Adrian Collins's Blog, page 159

REVIEW: Spear by Nicola Griffith

Spear by Nicola Griffith is a gorgeous queer Arthurian novella out from Tor.com in April 2022. And if it sounds even the slightest bit like something you’d enjoy, this is a book to preorder now. It blew my mind as I read it on the day I received it. This slim volume manages to capture its reader and tell a complete story in just under two hundred pages, something which many longer books don’t achieve. This is accompanied by a beautiful cover and a series of interior illustrations by Rovina Cai, who is one of the best fantasy illustrators working right now. I could go on and on about how much I love seeing illustrations in books aimed at an adult audience, but that’s not what this review is about, so let’s just leave it at “they are beautiful and add to the story.”

Griffith manages to expertly craft a rich medieval world without overloading the reader and evoking the comforting familiarity of the Arthurian stories her audience will have grown up with, while at the same time subtly weaving in references to a more diverse Early Medieval world, one that is often overlooked. As a medieval historian in a past life, this is the book of my heart. It presents the queer and diverse world I see the middle ages as, and reading this has brought me so much joy. I spent most of 2020 reading every Arthurian retelling I could get my hands on, and believe me when I say that Spear is truly one of the best.

Peretur, the main character, is based on the many legends and versions of Parcival, one of the more well-known figures of the Arthurian corpus. Except, this Peretur is a woman. Because of how she interacts with the court, she is perceived as a man, which opens up an interesting dialogue about gender roles, perceptions – and whether heroes and heroines are really the same thing. Griffith makes it clear that to her, the two are entirely different, not least in the tropes that are employed to write about them – and Peretur, while female, is a hero.

In addition to that, the writing is both poetic and accessible, managing to tread that balance between craft and commercial appeal. While the story itself is well-rounded and perfectly contained at the length it is, I would have loved for Spear to be far longer, just so I could spend more time in the world and reading Griffith’s writing. And that’s the highest compliment I can give a book.

Read Spear by Nicola Griffith

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REVIEW: Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I know Adrian Tchaikovsky best from works like Children of Time, Children of Ruin and Dogs of War where he uses other creatures, often affected by humanity’s meddling to talk about very relatable human issues, often dealing with the issue of communicating across species boundaries. Elder Race deals with similar core themes, but all of the protagonists are human. Sort of.

Lynesse Fourth Daughter is an impetuous spare heir in a devolved human society that is at a roughly high medieval state of development (or rather, regression) who seeks the assistance of Nyrgoth, the Elder sorcerer (Elder Race, get it?) to aid against a demon that is afflicting nearby lands. The problem is that Nyrgoth isn’t really a sorcerer but a low level anthropologist who’s notionally supposed to be tracking the development of a colony on behalf of the successors to the more developed human civilisation that originally set them there.

Yes, this is very much nailing the ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’ trope right on the head, but it does it very well.

Things are complicated by the facts of exactly why Nyrgoth is alone in his tower and has a reputation for coming to these people’s aid in former generations and the story really turns on the difficult relationship between Lynesse and Nyrgoth and their vastly different outlooks on the world.

Elder Race is not a long book, definitely in novella territory but it packs a lot of big ideas and sharp characterisation into the low word count. Tchaikovsky uses the contrast between the core characters as a way to show how people can be very different but also ultimately very much alike.

You have Lynesse being impetuous and determined while Nyr is restrained, overly cerebral and battles depression. Lynesse sees Nyr’s capabilities as magical while he’s all too aware of his limitations and the science at play. At the same time, for wildly different reasons both fear that they are failures and want to prove themselves, to find connection to a kindred spirit or find meaning in their lives.

The difficulties of communication are fun as well, as Nyr’s imperfect translations of Lynesse’s lingual drift leads to him trying to explain science to her but the meanings sound like magical terms, so he ends up saying “I’m not a sorcerer, I’m a magician” and similar to great mutual frustration.

Throw in the way that Nyr often misreads things like how clothing styles are supposed to work or the nuances of local power structures or manners and theres a neat comment on how being a more advanced, supposedly Elder Race and having a near omnipotent viewpoint isn’t as great when you lack context.

Ultimately, the demonic antagonist ends up being almost beyond Nyrgoth’s science anyway, which implies that there’s more going on in this universe than he’d previously been aware of and maybe they have made contact with a genuinely Elder Race and not just a coloniser with some cool toys. The shared existential dread of a genuine Outside Context Moment is a nice subversion of the tone of the story up to that point.

I also detected a fun pun where Lynesse refers to the adversary as a demon, yet how it works seems to be analogous to what a daemon in computer terminology does, except operating on a biological level.

All in all Elder Race is a really fun novella, displaying Tchaikovsky’s trademark sharp prose and big ideas conveyed in interesting ways. It feels like a nice thought experiment that worked out into a compelling story and I’d recommend this to existing Tchaikovsky fans, plus anyone who likes Iain M. Banks, Ann Leckie or Gareth L. Powell.

Read Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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REVIEW: Warhawk by Chris Wraight

Warhawk is the sixth (of eight) in the Siege of Terra series and 60th Horus Heresy novel in Black Library’s ongoing marathon exploring and expanding the foundational myth of the Warhammer 40k universe.

As such, as much as I enjoyed this book, I have to say that this is not a jumping on point. To start with the series, go all the way back to Horus Rising and work your way forward, with the background of the White Scars specifically set up in the previous novels by Wraight, Scars and Path of Heaven.

That fair warning out of the way and assuming you’re mostly up to date with the series, let’s continue.

Wow.

In a series of incredibly cinematic books, Warhawk is one of those I’d most like to see given the full motion picture treatment. I don’t want to spoil too much, but if you can imagine Independence Day with the Ride of the Rohirrim meets but with motorbikes and tanks going on underneath, you’re pretty much there. There’s also a section where a White Scar is riding his motorbike around the besieged imperial palace and his internal monologue is peppered with descriptions of what he can see and it’s one of the most comprehensible depictions of the scale of the palace and the conflict that I’ve yet read.

As much fun as the big action sequences are, they are made meaningful by the context of what’s gone before, the sense of rising tension that carries through the personal stories of this book and the wider series as a whole and the personal interactions that give heart to all the violence.

Here we see Jaghatai Khan, the titlar Warhawk, so long contained in a style of war he loathes cutting loose, and the White Scars legion getting their Big Moment of the series. We see the culmination of the character development of the Death Guard, their fall to the service of the plague god and the tension between Primarch Mortarion and First Captain Typhus. We see how the pressure of the siege is playing on the praetorian, Rogal Dorn. We finally see Sigismund unleashed.

One of the most significant, but subtle plot points of Warhawk is that this novel feels like a tipping point between the Imperium that could have been and what we actually end up in the ‘modern’ 40k setting as the Imperial Truth fades away and the faith of the Emperor as a deity takes over.

Of course, as is the case with almost all of the best Horus Heresy books, you come for the big moments between Primarchs and Space Marines doing violence, but what really hooks you is the human stories that give you a more relatable perspective on the conflict and whose heroism is so much more on account of their relative squishiness.

From the ageing logistics officer arranging the materiel for the Primarch she loves to the cobbled together tank crew riding into hell with remarkable good humour and the despairing commander who gets a chance to take his mothballed ship into a glorious final run, there is a sense of heart and defiance.

That’s the core of Warhawk. Jaghatai Khan and the White Scars were always supposed to laugh as they fought, the joyous warriors who rode like the wind and smiled as they did it. They’ve never really had the chance in this series, being manipulated and boxed in and ultimately set against the force that best exemplifies despairing attrition in the Death Guard.

Warhawk is the third last novel in this series and as such, we’re pretty much at the lowest moment. From a galaxy spanning empire, the Imperium is reduced to one city, besieged by an innumerably superior foe and seemingly doomed.

Into that setting, Jaghatai Khan decides he’d rather charge out and bloody the nose of the traitors, to maybe make relief possible if their allies can arrive and if not, to go out gloriously rather than sitting behind walls waiting to die. People follow him, and they ride and fight and smile in the face of impossible odds. The very personification of the defiance of human spirit against despair. This is the grimdarkest world imaginable, but let’s charge into the teeth of hell while we still can. I love it.

I’ve barely even touched the other treads pulling together the stories of Valdor, Erebus, Sigismund, Keeler, Loken and so on but it’s all tied together quite beautifully by Wraight,

Warhawk is a masterful work, because it’s not easy to tell a story that feels satisfying and self contained while weaving in a bunch of other threads and leading to an conclusion that comes in another book (likely helmed by another author.)

Warhawk leaves me satisfied that it’s core protagonists have had their big moment and a bit wrung out emotionally but breathless because I know what comes next. Old 40k lore tells me we have at least two (well three, but two are sequential and in the same place) Big Duels left, and two books to go.

I can’t wait.

Read Warhawk by Chris Wraight

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A public apology to authors recently published by GdM

When I started Grimdark Magazine I was a self-published author whose attempts at short story sales and books had not gone well. Whatever the reasons, I wanted to set up a space and a publication where authors of all methodologies and levels of fame could rub shoulders on the cover of something made specifically for the grimdark crowd in a fun, professional, and rewarding manner. I think for a good while, we achieved that.

Recently, there came a point where Grimdark Magazine stopped being a place where all the authors we worked with enjoyed their experience with our fiction editorial team. For some of the authors we worked with, especially during our most recent production, their experience with us was horrible. As a leader, I missed the point where we stopped being fun to work with, and I missed a lot of signs from people I know and respect that signalled there was a growing problem.

Last weekend there was a Twitter conversation started by two authors I highly respect and have previously worked with, and am currently working with, regarding the aggressive and condescending tone of the editorial notes from Grimdark Magazine’s fiction editor, Mike. This has resulted in further similar experiences being described both publicly or privately by both male and female authors through contacting the owners of the Twitter thread, or contacting me. Some of these experiences are to do with authors we’ve published, and some are Mike’s personal clients.

Apology from Mike Myers

Mike has provided his own statement regarding his conduct, below. I don’t agree with the totality of fault lying with Mike, and have provided my own apology and commitment after.

First of all, my thanks go out to Adrian and the grimdark community for giving me the chance to apologize. And second, this is my fault, not Adrian’s. He trusted me to represent GdM, and I failed to do that. In my increasing zeal to make GdM and The King Must Fall the best they can be, I very very poorly communicated my comments to the contributing authors. I now realize I was disrespectful, condescending, insulting, hurtful, and everything else along those lines. Even before one of the authors and then Adrian told me about the problem, I began to notice, in the second drafts of the TKMF stories coming in, that the authors were not happy (to put it mildly), and I knew I had fucked up. And I offer this sincere apology to everyone I have offended. I’m sorry.

I have decided to step down from GdM. It has been a great seven years, and I have (virtually) met some wonderful people. But I owe it to Adrian and all of you to step down now, let GdM continue with someone new, while I concentrate on making myself a better, kinder person.

I thank you all, and especially Adrian for giving me this wonderful opportunity. Cheers.

Mike

To confirm Mike’s statement, he will be stepping down from Grimdark Magazine. He’s spent seven years volunteering for our publication, which I am forever grateful for his work and friendship, and sorry I couldn’t catch this before it impacted the authors and him.

Apology from Adrian Collins

I, as owner of Grimdark Magazine and facilitator of these interactions, need to own my part in the experiences of the authors who trusted me to provide a positive publishing experience. I didn’t check the commentary I was facilitating, and that is 100% on me.

While speaking to one of the authors over the last few days, she provided some insight that really reminded me of what I originally set out to do, and how far we had strayed from that goal. They said that Grimdark Magazine might be the first time an author gets published. It might be the only time an author gets published. And based on the experience I provide them through Grimdark Magazine’s editorial process, it might be the only time they ever want to get published.

In any industry, let alone one where it is such a big emotional step to submit your work to either a publisher or to the market, to have your work edited in that manner is unacceptable. For authors who write novels for a living and to keep a roof over their family’s heads and have sent me stories either for the love of creating them or because of a personal business relationship with me, that manner is unacceptable. I believe that the publication experience I have provided to some of the amazing authors who’ve trusted me, some of whom have been a part of this magazine multiple times over the years (and often come to my rescue when a publishing line up falls apart at the last moment), has been unacceptable.

To those authors we’ve been working with, I am profoundly sorry.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to listen to some of the impacted author’s experiences on video calls, or over chat. It’s been an opportunity to listen, understand, and learn for how Grimdark Magazine can return to what we used to do so well. I will continue to focus on speaking to the authors, and on making sure that this is a line in the sand moment for Grimdark Magazine. We need to get back to providing a positive experience to all the authors we work with.

At this point, there will be no further commentary on this matter outside of with those authors impacted.

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REVIEW: Hammer and Bolter Episode 4: Fangs

In episode 4 of Warhammer TV’s Hammer and Bolter, Fangs, we finally get to my favourite 40k faction, the Space Wolves space marines. On the death world of Fenris three veteran Space Wolves sit around a gaming board waiting to see which young human aspirants survive to join the ranks of the Space Wolves.

At the same time three young men try to attract the attention of the Space Wolf selectors (known to the tribes of Fenris as Sky Warriors) through their martial prowess in hunting down and killing some of the monsters living in the frozen desert of their world. Should they be chosen, they will become space marines.

To the space wolf fan, it’s cool to see Ulrich the Slayer and Njal Stormcaller as characters in Fangs, as is it just damned cool to see the space marines in their first Hammer and Bolter appearance. The depiction of the Space Wolves fortress, the Fang, is suitably epic, and I enjoyed the blustery manner of the Wolves—very aligned to Bill King And Lee Lightner’s version of them in the Space Wolves six book series, versus, say Abnett’s more dour and regally feral (if I can say that) version of the Wolves in the Horus Heresy series.

In Fangs the fight scenes were pretty average, to be honest. Perhaps It’s  just part of this style of animation, but they didn’t seem to have much fluidity at all, nor believability. As these scenes make up a fair amount of the episode, this left me a bit disappointed.

Overall, an episode I enjoyed because I’ve loved the faction since age 14, because I’ve read about and even gamed with some of these characters on the tabletop, not because it was a great episode.

Watch Hammer and Bolter: Fangs

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REVIEW: Dark Dawn by Brian O’ Sullivan

Brian O’ Sullivan’s “Dark Dawn” is a work of interactive fiction about a dying man and a desperate final stand. Set in the world of the author’s Fionn series, readers/players get to experience a dark and gritty retelling of authentic Irish mythology in first-person. With a fifty-strong raiding party days away from the tiny village of Ráth Bládhma, we take on the role of Ultán, a grizzled scout who’s handy with an axe and suffering from a fatal case of black flux. In the pick- your-own-path tradition of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks or Choice of Games stories, the options readers select lead to different outcomes for the protagonist and the village itself and reveal different sections of the narrative.

In terms of prose, worldbuilding, and characterization, “Dark Dawn” packs a lot of punch for its relatively short length. As a man pondering his imminent mortality, Ultán is a fascinating POV character with a narrative voice flavored by his grim reflections and a gradual acceptance of the inevitable. Having lost his own wife and son to bandits, he has something of a personal stake and a second chance in the survival of Ráth Bládhma. By contrast, however, the author does an equally good job of recognizing the humanity of every character, even the antagonists, with a powerful economy of words and small moments. In this way, I think O’ Sullivan’s done a good job of translating the mythological to the personal and realistic.

One aspect of “Dark Dawn” I really enjoyed was the way even wrong choices led to unique sections of prose. There are some substantial passages, for example, the player only sees through missing the raiders’ scouts and losing the game. The game is a bit linear  (as far as I could tell after a few playthroughs) with one real ending and one set of choices to get there. However, quality writing and characters go a long way to counteract this, and I still thought it was a very enjoyable way to spend an hour or so.

Compared to similar interactive fiction gamebooks, “Dark Dawn” is significantly more book than game. Eschewing the mechanics, character sheet, and rulesets of Fighting Fantasy or Lone Wolf, the focus is purely on narrative. And although I found the story to be enjoyable on its own, it does function more as a prequel than anything else. A successful playthrough concludes before the actual impending raid on Ráth Bládhma and points readers to the Fionn series if they’re wanting more. While it did feel like something of an appetizer to the main course, it was an exceedingly good appetizer at that. Grimdark Magazine readers keen on Irish myth and/or Iron Age adventure should definitely check out this cool (and free!) little tale at Irishimbasbooks.com and try their own hand at saving Ráth Bládhma from a bloody fate.

Read Dark Dawn by Brian O’ Sullivan

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REVIEW: Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling

Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling started incredibly strong with great atmospheric detail and a very creepy vibe but puttered out and ended with a whimper. 

Evelyn Perdanu is a shipping magnate, the only living survivor of her family. She walks the city veiled and hidden away from the eyes of those around her. Her country is slowly dying, rotting away like food left out to spoil. Arriving from her last voyage out, she discovers that a plague has visited her city, and it is traced back to her crew. They act erratically and slip into catatonia. She begins to investigate the plague as much for the city’s sake and those in it as for her own company and family name. What she finds is complicated and horrific. 

Also highly confusing to me as a reader. 

This story started beautifully. It was atmospheric and enchanting. We learn little bits of the background of Evelyn’s life; we know a bit about the relationship she has with her assistant. We realize that Evelyn is a master herbalist, and she has used her herbal concoctions all over town, both for good and evil. This fantastic backstory for Evelyn gave me a solid foundation to picture her character in my mind. 

This all takes place in the first act of the story. 

When we start the second act, additional ideas and characters are added to the mix; the police captain, for instance. It gets confusing, and I was not sure of the importance of things. Should I, as a reader, be concerned by the Police Captain sniffing around? Or with the plague? Or with Evelyn’s business interests? 

By the third act, the story gets a bit stranger and still more confusing, and it just ends. I don’t want to give it away, as the ending is very out of the left field. 

Conceptually, this is a remarkable book. Starling absolutely knows how to work words into magic in the mind of the reader. During the story’s first half, my mind’s eye was covered in yellow smoke, twisted and thorny vines, and a woman sitting amongst it all veiled in black lace. It lost me in the second and by the third act, I was so confused by some things that I was just done. The atmospheric description and excellent detailing were constant, though, and that is why I finished the story. 

Read Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling

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REVIEW: Beasts & Beauty by Soman Chainani

Beasts & Beauty by Soman Chainani is an interesting collection. It’s probably the youngest book I’ve reviewed for Grimdark Magazine, as these retold fairy tales sit between middle grade and young adult for the most part. This doesn’t mean that they are not enjoyable for an adult audience – I think they very much suitable for all ages even if they are aimed at a younger audience. The collection holds darker versions of twelve of the most famous stories told again and again in the western fairy tale corpus, wonderfully illustrated by Julia Iredale. The ARC I was sent for review only held preliminary sketches, but l came across a finished copy in a bookshop the other day (because yes, I am a slow reviewer these days, shame on me) and it looks absolutely gorgeous. These illustrations just add another dimension to the stories which I adore. I wish more books not aimed at small children came so heavily illustrated.

" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In general l enjoyed the anthology a lot – l am a fiend for retold folk tales, especially ones aimed at a YA audience. But I was also slightly disappointed at the choice of stories – it felt like the author chose from among t l this to other recent anthologies such as A Universe of Wishes (Ed. Dhonielle Clayton), which to be entirely fair collects the work of of a number authors rather than a single one, l feel Beasts & Beauty only wins out in terms of the high qualify of the physical object. While Chainani does transport some of the stories into more diverse contexts – for example his Hansel and Gretel is inspired by a South Asian setting – ultimately his stories don’t try and reinvent the source material to create something unique and modern. The one story that stood out to me was Jack and the Beanstalk, which twisted the known tale in unexpected ways, recasting the role of the villain entirely.

As a whole, the collection feels a bit like an attempt to profit from the late year gift-buying boom as the book is produced beautifully and will make a fantastic gift. I think it’s less of a must buy for those readers who simply love reading retellings, as there are other anthologies and collections out there that do that particular thing better or in a more creative-way. However, if you are a grimdark-loving reader and have a child or teen in your life who you want to bring over to the (grim) dark side look no further and get them Beasts & Beauty for Christmas.

Read Beasts & Beauty by Soman Chainani

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An interview with Soman Chainani

Soman Chainani is a bit of an unusual guest for Grimdark Magazine. He is mainly known for the series The School for Good and Evil, a long-running middle grade fantasy series, which has sold more than 3 million copies, been translated into 30 languages across 6 continents, and will be a major motion picture from Netflix in 2022. He is now back with Beasts & Beauty, a highly illustrated collection of dark fairy tales and we had the opportunity to talk to him about retellings, fairy tales and his new book.

[GdM] What inspired you to write a collection of re-written fairy tales?

[SC] The School for Good was my attempt to reclaim fairy tales from Disney by presenting a fantasy school where students learned more nuanced interpretations of Good and Evil. It was a bit like Harry Potter if the Slytherins were as capable – and much more sexy and charming – than the Gryffindors. So, when I was done with that series, six books in ten years, I was ready for a kind of primal unleashing. I found myself going back to the original tales and wishing that I could just redo them from scratch, because the old fairy tales seemed so dead and irrelevant at this point. It was a lofty ambition but being cooped up during a pandemic makes you lose all self-consciousness and fear and just swing for the fences.

[GdM] What was the biggest challenge writing in short form after writing a long-running series?

[SC] A short story is much harder to execute than a novel. It’s the equivalent of the short program in figure skating where you cannot make a mistake – whereas in the free skate or longer program, if you fall once or twice, you can find ways to make it up elsewhere. So, with a short form fairy tale, you have to be so controlled and precise and focused, because any error in the chain will be glaring and disrupt the reader. The vision has to be so pure and directed.

[GdM] What was your favourite version of a fairy tale that you encountered while researching for this book?

[SC] The original Sleeping Beauty story is so wild and intense, featuring a princess who wakes up pregnant, unsure who the father is, the setup for a tale that evolves into cannibalism and child murder. I knew when I did my Sleeping Beauty I wanted to bring that feeling of darkness and feeding and terror back to the tale, which is why I start with a prince who wakes up every morning sucked of blood.

[GdM] Have these stories always been a presence in your life?

[SC] We didn’t have cable or internet or video games when I was young, so all we had was our rickety TV set and VHS tapes of every single Disney animated movie (my parents figured Disney was an appropriate surrogate parent to my two brothers and I). Until age 8 or so, those movies were all I watched. Everything I learned about storytelling, I learned from Disney. When I went to college and took a class about fairy tales, though, I became fascinated by the gap between the original tales and the Disney revisions I had grown up with. Somewhere in that gap, The School for Good and Evil was born.

[GdM] How do you balance writing for your audience, which is mostly younger readers, with the tendency to return your tales to their darker, less sanitised roots?

[SC] I don’t think too much about the age of the audience. I just think about an audience of all ages, gathered around a campfire, listening to a story. You have to entertain at a primal level, the way the old fairy tales did, whether someone is 8 or 88. There’s a way to tell a satisfying story that resonates on different levels for all ages. It’s what the original storytellers did. It’s difficult, of course. Nearly impossible. But that’s what I’m trying to do.

[GdM] How did the looming Disney interpretations impact you while reworking these beloved stories into your own versions?

[SC] The Disney versions tend to get the fairy tales all wrong and create this impression that Good always wins, when they most certainly don’t in the original tales. Take the Little Mermaid, for instance. In the Hans Christian Andersen version, she’s clearly the villain of the tale – a disobedient, shallow, traitorous girl who the sea witch makes a fool of and the mermaid essentially dies as punishment. Disney somehow turns her into the heroine of the story, even though all the seeds of her villainy are still there. I’m more interested in the gap between Disney and Grimm’s and the original tales than working with any of the Disney tropes. My hope is to help children reclaim their fairy tales from Disney.

[GdM] How did you choose which tales to include in your collection, which stories you wanted to reimagine?

[SC] There was no conscious choosing, really. Each time I finished a story, the next one came to me. I tend to write from an unconscious place, so I let the stories guide me. Every time I finished a tale, the next one seemed to appear out of the ethers, with a fully formed beginning, middle and end.

[GdM] What have you been reading or watching recently that you’d like to shout out to our readers?

[SC] Ted Chiang’s short stories are the secret to understanding life. Exhalation and Stories of Our Life are the two collections. Required reading for every human.

Read Beasts & Beauty by Soman Chainani

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REVIEW: Boys, Beasts, & Men by Sam J. Miller

Boys, Beasts, & Men is a collection of Sam J. Miller’s finest sci-fi short fiction to date. The author is perhaps best known for his novels Blackfish City and The Art of Starving and this collection brings together fourteen widely acclaimed pieces which have been published in the likes of Clarkesworld, Asimov’s Science Fiction and Lightspeed.

Collections of short fiction can often divide opinion and can feel patched together when strung as one along a loose theme. Boys, Beasts, & Men has the feel of a carefully crafted, coherent piece. It didn’t read at all like an-anthology-for-the-sake-of-an-anthology. This is mostly down to the fact that Miller’s sheer talent shines through in abundance. The harmony is also helped by the short scenes-between-the-scenes which are interspersed amongst the stories and depict a spontaneous sexual encounter. I grew to think of these as the titular narrative, one which oozes pure carnal lust: “Flesh mingles, merges. Boy, beast, man: we are one thing.”

This synergy is also bolstered by the fact that Miller has said that much of his fiction takes place in a shared universe. ‘Calved’ is a moving tale of an immigrant father desperate to stop the adoration of his teenage son slipping through his fingers. The setting is the intriguing melting pot of Qaanaaq which will be familiar territory to anyone who loved Blackfish City. Equally heart-wrenching is ‘Conspicuous Plumage,’ the story of a grieving brother who taps into the supernaturally gifted Hiram as he embarks on a quest for answers to a tragedy which still tears at the fabric of his family life.

Yet the true quality of Boys, Beasts, & Men (indeed of Miller’s work as a whole) is in its variety and originality. ‘Allosaurus Burgers’ is a worthy opener. It sets the tones which will reverberate throughout the book and introduces some of its core themes – it is an anthem on parental relationships. This is a writer who refuses to be pigeonholed, an artist who can seamlessly explore the interplay between scientific possibilities, homosexuality, class, and familial tension. The stories speak via their own quality and give voice to a range of remarkable characters and varied cultural references. I particularly enjoyed the use of Kong in ‘Shattered Sidewalks of the Human Heart’.

I also found that little hidden gems of Boys, Beasts, & Men stayed with me whilst I had this book in progress. Ideas, characters, and moments squatted in my head making me ponder and chuckle as I got on with mundane everyday life. ‘We Are the Cloud’ was definitely a classic case of an idea that I wish I had myself. This tale stood out in its originality. It is set in an age where the downtrodden lower classes get by through selling their headspace as computing power via the dangerous business of cloudporting. Yet the piece develops into a telling exploration of issues such as gender, sexuality, and race whilst also being a moving love story.

Boys, Beasts, & Men is an outrageous journey which skilfully blends genres and will haunt you with its original, poetic voices as much as its victims, villains, and treasure trove of leading actors. My personal favourites would have to be, firstly, the redolent supernatural love story ‘Ghosts of Home.’ This encapsulates the sheer inventiveness of Miller’s writing and his use of glorious surreal moments. I think that I will always keep hold of the glorious notion that we can pacify spectres with oranges as gifts! My other takeaway will be ’57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides’ as a masterclass in original, innovative style which will leave you smiling as yet another well-crafted protagonist fights their way towards supernatural vengeance.

Read Boys, Beasts, & Men by Sam J. Miller

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