Adrian Collins's Blog, page 198

REVIEW: This is My Blood by David Niall Wilson

This is My Blood is a book that I was hesitant to pick up despite my love of vampire fiction. Religious horror is something that can be done very well (The Omen, The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby) and very-very badly (virtually any other example). Thankfully, This is my Blood falls into the former category as it begins with the promising premise of, “What if there were vampires during Biblical times?”

Stoker award-winning author David Niall Wilson creates a book based around the premise of the old convention t-shirt joke, “Vampire Jesus: He gave his blood, now he wants it back.” Yes, that t-shirt existed and I’ve seen it dozens of times. No, I don’t own one or know where you can buy it. This is my Blood, though, takes the slightly less blasphemous plotline of, “What if Mary Magdalene was a vampire?”

In this universe, Jesus is most definitely the son of the Hebrew God and possessed of vast supernatural powers. The Hebrew God is real, Satan is real, and they are engaged in a conflict over the immortal souls of mankind. However, God is seemingly indifferent and Jesus’ All-Loving HeroTM status blinds him to injustices. It’s an interesting take and we have the newly created Mary Magdalene vampire as our POV.

In this version of Biblical mythology, Mary Magdalene is a homunculus created by the Devil and cursed with both bloodlust as well as a desire to tempt Jesus to evil. She falls desperately in love with the Nazarene, but he’s focused on the whole, “saving the world by dying horribly” thing. It doesn’t help she’s also killing people left and right, which isn’t helping the current mood in Judea. Supernatural serial killers do not help the tinder box that is Roman-Jewish relations.

Those who shy away from anything religious will probably not find this book to be their cup of tea. Those who are acquainted with the Biblical story of Jesus and characters involved will probably get more out of the experience. David Niall Wilson is clearly very familiar with the work and gives it a revisionist but not satirical edge. Mary is a creature of evil, doomed from literal birth to damnation, but has no desire to be what she is nor did she do anything to deserve it.

The book this most reminds me of is Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice. That book remains the most controversial of the Vampire Chronicles with fans either loving or hating it. It was informed by Anne Rice’s strong Catholic beliefs mixed with her own loathing of certain elements to the faith’s teachings. David Niall Wilson admits in the book’s introduction that he is a former Christian who left the religion after growing up in an intensely religious environment. This will resonate with some readers and others not at all.

Personally, despite my own strong religious beliefs, I very much enjoyed this vampire story. It ends on an interesting existentialist note that is fully satisfying. It has a full story that incorporates elements of free will, salvation, plus damnation. These are the sort of things that many great vampire stories wrestle with and work here. People who don’t know Peter from Paul are not going to get as much out of this, however.

Read This is My Blood by David Niall Wilson

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REVIEW: The Key to Fear by Kristin Cast

In the post-pandemic America of Kristin Cast’s young adult novel The Key To Fear, life in the city of Westfall is entirely geared towards staying safe and healthy. Fifty years after the Cerberus virus wiped out 90% of the population, the Key Corporation ensures everyone’s safety through rigid adherence to the rules – no touching, no travel outside the city, nothing that might introduce dangerous germs into society – and a level of control that sees every citizen matched to the most appropriate job and partner. With a burgeoning power struggle within the hierarchy of the MediCenter (the hub of power in the city), and the increasing threat of action from underground resistance group Eos, however, it’s a dangerous moment for the Key, while a chance meeting between two young citizens has the potential to signal a time of change.

To nurse Elodie, largely content with her job in the MediCenter, the Key is a benevolent presence that keeps her safe and gives her life structure and purpose, even if she does turn to technically-illegal books for a dash of adventure. In contrast Aiden, full of questions and forever pushing back against authority, sees it as a constraint that limits his choices and forces him into situations he’s unhappy with. To the reader it’s clear just how manipulative and controlling the Key is, but of course to those living with it things are not quite so clear cut. The story features a range of POV characters but these two get the lion’s share of the plot as they try to figure out their own lives, each of which is turned upside down by the other’s presence. Their relationship, while perhaps a touch speedily developed, largely comes through as believable, and likewise the little details of their lives – an overbearing mother, an infuriatingly patronising fiancé, a couple of gloomy work relationships.

It’s a familiar, very relevant sort of dystopia that unveils as the story progresses, not just in terms of being post-pandemic but also in its themes of family pressures, the keeping of secrets, and the danger of entrusting corporations with power over safety and privacy. If it all feels a little on the nose given the year in which this is published, thankfully the pandemic itself forms the backdrop rather than a key part of the narrative, so it doesn’t dominate proceedings, instead offering a worryingly believable extrapolation of what might happen should a virus get truly out of control. The plot itself digs deeper into what the consequences would be for these specific characters, while at the same time delving into what goes on behind the scenes to keep the Key running. It all adds up to a compelling, if regularly dark and bloodily violent, story that’s slick, easy to read and hard to put down.

For all the world building that’s clearly gone into the Key and its blandly sinister mechanisms of control, this story remains a fairly traditional, character-driven YA tale of opposites. One potential sticking point for a YA audience, however, might be the pacing, which feels more like it’s aimed at adults with lots of up-front world building, and important information that’s only gradually revealed over time. The slow-burn approach may not appeal to everyone but it does help with the delivery of all the (consistently smart and well thought-out) backstory, and once the pace picks up it motors along to a powerful and satisfying – if perhaps a little obvious – conclusion. That being said, it’s clearly been written with one eye on a wider series so there are a fair few threads introduced specifically for later payoffs and which don’t all land effectively this time around, and likewise a few secondary characters who don’t feel fully developed. There’s more than enough to enjoy in both the core concept and these particular characters to warrant further stories, however, so here’s hoping the sequel arrives sooner rather than later!

Many thanks to Kristin Cast and Head of Zeus for providing a review copy of The Key To Fear in exchange for an honest review.

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Top Ten Slasher Movies

It’s the month of October here at Grimdark Magazine and time to discuss all things scary. This article will deal with one of my favorite subjects: slasher films!

Slasher films are the burger and fries of horror films. There are some that reach the height of cinematic classics and the vast majority that just provide a cheap thrill for your movie ticket (back when movie theaters still existed). For the purposes of this list, slasher movies are defined as survival stories about a group of people being stalked by a relentless unstoppable killer in a confined environment. They can be science fiction, horror, comedy, or even fantastical if they have these elements.

Technically, this would mean Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None was the first slasher movie, but I find that an amusing quality rather than a disqualifying one. The heyday of slasher movie was the late Seventies to late Nineties, however. This twenty-year period is when the most iconic slashers in film were created and were still able to be treated with a modicum of terrifying respect.

10. Tucker and Dale versus Evil

I had a lot of choices that could have gone in here and a few of the ones I chose this over should probably be on this list over it (Child’s Play, The Hills Have Eyes, Candyman, and Return of the Living Dead). However, this movie is just hilarious and sends up just as many slasher tropes as Scream. Two lovable hillbillies are going to a cabin in the middle of the woods to have a weekend of fun. Unfortunately, they get mistaken for a pair of serial killers by a group of college kids who assume they’re in a horror movie. Hilarity ensues as does an impressive body count due to these college kids being the dumbest teens in the history of these movies.

9. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

A dark horse candidate for this list, Behind the Mask is an incredibly fun movie about a documentary team that decides to investigate a real-life slasher named Leslie Vernon. In this universe, all slashers are real but seem to be more special effects men than supernatural serial killers. Leslie, himself, seems like Xander from Buffy more than Jason Voorhees. He’s so disarming that the documentary crew becomes immersed in his dorky quest to become a slasher. It’s only as things reach their fruition that they realize he’s not kidding. This movie is an amazing homage to slasher movies and anyone who loves the genre will love it. Robert Englund guest stars as a serial-killer hunting psychologist in the style of Doctor Loomis.

8. The Evil Dead 2

Bruce Campbell is as iconic as Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees in his own way. Note: I said Bruce Campbell versus Ashley “Ash” Williams. The Evil Dead movies are a major part of this. While Army of Darkness is probably the best of the three films, so many tropes come from the first two movies that it’d be a mistake note to include it. The Evil Dead 2 is effectively a remake of the first film for the first thirty minutes or so and all the better for it. It is a delightful mix of horror, comedy, and sheer insanity that everyone should see.

7. Scream and Scream 2

This one is cheating but I recommend these two films be watched as a double feature. Wes Craven had already defined much of what we loved about the slasher genre. Here, he creates one of the first metatextual analyses of what makes slasher movies good. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scream really helped define the post-irony world of slashers for better and worse. It also helped influence other genre like Marvel Comics Cinematic Universe in being both a movie about its genre as well as in its genre. Nev Campbell is amazing and so is Courtney Cox in their role as Final Girl as well as woman who probably should die yet inexplicably doesn’t.

6. Alien

Alien is possibly cheating but is also one of the best slasher movies ever made. Part of this is due to its immensely talented cast who would almost all go on to bigger and better things (and Alien is no small thing itself!). Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley is iconic as one of the greatest science fiction and action heroines of all time. However, what makes Alien great is it makes use of its unique setting and strong character development to keep the tension constant. It is not just a great horror movie, it is a great movie period. The xenomorph is the stuff of nightmares and gives a perfect rationale for its relentlessly evil behavior: it is a territorial animal hunting its prey.

5. Friday the Thirteenth part II

Picking which Friday the Thirteenth to put on this list is a difficult choice because so much of what made the movies good came one film at a time. It is a film series that goes from being a shameless knock-off of Halloween to something that had its own unique identity. III and IV held this rank at various points before I decided that II is the closest to the ‘quintessential’ Friday the 13th movie. Amy Steel is my favorite Final Girl, Jason is relentless, and the summer camp setting is used to maximum effect.

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street

Freddy Krueger is probably the greatest of all slashers, if not quite the most iconic, because he’s the one with the most personality. Robert Englund occasionally let the character drift into parody but he’s at his most terrifying in the original. A serial child murderer and possibly pedophile, Freddy Krueger was killed by justifiably vengeful parents in hopes of protecting their children. Unfortunately, that’s released Freddy’s nightmare-controlling ghost and there’s not a thing anyone can do about that. Heather Langenkamp remains arguably the greatest Final Girl herself, her only competition being Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver (who is more the Final Woman).

3. Black Christmas (1974)

The original Black Christmas is one of the films that most people look to when thinking, “What is the first slasher movie?” It is also one of the best with both many of the earliest tropes of the movies as well as some stunning subversions. A group of young sorority girls are spending the holidays together when the unseen pervert, Billy, starts stalking them. The police are useless, and the girls look to one of their boyfriends because he’s taking news of a planned abortion poorly. No one wants to contemplate the idea they’re being hunted by a psychopath who just hates women and may have picked them at random. Margot Kidder is the stand-out performance here and now stands with Superman for what I remember her for. Avoid the remakes like the plague. They’re worse than even the usual sequel fodder.

2. Halloween (1978)

I bet a lot of you expected this to be number one and you know, it was for a while. Halloween is the iconic slasher film for most audiences. Michael Myers is an escaped mental patient hunting a group of babysitters in a tiny suburban town. Why? No one knows, certainly not his psychologist Doctor Loomis. Michael is just pure evil and has been since he was a small boy. Despite this, there’s just enough ambiguity that you think there might be a rational explanation for all this.

Maybe Michael has some weird psycho-sexual thing going on. Maybe his seeming invulnerability is just reflection of his mental condition. The ambiguity of whether something magical is happening versus a mundane serial killer (if such a thing exists) helps add to its iconic status. Donald Pleasance and Jamie Lee Curtis are deservedly immortal for their roles in this.

1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

An odd choice for people who haven’t seen the movie. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the film that deserves the title of “first slasher movie” for me and also “the all-time greatest.” Leatherface and the Sawyer family are the iconic cannibal clan of hillbillies. It goes beyond this, though, into Blair Witch-style lie to the audience that this is a true story. It’s not. Ed Gein existed but it’s no more an adaptation than Psycho. However, the mood of the story feels plausible enough. The teenagers in their hippie van feel plausible and there’s just enough “weird” going on that every shocking twist stuns the audience while also feeling believable in retrospect.

The cinematography is amazing and feels just cheap enough to add to the experience. Many of the shots in the film have deservedly become cinematic legend. There’s even an odd bit of social commentary in the film with the family’s sickness driven by a combination of poverty as well as untreated mental illness. Or maybe I’m reading too much into a movie I love.

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REVIEW: The Thunder Heist by Jed Herne

In Jed Herne’s The Thunder Heist, humanity has abandoned monster-infested land and taken to the Twisted Seas in colossal city-ships. Among these tangled masses of lashed-together boats, one stands out: Zorith, the only floating metropolis fueled entirely by lightning. Enter Kef Cutmark, a pirate, thief, and slayer of beasts with a troubled past. When Kef gets a shot at the heist of a lifetime, the prize is no less than the device that powers Zorith. The only things standing in her way are an impenetrable tower, a small legion of mutant guards, a jailer with a deep grudge, and her own dark history with Zorith.

The Thunder Heist is a tightly plotted, fast-paced heist story with a primary third-person POV of Kef herself. As a reader who loves elaborate burglaries in any genre, I can say that Herne has written a really enjoyable rogue’s tale. The job itself is threaded through with complications, clever twists, setbacks, and emotional stakes, and the author manages to pack a lot of backstory, plot, and worldbuilding into a slightly shorter work with an impressive economy of words.

In a lot of ways, I’d consider Kef to be an ideal grimdark protagonist. While she possesses a sardonic, roguish charm that makes her easy to root for, she also has an ice-cold pragmatism and ruthlessness. One of my common complaints about too many antiheros is that, beneath the black and brooding veneer, they lack any meaningful flaws or truly complex morality. Kef is the real deal. People who betray her don’t get a second chance–just a knife in the throat. She’s a competent, believably written crook and the kind of character who can persuade readers that her ends truly do justify her sometimes-questionable means. The Thunder Heist’s antagonist is painted in equally skillful shades of grey, and a few chapters from his perspective add a lot to the narrative as a whole.

When it com: to worldbuilding, I found the Twisted Seas to be a top-notch setting. Rife with alchemic pollution and political turmoil and populated by humans, a second citizenry of indentured mutants, and the Honourborns living richly off the suffering of both races, the seedy city-ship of Zorith is a great backdrop for nautical crime. Herne’s setting features some wild and creative concepts and implications of a completely seaborne humanity (a long, snake-like city-ship that ensnares and raids others, for one) and strikes a good balance of dark and gritty with fun and interesting. Tying it all together is the recurring theme and question that many characters ask themselves: In a deeply broken world, is it our job to fix things? Is it even worth bothering?

If there was one area I felt was a little bit lacking in this story, it was the crew dynamic. To me, the factor that elevates so many entries in this subgenre, from Lies of Locke Lamora to Ocean’s Eleven are the relationships, banter, and contrasting skills between their protagonists. While I did enjoy the characters in Kef’s crew and thought each was well written in their own right, their lack of screentime and direct involvement in the job left something to be desired. While I like the book’s shorter length for the most part, I feel like this is one area where a tighter word count worked against it.

All together, I’d give this book a strong 4 stars. A compelling protagonist, tight plot, and some genuinely unique nautical worldbuilding spice up the tried and true heist genre. Toss in a clever ending, and The Thunder Heist will steal a few reading hours from your afternoon before you even realize they’re gone.

Read The Thunder Heist by Jed Herne

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REVIEW: Notes from Small Planets by Nate Crowley

One thing I love about speculative fiction is the way that the stories we love also introduce us to interesting worlds that differ to lesser or greater extent from our familiar existence. Over time, these worlds have, despite their near infinite divergence developed certain common types and it’s these archetypical worlds that Notes from Small Planets guides us across.

Neatly evading all sorts of copyright, license and otherwise litigious hazards, Nate Crowley has crafted a guide book of sorts to nine of these archetypical worlds which will all be instantaneously familiar, yet with the names changed to protect the innocent (author.)

Within the pages of Notes from Small Planets there is fantasy-land, or Mittelvelde (seriously,) superhero city, the maritime adventurers of Spume, a cursory allusion to steampunk, an expansive section dedicated to SPACE, a golden age of cinema playground where characters looking a lot like Conan & Tarzan might meet Dan Dare and fight a T-Rex, a wildly unsubtle version of the Potterverse, the ubiquitous post-apocalyptic Wasteland and a delightful easter egg of sorts in the uttermost West.

Fans of everything from Star Trek to Game of Thrones, Mad Max to the Avengers and beyond will see something of their beloved secondary worlds in Notes from Small Planets.

Notes from Small Planets is a love letter to the worldbuilding of fantasy fiction that delights in poking affectionate fun at established tropes and popular works. That’s great fun in itself, but the presentation in the form of a guide book, complete with local customs, itineraries and brief histories of these chimerical realms is a fun way to present it.

Where it REALLY levels up, is that the whole thing is presented as the travel journals of ‘former diplomat, journalist and television personality’ Floyd Watt, with the commentary of his long suffering editor Eliza Salt included in the footnotes.

Watt comes across as a mix between Harry Flashman, Hunter S. Thompson and Keith Floyd and imagining him blagging his way across these fantasy realms, jotting down his dubious observations about their curious inhabitants with a total lack of self awareness is great fun (as are Eliza’s exasperated comments.)

Truth be told, fans of solely grimdark fiction might find slim pickings in Notes from Small Planets, as grimdark takes up relatively little real estate across the broader pantheon of the fantastical. However, there are some excellent digs at grimdark targets such as the fantasy kingdom of Fysteros which has a perpetual civil war over a metal chair or the semi-mythical Wasteland figure ‘mental Derek.’

I was a little disappointed that horror settings don’t show up in Notes from Small Planets as they seem ripe for this sort of treatment. This might be because they’re a little too close to ‘real life’  but that doesn’t make sense when we already have a city of heroes and world of wizards. Perhaps a distinct choice to keep things family friendly? I’d be interested in reading about the horror world…

I had great fun leafing through Notes from Small Planets and I suspect it would make a great stocking filler for the fantasyphile in your family.

4/5

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REVIEW: Darkmage by M.L. Spencer

Grimdark can come in many forms. For most readers, they have a sense of dark and gritty fiction with plenty of swearing as well as violence. A strong sense of moral ambiguity is a must with many protagonists being compromised antiheroes. The Rhenwars Saga by M.L. Spencer starting with Darkmage, is different since it provides a bunch of idealists as its protagonists, but their actions rapidly go down the rabbit hole of making the world a worse place.

Darkmage is technically the first book of the series despite the existence of Darkstorm. This is due to the fact Darkstorm is a prequel that sets up the world’s present state. Half the world is covered in permanent darkness and inhabited by an invading army of enemy god worshipers. The part of the world covered in light is our protagonist’s side and protected by self-sacrificing wizards called the Sentinels. Seems pretty typical, right? Good vs. evil at its core. Wrong.

Darien Lauchlin is an apprentice Sentinel and the son of its leader. He’s in love with another one of them and his life is just waiting for the other shoe to drop. This happens when the organization is massacred, and he’s left inheriting all their magical power. Darien immediately sets on a mission of revenge, believing that he’s been given this godlike power to protect the people of his land from the savages beyond.

Unfortunately, for Darien, the Sentinels were forbidden from using their magical arts during wartime. Darien can do so because of a loophole. All Sentinels were bound not to use their power for killing but he hadn’t taken the oath yet. Magic is also inherited via direct transfer rather than learned so he not only has the power of his own abilities but also the full sum of the entire Sentinel order to call upon. He believes this means he can single-handedly stop the invasion, and possibly can, but many people react to his actions with horror rather than support.

The Wheel of Time influences are readily apparent with Darien as a Rand al’Thor-esque protagonist. The power that he possesses is something that no human can wield without destroying their sanity, yet he believes he can control it. It is also possibly the best tool against the Darklanders’ invasion. However, at what point is it self-defense versus genocide? This is an interesting question that the books will start to get into as we realize magic as a weapon of war is a cruel and unusual one.

I also appreciate how M.L. Spencer deconstructs the typical high fantasy romance. Darien thinks his girlfriend is dead and is emotionally devastated by the events of the novel’s opening. Priestess Naia is attracted to him and tries to emotionally comfort him, only to make the situation worse. A typical fantasy novel would use the tragedy as a build-up for their romance, but Darien finds her actions off-putting and the narrative shows its incredibly selfish to try to create a bond under the circumstances.

Much of Darkmage is a set up for the later volumes in the saga and it starts off as a bit too high fantasy in places to qualify as grimdark. However, the seeds are planted for discussing the larger themes of what a “good vs. evil” storyline really means in wartime. Darien views the Darklanders as nothing more than creatures from a Mordor-like hellhole and we follow his perspective, but enough hints are dropped that he’s just been raised with this view. It’s a problematic view when you have the equivalent of several nuclear weapons at your fingertips.

In conclusion, Darkmage is a very solid opening to what proves to be a lengthy and interesting fantasy epic. It’s a deconstruction of a lot of fantasy tropes but subtler than most. I’ve read the entire series and know where a lot of the plot points will go but most of them are just set up here. Fans looking for dark and gritty will have to wait, though, since it makes use of more idealistic fantasy tropes in order to prepare for the subversion.

Read Darkmage by M.L. Spencer

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REVIEW: Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

I continue my The Stormlight Archive re-read with Words of Radiance, which is one of the finest fantasy novels that I’ve ever read. Everything that The Way of Kings did well, this book does better, and I was so engaged and entranced that I devoured these 1000+ pages in under a week.

The main point of view perspectives in Words of Radiance are those of Kaladin, Shallan, Adolin, and Dalinar. There are no weaker viewpoints this time, all are a joy to follow, and I found myself racing through each section. With all being so addictive and thoroughly enjoyable, the “just one more chapter”-feeling easily turned to another ten chapters before I finally admitted defeat and put the novel down. Even when I wasn’t reading or listening to Words of Radiance, the book was in my thoughts and even infiltrated my dreams. Unexpectedly the interludes are appealing to read this time, especially the insights into the minds of Taravangian, Lift, Szeth, and Eshonai. The latter had a chapter during each interlude section and it was great to follow the views of one of the enemy: the Parshendi.

I think Kaladin is an incredible character, and the majority of many standout moments feature him. His relationships with the members of Bridge Four, the way he tries to train with his Stormlight powers, his bond with Syl, and his relationships with other main characters, specifically Adolin and Shallan, are some of the elements that make him such a delight to follow. A lot of terrible things have happened to him in his past, and although times are looking up for him at the beginning of Words of Radiance with him being appointed Captain of the King’s Guard, things don’t stay that rose-tinted. Kaladin goes on a hell-of-a journey throughout this book, sometimes, with some of the dire things that happen, it’s not always enjoyable, but it’s never dull.

“Honor is dead. But I’ll see what I can do.”

Shallan really steps up in Words of Radiance from a supporting player, to one of the main and most interesting characters in The Stormlight Archive. She develops an intriguing bond with a cryptic spren called Pattern, and we view new and exciting possibilities that her art and drawing presents her. Shallan also gets the flashback treatment here, in similar fashion to how Kaladin did in the first book, which adds a great amount of depth. Certain parts of her past haunt her to this very day. To say that she is multilayered and full of potential almost feels like I’m underselling her complexity. In The Way of Kings, Shallan’s moments were in isolation to the rest of the main players, but now they cross over as she and Jasnah aim to travel to the Shattered Plains.

“He saw it in her eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible nothing that clawed inside and sought to smother her. She knew. It was there, inside. She had been broken.

Then she smiled. Oh, storms. She smiled anyway.

It was the single most beautiful thing he’d seen in his entire life.”

Words of Radiance is extremely well-written, with brilliant pacing and dozens of standout moments. The world Sanderson has created is detailed and immersive. It is a thrilling and sometimes unpredictable read that features duels, epic battles, betrayals, a detailed history and backstory, an original fantasy backdrop, and a great magic scheme. As readers, we learn about the possibilities and potential of the magic by the wielders as they learn themselves which creates great affinity to these characters. The dramatis personae is bursting with incredible characters, both major and minor too. To conclude, Words of Radiance is a 10/10 read and I’m comfortable stating that this novel is epic fantasy at its finest. Now, onwards to Edgedancer and then to Oathbringer. As an additional note, I’d like to compliment Michael Kramer and Kate Reading on their delivery of the audiobooks. Exceptional work by the narrators.

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REVIEW: Dead Man in a Ditch by Luke Arnold

Dead Man in a Ditch, Luke Arnold’s second book in the Fetch Phillips Archive, is a devastating and unforgiving story about redemption and regret that will keep you wanting more. It is a story that demonstrates why a single mistake can haunt you for a lifetime. 

“I tried to bite my tongue but after years of exercise it had learned to fight back.”

Fetch Phillps, the main protagonist of the story, is a complete contradiction. He is a character that makes you be both repelled by his prickly personality and penchant for self-destruction, and desire to lean in and learn more. In the previous book, The Last Smile in Sunder City, we know a bit of why Fetch, and by extension, the world is the way it is. Eight years ago, Fetch made a mistake, probably the biggest mistake in the history of humans. He betrayed magical creatures and helped humans damn up the magical current that flowed through the world. In one minute, the world went from a vibrant technicolor world full of warlocks, dragons, fairies, and demons to a drab gray where the previously magical creatures now exist perpetually paused. They are neither human nor what they used to be. 

Fetch now lives with the acute regret of that moment. 

His regret and self-loathing are a constant reminder that he cannot change the past; even with all the shame in the world, some things may be beyond redemption. As a reader, I am sympathetic to his plight, but some mistakes are too big ever to forget. To pass the time, Fetch works as a detective for the “magical” community. And although he will not work with humans, he does enough to survive. The story is structured as a “Sam Spade” type detective story with nods to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. You can tell that Arnold has significantly been influenced heavily by the genre. But unlike Sam Spade, I find Fetch to be a very genuine character. His pain and possible redemption feel realistic and authentic.

His pain is real, and he faces the repercussions of it every day. Whether or not Fetch successfully saves his soul is not yet seen, but I feel like the possibility that Fetch might find redemption for himself, however that plays out, brings me back to Arnold’s books. I want Fetch to figure things out and forgive himself however that may look. There might not be any significant saving of the magical races in this series, and Fetch’s cycle of redemption might be a lot quieter and less overt. It might be that he will finally decide that he has done all he could, and that will have to be enough, but I think that is a long way off. 

“You still think, after everything that happened, that what you do doesn’t matter? That because you take your orders from someone else, that you’re no longer accountable for your actions? Nothing is just a job, Fetch. Especially now. Not at a time like this.”

The storyline for Dead Man in a Ditch is bleak. A man has been inexplicably murdered, and the only explanation is that magic killed him. But magic is gone, isn’t it? There are moments, particularly one near the end of the story, that were heartbreaking. The raw emotion that Fetch feels is so painful that it was difficult to read. He reaches the bottom. While the storyline starts off following the typical episodic nature of detective stories, pretty quickly, we begin to discern the broader power struggles beyond this case. There are grander ideas involved that will rip Sunder’s very fabric and bring its inhabitants to their knees. 

The critical thing to remember about Arnold’s writing is that there is a small, almost intangible glimmer of hope. It flashes in the moments that Fetch has with characters. Whether it is a laugh, quiet companionship, a good meal, or a healthy horse, these moments reveal that not all is lost for Fetch. He is not irredeemable. We have to hold on to these moments for Fetch because he forgets. He wallows in the muck and mire of his past choices. 

“We all burn ourselves, Fetch. It’s the best way to learn from our mistakes. It’s only when some part of you freezes that you cut the fucker off.”

My quibble with this book specifically relied solely on pacing. There was a lot of action and a lot of introspection, but it felt uneven at times. We would be catapulted in exciting moments, especially one very visceral one about unicorns, only to be halted in the next scenes with stillness and lack of action. But it was a tiny thing, and on the whole, Arnold kept you moving and interested one scene to the next. 

Dead Man in a Ditch is a good book and an even better series. It isn’t a typical urban fantasy story where magical creatures are supernatural power beyond human understanding. They are broken withered things; humans broke them eight years ago. Fetch broke them. Instead of approaching the story like many urban fantasy writers do where humans are weak in the face of magical power, here, humans are almost villainous. Dead Man in a Ditch expands on the ideas of redemption and power that we got tastes of in the first book, The Last Smile in Sunder City. But goes many leagues further and brings Fetch to his knees. Only when Fetch hits absolute rock bottom can he look up and see the proverbial light.

“You’ve touched the pistol. Nobody needs to show you how to hold it or the way to make it work. It is the most elegantly designed piece of evil I have ever seen. From the moment you pick it up, you want to use it, don’t you think? It’s almost impossible not to.”

I believe that if you loved The Last Smile in Sunder City, you would be very moved by Dead Man in a Ditch. It is a worthy second installment in this series, and I can’t wait to read the next one.

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REVIEW: Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick by Jason “David Wong” Pargin

Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick by author Jason “David Wong” Pargin is the second installment in the Zoey Ashe series following 2016’s Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. Just as it did in Futuristic Violence, the newest Zoey book is a hilarious blend of science fiction storytelling and the absurd. Once again, the story takes place in Tabula Ra$a, Utah. A city designed around the wealthy, the indulgent, and lawlessness. In the previous installment of this series, Zoey had inherited her father’s multi-billion-dollar empire built on his mob-like tendencies and the whimsical desires of a man with too much money and not enough scruples. Zoey, who grew up very poor with a single mother, has to morally navigate the needs of existing in this ridiculous world with her moral compass. All while surviving what is thrown at her from exploding humans with superhero powers to mobs of online rage-filled people passing rumors around about her being a cannibal.  

“Will, calm as wind chimes, said, “Wu, if you hit Zoey two inches below her rib cage and one inch to the right of her spinal column, you’ll punch a hole through her abdomen that she’ll likely survive. Set the round to detonate about six inches later, inside Mr. Tilley’s torso. It will blow him in half, implants or not.”

This particular entry into the series has Zoey being digitally harassed and attacked. The masses of online trolls of Tabula Ro$a accuse Zoey of being a cannibal and a power-hungry despot. They threaten her home and general well being. They attack her online, make up wild stories and accusations, and generally make her life a living hell. To complicate things, a rival security company is throwing proverbial gasoline on the fire. Did they send the steamer trunk with a dead body that jumped up and started chasing everyone around the mansion, shouting about Zoey being a cannibal? Or was it something more sinister? 

This story again demonstrates the wit and imagination that Wong has shown in all of his books. Both the Zoey series and John Dies at the End employ the absurd and the gonzo with sympathetic characters and social commentary. While Zoey is a funny book, the characters play off of each other well. There is a lot of funny banter between the Zoey and her team, but there is an undercurrent of sadness under it all. Zoey is isolated. She has no close friends, and the only regular social interaction she has is with her cat. That isolation is making her feel off-kilter and very alone. 

Another positive of David’s writing is that he does not shy away from humanity’s uglier problems. For instance, in between the timeline of Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits and Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick, Zoey ends up having a mental breakdown and needs to enter a mental health facility. It is no wonder she has been through some incredibly traumatic events. Instead of using that kind of thing for comedic fodder, Zoey speaks pretty candidly about it. Likewise, Zoey has small mental breakdowns, nightmares, moments of freak out that normal people experience. It adds realism to Zoey’s character, and it is wonderful seeing an author talking about things like mental health more realistically.

“The victims smelled smoke. They all wanted to get out but they didn’t hear an alarm. The alarm, in that situation, wasn’t there to announce there was a fire—they knew there was a fire. The alarm was there to give them permission to get up and leave. Nobody wanted to be first, the social pressure kept them glued to their seats. Well, mass violence works the same way. It just takes one person to be the fire alarm, to give everybody permission to go wild. But probably half of the rioters back at the inn couldn’t pick you out of a lineup or even explain what they were angry about. It’s a core of obsessed true believers surrounded by a cloud of fence-sitters looking for a purpose to cling to. Most of those would disperse if the core were to . . . go away.”

Zoey is, fundamentally, a realistic person. She was a coffee barista, has a terrible ex that broke her heart, and worried about keeping the heat on. At her core, Zoey is a morally good person, maybe not all the time, because who is good all the time. But at her heart, she is trying. She cares about people, even people she has never met and wants to make the world a better place. She is also continuously being thrown in bizarre circumstances that are usually beyond her control, and she fakes it till she makes it. Basically holding on to her goodness and humanity as best she can.

This quality of Zoeys, paired with David Wong’s excellent writing and ferocious wit, makes him one of my favorite authors to read. He continuously puts out good work, and if you are a fan of the slightly bizarre with a science-fiction bent to it, his stories and specifically Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick is worth reading. I have a feeling you will love his books.

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REVIEW: A Wizard’s Sacrifice by A.M. Justice

A Wizard’s Sacrifice by A.M. Justice is the sequel to A Wizard’s Forge that came out a couple of years ago. It follows Victoria of Ourtown’s adventures. Victoria has had a long road, starting as a bookish village girl, being enslaved, becoming a soldier, and then learning the secret arts of magic. Unfortunately, discovering the arts of sorcery has its costs and eventually begin warping the fabric of reality itself.

Victoria opens the story having almost single-handedly won the war against the armies of Lornk Korng. Lornk is the man who enslaved her years before and waged a brutal campaign of psychological manipulation to mold her into his enraptured slave. Vic has done her best to free herself from this, but it still haunts her decision-making process. One of the things I loved is that Vic is unable to enter the relationship she wants because the trauma she’s suffered still has an immense effect on her actions.

One of the things that makes The Woern Saga so interesting is that it often zigs when other books zag. Most fantasy series end with the bad guy defeated and the evil empire overthrown. Real life wars are rarely so definitive. Lornk Korng was set up in the first book as the big bad of the series that Vic had to defeat to gain peace for both herself as well as her a nation. She believes defeating his armies will end with his defeat and death.

Unfortunately, this is a slightly more realistic series than most. Rather than the war ending with Lornk’s death, the two nations sign a peace treaty. Vic is left with a sense that her revenge is unfulfilled and worse, that her own side doesn’t have her back. Both nation’s leaders have no interest in Vic’s desire for revenge but only their own position as relating to each other.

Magic is not something allowed by the societies of the setting. Indeed, Vic possessing sorcery marks her as someone who would be outlawed if they discovered it. While her government was willing to overlook her possessing it while she was using it for their benefit, they quickly turn on her when they see more political advantage in scapegoating her. The queen who adopted Vic and her family are targets of their own side for having gotten their nation involved in a costly war that they’ve only barely won.

Lornk Korng also becomes a potential ally, at least for Vic’s love interest, as he proves to be a wily and tenacious politician even in defeat. His position threatened by his loss in the war, Lornk switches tactics and starts playing the role of a populist. Despite his power and influence, he wasn’t the absolute ruler of his nation and the actual one is even worse than him (or so he claims). It soon becomes a question of whether the Devil they know is worse than the one that lacks even his few redeeming qualities.

A Wizard’s Sacrifice switches gears from its complicated plots, double crosses, and graying morality but I can’t describe what happens without spoiling the text. Suffice to say, it ties heavily into the setting’s history and incorporates the origins of magic into the text. A.M. Justice wrote this book series as a mixture of science fiction and fantasy that comes up here. A classic set of sci-fi plots relating to time, space, and destiny leads to more drama for poor Vic than even she thought possible.

In conclusion, A Wizard’s Sacrifice is a solid and entertaining sequel. If you checked out the first book, then I’m pleased to say it lives up to it and more. I’m also eager to read the third book as a lot of changes to the status quo gives an exciting new set of plot threads to follow up on.

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