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    Triumff
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    Triumff
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    Triumff
    Ebook369 pages5 hours

    Triumff

    By Dan Abnett

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    IT IS THE YEAR 2010. NO, REALLY.

    Her Divine Majesty Queen Elizabeth XXX sits upon the throne. Great Britain's vast Empire is run by Alchemy and Superstition.

    Sir Rupert Triumff. Adventurer. Fighter. Drinker. Saviour? Pratchett goes swashbuckling in the hotly anticipated original fiction debut of the multi-million selling Warhammer star. Triumff is a ribald historical fantasy set in a warped clockwork-powered version of our present day ! a new Elizabethan age, not of Elizabeth II but in the style of the original Virgin Queen. Throughout its rollicking pages, Sir Rupert Triumff drinks, dines and duels his way into a new Brass Age of Exploration and Adventure.

    File Under: Fantasy [Alternate History | Wild Magic | Swashbuckling | Unforgivable Puns! ]

    E-book ISBN: 978-0-85766-023-7
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAngry Robot
    Release dateAug 31, 2010
    ISBN9780857660237
    Author

    Dan Abnett

    Dan Abnett ha escrito más de cuarenta novelas, entre ellas la aclamada serie de Los Fantasmas de Gaunt y las trilogías de Eisenhorn y Ravenor. Sus novelas más recientes de The Horus Heresy, La batalla de Calth y El imperio olvidado, han entrado en la lista de los más vendidos del New York Times. Además de escribir para The Black Library, Dan ha firmado guiones para audio libros, películas, juegos y cómics para grandes editoriales tanto de Reino Unido como de Estados Unidos. También ha escrito el guion de la primera novela gráfica de The Horus Heresy, Macragge’s Honour. También es autor de otras novelas de éxito como Torchwood: Border Princes, Doctor Who:The Silent Stars Go By, Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero y Planeta 86. Vive y trabaja en Maidstone, Kent.

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    Reviews for Triumff

    3/5

    71 ratings12 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This one’s a bit hard to categorize, since it’s an alternate history fantasy with hints of steampunk. Perhaps the best description of it comes from a review blurb which likens it to a collaboration between Rowan Atkinson and William Shakespeare after a night out drinking with Sir Terry Pratchett.

      Whatever, it’s a sprightly romp, taking place in a 21st-century London ruled by Queen Elizabeth XXX, courtesy of a marriage between Elizabeth I and Phillip II of Spain, back in the day, which of course bent the entire course of world history. Also in this world, technology leans toward Leonardo daVinci -- Henry Ford and Thomas Alva Edison being absent from the scene. The Church is in charge of Magick. But now there are dark forces afoot and adventurer Rupert Triumff, recently returned from the discovery of Australia, is somewhat reluctantly drawn into the battle to keep the world from falling to the forces of darkness – aided and abetted by a toothsome actress, a retired mercenary, a withered old dame from upcountry, an Italian magicker, a six-foot-tall cat, and a generally-naked native of Australia.

      It’s a total romp, larded in pretty equal measure with outlandish action scenes and dreadful puns. Readers not conversant with Elizabethan slang may want to keep a specialty dictionary of archaic and obsolete terms at hand, the better to look up such offerings as autocthon, quillion, rouncey, snaphaunce, and pantofle. There are a couple of bobbles that may or may not annoy the reader – apparently some kind of glitch in the editing software puts the page number of footnoted items into the text, as in “I won’t be another Crompton Finney60”, followed by a superscript footnote number. Worse, there’s a scene on page 209 where a Major Bad Guy meets his end, only to turn up again apparently unharmed on page 279, ready to do battle. It’s never addressed in the text and apparently the copy editors never caught it.

      It’s all great fun, and made for an interesting read over a snowy weekend. But a little goes a long way, and it’s not good enough for this reader to seek out more of Abnett’s stuff.
    • 3/5
      This should have been all my jam, where Queen Elizabeth I is the ancestor of the current Elizabeth XX and it's 2010 and magic works. Because magic works the world has become stagnant and it's almost like many years of progress never happened. And this is where I have a problem with the story, things would have progressed over time, fashion changes, it doesn't matter how you want things to remain in aspic things do change. The fashions at the beginning of Elizabeth I's reigh aren't the same as later.

      Honestly it was an effort to finish the book, I found the last portion better than the rest but I found myself very meh about it all, I didn't care who lived or died and I just wanted it to be over. There are chunks of book I don't really remember and don't care to refresh myself about them. I found it easy to put down and there were months between reading some parts.
    • 3/5
      You know I'm still not sure what I think. I know there is some things I hated such as the jump from 1st person unreliable narrator to 3rd person omniscient narrator and back again. Find a point of view or at least blanking explain why you are doing it, just don't jump. That's enough to make it a 1. The dates were confusing. You couldn't figure out if you were in Elizabethan England our time line or if you were in a fantasy time line for quite a while and then it pulled up a date and you knew you were in an alternative history timeline for current era.

      What drags it up to a 5 is the descriptions, the characters and the humor. I was laughing so hard I was crying and I have made a note never buy a swiss sword with more than 3 working parts.

      So I took the middle and gave it a 3. It could have been very amazing but the lack of stability in the writing itself killed it and it wasn't well done enough to get away with it.
    • 3/5
      Set in England in 2010, but not the England we know, it is an England little changed from Elizabethan times, an England where Elizabeth XXX reigns, an unbroken succession of Elizabeths since Elizabeth I. The rebirth of Magick at the time of the Renaissance in turn prevented the incidence of the Industrial Revolution; however this alternative England still benefits from many of it own versions of our modern day conveniences.

      Set against this background, we soon learn that there is a treasonous plot afoot, a plot to do away with the Queen and change the whole structure of life. Here Sir Rupert Triumff, adventurer, discover of new worlds*, playboy, drunk, and the Queens favourite comes to the rescue (we hope).
      (*The new world Triumff discoveres being Australia, an Australia as we know it today, Magick not being practised there it has advanced technologically, although Triumff wants to keep this information to himself)

      So much for what the book is about, but how does it read? Firstly it is very funny, it is written in quasi Elizabethan English, but readily understandable, there is much play on words and much amusement to be had from among other things the alternative conveniences of modern day life. But while I found it very amusing, it did not find it a compelling read. I think the reason for this is the shallow nature of the characters, more comic strip than fully fleshed out. Despite the often flowery prose the plot moves swiftly enough, and there is plenty of action, yet this was not enough to sustain my interest, in truth I found that each time I had to make an effort to pick the book up to continue reading.

      I should mention to that the book is written mostly in the third person, but sometimes in the first person. The reason: it is “written” by the self-effacing Master Wllm Beaver, a civilian, who writes in the first person when he is there to witness the events, and in the third when these events are otherwise relayed to him.

      I am sure there are readers who will find this book very much to their taste, but I like a book where I can identify with the characters, can warm to the characters, or a least some of them, but I did not find this so with Triumff.
    • 3/5
      Substance: "It is the year 2010. Her Divine Majesty, Queen Elizabeth XXX sits upon the throne. Great Britain's vast Empire is run by alchemy and superstition. Now Sir Rupert Triumff, a dashing swordsman, has uncovered a vile plot to dethrone her glorious majesty. For the honour of the nation: to arms!"
      And basically that's it. Lots of buckling swash, bawdry, and evil magicians. Unfortunately, the plot really doesn't hold together, but who cares?

      Style: "Triumff is a witch's brew of alternate history, hocus pocus, cracking action and cheesy gags. Reads like Blackadder crossed with Neal Stephenson" or like Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman in league.

      NOTES: The surprise ending at the very end is kind of flat, since it had no harbingers.
    • 3/5
      I really wanted to like this gonzo riff on a world where the rediscovery of magic preempts much of current day technology and helps lead to a prolonged Elizabethan age, but this work is so busy and meanders around so much that at a certain point it just gave me a headache; file under too clever by half. It would have made a dynamite graphic novel (as the author originally intended). It still might make a great setting for a video game; imagine a humorous take on the "Assassin's Creed" series.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I was told that it was a laugh a page sort of book, something I do not agree with wholly. I did laugh a lot at this book, but I found there was long patches where I was left waiting for the humor to arrive. I liked the combination of sword and magic, in a modern day. I also liked that if you stuck with magic, your country was doomed to stay in the middle ages, where if you left magic behind you advanced to current times. Overall an interesting read, and I would read more by this author for sure. I am hoping that he goes back and revisits Triumff for future books.
    • 4/5
      Despite feeling like I missed a lot of the jokes, I really enjoyed this book. It's a take on what would happen if the Renaissance had embraced a return to magic, rather than a move towards humanism and science. According to Abnett, it would mean a neverending Elizabethan era populated by drunken heros and some hilariously bad puns. I had fun reading it and look forward to further adventures.
    • 4/5
      There have been plenty of attempts to break in to the entertaining fantasy fiction genre and although numerous authors have been successful, their success is marginalised by the towering stature of Pratchett. Dan Abnett is about to be a contender with Triumpff, a tale about a swashbuckling gung-ho man, his companions and a dastardly plot to overthrow The Unity. The setting is an alternate history, where Britain rediscovers magic at the cost of science and education. It's well thought through, with incredible attention to detail and the lavish humour, wit and quantity of puns make Triumff a blast. There is a flaw which presents itself very early and is sustained throughout - the vocabulary. At some points even the author jests about the unlikely words used within, for even those with an extensive vocabulary will find themselves in need of a comprehensive dictionary to fully keep up. That aside, Triumpff paints a wonderful new scenario, with plenty of likeable heroes and dastardly villains. More please.
    • 4/5
      much, much fun - quite Pratchet-esque
    • 5/5
      It's 2010, and Elizabeth XXX sits upon the throne of the Unity, the English and Spanish empire that rules the world. This is a wholly different England to the modern version, instead it is regressive and Magick is used in place of modern technology.

      Sir Rupert Triumff is a swashbuckling explorer who has just returned from a voyage of exploration. He's a playboy, a drunk, an expert swordsman and mariner, and above all else, devoted to his queen. It quickly becomes apparent that a treacherous and devious plot is afoot, and Triumff is stuck bang square in the middle. Cue the rollicking adventures.

      With this novel, Abnett has staked himself firmly as a successor to Pratchett. It is, in turns, adventurous, creative and inventive, and above all else, hilariously funny. Abnett holds a degree in English from Oxford and this is apparent in the quality of the writing. He's managed to fit in a lot of modern puns and jokes, merging them seamlessy with the Elizabethan London. The villains are bad, the heroes are good (if sometimes a little morally dubious) and it's a great read. I'm genuinely looking forward to picking up the next installment of Triuff, Her Majesty's Hero.
    • 5/5
      In spite of the general silliness and fun Dan manages to create a successfully sinister undertone from early on. There is of course plotting, intrigue and treason and although Triumff may laugh off most of the threats to his wellbeing there is a thread of nastiness that reminds you Abnett is not known for writing hugs and puppies.

      As the book progresses the plot thickens and becomes increasingly dark and sinister, the humour becoming a lighter touch and the tension drawn tighter. There is a good plot, suitably complex, well drawn characters and a dramatic climax. More than that, like any good play, I liked all the people I was supposed to like and the villains were all suitable for melodramatic booing and hissing. I was rooting for he good guys on this one. Triumff was a triumph. (oh I know, but read it and that will seem oddly fitting).