A Guide to Guy Haley’s Prince Maesa Stories

Over the last couple of years, one of my personal highlights in Black Library’s Age of Sigmar range has been Guy Haley’s slowly-growing series of stories featuring Prince Maesa and Shattercap. Haley has written a lot of 40k and Horus Heresy stories but relatively little for Age of Sigmar, however this ongoing saga of an aelven Wanderer in search of a way to bring his lost love back to life – told across multiple stories and different mediums – is well worth checking out. As it’s not a novel, however, I sometimes wonder if it falls under the radar for a lot of readers, especially as BL hasn’t provided any guidance on how everything links together or in what order to read the different stories.

With that in mind, I thought it might be useful to take a look at the various stories in this series so far, all in one place. I’ll provide a chronological reading order, a few thoughts on why these stories are so good, and a little bit of info about each story along with links to my reviews. I hope this proves helpful, and maybe inspires a few people to get to know Prince Maesa and Shattercap!

UPDATE – The Prince Maesa novel 

Since I first published this reading order, Guy’s Prince Maesa stories have been collected together into a new ‘novel’ called (surprise, surprise) Prince Maesa. In a recent WarCom article Guy explained that “it’s far more than a simple collection – all the existing stories have been extensively rewritten to weave them into a single narrative, and the audio dramas have been expanded and turned into prose.”

I spoke to Guy to get a few more details:

“There’s a lot more new material in the novel than in most old pulp era books of the same ilk [i.e. the old ‘fix-up’ novels – ToW]. I had to finish the story off, so there’s a whole load of new episodes that take place after Hungerfiend, while Hungerfiend itself has been enormously expanded to make it fit into to the ongoing tale and to join it to the end of The Brazen Claw. In pure word count terms, there’s about 40% new material, and nearly all the existing shorts have been extended and slightly altered to bring them together and update to Age of Sigmar’s evolved continuity.”

I’ve read Prince Maesa and really enjoyed it – you can read my review here. It’s interesting to see the existing stories in a slightly different context within the broader narrative of the novel, and while I would say that the novel is probably now the best way to enjoy these stories, the individual short stories and audio dramas are still definitely worth enjoying! 

Reading order

If you already like these stories and just want to know the best order in which to read/listen to them, here’s a chronological reading order for you:

• • The Autumn Prince (audio drama)
  • The Sands of Grief (short story)
  • At the Sign of the Brazen Claw (five-part story):
    • Part One: At the Sign of the Brazen Claw
    • Part Two: The Merchant’s Story
    • Part Three: The Prince’s Tale
    • Part Four: The Sorcerer’s Tale
    • Part Five: The Hounds of Nagash
  • Hungerfiend (audio drama) 

Overview

In case you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about and who these stories are about, here’s a quick overview. The main character, Prince Maesa, is an aelven Wanderer who’s scouring the Mortal Realms for the ways and means to be reunited with his lost love, Ellamar. The problem is, Maesa is a long-lived aelf while Ellamar was a human (and you just know that theirs was a forbidden love), and when these stories begin all Maesa has left of his beloved is…somewhat creepily…her skull. That’s not going to stop him, however, and he’s utterly determined to find a way to bring her back to him.

Accompanying Maesa on his quest is a spite named Shattercap – a malicious little spirit that Maesa fondly calls ‘little evil’, and who spends most of the time grumbling about the danger they’re in, squeaking in fear, or making snarky little comments from the safety of Maesa’s hood. For all his mischief and cowardice, Shattercap seems to genuinely want to be more than just the dangerous little menace that many see him as, even if he’s not entirely sure what that entails, while Maesa is patiently determined to teach Shattercap to be ‘good’.

A big part of the appeal of these stories is the relationship between the calm, assured aelf and the bitter, sneaky little spite. There’s a real bond between them, but at the same time a question mark over whether Shattercap can truly overcome his nature, and ultimately it’s just really interesting to spend time with two such wildly different characters. As a big fan of the audio format, I personally think that the two audio dramas enhance this experience, as even when reading the short stories I can hear John Banks’ and Matthew Hunt’s voices as the characters speak!

One of the things I like the most about the best Age of Sigmar stories is the way they allow us as readers to explore the Mortal Realms, and get a sense of the identity for each realm. The Maesa stories do this really well, offering an interesting point of view on the various locations they visit. Up to this point they have mostly explored Shyish, from the realm’s edge to a strange tavern built around the stone finger of a colossal sleeping giant, but there have also been glimpses of Shadespire (which is sort of Shyish and sort of not), Ghur, Hysh and Ulgu. I can’t think of too many non-human (or Stormcast) perspectives in Age of Sigmar fiction so far, so Maesa’s point of view on all of these locations is great to see.

On top of all of that, these are just really entertaining stories. I’ll talk a bit about each story in the next section, with links out to my reviews, but taken as a whole I’ve really enjoyed getting to know these characters, and while Maesa’s overarching quest seems to only be in its early stages, I’m already keen to find out what he plans to do next and how he hopes to cheat Nagash out of the soul of poor, lost Ellamar. It’s a compelling narrative that I can genuinely recommend to anyone interested in Age of Sigmar fiction, and I hope this article will help clarify how to get started with these stories.

They’re simply begging to be collected together into a single volume at some point (which will hopefully make them a bit more accessible), perhaps with a new story or two to add yet more depth and detail, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for that. It looks like Black Library are keeping Haley busy with 40k fiction at the moment, but hopefully he’ll be able to find some time in his busy schedule to revisit Maesa and Shattercap in the not too distant future. In the meantime, at least we have these great stories to enjoy!

Story breakdown

At the time of writing there are eight Prince Maesa stories – two audio dramas, one e-short and five serialised short stories. As and when any further stories are released I’ll update this article, but for now here are a few quick thoughts on each of those stories, along with links out to my reviews and details of how to get hold of each one.

The Autumn Prince
This is where Prince Maesa’s story begins, searching the cursed ruins of Shadespire for the trapped spirit of one of the city’s not-quite-dead Katophranes. This isn’t an origin story, but it provides enough backstory to understand what’s driving Maesa and the lengths he’s prepared to go to, and makes for a fantastic introduction to these characters. It’s currently only available in its original (28-minute) audio drama form, but I would urge you to check it out as the performances of the cast do a wonderful job of bringing Maesa (John Banks) and Shattercap (Matthew Hunt, I think) to life – it’s worth it just to hear Shattercap!

Check out my review of The Autumn Prince.

Available as a standalone audio drama or within The Darkness in the Glass.

The Sands of Grief
The next instalment sees Maesa and Shattercap starting off in the Free City of Glymmsforge in Shyish, before setting out in search of the magical essence of his beloved Ellamar. It offers an interesting glimpse of life (or rather the lack of it) out in the wilds of Shyish, and ties in loosely with one of the ongoing narrative events that have peppered Age of Sigmar’s development for the last couple of years. If there were any doubts after The Autumn Prince that these were compelling, fascinating characters, this story put those to bed – it’s a great standalone tale, and an intriguing next step.

Check out my review of The Sands of Grief.

Available as a standalone short story or within the Myths & Revenants and Sacrosanct & Other Stories anthologies.

At the Sign of the Brazen Claw
In my opinion at least, Black Library doesn’t have the greatest record with serialised stories – but this five-part tale is a resounding success! In essence it’s a straightforward story of Maesa and Shattercap waiting at an inn for an airship to whisk them away from Shyish, passing the time in conversation with the other guests while a storm passes. Each instalment sees one of the party tell their own story, from a tragic tale of a duardin craftsman in the Ulgu to a story of arrogance and envy in Hysh (via a skaven gnawhole), building up a rich and varied picture of the different characters. Every story is interesting in its own right, while the whole thing builds up to a climactic, action-packed conclusion, and while there’s plenty for Maesa and Shattercap to do there’s also loads to enjoy in the glimpses of the various Realms visited across the different stories.

Check out all my reviews of the At the Sign of the Brazen Claw stories.

Available in instalments within the first five volumes of Inferno!

Hungerfiend
This short audio drama takes place in Ghur, as Maesa and co. hunt a dangerous spirit deep in the mountains. While released before the At the Sign of the Brazen Claw stories were concluded, it takes place after the events of the final instalment, and includes one of the characters that Maesa and Shattercap met in the inn. It’s worth doing these stories in order if you can, but it’s not desperately spoilerific if you listen to this out of series – but do listen to it, as it’s both another entertaining adventure in its own right (with perhaps fewer ties into the wider, ongoing narrative) and another great opportunity to hear Maesa and Shattercap brought to life.

Check out my review of Hungerfiend.

Available as a standalone audio drama or within The Palace of Memory and Other Stories.

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I hope this has been useful, whether as an introduction to these stories and characters, a reminder of what makes them so much fun, or in any other way! If you haven’t already, do take a look at my reviews of these stories, and give them a go – you can always check out the samples on the BL website if you want to try before you buy.

Have you read some or all of these stories? Do you have a favourite, or is there something you’d like to see Maesa and Shattercap get up to next? Let me know in the comments below, or over on Twitter.

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