do no trust an unrepentant, genocidal mass murderer. As she currently exists in retail WOW? Harder to answer since I am not currently playing but from what I have watched in cinematics on YouTube, yes. Without spoilers, the redemption arc currently playing out in retail WOW has the potential to redeem a character that has been substantially fractured for decades.