The Enemy Within

by Richard Lee Byers

Book Overview

The practice of magic is strictly controlled in the Empire, and rogue mages are ruthlessly hunted down by the witch hunters. An Imperial wizard is blackmailed into infiltrating a vile Chaos cult - if... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1844164446
• ISBN13: 9781844164448
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Black Library
• Length: 253 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Chaos is the Order of the Day

Richard L. Byers has been a literary gun for hire for several years, having written roleplaying tie in novels for both the 'Dungeons and Dragons' Forgotten Realms setting, and the 'World of Darkness' by White Wolf. This is his first Warhammer Fantasy novel. It is a reasonably strong entry in the series, although narrow in focus. The focus is the hidden corrupting form of chaos. Lots of fun cultists here. It's one of the more slimline books in the series, but it feels like alot of information was packed in to the pages. The writing is better than average, although I didn't really click with the main character. There is some good background here if you are a gamesmaster planning a city based chaos campaign. Dark Fantasy.

Solid book. Worth the read

This is the first book I've read by this author, but I hope it won't be the last. The writing was solid and the plot was fine, if not entirely original for a Warhammer novel (i.e. how far can you interact with Chaos before being twisted into a follower). Not as good as some others in the Warhammer line (particularly the Witch Hunter series by CL Werner), but not bad.

One of the best warhammer books

I have read several Warhammer novels and this is one of the best. It is a page-turner and keeps you curious to discover how everything will unfold. The protagonist is blackmailed by a witch hunter to infiltrate a chaos cult and discover its leader or be denounced as a heretic, even if the witch hunter know he is innocent. The protagonist doesn't know if the witch hunter will keep his word. Initially loathing the use of chaos, he finds out that chaos it is a very powerful tool and he gets more and more involved. The infiltration in the cult of chaos begins to corrupt his mind even if he still is faithful to the purpose. This creates an excellent tension as he can't wait too long to discover the leader or he risks his sanity. ***SPOILERS*** The best part of the book is when, coming in contact with the chaos cerimonials and artefact, he mutates and develops a third eye in the middle of the forehead. Then, even if he discover the leader of the cult, probably the only place that will accept him now is the chaos cult. And the witch hunter promise to release him seems much more remote.

A solid Warhammer novel

Despite being Richard L. Byers 1st Warhammer novel he does capture the genre well, and the witting is solid. (He has written a number of books in the World of Darkness setting, and I think he has done some work on RPG books.) Overall it's a cut above most Warhammer books, but the lack of non stop action will disappoint many warhammer fanboys. There is no connection between that I can remember between this novel and the famed campaign of the same name. (Honestly it's been a decade so I may have forgotten.) But enough of why you might not like this book. The book is very well written for a warhammer book, and the main character is well fleshed out. You actually grow to care for a couple of characters even knowing it can only end poorly for them. The basis of the story is about Dieter Schumann a Celestial wizard blackmailed into joining a Chaos cult to ferret out the mysterious leader of the cult. His struggles to resist the lure of Chaos, while moving up the ranks of the cult. Initially I felt cheapened by a few plot holes, and the main character's cluelessness, but the author nicely wraps up everything in the end to a tidy whole.