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REVIEW: Blade Runner 2019: Volume #3

Blade Runner 2019: Volume #3: Home Again, Home Again wraps up the complicated plot of Ash and her charge, Cleo, in a way that is satisfying as well as sets up more stories to be told in the dark rain-soaked future of Phillip K, Dick (and Ridley Scott’s) universe. There’s a lot of surprising twists and turns in this volume but I’m glad to say they wrap up most of the plot points so that those wanting a complete story could just stop here.

The premise of Blade Runner 2019 is that Ash is a former Blade Runner who was given a mission to look for a child stolen by a cult of Replicants. Things got much more complicated than she ever thought possible as the child wanted to be with a Replicant recreation of her mother and somehow ended up in Ash’s hands for the better part of a decade. Ash and Cleo took refuge in space and only now have returned to Earth in order to take the fight to their enemies.

Home Again, Home Again is a wonderful conclusion to the three-volume storyline of Ash the Blade Runner. She has gone from being a racist against Replicants and a seller of their organs to collectors to someone who is willing to protect them from persecution. In a LGBT surprise, Ash turns out to be gay and starts a relationship with the leader of the Replicant resistance. I liked that as it was surprise but nothing that contradicted past character interaction.

While I compliment the book in wrapping all the preexisting plotlines, it also lays the groundwork for future installments. Ash is aware the problems Replicants are suffering are systemic and she can do better for them from within the system than attempting to serve the Resistance as just another anonymous nobody. A lot of this is set up for future comics where Ash is once more a member of the Los Angeles Blade Runners.

I think the book suffers a bit from a rather pat ending that separates Ash and Cleo, which feels like something that would be more difficult for the two to do given they have been mother and daughter for much of the latter’s life. Even if she has her “real” mother now, this is something that is not easy to separate. On the other hand, I also understand why Ash believes it would be safer for Cleo to live away from her.

The introduction of the Replicant resistance from the 2049 movie was a good decision and I like the elevation of Freysa (the leader) to main character. Seeing her adventures before becoming the head of the Replicants fighting for their freedom in the sequel is a good decision. Making her a combat medic was also an interesting decision and very symbolic.

The artwork, action, and storytelling of the Blade Runner comics is always top notch. Cyberpunk is a long-overlooked genre in comics despite some big successes like Frank Miller’s Ronin or the Marvel 2099 series. The series successfully captures the neo-noir mood and themes of the movies while telling a wholly original story with new characters. I strongly recommend picking up all three of these graphic novels.

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REVIEW: Against All Odds by Jeffrey Haskell

Against All Odds by Jeffrey Haskell is a military science fiction novel that starts with a bang: a sneak attack by enemy forces results in a young officer using some daring tactics that proceeds to annihilate the attackers. Jacob Grimm, the officer, thinks he’s a hero but soon finds events turning into a nightmare as it is revealed the attackers included a cargo of young children. That’s the kind of opening that gets my attention when reading.

The world created in Against All Odds is an excellent one with Jacob Grimm serving as an officer in union that has just gotten out of a disastrous war. Much effort was expended in the conflict and heavy casualties have caused a backlash against military spending. Unbeknownst to our hero, he becomes the perfect man to assign to a region ready to boil over in hopes that he will trigger some sort of diplomatic incident that justifies rearming. What the Navy fails to anticipate is Jacob doing a fantastic job.

Jeffrey Haskell has created an excellent but uncomplicated science fiction setting around multiple feuding powers in a particular star cluster. This is a humans-only science fiction setting, at least as far as the book indicates, but humanity has not stopped fighting despite its ascent into the stars. It’s a bit Call of Duty with the enemies being the Iron Empire (Russian coded), the Caliphate (fundamentalist Muslims), and hordes of disposable criminals but I didn’t mind this.

Despite the War on Terror-influenced premise, I appreciated this book didn’t go full jingoistic. While the Caliphate is pure evil with slavery, misogyny, and cackling villainy–they’re shown to be only one group of Muslim characters in the setting. Virtually everyone is engaged in shady activity of one sort or another and that is probably the most realistic fact about its politics.

Part of what I like about the book is it doesn’t attempt to overcomplicate it’s worldbuilding. Usually, there’s too much or too little world-building in military science fiction. Here, there’s just a good balance of enough to make you aware of a greater setting without getting bogged down in details. The characters are interesting, their actions believable, and the story developments flowing logically one to another.

The book isn’t limited to just Jacob Grimm’s perspective. We get multiple views of the situation in the sector he’s found himself in ranging from the villains to his crew to the local tramp freighter captain. I feel this is very good for a science fiction story like this as it prevents us from getting too comfortable with just one perspective. Against All Odds tells a complete story by itself but also sets up the rest of the trilogy as well.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend this book. It’s lighter than most grimdark fair but still contains several dark subjects such as human trafficking, slavery, religious fanaticism, and copious use of realpolitic. Still, Jacob Grimm is a very likable character and I think that people who pick this volume up, looking for a fun military science fiction drama will enjoy it.

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REVIEW: King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence is one of the greatest masterpieces of grimdark fantasy, a towering literary achievement that takes us into the darkened mind and heart of Jorg Ancrath as he comes to terms with several of the most tragic events of his young life. In this second volume of the Broken Empire trilogy, Jorg has matured compared to the impulsive, rage-driven youth of Prince of Thorns. In King of Thorns, Jorg’s unbridled anger is balanced by an unshakeable sorrow, a deep sadness which only grows throughout the novel.

With Jorg’s newfound role as the self-declared King of Renar, we see much more of the Broken Empire compared to Prince of Thorns. The world of the Broken Empire is a post-apocalyptic Europe devastated by nuclear war and living in the aftermath of global warming. From the map at the beginning of King of Thorns, all the European lowlands have been flooded, distorting the geography compared to our present world. For example, the rising sea level has caused the northwestern French province of Brittany to separate from the European continent, becoming the island of Brit, and Italy has narrowed so much that Roma is now on the coast. The map also reveals a drastically different political order in the Broken Empire. Our modern country boundaries are gone, as Europe has returned to the days of feudalism with each region under control of a local king or prince.

Jorg’s main competitor in King of Thorns is Prince Orrin of Arrow, a traditional Prince Charming-type good guy. Orrin is blond, handsome, and courting Jorg’s beloved aunt Katherine. The Prince of Arrow is prophesied to unite the kingdoms of the Broken Empire and bring an era of peace and prosperity through mutual understanding and dialogue. Orrin is everything that Jorg is not. He has the love of his people and an army that vastly outnumbers Jorg’s.

King of Thorns is a brilliantly constructed novel told on four different timelines/perspectives. The two main timelines follow (1) Jorg in the present day during his battle with the Prince of Arrow and (2) four years prior, immediately following the events of Prince of Thorns. There are also (3) flashbacks of Jorg’s suppressed memories and (4) the perspective of Katherine from her journal. All four of these timelines/perspectives are cleverly interwoven by Mark Lawrence in the telling of the story.

The epic battle with the Prince of Arrow also coincides with Jorg’s wedding day to the precocious Queen Miana. Miana is one of my favorite characters in the novel, an intellectual equal to Jorg who has a couple of surprises up her sleeves.

The timeline immediately following Prince of Thorns largely focuses on Jorg’s quest to help Gog, the leucrota child adopted by Jorg who possesses powerful but uncontrolled abilities in fire-magic. Although Jorg is advised that Gog is too dangerous to keep alive, he is committed to helping Gog master his incredible powers. Gog is another one of my favorite characters in the book. Although he appears monstrous on the outside, Gog is just a little boy and brings out the humanity in Jorg.

Jorg is literally haunted by his dark past, including a dead child that is always there, watching him. To gain some respite from his unmitigated sorrow, Jorg’s memories are stored in a memory box, one of the sci-fi elements of the book, which also connects to Mark Lawrence’s excellent Impossible Times trilogy. Flashbacks occur throughout King of Thorns as Jorg cannot resist the urge to open the memory box and understand his past. The flashbacks are supplemented by what we learn from Katherine’s journal. There are a number of surprising revelations throughout King of Thorns that will leave the reader’s heart as broken as this post-apocalyptic world.

Fortunately, Jorg’s dark humor is also in peak form throughout the novel. There are plenty of clever Easter eggs and witticisms throughout the book, including references to Star Trek, American Pie, and various aspects of our modern technology. The technological understanding of our age is long gone. The people of the Broken Empire refer to us as Builders based on our impressive but now-decayed architecture left behind. I’m convinced that the Tall Castle of Ancrath is simply the remains of an old Parisian skyscraper.

King of Thorns also marks the first appearance of Dr. Elias Taproot, who provides a unifying thread throughout Mark Lawrence’s five trilogies, giving the sci-fi backbone to books that may seem at first like pure fantasy. Here we also meet Fexler Brews, a data echo who provides another key element of worldbuilding in the Broken Empire.

As always, Mark Lawrence is precise and methodical with his writing, giving his readers clues to build the greater picture of his universe. We are hearing the story from a possibly unreliable narrator who has limited knowledge about the world in which he is living and a lot of suppressed memories. Although the story is infused with magic, much of this is simply remnants of our modern science that people in the post-apocalyptic future no longer understand.

Jorg is still an evil anti-hero driven by revenge, but he grows so much in this book. He deals with the ghosts of his past, both literal and figurative, and he grows to care more deeply about other people, especially his Road Brothers, his aunt Katherine, and his wife Miana. Jorg is still a brutally violent psychopath. But he’s a brutally violent psychopath who cares.

Mark Lawrence is the Fyodor Dostoevsky of grimdark fantasy, eloquently combining an in-depth character study of a psychologically disturbed protagonist (Crime and Punishment) with layers of political intrigue (Demons) and complicated family dynamics (The Brothers Karamazov). Like Dostoevsky, Mark Lawrence’s writing is beautiful and poetic, especially as Jorg has grown as a narrator since Prince of Thorns. There are so many quotable lines in King of Thorns, some heart-wrenching and others laugh-out-loud hilarious. As a reader, I wanted to savor every word.

Mark Lawrence is known for the iconic opening lines of his novels, lines that will stick with you long after you’ve finished the book. But the most iconic lines in King of Thorns are at the very end, words that will haunt you for years to come. King of Thorns is one of Mark Lawrence’s finest achievements in a career marked by consistent excellence. If you haven’t already explored the world of the Broken Empire, Jorg is waiting for you.

5/5

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REVIEW: Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Prince of Thorns is simultaneously a grimdark fantasy, a post-apocalyptic dystopian thriller, and an epic revenge narrative told from the point of view of a first-rate sociopath. The sociopath in question is Honorous Jorg Ancrath, a brutally violent prince-child whose actions are not guided by any accepted sense of morality. As we learn more about the tragedies of Jorg’s childhood, we recognize how he became so twisted and understand his motivation for revenge.

Jorg Ancrath has become one of the most iconic characters in grimdark fantasy. Mark Lawrence paints a very compelling portrait of a physically and emotionally scarred protagonist who is full of pride and consumed by rage. Telling the story from the first-person perspective of Jorg is the perfect way to get into his mind and understand the origin of his cruelty. Somehow, we also develop sympathy for Jorg throughout the course of the narrative. This is a testament to Mark Lawrence’s excellent characterization of Jorg in all of his complexity.

Some readers have been turned off by Jorg’s seemingly irredeemable penchant for violence. But this is nothing new in literature. One of the greatest novels of all time, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866), is also a first-person narrative told by a psychotic murderer who seeks to rationalize his acts of homicide. A more modern example is A Clockwork Orange, the 1962 classic by Anthony Burgess. Alex, the main character from A Clockwork Orange, served as inspiration for Mark Lawrence when he crafted Jorg, although Alex is even more viciously evil than Jorg, committing horrendous acts of violence for his own perverse amusement.

Jorg’s childhood is full of failed father figures. With young Jorg’s thirst for knowledge, Tutor Lundist could have filled the void left by Jorg’s own cruel father, King Olidan, but Lundist failed Jorg when he needed him most. As someone in a position of moral authority, Father Gomst also could have fostered a healthy father-son relationship with Jorg. However, his own moral backbone is not strong enough to compete with Jorg’s uncompromising personality. Father Gomst is a rather tragic figure: he is not a bad person, but he lacks the strength of character to live up to his own ideals and help Jorg grow to be a better person. One of the most amusing scenes from Prince of Thorns is when Father Gomst hears Jorg’s detailed confession, aghast with horror.

Jorg’s healthiest relationship is with the Nuban, whom he sets free from his father’s prison. Jorg recognizes the Nuban’s strong moral character, embodying the ideals of brotherhood that Jorg has tried to create with his band of Road Brothers. After being rejected by his father, only the Nuban is able to provide some sense of a moral compass for Jorg. Jorg seems to take these lessons to heart in the friendship that he later develops with Gorgoth, another outcast from society, and the way he readily adopts the young brothers Gog and Magog as his own.

A large part of what makes Jorg so compelling as a main character is the voice that Mark Lawrence has created for him. He is disturbed and illogical, but also darkly comic and even naïve in some respects. Jorg’s dark humor keeps the prose vibrant and the reader engaged throughout the novel, as we experience a combination of repugnance and wicked delight. All of this is balanced by Jorg’s deep-seated sadness, which reveals itself gradually throughout The Broken Empire trilogy.

The worldbuilding in Prince of Thorns is limited by Jorg’s own tunnel vision. Nevertheless, Mark Lawrence does a compelling job building layers of political intrigue in the neo-feudal land of the Broken Empire. Readers will be treated to more complete worldbuilding in the next two volumes of the trilogy, as well as in the companion Red Queen’s War trilogy.

Prince of Thorns is not a magic-heavy book, but it does include scenes of necromancy and dream- and fire-magic. The magic system is not explained in Prince of Thorns. Mark Lawrence leaves it to the reader to piece together the magic system across his five trilogies, which ends up being more science fiction than fantasy.

One of my favorite aspects of Prince of Thorns is the way Mark Lawrence blends grimdark fantasy with elements of post-apocalyptic dystopian sci-fi. The hints are there throughout the book. As a reader, the most surprising and rewarding aspect of this novel is when we discover the true nature of the world in which Jorg is living.

I’ve had the pleasure of reading Prince of Thorns several times. This is the special type of novel that gets better each time through, revealing its hidden layers and connections to the greater universe of Mark Lawrence’s writing. Jorg’s viciously dark humor also becomes more hilarious upon each reread. Most recently, I enjoyed reading the new Prince of Thorns Limited Edition, published by Grim Oak Press in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of this grimdark classic. The Limited Edition is a gorgeous bonded leather-bound volume with a sewn-in black satin bookmark, also featuring new full-color artwork by Jason Chan.

Prince of Thorns is one of the best and most influential books in grimdark fantasy, authored by one of the founding fathers of the genre. If you haven’t read Prince of Thorns yet, what are you waiting for? Come, brethren, and hear this Grimdark Gospel according to St. Mark.

5/5

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REVIEW: The Immortality Thief by Taran Hunt

The Immortality Thief is a beast of a book that managed to grip me in a matter of a few pages. In just so few words, Taran Hunt was able to lock me in for the rest of the story, her quick-witted characters and snarky dialogue piquing my interest on page one. The magic of this book lies within it’s mysteries, the story laced with a lingering sense of the unknown, and giving away too much would ruin the experience I want so desperately for other readers to have. I recommend going into this book blind, just as I did, not at all prepared for the unforgettable journey ahead.

Without sharing too many secrets, The Immortality Thief was a cleverly executed space heist/mystery that I’ll soon be recommending to everyone that is willing to listen. The Immortality Thief follows Sean Wren, a passionate, snarky linguist and smuggler as he is given the task of salvaging important, secret data from an ancient ship orbiting a dying star. He and a few others are sent to this haunting, seemingly-abandoned wreckage and ordered to bring back data on the Philosopher’s Stone project. Yet he will soon learn that he and his small crew of criminals aren’t alone on this massive, derelict ship. Rife with the stuff of nightmares, this ship is extremely dangerous, and Sean and his crewmates are on a deadline as dangerous as they come. Not all is as it seems aboard this abandoned, haunting, nameless ship. This book wastes no time in tossing the reader in headfirst, and that’s partly why it works so well. You start off knowing absolutely nothing, which leaves you wanting—needing—to know absolutely everything. The strong worldbuilding and gritty character details are revealed alongside the immediate action and mystery, leaving behind a very tightly-written story.

Sean Wren comes off the page almost immediately. The reader is able to understand and even predict our main characters decisions before we’ve even fully grasped the rules of his world. Taran Hunt clearly understands how to write strong, clear, three-dimensional characters and put her skills to work in The Immortality Thief. The first-person tone creates the strongest bond between Sean and the reader, but that doesn’t mean that any other of Hunt’s cast of characters are any less fascinating or well-developed. Mentioning any others by name would be, in my opinion, partially spoiling the intricate, captivating mystery The Immortality Thief lays out for the reader, but I promise that they’re as funny and badass as our favorite sarcastic linguist. Despite the well-developed and painfully human characters that drew me in instantly, the world building of The Immortality Thief stuck out to me the most.

Set in a world with only one free-standing government left, the rules and power structures in Sean’s situation are painfully clear to the reader. The scene is set tightly and quickly, leaving you to be sucked into the alluring mystery that clouds the ship Sean’s crew inhabits. Taran Hunt clearly displayed a strong set of world building skills in her debut novel. This well-built, dangerous galaxy provides the perfect playing ground to house some of the terrifying monsters Sean’s world holds. Without giving away too much about The Immortality Thief’s host of scary space monsters, each gruesome creature was more thrilling and frightening than the last. I’ll spare a slight detail—maybe those with a fear of bugs should skip over a few pages. The Immortality Thief took me by surprise, and left me wanting so much more from this debut author. Wonderfully written, simultaneously terrifying and hilarious, this book was enjoyable up until the very last page. 5 stars.

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DISCUSSION: The GdM Team Plays Elden Ring

It’s a rare thing for a game to come along and live up to its own hype by not only being good but astounding, but for it to do it so utterly and completely that it razes the entire gaming landscape and leaves in its path an absurd slew of glowing reviews from practically every gaming site imaginable. To say nothing of the gaming community itself.

Elden Ring is a rarity. Anomalous in the way it attracts new players, some who’ve never played—or enjoyed—a “Soulsborne” game before. Though if you were do talk to the raving FromSoft fan community they’d tell you otherwise. That it’s the culmination of everything that has come before it. That it is the heir to a storied legacy of gamecraft and worldbuilding. It’s been some kind of impressive to see the chatter and activity surrounding Elden Ring starting long before the game even released to now, with its staggeringly large and inclusive community that continues to grow by the day. It has amassed a legion of fans who gleefully dive into the Lands Between to grow their own legends, to face outrageous ordeals, to engage in glorious battle.

There have been more superlative reviews of Elden Ring at the point of this writing than you could shake a branch of the Erdtree at. I don’t need to add another one to that pile, and that’s not what this is. This, instead, is a collection of experiences of players from their time exploring the Lands Between.

As for me? I’m a couple hundred hours into my adventures in the Lands Between and show no sign of slowing down. I’ll let the others go on about the gameplay and the richness of the world. The difficulty which may seem punitive until you have that epiphany that we all seem to have and suddenly you “git gud.” I won’t wax poetic about the amazing design and art and storytelling. I love all of that stuff, too, but at the end of the day I’m a simple guy. I have the same philosophy for video games as I do for movies, shows, books…they’ve got to be entertaining. I’ve got to enjoy myself to want to continue on, to go deeper, to see it through.

And Elden Ring, more than anything else, is a thoroughly enjoyable experience that rewards the player for pushing harder, going deeper, looking farther. It is, quite simply, fun as hell. So from those of us here at Grimdark Magazine, brave Tarnished, welcome to the Lands Between.

JAMES TIVENDALE

As I type this I am 106 hours into Elden Ring and currently at Level 163. I have a few loose ends I’d like to tie up before I face the game’s final boss, and I thought I’d reflect and jot down a few thoughts about my experience.

I really wanted to play this game. I loved the trailers, and that GRRM was involved. It’s the first game that I’ve bought on the day of release in years. Something about Elden Ring just clicked with me.

There have been so many “Wow” moments in my playthrough, and the whole experience has been excellent. Off the top of my head: luckily getting past Margit because I had a summon that gave him rot, so he slowly succumbed to death whilst I ran away from him. Getting transported to Sellia Crystal Tunnels in the early game and feeling truly terrified and underpowered, begging for a way out. Ranni and Fia’s entire storylines were great. Helping Rya and getting invited to Volcano Manor. Any time Iron Fist Alexander showed up. Farming runes at the group of sleeping alien-looking, kinda-cute enemies just before the battle with Mohg,  Lord of Blood.

Feeling like I “got gud” at bosses like Astel, Commander Niall, and Maliketh, where, after 10-20 tries, I really felt like I got the patterns and timings down. There was one moment with Commander Niall where if I dodged him and hit Bloody Slash straight away, I sort of pirouetted away from his attack and landing mine expertly. It was an amazing feeling of overcoming something difficult by almost dancing with the enemies until the Great Enemy Felled text graced my screen. The fact that, apart from the final boss, Palisadiux, and one of the two Ancestor Spirits, I’ve managed to get all of the boss achievements: that’s something I’m pretty proud of.

This is the first time I’ve played a game and followed some streamers and/or the Twitter conversations. I really enjoyed watching AfroSenju’s videos on YouTube as we were mostly at the same parts in the game, so I found it fascinating to see how he tackled puzzles, bosses, what he missed, and also what he found that I couldn’t believe I didn’t see. The fan art coming out of the community is amazing, some of the time and effort people put into their art is incredible. Adding those with watching the legend of Let Me Solo Her grow, right up until their 1000th Melania kill, and still chuckling most days to Make Up A Tarnished Guy’s posts on Twitter.

Honestly, I’ve had a complete blast with my Elden Ring experience. I probably won’t start a NG+ for a while, but I’ve absolutely got my money’s worth from this fantastic game.

MATT BROADWAY

Let me start by stating that I’ve only played one “Souls” game before. I bought Bloodborne when it first came out and played it for about forty-five minutes, promptly took the disk out, and put it on the shelf. It has been there ever since.

Elden Ring was a completely different experience for me. I am not done with the game yet. In fact, I got pretty far along in my first play through and realized I made some horrible mistakes. Or, what I thought were horrible mistakes. So I started over. Then I started over again. Then I quit that game and went back to my second game. So far, I’m probably about two thirds of the way through the game now. I also eventually discovered that I could have changed everything about my character eventually anyway without needing to start over, but I liked the name of my second character better.

I love the game. I love immersing myself in the world, I love the combat, and I love the quests. I could have done without the learning curve, but now I know I could have just looked all that stuff up on the Elden Ring Wiki or on YouTube. I like the discovery of the game even if it is frustrating. This game is the most frustrating game I’ve ever played, and I love it. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment.

Do I recommend it? I wouldn’t do that to my worst enemy (if I had one). That said, it’s an awesome game. If that confuses you, maybe try it out, but don’t blame me. I warned you.

AARON JONES

I’ve played an insane number of hours on consoles over the years. Thousands of hours in Final Fantasy. Hundreds in Elder Scrolls, Witcher, and Red Dead Redemption. I devour games and love every moment.

Elden Ring devoured me.

It turned me into a mess of a human crying out for save points and some kind of option to change the difficulty mode. I wanted a proper map. I wanted a clear path. I wanted direction. Then I had an enlightened moment. An epiphany. I think it was when I was killed for the millionth time by one of the early bosses (Godrick maybe, or was it Margit?). I was getting battered over and over again. But I didn’t quit. I sucked. I was getting my ass kicked but I still didn’t quit. And that moment when I actually defeated the bastard meant more to me than so many countless moments in my gaming history.

I love stories. Stories mean everything to me. Elden Ring has a story but it isn’t a clear one. Sure, there’s a lot of lore, and weird backstories to everything, but the main character doesn’t speak and there’s not a clear path laid out before you. Elden Ring doesn’t give a shit about that. It’s more about a mood. That beautiful, sinister mood that pervades the land and the unsettling feeling that permeates from the odd characters scattered around the Lands Between.

It’s that mood that pulls me back in and keeps me going. It feels alive. There’s such a freedom to the game and there isn’t anything like it. I’m level 100 and haven’t completed the game yet after 60 hours or so. I beat Radahn and that felt like a momentous achievement that I had to share with family and friends.

I no longer crave difficulty modes and the reassurance of save points. I’m all in on the Lands Between and as Tarnished as they come. There’s a cathartic beauty to the game that I’ve only rarely experienced before and that runs through pretty much every moment of my playthrough.

Elden Ring is a strange, stunning game and I’ve loved every moment.

MICHAEL BAKER

I haven’t got much experience with FromSoftware games. I’ve played a bit of Sekiro before I picked up Elden Ring, but I’m the first to admit that the “Soulsborne” series never appealed to me very much. However, I was intrigued by the hype and attention that Elden Ring has rightly received. Would Elden Ring live up to its gigantic expectations? We’ve seen time and time again hype to be a double edged sword. If it’s not realized, the backlash is immense. We’ve seen that many times. Anthem, Fallout 76, No Man’s Sky, Cyberpunk 2077 and countless others have suffered various levels of failures from too much hype.

I only have around six hours in Elden Ring so far due to my only half-decent laptop and to lack of time, so I’m barely knocking on the door. I’m probably not qualified to review it yet, but I like what I’ve seen so far. The world design is fantastic and it feels like a revolution in open world design, similar to what Breath of the Wild achieved in 2017. I like what I’ve seen of the narrative, and I enjoy the combat. I wish it ran better overall and it seems to struggle with balance problems, but it lives up to the hype and deserves its critical acclaim. Time will tell whether it’s the right game for me.

CHRISTOPHER NAPIER

Elden Ring is the first FromSoftware game that I haven’t bounced off of within the first session. I’m not the type who’s willing to grind at a game for its own sake. Indeed, it’s the way that it managed to hook my ADHD-riddled attention despite repeatedly killing me in ways that would otherwise have earned a rage-quit long ago that’s impressive.

Elden Ring does this by looking beautiful, teasing with compelling story seeds and by rewarding exploration in so many ways: with views, with cool treasure and yes, often by being surprisingly murdered.

The lore of the Lands Between is tragic, deep and enigmatic, teased out when speaking to NPCs and if you want to look further, it’s there in the item descriptions and all over that beautiful world, from the plant life to the ruins and the races that inhabit it. I’ll not spoil anything, but it’s a tremendously layered, dark and morally ambiguous web of intersecting stories from the divine to the most base that I’d happily absorb myself in for a long time.

It’s not the difficulty that defines a game, but how much it makes you want to keep playing and overcome that difficulty. I think Elden Ring is a triumph that rewards tenacity, a game that doesn’t hold your hand but rewards you greatly once you’ve learned how to walk its ways.

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REVIEW: Kenshi

This is my debut to Grimdark Magazine! Michael here, and I’ve been brought in as the gaming guru. I might print that on a T-Shirt someday. My first article covers a fantastic indie game in Kenshi.

In the world of gaming, the indie world has grown considerably in scope and talent, especially over the last few years. The gap is slowly closing, and many of my favorite games ever made in recent years have been games developed by smaller studios. Usually when I talk to people about indie games, it goes like this:

Me: What’s your favorite indie game?

Them: I love games like Stardew Valley! Do you have any to recommend?

Me: You might like Kenshi.

Them: What’s Kenshi? I’ve never heard of it

That’s reasonable. Kenshi is a weird game to recommend to people. It was one of the first games approved on Steam’s Greenlight program, and one of the first Early Access titles as well to join the program. After several years of development, it rose from the ashes, fully releasing at the end of 2018. Since then, it’s grown even stronger, with a sequel in development. While it’s sold well and has had fantastic reviews overall, I rarely hear my circles talk about it. To many out there, Kenshi is a hidden gem. I’m here today to try and change that. With over 200 hours played in this game and counting, hopefully I know enough to try and convince you all to try this out.

It’s a strange game, and I can’t think of many rivals that do anything Kenshi does. It feels like the kind of twisted, dream game I would invent in my head when younger as the ideal game to exist in the world. Now, is Kenshi ideal for everyone? Of course not. All games have flaws, and Kenshi has plenty of those, but that doesn’t stop it being one of the most fascinating, open ended games on the market today.

I first bought Kenshi in 2014, back when there wasn’t a lot happening. Kenshi was made by a very small team, Lofi Games. They’ve come from humble beginnings, and for a while, Kenshi seemed like an experiment that wouldn’t quite make it. The indie market is booming now, but there’s still a stigma attached to the scene: every time an ambitious game comes out, there’s always daggers hanging over their heads. Will they succeed? Can I trust them after being burnt by this other game? It takes a lot to place trust into someone. I have the highest respect for anyone who gets into game development, especially when there’s so much competition.

Whenever people ask me what the ‘best’ indie games are on the market, I always think of a small selection of highly curated, S-tier titles. I have my own criteria for this, and it’s a project I’ve been working on for months, but Kenshi is part of this category.

First Impressions

At first glance, Kenshi looks like a psychotic, twisted experiment. The game looks rough, with a graphics engine which barely holds itself together under its many systems. There’s plenty of bugs, the optimization is rough and loading times are slow. There’s a steep learning curve involved and the player needs to be able to make their own narrative. It’s one of those games. There’s so many parts to Kenshi, so many types. It’s an exploration game. It’s a fighting game. It’s an open world RPG. It’s a squad-based sandbox. There are city building and survival elements. It shouldn’t work, and it nearly doesn’t, yet somehow Kenshi pulls it off. It doesn’t achieve everything, but there’s a brilliance to it.

Kenshi has a fairly simple premise. The world has been recently destroyed by mysterious means, and what remains is a shell of what it once was. There’s a massive, open world map full of lore, different biomes and factions, and the player is thrown right into the middle. There’s a few different starts a player can begin with, such as a solo start, a small group with building materials, a smuggler, or a trader. There’s plenty of modded starts available, but I’ll get to the modding potential soon. There’s an in-game set of tutorials that help early on, but the player is mostly left to their own devices.

Morning Pains

The start of Kenshi can be rough. There’s no starting quest or story to follow. There’s plenty of lore locked inside the world, but the player is left to their own creativity to work out what to do. For my many fellow writers out there, I find Kenshi to be one of the best games for storycrafting, because it forces me to create my own narrative. Even with the tutorials, the ancient interface makes the beginning difficult. Kenshi has plenty of dangers out there and survival mechanics. Many things in the game are fatal. Those beaky giraffes? Have fun while they bite your characters to death. Those sheep? Stay away from them. I’m not kidding. I’ve lost entire parties to a herd of rams before. Those cannibals? They will eat you. The Skin Bandits just want your skin, peeling it off with machines. See why Kenshi is a little grimdark? No wonder I picked this to review!

Kenshi requires patience, and not everyone will enjoy that. There’s plenty of mechanics which struggle to make themselves heard, and the game has incredibly long loading times due to its old and buggy engine. I recommend installing this on a solid state drive, and even then, loading times will be long. Be prepared for some frustrations on the technical side. I had some issues early on, but Kenshi is oozing with depth and charm.

At its heart, Kenshi describes itself as a squad-based sandbox game, but that’s putting it lightly. I don’t get how this game squeezes in so many different play-styles and game types, but it somehow works. It’s a miracle how ambitious it is. There’s settlement building, survival mechanics where the characters need food to live, form a mercenary company, farming and mining. While the tutorials are only basic, learning from trial and error is fantastic, and this comes with an excellent combat system. If the characters get smashed up in battle, they can be fixed up. Character stats get improved only through doing them; so if you want strong guys, they need to get stuck into fighting. Limbs will be cut off, arms will be lost. Fortunately, there’s a booming limb replacement business in the Kenshi world, so even these losses aren’t crippling.

Kenshi is difficult, but it’s also surprisingly forgiving at the same time. The game is permadeath, but it’s a good idea to get stuck into battle. If characters get enslaved or imprisoned by different factions, that’s a blessing in disguise. Free healing and feeding! Some of these mechanics are easy to break, but the world allows that, so feel free to experiment.

There are several different factions in the game, but I’ll just cover the major ones. The Skeletons require no food to survive, but are despised by the Holy Nation who will attack them on sight and injuries cannot be healed normally. They require specialized kits which are expensive. The Holy Nation are zealots who hate everyone, require prayers every day, and will mess up everyone who disagrees with them. United Cities are all about money, money, money. Sheks are powerful warriors who demand food as payment and will kill anyone who smuggles drugs.  The Hivers are fragile, insect-human people but will attack in great numbers. Making a settlement in anyone’s lands comes at a cost. The Holy Nation will come demanding tribute, Sheks demand food supplies, and United Cities require payments.

Onto settlement building, this is one of the key parts of Kenshi. I’d recommend building up a party and resources before attempting this, because it’s hard. There’s a large tech tree to unlock with research, which is expensive and time consuming, as well as plenty of things to build. Setting out and making towns is one of the coolest parts of the game, and there’s even some kind of persistent progression. In future playthroughs, there’s the option to keep all buildings in the world, so it’s possible to come across old cities you’ve created. There’s plenty of micromanagement trying to set up a good defense and holding off attacks: bandits and cannibal parties will come knocking frequently.

A Narrative Masterpiece

If hunkering down and making a settlement doesn’t sound appealing, don’t do that. Kenshi is so open ended that you can do pretty much whatever you like. I spent over seventy hours in a single playthrough just exploring the world and building a narrative. My most recent run told the story of two runaways: Khronin and lost robot Viro-V4, who formed an unlikely friendship and began their journey of redemption. Over many days of exploring the ruined world, they recruited more lost souls and built up their strength:

Khronin stands before the Shek leader’s throne. After several day’s travel, he and Viro-V4 have found some place to rest, even if it’s temporary.

Viro-V4 spent more nights alone with his thoughts. War with the Holy Nation will be difficult, be he needs to do everything he can to survive.

While hiding in the Shek lands, Khronin saved a Shek named Ruka from attack. The two agreed to join forces.

Over time, their army grew until they were strong enough to venture out to new lands. It’s time for justice! (Note the Dark UI. That’s a mod, and I highly recommend it!)

Final Words

Kenshi has one of the most masterful open worlds I’ve ever experienced in a video game. There’s just so much variety in what to do that it’s almost overwhelming. I’ve rarely seen a game mesh with city-building, surviving, open world, combat and stealth mechanics so well together, even if it has to be brute forced at times.

It’s not well optimized, and the engine is buggy. It chugs harder than a train does on a normal UK weekday, the graphics are pretty ugly at times, and the game lacks direction. All of these are problems to contend with.

Despite these issues, I find Kenshi to be one of the most enjoyable and engrossing games I’ve played in years. Many of the game’s problems can be improved and fixed with the vibrant modding community, even if the modding tools themselves are quite limited. Kenshi has been so successful that Lofi Games are hard at work making a sequel. The sky’s the limit for these guys, and I’ll always be around to recommend Kenshi to anyone who wants a unique, fresh experience to try out.

Kenshi is available on Steam and GOG for around 25$/£22.99/23 Euros, but it frequently goes on sale.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/233860/Kenshi/

Score: 4 Stars.

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REVIEW: Death’s End by Cixin Liu

Your mind will be blown, flattened, and then collapsed to a zero-dimensional point in Death’s End, the epic finale of Cixin Liu’s hard sci-fi trilogy, The Remembrance of Earth’s Past.

Ken Liu is back as translator, bringing the same level of proficiency and eloquence to his translation of Death’s End as with the first volume of the trilogy, The Three-Body Problem. This is a welcome return to form after the rather awkwardly translated middle book, The Dark Forest.

As in The Three-Body Problem, Death’s End features a strong female protagonist. The Three-Body Problem tells the story of Ye Wenjie, an ingenious physicist who is persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and becomes the first scientist to initiate contact with the Trisolaran alien civilization. Death’s End introduces us to Cheng Xin, a brilliant aerospace engineer who works as part of the Staircase Project to send a human into space to serve as a diplomat for meeting with the Trisolaran fleet. Having an inspirational female lead such as Cheng Xin is another welcome change from The Dark Forest, which focused on the rather uninspiring Luo Ji as its lead character.

In The Dark Forest, Luo ultimately overcomes his unambitious nature to develop a Cold War-style system of mutually assured destruction, forming a fragile peace between the humans and Trisolarans. With his finger on the button of mass annihilation, Luo Ji becomes known as the Swordholder, a “chosen one”-type position that later passes on to Cheng Xin. However, the Trisolarans are not convinced that Cheng Xin would actually follow through on the threat of mutual destruction.

Death’s End is, by far, the most epic volume of The Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, spanning hundreds of years across multiple eras of existence. As the plot progresses, the scope of Death’s End keeps expanding, from the world to the solar system, finally culminating in a grand inter-galactic drama where the fate of the entire universe is in jeopardy. The buildup of the story is highly satisfying and emotional, especially in the last third of the book.

Death’s End is full of imaginative and awe-inspiring ideas, most of which work effectively to drive the narrative forward. However, there are also a number of plot contrivances, such as the sudden appearance of a sophon-free room, enabling the humans to converse without fear of being intercepted by these intelligent Trisolaran-created subatomic particles. The ability to communicate without detection by the Trisolarans is a key part of the plot, but there is no attempt to explain how this sophon-free room came into existence.

Death’s End works best when it focuses on Cheng Xin and the great cast of supporting characters. I really enjoyed the relationship between Cheng and her former university classmate, Yun Tianming, as well as the friendship that blossoms between Cheng and her equally brilliant companion, the astronomer Ai AA. The cigar-smoking former CIA director, Thomas Wade, is a great foil for Cheng, embodying the corruption and individualism of Western capitalism. Another favorite character is Sophon, an android diplomat who is controlled by the sophon particles and serves as a communication link between the humans and Trisolarans.

While the character-focused text is highly engaging, the writing in Death’s End becomes less compelling in the many passages that are written in the dry style of history book excerpts. In these passages, Cixin Liu falls into the trap of telling, rather than showing, the reader about key plot events.

There are also three fairy tales which must be deciphered to understand three key secrets of the universe to aid in human survival. The idea of encoding scientific concepts into fairy tales is quite intriguing. However, I was rather annoyed by the self-congratulatory way that Cixin Liu presented these tales. At one point, Cixin Liu uses one of his characters as a mouthpiece to compliment his own writing: “I want to express my respect for the author. As fairy tales, these are very good.”

As a whole, The Remembrance of Earth’s Past is full of brilliant, mind-warping ideas from quantum mechanics, general relativity, string theory, and evolutionary biology. However, across the trilogy, Cixin Liu has established a somewhat uneven record of conveying these ideas to the reader. Cixin Liu’s writing works best when he combines the personal with the galactic, where the scientific advances lead to a better understanding of universal truths of what it means to be human, or more generally, what it means to be an intelligent being. Death’s End is, in many ways, a testament to our aspirations and accomplishments as human beings, and our ability to overcome the limitations of our finite intelligence.

4.5/5

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REVIEW: The Capsarius by Simon Turney

Many centuries ago the Roman Empire controlled vast swathes of the world. Its reach was broad, its might unquestionable, and the power of its legions was known—and feared—far and wide. Within the pages of The Capsarius, by Simon Turney, we find ourselves nested within the ranks of one of those legions. The Twenty-Second Deiotariana, a band of hardy and battle-hardened Galatians, freshly landed in the strange land of Aegyptus. But it’s not some mighty warrior or conquering general we found ourselves looking over the shoulder of—far from it. Turney fixes the perspective of the book on one Titus Cervianus, the titular capsarius (think of him like a field medic). Even among his colleagues, though, our Cervianus is a perculiar individual. While, like his brothers in arms, he does believe in the gods, he is a follower of Hippocrates and a self-described man of science. This gives him a unique, often times gratingly arrogant, perspective and sets him apart from his comrades who for much of the book harangue and harass him. Cervianus is something of a pariah, which allows The Capsarius to be much more than a meditation on ancient military tactics.

As a history geek, Turney gave me a lot to chew on in The Capsarius. The beginning of the book is kind of slow, not necessarily because of any kind of build up or exposition but because Turney has a remarkable sense of detail for the world the story inhabits, and the history of it. Cervianus, our protagonist, is a student of history himself and spends a lot of time ruminating on his surroundings, on the culture, and the history of ancient Aegyptus. It’s not terribly action packed—which isn’t to say The Capsarius shies away from action—but the focus for much of the book is on establishing the characters we’ll be spending our time with, fleshing out their surroundings, and building up what will become the central conflict and motivation. Which doesn’t mean nothing is going on, far from it. The Capsarius moves at a solid clip from beginning to end, with something always happening. Cervianus is quite the trouble magnet, a vortex that around which an incredible amount of intrigue and calamity circles.

When The Capsarius finally does hit its stride and get to the real meat of the story, when the action kicks off, it doesn’t let up for a second. We join the Twenty-Second Legion on a frenetic, brutal campaign through the desert filled with the horror of war and steeped in blood and violence. Turney has a gift for orchestrating conflict, crafting relentless, exhilarating scenes that will leave you breathless. The Capsarius is full of action, thrills, shocking violence, and characters that you will learn to love and root for along with characters you will absolutely love to hate. If there’s any downfall at all to The Capsarius, it’s that it is obviously the opening salvo in a new series and will leave you chomping at the bit for the next book which—as far as I’m concerned—cannot come soon enough. Turney has turned out an awesome tale in The Capsarius, earning a bloody four out of five stars.

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REVIEW: Cold as Hell by Rhett C. Bruno

COLD AS HELL by Rhett Bruno is the sequel to DEAD ACRE, an audiobook original that I enjoyed. Cold as Hell, by contrast, is a story that is available in both Kindle as well as Audible forms. Of the two, I strongly recommend the audiobook version due to the fact it is narrated by Jaime Castle (AKA Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2). It’s not that the book isn’t good without Jaime’s narration, but he does such a fantastic job and is such a familiar sounding voice to fans of said game that it really pumps up the experience.

The premise is James Crowley is a former bandit who got himself killed doing one good thing after a lifetime of evil deeds. This results in him being recruited by the forces of Heaven to serve as their bounty hunter, fighting against the various monsters as well as supernatural evils afflicting the Earth. Honestly, he has a bum deal since if he succeeds then he will have his soul obliterated versus being consigned to Hell. I’m not sure if this is maltheism or a plot point, though, since Crowley’s angelic overseer, Shar, doesn’t seem to be very God-ly herself.

Anyway, Crowley is sent by his superiors to investigate a strange bank robbery that undoubtedly involves the supernatural. What follows is a complicated mystery involving silver mining, Native American rights, werewolves, demons, and the possibility there’s more out there than the God of Abraham and demons. Really, it’s a surprisingly twisted and labyrinthine plot given the relatively simple and straightforward one of Dead Acre.

Speaking of Dead Acre, I’d strongly recommend readers start with it instead of reading this as their first exposure to the Black Badge series. A major character first appears in that audiobook and her appearance here loses a lot of its dramatic impact without the setup done that novel. It’s also just a really good book by itself and well worth the Audible credit to purchase. If you don’t like audiobooks or want to read this as your start to the series, I’m sorry to say the story will be diminished.

As Weird Westerns go, Rhett Bruno did an excellent job setting up this environment and it is probably the best story we’d ever get for a Deadlands adaptation despite being its own original story. Certainly, it also works in the same vein as Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare as well. Crowley is a revenant that looks human but is very much dead. He is incapable of enjoying the, uh, finer things in life and that adds to the sense he’s a man suffering from a dreadful curse.

The action is excellent in the book, and we have a wide variety of monsters for our antihero to dispatch. If I have one complaint, it is naming one of the demons after Coyote. Coyote is a benevolent figure in Navajo mythology (for the most part) and using him is something that feels in poor taste given much of the rest of the book is about condemning the treatment of Native Americans in the Wild West. Much like Disney’s The Lone Ranger, except not sucking, this book tackles a few Wild West myths.

In conclusion, I really recommend Cold as Hell. I was a big fan of Rhett Bruno’s The Roach, and this takes a similar deconstructionalist tone to many Wild West tropes that The Roach took to superheroes while making use of others.

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