Adrian Collins's Blog, page 156

REVIEW: A Ritual of Bone by Lee C. Conley

A little bit fantasy, a little bit horror, A Ritual Bone was a whole lot of awesome. Lee C. Conley crafted an excellent fantasy that is liberally sprinkled with viscera, although never at the cost of story.

I have not read a ton of Norse inspired fantasy, although I am getting a bit more experience with that kind of setting. However, I am pretty sure that zombies don’t usually make an appearance in this sort of book, and I was here for it!

At its heart, A Ritual of Bone was about the people and how they deal with an unexpected disaster of the sort that you can’t ever be prepared for, even if you have prepared. Seeing the lengths the characters went to and what their motivations were was truly fascinating.

There were several things throughout this book that were done incredibly well. First, there’s the use of magic to make an unutterably stupid mistake, one with disastrous consequences. Curiosity killed the…well, in this case it killed more than just the cat. I will never stop loving the idea of someone dabbling in things they really shouldn’t. It is absolutely believable and can lead a plot in so many unexpected directions.

Another way that A Ritual of Bone killed it is with the zombies themselves. They weren’t the mumbling, shuffling (and-frankly- boring) kind of undead. Rather, they felt a little like a starving wild animal: desperate, cornered, and vicious. They were often nail-bitingly intimidating. I also liked that they didn’t jump straight into mindless killer mode. There were moments of introspection, even, from the zombies themselves. This was not done in a comical way, and it served to add an extra level to an already emotionally charged book.

The book was never scary, but it happily lurked in that stressful territory that will always keep me reading late into the night. I was fully invested from very early on. The atmosphere in A Ritual of Bone was brilliant. Conley was a wizard in his descriptions, casting a smokey pall that was gritty, dark, and extremely compelling.

The book followed multiple characters, all of which offered something different to the plot. While they were all well-written, there were a couple who stood out to me. Bjorn, a hunter who was captured by wild men, was quite possibly my favorite. I also really liked reading about Nym, whose purpose was to take care of her brother, which provided a different perspective.

A Ritual of Bone did come across as a little repetitive from time to time, but it was not enough to dull my enjoyment in any way. It is a small niggle in an otherwise great book. There are some questions I hope to see answered in the future, and I’m excited to continue on to book two.

I recommend A Ritual of Bone to readers who want a new take on zombies, or readers who like a sense of urgency in their fantasy.

Read A Ritual of Bone by Lee C. Conley

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Discussing the Wisdom of Crowds with Joe Abercrombie

With The Wisdom of Crowds being released this week, Gollancz gave me the opportunity to interview Joe Abercrombie about the influences for The Age of Madness and Bayaz, the risks of putting new characters into a world fans already love, and what the author can’t wait to see in this epic age of televised SFF.

[GdM] The Age of Madness has strong themes of rebellion and instability. How much of an impact did current world events across your home in the UK and the US influence the writing of this latest trilogy?

Well . . . certainly some, I guess. Everyone who writes fantasy (and everyone who reads it) are people living in the real world, so I don’t think you can escape, or would particularly want to escape, being influenced by everything that’s going on around you, and your opinions and attitudes naturally find their way out in what you write.

That said, I started writing this trilogy way back in 2015 and the decision to set it during the early stages of an industrial revolution, then a social revolution, went back a fair bit further than that. So a certain amount of social turmoil was baked into the concept and that was part of the appeal for me – there’s a lot of conflict and drama inherent in the period and the setting – rich against poor, tradition against innovation, monarchy against democracy. That we seem to have entered our own little political and cultural age of madness in the UK and US since I started writing it was to some degree coincidental. I think the political mood certainly had an impact. But at the same time I found I’d written about a few things – riots, corruption, statue toppling – that then became major issues in the news and the writing became almost a little too on the nose. So if anything real events gave me an opportunity to reconsider and refine some of what I’d written, rather than inspiring me to do it in the first place.

[GdM] When writing The Age of Madness, did you see advancing the age of the setting and the generation of characters as a risk? What made you want to take that leap?

I guess every book feels like a bit of a risk to some extent – you’re always wondering whether readers will like new characters and new approaches – and there are definitely some fantasy readers who are very attached to their medieval worlds and start to get a bit uncomfortable as things turn more modern, even if the mindsets of many of the characters in classic fantasy are very modern. But I don’t think you can worry too much over what any imagined group of readers might think – apart from anything else it’s almost impossible to anticipate what people actually will end up liking or objecting to – so you’ve really got to write to your own taste if you’re going to produce anything worthwhile. And I don’t want to write in a world that feels static or to endlessly come back to the same characters. You have to move things forward, keep things fresh, keep yourself interested and challenged. A reader might spend a week or two with a book and be keen for more. A writer spends years with it, and more often than not is ready to move on afterwards.

[GdM] What were the periods and places in history you drew your influence from for this trilogy?

Chiefly the early industrial revolution in the UK and Europe, so during the period of water-power, as the steam engine is starting to appear, and society is being recast at break-neck pace by innovations not just in the technical realm but the financial and social ones. But then later by the French and Russian revolutions, as you will probably see more than ever in the Wisdom of Crowds…

[GdM] How does it feel to have—and how difficult is it to write—your characters aging? And, not to be too cheeky, but when I met you in Sydney you were actually a bit of a unit, so how much of the aches and pains are based on lived experience?

Well I’ve often said Glokta grew partly out of the experience of being laid up for a couple of weeks with a bad back, so most things are to some degree drawn out of lived experience – albeit exaggerated, overstated, refined to an intense point. I actually enjoy the characters aging and changing and making way for a new generation. It’s all part of a world that’s constantly developing. The brash young turks of the past become the parents and great statesmen of the present (if they survive), and the the myths and cautionary tales of the future.

[GdM] Bayaz is one of the most believable villains in contemporary dark fantasy: introduced as a wise father figure, he is revealed to be a power-hungry manipulator of the worst kind. What influences inspired this character and his ongoing role in your novels?

Mostly Gandalf. Though also Merlin and Belgarath and host of other irrascible but goodly wizardly mentors throughout fantasy. Bayaz is their dark reflection, I guess. In the edition of Lord of the Rings I read (often) as a kid, there was a foreword by Tolkien where he answered the question of whether the book was an allegory for the world wars by saying, if it had been, Gandalf would have used the ring. And I thought right then that would make a very interesting variation. In a world without absolute good, without an unchallengeable divine mission, Gandalf very quickly becomes quite a terrifying figure – a near-immortal, enigmatic manipulator without doubt or scruple when it comes to achieving his ends, plus a combination of huge power and a short fuse. He’s already a pretty terrifying figure if you’re an orc, after all…

[GdM] As a huge fan of short stories, Sharp Ends is one of my favourite books ever. Do you have plans for any further short works to help fill out the backstories of your characters?

There actually already are three that were written to go in some special editions of the three Age of Madness books, and I’ve written a fourth more considerable one – they’re going to be bound together into an illustrated novella by Subterranean Press in September 2022. It’s called The Great Change, and other Lies.

[GdM] Why the fuck aren’t we watching season 3 of a First Law TV series by now?

Ha. Well that is a long tale that shall be told at some time, I daresay, but probably not today…

[GdM] On your blog you mentioned you’re a mere 35K words into a new project. Are you able to give us any detail about the setting, story, or characters in the new book you’re writing?

I think I’m about 100k in now but still less than half way through, so I really failed to stick to my planned word count yet again with this one. It’s both familiar in some ways and a radical departure in others. It features a group of mismatched extremely messed-up heroes/villains on a morally ambiguous quest. But it takes place in a slightly ridiculous version of our own world packed with magic, monsters, and shoddy research.

[GdM] You’ve previously spoken about being really into text-based adventures as a kid. Has this lockdown given you an opportunity to get into some old-school text-based gaming with your family or some of your friends online (eg. through a MMORPG)?

I certainly did lose many hours on text-based adventures as a kid, but then that’s what there was at the time. The world has since given us Total War, so I can instead spend thousands of hours playing that.

[GdM] What are the three bits of SFF in any medium that you’re looking forward to most?

Interesting question – I must admit that I don’t consume very much fantasy in written form, I tend to find it too close to what I do, and it’s difficult to turn off the analytic side of my brain and lose myself in it like I did before I was a writer. On the TV side, what I’ve seen of Foundation looks pretty spectacular, and far enough from the books that whether or not they have much in common starts to be a bit of a moot point, plus I’m a big fan of Jared Harris. I am curious to see what the Lord of the Rings TV show ends up like, given the colossal amount of money spent on it, and my long-standing love of Middle Earth, though I really worry when they make anything like that from such limited source material – their chances of really capturing Tolkien’s tone AND making something that works for a modern audience seem slim, but I live in hope. On the gaming side, I’ve always loved Dark Souls so what I’ve seen of Elden Ring has me very excited.

Read The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie

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REVIEW: The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson

The Loop is a freaky story: a little bit War of the Worlds, a little bit Stranger Things, and a little bit, huh? 

Have you ever heard of Turner Falls, Oregon? A typical little city with a population barely enough to call it a city. Probably not. It isn’t worth noting except for the weird quirk of having a plethora of Biotech corporations. That is the rub. What happens when a little tiny town and the teenagers who live there mix with biotech? You get The Loop. 

The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson is a weird little story that had me in the first fifty pages. It follows a typical body Snatchers type trope where the snatchers are bioengineered creatures instead of aliens. Except Johnson puts little twists on it here and there to keep the idea feeling fresh to readers. The way Johnson describes some of the scenes is pure body horror, and I am here for it. 

“You guys were the ones who thought it would be okay to pop a fucking octopus computer into somebody’s neck.”

Johnson took some of the big universal scares of humanity, things like tentacles that invade your body. They enter through your neck and break through your skull and shoot down your spine. These creatures remove your empathy and turn you into hive-minded machines bent on destruction. It is a great idea, especially in the beginning when a student is smashing a teacher’s face in with a book’s spine. What puts him into such a huge rage is not usual. Gore splatters the walls, and the students that witness the murder are forever altered by it. It wasn’t just a horror fest; there is character development and interest.

My main question in all this was why? The story did not have the deep plausible why that I needed as a springboard for the visuals. What was the point of the bioengineered monsters? Was it to control the teenagers? That seems a bit flimsy, and because that one bit of plot information eluded me, I could not fully immerse myself in the story.

Aside from the “big why,” that I spoke about above, there are many positives with The Loop. For one, the main character is a teenager but not the annoying angsty kind. Instead, the protagonist is the type who is just done with all this small town nonsense. Additionally, her banter and levity with the other characters kept rather brutal scenes lighter. And when I say Brutal, The Loop does not shy away from the dark and cruel. The writing and depth of horror reminded me a lot of the great Graham Masterton. 

Sadly, even with the great writing, excellent gore, and engaging protagonist, I could not connect to the story on its most fundamental idea. These octopus spider things exist, but I don’t know why. This is my own quibble, as other reviewers who have read this story understood and embraced the biological scenario. But for this reviewer, I could never get past it, so it was a midgrade read for me. 

Read The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson



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REVIEW: The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie

Having absolutely loved A Little Hatred and The Trouble with Peace, my expectations for The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie were absolutely sky high. With this gritty and fun book full of civil unrest, backstabbing, butchery, and even a little bit of love, Joe Abercrombie did not disappoint. A big thanks to Gollancz for shipping an absolutely gorgeous ARC over to me in Sydney, and a warning to readers who’ve not read the first two books: spoilers for the first two books to follow.

To kick off The Wisdom of Crowds King Orso returns to Adua at the head of his army and two prisoners, excited for his victorious reception. At the end of the column in a caged wagon, Leo Dan Brock is a broken man, with more than just metaphorical pieces of him left on the battlefield. Sabine dan Brock stares out at the streets through the bars, wondering where it all went wrong. None of them are ready for what’s become of Adua in their absence. The Breakers are out in force; the great change is here.

Vicktarine dan Teufel rides with the head of the People’s Army, on their way to Adua in their many, many thousands. People from all walks of life march on the capital of the Union to tear down the system and rebuild it into something better. Only, with a philosopher focussed on the ideal and not how to actually get there, and a judge more obsessed in killing everyone than actually trying cases, at the head of the Great Change, Vick is very much worried about where this is all going. But she’s picked the winning side, as she always does, and she’s going to see where this all lands.

Gunnar Broad is facing the hangman’s noose. He swears to live good life for his family if he somehow gets out of this alive. Under the Agriont in Adua, he likely doesn’t have long to live. Unless … something were to happen to the city to set him on a new course—directly into the type of the trouble he’d just promised to avoid.

Rikke sits in on Skarling’s Chair in Carleon, a city and army at her command, and somebody she probably needs to let her men kill in a broken heap in front of her. A decision to be made. Consolidate her winnings, or take on the father of the broken heap before her and unite the whole North?

Black and bloody and with a body count to rival Matthew Ward’s Legacy series, The Wisdom of Crowds delves into what happens when society has the restraints of civility completely removed (no matter how hollow and corrupt the Union’s civility had become). Recognising this book would have been conceptualised and drafted a fair few years ago, it’s seemingly landed at just the right time to align with our society. There is plenty of commentary on the removal of societal structure and norms, of what shackles-completely-removed freedom means for a people so used to corruption and profiteering, the human basic need to follow and what happens when certain new leaders grasp a people by the throat and lead, and the hilariously dark and infuriating bureaucratic machinery of government. Whether intentioned or not (I certainly won’t be the first reviewer to misread an author’s intended social commentary in a book), the prosecution character in the court of the people seems a perfect depiction of social media’s current mob mentality driven by the rise of misinformation and and lack of repercussions for outright lies the mob leaps upon.

Our leading characters and everyone around them are put through the wringer for a final time in this magnificent trilogy, in the brutal, sometimes comical, and often heart wrenching way that only Abercrombie delivers. And I assure you, plenty of those characters you know and love will either be dead or almost unrecognisable by the final pages–and that’s what makes this book and the trilogy it wraps up so damned good.

As always, Abercrombie does a masterful job of working in little nods to past books that delight his long term fans, but would just read like sleek world building for a new reader. There are plenty of nods to The Heroes and Red Country and the books of The First Law. In my eyes he’s a towering genius at doing this, and he has not missed the mark at all.

I also need to give a shout out to the last chapter. A vision of the future (and hopefully another future trilogy). Without spoiling, Abercrombie’s ability to deliver a clear message to the reader, even when he’s being purposefully vague about it, is on show in all its glory. I find that when compared to most other fantasy authors I’ve read who use the same approach that I either end up more confused than when I started, or just get frustrated and ask, “who fucking cares?” In the final chapter of The Wisdom of Crowds, Abercrombie provides me with an intense need to stalk his blog for news of the next book set in this world.

The Wisdom of Crowds is Abercrombie at his best. It’s fun, it’s engrossing, it’s brutal on its characters in all the best ways, and it’s just a damned enjoyable way to spend a few days glued to the pages of a book.

Read The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie

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REVIEW: Angels of Death: Trail of Blood

Deep in the Hive, the Blood Angels space marines continue to battle the masses of Tyranid cultists in the hopes of finding their captain in the latest release from Warhammer TV, Angels of Death: Trail of Blood. The first two episodes have really delivered an atmospheric story with plenty for fans to get in to, and I was really keen to see what episode three delivered.

On the ground, the Blood Angels drive through the enemy to try and reach their captain. Scenes are initially full of battle and action, and then, quite enjoyably, they take a bit of a slower turn as the detective work sets in. The writer and animators did an excellent job here of building up the tension as we try to figure out what happened to the captain.

In space, the situation worsens as the flagship flounders, stuck to the refuelling bay and unable to move. At the docking bay, armsmen battle more cultists, and the fighting is bloody, intensifying as the Blood Angels tech marine enters the fray to try to release the docking clamp. All is in the balance.

What really appeals about this episode is that we start to see a little bit more of a story develop. The Cult stops being an endless horde and starts becoming more and more sophisticated and calculating, drawing the Blood Angels in, one step at a time, like an apex predator drawing in prey.

The flamer scene was particularly awesomely animated, and warrants a special mention. The white heat, screaming cultists, and a Blood Angel charging through, flamer gouting, was utterly glorious.

The sounds of battle felt like they didn’t quite invest in enough layers of sound at times, especially in the loading bay conflict. It also seems so weird that the smaller ships that were supposed to be attacking the flagship just didn’t … well … shoot?

Apart from a couple of complaints, the story is really starting to grab me. In the void above it’s much of a muchness to me, but on the ground, in the guts of the hive, we are starting to see something that could be brilliant. Bring on next Wednesday!

Watch Angels of Death: Trail of Blood

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REVIEW: The Burning Girls by C. J. Tudor

The Burning Girls by C. J. Tudor is an evocative read which kept surprising me throughout. The story centres around a village in rural Sussex where Rev. Jack Brooks and her teenage daughter Flo are bidding for a fresh start after a series of recent traumas. Their new surroundings cut a stark contrast against their home city of Nottingham and adjusting to the change of pace is a challenge for them both.

Upon their arrival, Jack and Flo are greeted with vestiges of the village’s ties to The Sussex Martyrs –infamous locals who were burned for their beliefs half a millennium ago. The churchyard is adorned with effigies (handmade from twigs, Blair Witch style) which locals craft every year to memorialize those who were slain at Queen Mary’s bidding on their very doorstep.

An exorcism kit and a threatening note are left as gifts to welcome Jack into the close-knit community which she is to call her flock. When Flo then begins to see horrific apparitions of the 500-year-old victims which give the book its title, one could be forgiven for thinking that we are in all too predictable territory.

Tudor, however, is a master of her craft and it soon becomes clear that tropes are cast with skill. This tale blurs the genres (horror, thriller, mystery) in a way which mirrors the distortion of good and evil faced by the characters as Jack attempts to unravel her predecessor’s role in the disappearance of two young girls thirty years ago. The mystery intensifies and the stakes soar. I found that I was heavily invested in Jack’s predicament early on. This, coupled with the crisp prose and taut chapters, made for a pacy read which I finished in only a few sittings.

As well as malicious neighbours and paranormal entities, elements of what happened in their previous big city life stalk Jack and Flo both literally and metaphorically at every turn. But again, the delivery and execution (pardon the pun) are key in making this a gripping read. One of my favourite takeaways from the book was how it chewed up and spat out my natural attempts to predict the ending.

A labyrinth of twists and turns with menace at every curve, this is Tudor’s best offering yet. I thoroughly enjoyed this yarn, and you will too if you appreciated 2018’s The Chalk Man or recent GdM recommendation The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward.

Read The Burning Girls by C. J. Tudor

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REVIEW: Angels of Death: Silent City

The Warhammer+ Angels of Death series danger and action ramps up quickly in episode two, Silent City. The Blood Angels drop through blanketing storms into a hive city they cannot see to save their captain.

As the Blood Angels enter the seemingly empty city and start searching for their captain, we get our first look at the hive city, and it is stunningly detailed in grim greyscale. The gothic feel of the hive city is perfect for the world of Warhammer 40,000 that I grew up playing, painting, and reading about. Again, as I said in my review of E1 Blood and Duty, the art and the colour palette of blood red against greyscale is utterly gorgeous.

In space, the Blood Angels flotilla is infiltrated. Void shops are being taken over and turned against the flagship—where all the geneseed of the company is held and protected by a lone techmarine.

While we as viewers know it’s the Great Devourer as a foe, this is when the Blood Angels first understand the scale of their opponent. The Tyranid horde have invaded this city, turned the people against the Imperium of Mankind, and now potentially billions of foes await, standing between them and their captain.

Overall, Silent City is an excellent set up for a pitched city battle. While some of the fight action seemed a bit stilted in movement, overall the visually stunning animation retained its grit and ability to visually carry the story. The sense of trepidation and growing pressure was done really well, and I finished Silent City really looking forward to more Angels of Death. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Watch Angels of Death: Silent City

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REVIEW: Observer: System Redux

Observer: System Redux is a cyberpunk horror game produced by Blooper Team and published by Aspyr. I was initially hesitant to play the game due to the fact it supposedly was a “walking simulator” and had very little gameplay. In fact, I have nothing but high praise for the game as a puzzle game and my only real complaints about it are its very short stealth sections. It is perhaps not the best endorsement that the worst parts of the game are the gameplay but Observer more than makes up for it in atmosphere, tension, and world-building. Oh yes and being one of the final performances of Rutger Haur.

You play as Daniel Lazarski, a cybernetically enhanced special investigator for the Chiron Corporation in what remains of Poland after what seems like multiple apocalypses. A horrifying disease called the Nanophage and nuclear warfare has reduced much of the world to ashes with Poland not doing much better. Daniel decides to investigate the apartment building where his son lives due to a series of murders there that he’s (justifiably) terrified may have taken their child’s life. Thus he sets out on a mission to explore the monstrously twisted Stacks and find out who is killing residents and whether his son is still alive.

Daniel is an old man and his enhancements basically just keep him moving around rather than turn him into a superhuman. Instead, his primary advantage is the dream-eater that allows him to enter the minds of other people and experience their emotions. Unfortunately, if you link with the recently dead then you will not get the answers you want but instead experience a nightmarish hellscape of confusing imagery. Basically, the game’s central mechanic makes it into a cyberpunk version of Silent Hill.

The comparison to Silent Hill is high praise from me as the psychadelic journeys that Daniel’s mind goes through are fascinating. One of my favorite is when he has to upload himself into the minds of an office drone trying to make a legitimate living in the corporate world while her boyfriend is a low-level drug dealer that has served time in prison. Seems pretty boring, right? Nope. Terrifying visions of offices from Hell and prison nightmares plus a wedded life that would permanently turn you from the institution due to it being a match match in the 9th circle.

While the craziest stuff is in the dreamscape portion of the game, the Stacks are pretty nightmarish on their own. A decaying apartment building where rats would hesitate to live, the place is full of seedy and horrifying side stories about technology gone amuck. One apartment has an illegal organ growing ring where they keep a horribly mutated pig in a virtual reality chamber where it thinks its enjoying life in a sunny field. Another one has an autistic girl that a rich old woman is caring for but may (or may not) be planning to steal the body of via brain uploading. It’s a crazy cyberpunk world where the nicest family you meet are a bunch of religious fundamentalists.

As stated, the game has one flaw and that’s the stealth sections where the developers attempted to insert some gameplay but actually made a ridiculously frustrating and counter-intuitive thing that made me rage quit the game a couple of times. These sections are effectively passed as much by luck as anything else and are the worst parts of what would otherwise be a perfect creepy game of pure atmosphere and puzzle-solving.

In conclusion, I definitely recommend this game. Rutger Hauer’s performance is spot on and he gives a tired, resigned, but noble performance that perfectly fits his character. There’s not many old men as protagonists in video games or cyberpunk but it works perfectly here.

Play Observer: System Redux

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REVIEW: Half the World by Joe Abercrombie

Half the World is the second instalment in Joe Abercrombie’s fantastic Shattered Sea trilogy. I was very glad that when I first read the series I was able to pick this up as soon as I had finished its predecessor Half a King. It is as gripping and engrossing as I had expected and this entry became my favourite of the trilogy. However, I believe that Half the World could stand on its own spine and although reading it as the second novel greatly adds to the depth of a reader’s enjoyment and understanding it is not absolutely essential.

In Half the World Abercrombie maintains the same fast pace and clever prose that he established at the start of the series. But there are some big changes from the first page that drastically alter the dynamic of this novel. The half handed Prince Yarvi is now Father Yarvi, Minister to the King of Gettland. He remains a significant character, but Half the World has more of an ensemble company of key characters instead of one clear protagonist. This variation in perspectives is a change that I personally quite like. I enjoyed Yarvi’s narrative in the last novel, and he remains a cunning genius in this one, but watching his plans unfurl from the viewpoint of other characters rather than from the mastermind himself gives Half the World a different, less omniscient, feel.

The key themes of the novel remain the same: Yarvi is still bound by his vow to avenge the deaths of his father and brother, the Shattered Sea is still surrounded by unstable and violent kingdoms, and Abercrombie has still stitched in wonderful details to his plot that are a joy to read at the time, but even more clever when you can finally take in the whole tapestry that he has created. It is a delightful skill when authors are able to discreetly leave a subtle trail secrets about the bigger picture of the plot and not something I could fully appreciate until I reread this series.

On the first page of Half the World we meet two of the new central characters, the war hungry Thorn Bathu, desperate to prove herself and win a place in the King’s raiding party, and the young warrior Brand, who is strong and skilled but does not have the heart to kill. This unlikely duo quickly find themselves woven in to Father Yarvi’s schemes and the three of them become part the crew on another sea faring voyage across the Shattered Sea. This gruelling voyage is where the title of the novel is taken from, as Abercrombie does indeed take them from one half of his world to the other in the mission for Yarvi to gather allies for Gettland in its continued fight against the High King.

As one would expect from any Abercrombie offering, Half the World is riveting from the get go. The battles are bloody and violent and the action moves quickly but equally the lulls in between show the humanity and humour of the characters. It is an intense read with no easy place to put it down, so when you open it up expect a late night.

Read Half the World by Joe Abercrombie

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REVIEW: Hammer and Bolter: Old Bale Eye

In Old Bale Eye, the latest episode of Warhammer+’s Hammer and Bolter, an orc leader (a “Nob”) tells two of his boys the story of when the ork warlord Gaskull Thraka took on Old Bale Eye (known to Imperial fans as the great Commissar Yarrick). Essentially, this is mostly the story of the legend of Yarrick, from the Orks perspective. And it’s actually a really cool way to present the story.

Orks are an odd faction, primarily a comedic kind of army. They are a green horde of pure muscle and aggression strapped with looted and bootlegged weapons of often ridiculous firepower. And they love a good scrap. They live for it and chase it. They are fun, a bit silly, and I honestly don’t see much of an opportunity for their character growth to drive much interest outside of the ork-specific fan base. It’s probably why there aren’t many ork-POV Black Library books.

But in Old Bale Eye they are shown to be storytellers—a method of passing down history that I think is really cool and a believable method of history recording for the faction. The story definitely lands as our Nob talks of battles long past and a rivalry of epic proportions that chews up orks and men in their millions as one chases the other across the galaxy.

One thing I wasn’t a fan of in Old Bale Eye was how both factions—human and ork—spoke the same language. I thought it would have worked better to have the humans shouting at the orks in gibberish, personally. There was also a twist in the story that, well, I’m not sure if it’s an older piece of lore that hasn’t been written out of the more modern lexicon, but seemed to push the suspension of disbelief just a bit too far for me.

Old Bale Eye is an interesting episode, and one I think that’ll definitely appeal to the ork faction fans more than others. It may also appeal to those Yarrick / Guard fans. Overall a great concept for delivery of an ork story, and once again I am really excited to see what next week’s of Hammer and Bolter brings.

You can find out other Hammer and Bolter reviews here.

Watch Hammer and Bolter: Old Bale Eye on Warhammer+

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