World of Warcraft: Exploring Azeroth: Islands & Isles (Exploring Azeroth, 5)

This book is awesome for any WoW fan that’s into the lore, enough for example, to be interested in how Lor’themar’s and Thalyssra’s marriage is going, since them finding a good place for their delayed honeymoon is the framing device. The book both includes a lot of content about the different places players would be familiar with since Legion (except Shadowlands. There is zero about Shadowlands); and also manages to really build on their relationship and love story. It feels good to read about the places we saved and how they’re doing (while also leaving breadcrumbs for future stories we can expect to play/see); and also to see things like Lor’themar being in love or Thalyssra as well. If you’re an old school fan knowing Lor’themar since The Burning Crusade, it’s nice to see the man get to relax and be a happy wife-guy for a bit. Overall, highly recommend the book to all the fellow WoW lore nerds out there.

Off the chain. My son loved it and is collecting them all. The quality is beautiful and seems very well made. Pictures are fantastic. Well written true fans are going to love it.

If you love World of Warcraft lore, then this is for you.

(4.5 stars) This book is a solid conclusion to the World of Warcraft: Exploring Azeroth series. After a questionable start to the series, it definitely came into its own more with The Northrend and Pandaria books, then concludes well with this entry. The earlier books were risk adverse in showing Azeroth as a changing, living landscape and had often a number of issues - from the technical, lore-wise errors and odd choices, to sensitivity considerations, and the lack of understanding that Warcraft draws a *lot* of inspiration from real world peoples and cultures, then fails to handle depictions in careful, or at least, considerate and thoughtful ways. World of Warcraft: Exploring Azeroth - Islands and Isles handles this better than it's earlier predecessors (although still has a couple of questionable choices re: Trolls and troll culture, which could have strengthened by greater depth, viewpoints, or simply could have been noted differently). But as an overall, does provide a fun and enlightening romp through the changes occurring in Azeroth. While I was was initially hesitant about Thalyssra and Lor'themar being the 'narrators' of this book - would they be either of the flavours of girlboss/wifeguy or bland-ish as the (overwhelming amount) of man/woman couples in Warcraft are? - they actually turned out not too grating at all, and the book takes an interesting direction with their relationship and the challenges they were facing. Their story is intervowen well with the different locations covered, and their journeys provided some good insight to what places had changed, and how relationships between groups/factions/etc were also changing and evolving. Props to the art in this book as well - it's beautiful! An additional positive is how Wrathion is handled - it's far better than the majority of his recent in-game characterisation/narrative in Dragonflight. The Dragon Isles section is also fun and a nice look back on the locales of the expansion that's just passed. If anything, this series left me wanting more detail about the changes occurring in Azeroth - when this world is depicted with thought and more complex world-building, it really does show the possibilities that could unfold!

Good quality book, I have the collection so it was needed to add to.