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REVIEW: The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells

Martha Wells is now known primarily for her award-winning Murderbot series, and her Raksura series. But Wells has been writing since the early nineties, and her early work has the same energy as anything she’s put out since. The Death of the Necromancer is her second novel in her setting of Ile-Rien, though it takes place much later than The Element of Fire, her debut novel, with a different cast of characters.

Frankly, the fact that The Death of the Necromancer came out in 1998 is astonishing. So much of the book feels modern. The more common tropes of the fantasy novels of the late 90s are not present at all. Instead, we get tropes and settings that have become much more popular since.

The Death of the Necromancer follows Nicolas Valiarde, who masquerades as the criminal mastermind Donatien. He’s got a massive scheme cooking with his tight-knit group of thieves. There’s Reynard, the disgraced soldier, Crack, the lockbreaker, Cusard, a cat burglar, and Madeline, an actress. He also has connections with the most powerful wizard of the time, one who unfortunately has a serious opium addiction. Pursuing Donatien is Inspector Ronsarde, a pretty clear Sherlock Holmes analog, complete with Doctor Halle, the Watson.

Valiarde, as Donatien, is attempting to frame a nobleman named Montesq as comeuppance for Montesq having done the same to Valiarde’s godfather when Valiarde was younger. He has grand schemes that are about to come to fruition, schemes that are significantly disrupted by the presence of Doctor Octave, who seems to have necromantic powers he should not possess.

In a lot of ways it feels kin to Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora—a group of tight-knit thieves with a huge plan that gets derailed by a new threat. The banter is more naturalistic and certainly less vulgar than Lynch’s, but still strong. 

“I have a plan.” This was true. “I just don’t know whether it will actually work or not.” This, unfortunately, was also true.”

The setting feels steampunk or Gaslamp, which is common now but wasn’t nearly as much when the book was released. Wells takes advantage of the setting to have fun with large balls and séances. It is at a séance that the plot really kickstarts, as Doctor Octave, who Valiarde assumes is a con artist, somehow shows real hints of necromantic ability. However, the question becomes whether or not Octave actually has this power or simply has an alliance with someone who does.

A huge theme of The Death of the Necromancer is the power of rumour. Whether Octave has the powers he claims, whether a long-dead necromancer is somehow working from beyond the grave. This all ties in thematically with the rumours Valiarde spreads about Donatien.

Another aspect of the book that has aged very well are its numerous queer characters. There are discussions as to whether or not Nicolas and Reynard were ever involved, and it’s simply a part of who they are, without any angst over it.

“Madeline was by no means the only woman dressed as a man, or vice versa in the crowd.”



All totaled, The Death of the Necromancer is a fun adventure novel with great banter, a clockwork plot, and solid characterization. It feels ahead of its time in several ways without drawing attention to it.

4/5   

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EXCLUSIVE: Extract of The Stone Knife by Anna Stephens

The GdM team and I are big fans of Anna Stephens, author of the magnificent Godblind, and when word of her new series through Orbit dropped, we clamoured to get a hold of The Stone Knife (HarperVoyager). While our team is reviewing it for the next issue of Grimdark Magazine we’ve been lucky enough to grab an exclusive excerpt for you to check out.

So, without further ado, feast your eyes on a new amazing world from a grimdark fan favourite author, The Stone Knife (Hardcover UK; Paperback US / UK; Kindle US / UK; Audible US / UK).

The Stone Knife
by Anna Stephens

Nerves pinched Xessa’s belly as she moved slowly back to the water’s edge, scanning its surface, the spear ready and the net hanging from the back of her belt. The Drowned had two targets now, both armed, both dangerous. Even as she thought it, one’s head broke the surface. Mottled brown and green like the riverbed, thin ribbons of hair on its head like weed, it stretched a clawed hand towards Xessa and opened its mouth.

Xessa knew it was singing; all the Drowned sang and all their songs were lethal, an irresistible lure to any human who heard it. Like nectar to a hummingbird, the Drowned’s song was the sound of life itself, or so those with hearing said. When they sang, people walked straight into their embrace, going to death like a lover to their partner’s bed, and with less regret.

The cat leapt backwards and bared its teeth, but the Drowned had eyes only for Xessa, its arms yearning towards her, its webbed fingers and long black talons beckoning.

But Xessa was eja – water-thief, snake-cunning. Deaf to its song as all ejab were, whether through Malel’s blessing or the shamans’ magic. Its eyes darkened and it slapped at the water in frustration; then it moved closer to the bank. She might not be able to hear it, but the creatures were fast; it could still drag her into the river if she wasn’t careful.

The cat had approached the opposite bank again to drink and Xessa saw the path of still water in the current, how it drifted in that direction. Still water in a swift current: a sure sign of Drowned. A second infesting this stretch of river.

The jaguar didn’t know that still water meant Drowned. The one in front of Xessa sank below the surface, perhaps deciding the cat was the easier target. Meat was meat, to a Drowned.

Using the distraction, Xessa bent and grabbed the handle on the wide-mouthed ceramic pipe. She straightened, the spear in her left hand and up by her jaw, pointing at the water, and walked in an arc, pivoted by the joint in the pipe until it straightened and locked in position at the water’s edge. The most dangerous moment. The pipe was between Xessa and the water, her body twisted side-on and the spear ready to lunge down over it in case of attack.

She began to crouch, lowering the pipe towards the river ready to open the lid, when the water exploded in front of the jaguar and a Drowned leapt for it, hands slashing the air where its head had been. The cat sprang away, up and back, ears flat as a single talon scored a line through the fur of its muzzle. It vanished, leaving the Drowned empty-handed and hungry.

Xessa jumped at the sudden attack and her arm came back in reflex as she straightened up, ready to throw or lunge with her spear. The surface of the river in front of her boiled apart and green-brown hands tipped with wicked claws reached for her as the second Drowned attacked.

Xessa had a glimpse of the round black eyes, the mouth open and filled with teeth like a piranha’s, and then a hand grasped her shin. She screamed and dropped the pipe, the thick rubber-coated ceramic slamming into the Drowned’s arm and breaking its grip, its claws tearing out of her doeskin leggings and flesh, and then her spear was plunging deep into its shoulder and its mouth twisted, opening wider, green blood gouting from its body. It twisted on the end of her spear and Xessa wrenched it free, whipped the shaft through the air and clubbed the creature with the butt end, freeing it from beneath the pipe and sending it splashing back. She dropped to one knee and thumbed open the lid to allow water into the pipe even as it righted itself.

A mistake.

The eja stumbled back to her feet, bloodied, her leg begin­ning to burn and throb and her arms and armour soaked with spray. She managed a single limping step before the Drowned launched itself off the riverbed again and grabbed the shaft of her spear in both hands, just behind the obsidian head. Xessa yanked backwards. The Drowned didn’t let go and fear flared high in her chest as she pulled the creature half out of the water towards her. It was bigger than she was and, although its stringy limbs didn’t look it, far stronger. One of the rare and even more dangerous Greater Drowned.

It pulled on the spear, jerking it perilously close to its own chest, and Xessa could’ve angled up and punched it through its throat and killed it, but she was off balance, her leg trembling beneath her, her toes bashing into the pipe and most of all shocked, confused that it had recognised the weapon as separate from her body, had understood what it faced. She teetered for a second, mouth open and screaming, at the very edge of the water, and then she threw herself backwards, pulling with all her strength.

The Drowned came out of the river amid a spray of crystal droplets. It flopped onto the soil like a landed fish and flipped onto its hands and feet, skittering towards her. A Drowned could survive on land for almost an hour, the lungs that fed its song sustaining it as it moved between water sources. And an hour was more than enough time for it to eat her alive.

It was on her leg now, its talons punching through leggings and skin, gouging into her again. Same shin, widening the wounds. Even the combination of snake-scale bamboo and salt-cotton padding wouldn’t be enough to save her if she couldn’t fight back; its claws would shred her armour and its teeth would open her belly in seconds.

They’re clumsy on land, her teachers had told her, but this one didn’t seem clumsy. Not clumsy at all. Xessa thrashed and squirmed, but it was anchored to her legs by claws and sinewy muscle. Its skin was slippery and she didn’t dare push at it anyway; its bite would take her fingers off with a single snap. Instead, she stabbed clumsily with the spear, missed, stabbed again and caught it another raking slice down its shoulder, opening up pale flesh and green veins.

The Drowned reared up in agony and Xessa stabbed a third time, not deeply; the point stuck in the hardened plates that protected its chest, barely penetrating. Its hands closed on the haft again and it stared at her with its fish eyes, and Xessa would have sworn there was intelligence there, intelligence and calculation. A plan, even. As though it had allowed itself to be wounded to learn something about her. And then Ossa barrelled into the creature and sent them both into the water, a talon left standing proud in Xessa’s shinbone.

No!

Xessa moved faster than she ever had, faster than she’d known was possible, flipping onto her feet and jumping knee-deep into the river, seizing Ossa by the scruff of his neck and flinging the big dog bodily onto the bank. He landed on his side, leapt to his feet and pranced at the water’s edge, his throat rippling as he barked and barked.

The two Drowned rose on either side of Xessa like spirits come for vengeance. Their hands tangled about her legs, but one was weakening; Ossa’s teeth had opened its throat. Still. She drove her spear tip at the uninjured Drowned and forced it back; a flap of her leg skin tore free in its teeth and she screamed some more, stabbing for it again. Red blood and green mingled in the current and fled downriver.

Even as it righted itself she jumped backwards, up and out. Her right foot came down on the pipe and she felt it crack beneath her weight, lost her balance and fell again. The Drowned came for her and her heels were still in the water, but Ossa seized the padding on her right forearm and dragged her, five strides, ten strides, out of danger while she jabbed with the spear and the monster held its place by the water’s edge. She could feel Ossa’s growls in his throat, in his teeth, as he pulled, straining every sinew to save her as she dug in her heels and shoved back from the river with ugly, desperate haste.

Another dog, Ekka, skidded to a halt on her left side and barked at the water, her legs stiff and her hackles raised. Toxte would have sent her, and he’d be sprinting after her, coming to Xessa’s aid.

The dogs stood over her, silhouetted against the bright sky, barking their warning and their challenge. Xessa forced herself to stand again, to brandish her spear at the water and unhook the net from her belt. One Drowned watched her, eyes just above the surface, and she whirled the net ready to cast. It sank, vanished, gone.

She waited another thirty heartbeats before dropping the net and pulling Ossa to her side to check for wounds – four shallow gouges along his right haunch, bleeding lightly. The Drowned venom coursed in Xessa’s veins, hotter than coals, but Toxte would have the medicine already prepared and kept warm over a brazier in the water temple, ready to pour into their wounds and down their throats.

She vomited, Drowned venom snaking up her body from the wounds in her leg and into her chest, her neck, her head, itching-burning like the stings of warrior wasps, hotter than coals. She rubbed her face and mouth, smearing the symbols of protection and strength painted on her cheeks into jumbled incoherence. Suddenly Toxte was there and the world tilted, jerking out from under her as he wrapped her arm around his neck and hauled her onto his hip and then, gracelessly, over his shoulder. She dropped her spear and tried to tell him, but vomited down his back instead. She had a glimpse of the dogs guarding their retreat, and then the venom drew her into the dark.

Extracted from THE STONE KNIFE by Anna Stephens (HarperVoyager). Published in hardback, ebook and audio on 26th November 2020.

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REVIEW: The Ikessar Falcon by K.S. Villoso

The Ikessar Falcon, the follow up to by K.S. Villoso’s The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is a book that avoids many of the pitfalls common to the middle book in the trilogy, and instead offers the readers clear plot progression, excitement, and character development.

“I’ve heard rumours you were dead.” “That’s an improvement. Last time they said I was fucking goats.” “Oh, we took that one for a fact. What the hell are you doing here?”

― K.S. Villoso, The Ikessar Falcon

The Wolf of Oren-Yaro was one of my favorite reads last year. “Bitch, Queen, whore, warrior, wife, and mother: In The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso, Talyien aren dar Orenar is all of these and so much more.” After I finished Oren-Yaro, there was much fist-pumping. Talyien is a badass. Plain and simple. However, something changed as I read The Ikessar Falcon. While, Talyien is still very much a warrior queen, or Bitch Queen as she is often referred to by those who are lesser than her, she is not a caricature. She is not all sword and no soul. She is not all bravado with brains. Talyien is a bruised, batteling, and in some ways, a broken warrior who wants to protect those she loves. At all costs. Her upbringing allows her to do what must be done, however painful. But her heart and empathy allow her to understand the consequences of her actions. She internalizes them; she is bruised and broken by them. They become as much a part of her psyche as her sword training.

To give a very brief synopsis, the Bitch Queen is trying to save her son. I am going to quote the blurb on this because I think it sums the story up best, “Queen Talyien’s quest takes a turn for the worst as she stumbles upon a plot deeper and more sinister than she could have ever imagined, one that will displace her king and see her son dead. To save her land, Talyien must confront the myth others have built around her: Warlord Yeshin’s daughter, a symbol of peace, warrior and queen, and everything she could never be. The price of failure is steep. Her friends are few. And a nation carved by a murderer can only be destined for war.” As this story is much more about Tali’s internal struggles and people’s perceptions, it is not easy to sum it up. But know this, it is a great and terrible quest done by a mother who will do anything, and I mean anything, to save her young son.

“But even someone born and raised to be a queen can be short-sighted, maybe especially so, considering what I thought my life would be and how I would end up. I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know.

Ignorance can be the sweetest sin.”

― K.S. Villoso, The Ikessar Falcon

One of the things that stick out for me about Ikessar Falcon is that it is not an easy book. Firstly, my copy of the story clocks in at just under 600 pages. This can be daunting, but I don’t want you as a reader to look at this tome and “nope” out. The Ikessar Falcon isn’t a filler of a story where 250 pages are an actual story. The other 300 are extemporaneous filler pages describing the doorknobs, what the world looks like in painful detail, and what the Bitch Queen is wearing at various moments. I am looking at you, Robert Jordan. (Don’t send me hate mail) What it does have is a complicated plot, with multiple layers of political machinations, batteling, warring cultures and religion/belief systems, and a collection of antagonists that are downright scary in the psychopathy.

Because of the amount of detail, political factions, it is easy to get lost in the book. It is my only quibble against the superb writing. I got lost a few times and wasn’t sure whom Tali was talking to. So I backtracked to catch up. This probably is entirely on me, and your results may vary. If I were to reread this, I might make a chart to better understand the various war chiefs and locations. The world-building is exquisite, and as a side note, Villoso describes food in great detail. Some may not appreciate this, but I believe that by getting to know a culture or a person, you can get a greater understanding of them by looking at the food they eat. Food is a cultural thing that all humans partake in. What we eat varies from place to place and can be defined by local produce and history. If you want to get to know a place, check out the food first. It is a good character and place identifier that is not often used in storytelling.

“The Oren-yaro do not lack for courage, it is true. We know how to face battles when the odds are stacked against us. We know how to give our lives for our lords and believe we know sacrifice like no other. But I did not face that dragon as an Oren-yaro. Our tenets may run deep, but they do not make us. I decided that if I ever get out of this alive, I would tell Rayyel that. We are flesh and blood, not words; we bend, we break, but our failings need not be etched in stone. I faced the dragon as someone willing to give her life for another not because of some deep-seated arrogance that I was better but because it was the right thing to do.”

― K.S. Villoso, The Ikessar Falcon

I want to talk briefly about the relationships in this book. If I say too much, I will give things away. However, Tali’s relationships with the side characters in the story hinge on perceptions that those characters have of her and what she should be rather than what she is. This is true to some extent with Talyien and how she perceives who she is and her responsibilities. She is forever the daughter of a violent warlord, one who carved a road through the country made of the blood of those who stood against him. Is this Talyien? Is this who she is? I don’t think she even knows, at least not yet. But slowly, as the story progresses, we see more and more of who she is. Not always the warlord’s daughter, the betrayed wife, the mother, the childhood friend, and Talyien. The Bitch Queen who will hold her country together and save those she loves.

Damn the consequences, and damn those who stand in her way.

I know that K.S Villoso has much to show us readers. I know there will be more heartbreak, intrigue, power plays, and psychopathic characters. I am ready for it. Tali is a character that I think will bend but will not snap. One that will continue to do what is best and damn the consequences. I am here for it.

Bring it Villoso, bring on the woe.

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REVIEW: Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Nearly impossible to put down, Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse is engrossing and irresistible from cover to cover. The author deftly weaves a sweeping tale of vengeance, power, and loneliness in a fascinating fantasy world inspired by the pre-Columbian Americas.

“Today he would become a god. His mother had told him so.”

Black Sun starts strongly and continues to impress throughout. The novel jumps around in time from years to days apart, centered closely on the day of Convergence: a day when the sun, moon, and earth align, and the sun is devoured by the shadow of the moon. The time jumps help build a mounting suspense and sense of inevitability.

At its heart, Black Sun is a character-driven novel. The book cycles between the main point-of-view perspectives of Serapio, Xiala, and Naranpa. Throughout the book, Roanhorse writes careful, impactful moments that demonstrate her characters’ personalities. These moments engender empathy for each character despite escalating tension between them as they are inevitably drawn together.

Serapio was born to be the tool of vengeance of his clan, the Carrion Crows, against the Sun Priest that wronged his family. In the first chapter, the child Serapio is lovingly scarred and permanently blinded by his mother in a ritual that would turn him into a vessel for a powerful crow god. Brutally trained for a single purpose, Serapio has lived a lonely and painful youth.

“Usually, when someone describes a man as harmless, he ends up being a villain.”

Xiala is a charismatic sea captain who is sprung from jail by a powerful benefactor for the deceptively simple task of transporting “harmless” Serapio, now a grown man, to the city of Tova before the day of Convergence. Xiala is a Teek woman with a deep connection to the ocean and the power to Sing, an ability which allows her to influence people and more easily navigate the sea.

Naranpa is the Sun Priest and highest religious authority in Tova. Throughout the novel, she struggles to maintain control and keep her organization relevant. Rising from deep poverty through the ranks through merit and luck, Naranpa has made many enemies along the way who do not want her to disrupt the status quo.

Queer stories in modern fantasy, especially those that have BIPOC protagonists, are few and far between. Roanhorse casually and refreshingly writes a novel in which gender expression and sexual orientation are not a primary plot point or a conflict. None of the characters dramatically come out or die to serve the plot as seen in the bury your gays trope. Roanhorse’s queer characters do not exist to demonstrate the author’s inclusiveness, they just… are. Prejudice based on gender and sexuality is subtle and insidious rather than a main impetus for the queer characters to act.

The characters’ motivations seem authentic and grounded, and the setting has just enough detail for the reader to feel almost present in the scene. With the right amount of foreshadowing to make the story enjoyable, the novel doesn’t feel trite or formulaic. The plot feels inevitable—not predictable. Though some would argue that the book ends on a cliffhanger, the bittersweet ending feels appropriate.

In a recent interview with NPR, Roanhorse says “I have been reading epic fantasies inspired by European settings since I was a child, and while I’m still a fan of many of these works, I longed to see something different. So I wrote it.”

Fantasy and science fiction inspired by pre-Columbian indigenous cultures is rare. It is notable that this book came out the day after Indigenous People’s Day (formerly Columbus Day). Although she does have close family ties to the native community, Roanhorse’s cultural background and connection to indigenous groups is nuanced. Roanhorse predominately features native perspectives in her writing, which has caused some controversy. Many native scholars have cited cultural appropriation and unsanctioned depictions of their culture in their criticism of her previous works. Readers may find her most recent approach to be more sensitive to cultural concerns. In her afterword for Black Sun, Roanhorse acknowledges liberally mixing indigenous cultures and creating her own fantasy elements for the novel.

Readers who enjoy the tales of myth and magic, political maneuvering, and tragic destiny penned by Brian Staveley and Jacqueline Carey will love Black Sun. As a woman writing books about queer BIPOC, Rebecca Roanhorse will likely continue to be compared to fantasy juggernaut N.K. Jemisin. However, Roanhorse’s stronger focus on character distinguishes her work from Jemisin’s generally plot-driven stories.

A rare and wonderful fantasy novel, Black Sun is one of the best books to be published in 2020. This thoroughly impressive work could stand alone, but the author has more books planned in the Between Earth and Sky series.

5 stars.

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REVIEW: Morning Star by Pierce Brown

In Morning Star, the final book in the Red Rising trilogy, we catch back up with Darrow and it’d be an understatement to say he’s in a tight spot. His rebellion in tatters, his freedom gone with the Jackal back in the ascendancy, Darrow is at his lowest point since the loss of Eo. And knowing Pierce Brown’s proclivity for character brutality, it’s going to get worse before it maybe, potentially, gets better or ends in heartbreak. Reader beware, Brown is going to have your emotions on puppet strings, and he is a jerk of a puppeteer.

Morning Star is a story of rebirth, of broken men and women trying to patch each other back together again, of heart breaking loss, and of a stagnant brutal empire thrashing in its final moments as the pack backs the Society into a corner to kill it. Morning Star has everything you want in the ending to a trilogy. The characters are brilliantly realised, continued masterfully on from Golden Son, and built up so well that you can’t bear to let any go. They are hurting and they are tired and they are sick of war and the killing and losing friends who should have lit up the solar system. They are tired of looking across the battlefield at the people they still love, just as much as those looking back at them are heartsick. This war has cost all of them everything, and it is an absolute testament to Brown’s writing that you, the reader, are just as beaten down with them (in a good way).

Morning Star boasts so many punch-the-air moments, I pretty much lost count. The battles are bigger and faster, the betrayals even more jaw dropping, the losses absolutely heart-shattering, and the stakes are the size of the solar system.

There is a scene we need to tip the glass to. It’s right at book’s climax. Everyone who’s read this book knows exactly what I’m talking about. It floored me. I fumed at poor old Jeremy and Pen for putting me in a position where nearly 55hrs into an audiobook series I nearly hurled my phone and earphones out of the bus window. Brown may as well have punched me square in the liver before picking me up by the collar and gory damned well dragging me through an emotional roller coaster of an ending.

And at the end, I needed a tissue. Those last few paragraphs before the epilogue. My heart broke with happiness. What an end to a book and a trilogy. Utterly. Perfect.

Brown once again leaves me in a scoring quandry. I gave Red Rising five stars. It was brilliant. I loved Golden Son so much I made fun of myself in the last review for wanting to give it a six out of five stars. And I’ll be damned if I’m not going to lose all reviewing credibility by wanting to give this a seven.

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REVIEW: Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

Dalinar Kholin and his armies escaped the battle with the Parshendi on the Shattered Plains and now find themselves at the mythical city of Urithiru. Although Dalinar’s forces were arguably the victors, the Everstorm summoned by the Parshendi is wreaking havoc and brandishing chaos throughout Roshar. What’s worse is that when the storm hits the Parshmen – the docile slaves to humans for millennia – something in them awakens and they are not happy at all with their former captors. At the start of Oathbringer, Kaladin Stormblessed is travelling Windrunner-style to inform his parents of what is to come, Shallan Devar is using her Lightweaving talents to investigate the secrets of Urithiru, and the other members of the newly-formed Knights Radiants are getting used to their new powers and the responsibilities they bring.

When I first read Oathbringer I only rated it as 3-stars stating that some parts dragged, especially in Dalinar’s flashback sections, and that it wasn’t as gripping and unputdownable as Words of Radiance. I still believe these statements to a degree but with how much better The Stormlight Archive is that most contemporary fantasy, my initial rating was extremely harsh. I enjoyed Oathbringer much more on my re-read and believe this was because all of the plots, intricacies, characters and their ideals and motives were fresh in my mind. I saw depth, layers and details that I may have missed, misunderstood or not appreciated in my first read, as I read this novel at least a year after I completed Words of Radiance.

Oathbringer is one of the longest novels that I have ever read, clocking in at 1227-pages. A lot happens throughout these pages and if I was being overly critical perhaps the book could have been cut down and streamlined. I am in the headspace now, however, that I find myself completely trusting Sanderson with the scale of and the journey presented here. I get the vibe that what I initially analysed as filler may add to the future books and the overall payoff sevenfold.

Now I’ll do a stream of consciousness style paragraph of parts and elements of Oathbringer that I adored. Minor spoilers may be included here. Certain parts of Dalinar’s flashback were intriguing including his time suffering from alcoholism, details regarding his ShShShShSh wife and about his meeting with the Nightwatcher. Travelling to Shadesmar was one of the few moments that I remembered from my first read and it was just as great to follow those experiences again. Bridge Four’s flying training was fun. Reading about Shallan/Veil/Radiant was interesting as their personalities blur. Her progression throughout Oathbringer is really engrossing. I especially enjoyed a couple of the fable-like past stories that were presented to add depth to this already deep and monstrously detailed world. These tales in isolation would probably win most short story contents. Most notable to me was a short story that Shallan depicted using her drawings to bring it to life for Pattern. With reference to Pattern, I think the Sprens are awesome and their relationships with the main characters are great to follow. Talking to Wit is always charming, crazy and interesting. I enjoyed seeing Lift in this after reading her novella – Edgedancer. It’s great to find out more about the ultimate enemy Odium and his champion’s nine shadows created superb imagery in my mind. I liked finding out more about Szeth and his talking sword in the final third too. The final 25% is marvellous and features some of the best moments in the series so far.

All in all, although not quite hitting the glorious heights showcased in Words of Radiance, Oathbringer is still a magnificent fantasy read. Sanderson is one of the best and most consistent fantasy authors currently writing, and Kaladin is a character that I never get bored of reading about. Now I have finished writing this review I can start Rhythm of War today! I cannot wait.

Thank you to Brandon Sanderson and Gollancz for the review copies of Oathbringer.

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An Interview with A.M. Justice

A.M. Justice is a prolific fantasy writer known for her series, The Woern Saga, and The Woern Chronicles that are a combination of science fiction and fantasy sat down with me and had a conversation about writing, inspirations, and the unique belief systems that she has created in her world.

Who or what are your inspirations when it comes to writing? Is it a particular author or authors, art, history, culture, current events, something else? How have they influenced your work?

I’d say all of the above. I find inspiration from many aspects of life, from a news item to a catastrophic event to the simple observation of how human beings behave. Every story is different. For instance, I happened across a random segment of a Discovery Channel show about sword swallowers and how they physically manage their craft, and it led to a short story called “The Price” about an ex-pirate who makes his living as a performer in a traveling theater troupe. Dava Sobel’s biography Galileo’s Daughter, about the famous philosopher’s eldest child, Sister Maria Celeste, inspired an unfinished novel set during Galileo’s lifetime. The show Downton Abbey and the film version of The Remains of the Day served as inspiration for a fantasy story called “The Remains of the Spell,” which is about the housekeeper to a sorceress. Finally, my short story “Kill Squad,” which is a prequel to the two Woern Saga novels, draws inspiration from various historical genocides. It’s written from the perspective of a perpetrator and focuses on the things people carrying out mass murder must tell themselves to justify their cause.

Could you tell me about what inspired you to write Wizard’s Forge? Was there a spark of a single idea, or was it a culmination of many things coming together?

A Wizard’s Forge evolved into its present form over many years. However, anyone who has read Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books will see a lot of parallels between the world of Knownearth and the world of Pern. Both planets harbor lost space colonies, where the world’s human inhabitants have lost touch with Earth and many don’t even know they are descendants of marooned space travelers. There are also a lot of similarities between Vic and Lessa, the protagonist of Dragonflight (the first Pern book) as both women suffered a traumatic experience at a young age, and they spend the respective first books in the series growing into their power.

You have utilized some unique belief systems in the novel. Could you tell me a little about them?

I’m fascinated by the belief systems humans create to help them explain the vagaries of life and the natural world, and I also have always been intrigued by the debate in our own society about whether the words of the Bible should be taken literally or figuratively. I decided to have some fun with that idea and created two societies that revered the same documents that described human origins, which in this case are the ship’s logs of the spacecraft that brought humans to the world of Knownearth. Vic grew up believing in the literal truth of these documents and early in her life was a scholar dedicated to preserving the Logs without interpreting them in any way. Meanwhile Ashel’s people think the idea of space travel is absurd, so of course the Logs must be religious parables, and his mission as a scholar of the Logs is to find the spiritual meaning hidden in these ancient writings. While Vic and her people believe humans and most of their crops and livestock came from Earth via a spacecraft with the registry LSNDR2237, Ashel and his people believe the god Elesendar descended from heaven and mated with cerrenils, a species of sentient tree, to beget humanity. There’s a short passage in A Wizard’s Sacrifice where the pair argue over these details:

“What about the Elesendar’s technical specifications?” Vic asked as they squeezed through a gap in the underbrush. “What scriptural meaning can you possibly glean from a manual on touchscreen maintenance?”

“The Logs are full of mysteries,” Ashel replied sagely. “Do you know what a touchscreen is?”

“It’s a glass plate you use to control the ship’s functions.”

“By touch. Very mystical and mysterious.”

“The real mystery is how you people can believe we came from trees. What about cats and horses and cows? The mammals on this world are nothing like any other animal. Where did they come from? Did Elesendar mate with a bush?”

What kind of character is Vic? How would you describe her?

Vic is a rather arrogant and very smart young woman who is hard, even brittle, on the outside, and extremely fragile on the inside. She has a very traumatic experience as a teenager and afterward has to rebuild herself—forge herself, in the metaphor of the book—into a woman of power.

You write very candidly about mental illness in your book and the effects of it. Did you research mental illnesses in preparation for the book?

I didn’t do a lot of formal research before I wrote the novel. Instead, I just followed what was to me a logical path of action and reaction in terms of Vic’s emotional journey and her difficulties overcoming past trauma. While I was writing it, however, I did research Stockholm syndrome and trauma bonding. The latter is particularly relevant to Vic’s experience, where a captor or abuser alternates abuse with kindness and affection in an effort to break down the victim’s will and secure their loyalty. Vic escapes before the process is complete, which allows her to begin remaking herself, but which also prevents her from forming healthy romantic relationships.

There is a definite science fiction base for the story. Are you a fan of science fiction? Are there any stories in the genre that affected you as a reader?

Science fantasy—the term of art for a blend of science fiction and fantasy—is the Reese’s peanut butter cup of speculative fiction, and it’s my favorite kind. I love finding hints of science fiction in fantasy (as in McCaffrey’s Pern books), or fantasy in my science fiction (as in Frank Herbert’s Dune). My favorite thing about the Star Wars universe is the idea that a Jedi’s powers are due to midi-chlorians and thus there’s a biological rather than a mystical basis for them (which is similar to the Woern). Another favorite examples of a story that bridges the science fiction and fantasy gap is Avatar, where Grace explains that the Navi deity Ewah is actually a neural net that connects all life on that particular planet.

What is the publishing process like for you?

For the Woern Saga books I’ve relied on the team at Wise Ink, a publishing services company. They have connected me with Steven Meyer-Rassow, who designed the glorious covers and interiors for A Wizard’s Forge and A Wizard’s Sacrifice, and Amanda Rutter, the fabulous editor for both books. Plus with Sacrifice, I was able to move very quickly with the same narrator I used for the Forge audiobook, Leah Casey. She was able to record the book while the page proofs were being laid out and corrected, and I’m pleased to say the audio version should be available by the end of October.

What does your daily writing process look like? Do you schedule time every day?

I work as a freelance writer in the healthcare industry, so technically I do write every day. However, I’m not the most disciplined fiction writer. I will go through periods where I’ll be working very furiously on a project on a daily basis—sometimes at the expense of my day job work—and then slack off as the demands of work and life kick in.

What comes first, the characters or the plot? Or do you start with the world and work inwards?

Characters always come first with me, followed by plot, then the world. For me, world building is and should be done on a need to know basis—this is my feeling as a writer and as a reader. I know too many writers that spend all their time world building and never get round to actually writing a story, whereas others do have a story to tell but overload the reader with information on minute details of the world that have little or no bearing on the plot. Don’t get me wrong—I love digging into the lore of a world if I already know and love stories set there. I’ve read The Silmarillion more times than I’ve read Lord of the Rings. But when I am just dipping my toe into a new world, the first thing I want to know are the people who live there and their stories.

Do current events affect your writing, or do you try and keep life and your stories separate?

I don’t go out of my way to make allegorical stories, where current events are mirrored in my fantasy worlds. However, I don’t know how a writer could keep life and their work completely separate. Just keeping characters real requires drawing from real life, even if it’s just basing your characters and their behavior on the people you know. Also, there are patterns of human behavior that repeat themselves over and over historically, and so it’s natural for themes like racial unrest or rebellion or invasion, etc, to play out in the stories we write. People may see a lot of parallels to current events in A Wizard’s Sacrifice, which has one plotline involving an environmental catastrophe and another centered around urban civil unrest.

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REVIEW: Gestapo Mars by Victor Gischler

Victor Gischler’s Gestapo Mars is proclaimed by its blurb to be a tale of ‘Extraterrestrial espionage with sex, violence and Nazis’. This isn’t quite wrong, but doesn’t sum up the tale as a whole.

Gestapo Mars is told from the point of view of spy and assassin Carter Sloan. We first met him cryogenically preserved: he is as new to the world as the reader, having lain preserved for two centuries. During this time, the Earth has been devastated by nuclear war, humankind has spread to the stars – and the Third Reich has endured.

Yes, Sloan is a loyal Nazi. He might question his order, or express dissatisfaction with the state of the planet, or voice cynical thoughts – but the prospect of turning against space Nazism is never seriously plausible for him. The closest thing the text features is his bursts of hedonistic activity – perhaps in part escapism from his role as state-sanctioned killer. Sloan could almost be a parody of the protagonists of other alternate history Nazi victory stories. Compare him to, say, Inspector Xavier March of Robert Harris’s Fatherland. I do not think this was consciously part of his conception, but it’s an interesting comparison.

Anyway, he has been revived to pursue the Daughter of the Brass Dragon across star systems, rebellion and alien wars. This is, simply, a romp. Gestapo Mars is fast-paced, layered with sex and violence – and often light-hearted. As a name like the ‘Daughter of the Brass Dragon’ conveys, there’s more of Flash Gordon to it than Downfall. Yet the name and set dressing are constantly at odds with this: reminders that, however changed by the years, the Third Reich is now a galactic power.

To land successfully, Gestapo Mars would have to marry the exploits of its characters with the darkness of the premise. It doesn’t quite. Sloan is a decent protagonist, veering between derring-do, hedonism and cynicism, as often amoral as immoral – though I felt his company grate by the end. But the settings and plot oscillate in tone. The devastation of civil war and a scared, scattered family is replaced by Brave New World with swastikas – which then gives way to broad slapstick. This sort of thing worked somewhat better in the Australian television series Danger 5 – perhaps on account of the ensemble cast, episodic format and surreal antics conveyed by dated special effects.

There’s some satisfying moments when the elements noted above blend nicely, but they are a little too far between. I brought Gestapo Mars without any real foreknowledge of its style or content. My expectations were low, and they were not surpassed.

I finished Gestapo Mars, but can say little more for it. It nets only Two Stars.

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REVIEW: Fire and Sword by Dylan Doose

Terrible plague, dark magics, and ongoing war have cast a pall over the kingdom of Brynth. Dylan Doose’s Fire and Sword alternates between the perspectives of the three main characters: Aldous Weaver, a reluctant sorcerer, Kendrick the Cold, a notorious warrior, and Theron Ward, a monster-hunting nobleman. “Together we may stray from goodness, but perhaps that is needed to destroy the greater evils.” The three must band together to save the land against an evil plot threatening to destroy not just Brynth but also the rest of the world.

Fire and Sword revels in violence and gore. The author effectively intersperses humor and wit with darkness and horror. The book opens with the origin story of Aldous Weaver as he discovers he is a sorcerer through accidentally burning a priest to a crisp. Fire and Sword only progresses in gore from there, as the kingdom of Brynth seems to be besieged by monstrous, bloodthirsty rats. Horrifyingly, the reader soon discovers that these rats were once human beings that were transformed by the Rata Plaga.

“What made the things so terrible was not the giant, rotting buckteeth that burst from the mouth. It was not the boils or the tufts of matted fur. Not the long tail or the brutish muscles, not the naked, sagging female breasts or the male parts dangling, filthy and crusted. It was the eyes, for the eyes remained entirely human.”

Doose’s prose is brisk and entertaining, and the pace of the novel moves well. The characters are fun to read about, though perhaps somewhat unmemorable. The author’s three point-of-view characters fall neatly into common fantasy protagonist tropes. A young man who didn’t know he had magic becomes a hero. A grizzled warrior who has committed terrible atrocities searches for redemption. A handsome, womanizing adventurer with a heart of gold saves the day.

The characters and setting of Fire and Sword immediately evoke similarities with the iconic The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski and the First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. With his brutal efficiency at killing, Kendrick the Cold could easily be a member of Logen Ninefingers’ band of Named Men. Theron Ward has many similarities to the beloved Geralt of Rivia: adventuring monster hunter, attractive, big fan of beautiful women, has a special sword. Whether these similarities are intentional or incidental is unknown.

However, a significant reason why Fire and Sword is so enjoyable to read lies in its familiarity. There is a psychological phenomenon called the mere-exposure effect in which people tend to develop a preference for something because it is familiar to them. A book like Fire and Sword that is predictable but also clever and well-written can be a pleasure to read, especially when so much unpredictable awfulness is happening in the world.

Doose does unfortunately fall prey to the tired trope of fridging a female character for no obvious reason other than to further a protagonist’s motivation. The author can be forgiven for using the trope in this instance, but any additional killing of female characters for the sole purpose of developing the male characters in future novels may just serve as a signal to stop reading the series entirely.

4 stars.

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REVIEW: Titanicus by Dan Abnett

A stand-alone novel both within the universe of Warhammer 40,000 and his own Sabbat Worlds sub-setting, Titanicus is a 2008 novel by Dan Abnett, republished in 2018 by the Black Library. It deals principally with the Titans – terrifying bipedal war engines that vary in size between as high as a house and the height of a tower block, with weapons to match.

Now, Abnett (with notable exceptions – Know No Fear, to name one) is best known for his human-scale stories in a future of vast forces. Witness the tight-knit bands of companions in Eisenhorn or Ravenor, or the regimental spirit that animates Gaunt’s Ghosts. This is not the case in Titanicus – or, rather, the action is seen at a number of scales and from a variety of perspectives. It is an ensemble piece, dividing its attention between civilians, human soldiers and reservists, the pilots of Titans as well as politicians both human and cyborg. This last perspective pushes Titanicus away from the mechanics of Engine War, though that is present in abundance.

The scene of this devastation is Orestes, a planet of the Sabbat Worlds, divided between the governance of the Imperium and the techpriests of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Largely the cooperation of the two cultures is profitable, but they are unmistakably of different lineages. A constant contrast between the two factions is presented- whether it is between the beaten-down common soldiery of the Imperium and the outlandish bestial cyborgs of the Mechanicus’s Skitarii or the Baroque, grandiose Imperial clergy and the binary-spurting datacrunchers of the techpriests.

Titanicus does not render this in so blunt a fashion as it may sound. An Offworld faction of the Mechanicus, the Titan Legio Invicta, renders a spot of nuance regarding their motives and mores. There is also the chance to see the lives of all sort of Imperial subjects, from the highest to the lowest – and even those who barely know of the Imperium at all.

Necessarily, characters are fairly broadly drawn, and we don’t spend much time with them. However, the confining spaces that titan pilots are placed in and the scale of the stakes makes for interesting friction. Further, some plotlines are only hazily resolved; to my mind, has the benefit of conveying the messy human uncertainty fostered by examining a war – but it may be that this frustrates some readers. As a result of when Titanicus was published, some aspects of what it portrays may not align perfectly with the Warhammer 40,000 setting as currently presented (I’m thinking of the look of the Skitarii particularly!), though frankly I see this interesting quality as a feature, not a bug.

I’m inclined to offer Titanicus a rare Five Stars; if you have any interest in the literature of the 41st millennium, read this.

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