World of Warcraft: Exploring Azeroth: The Eastern Kingdoms will be the art book that launches a thousand ships

When even I know about a couple of characters being a popular fanfic pairing, I’m pretty sure everyone knows, and Flynn Fairwind and Matthias Shaw have been near the top of the OTP pile since Fairwind debuted. Now you’re telling me that Blizzard got Christie Golden to write a book about them?

It feels almost like I’m being trolled, but no this is a really real book that will soon really exist. World of Warcraft: Exploring Azeroth is a big art book with a framing story by the aforementioned Christie Golden — known to all of us as the author of amazing novels like War Crimes and Before the Storm. It involves Stormwind’s spymaster and Boralus’ favorite rogue pirate as they go on an adventure that is going to launch literally a thousand posts on Archive of Our Own.

But the book is more than just fuel for an already passionately burning fire. Blizzard’s art books are always pretty spectacular — the art department there is nothing short of fantastic and I’m looking forward to seeing the Eastern Kingdoms through new eyes, especially if the new status quo of the continent is laid out in more detail. With Tirisfal Glades basically unlivable even for the Forsaken, (who I suppose weren’t ‘living’ there but you know what I mean), and the Alliance pushing the Horde out of Arathi with a victory at the Warfront, the Horde aren’t doing great on the Eastern Kingdoms, but the Alliance aren’t really in any shape to exploit it. What is happening in the EK, and what — if anything — does that have to do with Flynn and Matthias being the Rogue class’ Odd Couple?

With Blizzard releasing the Shadowlands lead-in novel, Shadows Rising, and now the news of this book it feels like a full court media press and I’m pretty solidly here for it. I’m here just for Christie Golden writing Flynn and Matthias. Every interaction between the two has been a delight thus far with Matthias being the dry, seasoned one and Flynn the lovable disaster he is. It’s like James Bond and Han Solo teaming up. I know, you didn’t even know you wanted it, and now it’s all you ever wanted. You should thank Christie.

The book is available for pre-order, and Amazon is saying it’ll be out by October 20, 2020. I have no idea if this means anything as to when Shadowlands will be out, but I wouldn’t make any assumptions just yet.