Adrian Collins's Blog, page 161
July 31, 2021
The Case for Conflict
In discussions about the genres of horror, science fiction, and fantasy, and the distinctions that set them apart, it becomes abundantly clear that these three genres are also easily blended together. However, posting about these three genres on social media always brings out passionate genre buffs who rarely stray from their preferred genre of choice. The communities surrounding horror, science fiction, and fantasy seem to build a strong presence, especially noticeable on Twitter, and the three “kingdoms” rarely intersect.
Except for grimdark fans. grimdark lovers frequently play quite nicely in the sandbox of horror. More on this later.
Oh! And science fiction and fantasy are usually shelved together in book stores (which makes zero sense to me since they each have massive catalogs, why would stores try to smoosh them together?). Have science fiction and fantasy formed an alliance and made horror the odd one out?
At a book signing for Wanderers by Chuck Wendig at The Elliot Bay Book Store in Seattle, I asked him if there was any fandom crossover between his Star Wars books and his other books?
The short answer was “No.”
The longer answer was basically “Sometimes.”
I thought about this for a long time because I stan Chuck Wendig but I’m not going to read Star Wars. I just don’t have any interest in it, and it’s not because I don’t love Star Wars, I do. And it’s not because I don’t love Wendig’s writing, I do. I think the real issue for me is the genre: science fiction.
All that world-building.
Those hard to pronounce names.
Space itself.
All the natural, scientific laws of this doohickey and that gizmo—everything has to be explained and demonstrated, and oftentimes I’m still confused!
*makes a face*
These are pretty much the same complaints I have about fantasy. The learning curve can be so intense! Recently I convinced my husband to watch Game of Thrones with me on HBO Max.
A re-watch for me since I’ve already watched the series in its entirety and read the whole book series. (Where’s Winds of Winter, George?)
But there is so much up-front investment to gain access to this story! There’s a huge cast with an intricately plotted storyline, tons of backstory and history; it’s very, very complicated, especially for newcomers. Fans of the show who had read the books have no idea how much of an advantage they had in understanding what was going on in season one. Book nerds, like me, who grew up reading high fantasy, are accustomed to remembering details, character relationships, and such… but it’s a lot of work. My poor husband is intrigued by the basic premise of all these kingdoms vying for the throne, but I often have to pause the show and act as his personal tour guide through Westeros.
Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb
I remember a similar experience I had with Robin Hobb. The notion of becoming a fan of Hobb’s books is daunting.
It’s not just one series of books, but five! Fantasy fans love this stuff: Buying into a whole mythos and investing time in an entire universe. Multiple worlds, a large cast of characters, and hidden Easter eggs hidden throughout the books for super-nerds who have been there since book one.
I know the wanderlust well. I’m a huge fan of C. S. Lewis and Tolkien, so I’m familiar with being bitten by that bug, that sense of going on a long, literary journey; it’s very appealing for some.
Nowadays though, I just don’t have the time to wander off into the weeds with a huge fantasy series. The mental labor it requires is not conducive to my lifestyle. As a freelance writer of book reviews for several platforms, I need books that are a “one and done,” books that welcome me into the story and whisk me away to some horribly dark place where I can feel the edges of reality slip away as the pages fly, but also promise me a safe return and an ending to the journey so I can move on to the next.
However.
One book series ruined my reading preferences for the rest of my life. A series that took the elements of fantasy and horror and even a little science fiction and Western and created something that set the standard for everything to come after it. Stephen King’s The Dark Tower Series.
The Dark Tower manages to blend all of the major genres effortlessly. It’s the perfect example of how an author can blend the most appealing aspects of all the different genres into one epic saga. It works because King is a character-driven storyteller. The emphasis is on the people of Mid-World. There’s not a lot of exposition spent on world-building. The entire first book, The Gunslinger, revolves around its central character, Roland Deschain. The simplistic narrative reads very much like a Western as Deschain pursues the elusive Man in Black across what King calls “the desert.”
Even though the tale takes place in a world different than our own, everything is familiar—there’s nothing to learn except some subtle indicators that this is a parallel universe of some sort. The most important thing King does to equip his readers for this wild adventure is to abide by the characteristic laws of all four genres:
And where there are laws, there is conflict-the central and underlying unifying element for any story in any genre.
Blending any genre with horror creates accessibility that might not have been there before. Horror is a genre defined by the provocation of emotion. The only genre that is also an emotion. In very basic terms, fantasy emphasizes the fantastical. Science fiction, the science. Horror… well, the horror. Our horror. What frightens us.
It’s this call to action that gets readers invested in the story. If there’s real concern or worry for the lives of fictional characters, anything is possible but you can count on conflict.
Circle back to grimdark.
Grimdark is a subgenre of SFF that is characterized or identified by its dark, bleak, and oftentimes, violent nature and its moral ambiguity. So of course it comfortably shares space with horror. In my mind, Joe Abercrombie is synonymous with grimdark.
“People love to see death. It reminds them that however mean, however low, however horrible their lives become… at least they have one.”
― Joe Abercrombie
And this quote is where I’ll leave you… alone… with your dark thoughts about death, murder, monsters—the human kind or otherwise, laws that were made to be broken.
In which kingdom do you reside? Horror, fantasy, science fiction or…
…do you have no kingdom?
Originally published in GdM#27
The post The Case for Conflict appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.
July 30, 2021
REVIEW: The Children God Forgot by Graham Masterton
The Children God Forgot starts with pain, visceral stabbing pain in a woman’s belly. The woman in question wakes up in the hospital, completely confused. She finds out she is pregnant, which is impossible. There is no way that she could be pregnant: she had an abortion three months ago. The doctors perform an emergency c-section and deliver a horrifically malformed fetus. One that could not possibly be alive, but it is. This idea of the idea of the impossible being possible has a very Lovecraftian feel to it and permeates every page of The Children God Forgot. Then as the story progresses there is a rash of strange births and pregnancy that sweeps through London.
“How much worse could her life become, if she wasn’t even allowed to die?”
Simultaneously, while London experiences strange births of malformed fetuses, a sewage engineer named Gemma, the owner of the sewage company she works for, and cameraman make a routine check in a section of London’s sewers. As they travel through the engulfing and claustrophobic darkness of the London underground, they discover a fatberg. A stony mound of toilet paper, and grease that has solidified into a substance not unlike concrete clogging the sewer flow. They also find a women’s severed hand floating in the refuse. Immediately upon discovery of the severed appendage, chaos happens, lights flash, electricity arcs around them in the oppressive dark, and the three workers are thrown into utter and complete darkness while waist-deep trudging through human waste. To say that the moment is something of nightmares would be an understatement.
Up ahead around the pipe bend, the three workers can see child-like figures glowing amongst the waste. These child-like figures are made of claws and are horribly and inhumanly disfigured. They move with lightning speed. The group makes a run for it, and all make it out except for Gemma’s boss, who disappears only to be found later with his legs amputated and his eyes ripped from the sockets.
This alerts DC Jerry Pardoe and DS Jamila Patel of the supernatural squad team up once again to delve into what is lurking in London’s sewers with the help of the above-mentioned sewer team. Will there be more bodies, more disfigurement, and horror? Of course, there will be more. Because Masterton will be Masterton. He is the author that pokes at all those uncomfortable psychological places in his readers minds. And much like other books in his catalog, it won’t be just one type of horror. He makes you squirm and scream internally. You wonder just how far he can go.
I think that you could have a solid horror story of just the sewer section of the book. The claustrophobic feeling he evokes is terrifying. But, there is a robust supernatural angle to The Children God Forgot. What are these things that look like malformed children, and who is the woman with the knives that keeps appearing?
Unfortunately, I will have to stop the description there because it will give it away if I say anymore. Imagine something like The Strain, but with occult vibes taking place in a sewer. Now top it all off with a police procedural, and you won’t be far off because at this story’s heart is a solid case that needs solving.
The supernatural squad is a competent duo. There is no flash with them, aside from wanting to get to the heart of the case. They appear together in the novel Ghost Virus; if you have read that, you will be familiar with the pair. However, reading the previous novel in no way affects your enjoyment of this one.
The Children God Forgot will not be for everyone because this is some deep body horror. It is terrifying. I’d put some trigger warnings, flaying, abortion, claustrophobic spaces; there is a lot. If you can’t make it through the first three chapters of this book, you would not like what is in store later on. It only gets scarier, darker with a lot more gore. I love horror, and even I had to put the e-reader down now and then. Because, wow, some of these scenes are dark as hell. A particular scene included one of these monstrous fetus-creatures eating a cat and tearing it apart with a cracking sound of a broken rib cage—bits of fur flying everywhere. You get the point.
If you love horror of all sorts and want to be scared, The Children God Forgot is for you. Masterton is a master of writing horror. If you are new to his books, congratulations, you are in for a hell of a ride! Some of these scenes will be burned on your brain as if Masterton used an actual branding iron; but I promise you will recover from the cat scene and a few others soon.
Originally published in GdM#27
Read The Children God Forgot by Graham Masterton
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July 29, 2021
REVIEW: Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Brooding and dark, Nothing but Blackened Teeth drew me in and kept me off-balance. Always on the precipice of scary, it never quite tipped over. Instead, it stayed an eerie book, one that has crawled its way into my head. I’ll be thinking about it for a long while, reliving bits and pieces of the creepy story.
Nothing but Blackened Teeth follows a group of friends who decide to rent a Heian-age mansion for an odd sort of wedding celebration. The thing is, they’ve heard it’s haunted. That’s the draw for them: they’re hoping to experience the otherworldly and the disturbing. Well, wish granted.
The story goes that originally a woman’s fiancé died on his way to marry her at the mansion. She decided to be buried alive so that she could wait for her husband like one does, I suppose. Women continued to be sacrificed, one per year, so that the buried bride wouldn’t be lonely. In all honestly, the origin story for the haunting is the part that I found to be the weakest. It just didn’t inspire that anticipatory shiver that I was hoping for.
None of the characters are particularly likable and at first, I found myself viewing them through the slasher-film lens. You know: this one will die first because they sleep around, this one next because they don’t believe in the danger, etc. However, such was not the case. The tropes became jumping-off points for complex, multi-faceted characters, each with their own flaws and fears. Half of the fun of Nothing but Blackened Teeth was watching the complicated relationships fray and slowly dissolve as the characters’ pasts caught up to them.
The story begins with Cat, a woman who is still coming to grips with an unspecified mental illness. It has affected her past and she is still in the midst of learning to cope with it. There’s Phillip, the charismatic and super rich sponsor of the mansion rental. There’s Faiz and Talia, the engaged couple. Cat and Talia have beef, and their issues with each other add to an already tense situation. Last, there’s Lin, who is a master pot-stirrer. It’s these tangled relationships and hidden emotions that really elevate Nothing but Blackened Teeth to the fascinating tale that it is.
Author Cassandra Khaw played with motifs of relationships and mental health in ways that felt a little reminiscent of Shirley Jackson (if Jackson had a penchant for gore). There were times when I wondered what was happening and what- if anything was being imagined by one character or another. Nothing but Blackened Teeth is a riveting book, perfect for fans of creepy tales with a little extra bite.
Read Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
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July 28, 2021
REVIEW: Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne Valente
Catherynne Valente is the author of over twenty-five books, and the winner of numerous awards. Valente often breaks down existing stories and uses them as fertilizer for her own work. That’s true of fairy tales like Deathless or Speak Easy, legends like her Prester John series, or comic books with The Refrigerator Monologues. Comfort Me With Apples, her newest, also retells an old story—but trying to discern which old story is part of the joy.
Valente is well-known for her exquisite prose, and she changes her writing style to suit her story. In this case, that means plenty of intentional repetition and a simple vocabulary. Sometimes, prose is about what’s not said, and that’s the case in this Comfort Me With Apples.
That’s because Comfort Me With Apples’ point of view character is Sophia. At the beginning she’s extremely naive, and she seems incapable of having much agency. Her inner monologue at the start is about how happy she is, and how she will please her husband by keeping a clean house and following his instructions. If this maintained through a whole novel, it would be frustrating, but of course not only does Sophia get an arc, but she gets one in a very short book.
She knows she was made for him, her husband, and her whole life is perfect, just perfect. She lives in a perfect gated community, so safe there aren’t even locks on the doors. Her neighbours are delightful, and her biggest concern is whether they like her as much as her husband.
But his name is never mentioned. It’s clear that that isn’t because Valente is withholding it for the sake of a plot twist, but because it highlights all the things she’s cut off from, and the drastic power dynamic between the two of them, as well as the gulf between him and all of their neighbours, who do all have names known to her.
He says her name over and over, until it no longer sounds like her name at all, but someone else’s, and for a moment, Sophia could swear it is someone else’s name. Other vowels and other consonants, strangers in the halls of her ears. But she shakes her head against his chest and the moment floats away. The world is Sophia again. Sophia, Sophia, Sophia.
In her perfect house in her perfect gated community, Sophia finds one small, odd, out of place thing. It’s not much, and everyone she mentions it to tells her it’s nothing. She ultimately goes along with them and believes it, but that exposure was enough. This most minor of experiences slowly accretes as she finds other things. She goes from complete passivity to gaining the first hints of wisdom.
She’s not really hunting for these things at first; mild curiosity leads her to the first object, but the second is entirely accidental. But as the book goes on she becomes more driven to find out exactly what’s happening.
On top of that her neighbours are extremely concerned for her happiness. It’s a constant refrain through Comfort Me With Apples. The people in this community seem too eager to please her.
“Are you happy, Sophia?” asked Mrs. Orpington hopefully, still clutching her basket of eggs.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Sophia had replied. She laughed, because it seemed the right sort of thing to do, but they did not laugh back.
“It is important,” answered Mr. Orpington, quietly.
Comfort Me With Apples isn’t quite a fairy tale retelling, nor a horror, nor a thriller. It’s very much it’s own story, without concern for genre. And as the book itself will tell you, whatever has no name is powerful.
Read Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne Valente
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July 27, 2021
An Interview with Jesse Teller
Jesse Teller is the prolific author of many connected (but separate) works in the fantasy world of Perilisc, including the Manhunters trilogy and the standalone novels Liefdom, Chaste, and Mestlven. He has also written several short stories in this world across a span of time that goes back thousands of years. His latest work is Fate of Madness, the epic fourth and concluding book of The Madness Wars.
Jesse sat down with me and allowed me to pick his brain for a few minutes, to really dig deep and find out what it is that makes him tick as an author. I was very intrigued to get to the heart of the matter, as all the while I was reading through The Madness Wars, I found myself constantly being amazed at the depth and detail of this dark yet fascinating world. Read on for a fascinating perspective into the development of worlds through the author’s vision.
Q: I love how your books all tie together, though they’re each set as stand-alone. It’s cool to find the little Easter eggs that refer back to another work, though the story doesn’t depend on knowledge of previous books. Are all of these links clear in your head or do you need to map it all out to keep yourself straight?
I was fine until book twenty-nine. When I was writing the first twenty-eight books, it was pretty clear in my head. I needed a plot and a main character for the series, a basic but pretty undefined direction for the series to go, but I realized I was writing all my books in the same world and that it was pretty unrealistic that characters from one series would not in some way touch the others. So, I would take what I had, main character, idea for the series, and vague direction, and I’d ask myself, who will wander into this series from another series? The biggest example of this was the book Hemlock. It came out in 2018. Hemlock is the second book in The Manhunters series, and the main cast didn’t change, but Aaron the Marked was in that book. The book takes place after The Madness Wars, so at the time, Aaron in Hemlock is eighteen years old. Presented certain challenges. I had to predict changes he would go through during The Madness Wars and the years after. I had to predict what kind of man he would be and write that man in The Manhunters series. But in the end, it’s all a continuation of the series before it. And at the same time, it’s all backstory for books that have come ahead of it.
When you read Onslaught, you see Sai Sibbius Summerstone escaping captivity. His story goes forward, but why should I spend pages and pages explaining how he got into captivity and everything around that when it gets in the way of the book the reader is currently reading? If you want to know how he got into that captivity, you read Chaste and Mestlven. Those novels become backstory, but only for one character. The rest of the characters, and Sai, are at that point presently going through a story. A lot of novels get bogged down in backstory and info dumps, and I’m fiercely against that.
The Callden Collective is a force to be reckoned with in Crown, the third book of The Manhunters series, which also came out in 2018. But if you want to know their backstory, you read The Madness Wars. Writing, including all the Easter eggs and the jumps in time, becomes a game of “How did this character get to this place at this time? And what changes did they go through in books I haven’t written yet?”
The first twenty-eight books, I was able to keep it pretty well nailed down. Once I started twenty-nine, the work I was writing became so complicated that it was impossible to keep all of it straight in my head. I started keeping a meager amount of notes to help keep things straight, and I made a large master timeline painted on my wall. I’m writing book thirty-four now. It is extremely complicated and takes a lot of focus. But when it is done and published, no one will ever have seen anything like it before. The quote that I’m gonna misquote to you is, “If you want something you’ve never had, you have to be willing to do something you’ve never done.” The work I’m doing now is something no one’s ever seen before. There’s no model for me to follow. No research I can do on how it’s been done in the past. So I have to be willing to do things no one’s ever done before. I have to find new ways to create notes, new ways to organize my thoughts, train my mind to do things no mind has ever done before. It’s not easy. It is taking a toll on my personal life. But my wife works with a certain philosophy, if you can conceive a new inspiration, it’s your responsibility to bring it into the world.
Q: Tell us about Rextur, the Madness himself. What went through your head when developing this complex character? He seems conflicted, torn between his heritage and his religion.
Rextur’s complex and he’s extremely simple at the same time. He believes in discipline as enforced with the tool of destruction. He will break you and everything you hold dear if it means that he can bring order to your life. You have to understand this is a character who never had anything to hold onto. His mother was killed the moment he was born. His father’s an absolute monster. He was thrust into a world of death and pain, and the only thing he ever had to guide him was his religion. And all of that works in theory. But eventually if we allow ourselves to be led simply by the teachings of religion from mankind, we find ourselves losing track of the true vision of the god. Rextur is a monster made human by his discipline and his love of the men he leads.
There was a time in my life when I felt much the same way, when I was prepared to do anything it took to protect certain people in my life. I argued every point. I suffered all the pain. I believed in something and I was at war. So it wasn’t really hard to find Rextur in myself. It was actually harder making him a villain than it was making him a man. The fight that I fought was between my heritage and family and my moral code. That’s Rextur’s battle right there.
Q: Do you have any dream castings, should we ever see a film version of The Madness Wars? For some reason I kept picturing Josh Brolin as Thanos during the Rextur scenes.
Josh Brolin for sure would be a really good Rextur. I like him for the role. But he’s good at everything. If you’re gonna do Dotley, who is a character I despise beyond all others, you can’t cast him any better than John Lithgow. Strick has to be played by somebody like Chris Pratt. Rextur could be found in the actor Hugh Jackman. I’ve been writing so much that I really have trouble fitting anything else into my life. Movies, television shows, and video games have had to fall to the wayside. My characters, I get so intimate with them when I’m writing them that I find myself bonding with them to the point where it almost seems disrespectful to place them, their beliefs, and their lines on other people. However, if I am casting Clark the First King, I would have to go with Idris Elba. And if I’m casting Despelora, Lena Headey.
Q: Aaron the Marked is another intriguing character to me, and one of the biggest strengths of the series are the relationships between him and the other “boys” in the Nation of Four. What is your inspiration for this group, and Aaron in particular?
Aaron is largely autobiographical. He grew up in violent circumstances, was terribly abused, and lost faith in himself and his honor. Everything with Aaron the Marked became extremes, and he found comfort in that. I wrote a book in 2011 called Nyst that will come out in April 2025. In that book, Aaron meets Peter Redfist for the first time. Aaron has committed an act deemed despicable by his people and they’re horrified by him and don’t know what to do with him. Right there is where we find the beginning of Aaron’s story and right there is where we find mine. People in my life knew me to be a villain because I went against them. So I did with Aaron and the Nation of Four what I find myself doing in all of my books, I wrote what I needed.
I grew up with no powerful, honorable father figure. And when I had sons of my own, I realized I had no role model to base my parenting off of. So I wrote those role models in the characters Burle Steeltooth and Flak Redfist, in Legends of the Exiles. I needed to know how to be a good husband, so I wrote one. With a past like mine, I was taught none of the skills that are needed to live a productive and healthy life. So I was forced to write my role models. The Nation of Four is that for Aaron and was that for me. With every new revelation and every step closer towards honor that Aaron took, I came to understandings about what I needed to do. I was talking to ML Spencer, and I said it again in a conversation with Sarah Chorn. I’ve said it a number of times. And I’ll say it here again. One day Aaron the Marked will save my soul.
Q: Do you consider your stories and characters to be Grimdark? What does that word mean to you as a crafter of worlds and words?
Grimdark is not something that I can reach, as understood by my definition. My stories are dark, there’s no doubting that. But I have a basic theme that I have embraced for all of my work. I’m having a conversation with myself with every book I write, trying to communicate one specific idea as a person who’s lived the life that I’ve lived and suffered the things I’ve suffered. I have to talk to myself about hope and despair. So all of my work is a discussion that I’m having with myself about what will win out in my life, hope or despair.
You can find it in every book I write, every short story. I’m obsessed with the idea. And in the end, it will be what they say about my work once it’s all been read, and they have looked at everything and they’ve looked at what I’m trying to say to the world. When I’m done, my readers will see the end result of the struggle between hope and despair. From what I know about the subgenre grimdark, and I may be wrong, nobody really has nailed down what the genre is and is trying to be. But from what I do know, there’s not a lot of hope in grimdark. There’s a kind of, I guess the term they use is moral ambiguity, in the main characters. And while some of my characters do have that, it’s not by any means exclusive.
I was chastised by a beta reader for having my work be so dark and at the same time so high fantasy. And from what I have heard, those who speak about grimdark with authority often say grimdark is low fantasy, which my work is not. By my estimation, I have written one grimdark book and it is called Chaste. The rest of my work is too high fantasy. There’s too many honorable people in it, and too much hope, for me to be considered a die-hard, pure grimdark writer. But I sure do appreciate Grimdark Magazine taking the time to look at my work and making it a priority.
Q: Something that’s very much grimdark to me is that we see a main protagonist that’s a villain by most standards. Rextur maintains a POV presence through all four books, though the chapters revolve with other characters. Rextur certainly isn’t the villain from his own perspective, so it’s interesting to see the wars through his eyes when his chapters come around. When writing his chapters, do you somehow see him as the hero of his own story?
Okay, well you will find when you talk to most people alive today that they do not consider themselves the villain of their own story. Most people consider themselves the hero of their own story. The trick to writing characters like Rextur is to look at him through his own eyes and ask him if he has a good reason for doing what he’s doing and what that reason is. Why are these actions worth committing? What is your motivation and why do you feel your life should go in this direction? There’s a lot of evil people from my past who are real live people that are evil. And all of them think they’re doing the right thing. This is the heart of Rextur. Rextur’s not doing what he’s doing for the sake of doing it or because he wants to push forward evil.
For example, there’s a memory he has of a party he was taken to by his father where there’s drinking and feasting and open sex, and when his father is passing out that night he says something along the lines of, “Well, boy, what did you think?” And as his father falls asleep, Rextur says, “All of those people need to be taught a lesson.” Rextur is an anti-hero. I was told by my English literature teacher that anti-heroes are almost impossible to write well. But as I’ve moved forward in my career, I found that I’m not having as much trouble writing an anti-hero as I was warned I might. Because what I’ve learned is that even people who do evil things tell themselves there’s a good reason for their actions.
Q: Now that you’ve released the final volume of The Madness Wars, what’s next on the horizon? I know you’ve been releasing new books at a steady pace, so what can we expect next?
Anyone who’s been following my career will not find it surprising that my next release will fall on October 5, 2021. It’s with my editor right now and it will be ready. I’ve got the cover art done for it, and I’m very excited. I have been on a mission since I first released Liefdom in 2016 to prove myself as a novelist. I released a standalone book. I released a collection of short stories to prove that I could write short stories and to layout the creation of my world. After a few more standalone books, I had proven that I could write a novel.
My next job as I saw it was to prove to my readers that I could start and complete a trilogy in a timely fashion. So I gave them The Manhunters. Each is a little over 300 pages. They’re all intertwined with main characters going all the way through one big agenda. It’s a trilogy. I wanted to prove to them that I could finish a trilogy. Then came the novellas. There was a lot of talk, and remains a lot of talk, about male writers being unable to write strong female characters. I released Legends of the Exiles to prove that I could write strong female characters.
Once all of that was proven as fact, I needed to show that I could write and release an epic series that came to a satisfying conclusion in a reasonable amount of time. I’ve proven that. The next challenge I’ve decided to take on is proving to readers that I can write short, powerful, fast reads that are engaging and fulfilling. My next release is called Scorch. It takes place in a desert land. The series can be read on its own, just as all of my different series can, and if you choose to read this trilogy The Burdens of Beasts, you will get a complete story. But if you have read the rest of my work, you will see that this entire series is built on the ramifications of The Madness Wars. And that a man who has lost himself, and is in constant turmoil with PTSD from that war, is trying to make a difference in the world and trying to hide from what he’s done.
And that’s all you get.
I’m not gonna tell you who the story follows. I’m not going to tell you the trauma this character faced. I’m not gonna tell you anything about how it ties to The Madness Wars. Because my work is built in such a way that you do not have to read all of it, and I don’t want the people who decide to read Scorch to feel as though they need to read The Madness Wars to understand it. Scorch is its own story. It just happens to fit in the tapestry of the rest of my world.
The post An Interview with Jesse Teller appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.
July 26, 2021
REVIEW: The Dying Squad by Adam Simcox
Add a little detective drama to a fun, imaginative urban fantasy (arguably rural fantasy, as its real-world elements take place largely in the quiet Lincolnshire landscape) exploring the afterlife, memory, identity and justice, and what you get is Adam Simcox’s The Dying Squad. Even faced with the sight of his own body, DI Joe Lazarus doesn’t want to accept that he’s dead. When he finds himself in purgatory (otherwise known as the Pen) however, and tasked heading back to the mortal plane to investigate his own murder, he’s forced to acknowledge the truth. Setting out with his new partner Daisy-May – also dead, and decidedly cheeky – on the trail of the drug gang he was tracking before his death, he’s hindered by the fact that, beyond the basics of his core identity, he can’t remember much, if anything, about his life, his friends and family, or his original investigation.
After a slightly slow start full of existential angst as Joe rails against the truth of his situation, he’s rapidly introduced to the Pen, the Dispossessed souls caught there between heaven and hell, the Duchess who rules as the Warden of the Pen, and the existence of the Dying Squad – souls tasked with finding justice for those whose crimes went unsolved in the living world. There’s a lot to take in, but the story kicks into gear as Joe learns the terms of the deal he’s being offered – secure a place in heaven by finding out who’s responsible for his murder, or else be forever trapped in the Pen – before making a start on his investigation. The frustrating absence of memories for both Joe and Daisy-May, what that means for their sense of identity and how they mitigate against it, quickly becomes a fundamental driver of the plot, keeping the reader guessing and gradually revealing the truths behind both characters. As the rules of the setting (i.e. how this sort of afterlife works, and how it fits in with heaven and hell) become clearer too, the danger ramps up and the stakes become bigger than just a case of getting into heaven.
The core concept is a brilliant idea, and there’s a lot here that’s wonderfully imaginative and great fun to read about. Perhaps because there are so many ideas flying around though, it does at times feel like a book that isn’t entirely sure what it wants to be – is it a supernatural police procedural? An expansive modern fantasy? A noirish character study? In truth it’s all of those things in a combination that largely works, but not flawlessly; the actual investigation is a touch one-dimensional, at least some of the twists and revelations are a bit telegraphed, and with all the (admittedly smart and frequently intriguing) world building going on a couple of the character beats towards the end feel a bit rushed. Thankfully, the relationship between Joe and Daisy-May is easily strong enough to carry the story along, and it’s as much fun reading their zingy, witty dialogue as it is learning more about who they are – and were – even as they’re rediscovering their memories and past lives themselves.
So if the tone is a bit uneven in places and the crime/fantasy elements don’t always feel like they fit together properly, there’s still more than enough going on here for it to be consistently entertaining, and as the story progresses the whole thing gradually begins to gel a bit more. By the end, while it’s clear that Simcox is setting things up nicely for a sequel, it’s easy to forgive him that – with (most of) the mysteries out of the way and the characters fully realised, the journey up to that point now makes a lot of sense, and for the most part feels genuinely satisfying. It’s definitely more fantasy than crime, but the central idea of the Pen and the Dying Squad is smart and well thought-out, with considerable scope for further development. If you’re on the lookout for a modern urban (/rural) fantasy with a fun angle on the afterlife – and a dash of crime added in – then you could do a lot worse than check this out.
Many thanks to Gollancz and Adam Simcox for providing me with an advance copy of The Dying Squad, in exchange for my honest review.
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July 25, 2021
REVIEW: The Last House On Needless Street by Catriona Ward
The Last House On Needless Street is the latest work from award-winning horror author, Catriona Ward. While the novel certainly flirts with the horror genre, it could perhaps be equally considered a dark entry in the thriller category.
The narrative revolves around Ted Bannerman–a recluse with apparently damaged mental capacity–his daughter Lauren, his cat Olivia, and the secrets which bind them together. Ted has reason to believe that there is a murderer loose in his neighbourhood and fears what that means for the safety of his little family…especially when (for all he knows) that murderer could in fact be him. Woven into the mystery is a determined woman named Dee, who quests tirelessly in search of the person responsible for the disappearance of her little sister, some ten years previous.
In The Last House On Needless Street Ward expertly toys with her readers’ expectations as the layers of the enigma are peeled away. Even as someone who typically predicts plot-twists with annoying accuracy, I was repeatedly forced to revisit my assumptions as each revelation rendered my best guesses fallacious. As with many great horror classics, the most unnerving parts occured in my own mind, as I jumped at the shadows cast by my own presumptions rather than the verbatim words on the page. It is for this reason that I previously suggested that this work could equally be considered a dark thriller; while there was one specific thread that I did find to be genuinely horrific, mostly, what Ward’s subtle work caused me to imagine was more frightening than what was warranted by the actual unfolding plot events.
The Last House On Needless Street was an absolute masterclass of suspense and storytelling, and I can hardly believe how well constructed just about every aspect of it was. My only critical comment would perhaps be that I’m still not sure if I was actually very entertained by this book or if I was simply completely enthralled by it. To be clear: I would be less likely to speak in terms of how much I enjoyed the work so much as in terms of how damn impressed I was by its craftsmanship.
Thematically, The Last House On Needless Street is a tale of trauma and survival, of hope, guilt, revenge and resilience. While most of these items are explored explicitly, some are left for the reader to interpret and infer what they may from the character’s experiences and actions.
Ward has created something truly special here, and fans of the horror and thriller genres will be well impressed by what they find. Genre dabblers will be drawn to the ever-deepening mystery and will further appreciate the omission of shock-horror and gross-out gore tactics. The Last House On Needless Street is an achievement which you absolutely should not sleep on, and I, for one, plan to work my way through the rest of Ward’s body of work while I eagerly await whatever she has in store next.
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July 24, 2021
REVIEW: Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise
There are quite a few books inspired by Peter Pan coming out this year. While most of them are on the YA end of the spectrum, Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise is the grown-up answer to the children’s story. In this version, Wendy is an adult, with a husband and daughter of her own, when Peter suddenly reappears in her life. Having spent years of her life in a mental institution thanks to her insistence on not forgetting Peter and Neverland, this Wendy is not the jolly girl that Disney presented us with – she has deep-seated trauma, and her relations with her brothers are strained.
The life she has so carefully built for herself in early twentieth-century London, with a mostly platonic marriage to a man who respects her, a daughter she adores, and her Native American friend Mary, whom she met in the asylum, is completely disrupted when Peter Pan appears, and kidnaps her daughter Jane. Insisting that Jane is Wendy – he refuses to believe that Wendy could have grown up – Peter takes her to Neverland and wants her to look after the Lost Boys there. This leads Wendy to confront her past and return to Neverland to save her daughter. But Neverland is dying, Peter has lost his ways and both Wendy and Jane keep finding the cracks in Peter’s world.
Wendy, Darling is a dark take on a familiar story, dealing with mature themes such as psychological abuse and complex mental health issues. It is also a gripping tale of family and friendship, of the value of growing up and following your dreams. This is a story that will absorb you and pull it into its world immediately. The worldbuilding is rich and the characters are explored in detail. It is compelling, and the plot is quite fast-paced, which suits the story and characters well. I particularly thought that the complexities of Wendy and Mary, both as individuals and in their relationship to each other, were developed really well and I enjoyed learning about them and trying to puzzle together the story as it unfolded.
If you like your retellings mature and on the darker side, I very much recommend you pick up Wendy, Darling. It has vibes slightly reminiscent of Christina Henry’s Alice books and relies on making the reader uncomfortable throughout to tell the story. It’s not as whimsical as I might have expected, but I still really liked it.
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July 23, 2021
Eight Indie Cyberpunk Book Recommendations
Grimdark Magazine has long supported indie authors and their eternal attempts to get noticed among the countless other books released by both traditional publishers and the increasingly saturated indie market. We are also huge fans of the cyberpunk genre that we feel did NOT end in the Nineties but has become increasingly relevant every day (or maybe just true).
Whether my own Agent G or the amazing Neon Leviathan book published by our magazine, Grimdark Magazine sees a rainy neon-soaked cyborg-filled future as one of the best ways to explore dark gritty dystopian fiction.
Therefore, we’ve decided to share eight of our favorite indie cyberpunk novels that might otherwise have slipped under your radar.
Ghosts of Tomorrow by Michael R. FletcherSynopsis: You can create AI by burning out human brains to make them so there’s a billion dollar industry for making scans. This includes children trafficked by futuristic cartels. Our protagonists want to kill these guys and with very good reason. However, can our antiheroes affect something that is essential to the functioning of the world’s economy?
Recommendation: Michael R. Fletcher is one of the best indie grimdark authors on the market today and manages to create snappy intense books that just about everyone should check out. This noir story about human trafficking, insane child soldiers in cyborg bodies, and more is fantastic from beginning to end. I really wish he’d get to work on a sequel because this is a world I’d like to visit again.
Synopsis: The Big Easy in the future is a place where you can indulge in every cyber-delight possible, ranging from gorgeous bioroids to designer mental drugs. The protagonist is a cop who has managed to stay clean and avoid becoming swept up in the system until today. Now he’s broken the Immorality Clause of his contract and become involved with a machine. But is she just a toy or something else entirely?
Analysis: Detective fiction and noir with science fiction elements is the heart of cyberpunk the same way that Westerns and samurai films are the heart of Star Wars. Brian Parker gets that and his Chandler-esque books follow a Detective who would be at home in True Detective if not for the fact he has to deal with robot hookers as well as AI.
Synopsis: Memories and emotions can be harvested for sale in the future but the process leaves the donors a numb shell of their former self. For some people, especially those unable to function in normal society, it’s a blessing than a curse. Legalization of the process threatens to affect billions of people, though, and the companies involved have hidden the horrifying side effects.
Analysis: Rob J. Hayes is one of the best grimdark writers currently out there. Where Loyalties Lie is one of my all time favorite novels. Drones is outside his usual genre but no less awesome. While we already have emotion-inducing devices (they’re called drugs), I found this a fascinating Johnny Mnemonic-esque tale.
Synopsis: Holo City is a cyberpunk dystopia with neon, Tron Lines, cyborgs, and a decaying corrupt government that Bubbles Marlowe refuses to serve anymore. Now working as a private detective, she finds herself caught up in a murder when she screws up a job. As the back cover says, “Strippers, drugs, and headless corpses.”
Analysis: A fun engaging cyberpunk novel that is perfect for an afternoon’s read. Reusing 1920s slang and updating it to the retro future world of 80s cyberpunk makes for an engaging experience. S.C. Jensen’s take on cyberpunk heroines also feels different than most writers and adds a skeptical irreverent look to many hardboiled detective tropes.
Synopsis: In the future, the environment has completely collapsed, and a bunch of religious fanatic Luddites have taken over the world. Like all hypocrites, though, they employ technology to keep control over humanity’s surviving cities. One of them is a cyborg from before the war who now has to investigate the murder of one of their own. But are the answers one that he would be allowed to share even if he finds the truth?
Analysis: I was really surprised by this book, which is a first time novel and yet creates a fully realized world. The environmentally devastated Earth is a a fascinating place with the arcologies, hellish wilderness, blasted slums, and beautiful temples.
Synopsis: Another fantasy and cyberpunk combination. In the future, the supernatural exists among the megacorporations as well as nanotechnology cyborgs. Rune is possessed of a magical ability to find things and after inheriting a bar is sucked into a complicated magical-economic conspiracy.
Analysis: Megan Mackie’s combination of urban fantasy and cyberpunk is a nice alternative to the usual incarnations of both. Rune is a likable character with a bad history she’s running away from and I liked her romance with cyborg mercenary Saint Benedict. It’s still very much urban fantasy but I think fans of cyberpunk will also like it.
Synopsis: This is more Shadowrun than Cyberpunk 2020 where the apocalypse happened and God didn’t bother to show up. Demons now rule the blasted technologically advanced remains of Earth. The protagonist is a mercenary who plies the black markets between the various feuding city-states with his nano-technology enhancements giving him an ability to fight the supernatural head on. But now someone wants him to fight the corrupt overlords and their armies of criminals. Can you trust the Devil, though?
Analysis: This is a bit off-kilter, being a snark-filled science fiction fantasy, but I love the work anyway. Protagonist, Salem, is a guy who wants to just run packages and rob people but gets pulled into saving the world. There’s a lot of darkness in this literal demon-ruled dystopia but also a lot of fun.
Synopsis: The Blue Eyes are a secret cybernetically augmented group of killers working for the mysterious Metatron. Named for angels, Nephilim has always been the odd woman out and becomes more so when she starts to doubt her purpose. But there’s no way to leave the Blue Eyes alive.
Analysis: I encountered this book by accident and really enjoyed it. I’m a huge fan of characters learning to be more human and this definitely provides that in spades. The world the author envisions is brutal, corrupt, and hypocritical but also wealthy for its evils. How much is your soul worth?
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July 22, 2021
REVIEW: The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
In thinking of the title of this book, The Final Girl Support Group, where a support group is by its nature a safe and comforting idea, instead, think about what it means to have been a final girl. The horror of it all.
Although the horror films of the 70s and 80s would have us believe that the last girls survive their ordeals unscarred, we know too often from life that survivors are bent if not broken. The Final Girl Support Group invites us to see what these heroines might endure as they struggle to unbend themselves decades after their trauma.
Those who are horror fans or grew up in the 70s and 80s are familiar with the final girl trope. The idea of a final girl has evolved as horror movies and audiences evolved. To understand and appreciate The Final Girl Support Group it helps to have a passing understanding of the final girl trope. The final girl was usually depicted as an innocent, virginal girl who stayed away from vices such as drinking and drugs. And is thus rewarded for her “good deads” with living through the horror. The narrative structure of the movie or book followed her vantage point, and we as an audience are engaged in her struggles and have a vested interest in her fight to survive. We want her to win, either by escape or rescue.
“We get subjected to sequels. That’s what makes our guys different, that’s what makes them monsters – they keep coming back.”
As the trope aged, the idea of what a final girl changed as well. Instead of being saved, they often save themselves. Either by being cunning and running. We began to expect more from our final girls. And, as an audience, we revisit the final girl multiple times. Over and over, they are thrust into chaos. Nancy Thompson of Nightmare on Elm Street suffered through three versions of battle with Freddy, starting at age 15 and ending at age 21. Had she survived the last movie, what would her mind be after facing the dream king three times?
I would think that Hendrix created The Final Girl Support Group as a way to exercise the idea that the girl is a person and surviving is only the first part of her struggle. Watching these bloodfests at a midnight show is all about the spectacle of gore. But, with a spectacle comes a certain amount of distancing from the characters as people. They are basically the objective focus of the protagonist’s determination.
“Sometimes you need the money more than you need to live with yourself”
The story starts with a group of middle-aged women sniping at each other. They are not friends, but people with shared experiences. They have known each other a long time and have seen each other through the enduring PTSD that comes from the horrors they have endured. In some ways, they are closer than family. What I immediately liked about the story was the idea that these women, no longer final girls, have reacted to their traumas differently. Although I am no expert in psychology, the reactions these women have to horrors like this have a certain authenticness.
For example, one is a drug addict, one is consumed with wealth and power, one is a shut-in driven by the protection of herself and trust of no one, and one channeled their pain into an organization to help others. These reactions seem like plausable reactions that one could have to PTSD like this. The story is from the vantage point of one of the final girls, Lynnette Tarkington, who survived the grizzly murders of her family around Christmas. She was impaled on an antler and set to watch the destruction of all she loved. Now she exists like a ghost, consumed with the idea that something horrible could happen because it already had, twice.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the final girl support group is targeted. Someone wants them to suffer, to be humiliated, and die as they should have originally. Lynette, who is not wholly stable and lives a life of quiet desperation, begins to understand that they are being chosen one by one to die. But trying to get people to believe her is something else entirely. There are conspiracies inside conspiracies and so much violence. Lynette is a survivor, although she doesn’t believe it. But will she survive all of this and save the people around her? That is the big “ask” of the story. Is Lynette strong enough?
The Final Girl Support Group is a mover of a story once you get past Hendrix setting the scene in the very beginning. As a lover of slasher movies from the 80s, I never thought about the characters as actual people until reading this book. They were just nameless gore and splashes of crimson across the page and screen. But now, Hendrix has me thinking more in-depth about these characters. It has added a new depth of experience to the slasher movies I watched and books I read as a kid. And in some ways, I respect the distance that those cheesy slasher movies achieved. You can enjoy the movie with jump scares, Karo Corn Syrup dyed blood red, and a rubber knife and know that that kind of thing only happens in the movies. When you drop the partition between life and art, the experience of those movies has an entirely different feel to them.
I believe that anyone who is a fan of horror novels and is familiar with the trope will love it. But more so, I think that if you are a fan of the horror genre in general including movies, this story will resonate with you because it straddles a very uncomfortable blood-splattered line bisecting the two mediums. A line that I had not seen explored before. Check it out.
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