Adrian Collins's Blog, page 132

REVIEW: Age of the Undead by C.L. Werner

The zombie genre has become a lot like its subject matter – often shambling, lifeless and stale. Age of the Undead, by C.L. Werner, successfully navigates the familiar waters of a zombie apocalypse by mashing up undead infection with a classic sword and sorcery fantasy tale. Based on the Zombicide series of board games, specifically the Black Plague setting, Age of the Undead is an enjoyable and fast paced journey through a world that feels familiar but not overly cliched.

Age of the Undead hits the ground running in the prologue. Werner could have taken us step by step through the plague’s beginnings, but instead walked us through that build up in a single chapter. While the former would have been a grand epic, Werner instead chose to keep things tight, which works perfectly with the pacing of the rest of the book. The prologue also sets an appropriately grim tone as it takes us through the malign necromantic ritual that unleashes the plague and the lightning spread leading to the collapse of the kingdom.

Age of the Undead is constructed from tropes built upon tropes but rather than feeling lifeless and derivative Age of the Undead makes that work in its favor. Age of the Undead draws inspiration from Lovecraftian horror and D’n’D-esque high fantasy along with zombie apocalypse faire such as Dawn of the Dead and the more recent Army of the Dead. There were a few moments that even reminded me of DC Comics’ DCeased series. The plot holds few surprises, but Age of the Undead is about the journey, not the destination. The characters, while archetypal, are likeable and have personality. There’s nothing new about a knight seeking to avenge his family or a kind hearted rogue, nor is there anything new about a ragtag group pulling together and forming unlikely bonds. Nobody is trying to reinvent the wheel here but that doesn’t take anything away from Age of the Undead’s entertainment factor or the quality of C.L. Werner’s writing.

That said though, what makes Age of the Undead interesting is the strength of the fantasy/zombie mashup along with the new ideas it does bring to the table. Some of those ideas actually come from the Zombicide board game series, while some are the author’s own. Despite wearing its influences on its sleeve, the book still managed to pull off a few “oh shit!” moments that I didn’t see coming. Happily, the last few chapters also took an unexpected “oh shit” detour, concluding Age of the Undead with a tone as grim as how it began.

3/5

Read Age of the Undead by C.L. Werner

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REVIEW: Black Tide by K.C. Jones

Black Tide is the debut novel from K.C. Jones that brings together the “human car wreck” of Beth, and Mike, a depressed movie producer, at the end of the world. This is a small-scale, focussed sci-fi horror that plays out primarily on a deserted beach in the Pacific Northwest during off season. Our two misfits get trapped after a peculiar meteor shower by lost keys and terrible maws full of razorblade teeth that emerge from nowhere.

Black Tide gives off some 1980’s sci-fi movie vibes (think Alien, Predator) and has some great sections that accentuate this style:

“There she is. The queen. Poised on the ridge, jaws open, tongue-worm surveying the beach. ‘Mama’s awake,’”

On top of this the novel is quite self-aware of its 80’s movie echoes; no sooner had the comparison with Alien popped into my head than one of the characters name-drops Ellen Ripley.

“Sorry, humanity. You needed a Sarah Connor, or an Ellen Ripley, or even a Katniss Everdeen. You got me.”

What our budding femme-fatale forgets is that all these badass ladies didn’t start out that way but did the best they could to survive against the odds, and that is exactly the sort of situation that Beth and Mike find themselves in with Black Tide. A large part of the story has a clear focus on human resilience, fortitude, and survival; seeing the human tragedies that were Beth and Mike evolve into something more in the changed world they woke up to.

The book nods to the movie world in a few other places, which should be expected with a producer among our very small cast, and it feels like Jones is writing what he knows for his first novel (he graduated with a degree in Film Production, after all). As such it makes Black Tide feel cinematic and something I could certainly imagine getting optioned for a feature film. One possible drawback to this is that, yes, it has a healthy dose of Hollywood-style hope thrown in there towards the end (that Mike even pre-empts in a very meta commentary on what he’d want if the situation were a script he’d read). If you’re looking for a dark ending where everyone is ripped apart by monsters, this won’t be the book for you.

Black Tide isn’t exactly your typical alien invasion story either and it shines for it, adding a bit of cleverness into the mix that you don’t always see that offers an opportunity for a bit of deeper thought. It all takes place on what we might term ‘day zero’ and leaves to your imagination the fate of humanity at the end, nevertheless the narrower focus of the story makes for some tight, tense moments and allows the growing badassery of Beth and Mike to show through.

All-in-all, Black Tide is a focussed sci-fi horror character-study at the end of the world, replete with invisible aliens, dismembered cops, and a faithful hound to protect. Jones has created a cinematic novel with just the right amount of horror and fight to it that will give you some nostalgic feeling and make you think.

4/5

Read Black Tide by K.C. Jones

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An Interview With David Towsey

David Towsey is the author of the upcoming Equinox novel, The Walkin’ trilogy, and one-half of the creative partnership of D.K. Fields. Equinox, David’s newest release takes place in a world where every human body contains two distinct identities – a day brother and a night brother. One never sees the light, the other nothing of night.

David sat down with GDM to discuss his writing, computer games, the nature of binaries, and his love of ice cream. Thank you for sitting down with us and having a chat.

[GdM:] In case people are not familiar with your work, could you tell us about yourself?

Sure thing. I write novels, short stories, and indie computer games – mostly in the SFF genre. I guess I blend a lot of genre elements in what I do; my first novels apparently cornered the market on literary zombie-westerns. My next release, Equinox, is a mix of dark fantasy, folk horror, and witch-hunts with a strong SF-style “what if?” at its core. Game-wise I’m one half of Pill Bug Interactive, and we’ve released three games so far across Steam and Nintendo Switch. I’ve also co-written a fantasy-crime trilogy under the pseudonym D.K. Fields. I think it’s fair to say I like to mix things up.

[GdM:] I read that you are an ice cream man, is that still the case?

Ice cream is not just a dessert, it’s a mindset. Especially once you accept pistachio flavoured ice cream into your life.

[GdM:] I read that you enjoy computer games and MMOs and that you play Magic: the Gathering at a competitive level. As a game geek myself, I would love to hear more about that.

Oh wow, you have done your research! I actually stopped playing MMOs a few years back, around the release of WoW’s Mists of Pandaria. I still have a lot of love and respect for that form of gaming, but I just couldn’t give it the time and dedication I wanted to. I’ve also hung up my Magic slinging boots (not sure that metaphor works, but I’ll run with it). When my partner and I moved to Cardiff in 2016 we got involved in the local board gaming scene. We met loads of lovely people, played so many great games, that I didn’t find myself driven to keep up with Magic.

But when the pandemic hit, like many folks my work went solely online so I was in front of the screen even more than usual. I picked up an old, old hobby of mine in miniature painting. Mostly Games Workshop, but some 3D printed stuff to. It was a lot of fun getting back into that and seeing how far the hobby had come since I was a kid (YouTube painting videos are amazing!) That inevitably led to playing miniature games, and I’ve just started to get into tournaments for Age of Sigmar… once a tournament gamer, always a tournament gamer, I guess.

[GdM:] I read an interview you did where you were asked about your introduction to genre fiction being The Hobbit. I think many of us had similar experiences. Are there any other books out there that had profound influences on you as a reader?

So many, it’s hard to narrow it down. Perhaps one of the biggest influences for me as a reader and a writer would be Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend. I love so much of his work, but this book in particular opened my eyes to a certain kind of horror writing. For many readers in the 1950s and 60s, he brought horror to the suburbs and showed it could exist outside places like Dracula’s castle. Even decades later, as a young reader I experienced that powerful effect which brought horror home, and it stayed with me. I don’t necessarily write horror in the purest sense (though, I suppose that’s open to debate). But I think my interest in the genre is firmly rooted in the family and domestic spaces.

[GdM:] As one half of the Pillbug Interactive duo, you’ve written for games such as Make It Home, Cycle28, and Intelligent Design. What would you say the difference is between writing a great book and writing a great game? Do you have any techniques that only work for one or the other? Is there anything that surprised you by working well in both media?

I think it’s really important to respect each form of writing on its own terms, even though there are often crossovers. It’s dangerous to assume because you can write in one medium, it’s going to be easy to write in another. So, I went into games knowing I had a lot to learn, and as open-minded as possible. One of the most obvious differences between books and games is that for most games “writing” is only part of how a story is told. There are so many other factors: visual story-cues, game play mechanics, user interfaces, sound effects and music – the list goes on. This can be quite a shock for a fiction writer who is used to having almost complete control over their story. It can feel like a steep learning curve. But the good news is: some skills do translate. I’m quite a dialogue-heavy writer, and this helped a lot with writing for games; more often than not you’ll be writing dialogue, rather than full scenes or description. If you can craft an economic conversation that covers some key story beats, without it feeling too wooden or forced, that’s a great start for game-writing.

[GdM:] Could you tell us a bit about the Bath Spa Creative Writing Masters program? 

In short: I had a blast on my MA. I was one of the youngest of the cohort, coming almost directly from my BA in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth, and it was brilliant to be around such a diverse group of driven writers. There was a huge variety of projects people were working on – in prose, poetry, and other mediums. It was a really good energy to be immersed in for someone trying to write their first novel. I started Your Brother’s Blood on that course, and have a lot of people to thank for how it turned out (don’t worry, they all appear in the acknowledgements).

[GdM:] How has the program helped you as a writer?

I’m sure their website would tell you the particulars, but my experience of the program was of learning a lot about writing in a very intense year. I’d already started to grasp how scenes were constructed, how and when to be economic with language, and how important voice was to a story; but it wasn’t until my MA that I felt confident in applying these ideas to my own novel-length project.

[GdM:] You have a Ph.D. in creative writing, what was your dissertation on?

The critical element of my thesis explored representations of absent parents in SF novels. In one chapter I did a close reading of Matheson’s I Am Legend through the lens of Attachment Theory – as I mentioned earlier, it’s a novel that had a big impact on me as a reader. The creative element of my Ph.D. was a novel called The Orbital Son. The theme of absent parents in the critical thesis carried over to the novel, which follows a young man as he tries to reconnect with his dying father. It’s not the most subtle thing I’ve ever written, but I learned a lot writing it.

[GdM:] What was your experience with language and writing where you discovered just how powerful it can be?

As a reader, I’d say it was reading The Hobbit as a kid, which you mentioned earlier. I was on a holiday, stuck in a car with my grandparents for hours on end. I was amazed that words on the page could take me away from that hot, stuffy car and put me in a totally different world. As a writer, I didn’t have much confidence in my own ability to do that until readers started commenting on the particulars of Walkin’ characters, as if they were real people. I’d managed to use language to get readers to think about living on after death, about poking your own spleen through a hole in your chest, and how a father might convey this all to his daughter. That felt pretty powerful.

[GdM:] When you are writing a story do you start with an idea, such as “what it would be like to live forever” for example in Your Brother’s Blood?  Or do you start with a character such as Christopher Morden from Equinox and go from there?

I’m definitely an ideas-led writer. I start with a concept that might make for an intriguing set-up, and then start exploring what stories feel like a good fit for it. With the Walkin’ Trilogy that was, as you say, about how the burden of living forever might affect a family. In a sense, it’s a kind of family saga told over three books rather than one big one. For Equinox, the two-people in each body concept changes so much, I could have told a thousand different stories. But it led me down some pretty dark paths from the get-go. The idea of one half of a witchfinder falling in love with a suspect, while the other half tries to convict them really appealed as a way to link concept and story.

[GdM:] The Walkin’ Trilogy is a zombie-western and has a very different feel, it is much sparser in prose, then Equinox. Was that a conscious choice or was that how the writing evolved organically?

It wasn’t a conscious choice to make that change. The voice of both books was led by their respective worlds. We talk a lot as SFF writers about worldbuilding, but it’s a conversation often dominated by things like social or power structures, magic systems, that kind of thing. Not so much about voice or tone. When I write, I want my prose to feel part of that world. Sparse, staccato prose for the Walkin’ Trilogy’s western landscape sounded right to me. Equinox is looser, and maybe denser, to reflect the thick forests surrounding Drekenford – and the slightly claustrophobic nature of that village.

[GdM:] How do you feel about SFF as a genre in 2022? Where do you see the genre branching off to in the future?

I think SFF is in a positive place right now. It’s such a broad genre, or group of genres, that there’s work being published for a wide range of readerships and tastes. The diversity of voices is improving, but it’s fair to say there’s still a way to go on that front. I hope that more writers and readers coming to SFF will branch the genre in ways that I can’t even imagine – which is the whole point, isn’t it? It’s a playground for sharing our individual, esoteric imaginings of the future.

[GdM:] You write as one half of the creative partnership D. K. Fields with poet Katherine Stansfield. How does your partnership work? Do you jointly talk about every aspect of the story, or do you take chunks of things then combine them?

It was messy. At least, it started that way. Neither Katherine nor I had co-written anything before. When we started Widow’s Welcome – the first book in the Tales of Fenest Trilogy – we took an admirable, yet naïve, set of decisions to make the process as democratic as possible. We each wrote a chapter of the same story, passing the manuscript back and forth. When we had a full draft, we even line edited together in a Google.doc, facing each other at the same table on two laptops. Many arguments ensued about commas and the like. By the time the trilogy was finished, we’d worked out a smoother but still equal process… and we haven’t written together since.

[GdM:] Could you tell us about your upcoming release, Equinox?

It’s a dark fantasy story about a witchfinder, Special Inspector Christophor Morden, who is sent to a remote village to hunt a witch. A man has clawed out his own eyes, driven to do so by teeth growing in his eye sockets, and sorcery is the suspected cause. But in this world every physical body has two people inside it: one day-sibling, one night-sibling. So, Christophor’s day-brother, Alexsander, has no choice but to accompany him on this witch-hunt. As the investigation leads one brother closer to his witch, the other finds himself falling in love with a prime suspect.

[GdM:] How did you come up with the idea of a day sibling and night sibling?

In a strange way, I have Katherine to thank for the initial spark for this idea. She was taking a nap one day in a chair near a window and her face was almost perfectly half in shadow, half in the light. Seeing this happened to coincide with some things I was working through personally about why we’re strong in some ways and vulnerable in others. The image of her face “split” by light and shadow crystalised this duality in that moment, and I found myself imagining how I might push it to an extreme. Two different people in one body, each strong in some ways but vulnerable in others, seemed like an interesting concept to explore.

[GdM:] Is it fair to say that the concept of binaries is an important part of Equinox? I appreciated that in the story people are more complicated than “good/bad” or “black/white” but that they are shades of gray.

I think the core binary of night-day sibling is essential to Equinox. But I wanted to explore the very idea of binaries in the book. I liked the irony of a novel that presented as black-and-white (and Head of Zeus did a wonderful job on the cover in this regard) but was actually a story about the complications and nuances that are part of any binary, if you just scratch the surface. It’s not a new idea, and many better writers than I have examined this in far more significant contexts. The most I can hope for is that Equinox gets one or two readers thinking about the nature of binaries.

[GdM:] I hear that you write to music. How do you pick the music for the novel, does the playlist go along as things change? What was the playlist for Equinox?

I do indeed write to music. I construct a playlist for each project, with songs taken from a fairly wide variety of artists. The emphasis is, again, on tone. What kind of mood do I want to put myself in while writing? Sounds obvious, but like a lot of people music has a huge impact on how I feel in any given moment. The playlist for Equinox was pretty bleak. Songs from artists like Mazzy Star, Alice in Chains, and Elliot Smith featured heavily. But even more “upbeat” artists have songs that felt right for some of the darker elements of Equinox – bands like The Mars Volta, Fleetwood Mac (of course, Rhiannon had to feature), and Coheed and Cambria. It’s all stuff I’d listen to anyway, but brought together to set the tone in the background as I write.

[GdM:] You released Your Brother’s Blood in 2013, the first novel of The Walkin’ Trilogy. What lessons have you learned since then regarding your writing workflow? Was Equinox easier to write than Your Brother’s Blood?

I wish! Equinox was perhaps the most challenging book I’ve ever written – and that includes learning to co-write. The technical issues caused by having two personalities for every character when trying to plot a kind of crime investigation… do you know that Charlie Day conspiracy board meme? It became a kind of totem animal when drafting Equinox. I very nearly lost it on that book. That said, perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned since 2013 is that I revel in the challenge. If writing feels easy, I don’t trust it. I have keep pushing myself, like a shark has to keep swimming, otherwise, I’m sunk.

[GdM:] What things do you have coming up?

Well, the release of Equinox is keeping me pretty busy at the moment. But the next novel project is in the research and planning stages, so that’s starting to feel exciting. I can’t say too much yet, only that it will be another blend of fantasy and horror that puts some fairly unusual elements together. Pill Bug Interactive is similarly in the early stages of our next game. And who knows, maybe D.K. Fields will “get the band back together” for another series. It’s an energising time, full of creative possibilities.

Read Equinox by David Towsey

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REVIEW: Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

Scott Lynch’s second novel in The Gentlemen Bastards Sequence, Red Seas Under Red Skies, picks up two years after the events at the end of The Lies of Locke Lamora. A new city brings new opportunities and trials, forcing our boys to learn quite a few new tricks. More importantly, they’ll have to rehash some old ones.

Red Seas Under Red Skies follows Locke and Jean after leaving their home in Camorr. Stuck in a deep spiral of despair, the only thing that can catch Locke’s attention is a challenge, the challenge of challenges: the Sinspire. The Sinspire is an infamous gambling house in the city state of Tal Verarr, revered for its high-class clientele, secrecy, and security. No one has ever stolen anything from the Sinspire and lived to tell the tale, making it the perfect target. There’s just one problem: before Locke and Jean can enact their deliberate and elaborate ruse, someone else requires their assistance of the most fatal kind. Led into a scheme on the high seas, our two favorite thieves will prove exactly how much they know about piracy and ships: absolutely nothing.

Although there is a time lapse between The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies, Lynch connects key moments from the past and the present, directly tying the books together. His prose continues to be a strength as he frames each story element from the mindset of a con man: every detail matters and creates a vivid image. The other highlight is the relationship dynamic between Locke and Jean. Where the first book set the foundation of the strong friendship between the two, the sequel shows the highs and lows that come with any meaningful relationship, especially during conflict. The level of effort Lynch puts into their bond invokes a strong sense of investment and care from the reader.

At over 600 pages, some readers might take issue with the pacing. This slow buildup combined with a large focus on a seemingly small plot point could form the mindset that Red Seas Under Red Skies is a jolly side quest. However, Lynch uses his unique affinity for master plotting to weave even the most miniscule of threads together, playing the reader just as Locke would a gullible mark. Everything comes together in the end. If anything, I wish there had been more pages to read when I finished.

From a grimdark perspective, Lynch uses his classic subtlety in Red Seas Under Red Skies. He lures you in with descriptions of food and stunning buildings before changing up the tempo with a quiet onslaught of brutality and truth: “The truth of anything we do will die with us and nobody else will ever have a bloody clue” (83). At surface level, this is not your typical blood and violence manifesto, but once you delve deeper, the book’s heart is just as black as other works found under the label, albeit shaped differently. I’m ready to see what awaits Locke next in The Republic of Thieves.

Read Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

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REVIEW: The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham

The Dragon’s Path is an intriguing and character-focused fantasy release that helped me get out of a reading and review slump that has lasted 3-months.

The first entry in The Dagger and the Coin series, The Dragon’s Path mainly follows 4 point of view perspectives, 3 of which I really enjoyed reading. These main characters are Cithrin, an orphan bank ward, Marcus, a warrior of some renown, Geder, an upper-class intellect yet substandard soldier, and Dawson, a man of influence in one of the capital’s leading families, who is friends with the King and an expert dualist. The latter, the individual I’ve written the most about in that brief summary, is the character I enjoyed following the least, however; he was crucial in presenting the views of the upper echelon with the political unrest and turmoil brimming.

Cithrin’s chapters were a joy to follow and some of the most unique. Through her, Abraham presents some really interesting moments where she ponders investments, banking, insurance, loans, and running businesses and it was engrossing. I personally have some experience in insurance and finance so found these parts pretty fascinating. Her progression and growth throughout is one of the novel’s highlights too.

If Cithrin represents the Coin of the series title, then I’d hesitate to guess that Marcus may be the Dagger. This is ambiguous at this point in the series though as there are many elements of mystery and conspiracies throughout this first entry. Returning to Marcus though, he’s got an illustrious past serving the military, has had family tragedy that haunts him, and seems to be a humble caravan guard captain at present. He’s sometimes brooding, intelligent, dangerous (whether this is shown or not in this novel I won’t divulge), and begrudgingly has a sense of duty and right in certain circumstances. His page time crossed over with another character frequently and their relationship is one of the main draws of this book to me. My assessment is that Marcus is destined to be massively important in the overall tale, and his relationship with another main character made me purchase the second and third books of the series before I was even halfway through The Dragon’s Path.

Like Marcus, Dawson’s point of view perspective crosses over with that of another main character, so, although I didn’t like reading Dawson’s views as much as the others, I’d estimate that a quarter of his page-time was through the eyes of another member of the ensemble, so I often forgot my minor irks with him. I’m not sure why I didn’t like him as much. Perhaps due to him being quite pompous and classist, he’s meant to be less likable. Whatever the case, he is still a fine character for this world and the story so far. It might be a frequent trait in multi-POV fantasy novels but I definitely have a soft spot for cross-over point of views, when as readers we can witness the same event and get two very different takes on it, (something John Gwynne does very well in The Faithful and the Fallen).

Geder’s tale in The Dragon’s Path is exquisite, bizarre, unpredictable, and kind of delightful! I don’t want to say too much about his story but I felt like I’d travelled half the map of this epic fantasy world with him, fully witnessing the highs and the lows that some major fantasy characters don’t see the like of in entire trilogies. I found him the most complex and rewarding so far.

The Dragon’s Path is firmly invested in fantasy, yet, in this novel, the extinct dragons, the heroes of old, the magic, and the gods are mainly just the lore and knowledge of the present-day characters. They aren’t showcased as being current and having any major influence on this finely crafted and well realised world. This novel focuses on the people, plots, struggles, hardships, wars, and courtly drama. I think that the otherworldly and strange powers that may be lurking in the shadows of the sidelines will take centre stage in the subsequent novels. If so, I’m interested to see how the stakes change and the effects it has on the characters I’ve very much enjoyed following here.

Another element I’ll quickly discuss is that I love fantasy reads with complex and unique magic systems, where I can try to figure them out and understand the rules. Magic such as this isn’t present in The Dagger and the Coin yet, but the possibilities are hinted at and I await with bated breath if more is revealed in The King’s Blood.

The Dragon’s Path dragged me out of my reading slump where many other highly rated fantasy books failed. I will score it a 7.5/10 which is down to my overall enjoyment, how neatly the stories wrapped up, and I am excited by the potential that is shown here and how promisingly it sets up the series. Abraham seems to be a fine writer, this novel presents good plotting and pacing, fine main characters, and a few gems in the second tier. The Dragon’s Path also features a well-worked mixture of both action scenes and gripping dialogue moments. I took a chance on a series that I knew little about, and am content that I did. The Dragon’s Path, although not quite brilliant, did reinvigorate my passion for reading. As much of that is down to what could come next, on top of what was featured here.

Read The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham

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REVIEW: The Roach by Rhett C. Bruno

The Roach by Rhett C. Bruno is a book that is a rare find among grimdark fiction: a superhero novel. There’s certainly grimdark superhero stories like Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Spawn, and Daredevil: Born Again. However, the literary superhero is more inclined to be zany comedy than a somber reflection of the dark side of superherodom. I don’t say that just because I write zany superhero comedy.

Reese Roberts is a wheelchair-bound man contemplating ending it all by drowning himself in Iron Heights’ river at the start of the book. This is already darker territory than the majority of superheroes take the subject. Reese used to be the Roach, the most feared man in the city and something resembling a superhero. I say something resembling because several people rightfully (?) point out that he could easily be referred to as a serial killer instead.

The Roach ended his career by interrupting a rape and getting shot in the process. Thankfully, for him, the woman was the daughter of a local politician who proceeded to clean up after him. The city is now no longer the same sort of hellhole it used to be. However, it’s still left Reese purposeless and hounded by the single lone reporter who wants to expose him for all of his crimes.

Part of what makes the story interesting is that the Roach is clearly crazy. He’s much closer to Rorschach and the Punisher than Batman. When people call him a serial killer, they’re not wrong as he was driven by a brutal desire to deal out as much punishment as he could and many of his his victims are people that could have escaped their circumstances to be better people.

The book deals with the kind of circumstances that would make a murderous vigilante and gets into his head. Reese’s mind is an ugly place to be and full of hate for just about everyone and everything. The only people he doesn’t bear any animus toward is the woman he rescued as well as her young daughter. Everyone else he holds in a state of utter contempt.

This is a dark and gritty book that doesn’t contain much in the way of superhero tropes except for the Roach himself. He has a bullet proof costume (that failed him), a lair, and a lot of skill as both a detective as well as fighter.However, the rest of the city is full of ordinary criminals and heinous crime that verges on Sin City levels of corrupt.Perhaps too much as it plays into the idea the Roach may well be right about his city.

Are there perhaps too few coincidences in the story? Yes. But compared to your average superhero story, it’s the height of realism. There’s no supervillains in this world but at least one baddie is portrayed as all but indestructible to cops and security despite the fact he’s been in a mental hospital for years. Something that should have left him less capable of inflicting damage rather than more. These are all necessary beats for a good superhero story, though, so I won’t complain too much.

Rhett C. Bruno has a gift for action and his descriptions of the violence that is inflicted by our hero as well as on our hero is extremely well done. This contains a lot of dark and heavy subject matter but the fact it’s a superhero book makes the effect all the more surreal. I was very impressed with the story from beginning to end. If you’re looking for a genuinely grimdark superhero tale then this is the book for you.

Read The Roach by Rhett C. Bruno

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REVIEW: The Lawless Land by Boyd and Beth Morrison

The Lawless Land by Beth and Boyd Morrison is a historical fiction that will have medieval action fans on the edge of their seats. Set in a post-ish Black Death England and France, The Lawless Land is what you get when you put Jack Reacher into a medieval setting (according to Lee Child, who I can’t disagree with here!). It’s a badarse book and easy reading.

In The Lawless Land, Gerard Fox, roaming ex-communicated knight and man at arms for hire, witnesses a daring lady fleeing in a crossbow bolt-prickled carriage. Stepping in with recurve bow and blade, he inadvertently throws away his life plans and launches himself into bloody adventure alongside Lady Isabel.

Lady Isabel carries a secret protected by the women of her family line for centuries, but in fleeing the horrible grasp of her betrothed, she flings herself into the wild of a land stricken with the Black Plague, criminals, brigands, and an incredibly angry, vengeful, and spiteful husband to be.

Around our two main characters are the supporting cast: Lord Tonbridge is fuming at the loss of his bride-to-be and the impact on his future plans to rule, the corrupt Cardinal Molyneux chases the final step to the papacy, and Basquin the bastard craves freedom from under his father’s brutal heel.

The authors have interlinked the storylines of The Lawless Land nicely, and created an easy to follow web of twists and turns. They also know how to pull off a big scene and as we got in to the last 30% of the book The Lawless Land really picked up speed and I found it harder and harder to put down. The sheer attention to detail, and creative extrapolation where detail of certain things in the 14th century perhaps didn’t exists is amazing. In addition to the research both authors must have thrown themselves into, all of Beth Morrison’s experience as the curator of the Department of Manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty museum shows through here, as does both authors’ experiences travelling Europe.

However, there was one key thing that didn’t land with me. In the first half of The Lawless Land especially, the conversations between characters felt stilted. While I imagine the intended effect was to get me into the medieval mood, the result was to create a struggle in flow and conversations that felt a bit like bad acting, and therefore I didn’t really feel a bond of brotherhood between Fox and his associates as their banter trudged and tripped along.

As far as grimdark characters go, Basquin, Molyneux, and Tonbridge’s POVs provide the closest to what we love reading here at Grimdark Magazine. However, their characters never really cross the bridge from just being nasty for the sake of it, to having the reader relate to them in any way. Basquain probably gets the closest, but I never really got enough to form an emotional attachment to him so that when something didn’t go his way I would feel for him. When about a third of the book is made up of their scenes and chapters, it really means you’re just rooting for their deaths, and not really understanding them, making the villains a bit one dimensional rather than enjoyable reads for this reviewer.

The Lawless Land is a fun easy read, and will delight medieval action and adventure aficionados and fans. The lack of an emotional attachment to the POVs of approximately a third of the book is problematic for me, but if you love a good old fashioned evil villains doing evil things, then you’ll absolutely love this book.

3/5

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REVIEW: Deepwater King by Claire McKenna

My personal comfort place is by a wild coast, listening to the sea bashing against rocks. The wildness of it, the vast presence of the water and the rough saltiness of the sea air have been singing their siren song to me since I was little. So when I was pitched a review copy of Claire McKenna’s Deepwater King, a gothic fantasy set at sea with steampunk influences, I knew there was no way I could resist its call. This is the second book in McKenna’s Deepwater Trilogy, following up on Monstrous Heart. The series will end with Firetide Coast in Summer 2022, so there isn’t long to wait to be able to binge the entire trilogy in a single sitting. And they’re so much fun you may want to do just that. Mixing elements of a gothic steampunk setting, which dominated the first book with an almost pirate-like sea adventure makes for great entertainment, and the series’ leading lady, Arden, is a strong lead character.

Not concerned with being pleasant or likeable, she is determined and smart, though not infallible or overpowered. She is a grown woman, one with flaws and strengths. And most of all, she is passionate, and cares about the people around her. The series is billed as a romantic fantasy, though I found that the focus wasn’t laid overly much on the romance aspect, which I appreciated. Love and relationships, both romantic and platonic, do form a core element of the story, but ultimately, it felt like the books were more focused on sacrifice and how far the characters were willing to go for those they cared about. This was also underlined by distance, as much of the romantic tension within the story took place through written communication.

What helped make these books compelling to me was the worldbuilding. It is not an epic secondary world or a grand-scale reinvention, but it is solid and coherent, and it draws the reader in. It is made clear that there is a much more expansive world and mythology to go along with than what the reader sees at first glance, making it appear real and plastic. And so Arden’s story becomes a wonderfully comforting read. One that mirrors the comfort given to be by sitting at the coast, listening to the rough sea. Deepwater King (and Monstrous Heart) are books that resonated a lot with me, and I hope Firetide Coast will too. If water is your element as much as it is mine, and you enjoy dark, gothic, stories with a touch of romance, do give these a chance, as I think they have flown under the radar and deserve more attention.

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REVIEW: This Thing of Darkness by Allan Batchelder

“What if William Shakespeare faked his death to live in Jamestown? What if there was a monster in the woods there?” Either of these could be the basis for a fun alternate history novel but combined have a very quirky and interesting story. The fact This Thing of Darkness is being reviewed in Grimdark Magazine should tell you that the results are a bit on the darker side, though. Allan Batchelder is the author of the excellent Immortal Treachery fantasy series, and I was thus interested in seeing what he came up with in his latest standalone.

The premise is “William Kemp” has come to Jamestown under mysterious circumstances and almost immediately makes several enemies from the local released criminals as well as his general attitude. His worldliness, irreligiosity (mild by our time, scandalous then), arrogance, and secretiveness put off just about everyone else in the colony. Thankfully, he befriends a young boy named Xander and a woman named Margaret that provide him at least some respite from his ill-conceived plan to start over.

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, William has come to a period in Jamestown history unknown to the modern world: when the colony is menaced by an unknown cannibalistic monster. William is aware he may be letting his prodigious imagination run away with him when there are more mundane explanations possible, but the New World is a frightening as well as alien place. It doesn’t help the local law has a vested interest in blaming either the local tribes or animal attacks lest they scare off potential new settlers.

I really must give Allan Batchelder credit for doing his research as the Bard on page feels plausibly like the kind of man who penned both Hamlet as well as The Merchant of Venice. He is a witty but somewhat sad man who has a lifetime of regrets starting with abandoning his wife as well as more than a few checkered romances that ended badly. Most of the latter are also based on Shakespearian scholarship too and are more interesting than you might think given the premise of “Elizabethan Shakespearian romance.” William is a poor detective either way and wants nothing more than the problem to go away as well as his issues with the locals that are becoming increasingly likely to end in violence. However, the circumstances come to a head when one of his few companions ends up vanishing and no one but he is interested in doing anything about it. It is not a heroic story and William’s poor capacity for heroism makes him an engaging protagonist.

This Thing of Darkness is a solid and entertaining work of fiction that I think people who don’t much care for historical fantasy will enjoy or, heck, even Shakespeare. If you like good characterization and an engaging plot then this will satisfy you.

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REVIEW: Stringers by Chris Panatier

Ben Sullivan, the lead protagonist of Stringers, Chris Panatier’s new novel, has a skewed view of the world. Imagine having a mind chockful of useless information, information that has somehow inexplicably been there your whole life. Add in heaping loads of social awkwardness, and you have Ben. His whole life has been full of oppressive details about the mating habits of animals, exotic watches, fly lure creation, and not much else.

We start our story with Ben at work making an exotic and beautiful fly lure, and he is being accosted by a customer Jim. Jim would like “oneuh them boom trains then.” Ben reminds Jim that he can have one of them boom trains flys for some cold hard currency. We segway from the current conversation into the mating habit of moles, dolphins, and porcupines. This intrusiveness of thoughts permeates every waking moment for Ben. His life is one constant battle against animal sex lives, watches, and fly lures.

Ben’s desperation is apparent. Anyone would be desperate to escape the constant thoughts of seemingly banal information. From a character perspective, I think Panatier did a great job with Ben. Ben is more than his quirks, but his battle with his quirks defines who he is out in the world.

Now, we segway to a scene between Ben and his “Samwise Gamgee,” Patton. Patton is a screwup, an often drugged kid in an adult’s body who never could grow up. He is also fiercely loyal. We should all be so lucky to have the caliber of friend that Patton is.

In a moment of desperation and curiosity, Ben finds another person in an online group who has the same intrusive thought problems as he does. At this point, Ben is reaching out for anything that will make his life better.  Patton fears that Ben will be made into a skin vest or something of that ilk and demands that he comes along. He is always trying to protect his friend.

One thing leads to another, and aliens abduct both Patton and Ben. Now the real adventure starts.

This story’s blurb proclaims it to be a bit like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, except instead of towels, the friends are armed with a giant container of pickles and whatever wits the two of them can scrape up together. There is kidnapping, aliens bent on destruction, drugs, and mind-bending machines. It asks the question, “What is a Stringer?”  Stringers isn’t all fun and games though, there are some very dark moments and some rather introspective thoughts on friendship that balance out the levity. Generally, Stringers is an amusing story. It wasn’t “side stitch” funny but undoubtedly funny enough to see how each ridiculous predicament rolled into the next.

I also loved how Panatier described space and aliens. It wasn’t hard science fiction, but just enough details, especially about what a stringer actually is, to make my science fiction-loving heart happy. And to top it off, Panatier nailed the ending. None of which I can talk about for fear of giving anything away.

All and all, this is one of my favorite science fiction reads so far this year. So much so that I will check out Panatier’s The Phlebotomist. I am in for a treat if the writing is anywhere near as fun as this is.

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