Adrian Collins's Blog, page 11

REVIEW: RoboCop: Unfinished Business

RoboCop: Unfinished Business is a standalone expansion for RoboCop: Rogue City. I was a huge fan of Rogue City and thought it was a fantastic game that fully managed to capture the appeal of one of my favorite sci-fi franchises. RoboCop is a classic of the cyberpunk genre and envisioned a crime-ridden version of Detroit dominated by a corrupt megacorporation and a police force largely defined by only a couple of decent officers. Rogue City had all the violence, dark humor, and world-building that made the original, so great plus got Peter Weller back for the role. So, does Unfinished Business live up to its predecessor? Yes and no.

The premise for Unfinished Business is a variant on The Raid and Dredd with Alex Murphy AKA RoboCop heading to a massive skyscraper apartment building in order to investigate a bunch of mercenaries. These mercenaries attacked RoboCop’s precinct, killed a bunch of cops, and made off with his chair.  The mercenaries intend to use the chair to hijack all of OCP’s technology and take over the city like was the plot of the RoboCop: Prime Directives. RoboCop goes to OmniTower without backup or jurisdiction to destroy everyone standing in the way between him as well as administering justice.

OmniTower is an arcology that consists of a self-contained megastructure that contains apartments, a mall, laboratories, office space, a shantytown, a garbage level, and other locations that provide variety of locations in gameplay. Still, everything is a brutalist concrete design with a lot of environmental storytelling. OCP clearly didn’t finish the “modern living facility” before it began to mass import citizens from its Delta City project into the place that is now little more than a concentration camp. Worse, no one can leave because OCP’s security is entirely automated.

Much of Unfinished Business is straightforward waves of enemies attacking Alex as he eliminates them one room after another until he can move up to the next level. There’s a small variety of new enemies to accompany the mercenaries like drones and Otomo katana-wielding robots. However, I feel like the gameplay does get a bit repetitive. The fact it started as DLC rather than a standalone game also shows up in the fact that most enemies are variants on the late-game mercenaries from Rogue City.

Thankfully, the game does break up its wave combat with safe zone where RoboCop can interact with NPCs as well as investigate a variety of crimes going on in OmniTower. These can range from checking on an old man’s wife that he was separated from to trying to track down a bomb defuser so someone doesn’t blow themselves up. Even so, there’s few characters that provide much in the way of emotional depth with Doctor Miranda Cale and villain Cassius Graves being poor substitutes for the previous game’s use of Lewis and the New Guy.

If I had to make any major complaint about the game, it would be three things: 1:] fact that a lot of the sidequests are difficult to find and there’s no way of knowing whether you’ve found all of them by the time you’re ready to move onto the next level. 2:] There’s no New Game+ or ability to replay old levels, so it feels like a downgrade from the base game. 3:] There’s no bosses in the game like ED-209 or RoboCop 2. I might also add that there’s a fine line between homage and derivative with this being close to the edge regarding Dredd.

In conclusion, RoboCop: Unfinished Business is fantastic content for DLC but undercooked for a sequel. I was a big fan of Far Cry: Blood Dragon, which managed to be a short but fantastic game built on the bones of Far Cry 3. This isn’t quite that level. Still, I can’t complain about the price with it about thirty dollars as a download. Good game but I wish they’d worked on it a little more and made it a full sequel instead of a “standalone expansion.”

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REVIEW: Only a Grave Will Do by James Lloyd Dulin

Well, I don’t know if I finished Only a Grave Will Do or if it finished me, but safe to say that James Lloyd Dulin absolutely nailed this epic finale to the Malitu series. I mean, THIS is how you write a satisfying and emotionally resonant ending; it’s not perfect, it’s not neat, and it’s definitely not a wholly glorious ‘happily ever after’, but the fact that it is so brutally honest and tragically fitting only makes it all the more powerful and outstanding to me. What can I say, I will always be a sucker for emotional turmoil and destruction.

“Tomorrow always seemed like a given until today turned bloody.”

To me, this finale just takes all the best elements of the first two novels (and prequel novella), and takes it up a notch. Dulin’s soulful and emotionally evocative prose full of its beautiful metaphors is somehow stronger than ever before, and I think the split timeline storytelling which smoothly travels back and forth between Current Day Ennea and Kaylo’s Story (which he is telling to Tayen) really reaches its peak power here in Only a Grave Will Do. The power of stories/storytelling has always been at the heart of this series, and I loved seeing how the theme of “we are the stories we tell ourselves, even the lies” that was established all the way in book 1 came full circle here. We really get to see these characters fight tooth and nail to take back control of their own narrative, on both a personal and nation-wide level, even if that meant making devastating sacrifices in order to break the cycles of oppression, tragedy and violence.

“It was Kaylo’s own damn fault. He had spent his life getting into trouble, especially when he tried to avoid it. He had made himself into a story. Everyone had this idea that he knew what they didn’t– that he could fight back the daemons. He wasn’t as reliable as the stories.”

But what I appreciated most about this finale, and this series as a whole, is that it never beats you over the head with its core themes and messages. Yes, this is an anti-colonisation narrative, but it never forgets that its Kaylo and Tayen’s story first and foremost. Their individual and shared growth over the year (or years, in Kaylo’s case) that we have spent with them since the start of No Heart for a Thief is one of the most beautiful character journeys I have ever witnessed, especially because it is so messy and frustrating and heartbreaking and heartwarming and just incredibly moving all at once. Like, everyone’s beloved broody trauma magnet Fitzchivalry Farseer has nothing on Kaylo, just saying.

“Every turn under occupation weathered away more of our culture. They enforced ideals, taught their history, and reworked our cities into facsimiles of their own. They didn’t even have to be subtle, just consistent for long enough. In a few generations, my people would forget their heritage. They would become more Gousht than Ennean.”

Moreover, the motley crew side cast that started to build in No Safe Haven also absolutely gets their time to shine in Only a Grave Will Do, and I loved exploring the different lengths that people were willing to go to protect themselves and their loved ones. Even though the Gousht colonisers are indisputably the villains of this story, this is anything but a black/white conflict. The Enneans/the Uprising are never presented as a perfect homogenous group, and I loved seeing the difficult clashes between people who should seemingly be on the same side, simply because they have different lines that they are (not) willing to cross. These are not empty vessels with the popular ‘morally gray’ label slapped on; they are real humans just trying to survive in a world that is out to get them.

“These people weren’t an army. They weren’t a clan or a family either. The cruelty of some pale fucks from across the ocean had driven them together in a clash of pain, trauma, and grief.”

I mean, I think the best testament I can give to Dulin’s incredibly strong character work is that I somehow managed to forget that I usually don’t even enjoy rebellion narratives,  because I just felt so deeply emotionally invested in these characters and their missions. And sure, some of the minor side characters from Kaylo’s past might have gotten lost in my memory a bit, but I think that is more of a me-problem rather than a flaw of Dulin’s writing. For me, the standouts aside from Kaylo and Tayen were without a doubt Nix, Sosun, and our ‘bad guy’ Wal (who gets a few POV chapters of his own, which were SO good and which made me feel all the complicated feels), and I loved how they were just as emotionally complex as our main dynamic duo. Also, Wal and Nix are truly the king and queen of snark, and their sardonic comments constantly had me chuckling despite all the darkness and despair.

“We are fighting a war. Violence is a tool, but we can never become it. We would only turn into another version of the Gousht.”

Now, the pacing of Only a Grave Will Do is maybe a bit uneven with its slower start and bombastic ending, but I personally could not stop turning the pages and I just loved the gradual build-up of anticipatory dread as the Uprising prepared for their biggest and boldest move(s) against their Gousht oppressors yet. Moreover, the way that Dulin was able to interweave all the internal and external conflicts of this story made the intense climax all the more impactful, and please do not get me started on the revelations around the lore of the Spirits and the powerful role of the mystical spirit magic in the unfolding of this war; just masterful storytelling, period.

“The past was nothing more than a story. And like a story, it had ended. Right here and now, he could begin a new story. Kaylo could make this story something different. For Tayen, he had to.”

There’s no denying that Dulin’s vision for the Malitu series was daring and incredibly ambitious, but I think he more than did this story and these characters justice in the end.
It’s both extremely timely and tragically timeless in its honest and confronting exploration of hard-hitting real life issues surrounding war, colonisation, displacement, loss and the depravity of humanity, but then it somehow also manages to provide a safe space to escape into a fantasy world full of beautiful culture and breathtaking wonder. And if that isn’t the true magic of fiction/fantasy, then I don’t know what is.

“Sometimes winning is making sure there is a tomorrow for someone else”

Only a Grave Will Do absolutely wrecked me, and I love it all the more for it. It’s a finale full of painful growth, bittersweet reunions, regretful reflections, brutal sacrifices, and devastating losses, but most of all, it is a finale that showcases the immense resilience of the human spirit. This might be Dulin’s debut series, but I think he already deserves to be up there with Robin Hobb and N.K. Jemisin in terms of soul-stirring (and emotionally destructive) human storytelling through a wonderful fantastical lens. Kaylo, Tayen and the rest of this motley crew of scarred (but not scared) rebels have left a deep mark on my soul, and they can live rent-free in my heart forever more. What a journey. 

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REVIEW: At Dark, I Become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca

At Dark, I Become Loathsome is the echoing refrain that creeps through Eric LaRocca’s latest novel like a vine seeking you out, intent to pull you down into the undergrowth. In a tribute to grief, loss, self-loathing, identity and desire, LaRocca has written a darkly emotive story that looks to bring out some harsh realities of the human experience around these themes.

The novel is primarily narrated by Ashley Lutin, a man who has lost his wife to cancer and lost his young son in an abduction outside a grocery store. Since then, Lutin has mourned in some unconventional ways, delving deep and fast into body modification to wear his grief and convince others of the ugliness he feels inside. He is submerged in self-loathing and despair, often repeating the phrase At Dark, I Become Loathsome to part-explain, part-justify his behaviours. Convinced he is a foul and evil man, Lutin has given up on any joy he once had and instead leans into the darkness.

Lutin has carved himself a niche online as someone to go to if you’re desperate to change your outlook on life; to make yourself want to live again. He’s devised a ritual that his clients can pay for, a ‘fake death’ that aims to reset a person’s mind and mitigate their suicidality. At Dark, I Become Loathsome is also told, in part, in an epistolary format featuring extracts from Lutin’s instructional guides on how to carry out these rituals.

As grief, violence, desire and lust continue to blur for our narrator, his grasp of right and wrong also becomes hazier as he engages in more extreme activities all while wrestling with monumental self-loathing that permeates every other aspect of his existence. LaRocca expertly dances along and crosses these emotional themelines to highlight how close some of these experiences can become, especially in the face of repeated adversity and horror.

Ashley Lutin is a queer man trying to understand and process recent tragedies against a backdrop of deeply internalised homophobia and the shadow of childhood abuse. He hates himself for his queer desires and for his attraction to the suffering of others. This man is a rich stew of self-hatred and some scenes may be difficult to read. For this, At Dark, I Become Loathsome has been described by some as ‘transgressive’, and for the close intertwining of death and sex among its pages.

I’m glad this has been successful as a traditionally published fiction, despite the uncomfortable nature of the topics it deals with. At Dark, I Become Loathsome will offer you a challenge, not least to recognise that art is there to do more than just entertain us.

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REVIEW: Of Empires and Dust by Ryan Cahill

My favourite indie author du jour, Ryan Cahill, returns with the fourth novel in his runaway success of a series, The Bound and the Broken. Of Empires and Dust is here to astound and amaze you, not just with its scope and prowess but also with a few sharp blows to the gut when you weren’t expecting them. Cahill has taken the series to new heights – and new page totals – once again with Of Empires and Dust, building on the foundations laid in the previous three novels (and three novellas). As it’s the seventh book to be published in the series, some spoilers may seep into this review, so be aware before you continue.

As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews for The Bound and the Broken, this is a story of epic proportions. I didn’t think it could get any more epic yet, somehow, Of Empires and Dust proved to be the most expansive of the lot. I was genuinely flabbergasted at how Ryan Cahill has managed to keep all these threads, weaving intricate patterns into this epic tale, straight in his head. The growth of story, characters and author that this series is demonstrating is a wonder.

Of Empires and Dust is officially the longest book I’ve ever read, but don’t be intimidated by the page count as Cahill’s effortless prose flows so smoothly you’ll be sailing through it. This is also one of the very few books that has made me cry – twice! Once through tragedy and once through a deep recognition in the excellent character work Cahill has achieved.

There are a lot of themes running through Of Empires and Dust, the old familiars of loss, loyalty and hope remain, and are joined by ideas of monstrosity, godhood and identity. Despite the complexity of the tome, it is still a joy to read and never feels convoluted or burdensome. Ryan Cahill is a deft hand at exploring a lot of ideas and revealing intricate story details at just the right moment.

Of Empires and Dust continues to give attention to so much more than just our chosen one, Calen, and his dragon, Valerys. All the characters show growth and depth across the series and this latest instalment is no different. This is an immersive story that will swallow you whole and spit you out, back into cold harsh reality, when it’s done with you. It is the warm embrace of old friends, as daggers flash in the darkness just out of sight.

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8 Indie Grimdark Novella Recommendations

Indie and self-pub has been exploding lately. Whether it be Ryan Cahill, Rob J. Hayes, M.L. Wang, Michael R. Fletcher, or anyone else, the gap between indie and trad is closing rapidly. If you’re interested in dipping a toe and trying an indie—but also want something a bit slimmer—I’ve put together a list of eight indie grimdark novellas.

The World-Maker Parable by Luke Tarzian

Evocative, gorgeous prose and some gloomy, grief-heavy imagery, this novella is perfect for fans of Anna Smith Spark, Elden Ring, and Steven Erikson. The plot does not hold your hand and the main strength of this novella is its prose, so it’s not for everyone, but The World-Maker Parable is a book I could not put down and think about often. If you’re looking for something poetic and obscured by shadow, The World-Maker Parable is a perfect fit.

Read our full review here.

About the Book

Guilt will always call you back…Rhona is a faithful servant of the country Jemoon and a woman in love. Everything changes when her beloved sets the ravenous Vulture goddess loose upon the land. Forced to execute the woman she loves for committing treason, Rhona discovers a profound correlation between morality and truth. A connection that might save her people or annihilate them all.You are a lie…Varésh Lúm-talé is many things, most of all a genocidal liar. A falsity searching for the Phoenix goddess whom he believes can help him rectify his atrocities. Such an undertaking is an arduous one for a man with missing memories and a conscience set on rending him from inside out. A man whose journey leads to Hang-Dead Forest and a meeting with a Vulture goddess who is not entirely as she seems.

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Cold West by Clayton Snyder

Unforgiven meets grimdark fantasy in Clayton Snyder’s Cold West. While the first half of this tale follows the plot of Unforgiven pretty much scene by scene, Snyder adds in more character work, more violence, more depravity, and just more grimdark. With a twist in the middle, a few Easter eggs, some elite character development and backstory, and unhinged demonic violence, Cold West is an all time entry into the Western Fantasy subgenre.

Read our complete review here.

About the Book

Bastard. Killer. Husband. Father. His wife cold in the ground, and two young boys to feed, Wil Cutter turns to what he knows: Violence. But a bounty is never just a bounty, and blood is never spilled in drops. Forced to ever more violent acts, he’ll have to ask himself: Is Hell too far to ride?

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War Song by Michael Michel

One of the most exciting voices in the indie sphere, Michael Michel’s War Song shows his skills as both a master of characters and a master of imagery. This novella centers around a prisoner and his days of chains, back-breaking labor, and interactions with a leader whose eyes are on revolution. It’s bleak-but-hopeful, slow-yet-action-heavy, and all around engrossing. War Song is a prequel novella for Michel’s Dreams of Dust and Steel series and while it’s not necessary to read before reading the series, it is a wonderful novella for fans of Joe Abercrombie and Richard K. Morgan.

About the Book

Admar’s future is a path paved with broken glass. Each step forward living under Scothean tyranny cuts away another piece of his humanity. Right down to the very bone.

But even a meager life as a miner is better than a pointless death. A sister, a mother, a lover, all lost at the uncaring hands of the Scoths, have left him with nothing but memories and ash for comfort. While stories like his are all too common, they still aren’t enough to stoke rebellion among the oppressed.

If Admar is to find hope amid the brutal occupation of his homeland, he’ll have to question how deep his convictions go. For with every crack of the enemy’s whip, he’ll know torment. With every swipe of their axes, he’ll know suffering. And every moment he refuses to act will drag him further from his destiny.

Maybe there are no more heroes left…or maybe they’re waiting to be made.

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The Whisper That Replaced God by Timothy Wolff

The Whisper That Replaced God absolutely blew me away and established Timothy Wolff as an auto-buy author. This novella is delightfully sardonic, a bit unhinged, and full of fantastic lines. It centers on Lord Mute, a prince and assassin gifted (or cursed) with the ability to bring silence upon all. He’s partly insane, he’s in love with a prostitute, and he’s an absolute blast to read. On top of the humor and the blood is a surprising amount of poignancy that balances—and sharpens—this novella to a finely crafted weapon.

Read our full review here.

About the Book

Murder is just, so long as it serves the crown.

Hidden behind a mask and with a dagger in his sheath, Mute serves the crown with pride. A fair life, if not a monotonous one. But his next contract nicks too close, for murder within a brothel is always nasty business, especially the one which Mute frequents. The brothel his Dorothy works, his Dorothy who awaits Mute and only Mute. Surely none would dare touch her, for if they did, royalty or not, they would fall to Lord Mute, the Silent God’s chosen one. They would scream…

And not a sound would be heard.

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In The Shadow of their Dying by Anna Smith Spark and Michael R. Fletcher

No, Adrian did not pay me to put this one on here. In the Shadow of Their Dying is my favorite novella of all time and was my favorite book last year. Anna Smith Spark & Michael R Fletcher’s co-written books brings out the absolute best of them as they write about the lives and deaths of assassins, mercenaries, and a bound demon in a city under siege. Fletcher handles the majority of the novella, driving the plot forward and lacing in witty dialogue from the POV’s of soldiers and the “third best assassin” while Smith Spark goes absolutely bat shit with demonic imagery and some electric, gorgeous prose. In my mind, Fletcher is a black crown, heavy and iconic, while Smith Spark is the rubies set in the crown that gleam like blood. To sum up: my favorite novella of all time. Go buy it.

About the Book

The third best assassin. A second-rate mercenary crew. One terrifying demon.

As Sharaam crumbles under siege, a mercenary crew hires an assassin to kill the king. For Tash, it’s a chance at glory-to be the best blade in the dark Sharaam has ever known. For Pitt, it’s a way to get his cutthroat crew past the Tsarii siege and out of this hellhole, maybe even with some gold to their name. For Iananr the Bound One, it’s a dream of shadows and human blood.

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Your Blood and Bones by J. Patricia Anderson

Your Blood and Bones is a dark fantasy horror about two young souls going through a nightmarish metamorphosis. Fighting against time and distrustful citizens, they embark on a quest to search for a cure to prevent them from turning into monsters. Anderson brings her two proganosists to life with a sense of resigned-but-desperate hope. Two people fighting against everything, even though they’re so tired of it all. There’s some fantastic, horrifying Ghibli-esque imagery, well-balanced romance, interesting magic, and an all encompassing sense of tension.Your Blood and Bones is ultimately like a mix of the horrors scenes of Howl’s Moving Castle and the feeling of forced tenacity in The Road.

Read our complete review here.

About the Book

Kill the monsters when they’re found.

No matter who they used to be.

The girl with secret feathers in her skin and strange bones jutting out beneath her clothes is resigned to her fate. Her deformities mark her a monster and the stories say monsters must die.

When her family finds out and turns on her, a village boy saves her and leads her on a frantic escape. The girl believes her death has merely been delayed—until he mentions a cure.

With the world against them and the monstrous change progressing, they must cross water, forest, and field to chase the rumor that fuels their desperate hope. But is hope enough to keep them going?

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As Born to Rule the Storm by Cate Baumer

Part war-story, part dark sci-fi, part timey wimey, and part romance, As Born to Rule the Storm flies high with some gorgeous prose and imagery. Charlotte Amsel is a soldier with a gift that will cost her everything: she can move through time at the cost of her own lifespan. She uses this power to try and prevent the cold war she’s living in from exploding into a nuclear hellscape, but she has to juggle this with the cost of her own life. She ruminates on the time she loses, as well as the family members and her romantic pining. Baumer’s prose is gorgeous, and this novella is a superbly written time-travel based story.

About the Book

The star-crossed temporal romance of THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR meets the vintage setting and yearning of DIVINE RIVALS in AS BORN TO RULE THE STORM.

Cadet Charlotte Amsel will trade her life to win a war- but not all at once. As part of an elite group of experimental soldiers, she can move through time, with each jump taking months from her own fated lifespan as she struggles to prevent the cold war from boiling over into an apocalypse. With her own side just as untrustworthy as the enemy, the only thing she cares about is keeping her best friend and fellow soldier (and in some timelines, lover) safe. But each time loop adds violent complications, and saving anyone before she runs out of life to give may prove impossible.

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An Inkling of Flame by Z.B. Steele

As a grimdark author, I have taken this opportunity to betray your trust and do a self-recommendation. However, as an honorable man, I’ll instead copy and paste Arina’s summary from our Best of 2025 So Far… post:

Z.B. Steele’s An Inkling of Flame is a wonderfully crafted novella, a masterclass in short-form storytelling. It introduces a captivating cast of characters—a found family forged in the years leading up to a war—and a brand new world brimming with conflict. The characters quickly grow on you, their banter and loyalty gradually giving way to a thoughtful exploration of the horrors of war and the enduring strength of the bonds that sustain us through adversity. Fun, clever and witty, An Inkling of Flame is a fantastic introduction to the world of Song of the Damned, which I plan to dive deeper into as soon as possible!

Read our full review here.

About the Book

Tell me how it happened…

Layne was a soldier, conscripted to fight under the Fox in a vengeance fueled march. He, and his friends, were due for a fated confrontation, one that has ended in blood and loss. Now, the inquisitors want to hear every detail of his conscription, his training, and the duel against the assassin in grey.

A backwards narrative full of banter and blood, Z.B. Steele presents An Inkling of Flame, a Song of the Damned novella.

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Looking for more great grimdark content? Check out our other lists:

Top 10 Standalone Grimdark NovelsThe Best Dark Fantasy and Science Fiction Books of 2025 So FarRising Stars of Grimdark SFF 2024Ten Cinematic SFF Novels for Grimdark FansTop Ten Horror Novels for Grimdark Fans

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INTERVIEW: author Anna Stephens

We got a chance to sit down with Anna Stephens, the author of the epic fantasy series Godblind and Songs of the Drowned. Read along as we talk about writing, Marvel, martial arts, and all things dark and depraved.

[GdM] Hey Anna, thank you so much for doing this interview! To get things started, can you give a quick pitch of your works for the lovely sickos reading this?

[AS] Sure can. Hi, sickos! 

I’m the author of the Godblind and the Songs of the Drowned trilogies, both epic, military, gritty fiction dealing with invasion, conquest, colonialism and mad gods. 

The Godblind trilogy follows the lives and fates of people on both sides of the conflict as the country of Rilpor, whose people follow the Gods of Light, is invaded by the Mireces, who follow the Red Gods. What follows is a titanic struggle for control as battles are fought, sieges are laid, heroes are killed, and even the gods go to war. 

In the Songs of the Drowned, I took the concept a step further, with the war-mongering Empire of Songs attempting to colonise the entire peninsula of Ixachipan, and the last two free lands standing against them. Again, we follow people on both sides of the conflict, but this time with added shamanic magic and horrifying water monsters. 

[GdM] The Dark Feather, the conclusion of The Songs of the Drowned trilogy came out last year. How’s life been since then? What are you working on now?

[AS] It’s been great, thanks. I’m working on two new things, neither of which are military fiction because that series really wore me out. I was mentally exhausted by the time I’d pulled all the threads together to finish Songs, making sure the ideas around religious freedom/zealotry, class and caste, and colonialism and collaboration were all done justice. 

I’ve currently got one novel – a stand alone with series potential – out on submission and I’m working on revising another in line with editorial comments. I’m also signed up to contribute short stories to two new anthologies, both of which should be out next year. 

[GdM] This question is a two-parter about The Nail Scene in Godblind. Number one: how dare you? Number two: how many notes of “Anna, what the fuck is wrong with you?” did you get? 

[AS] Ha! To take your question in order: I’m old enough to remember the massive number of “edgy, powerful” films that came out in the early 00s that were considered horror because they didn’t pull the camera back from explicit scenes, whether of violence, torture, or rape. I can’t tell you how many scenes of graphic rape that went on for minutes I sat through as a young person, but every one of them filled me with rage. I wanted to turn the tables, so I thought, what’s the most horrific and also humiliating thing I can think of? And that was the hammer scene. 

As for the number of comments, I still get them! Strangers come up to me at conventions with variations on “WHY?” and “I had to stop reading and go for a walk” which is always gratifying. 

If it’s any consolation, there’s a scene in The Stone Knife, book one of SOTD, that has freaked people out far more than I was expecting. And it doesn’t even involve nails! 

[GdM] If you lived in a world where books cost nothing to write and publish, but also they made no money, would you still be writing? 

[AS] Hell yes. You can pry my pen/keyboard from my cold, dead hands – and I’ll still come back and haunt you about it. 

Writing stories has been the one constant since I was a kid. The dedication in The Stone Knife is to my best friend, also my sister-in-law. We’ve known each other since we were five, and when we were fourteen, she asked what I wanted to do “when I grew up”. I put that in quotes because despite what my birth certificate and my knees insist, I don’t feel like an adult. I digress. She asked what I wanted to do with my life and I said be an author. It took a while, but here I am. 

[GdM] You’ve gotten to write for Marvel before! Can you give us your Mt. Rushmore of superheroes? 

[AS] Oh, that’s a tough one. I didn’t actually know too much about Lady Sif before writing her and Brunnhilde the Valkyrie for two novels, but I really love her now. She’s fierce, independent, reckless, loyal, brave and canny enough to be trusted by Thor… so I’d definitely say Sif. I’ve always had a soft spot for Spidey, because he’s just a kid trying to do the right thing. 

And, while they’re not canonically superheroes, I grew up watching Thundercats, and they were amazing! 

I really don’t like billionaire playboy heroes, so a big no to Ironman and Batman, and Superman has always left me cold. I like heroes who aren’t so superpowered that nothing is difficult for them, basically. I enjoy the struggle.  

[GdM] What are you reading right now?

[AS] I’m currently reading an early ARC of Stewart Hotston’s forthcoming fantasy novel, the announcement for which hasn’t been made, so I can’t even tell you the title! It’s very good, though. 

And I’m listening to Titanchild, book 2 in the Talon Duology, by Jen Williams, who continues to be one of my favourite authors. 

[GdM] What’s the strangest thing you’ve taken inspiration from? 

[AS] The character of Xessa in Songs of the Drowned came directly from a fragment of a dream. Actually, most of the setting of Ixachipan came from that fragment. All I could remember when I woke up was the image of a pair of bare feet standing in fertile soil at the edge of a river. From that, I knew that water was going to be important, and that the climate was warm enough that you didn’t need shoes. The rainforest setting came from there, and so did Xessa, who is an eja – a warrior who faces down the Drowned each day in order to get water to the city to keep it alive. 

[GdM] Do you listen to music while writing? If so, what kind?

[AS] I do! It’s nearly always movie soundtracks, because they’re big and epic and don’t have lyrics to distract me. I’m a big fan of the soundtrack to My Country, The New Age, a Korean historical drama on Netflix that I have watched, uh, too many times? It’s just got everything – warring states, family rivalry for the crown, ruthless princes who will stop at nothing, peasant soldiers rising to greatness, love, epic battles, crushing betrayals, buckets of blood… everything you could possibly want. I love it. It helps, of course, that everyone is extremely attractive and they all look even better spattered with gore. 

[GdM] How’s your martial arts training going these days?

[AS] Ah, unfortunately, I’m not in formal training at the moment. My club closed down some time ago and there’s only so much you can do in the back garden with an excitable poodle attempting to spar with you. We’re also looking to move house in the next year, so I don’t want to join another dojo only to immediately leave depending on where we move. So I’m going to wait until we’re settled and then find myself somewhere to train. I really miss it. 

[GdM] Who’s the meanest, nastiest god in fantasy?

[AS] I mean, I’d like to make a strong case for the Dark Lady herself. Demanding, all-consuming, ever-hungry for love, obedience, power, dominion… she asks much of the worshippers who walk her path, and gives not a huge amount in return. 

I’m going to go slightly off on a tangent here, but the best book I read last year was Chain-Gang All Stars by Nana-Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, in which capitalism was God, and it was definitely the meanest, most brutal deity I’ve read in some time. Everyone should check out that book! 

[GdM] That about does it! Any last messages you want to give to the readers of this interview? Tell them where to buy your book, wish them a horrific day? 

[AS] Thanks so much for the questions, and to you lot for reading! You can find out more about me and my work at https://anna-stephens.com, where I run writing courses, or visit www.thewriteadvice.co.uk if you’re looking for editing or mentoring support. 

If you do pick up my work and can afford to do so, please, please shop independent! If not, go to the library – it’s free. 

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INTERVIEW: Editors Christopher Golden and Brian Keene and anthology contributors

For fans of Stephen King, there’s a nearly universal question: “How did you feel the first time you read The Stand?” It is the kind of novel one returns to with fresh eyes and older experiences years later. It is an enduring and scarily prescient novel about the ravages of plague, the price of power and both the fragility and persistent strength of hope. Moreover, it has become the novel that is the touchstone for generations of horror and speculative fiction loving fiction fans. 

In The End of the World As We Know It, editors Christopher Golden and Brian Keene along with a bevy of powerhouse authors have come to tell stories within the world, reimagining, reinterpreting, and responding to King’s classic. There are no retellings here because there are plenty of fresh nightmares to be spun in the world of Captain Trips. I spoke with some of the brilliant minds behind the anthology and why The Stand still haunts us generations later, what it taught them about scale, hope, human persistence, and what it means to write at the edge of the world.

[GdM] How did the idea for this anthology come about? Was there a conversation, a spark, or just a shared love of The Stand that led you to revisit it through a fresh lineup of voices? And when it came to tone, what kind of balance were you aiming for—between honoring King’s world and building something completely your own?

[Christopher Golden] I’m going to take the second part of that question first. There’s no way that we could ever lay claim to any of this being “completely our own.” What we wished for, and what we got, were stories that would be unique to each contributor but that would live and breathe in the world of The Stand. We’re honoring Stephen King, of course, and his extraordinary novel, but I know I can speak for both myself and Brian when I say that we’re also honoring the love we share for the book, and the kids we were when we each first read it. The Stand is part of the foundation of who I am as a writer and as a human being. That’s not overstating. Receiving the email back from Steve that said “Do it!” was such a gift. Brian and I communicated our passion and excitement to the contributors and they gave us theirs in return, in the form of 34 fantastic stories that are weird and different and yet have all grown from the fertile soil of the original novel. As for the idea…I’d basically given up editing anthologies, and then one day I was thinking “wouldn’t it be cool if…” and I knew I had to tell Brian, and then I was emailing Steve, and then he replied, and suddenly it was real.

[Brian Keene] And those first few minutes after it became real were simultaneously wonderful and daunting and exhilarating and terrifying. Chris and I had previously edited another similar anthology together—The Drive-In: Multiplex, which was to Joe R. Lansdale’s seminal Drive-In trilogy what this book is to The Stand. Now… when you work on something with a friend, be it cowriting a novel or coediting an anthology, it can either be an awesome and rewarding experience or it can just be the worst experience you’ve ever had. In the case of working with Chris, it was awesome. The Drive-In: Multiplex was fun to put together, creatively challenging and rewarding, and well received by readers and critics. So, I was definitely up for doing it again, but when Chris said he was done editing anthologies, I respected that. I’ve edited eight anthologies, previously. Chris has edited four hundred thousand bazillion. I figured that was that… until during one of our almost-daily phone calls he said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we did this?” And I agreed it would. And luckily, so did Steve. (laughs) 

[GdM] People often call The Stand one of King’s masterpieces—and one of horror’s most enduring stories. From your perspective, what makes it a horror novel, and where does it land in the larger landscape of the genre?

[BK] There’s a long tradition of such works within Horror and Dark Fantasy, stretching all the way back to M. P. Shiel’s 1901 novel The Purple Cloud and William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land from 1912. And there are various works that predate those, as well. The Stand rightfully stands alongside all of them. Indeed, I think it towers over everything that came before it, and is the blueprint that all of us who came after have been following, without ever exceeding.

[CG] The thing about horror is that it contains multitudes. Almost any story can be a horror story, depending on what ingredients you add, and the slant you put on it. For me, there are so many ways in which The Stand is horror, beginning with the fact that we see Captain Trips unfolding. Many apocalyptic stories start after the worst is over and then it’s about surviving. We go through it all with these characters. The symptoms of the Superflu are horrific, and the way King digs into the emotional and psychological experiences of characters watching their loved ones, and the whole world, dying around them…that’s horror. And that’s before you even get to the malevolent presence of Flagg, dreams about him, his corrupting presence…and the Holland Tunnel. As for the larger landscape of the genre…it’s one of the signposts on this road, for sure. Its influence will be felt by writers and readers, even those who’ve never read it, for generations to come.

[GdM] What do you think The Stand showed modern horror writers about scale—whether it’s how deep you go with characters, how wide you go with the world, or how much emotional weight you can pack into an apocalypse?

[CG] There’s a truly simple answer to that. Readers still have to care. Epic, sprawling, over one thousand pages…it could have been two thousand pages, and we would have read every page, because King makes us care. In many ways, the larger the apocalypse, the more epic the scale, the more intimate we need to be with the characters. We have to share their experience. If readers don’t care…they won’t care.

[BK] Exactly. Any form of horror works best if the reader is invested in the characters. That’s why a franchise such as Friday the 13th, for example, isn’t necessarily terrifying. Oh, it may have some genuine scares, but it’s not going to stick with you and effect you weeks or months or even years later, because you just don’t care about a bunch of surplus teenagers with minimal backstory. Give the readers people to identify with or be invested in, and the horror becomes much more effective. I think The Stand represents some of Steve’s best character-work, at least for that era of his career. These are characters who I knew as well as my friends and family. Characters who I saw glimpses of myself in (Larry when I was younger, Glen Bateman now). If I am emotionally invested in them, then when the horrific things start happening, it’s far more effective.

Editors Christopher Golden and Brian Keene

[GdM] Why do you think The Stand still hits so hard after all these years? What is it about King’s version of the end of the world that keeps pulling readers and writers back in?

[CG] That intimacy is a big part of it. The characters are so beautifully drawn—the ones we love and the ones that get under our skin. But it’s also such a purely American novel and paints such an interesting 20th century American landscape. But beyond its American-ness, it’s also such an exploration of human behavior. The way characters behave, their hopes and fears and struggles, their courage and their cowardice, are so recognizably human. And, of course, in 2025 when we’ve had our own pandemic and the world is being willfully unraveled by greed, corruption, and idiocy, the feeling that it could all end abruptly (and stupidly) is overwhelming. We can hide in these pages while also processing those fears.

[BK] The most common refrain I heard from people in the early days of the pandemic and the lockdown was “This is just like The Stand”. And I wasn’t immune to that thinking, either. I vividly remember when we were first getting reports of Covid-19 here in America. Chris and I were spending the day at Joe Hill’s house, and all three of us had just gotten done traveling the week before, and we joked that we were Patient Zeros for the horror genre. But on my train ride back to Pennsylvania… seeing less people than normal, and folks starting to mask up, and reading conflicting news reports… all I kept thinking was, “This really is like The Stand. Okay, I’ve prepped for this. I’ve reread that novel once a year every year since it was first published. I’ve got this!” In retrospect, processing what was happening through the lens of the book helped me with the apprehension and anxiety I felt as a father, and as someone who has immunocompromised loved ones. It was a way to deal, you know?

[GdM] Do you think the way we talk about “the end of the world” has changed since 2020? Did that shift shape the stories you gravitated toward—or how you interpreted them as editors?

[CG] All of the stories in the book were contributions from authors we approached because we had a sense they would give us something unique. We wanted that same sense of humanity, but from a wide variety of perspectives. I took for granted that living in the world as it currently stands (pun intended) would influence the writers and their stories. We’ve all been changed now, irrevocably and most of us probably not for the better. But there is always hope, even in the darkest times. We can always dream of Mother Abagail and gather in Boulder with like-minded people who want a better world. And we can write stories to explore our hopes and fears.

[GdM] When readers finish the last story and close the book, what do you hope sticks with them—a feeling, a question, a particular image they can’t shake?

[BK] As a fan of the novel, I hope they have the same reaction to the stories that Steve had. Hopefully they’ll love and enjoy them as much as he did. And I hope that they’ll discover some new favorite authors to read more by. One thing we made sure of was that all of the genre’s various forms were represented. Whether your preferred horror is mainstream, quiet, weird, splatterpunk, dark fantasy, thriller, supernatural, surreal, or even comedic, its represented in the anthology. 

[CG] My hope is that readers have been unsettled, amused, saddened, horrified, and made to think about the world and the nature of human beings. But I also hope that they feel Brian and I, and each of the contributors, have added something worthwhile to the world of the novel and to readers’ conversations and feelings about it. Finally, I hope everyone who reads this book is inspired to go and read The Stand all over again.

[GdM] Now we will get an opportunity to chat with some of the contributing authors of the anthology. I asked each author the same three questions so that we can compare how The Stand affects each of us differently and how those differences are translated into storytelling.

[GdM] Do you remember how you felt the first time you read “The Stand”? Has that feeling stayed with you, and did it shape how you approached your own story for this anthology?

[Chuck Wendig] I do remember it! I was in high school and I was reading it alongside some friends and I remember not only the sense of communal joy and power (and horror, obviously) in that, but I also clearly remember us interfacing whenever we were getting to parts that were like, whoa what the fuck. Best example of that: Larry and Rita escaping NYC through the nightmarish Lincoln Tunnel.

[Premee Mohamed] Yes! I read it in my final year of high school (1997), and I remember that because I did a tour of the university I was planning to attend and I picked the book up at lunchtime at their bookstore (I was attracted to the bright orange and black cover, and  was like “I already like Stephen King and this seems like a ton of book for the money”). I remember being instantly hooked. He so instantly threw me into the world of “Something is wrong, very very wrong.” He had built such a vast and complicated cast of characters, and yet wove them so smoothly into the overarching plots and subplots that every individual was utterly memorable. When I re-read ‘The Stand’ to refresh my memory for my own story, I found myself feeling profoundly reconnected with all these people, as if I had gone into a room I expected to be empty and instead found dozens of friends there. It absolutely shaped how I approached my own story — I didn’t want the supernatural aspects to overshadow the characters, because the main thing you always get from a King story of any length is “These are people.“

[Tim Lebbon] I think I first read The Stand when I was about 15, and it instantly became my favourite novel. It still is now. That meant that I felt a huge responsibility when I wrote my story ‘Grace’ … but it also gave me the opportunity to answer the question I asked myself 40 years ago on that first reading: ‘What happens to astronauts in space when Captain Trips hits?’

[David J. Schow] I was stuck in Chicago during the blizzard of 1978. I cadged a review copy out of Doubleday and read it three times in a row―literally going back to page one after the final page. THE STAND was a good place into which to vanish for awhile.

Original version only. (Steve amended a bunch of it, even for the first paperback.)

[Alex Segura] I do—I read The Stand around the time my son was born. And as any parent can tell you, having a newborn is a moment of chaos and uncertainty and fear—so reading The Stand was almost soothing, ha! I still think about those opening scenes, and how King ratcheted up the tension so masterfully. It still sticks with me today,

[Meg Gardiner] I was immersed, transported, terrified, exultant, and riveted from start to finish. From my early teens I craved books that would sweep me away for entire days, weekends, weeks. The Stand swallowed me whole. It grabbed me by the heart and throat. It has never let go. In writing my story, what I wanted to do most was what the novel does: embrace the characters’ humanity. That’s why The Stand stays with me.

[Bev Vincent] I read the abridged version of The Stand in about 1980 and it was definitely one of the books that made me want to read more of King’s work. It was an immersive experience and I remember being totally swept away by the story and becoming deeply fond of the characters. When Stu breaks his leg and gets left behind, I was devastated because of King’s cunning pseduo-foreshadowing. I’ve re-read the book numerous times, including once before writing “Lockdown,” and it is still as compelling and involving as the first time through. I am so familiar with the story that I was easily able to put myself in that world and carve out a little corner of it for myself to explore.

[GdM] Writing in the shadow of something as massive as The Stand has to be a balancing act. How did you navigate the tension between reverence and reinvention, while still making sure your own voice came through loud and clear?

[Chuck Wendig] I think, though it sounds counterintuitive, the best thing writers can do—and not just in a situation like this, but in general—is to turn their brains off. Obviously I don’t mean to turn off the part that’s devoted to the story, ahem, I just mean, you gotta know when to block out the stuff that isn’t really designed to write the story. And I think worrying too much about reverence and reinvention and being a part of something so so hug and so so important can really be a paralyzing thing. There is a tension there! And I don’t know that such tensions serves the beam, so to speak.

It’s mostly after you’ve written it that you think, okay, is this the story it needs to be? It has to cast its own shadow and not be lost. But it also has to be somewhat true to the thing that cast the first shadow, you know?

[Premee Mohamed] That was really hard for me. I haven’t written much in someone else’s world (so actually I was very glad that our editors said we could write way outside the novel provided that we didn’t actually break canon) so I spent a long time fretting about how close to adhere to the timeline and events of the novel, or how far to stray, and then how much I could make up and whether it ‘fit,’ or whether it was totally unreasonable. I think in this case, being a longtime King fan helped — he’s not afraid of dropping obscurities and explaining them later, or leaving them entirely unexplained, because that’s one of the fun things about his particular brand of horror. You just don’t know what’s happening sometimes and you have to act despite that, if you want to survive the story. So I ran with that, and tried to use setting and community to add my own voice. I was trying to ask the most basic King question, which is, “If you didn’t believe this was supernatural, but you still had to solve the problem, what would you do?” And the answer is, “I’d get my friends, hop on my quad, and go rescue the kidnapped child.”

[Tim Lebbon] I just wrote the best story I could, and soon realised that it was actually a story that served as a sort of prequel to the main action in the book. Honestly that didn’t really worry me when I was actually working on it … but once I’d delivered it I suddenly felt the pressure! Luckily Chris and Brian liked the story, and I’m pleased to say Stephen King did too.

[David J. Schow] Easily—I always try to write the one story nobody else would think of.

[Alex Segura] It was daunting at first, but I tried to approach it the same way I would writing in the Star Wars or Marvel or DC universes—you find a little space where you can use your voice and create something additive and unique. I knew I wanted to tell a harrowing story about parenting and about dealing with the aftershocks of a seismic, worldwide event—which unfortunately seems less impossible today than when the book came out. But my hope was to create something that complemented the work and felt special on its own.

[Meg Gardiner] Being asked to contribute to the anthology was a privilege, and imposed a responsibility. I wanted to honor the novel. I was being admitted to its imaginative world. I wanted to create characters that were wholly mine, and put them to the test within The Stand’s inimitable setting.

[Bev Vincent] Someone who has read the anthology told me that they thought I had captured King’s style in “Lockdown,” but that was never my intention and I was surprised to hear that. My main goal was to be true to the chronology of the story, which is why one of the first things I did was reread the novel and create a day-by-day timeline of events to make sure I wasn’t stepping out of continuity. I knew the story I wanted to tell, inspired by the various reactions to pandemic lockdown we’d seen just a short while earlier. Would King have told the same story differently? More than likely. I didn’t try to emulate him–that would have been too hard!

[GdM] When we tell stories about the end of the world, are we also asking whether anything is worth saving? How important is it to leave space for hope—and in your story for this anthology, did you choose to offer that space, or close the door on it?

[Chuck Wendig] Hope is complicated, but we need the space for it, for sure. And my story aims to leave room for it—while also being clear that hope is complicated. It’s not a Free Parking card in Monopoly, you can’t just get it and zip past Go and collect your check. Hope is a thing with teeth, and it can bite you if you give too much to it. I aim to find that balance—that place where hope is both a light in the tunnel, but a place where hope might just be a train barreling toward you in the dark. Horror lives in that uncertainty, I think.

[Premee Mohamed] I guess it depends on the story and how we’re defining ‘the end of the world’! If we’re saying, as in ‘The Stand,’ that a lot of people died but the essential infrastructure was still available to re-start everything exactly the way it was for the survivors, I think hope is inherently there: you have all the blueprints, you can rebuild as fast as your trauma allows. In a lot of other ‘end of the world’ narratives, that’s missing — the knowledge is gone, or the infrastructure is gone, or the physical world itself is irreparably changed (radiation, desertification, solar flares, asteroid strike, whatever) and then that becomes something you have to contend with. Then the hope is that you can save the absolute bare minimum, which is humanity. I think there’s a lot to be said for asking what we’re hoping for, at the end of the world. Is it merely survival? Is it erasure of the past? An advancement of civilization, a carbon-copy of what came before, something better, something different, new rules, new governance, etc? In my story, I left the door (I think) a little less open than the end of ‘The Stand,’ but not shut all the way. Hope lives in the uncertainty of knowing whether the human race is really in its twilight or not — the characters in the story have just had their particular hopes dashed, but even they have to admit it’s a big world and there’s room for surprises.

[Tim Lebbon] I’m still an optimist at heart, despite the troubled world we live in. So yes, there’s absolutely a strong vein of hope running through my story, as there is in the novel.

[David J. Schow] No spoilers! No guarantees! As a species, we don’t control as much as we like to believe we do. Even in our bleakest scenarios, we either tilt against chaos or embrace it. Usually a survival mindset prevails. Self-interest drives humanity—enlightened self-interest can be revelatory.

[Alex Segura] I don’t want to spoil the ending, but there’s definitely a moment where the reader will hopefully think “wow, he could have gone the other way with this”—meaning either positive or really, really grimdark. I hope the end result provides readers with a powerful ending.

[Meg Gardiner] The novel features indestructible hope, in the direst of circumstances. I didn’t want to write something that lacked it. There’s space. I let it open. Maybe just a crack. I do write suspense, after all.

[Bev Vincent] I think “Lockdown” is completely about people deciding that a small corner of the world was worth preserving as much and for as long as possible. The characters in it are people who know how to survive a long time without access to the larger world. It’s almost like they’ve been training for this all their lives! So, they have hope, but it’s a selfish, survivalist hope. As for the rest of the world? They don’t really have the luxury of worrying about that too much. They do hope things will return to normal eventually because they will eventually not be able to sustain themselves.

This interview was first published in Grimdark Magazine Issue #43

Read The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand Ed. by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene 

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REVIEW: Conan the Barbarian #22

Conan, his band of Bamula warriors, and Princess Livia have been drugged and imprisoned in the Stygian border town of Keshatta by the ruthless enchantress Athyr-Bast. She and other members of a sorcerous clique known as the Black Ring pit captives against each other in gladiatorial combat as a means of entertaining the unwashed masses while simultaneously jockeying for position and prestige within the Ring. Given no opportunity to prepare, Conan immediately finds himself thrust into the arena with the reigning champion, a giant brute named Krum-Va the Carver. Despite the formidable odds, Conan emerges alive but not unscathed. Further victories under the nom de guerre Amra the Annihilator earn Conan special treatment among the gladiators, and Athyr-Bast basks in her pet warrior’s triumphs. However, thoughts of liberating himself and his comrades are never far from Conan’s mind.

Conan the Barbarian issue #22, “Diamond in the Dirt,” borrows many recognizable elements from Spartacus and every other gladiator movie and TV show you’ve ever seen. Grossly mismatched opponents, triumphant underdogs, friends pitted against friends, slaves elevated to celebrity, privileged women dallying with their gladiators, etc. The tropes and story beats may be familiar, but they remain entertaining. While pit fighter was never a vocation undertaken by the barbarian in the original Robert E. Howard stories, it’s exciting to see the exploits of Conan the Gladiator in a more expanded capacity than the ruthlessly edited taste viewers were shown in the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film.

Fernando Dagnino’s artwork continues to appeal. Gladiatorial combat appears frequently throughout the issue, and Dagnino delivers melee depictions that feel not only dynamic and forceful, but rhythmically paced as well. Outside of the arena, Dagnino proves himself adept with the quieter moments. Athyr-Bast remains an alluring and well-dressed femme fatale, and women’s faces and costuming haven’t always been shown this much attention and care under previous Conan the Barbarian artists.

The Jeffrey Shanks essay accompanying Conan the Barbarian #22 explores the ancient Egyptian-themed land of Stygia, an isolationist land dominated by sorcery and snake cults. In addition to the current “Nest of Serpents” story arc, Stygia is set to figure heavily in the upcoming “Scourge of the Serpent” event miniseries, and the essay offers newcomers some welcome grounding in one of the Hyborian Age’s most evocative and mysterious locales.

While this reader hopes the much-teased antagonist Thoth-Amon will take a more prominent role in the next issue, Conan the Barbarian issue #22 is a fun and fast-paced gladiator montage.

Read Conan the Barbarian #22

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REVIEW: Cathedral of the Drowned by Nathan Ballingrud

Crypt of the Moon Spider, the first book in the Lunar Gothic Trilogy, was one of my favorite books of 2024. Cathedral of the Drowned has even more entrancing writing, delightfully disturbed characters, eerie horror, and a whole lot more legs, eggs, and mandibles. If you can stomach it, this sequel will be one of your most memorable reads of 2025. 

Veronica viciously reaped her revenge after surviving the nightmarish “treatments” at Dr. Barrington Cull’s lunar psychiatric facility in the first book. Now, Veronica is the reincarnation of the ancient Moonspiders. While not a POV character in this book, her presence hangs over the story. The moon itself is one of her many eyes as she hatches eggs and hunts Cull.

The majority of the book follows Charlie. The gentle half of his brain is now housed in a satellite that Cull launched into space to explore other planets, leaving Grub, his enraged half, somewhere in the Barrowfield facility. After crashing onto a moon of Jupiter, drowned priests take Charlie into a sunken cathedral spaceship sent long ago by Catholic missionaries (such a cool idea) for an audience with the Bishop, a hivemind centipede. Will Charlie give in to what the Bishop’s power offers? Without Grub, he’s fragile. Without Cull, directionless. Without Maggie, unloved. Perhaps he needs a carapace for such an exposed mind. And what to do about the murderous creature in the bell tower? 

On earth, Goodnight Maggie’s gang verges on destruction. With the Sicilian mafia killing her men, threatening moonsilk supply lines, and sowing mutiny, she already has enough problems when a mutilated Dr. Cull shows up. On top of that, a ghostly satellite appears some nights in her room, awakening her love for Charlie through the moon silk. Can she dominate her gang, the Sicilians, Cull, lurking Alabaster Scholars, Veronica’s Barrowfield horrors, and her own heart? For Maggie, love both threatens and soothes, and her desire may be a more dangerous enemy than those with guns and fangs.

I didn’t expect to see myself in a lobotomized brain wrapped in spider silk and encased in a tiny satellite or sympathize with a mafia boss making out with a psychic centipede and her empowering surrender to his undulating legs. But here we are. As a less experienced horror reader, I’m learning this is the disquieting beauty of the genre. A gifted writer like Ballingrud can take something I have experienced, like trauma causing a schism within ourselves, and bring the idea to life (or death) in characters. 

After the first book, I did expect to be transfixed by the prose in Cathedral of the Drowned. Months later, I’m still drawn back to certain lines. 

A standout quality is the vivid precision with imagery, description, and choice of detail. It’s not just that the imagery of the sunken space cathedral is beautiful. Or that the descriptions of Charlie’s psychology are poignant and strange. It’s that he uses the perfect details: the way the sea surges, a carapace glistening in torchlight, how time distorts in a broken mind. Two descriptions that stuck with me were tongues like “questing slugs”, and people as “dreaming meat”. If you’re uncomfortable with spiders, centipedes, or body horror, the vivid writing may twist the knife too far, and I’d recommend picking up another book. For me, though, it was a can’t-look-away marvel. 

Imagery plays into another strength: the book’s pacing. Despite the short length of Cathedral of the Drowned, the book isn’t afraid to use imagery to slow to a languid, dreamy pace, or stretch a scene to build suspense, then whiplash into quick action. One scene had me holding my breath like a kid driving through a tunnel until their lungs burn. Before I could exhale someone was pasted to a wall as a tortured incubator for spider eggs. 

My favorite aspect of the writing is tone. In the first book, Veronica’s POV was eerie, dreamy, and full of metaphors to unmoor herself from depression and emotional claustrophobia. In Cathedral of the Drowned, the tone of Charlie’s chapters are just as captivating. He ranges from resigned, curious, horrified, yearning, desperate, and meek, yet the tone maintains a disturbing detachment that reads brilliantly. Since much of the disorienting horror is abstract and centers in Charlie’s mind, analogies and similes cleverly ground the reader, contrasting how they were used with Veronica.

I was excited for the writing in Grub’s chapters. What does the mind of Charlie’s rage sound like when everything gentle has literally been ripped away? Part of the difficulty of being brilliant is that even something great can feel disappointing. The language didn’t feel much different than Charlie’s. I’m curious if other people were bigger fans of those chapters and I just had particular expectations. 

In such a diamond of a book, there was only a small crack or two. One was the Charlie/Grub reunion arc. To lovingly accept the ugliest parts of ourselves is beautiful. If that means uniting with an interdimensional centipede, so be it. I just felt like the emotional groundwork wasn’t there to pull at my heartstrings. Maybe mine were out of tune for these scenes, and others connected to it. I was struck by their insight into the relationship between rage and fear, though. 

Going into the final book of the trilogy, my main interests are the roles of power, control, and self-protection among the three main characters. Veronica commands the Alabaster Scholars. The Bishop controls the drowned priests. Goodnight Maggie—the only non-psychic leader—keeps power over her gang with cunning, violence, and her form of love. Great storytelling, overall, and hopefully this setup is built upon. 

Cathedral of the Drowned has set up an epic and truly horrifying arachnid vs. arthropod cosmic showdown. Grab your tinfoil hat and bug spray, because I think the final book will be fantastic. 

Read Cathedral of the Drowned by Nathan Ballingrud

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The post REVIEW: Cathedral of the Drowned by Nathan Ballingrud appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

INTERVIEW: Sara Omer author of The Gryphon King

Sara Omer is a Pushcart Prize-nominated short story writer. She’s been a technical editor for medical and engineering publications and is now pursuing teaching. You can find her (sometimes unsettling) poetry and prose in places like The Dark, PodCastle, Small Wonders, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere.

[GdM] Hi Sara, thanks for chatting. Your debut dark epic fantasy, The Gryphon King, Book 1 of the Chaos Constellation trilogy (a series title so cool it could also double as a prog rock band) was released on July 8 from Titan Books. Can you give us a rundown of what it’s about and who it will appeal to?

[SO] The Gryphon King is about a conquering warlord who sees the souls of the dying and his enemy, a pegasus-riding princess knight from a powerful empire. She wants nothing more than to get revenge against him, but they’re forced to be allies against a slew of magical beasts and scheming courtiers, and their backs are turned as ancient power reawaken. They’re also nursing tender feelings for the same person. If you like lots of battles, can stomach gore, don’t balk at large casts of characters, and enjoy your grimdark tasting as sweet as baklava and garnished with a bit of romance, this would be the blood-soaked book for you.

[GdM] This is a novel inspired by both the history and mythology of Southwest Asia. Although you’re not the first to take such inspiration in recent years, it still feels a very fresh fantasy landscape, particular your focus on the Turkic peoples and your take on the Ottoman harems (the sultan’s royal family, including his concubines and their children). Talk us through why you chose these myths and history to play with and what areas you found fascinating to weave into the story.

[SO] I haven’t seen a lot of SWANA stories (at least by SWANA authors) inspired by the Ottoman Empire—which is a shame because it’s a special interest of mine. The Ottoman courts were so interesting in their organization and personal brand of opulence and ways of dealing with succession. Particularly the workings of the harem, where concubines, female servants, and princesses were educated for political marriages, and princes, posing threats to succession, were kept in “golden cages.” The viziers, eunuch servants, and queen mother all playing important political roles was a major inspiration for the workings of the Dumakran court, as were many of the stories surrounding Suleiman the Magnificent (like what exactly happened to his heart when he died—look that up because the story is very good and quite romantic!).

Steppe people are portrayed a lot of different ways in fantasy. Often they’re the heavily stereotyped barbarians, which is unfortunate for many reasons. The traditional religions of that area are so beautiful, and the culture is so rich, and they were so innovating and cutting-edge, especially in warfare. So borrowing a bit from the Secret History of the Mongols, animism, and eagle-wielding central Asian Turkic tribes, the Utasoo people were born.

So there’s a bit of pre-Islamic mythos because I’m inspired by those ancient Turkic stories and ancient Sumerian and Mesopotamian stories particularly when it comes to the Dumakran religion—Ereshkigal and Inanna heavily inspired the Nuna and Paga in different ways, and in Pre-Abrahamic myth in the region there were avenging winged goddesses that inspired the Harpy daughters of the Goddess.

[GdM] There are some really fun and simultaneously terrifying monsters in here: the gryphons; the standout murder horses, or pegasuses to give them their proper name (is that their plural? I went down a black hole on this online and sort of gave up, it was intense); and others that are best not to reveal. What’s with the love for monsters, and these monsters in particular?

[SO] Everyone has strong feelings about pegasi versus pegasuses. I’ve seen people leave lovely, gushing reviews and still be unable to make themselves type “pegasuses.” I think it depends on if the word has a Greek or Latin origin, but I’ve heard different things. In Greek myth there’s just the one Pegasus, so I think that complicates things a bit. I thought it would be a more familiar word than the Turkic “tulpar/tulpars.”

All of that aside—I love animals. It might be strange to say, at the rate they’re dying in this book. Ever since I was little I loved nature documentaries. My favourite animal is an orca, which will eat mostly anything (and inspired one of the monsters quite heavily).

I love stories where people form unique and unlikely bonds with magical creatures, but I also think stories where the monsters act like animals and can still make more realistic bonds with humans are interesting. I’d love to hear my cat’s voice in my head and our every interaction be peaches and rainbows, but usually he’s dunking my socks in his water dish, and we still love each other fine, miscommunication and all.

I learned to ride horses when I was very young (and they can be as mean and nearly as man-eating as the ones in the book). Going off the tulpar myth, where godlike winged horses mate with steppe horses, I got to thinking a lot about magical ecosystems, and with the giant roc in Southwest Asian myth, it seemed *magically* possible it could be a common ancestor of both giant flying horses and giant flying lions. I hope readers also spend too much time thinking of how evolution happened in this world.

I wanted to particularly highlight some of my favourite magical beasts that often don’t get their time in the spotlight like dragons. I love dragons too, but look at all the monsters you can ride or make havoc with! All of the monsters exist in SWANA myth or the Mediterranean, so picture me doing my research on what beasts I could include in the region, lighting up with excitement at each new monster.

I could talk about magical animals all day.

[GdM] I’m not stopping you! Alongside the remarkable worldbuilding and monsters and action there’s some classic Machiavellian court politics shenanigans, helped by a lengthy list of characters (44, according to the helpful list at the start of the book). You’ve said you’re inspired by G R R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, and this has that complex family allegiance/betrayal vibe to it. Was it hard to balance the monster/action stuff with the political shenanigans?

[SO] I think it would be impossible to convey the scope of an imperial harem without having quite a few named characters in the Dumakran court. That sense of claustrophobia is something that defines Nohra’s relationship to her large family. And then when you combine two worlds like Bataar’s and Nohra’s and there’s all those characters interacting, there’s so many warring ideologies and desires that become political machinations.

The political backstabbing can be as exciting as the actual backstabbing, and it shows characters fighting on different ground (some are much better armed with a blade, like Nohra, and that can be fun too).

I’ve also said that the politics happen naturally after the fighting, so in that lull after sickle-staffs and sabers have been swung, there’s time for a bit of scheming and deal-making and deal breaking until the next monster attacks.

[GdM] Your main male protagonist, Bataar, is an intriguingly morally grey character; at once a conqueror who wishes to bring peace and prosperity to his conquered kingdoms but also not afraid to shed a lot of blood to get there. Were you influenced by any previous characters, real or otherwise, when writing him? And was it hard to make him likeable enough to empathise with but morally grey enough to be interesting?

[SO] He has some of Ghengis Khan’s flair for making himself a legend and also uses storytelling as a way of achieving and maintaining power through the rumours he spreads. Bataar also has some of Suleiman the Magnificent in him as well—a talent with words (though not poetry) and a real romantic love for his wife. Nohra would like to think Bataar has some Attila—like a weakness for women—but Bataar is too demisexual for that.

I’ve compared him to Ned Stark: a ruthless family man, and recently someone asked if there were Griffith and Guts (Berserk)-coded characters in TGK and I completely blanked, but I do think Bataar has a bit of Griffith in him. Early Golden Age arc deluding himself he’s doing it all for a higher purpose.

I put a lot of myself in Bataar too—we even have the same anxious tic. It was a fine line to make him likable, and I don’t think he works for everyone. Sometimes he’s cruel because a warlord would be to keep power, but he has a good tragic backstory with the Dumakran Empire exploiting the red steppe, and he’s very tender with Qaira and his children, and he deeply regrets the bad things.

[GdM] There’s a clear love of good food in this book, including one outrageously outlandish palace meal that is best read on a full stomach (or perhaps not if you want to torture yourself). Talk us through your favourite meal—however many courses you want (I may regret this).

[SO] I ate hummus for lunch every day in high school. I’m a big fan of dips, so all of the dips and taboullah to start, and some garlic nan and Turkish pizza.

I’ve been a vegetarian for 8 years, and I can say that the best use of a meat substitute is an Impossible kebab, dusted liberally with sumac and drowning in tzatziki.

Persian saffron rice is my favourite because it tastes so buttery and luscious, or sticky rice and some kimchi jjigae with tofu… or creamy mushroom ramen.

Water, Thai tea, iced green tea, lemonade, and mango smoothies to drink (I think ayran tastes too salty).

Pasta—maybe with a lemony garlic sauce, and then dessert.

Pistachio stracciatella ice cream, a fluffy and fruity cake with plenty of whipped cream icing, baklava, and large bowls of very dark cherries.

Thank you.

[GdM] Wow, that was a real thing…

There’s a fluid sense of sexuality in this book: a lot of bi rep, sapphic slow burn, potential poly relationships. What do you think this says about the world and its characters… and why the extreme slow burn? 

[SO] This world may have 3 (so far) kinds of horses that would eat you, but it doesn’t have homophobia. The ancient history of the Near East is really interesting in that regard, starting with stories like Enkidu and Gilgamesh predating Achilles and Patrocles, and moving on into queer poetry that can get quite raunchy and then into the orientalists portrayals of same-sex relationships that got quite fetishistic before colonialism rewrote all that history. The nature of the sorts of open relationships in historical imperial harems lends quite easily to speculation.

Slow-burn secondary romances in fantasy are my favourite. All of the buildup and tension just simmering in the background threatening to boil over is so fun. And the romance of The Gryphon King is clearly quite messy, so its road ahead will be fraught. I enjoy that particular kind of torture.

[GdM] Moving on to Sara Omer herself, what’s been your professional background leading up to your debut, and how much of it was directly useful in writing it?

[SO] I’ve interned at a modern art magazine and a children’s book publisher, and I’ve worked editing clinical and basic science medical journals and an engineering magazine. Reviewing clinical images of illnesses definitely impacted the ghoulish disease outbreak in The Gryphon King. I’ve done a bit of my own research in various journals for some of the injuries in the series and have discovered the limits of my own squeamishness.

[GdM] The build-up to publishing your debut in the traditional publishing space is obviously an exciting time but also can be quite a stressful one, too, the word “stressful” doing a lot of heavy lifting there. How have you found it, both the good and the bad? 

[SO] The secret is to always be stressed. But it’s been very lovely seeing readers connect with the story, and an honour in general seeing people I don’t know reading the book, this feral story that once was only in my head.

Obviously it’s also stressful for the same reasons, or worse, like when there’s no one reviewing right this second and I’m struck by that brief, silly hopelessness and think I will have to go viral on TikTok to be perceived.

[GdM] I’m thinking of getting stickers with “the secret is to always be stressed” on them now.

How did you spend book launch day?

[SO] I spent my launch day running around London looking for free Wi-Fi spots, using the tube for the first time (getting lost in underground stations), to spend some lovely time at the Titan Headquarters and end the night with a super relaxed launch talk with Super Relaxed Fantasy Club. They really were super relaxed—even if I wasn’t!

[GdM] Finally, what can you tell us about the rest of the ‘Chaos Constellation’ trilogy? And do you have any other future books in the works?

[SO] The future of the Chaos Constellation: There will be at least one wedding! A glimpse into a mysterious world of djinn! More monster entries for the infernal bestiary (including one of my Arthurian favourites)!

I have a few other books on hold to polish up when I get a chance, but I’m excited to start on a few new ideas that have been brewing.

Read The Gryphon King by Sara Omer

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