Adrian Collins's Blog, page 17

REVIEW: Dragon Rider by Taran Matharu

As someone who really likes dragons, Dragon Rider by Taran Matharu has been on my reading list since it was first released in 2024. Dragon Rider is the debut adult novel from Taran Matharu and other reviews had called it ‘bloody, glorious, and irresistibly compelling’ and ‘dazzlingly epic’, which made me go from ‘Oh, look a dragon book!’ to ‘Oh, I would probably really like that book for more than the dragon’. Dragon Rider is also the first book of The Soulbond Saga and the second novel, The Tainted Khan, is out in April of 2025 so this could potentially become the start of great new fantasy series for me.

In Dragon Rider we follow Jai, the third son of a conquered emperor. Jai has been forced into slavery. He has spent most of this life in servitude to the former emperor who conquered his people and watches from the edges of their society as the Sabine people continue to spread their empire over the continent and kill or enslave the people in their way. The unconquerable and harsh mountain Dansk land to the north broker a marriage between their princess Erica to the Sabine emperor’s son and with Princess Erica becomes her dowry: dragons. The betrothal goes horribly wrong, and the bloody coup gives Jai a chance to escape. He flees with a Dansk servant, Frida, stealing a dragon egg as he goes. For Jai this is the first chance in years he may have to return to his homeland and try to seek his revenge. But first he must do something that no one other than Dansk royalty has ever done before; bond with a dragon.

For me Dragon Rider has ticked a lot of the boxes of traditional epic fantasy. Dragons, an improbable quest, an unlikely hero – Matharu has used a lot of fantasy tropes here, and he has used them well. Let’s be honest, we all like fantasy books for a reason, so Dragon Rider is probably going to be an enjoyable read for most fantasy fans. I really liked the pacing of the novel. It is a chunky tome, but it flows well. Chapters are quite short, and I felt like I could move through the story at a rapid pace but still have good pause points. The main character of Dragon Rider, Jai, is still quite young and this does lead to a somewhat naïve perspective (not entirely, Jai is still a slave and witnesses a whole lot of cruelty first hand) but I don’t think that makes the book feel juvenile, instead it sets the reader up to watch Jai grow over the course of the series.

In terms of what hardcore grimdark fans would enjoy, Dragon Rider might not be the first book I’d suggest. There are some really violent bits, but it is very clear who the bad guys are and who we are meant to be rooting for. There is not a whole lot of moral ambiguity at work. Dragon Rider has an underdog and some big baddies and we are rooting whole heartedly for the underdog here. Matharu isn’t shy about the depictions of battles or torture, but I wouldn’t describe Dragon Rider as a dark fantasy. It’s firmly in the epic fantasy category for me.

I also really enjoyed the magic at work in Dragon Rider. Dragons and their bonded riders is not a new concept in fantasy (I was reminded a little of the 1990s film Dragonheart and Anne McCaffrey’s Chronicles of Pern series whilst reading) but Matharu’s novel feels like a fresh take on the idea. The times where Jai is learning more about the soul binding process and how to use the dragon bond were some of my favourite parts of the novel and I look forward to learning more as the series continues.

Dragon Rider is a solidly good, epic fantasy novel and I think it would bring a lot of enjoyment to fans of traditional fantasy. I had a good time reading it and I am excited to continue with Matharu’s series. Thank you both to Taran Matharu and the team at Harper Voyager who sent Grimdark Magazine a review copy of Dragon Rider.

Read Dragon Rider by Taran Matharu

Read on Amazon

The post REVIEW: Dragon Rider by Taran Matharu appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

REVIEW: The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

An interesting mix of Arthurian tales, modern language, gallows humor, and grit, Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword is a book with a ton of banter, quests, and heart.

To be honest, I didn’t expect much going into this book. I knew it was about King Arthur and the Round Table, and with that comes certain expectations of epic fantasy where the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and all the characters talk about is how great friends they are and use phrases like “it’s my duty to protect the realm” ad nauseam. Even the title alone of The Bright Sword implies a certain run-of-the-mill epic fantasy.

But that’s not what this book is.

We start with Collum, a young man with no connections and no money, getting into a duel against a mysterious knight on his road to Camelot. Our main character gets told to fuck his mother three or four times within the first five pages, and ends up having to do one of the more brutal executions I’ve read. From there, The Bright Sword continues to be a breath of fresh air while maintaining that familiarity of King Arthur’s world.

“When you were inside them adventures happened slowly, but the aftermath of a failed adventure was even slower.”

The first subversion of expectations established, Grossman doesn’t let up. Instead of focusing on Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad, and all the other more famous ones, he focuses on the lesser known knights. Sir Bedivere, Sir Dagonet the Fool, Sir Palomides, Sir Dinadin, and Nimue. Each one is one I’d only roughly heard of before, and The Bright Sword brings these characters so much life and detail that it’s impossible to pick a favorite.

In the vein of continuing to bring new life to King Arther, we spend most of our time with these lesser-known characters because all the “important things” have already happened. Our main character Collum is too late: everything has already happened. Lancelot and Mordred have completed their betrayals. The Round Table is in ruins. King Arthur is dead.

From there, we get to know all the “left-over” knights rather intimately by having chapters from their POVs dropped in semi-randomly. Now, before I say anything else, Lev Grossman is a master writer and I’ve added the rest of his books to my TBR. I’ll go a step further and say that the wit, prose, action, and character work on display in The Bright Sword is the closest I’ve ever read to Joe Abercrombie’s First Law. With that out of the way, I have to say, I kind-of hated the way that we get these knights’ chapters. The approach follows a rough pattern of two Collum/”main” chapters, then a chapter or two featuring “the tale of Sir (insert knight of your choosing).” With Grossman’s talent, it provides an interesting routine where it’s nearly impossible to put down for thirty pages and then nearly impossible to continue after fifty.

“He’ll keep killing and killing till only one knight survives, and King Galahad will wear a crown of bone and sit on a throne of blood.”

Pacing aside, so much of The Bright Sword just works. Grossman’s writing style is superb, his talent undeniable. The dialogue, the action, the prose, all of it is tip-top stuff. He’s a master. I flipped open a copy of the book while writing this review and every passage I read left me wanting to read more, even though I just read the book last week.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of the core themes in The Bright Sword is the closing of the age of magic & the rise of Christianity. It’s like the British version of the last days of the Wild West. Fairies and the old world are being left behind in favor of fervent Christianity, and every character has an opinion on it. Some hate God, some love Him, and a lot have mixed opinions, but every one of them offers their two cents. If you go into the novel, be prepared.

“My God may be harder to love, but that’s because He is not like man. He is greater.”

While I adore the writing style, I did have another nagging issue outside the pacing: the ending. No offense to Grossman, but the ending of The Bright Sword left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s executed as perfectly as it can be, and still, I just hated the concept. Credit where credit’s due, the actual last line is perfection.

Quibbles aside, The Bright Sword is a damn fine book. It’s something that I just can’t imagine anyone ever saying anything less than “this is a great tale,” but it’s also something I can’t imagine someone saying “it’s my favorite book.”

If you’re looking for the familiar word of King Arthur with a fresh voice, relentless talent, and a deft touch, The Bright Sword is here to light your world.

Read The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Read on Amazon

The post REVIEW: The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

REVIEW: Dark Crescent by Lyndsey Croal

Last year, Scottish author Lyndsey Croal gave us the exceptional collection Limelight and Other Stories, a Black Mirror-style set of sci-fi shorts which despite the name was deathly dark, with the odd emotional punch to the gullet. One quick genre side-step later and she’s back with Dark Crescent (Luna Press, out June 3), another enjoyably grim set of tales which reflect her pleasingly obsessive love of Scottish folklore and all its magnificently weird denizens. It’s a consistently haunting ride more chilling than a liquid nitrogen tank but also frequently and bleakly beautiful; a lyrical ode to nature, the seasons, and the sea in all their inevitable and uncompromising glory.

Across the 22 shorts and one novella in Dark Crescent, structured across the four seasons, Croal presents and often reinterprets a host of spirits and creatures from Scottish folklore and Celtic myth. Some you’ll likely have heard of—mermaids, kelpies, selkies, and will-o’-the-wisps—and others with pleasingly unpronounceable Celtic names are, under Croal’s playful interpretations of them, as chilling as they are imaginative. Want to hazard a guess at what the nuckalavee, the frittering, or the boabhan sith are? Good luck. The land of the Celts has always had a dark and delightful imagination and the hybridisation of this with Croal’s midnight-black brain is a pleasure to read. An added bonus is Croal’s explainer at the backend, where she notes each of the folklore entities the stories are based on.

Many of the stories in Dark Crescent are more sinister than a creak in a fog-filled cemetery, filled with characters set on a path of doom we can only watch as they careen towards. Croal’s interpretation of the will-o’-the-wisp, a ghostly countryside light, is particularly grim, as a girl discovers that making friends with it comes at a terrible cost. But the most disturbing for me was the story “The Fiddler and the Muse”, in which a musician rents a room to practice in and finds himself trapped creating the perfect song as the seasons change; for the villain in this story Croal combines two creepy myths to terrifying effect.

But amongst the deep chills in Dark Crescent, Croal has sown messages of, if not outright hope, then the beauty and inescapability of nature and giving in to its form of death. A recurring character is the Cailleach, the Scottish goddess of winter who inevitability gives way to the spring. We also see a human version of the Orkney sea goddess the Sea Mither in the quietly beautiful post-apocalyptic story “The Loneliness of Water” (surely a nod to the del Toro Oscar winner?) which is one of several stories to shows Croal’s eco-side, reminiscent of her spec fic stablemate author Lorraine Wilson. The sea, strong in Celtic myth, is ever present.

Not all the characters are hapless victims too; some stoically face their inevitable fate, as in the woman awaiting something menacing in the sky in the poignant eponymous opener “Dark Crescent”. Some welcome transformation and rebirth, as in the surreal and evocative tale “A Change in the Rain”, where a community hides from the rain, the touch of which makes you translucent, but a daughter dreams of being united with her rain-changed father. And some defiantly face their fate, as in the outcast grandmother in “To Gut a Fish, First Gather its Bones” who strikes out alone to defeat the sea monster who’s killed her family. Many of these are women—as Croal knows, feminism in Celtic myth has strong roots.

True to its name, Dark Crescent is a resplendently pitch-black love letter to Scottish folklore and all the bizarre creatures within it that paints a lyrical canvas of the beauty of nature and rebirth even as it chills your bones till they shatter. Another unmissable Croal collection.

The post REVIEW: Dark Crescent by Lyndsey Croal appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

REVIEW: A Promise of Blood by R. A. Sandpiper

Ooooh damn, A Promise of Blood doesn’t just deliver on all the great potential that A Pocket of Lies promised, but it completely takes the Amefyre series to the next level. It gets bigger, darker, riskier, sexier, and even more cruelly twisted, and it’s bleeding with the most exquisite tension, inner turmoil and emotional gut punches that just hurt oh so good.

Now, if there’s one thing we learned from book 1, it’s that Suri seriously can’t catch a break. After all the brutal trials and tribulations that she somehow managed to survive, she has now ended up in the legendary City of the Damned; the city under the rule of none other than our deliciously dark Fae Lord Kol, who believes her to be the key player in the prophecy that forespells his people’s salvation. In other words, hello deadly high stakes, hello forced proximity, hello complicated feelings, and hello forbidden desires… let’s goooo, I am so here for the drama! 

You know, I really liked these characters in A Pocket of Lies, but I absolutely fell in love with them in A Promise of Blood. I mean, it’s not like this sequel is any less action-packed than its predecessor, but I personally feel like it was way less hectic and overwhelming. To me, Sandpiper really hit the sweet spot between the action and the emotion, and the amount of organic character-/relationship development really increased the emotional stakes to levels that were honestly dangerous for my emotional wellbeing.

Suri is honestly just my type of spunky, angry gal, and I really loved that we got to see so much more emotional vulnerability from her while still maintaining her total badass status. And Kol… my dear, dark, broody, and absolutely tortured Kol; he is truly down bad for Suri (even if she is still deep in denial country), and oh baby do I like the (filthy) mouth on this man. I was honestly eating up their deliciously risqué will-they-won’t they dynamic and couldn’t stop grinning over all their knife-sharp, teasing banter. Also, the little teases of spice… fuuuuck me, they are HOT together!

But what’s especially impressive to me is how the increased focus on the achingly slow-burn (multi-book) enemies-to-lovers romance somehow never even came close to killing the grimdark tone or overshadowing all the other intriguing aspects of this story. I loved getting to know the side characters better as we spent time in Kol’s inner court, and the tentative and unexpected found family vibes had me all in my feels. And you know, Scilla may or may not have become my favourite character in A Promise of Blood, which is a true testament to Sandpiper’s skill as a storyteller considering how much I loathed this woman in book 1. These characters are all so flawed, so messy, so complex, and so deeply relatable in the most painful ways, and I loved that they are constantly and continually faced with the heavy consequences of their actions and mistakes.

Moreover, the world also organically expands in both breadth and depth as we travel to new places and more of the history/lore/magic gets unveiled, which really added a nice extra level of immersion for me. I especially loved the moments in the Fae Glen, with all its deceptive beauty, wicked trickery, and arousing seduction, as well as the shocking unravelling of Kol’s personal backstory (the diary entries in the epigraphs are starting to make so much sense now!). The way that Sandpiper cleverly played around with familiar tropes and kept subverting my expectations was just so fun, and I really loved seeing how intricately everything is tied together; the revelations are just SO GOOD!

That said, I do have to admit that there were a few plot beats that felt either a bit contrived, predictable or purely forced in there for the sake of drama, and both Kol and Suri suffer from some severe cases of martyr complex, which made me want to strangle them more times than I can count (even if the chaos also kinda gave me life). Also, similarly to in book 1, the final act of A Promise of Blood felt maybe a bit messy to me, but the last scenes were absolute fire and all the implications got me equal parts excited and absolutely scared shitless for the finale.

Ultimately, my few little nitpicks didn’t stop me from devouring this book like nobody’s business, and I think A Promise of Blood is just a sequel done absolutely right. The Amefyre series is quickly shaping up to be the dark fantasy romance of my darkest dreams (or should I say nightmares?), and I can’t recommend it highly enough to anyone who has been looking for something to fill that Throne of Glass or The Cruel Prince void, but which just goes a little harder in all the best ways.

Read A Promise of Blood by R. A. Sandpiper

Read on Amazon

The post REVIEW: A Promise of Blood by R. A. Sandpiper appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

REVIEW: Avowed

Avowed is a hotly anticipated action RPG developed by Obsidian Entertainment. Hotly anticipated because Obsidian have credit in the bank for acclaimed 1st/3rd person RPGs like Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds.

To add to the anticipation Avowed takes that pedigree and sets it in the established Pillars of Eternity setting of Eora, which Obsidian have produced two successful isometric RPGs in. So we know that they’ve got form for this kind of game and there is a fully fleshed-out setting but does the game deliver?

Short answer, yes but your mileage may vary.

Plot wise, you are a Godlike – a person born with an affinity with one of Eoira’s many gods, but you don’t know which one.* Yes, finding out about that is a plot element that is a key part of the game. You are also an imperial envoy, sent by the Aedyran empire to investigate a spreading illness called the Dreamscourge which seeds to be emanating from a continent called the Living Lands.

* This manifests as having prominent growths on your face/head which the game allows you to turn off for aesthetic purposes but everyone can still ‘see’ that you’re a Godlike.

As your adventure continues you accumulate companions, seek to learn about the Dreamscourge and your relationship with your deity. There are the usual array of side quests from collecting bounties, fetch quests, treasure hunts and so on to help with levelling up and getting enough coin for some shiny new weapons, alongside a crafting mechanic to upgrade your existing gear.

Character and plot development comes mostly through conversations – either with your companions or folk you meet along the way, from the useless Imperial Ambassador, the terrifying Inquisitor Lodwyn, enigmatic Demelgan and the various inhabitants of the living lands. You have plenty of opportunity to choose what kind of character you are – although not enough for some people (and I’ll come back to that) and big choices to make. There was on in particular that I genuinely had to sit and think about which was the lesser evil and I like a game where the line between good and bad is nice and murky at times.

In my first run through I decided to play a good guy, trying to do the right thing even if it seemed outside my orders and I’m currently re-playing as a much more callous character. The early stages are a bit dull on a replay but I’m looking forward to seeing how things shake out when I do choose the more heartless path…

Avowed’s game mechanics are all very satisfying – the crafting is simple, combat is engaging and accessible and everything works really well.

The world exploration is fun but not challenging and it’s quite impressive how the developers have made levels with a relatively small footprint fold in on themselves to make the game world feel bigger.

To address some of the negative responses of the game, it feels like some people decided to hate on Avowed as soon as it was revealed you could choose they/them as pronouns in addition to the usual binary options. I’ve seen a load of review shorts/reels/tiktoks from exactly the sort of creators who are often annoyed at such things comparing Avowed negatively to other RPGS, especially Skyrim on the basis that you can’t attack NPCs that aren’t potential enemies in-game and you can’t pick up and throw items that are sitting about.

The notion is that this is a regression in game design/production and while I don’t necessarily disagree with that, it doesn’t get in the way of playing the game as intended and in these days of extreme crunch for game developers I’m not going to moan about some extra bells and whistles that don’t directly impact the game being omitted. Unless you’re super committed to going murderhobo in all your RPGs or have some ideological opposition to the game.

Visually, Avowed is stunning. The world is bright, vibrant and full of life, with the flora and fauna of the Living Lands dominating every vista, alongside some varied and epic landscapes. It’s not attempting to be photorealistic and nails a consistent fantastical tone that is convincing,

That brightness might not indicate a game suited to the average grimdark-enjoyer but the themes and setting of the game are as grimdark as it comes. You’re the envoy of a colonising empire in a land full of refugees and outcasts from your and other empires. You’re also an obvious outsider to both the people of the Living Lands but even your own Aedyran people given your Godlike mutations. You have to deal with the hostility of the locals, walk through literal sewers and slums, fight with street gangs, deal with religious zealots, make horrible choices over who lives and dies all while a soul plague is turning people and animals into psychotic zombies and the land itself seems to be trying to shake civilisation off at times.

It might not be knee deep in mud or involve much lurking in shadows, but at the very least it’s pastel-grimdark.

All in all, I really enjoyed Avowed and completed the main story in a few weeks (I have kids, so that’s maybe 30-40 hours) with enough interest to go back for a second run. It’s a solid action RPG that looks like it was styled by a botanist into psychedelics and was written by someone who cant decide if they should study theology or revolutionary theory. Great stuff.

Avowed was released on February 18 2025 and is available on XBox GamePass.

Play Avowed

Buy on Amazon

 

 

 

The post REVIEW: Avowed appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

REVIEW: The Crimson Fire by Abel Montero

In The Crimson Fire, Abel Montero weaves an impressively ambitious tale of political intrigue, rebellion, self-discovery, and divine conflict that burns with promise and potential. It boldly takes the concept of ‘slow-burn epic’ to a whole new level, and those who show faith, patience and trust will be greatly rewarded (with some possible emotional distress and damage) by the end.

Look, as soon as I saw the words ‘gods walk among men’, I was SOLD (okay, and that fire cover might have been a selling factor as well). See, I am always a sucker for some wicked divine meddling, and The Crimson Fire delivers that in spades. We are transported into a breathtakingly epic fantasy world inspired by ancient Sumerian legends, where the gods have reigned undisputed for centuries, until now. The sparks of rebellion have been lit, civil war is close to breaking out, and the fate of the empire has fallen into the hands of a ruthless rebel with a penchant for chaos, a devoutly loyal servant to the Empire, and a troubled young noblewoman and her fiercely protective bodyguard; four mere mortals whose lives are all inextricably intertwined, whether they realise it or not.

Now, while I was instantly enamoured with Montero’s rich imagination, immersive world building, and evocative storytelling, it took me probably about half of the book before I started to feel grounded and engaged. See, similarly to Gourav Mohanty’s Sons of Darkness, The Crimson Fire is not your typical multi-POV epic with evenly rotating POVs. Instead, this book is divided up into 6 distinct parts, of which the first three each introduce one of the POV characters one at a time before leaving them completely behind and moving onto the next one. To me, this almost made it feel like we had a couple false starts, and I found myself desperately looking for any type of tension or main conflict to get me hooked into the narrative. 

But then, BUT THEN!, we hit Part 4, and things just went batshit crazy in the best way possible. Somewhere along the way I started to pick up on the red threads weaving this entire magnificent tapestry together, and soon I found myself in awe of Montero’s boldly unique storytelling skills. Before I knew it, I was completely invested in these characters’ lives, and I absolutely loved going through this entire wild emotional rollercoaster with them.

For me, the ladies absolutely stole the show in The Crimson Fire, and I loved that the majority of the pagecount was dedicated to the perspectives of the young noblewoman Shadi and her enigmatic yet fiercely loyal bodyguard Darjin (my favourite, I would die for Darjin). Their intense inner conflicts, both torn between duty and desire, had me absolutely glued to the page, and their storylines contained the most satisfying character growth (go Shadi!!) and the most emotionally engaging character dynamics for me; not only between the two of them, but also between Shadi and her controlling mother, and between Darjin and the mysterious Tamer who she goes off on a high-stakes mission with.

Meanwhile, the rebel Eshfen and the Ensin Andik occasionally weave in and out of the narrative and pull at the strings in the background. While I never got very invested in them simply due to the limited time we got to spend with them, I found them both intriguing in their own right and I loved seeing how their (diabolical) actions caused huge ripple effects throughout the entire world in the most unexpected ways (looking at you, Eshfen).

And the more I read on, the more I realised that the scope of this story was truly beyond anything I could ever have imagined. The way that Montero slowly peeled back the layers of this world and these characters was so satisfying to me, and I was deeply fascinated by the intersectionality of the politics, religion, technology and magic in the world of Kenjir. And then add to that the wonderfully evocative prose, which just brought this sumptuous and aesthetically pleasing world to life before my eyes. Seriously, I would never have guessed that English isn’t Montero’s first language if I didn’t know, and I honestly think his beautifully immersive wordsmithery is on a level that most native English writers can only wish to reach.

Ultimately, the highs more than outweighed the lows for me, and I am not kidding when I say that I read the entire second half of this novel in one day. The ending was absolute fire (pun very much intended), leaving me equal parts shocked, satisfied, and utterly excited for the next instalment in the Memories of Kenjir saga. If you like your fantasy sweepingly epic, deliberately slow-burn, and filled with morally ambiguous characters who contain multitudes, then I can’t recommend The Crimson Fire highly enough.

Thank you to the author for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Read The Crimson Fire by Abel Montero

Read on Amazon

The post REVIEW: The Crimson Fire by Abel Montero appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

Ellen Ripley, Action Hero

When Alien and Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, first hit cinema screens in 1979, Ridley Scott’s slow-burn space horror, culminating in the infamous chest-burster scene, had cinemagoers scrambling for the escape pods [1]. Alien and Ripley were a massive hit: the character starred in three more Alien films, as well as appearing in novels and video games. Now, more than 45 years later, Ripley remains a cultural icon and is considered one of the first female action heroes in Western cinema [2]. For this article, I’m looking at what makes Ripley a feminist icon and the most important female action hero of late twentieth century cinema.

Femininity and Feminism

Critics often undermine female action heroes, including Ripley, by claiming they lack femininity, and suggesting that women can only be action heroes under ‘exceptional circumstances’ like mental illness or maternal instinct. This overlooks the fact that male heroes are formed in the same ways and, even those who are driven by paternal instincts, this is never questioned. This sort of criticism also relies on upholding outdated gender roles and critics decrying female heroes as not ‘real women’ has the effect of discouraging female audiences from believing they too can be strong and independent. Ripley has not only been criticised for being unfeminine but also for failing to perform certain types of feminism. In the essay “Is Ellen Ripley a feminist?” [3], the character is deemed to fall short as a feminist because she doesn’t perform an excessively mothering, or caregiving, role. The essayist claimed Ripley only demonstrated these care focused ethics in her interactions with Newt. This fails to take into account Ripley’s consistent protective behaviour towards various vulnerable characters throughout the series. Her focus transcends individual identities, emphasising mutual survival in adversity and echoing the principles of intersectional feminism that highlight the vulnerability of the others [4]. She’s plenty feminist in my books.

With all the above in mind, Ripley is important not only for her role as a female action hero but also in the destabilising effect she had on gender roles in action cinema [5]. Ripley’s evolution expanded the definition women’s experiences in the late 20th century, creating space for other heroines to emerge. It seems progress in cinema requires the disruption of existing norms.

Anticapitalism

“Priority one

Insure return of organism for analysis.

All other considerations secondary.

Crew expendable.”

Long-time fans of the series will recognise the directive sent to the Nostromo in Alien. Special Order 937 demonstrates Weyland-Yutani’s priority of profit over personnel, which is a common feature of capitalist corporations. Something, I’m sure, we’re all aware of in this day and age.

Ripley puts the lives of her crew (and humanity at large) above the interests of Weyland-Yutani and strongly believes that the xenomorph must be kept away from the company and the rest of humankind. She knows they want to weaponise the alien for profit and while her primary concern is to protect others, she also works to disrupt the capitalist aims of Weyland-Yutani, making her an anti-capitalist hero.

 

“I don’t know which species is worse; you don’t see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage!”

Ripley, to Burke, Aliens

 

While there are examples of this anti-capitalist heroism in all four films, Ripley’s interactions with Carter Burke in Aliens definitely stand out. Burke goes to great lengths to stress the financial value of company assets in the film, citing “substantial dollar value” and the “multi-million dollar installation” in objection to Ripley suggesting the entire site of LV-426 should be destroyed from orbit. He also tries to convince Ripley to save a specimen because it would be “worth millions to the bioweapons division” and to do so would mean “we’d be set for life”. Despite his attempts to sway her with the prospect of a massive payday, Ripley rejects Burke’s ideas in favour of saving the lives of the colonists, marines and getting justice for those who have been killed.

 Ripley Recurring

When something works well we like to take that core recipe and repeat it, in the hope that we can recreate the magic we so enjoyed first time around. With Ripley we can see this both within and outside of the wider Alien franchise. Elizabeth Shaw (Prometheus), Daniels (Alien: Covenant) and Rain (Alien: Romulus) all have striking similarities to Ripley. All resemble Ripley physically and in their character progression: none are initially in positions of leadership; and all three end up having to find extraordinary strength and resilience not previously expected of them to survive. With Daniels, the comparisons are even deeper as she is—like Ripley—third in command, whose superiors die during the film. The promotional poster for Alien: Covenant closely echoes the image of Ripley in Aliens heading into the nest to rescue Newt. An image that also recurs in Alien: Romulus as Rain exits an elevator shaft gripping a pulse rifle, in search of her brother, Andy. With Alien: Earth coming this summer to streaming platforms, how will Ripley’s essence be represented this time around?

We don’t have to look far outside the Alien franchise to see the effects of Ripley’s success as a female action hero. Roles played by Milla Jovovich, for example, have followed Ripley’s path; Leeloo (The Fifth Element) and Alice (Resident Evil franchise) are both key as action heroes. How about Laurie Strode in the Halloween series, Sarah Connor from the Terminator films, and Furiosa of the newer Mad Max films? Where would they be without Ripley’s pioneering rise to action hero stardom? Even some of Weaver’s own roles outside of the Alien-verse also strike the image of a Ripley-esque, formidable woman, e.g., The Cabin in the Woods, Avatar or Rakka. Weaver has even reprised Ripley for the videogame Alien: Isolation as a voice-over artist.

Without the appearance and repeated success of the Ellen Ripley character, it may have been several more years before a female action hero was able to break through the boundaries of a traditionally male character type to allow for others to follow [6]. Without Ripley’s success proving that women can be action heroes and still attract revenue we may never have seen the likes of Leeloo, Alice, Laurie, Sarah or Furiosa [7].

Ellen Ripley is an iconic, gold-standard [8] badass [9], ‘the first action heroine’ [2], and a ‘boundary-busting’ feminist icon [6] to this day. Her longevity and continued relevance are testament to her strength as a character, and to her importance in cinema. She is a role model to many for her bravery and strength and is difficult to contain within one single set of rules or definitions. She can effectively wield a flamethrower and comfort an orphaned child; confusing both critics who would write her off as too manly and those who would complain she is too motherly and soft. Ripley’s impressive footprint in sci-fi history raises her to the status of legend and qualifies her to be counted among our grimdark ilk. Her many successes cement her as the most important female action hero of the late twentieth century, and long may it continue.

This article was first published in Grimdark Magazine Issue #42

References:

[1] The Beast Within: The Making of Alien, 2003

[2] Brooks, X. (2009) The First Action Heroine. The Guardian, 13 October. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009....

[3] Christian, A. (2017) “Is Ellen Ripley a Feminist?” In Ewing, J., Decker, K.S. and Irwin, W. (eds.) Alien and Philosophy: I infest, therefore I am. Hoboken; Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. pp. 166–177.

[4] Cho, S., Crenshaw, K.W. and McCall, L. (2013) Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis. Signs, 38 (4): 785–810. Available at: http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.1086/6....

[5] Purse, L. (2011) Contemporary Action Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

[6] Erbland, K. (2017) ‘Alien’ Revisited: Nearly Four Decades Later, Ripley Is Still the Boundary-Busting Heroine We Deserve. IndieWire, May. Available at: https://www.indiewire.com/2017/05/ali....

[7] Sullivan, S. (2020) The Alien Franchise and Feminism. Medium.com, September. Available at: https://medium.com/feature-presentati...

[8] Williamson, J.L. (2017) Ellen Ripley, Alien, and the Rise of the Modern Ripleys. Available at: https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/elle...

[9] Marceau, C. (2020) Greatest Feminist Icons in Horror #12: Ellen Ripley. Tilt Magazine, October. Available at: https://tiltmagazine.net/film/greates...

 

The post Ellen Ripley, Action Hero appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

INTERVIEW: Evan Leikam

Today, I’m delighted to chat with Evan Leikam, an exciting new voice in fantasy fiction and the host of the Book Reviews Kill Podcast. Evan’s first novel, Anji Kills a King, will be hitting shelves on May 13th, 2025, and it’s already creating buzz. As a lifelong fan of fantasy stories, Evan shared insights into his creative journey, the unique experience of shifting from reviewer to author, and his love for Powell’s Books.

[GdM] How did your background as a musician and music influence your storytelling approach? Does crafting a song feel similar to crafting a story? Do they occupy similar mental creative spaces?

[EL] I’m so happy I went through the process of learning instruments before trying to write. Trying to get better at guitar or drums etc. involves a lot of sitting with the frustration that comes with not being as good as you want to be. I learned in those formative musical years that you really just need to power through being disappointed with your output, and eventually you’ll start learning more and making things you’re somewhat proud of.

Also, most of the songwriting I did while playing in bands was a collaborative effort, so lots of arguing and compromise. There’s still some of that far into the editing process of putting a novel out, but I much prefer sitting alone with just myself and the manuscript for the bulk of the time the book is getting done.

[GdM] You mentioned being a game fan—how do video game elements influence your narrative style or world-building? What is your favorite game right now, and why?

[EL] My favorite games right now are the FromSoft Souls games (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, and Sekiro). Aside from the challenge the combat can bring, I love the way those games tell their stories (besides Sekiro, I guess, which is pretty clear). Everything you need to know is hidden in the items you find and the conversations you have, but it’s up to the player to dig deep and unravel the mysteries behind the lore. These games also go all out with their presentation of the world and beings and rules in it. There are surprises behind every corner, and just when you think you’ve got everything figured out a giant monster with eyeballs for kneecaps bursts through a wall. It’s amazing. I’m also a big fan of metroidvanias like Hollow Knight, Castlevania SOTN, and Ori and the Blind Forest, which are kind of like Souls games in their own right with regard to exploration and engagement.

Of course, games like The Witcher 3, Elder Scrolls, and Baldur’s Gate 3 have inspired me to write, considering the vast and tangled stories they’re able to tell while presenting a terrific gaming experience. So much to glean from those ones.

I also enjoy Apex Legends, but I am absolute garbage at it. My main is Bloodhound.

[GdM] Clearly, books are your jam. Can you gush about an SFF novel that captured your imagination and tell us if it shaped any aspect of Anji Kills a King?

[EL] Absolutely. I think the early drafts of AKAK (before it became more my own thing) were largely influenced by Stephen King’s The Gunslinger and Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy. They world and stories aren’t exactly the same, obviously, but I loved the idea of two people traversing a wide and dangerous world (Gunslinger), and a character you love but kind of want to shake because they’re making suck terrible decisions (Farseer).

I was also reading a lot of Abercrombie at the time of finishing up the first draft. I love his dialogue, his realism, the personality he delivers. I don’t think I write anywhere close to Abercrombie’s standard, but his style encouraged me to let loose and pull emotion out of these characters and the situations they find themselves in.

I do also want to mention Sarah J. Maas’s character, Nesta Archeron, specifically in the book A Court of Silver Flames, which is from her point of view. Nesta has such a depth that I, as a reader, was almost reluctant to see or accept. I thought Maas did a wonderful job showcasing in Nesta how we might bury our feelings, our traumas, and our intentions under a thick layer we think more easy to express, one that would better serve us in a situation we wouldn’t want to be in. So while I wouldn’t comp mine and Maas’s books for their plots (or their romantic tension and release, sorry), I would say both the main characters of my story were inspired by characters like Nesta.

[GdM] Your podcast Book Reviews Kill dives deep into countless stories. Has analyzing other authors’ work ever shifted your writing approach?

[EL] It absolutely has. In order to have an entertaining and informative conversation about a story, you need to engage with it on a deep level. I’ve had to become maybe a bit more analytical than I’d like with some books, but I think learning how to pick them apart and understand why they work (or don’t work) for me was crucial in building my own.

[GdM] Which feels tougher—reviewing someone else’s story or bracing yourself for how readers might review yours? And how do you keep your inner reviewer from taking over when you sit down to write?

[EL] Great question. I’d say reviewing someone else’s work, now that I’m more familiar with the process and how difficult it can be, is much more difficult. I find myself saying “well, I didn’t like that, and I might not have done it, but it’s your book, it must have made sense to you”. As a reviewer, I’ve always been much more interested in debating the character choices, the plot lines, and revelations and climaxes etc. than picking apart the author’s prose or voice or pacing or whatever. I want to critique from inside the world, inside the fandom, more than I want to dissect someone’s approach or the “quality” of their craft, if that makes sense.

As for your question about readers and their reviews of my work: go nuts, y’all. I’m writing to the best of my ability and building stories I want to read and worlds I want to be in. If it isn’t someone’s jam, that’s totally fine. My priority is self-expression through an immersive story, and if people connect with that story and those characters along the way that’s incredible. If they don’t that’s okay too.

My inner reviewer seems to help quite a bit while I’m working, especially when I’m trying to work out a plot hole or character arc, but sometimes I have to tell him to go outside and touch grass while I get some actual words down. The worst thing I can do is get mired in the bog of self-doubt because I ended a sentence with a preposition.

Author Evan Leikam

[GdM] Podcasting and reviewing must be eye-opening. What’s one surprising storytelling lesson you’ve discovered through dissecting others’ narratives?

 [EL] As Vonnegut said: “Make sure your character wants something, even if it’s a glass of water.”

[GdM] What’s been the most rewarding part of creating bookish content online, and does it fuel your creativity, or do you sometimes feel pressure from it?

[EL] It sounds so cliché, but it’s the friends I’ve made along the way. The online reading community is incredible. There are so many conversations I’ve had and stories I’ve read that never would have come my way if not for Booktok and Bookstagram. I owe everything I have to those spaces. I’m still learning from being in them to this day, and I’m sure I’ll continue to do so.

There is definitely some pressure to keep putting out consistent content, but I think influencers and creatives will feel this in every medium for as long as the internet exists. Hell, it probably existed before the internet too. There’s always more you could be doing, better ways of entertaining and engaging with people. That sort of self-applied pressure is kind of always there, but having such an incredible community helps take some of it away.

[GdM] Can you tell us about your new novel, Anji Kills a King?

[EL] Of course. AKAK is about a young woman who works as a laundress in the depths of a castle. By chance, she finds herself faced with an opportunity to not only assassinate the ruler of the country she lives in, but to escape the city with her life. She actually makes it a fair distance from her old home, but she’s captured by a famous bounty hunter who is determined to drag her back to answer for her crimes. What follows is a sort of road-trip story from Anji’s perspective. She, of course, does not want to return with her captor to face torture and execution, and the bounty hunter certainly wants to get her there, but their exact reasons become more murky as we spend more time with them on the road. They’re also being hunted by…well, readers will find out.

I wanted to take someone arrogant yet insecure, passionate yet somewhat ignorant, eager but sort of sheltered, and throw them into an uncaring world and make them face the consequences of their actions, even if their heart was in the right place. It’s a bit of a self insert, and I’m kind of talking to myself sometimes in the book. I’ve felt so correct about things in my life, and it’s taken other people’s reaction to my own actions, in addition to experiences I never thought I’d have, to change my mind about the way I view the world. It can be a painful process, but ultimately so rewarding. That’s the essence of what I’m trying to capture with this book. Watching a character work through inner conflict and change for the better (maybe for the greater good) makes for a compelling read in any world.

[GdM] Tell me about Anji and Hawk—they have such compelling chemistry. How did. their dynamic evolve during the writing process?

[EL] Thank you! Without spoiling too much, the Hawk was initially a pretty one dimensional antagonist. I wanted someone to capture Anji, and that’s about as far as I’d taken her character before heavier revisions. I got a lot of inspiration for the Hawk from Kratos in God of War (2018), the Hound from ASOIAF, and Joel from The Last of Us. These are characters who know much more about the world’s hard reality than their younger counterparts, but they still have their own demons to grapple with.

Anji and the Hawk definitely have a tendency to bring out the worst in each other, and I kept a lot of that in, but they also underestimate each other. It was a really fun dynamic to write and work through.

[GdM] You start the novel boldly and bloodily—with a king’s assassination. Did you always know you’d start there with a proverbial bang or a slice of the carotid?

[EL] I actually wrote that prologue pretty late in the revising process. The book started with Anji in a tavern for the longest time, and I’d played around with giving the reader bite-sized glimpses into what had happened before Anji is caught, but I ultimately decided to have a small chunk at the very beginning just showing it all.

Personally, I like that the book starts with blood spurting all over Anji. No thought, no descriptions of the room or anything. It really lends a lot to how spontaneous and not very well thought out it was of her to do that. I’ll admit, however, that it’s a pretty gross way to start a book, for sure.

[GdM] As a debut author with an established online following, did knowing readers might analyze every detail embolden your writing choices? Or did it ever make you hesitate?

[EL] My mindset has been this pretty much from the beginning: I’m going to be critiqued no matter what, so I might as well do what I want. I hesitate if I think I can do better or squeeze more out of a scene or arc or something, but I try to stay as true to what I want it to be as I possibly can.

[GdM] I’m fascinated by the Menagerie, your masked bounty hunters. What’s the story behind their creation, and do you secretly have a favorite among them?

[EL] I knew I wanted more people chasing after Anji (I think the main inspiration for them was from 3:10 to Yuma, though that’s a little different of a dynamic), but I also wanted something different in this story—not just another group of people. Let’s make them legendary and mysterious, but kind of past their prime as well. Give them magical masks—that’s just a good time right there.

My favorite to write was the Bear. She’s just absolutely lost her mind. I literally had to make an effort to make her rants kind of nonsensical in their own way, but also kind of terrifying. So much fun to write.

[GdM] Your action scenes feel effortlessly cinematic. Was there a particular scene in Anji Kills a King that flowed naturally or required wrestling onto the page? Do you storyboard your fight scenes?

[EL] Thanks for saying that. I personally think my fight scenes could use some tuning up. I don’t like to read super technical fight scenes in books, so I tackled my own with maybe too firm of a grip if that makes sense. I don’t storyboard the fight scenes, but I try to remember to make them efficient in the sense that they should be exciting and also move the story or the character forward. A fight should reveal something or change something, not just be there for spectacle (my opinion and preference, of course).

 [GdM] Morally gray characters are the best. Did you struggle to balance Anji’s darker decisions with her likability, or did you wholly lean into the moral messiness?

[EL] It took a while to land on that balance. I think that’s where a lot of the revising went. By my 20th run through, I had a good idea of how Anji would react to things, what she would say, how her feelings evolved over the course of events. I want her to be proactive, but flawed, so dancing on that line took a lot of erasing and rewriting.

[GdM] Finally—and crucially—as a fellow Portlander (I just moved away) at heart, we need to settle this first: Can we officially agree Powell’s is the greatest bookstore on the planet?

[EL] Powell’s (especially the downtown PDX location) has my whole heart. That store was there for me when I moved to Portland and hardly had any friends or family to lean on. I wandered around in there with no money for hours and was never asked to leave. When, on occasion, I managed to scrounge a few bucks up, there was always a cheap used fantasy book on those shelves for me to dig into. I’ll take that gratitude with me to the grave.

This interview was first published in Grimdark Magazine Issue #42

Read Anji Kills A King by Evan Leikam

Read on Amazon

The post INTERVIEW: Evan Leikam appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

REVIEW: The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison

The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison is the third novel of the Cemeteries of Amalo series and the fourth of the Chronicles of Osreth series. I was a huge fan of The Goblin Emperor, but I have really been enjoying the sequels that do not star Maia, but Thara Celehar. Thara is a Witness for the Dead, sort of a medium that communicates with the dead to find out whatever unfinished business they have. The world of Osreth is a steampunk fantasy world that is removing itself from the typical pseudo-Middle Ages that typically characterize fantasy.

The premise for The Tomb of Dragons is that Thara is assigned to try to unscrew the incredibly screwed up parish of a neighboring domain. Apparently, the current high priest hasn’t been doing his job for the better part of fifty years and there’s countless sacks of bones waiting to be buried. Given the nature of the world, it is an absolute wonder the place isn’t haunted to Hell. Thara’s problems go exponentially worse when he’s kidnapped by a group of miners that want him to expel a dragon’s ghost.

This is where the actual plot of the book begins, and it is an interesting one: the dragons of Osreth were all murdered by the mining company making use of poison gas. The mining company then proceeded to start mines in all of the dragon’s former territories. As Witness for the Dead, Thara must now get some form of restitution for the victims of the genocide. The problem is that much of the Empire depends on those mines still functioning and a good chunk of its citizens don’t view dragons as people.

These plotlines are just a couple of interwoven plots throughout The Tomb of Dragons. There’s a murder, a missing prince, Thara losing his abilities to talk to the dead, and a discussion of what his role is meant to be in the church. Katherine Addision handles all of these with aplomb, and they all manage to tie together in a satisfying way. Much of the appeal of these books is their ability to bring to life the society of Osreth while also having extremely evocative characters.

Unfortunately, I do have one complaint that a grimdark loving audience will appreciate: the good guys achieve their aims way too easily. Without getting into spoilers, the book makes it clear that there’s a lot of compromises that will have to be made to achieve a sense of justice. All the people who carried out the dragon genocide are long dead and people depend on the land that has been taken. The dragons also have no heirs that can be compensated for what has been done. Indeed, the dragons want revenge more than anything else.

Then everything just sort of works out. Honestly, this felt like a cheat given the heavy subjects of racism and genocide as well as reparations for past sins. While The Goblin Emperor was a bit on the cozy side of things, there was a lot of suffering and sacrifice to get to the happy ending. Here, it just seems to fall into Thara’s lap and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I wanted to. Maybe recent politics have made me cynical, but I would have appreciated an ending where the good guys have to accept an imperfect victory.

The Tomb of Dragons is an enjoyable book and fans of the previous ones will almost certainly enjoy it even more so. Even though I had some issues with the ending, and felt like it could have been a little less “cozy” so to speak, I strongly recommend it.

Read The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison

Read on Amazon

 

The post REVIEW: The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

REVIEW: Astrophobia: An Anthology of Space Horror

Astrophobia: An Anthology of Space Horror is an indie title releasing 13th May, 2025. Curated by Vesper Doom and featuring thirteen short stories of exquisite space horror by queer authors, there is something in here for all your horror needs. Each story comes with its own cover art, and from first to last all these stories pack a stellar punch.

The tales within Astrophobia look at a variety of aspects of the human condition, such as greed, desperation and loyalty, through differing fear-tinged lenses. The question of life and sentience appears more than once and, each time, it is interpreted freshly, offering an interesting diversity of perspectives on the matter.

With so much to choose from in Astrophobia, and while I can’t list all the contributions here, I’ve picked a few highlights from my read through. Although it is hard to pick a favourite. Gudskomplex by Freddie A. Clark stood out for the clever, twisted way they have asked, “What would sentient AI make of religion?”. The scenes painted in this story reminded me, in part, of the Dead Space game series (that I am a big fan of) and felt darkly cinematic.

Also in the scary-AI camp is Vesper Doom’s We are Here to Help, which feels like it could easily be a scene from something like The Expanse, or a precursor to a desperate, doomed rescue mission à la Aliens. Only with more gore.

Germination by Juniper Lake Fitzgerald made me wonder whether we, as humans, will be doomed in any first contact situation by our inherent fear and violence towards that which is different from us, while making me root for the non-human entity in this claustrophobic tale.

My last highlight, We Give Our Bodies to the Beautiful Dark by Joe Butler, takes some of the machinations of Moon (2009) and dials the grim factor up to eleven. Imagine waking up everyday for over a thousand years, knowing that you’ll only live for that one day, out on the very edge of space, and finding a message coming from the deep unabiding void you’re tasked with monitoring. Add in some body horror and this is what you get.

Across the book there is cosmic horror, cannibalism, body horror, death, blood, gore, violation of control, medical horror and more. Ultimately, in Astrophobia, it doesn’t matter which story you pick, you are guaranteed some juicy squick. These are some disquieting tales from the edges of humanity, out in the vast dark of space, that will interrogate some equally dark corners of our collective experience. Expect discomfort.

The post REVIEW: Astrophobia: An Anthology of Space Horror appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.