Adrian Collins's Blog, page 238

REVIEW: Breaking Chaos by Ben Galley

The roads to Araxes’ throne are painted by blood. The endgame has begun, secrets are revealed, allies turn into enemies, fates collide. Chaos breaks out (yes, pun intended) and until the very end it’s hard to say who’ll claim the title of Emperor or Empress. Breaking Chaos brings a satisfyingly bloody closure to the Chasing Graves trilogy, one which won’t disappoint those who followed these characters’ lives up to this point.

I’d rather not talk much about the plot so I won’t spoil it for readers who wait eagerly to finally sink their teeth into the final book of the trilogy. I’m not revealing secrets however, when I say all of the key characters have their own agendas regarding seizing the power for themselves. Sisine is still adamant to wreak some havoc in the city, sure in the support of the Court–namely that they will seek her help and counsel to save Araxes. All the while acting like the spoiled, bloodthirsty, narrow-minded Talin Renala she is. Widow Horix shows the white of her teeth and the old hag has a surprising vitality to her too. We finally learn what she spent decades on to help to fulfill her vengeance and some other well-kept secrets – one which I suspected from about halfway through Breaking Chaos. I would have given a lot to see the characters faces when they were revealed. And let’s not forget about Shesh’s followers, the Cult who won’t stand by passively either.

“…Wherever there is something we don’t have, we want it, and will do a great many things to get it. Better. More. Comparison is our great downfall, the mother of both envy and pride. Perhaps it’s the same for the gods.”

-Pointy

At the end of Grim Solace we left Nilith in a dire situation. I’m not going to lie, she is not going to have an easier time in Breaking Chaos than she had in the previous book. As much as I disliked her plotline in Chasing Graves, Nilith really had grown on me throughout the trilogy. She is relentless, fierce, and doesn’t know how to lose or give up no matter how dire a situation is. Her strong feelings toward justice and passion to save Araxes are really infectious and it’s hard not to root for her. Especially since her image of society is unlike anything the other players’ vision for themselves.

Scrutiniser Heles–as I predicted–gets her own role all right. I swear that woman is invincible and, surprising as it is, she had grown on me as well. I actually liked these two strong, independent women a tiny bit more than Caltro himself and believe me, it doesn’t happen often. Ben Galley has great skills to bring these women to life, making me to put aside my judgements.

“Weakness was a product of fear, and she refused to be afraid.”

As for Caltro, well, I’m happy to report, his cheekiness didn’t leave him. Nor his need for justice and freedom. As the endgame nears, he will have to make some choices which can decide the fate of Araxes, and the Reaches. But can a thief bear such a burden? Fortunately for him he’s got some allies, not that he listens to anyone outside of himself, but at least Pointy tries to be his conscience. As much as a strangebound sword can be anyway. I really would like to see a spin-off series or two where Pointy and Bezel get to be main characters of their own stories. Bezel might had become one of my favourite sidekicks too.

“In the City of Countless Souls, it pays to keep your friends as close as your enemies. They might be one and the same.”

– Common Araxes saying

Ben Galley didn’t shy away from spilling as much blood as he could, throwing his characters from one nearly impossible situation into the next. And since we are talking about Araxes, the City of Countless Souls, even death doesn’t mean the game is over. You can just never know who is going to die next and how will that affect the unfolding events. Thus, you can’t help but read on page after page, trying to guess what madness Galley conjured up for the finale and how the plotlines will entwine with each other. If one thing can be said about Breaking Chaos, it is that the tension never leaves the pages. You don’t even have a moment of respite to catch your breath, because there is always something waiting on the next corner. Mostly death.

In Breaking Chaos, and eventually throughout the whole trilogy, events build up until the last, climatic fighting scene where the evil finally shows itself in its real from, making sense of the dead gods’ words. If there is one thing I missed from this trilogy is a bit more world building–especially some more mythology to give a depth to the big evil character which didn’t really feel that evil and to the otherwise rich world inhabited by magical creatures and interesting looking plants among other things.

“Heles looked around, noting the sand’s rosy glow and the dew on a nearby spur of butchered cactus. Its marron, finger-like branches and scattered pale fruit, not dissimilar to eyeballs, shone with it.”

If you already came this far, then don’t hesitate to make the final steps to find out who will sit on the throne of Araxes. Nilith? Sisine? Widow Horix? Boran Temsa? Maybe Farazar as the first shade Emperor or someone else who fits into the games played by the Cult of Shesh? Will Caltro win his desired freedom? The table is set, events are in motion. All you have to do is enjoy this dark, bloody, hell of a ride.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Winners of the EMPIRE OF DUST competition

We have the winners of the EMPIRE OF DUST giveaway competition!

A quick reminder on the prizes

For this competition we were lucky enough to have Anna’s publisher throw down a world-wide signed trilogy of Empires of Dust. GdM has also thrown down a hardcover copy (where available in-country; paperback where it’s not) and ten copies of Evil is a Matter of Perspective to make sure there are plenty of goodies to go around.

And the winners are…

We’ve used Rafflecopter to randomly select twelve entries to be our winners. In the order they were selected is the order the biggest to smallest prizes have been allocated.

The first prize winner is Matt McAbee!

Runner up is Thomas Walcher

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’ll be emailing you all from our Rafflecopter account for your postal addresses. I am on honeymoon, however, so please be patient with me while I get these books to you.

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REVIEW: Grim Solace by Ben Galley

Just like me, you should be very excited to be back in Araxes, where death is not the end, but just a new form of half-life. In book two of Ben Galley’s Chasing Graves trilogy, Caltro is still very dead and pissed at this fate, the dead gods, and Boran Temsa (who levelled his game up quite considerably since Chasing Graves) just to name a few. As Caltro fights for justice and his freedom, he constantly finds himself being tossed around like a leaf on the wind since everyone wants to put their hands on him.

Tor Busk, the Widow Horix, and Boran Temsa are all playing a game of their own in which they all wish to use Caltro’s skills as the best locksmith. Little do they know who is the real puppeteer behind the scenes. Caltro only learns about it while plotting his own escape. And boy, this is going to make you sit on the edge of your seat, waiting for the conclusion. Sadly this happens toward the end, and we’ll have to wait until the third and final book of the trilogy to find out how this information will shake things up plot-wise. Grim Solace has everyhing I liked in Chasing Graves and then some more.

“Every reason is a little story we tell ourselves to dress up our desires. We offer reasons to explain or excuse ourselves, to fit in.”

While trying to get his life back—as much as remained of it anyway—Caltro learns a few new tricks and makes a new friend. Pointy is a centuries old-deadbound sword, which is a bit in love with its own voice as well as poetry, and it’s driving Caltro crazy. But Pointy comes in handy when Caltro needs knowledge and a weapon which is, well, pointy. Fortunately, amidst all the chaos and visits from supposedly dead gods, Caltro never loses his dark humour and sarcasm.

“They say there is a beauty in hindsight, but I say it is an ugly creature. Almost as ugly as its daughter, regret. Life is made of many paths. The cruel joke is you can only choose one, and move only forwards along it. Regret is the bitch that follows behind you and paves the paths you didn’t take with gold and glitter.”

Besides Caltro’s ever so complicated plotline, we still have Nilith’s. Personally for me that plotline was the weak point of Chasing Graves until the end where some truths are revealed, and her identity and importance are made clear in the grand scheme of things. This time around she grew on me because of her fierceness, no-nonsense attitude, the way she put Farazar in his place, and most importantly her bantering with Bezel, the strangebound falcon—the same bird which was supposed to spy on her.

“Nilith slumped back to the sand, chin on arms. She stared up at the falcon. ‘I don’t feel very royal.’

‘Royally fucked is what you are. Now you know why these nomad types call their wine daemonjuice, don’t you?'”

I’m usually no fan of the traveling trope, and sometimes I felt these bits dragging, even though there was plenty of actions. For example, we get to see Kal Duat, a place where stones are produced for the price of lives. This is where it really sinks in for Nilith how things go outside of Araxes, where the King has no real authority. All the while, they are still chased by the Ghouls, whom they pissed off in Chasing Graves. However, all the tension and hard truths are balanced by comical scenes such as where a donkey gets loose thanks to its wings. I’m actually sorry we don’t read more about the nomads Nilith and her companions come across in the desert just outside of Araxes. Just before reaching her destination she finds herself in very tight situation. If nothing else, that really makes me look forward to read the final book.

Besides all the old “friends” we made in Chasing Graves, Galley introduces some new ones. One of them is Scrutiniser Heles, working for the Chamber of the Code. Her task is to find the one responsible for the increasing attacks on the nobles of Araxes. I instantly took a liking to her, thanks to her being fierce, loyal and that she is not afraid to take on a confrontation when she feels an injustice was done. She is also quite cynical after all the years spent in service and the fact she has seen more death she would have liked.

“Fortunately for Scrutiniser Heles, it had been five years, maybe more, since her mood could remotely be classed as “good.” The best she hoped for these days was “mildly disgruntled””

Even though she only played a minor part in Grim Solace, I have a feeling we’ll see more of her in A Darker Shade. She had grown to be one of my favorite characters this trilogy had offered so far.

In Grim Solace Ben Galley turns up the grim-o-meter to eleven and is not afraid to soak the pages in blood and gore. It’s a good step up from Chasing Graves and sets a good foundation for the grande finale. Political intricacies, massacres, dead gods, and a pending doom waits for those who are brave enough to step on the soil of Araxes. Or a big pile of copper coins and title if they are smart and ruthless enough. What fate awaits you?

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REVIEW: Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence

Readers and writers often describe novels as being character driven or plot driven. If there is such a thing, then Holy Sister, the third volume in Mark Lawrence’s Book of the Ancestor trilogy, is setting driven. The problem that drives the story’s conflict, as revealed in the earlier volumes as well, is that the focus moon is no longer able to hold back planet Abeth’s ice crust from closing in on the Corridor of habitable land that it keeps warm. People living near the encroaching miles-high ice walls are losing land and are forced to migrate into other people’s land, which causes the main conflict of the story, war. On the surface it sounds simple, but Lawrence’s extremely creative, dense world-building and his attention to the most minute details make Holy Sister a tour-de-force of speculative fiction writing.

Holy Sister begins where Grey Sister ends, after Zole has saved the nuns and some other folks in their escape from Sherzal’s palace. Zole and Nona take the shipheart they retrieved from Sherzal’s palace and part from the rest of the escaping company so the others will not be followed by Sherzal’s guard and the powerful Noi-Guin warriors. The two girls flee to Zole’s ice-bound home, and we finally get to experience the beautiful and forbidding ice that is much talked about in the earlier novels. Meanwhile, a parallel narrative in not-quite-alternating chapters, shows Nona and the sisters of Sweet Mercy, three years later, preparing for a big, violent showdown with Sherzal and the approaching, massive armies of the Scithrowl and the Durn that are closing in on the empire.  Somehow, our hero, Nona Grey, must get the shipheart from the narrative in the past to the narrative in the present (that’s supposed to be funny), join it with the others in the Ark, and save the empire. It’s a helluva ride.

Yes, Nona also must complete her quest to become a full Sister of Sweet Mercy. Yes, she must rely on her friends to help her in every aspect of her quests because that is the main theme of the whole trilogy, in the opinion of this reviewer. Yes, there are many plot twists, awesome fights (including the opening scene), emotional moments, love relationships, character turns, pithy quotes, and lessons learned. And yes, if you’re reading this you will probably read lots of reviews describing these elements of this novel and the climax of this trilogy. For me, though, the most astounding thing about the Book of the Ancestor is the absolutely mind-blowing world-building. I can’t think of another example of world-building that even compares, so I hope you won’t mind if I write about that. (It’ll also help me avoid spoilers.)

Throughout my reading of Holy Sister, I wondered (and still wonder) if Lawrence created the world with all its settings, its magic, and its dying moon before he created the characters who populate it. It seems possible that Abeth’s diminishing Corridor between its encroaching ice crusts and the dying focus moon that causes Abeth’s peoples to go to war against one another could have been the idea that generated the story, which then generated the characters. Similarly, the shiphearts, the powerful magical stones that are required to use the Ark, which may or may not control the moon, could have been part of that initial idea. A writer, especially one of Lawrence’s caliber, could take those ideas and populate a story in a million different ways. But as if that weren’t enough, Lawrence gives us a world of magic that has layer upon layer of nuance, rules, abilities, and incredibly imaginative concepts, all with unique names within the story world that make all these things seem entirely natural to the characters. There is the continuing effect on the characters of the four bloods — hunska, quantal, marjal, and gerant – inherited from Abeth’s original immigrant settlers that imbue the characters with speed, magic, empathy, and size/strength, respectively. There is the “work” the characters can do, based on their special abilities. Thread-work allows them to create deadly traps, but also to communicate and even attack each other through the equivalent of extrasensory perception. Rock-work, water-work, ice-work, etc., allow the characters to manipulate the world around them. There are sigils and trances and serenity and the path, all of which protect and strengthen the characters. Ring portals, new in Holy Sister, can transport characters hundreds of miles. Devils live in the poisonous black ice, possess the story’s characters and influence their thoughts, which becomes an important predicament at the climax of the novel. The characters can inhabit one another’s bodies and see through each other’s eyes (a helpful trick if you’re writing a story with only one point-of-view character). At one point a nun just blows herself up like a suicide bomber, blasting a whole host of enemy soldiers into tiny fragments. Nona has deadly blades that extend from her fingers in any size necessary and can even be extended from other characters’ bodies she inhabits. She can practically take on whole armies by herself; hence one of the trilogies most memorable quotes: “It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size.” In fact, Nona is so powerful, I was not sure she couldn’t just blow a massive hot fart that would melt the ice back for hundreds of miles. But alas…

The ending of Holy Sister is as poignant as you might expect if you’ve read the earlier two books. Not only is there the expected massive convergence of powers and armies and world-building, but there is also the full development of the characters’ relationships and arcs and the achievement of faith that is the foundation of the nuns’ existence. And some important characters die, which always helps make a story great and emotionally compelling.

If you’ve read Red Sister and Grey Sister, then you’ll read Holy Sister and love it. I give you my personal guarantee. If you haven’t read the first two Books of the Ancestor, what the hell is your problem? The series is truly a masterwork of speculative fiction writing the likes of which is rarely achieved. Lawrence is a frigging genius. And even though The Book of the Ancestor is not my favourite of his works, it is still most likely his greatest achievement as a speculative fiction writer. I can’t even imagine how he could write a book like this in a year. It just blows my tiny mind.

Holy Sister is scheduled for publication in the US by Ace on April 9, 2019.

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REVIEW: The Knight with Two Swords by Edward M. Erdelac

Ever since reading Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, I was instantly mesmerised by the tales of King Arthur, his legendary knights of the round table, and the wisdom of Merlin and Avalon. There is a magic in the legends, a magic that flows from the antiquated script into the hearts and souls of the many thousands of readers and viewers of such texts. Though ancient, the legend of King Arthur endures, and Edward M. Erdelac’s novel, The Knight with Two Swords, is indicative of why such myths persist, especially in the technological age we reside in.

Erdelac’s novel is centred around twin brothers, Balin and Brulen, boys who have grown up revering their fallen father, a celebrated knight. They are kept from following their father’s steps, that is until their mother is killed for worshipping the old ways. With Balin submitting to the will of the Christian god and Brulen, a staunch follower of the ways of his mother, declares war on the priesthood, the twins take divergent paths onto becoming knights.

What is most apparent to the reader when they first delve into Erdelac’s novel is his careful attention to detail. The language that is employed is nothing short of remarkable as it feels extremely reminiscent of elder Arthurian texts. There were times that I felt as if I was reading a page from Le Morte, Mists of Avalon, and even The Once and Future King. I was immersed into a storied world that felt genuine and authentic. It may sound basic, but to write in an authentic Arthurian manner throughout the course of an entire novel is nothing short of astounding. There were no times I felt that Erdelac faulted in writing in this manner.

The attention to detail did not stop there. Names and naming conventions were elegant and well-conceived. The world itself was wonderfully and artistically depicted akin to a stroke of ink from an artisan calligrapher. There is magic in the pages of Erdelac’s novel, and I would be remiss if I did not recommend the novel for the mere fact that it feels real and feels special to lose oneself in.

The theme of duality is strong in Erdelac’s novel and was something I felt worked well. Christianity and Paganism, righteous and corrupt, good and evil, though black in white in visage, Erdelac carefully analyses such concepts and does so subtly with his characters. Balin is the exemplar of the pious knight in the beginning but is made to question not only himself, but the foundation of his faith throughout the course of the novel. Brulen is the opposite to his brother, but like Balin, the reader is made to question and ponder the nature of his variant of chivalry.

Though there are many things to praise Erdelac for, there are some niggling qualms that hindered my enjoyment of the novel. It was a little difficult to start and at times felt borderline documentarian. This is typical of most academically accepted Arthurian texts but it does so at the cost of some investment. I found myself glossing over many of the paragraphs, the melodramatic dialogue, and even had to reread some chapters again. This is not to the fault of Erdelac but the writing style itself. It does add to the authenticity of the work itself, but it is antiquated and also quite difficult to parse at times.

The novel, being split into three distinct parts, also felt disjointed. The first part, The Adventurous Sword, is the most compact and deals with Balin, his treachery, and the siege of Carhaix. It is a mix of melodrama, politicking, and action-packed fantasy, all of which kept me intrigued and yearning for more. But as the story progressed throughout the second and third parts, I found my interest waning until the final few chapters. This is perhaps due to the fact that the plot pried Balin and his brother away from King Arthur and his knights for the majority of these sections, and I wanted more insight into Arthur through action, not just third-hand knowledge.

But these are, as mentioned, quibbles and the fault of the style itself, not the writer. It may be a little difficult to start and read at times, but the writing is eloquent and at times, majestic. When the action hits its stride, blood and magic roil through the Arthurian landscape with the arc of the reaper’s scythe. It is brutal, it is savage, and it feels real. Authenticity is the key word of this review and is more than enough reason to snag and read The Knight with the Two Swords. A must read for any Arthurian fan, especially in the academic sphere.

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EXCLUSIVE: The House of Sacrifice UK cover reveal and excerpt

Hot damn I’ve been itching to get my hands on Anna Smith-Spark’s third book The House of Sacrifice since I fell in love with Marith and Thalia in The Court of Broken Knives and The Tower of Living and Dying. This swirling epic of broken characters and bloodshed, of healing and ruin, of dragons and conquest and battle told in Smith Spark’s truly unique voice just grabs you by the throat and drags you in.

The House of Sacrifice will drop in the US on the 13th of August 2019 and the 25th of July 2019 in the UK, Australia, rest of world. Use these links to get your pre-order lined up:

Kindle: US | UK | AU
Hardcover: US | UK | AU

If you’re out at the arse-end of the world (Australia) like I am, and you’re a fan oh mushing up a good-ol paperback, then make sure you get your hands on the Aussie release of The Tower of Living and Dying which drops in bendy-cover on the 7th of March. Grab your copy here.

Competition

To help support Anna’s release, we’re running a big ol’ giveaway. Get on board and get involved and help us kick this book off into space.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UK cover reveal

A powerhouse grimdark fantasy of bloodshed, ambition, and fate, The House of Sacrifice is the thunderous conclusion to Anna Smith Spark’s Empires of Dust trilogy, which began with The Court of Broken Knives.

Marith’s power is growing. His empire stretches across half the world, and allies are flocking to his banner to share the spoils of war. With Thalia ruling at his side they are unstoppable.

But Marith is become increasingly mentally unstable and their victories cannot continue forever.

I love the red and grey against each other on this cover–reminds me a lot of the colour palette for Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire covers.

Now, let’s get to the meat of this post. The really fun bit.

Excerpt: The House of Sacrifice by Anna Smith Spark

Marith rode along the front of his army, Osen at his side. He drew his sword. Raised it, shining, the morning sun flashing on the blade. White metal, engraved with rune signs. The rune letters burned in the sunlight. The ruby in the sword’s hilt glowed scarlet. Blue fire flickered down the length of the blade.

Henket. Mai. Eth. Ri.

Death. Grief. Ruin. Hate.

He shouted to the men, his voice loud as the sword’s light. ‘Soldiers of Amrath! My soldiers! Twice now, this city has resisted us! Resisted us and betrayed us! Now, today, it will fall!’

An explosion shattering against the black walls of the city. White fire, silent as maggots. White fire, silent, and then screams. The wind caught his cloak and sent it billowing out behind him. Dark red, scab-coloured, tattered into a thousand shreds like fine lace. Dried blood flaked off it. Fresh blood oozed off it. It stank of blood and shit and rot and smoke. He wore his silver crown but was otherwise bareheaded, the morning sun bright on his black-red hair. His skin like new-spun silk, smooth and perfect, gleaming. His grey eyes, soft like a child’s eyes, soft pale grey like moths.

‘Destroy it!’ Marith shouted to his army. ‘Destroy it! Tear it down! Let nothing be left alive!’

‘Amrath!’ the army screamed back at him. ‘Amrath and the Altrersyr! Death and all demons! Death! Death! Death!’

Columns of soldiers began to move forwards. Siege engines hurled rocks running with banefire. Mage fire, white and silent. Dragon fire, glowing red. The beat of war drums. Clamour of trumpets. Voices chanting out the death song. Slowly slowly moving forwards. Slow and steady, the drums beating, fire washing over them, rocks and banefire loosed from war engines on the city’s walls. Falling dying, trampled by those behind them. Slowly steadily marching on. Slow long ranks marching towards the city. Destroy it! Destroy it! The only thought in all the world in all their minds. The dead zone between the city and the encircling army. Broken bones and ruin and dead men. Banefire. Mage fire. Dragon fire. War drums and war trumpets. And now, loud and urgent, the thump of battering rams against the city’s gates. Warships in the harbour, grappling. A storm rising. Towering huge dark waves.

‘Amrath! Amrath! Death!’

Waves of men breaking against the city. Waves of water. Waves of fire. Waves of death and pain.

Snow began to fall.

White flakes caught in Marith’s shining hair.

 * * *

‘Break it! Break it! Down! Down!’

The ram smashed into the Tereen Gateway. Again. Again. Again. A tree trunk thicker than a man’s armspan, carved at its end into a dragon head snarl. Covered with bloody ox-hides, to keep it from catching fire. Obscene. Comic. Pumping away in out, in out, in out, steaming dripping bloody battering pounding raping iron wood meat. Three huge siege engines hurling rocks and banefire. Machines on the walls hurling rocks and banefire back at them.

Marith in Illyr by Quint Von Canon

Marith circled his horse, making it rear up. Gilded hooves sharp like knives.

‘Break it down! Now!’

A shower of boiling sand poured down from the battlements. Soldiers collapsed screaming, clawing at their skin. Inside their armour, burning. In their hair. In their mouths and eyes. The bloody hides on the ram hissed. Cheers from the Arunmenese defenders above.

The ram swung again. Off to the left, a blinding white flash and a dragon’s roar. The gate groaned. Splintering. Shadowbeasts gathered, a clot in the air. Shapes twisting, forming, dissolving, huge shapeless dark beating shrieking wings. They dived together, claws and wingbeats, jaws opening faceless, clawed limbs tearing down the stones of the wall.

‘Now! Now! Break it down!’ Marith’s horse reared, trampling snow. Red-hot sand showered down around him. His horse screamed in pain. Fire arrows thudding into the battering ram. His soldiers’ bodies piling on the ground.

The sky roared at him. A thousand screaming raging mouths. Another flash. The dragon howled. The men fell back shrieking in fear. White light rising up before him. Spear-shape. Cloud-shape. Shining. Grass-green eyes opening, staring; hands reaching for him, numberless beyond counting, and in every hand a sword with a blade of silver light.

God thing. Life thing. A demon conjured up to protect the city. The great high holy god of Arunmen whose temple was gold and green bronze.

Bastard thing. Twice now, it had beaten him off.

‘Get the gate open! Now! Now! The ram!’

His sword was shrieking in his hand. Red jewel at the hilt winking at him. Glittering. Red light like the red light of the Fire Star. The King’s Star. His star. There’s your star, Marith, and there’s mine. Look! A red jewel, the sword forged for him in the Tower of the Eagle, back before he was truly king, forged in bronze and ashes and blood, forged to look like the sword the first Amrath had once owned. He’d had a sword before, once, with a red jewel in its hilt, he had named it Sorrow, and this sword he had named Joy.

Marith charged his enemy. So tiny, a man shape on horseback, throwing himself headlong towards this towering raging maelstrom of light. Behind him the ram started. Drumming on the gateway. Break it down! Break it down!  His siege engines loosed all together. The machines on the walls showering sand and rocks and banefire back at his men. Mage fire. Dragon fire. Dying.

Marith King Ruin met the light god with a crash.

All his vision was silver.

Slurred. Like being underwater. All the movements just a moment too slow. Cool and soft around him. It felt like Thalia’s skin. A hundred sword blades meeting his sword stroke. A hundred sword blades cutting at him. Grass-green eyes closed and opened. All staring. Sad sad eyes: they looked like the eyes of an old man. Marith fought it. Cut at it. A sword and a hand fell away and another grew up in their place. He cut it again, again a hand falling, again another hand growing up. Swords struck back at him. Glanced off him. Warded them off, didn’t feel them, and then a blade got down into the meat of his shoulder, and a wound opened up dry and ashy, and he hurt. He lunged deep into its body. The centre of it, white silver light swallowing him. His horse was screaming. His horse was dead. It reared and kicked at the light surrounding it. Gilded hooves coming down. The grass-green eyes closed and opened. Countless silver swords stabbed at him.

Bastard stupid thing. Twice now, it had beaten him.

The battering ram thudded against the Tereen Gateway. Trumpets rang for an assault on the walls. Voices shouting: ‘Ladders! Ladders! Up there! Get moving!’ Soldiers rushing up them. Fast with knives clutched in their teeth. A ladder falling backwards, soldiers falling from it dying. Spiralling down off the ladders screaming in a cloud of red-hot sand.

Snow, falling over everything. White snow, black ash, silver fire, red blood. Snowflakes silent and soft as feathers. Muting the sound.

Memory of snow falling, the day he killed his father. White blossom, falling like snowflakes, as they cheered him entering the cities of half the world.

Thalia would like the snow, he thought.

The light god wounded him. Hard, raw pain in his arm, making him almost drop his sword Joy. He cut off hands and swords and they grew up stronger, swords stabbing. Grass-green eyes staring at him. Twice, this damned thing had defeated him. Twice, his soldiers had been forced back. Fire hissed on the bloody ox-hides. The ram beginning to burn. Men dying. Men rushing up to replace them pounding it hard at the gate. The ladders trembling, swaying like bird-legs, another going over, soldiers falling, one soldier falling was burning, fell like a star. Soldiers stumbling blinded by red-hot sand.

Osen’s voice shouting furiously, ‘Break it! Break it! Destroy it! Now!’

‘Amrath! Amrath!’

‘Death! Death! Death and all demons! Death!’

White fire washing over the battering ram. The ox-hides smoking, burning, men dying, men rushing up wounded and bloody to take their place. The dead horse reared and kicked at the light god. Knife-sharp gilded hooves. Marith cut and hacked at the light god. Swords falling. Swords cutting him. Grass-green eyes opened and closed.

The gate shattered open beneath the beating of the ram. The Army of Amrath surged forward. Trampling their dead and dying. Fighting each other to be first through the gate. A trumpet rang out triumphant. Cheering. Screaming.

‘Breech! Breech!’

‘Amrath!’

‘Death!’

‘Breech! Breech!’

The light god roared in fury. Swords and hands ripping at Marith. Marith smashed back at it.

Shouts and cheering turning to screams as the machine on the walls showered down burning sand. The shadows rose up to destroy it. A bright white flash of magefire sent them burning back. The machine loosed more sand, shimmering as it came down.

‘Breach! Breach!’

‘In! Now!’

‘In! In!’

The Army of Amrath surging in through the gateway. Through the shower of sand falling. Through blasts of white and silver magefire. Through shuddering falling walls. Soldiers rushing up the ladders. Up onto the battlements. Trying to get to the war engines. Magefire crashed over them. Burning. More and more rushing up behind.

Voices shouting the war song: ‘Death! Death! Death!’

Marith hacked at the light god. Grass-green eyes staring at him. Numberless hands and sword blades. Swirling silver all around him, washing him, cool and soft. He hacked like hacking at a tree trunk. Ignored the swords cutting him. Nothing could harm him. Remember that! They cut him and they hurt him but there was nothing. Dry ash wounds, blood like rust, nothing to bleed, nothing to die. Like a dried-up river. Dry dead dust. A famine. He slashed at the thing’s shining light, cut it into pieces, over and over, all the hands and the swords cutting him. Grass-green eyes staring at him. He cut them. Destroying them. Hammering down his sword blade. Over and over and over and over. The dead horse reared and kicked at it. Bit at it with yellow teeth. Cut and cut and cut.

A burst of light. White and silver. Brighter than sunlight. The snow shining with every colour of the rainbow. Light reflected in every soldier’s eyes.

Scream like glass and bells ringing. A thousand rushing shooting stars.

White light. Burning. White shining blazing sparks of fire. Cut and cut and cut and cut.

Screamed.

Screamed.

Gone.

Twice, it had defeated him.

Third time lucky, indeed.

Marith drew his breath. Patted his horse to thank it.

Charged after his soldiers through the ruins of the gate.

King Ruin. King Death. Such joy and such wonder. The one true perfect thing.

Grab yourself a copy immediately

 

The post EXCLUSIVE: The House of Sacrifice UK cover reveal and excerpt appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

Review: Grim Solace by Ben Galley

Just like me, you should be very excited to be back in Araxes, where death is not the end, but just a new form of half-life. In book two of Ben Galley’s Chasing Graves trilogy, Caltro is still very dead and pissed at this fate, the dead gods, and Boran Temsa (who levelled his game up quite considerably since Chasing Graves) just to name a few. As Caltro fights for justice and his freedom, he constantly finds himself being tossed around like a leaf on the wind since everyone wants to put their hands on him. Tor Busk, the Widow Horix, and Boran Temsa are all playing a game of their own in which they all wish to use Caltro’s locksmith skills. Little do they know who is the real puppeteer behind the scenes. Caltro only learns about it while plotting his own escape. And boy, this is going to make you sit on the edge of your seat, waiting for the conclusion. Sadly this happens toward the end, and we’ll have to wait until the third and final book of the trilogy to find out how this information will shake things up plot-wise. Grim Solace has everyhing I liked in Chasing Graves and some more.

“Every reason is a little story we tell ourselves to dress up our desires. We offer reasons to explain or excuse ourselves, to fit in.”

While trying to get his life back—as much as remained of it anyway—Caltro learns a few new tricks and makes a new friend. Pointy is a centuries old-deadbound sword, which is a bit in love with its own voice as well as poetry, and driving Caltro crazy. But Pointy comes in handy when Caltro needs knowledge and a weapon which is, well, pointy. Fortunately, amidst all the chaos and visits from supposedly dead gods, Caltro never loses his dark humour and sarcasm.

“They say there is a beauty in hindsight, but I say it is an ugly creature. Almost as ugly as its daughter, regret. Life is made of many paths. The cruel joke is you can only choose one, and move only forwards along it. Regret is the bitch that follows behind you and paves the paths you didn’t take with gold and glitter.”

Besides Caltro’s ever so complicated plotline, we still have Nilith’s. Personally, for me that plotline was the weak point of Chasing Graves until the end where some truths are revealed, and her identity and importance are made clear in the grand scheme of things. This time around she grew on me because of her fierceness, no-nonsense attitude, the way she put Farazar in his place, and most importantly her bantering with Bezel, the strangebound falcon—the same bird which was supposed to spy on her.

“Nilith slumped back to the sand, chin on arms. She stared up at the falcon. ‘I don’t feel very royal.’

‘Royally fucked is what you are. Now you know why these nomad types call their wine daemonjuice, don’t you?'”

I’m usually no fan of the traveling trope, and sometimes I felt these bits dragging, even though there was plenty of actions—for example, we get to see Kal Duat, a place where stones are produced for the price of lives. This is where it really sinks in for Nilith how things go outside of Araxes, where the King has no real authority. All the while, they are still chased by the Ghouls, whom they pissed off in Chasing Graves. However, all the tension and hard truths are balanced by comical scenes such as where a donkey gets loose thanks to its wings. I’m actually sorry we don’t read more about the nomads Nilith and her companions come across in the desert just outside of Araxes. Just before reaching her destination she finds herself in very tight situation. If nothing else, that really makes me look forward to read the final book.

Besides all the old “friends” we made in Chasing Graves, Galley introduces some new ones. One of them is Scrutiniser Heles, working for the Chamber of the Code. Her task is to find the one responsible for the increasing attacks on the nobles of Araxes. I instantly took a liking to her, thanks to her being fierce, loyal and that she is not afraid to take on a confrontation when she feels an injustice was done. She is also quite cynical after all the years spent in service and the fact she has seen more death she would have liked.

“Fortunately for Scrutiniser Heles, it had been five years, maybe more, since her mood could remotely be classed as “good.” The best she hoped for these days was “mildly disgruntled””

Even though she only played a minor part in Grim Solace, I have a feeling we’ll see more of her in A Darker Shade. She had grown to be one of my favorite characters this trilogy had offered so far.

In Grim Solace Ben Galley turns up the grim-o-meter to eleven and is not afraid to soak the pages in blood and gore. It’s a good step up from Chasing Graves and sets a good foundation for the grand finale. Political intricacies, massacres, dead gods, and a pending doom waits for those who are brave enough to step on the soil of Araxes. Or a big pile of copper coins and title if they are smart and ruthless enough. What fate awaits you?

The post Review: Grim Solace by Ben Galley appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

Review of GODLESS by Ben Peek

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A Review of Ben Peek's The Godless

Review by Durand Welsh

The grimdark fantasy market is spoiled for multi-book epics. Abercrombie, Martin, and Bakker all have well-established series battling it out on the shelves. Fighting for a space between them would be a daunting prospect for anyone. So how does Ben Peek’s entry into the fray, the Godless, stack up against its well-girded opposition?

Although Peek’s world sprawls across multiple continents, in this novel he confines the action to the small city of Mireea and the adjoining nation of Leera. Mireea is located behind the Spine of Ger, a mountain range that sits atop the dead God of the same name. Given the title of Peek’s novel, the Godless, it is perhaps no surprise that in this world the gods themselves are dead. Fragments of godhood, however, still manifest in mortals, marking them with strange powers and deformities. These people, feared and often reviled, are the “cursed”.

The novel focuses on three characters who find themselves in Mireea as it teeters on the brink of war with Leera: Ayae, a cursed apprentice cartographer; Bueralan, a mercenary; and the immortal Zaifyr, who can see and control the “haunts” of the dead. Near the novel’s outset, an assassin attacks Ayae in her master’s cartography shop. Her cursed abilities spontaneously protect her, and the resulting conflagration engulfs the shop and exposes her secret. In a time when she most needs someone to guide her, she instead finds herself ostracized by her peers.

Meanwhile, Bueralan and his saboteur group Dark, have been retained by Lady Wagan, ruler of Mireea, to enter Leera and find out more about the mysterious army that is being mustered against their city. Through Lady Wagan, Bueralan meets Zaifyr, who has been hired to track Ayae’s attacker, an undead creature thought to be have been summoned in Leera using blood magic. Although Zaifyr now lives a solitary life and wishes only to forget the horrors of the War of the Gods, he was once responsible for terrible atrocities that resulted in his fellow cursed imprisoning him. The same ability to manipulate the souls of the dead that resulted in Zaifyr’s imprisonment now uniquely qualifies him to track the undead assassin.

In addition to hiring Bueralan and Zaifyr, Lady Wagan has petitioned the Enclave for assistance against Leera. The Enclave is the ruling caste in the floating city of Yeflam, and one of Mireea’s strongest allies. The Enclave is also ruled by the cursed known as the ‘Keepers of the Divine’, who view themselves as descendants of the gods themselves.

In response to Lady Wagan’s petition, the Enclave has dispatched the Keepers Fo and Bau to Mireea. Fo is a man with the power to wield disease and plague, while Bau is his antithesis in cursed talent, a healer able to cure injuries with preternatural speed. But Fo and Bau have offered little assistance. Instead, they have sequestered themselves away in their tower lodgings, dabbling away at the arcane, as Keepers are wont to do. However, their infrequent forays into the city include a cryptic visit to Ayae as she recovers in hospital from her injuries. What is no secret is that they have a long-standing animosity towards Zaifyr. You can’t destroy a continent without some animosity resulting, and Aelyn Meah, the head of the Enclave, was one of those responsible for imprisoning Zaifyr for his crimes.

The visiting Keepers certainly are an odd couple: Bau the white robed healer with the requisite garb of sandals and pithy moral philosophy; and Fo the disease spreading psychopath, conducting his weird experiments like some hulking Dr Frankenstein. Fo pins mice to tables, feeds them alive to snakes, while Bau the healer talks civilly of the good they do in curing disease. Despite Ayae’s reservations she is drawn to them. The only other person she has to turn to for help with her powers is Zaifyr, but Bau warns her not to trust Zaifyr. It seems her tutelage in her cursed abilities can take one of two paths, and she is divided about what to do.

Through characters such as Ayae and the Keepers, Peek injects regular doses of magic into the narrative. This magic is usually the grimmer, earthier variety – dead ghosts, magic plagues, blood sacrifice, or control of the raw elements such as Ayae displays. After all, the gods are dead. Magic went and broke this world. Folks aren’t conjuring up fireworks and bedding their maidens down with unicorns.

In the Godless, much of the magic is confined to the powers of cursed characters. The powers of the cursed function almost as superpower abilities rather than magic in the traditional sense of casting spells. Ayae’s character is almost an origin story of sorts. She has her superpower thrust upon her in what amounts to divine will, is ostracized, and then comes to accept her powers and use them to try and save the city she loves.

I did get the sense that the later novels will push the magic angle much harder. Compared to neighbouring cities such as Yeflam, Mireea is very much a mundane, salt-of-the-earth city. Yeflam, by comparison, is directly overseen by the cursed and is referred to as the floating city. The political and magical divide between it and Mireea is fairly obvious.

Such political divides do serve to drive some political intrigue in the plot, but the machinations of the different factions do feel a little distant from the action and a little opaque. Perhaps this is because the major power brokers have yet to fully play their hands and are largely acting through proxies. The powerful cursed known as Jae’le literally instructs Zaifyr through a crow familiar. One downside of this “hidden factions” element is that there are points where the obviously villainous powers that oppose the protagonists don’t seem to possess the requisite punch. I would have preferred Leera’s army to have had a bit more personality and bite, a bit more of a visceral threat factor about it.

While the book occasionally suffers from a lack of strong antagonists, the final third of the book concludes the story in rousing fashion, with an energetic battle and an apocalyptic confrontation between several of the more high-powered characters. In this final third, the pieces of the plot fall into place, Ayae’s powers gain traction, hidden antagonists come to the fore, and the action ramps up.

When it comes to grimdark, the Godless toes the shallower waters but never swims out into the black depths. Although two of the main characters, Zaifyr and Bueralan, have checkered pasts, these play out more as backstory than as character traits at the point in time when we meet them. Admittedly, they’ve both committed questionable sins in the past, but when we meet them their moral compasses seem to point fairly straight.  

While the Godless doesn’t do anything ground breaking, it lays all its cards on the table right at the outset. It never sideswipes you by pretending to be anything but what it is, which is a helping of the hero’s journey, a taste of the grizzled veteran with a troubled past, a smattering of the fallen god trying to redeem himself amongst mortals, and a bit of the bad ole evil bubbling up to destroy all yee decent smallfolk. While the Godless doesn’t have the Byzantine politics or the sputum-drenched grittiness of some of its competitors, anyone searching for a good, solid story would be well-served in taking a look.

I for one am certainly looking forward to tackling future instalments. Book Two, Leviathan’s Blood, is already on my shelf. 

Grab a copy of Ben Peek's The Godless using the links below:

 

Interview with Phil Tucker

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An interview with Phil Tucker

By Matthew Cropley

[MC] The Path of Flames harkens back to traditional fantasy. What books inspired it?

[PT] In many ways I’ve gone back to my childhood favourites, namely David Gemmell’s Drenai books, Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry, and Raymond E. Feist’s Magician. While I didn’t deliberately set out to emulate any one aspect of them, those works are part of my fantasy DNA.

[MC] Why did you choose to write a fantasy book in the traditional style, rather than joining the grimdark trend?

[PT] Truth be told, it wasn’t much of a choice. I set about world building first, then created the characters and used them to explore the world, to examine how our religions and cultures shape our realities – and from where these institutions derive their weight and authority. The high fantasy tone was set by the nature of the tale, though I think there’s some dark edges to it as well: the Bythian people’s systematic oppression, the cruel politics that engulfs Lady Kyferin, and the sacrifices and choices they’re forced to take.

[MC] What’s your opinion of grimdark fantasy and sci-fi?

[PT] I love them both! I’m planning to write a grimdark series in the near future.

[MC] The book features a lot of fantasy tropes, such as magical swords, innate magical ability, and knightly honour. How did you incorporate these tropes without becoming derivative?

[PT] I’ve tried to employ them in a way that serves my interrogation of the world in which the characters live. Take knightly honour, for example: I spent a lot of time reading about how real world knights justified their use of violence with their Christian piety, how they saw their own suffering on the field of battle as a mirror to Christ’s suffering, and through their privations they believed their killing was not only exonerated but glorified.

In my world, only one caste, the Ennoians, are allowed to wield weapons, and it is from their ranks that my knights emerge. They are supposed to defend the Empire, yet in truth they are often brutal and self-serving. The Black Wolves, amongst whose number our hero Asho begins the novel, are infamous for their misdeeds, and their leader Lord Enderl is both the paragon of knightly accomplishments and a monster. What does this say about knighthood? Can a military order that is given such lethal authority ever remain pure to their purpose? Are the very grounds upon which their chivalry is based capable of resisting corruption?

I try to explore all my tropes along the same lines, setting them up to further my world building but then mining the ramifications they have on society and religion. I hope that by using them toward an end rather than having them be the end, I manage to avoid being derivative and find something new to say about them.

[MC] What inspired the setting of the Ascendant Empire?

[PT] A phone interview with Google. They’d emailed me out of the blue and asked if I was interested in a random gig in the Googleplex. I said sure, so I went through a gruelling interview process, during which at the end of one call they asked me to brainstorm out loud on how the invention of teleportation machines would change our world.

Well, I rambled on for a fair bit, and a lot of my ideas stuck with me. I never got the job, but the ideas for a non-contiguous empire stitched together by teleportation portals resurfaced when I sat down to write my series, and from there it all developed as I began to ask ever more detailed questions about its effect on the economy, culture, religion, and so on.

[MC] How much work was it to create such an interesting setting and history, and how did you go about revealing it to the reader in such a mysterious, engaging way?

[PT] Is it fair to call such a fun process work? I spent a lot of time looking at fantasy concept art online, brainstorming, piecing together elements and seeing whether they fit. For example, say you’ve decided your empire is connected by teleportation portals. Do they go both ways? Say they do. Is there one portal per city, or as many portals in each city as there are total cities in the empire? What if nobody has ever returned after passing through one of the portals? What if that portal was black and underground, and another was white and in the clouds? What might people infer? How would that affect the world?

You start asking those questions and almost at a whim answer them as you see best – but then ask another set of questions, and another, until your world has unfurled before you like one of those dragon tea balls.

As for how to reveal, well. That was hard. I bought an old paperback of Game of Thrones and went through the first ten chapters with a highlighter, picking out where and how often GRRM revealed his world building. How much in dialog, how much in exposition? I didn’t want to rebuff readers with too much terminology, so I decided to kick things off with a big battle, and then go introducing elements and characters gradually. A minimum of exposition, with Audsley (my librarian character) having a fun scene early on where he’s studying maps and thinking out loud to his pet cindercat.

[MC] Where do your characters come from?

[PT] A mixture of necessity and inspiration. I wanted to tell my story from a variety of points of view: a character at the bottom of the social caste, and one at the very top; an intellectual who could plumb the mysteries of my world and a brutal knight who could challenge and cut through the old ways of living. They literally were points of view into my world, and once I had a sense of whom I needed to tell my tale, I set to fleshing them out.

I’m a big fan of seeking inspiration on Pinterest. I’ll browse fantasy character portraits for hours, marking those that catch my eye, and then try to figure out what about that particular portrait intrigued me. For this series I did just that, collecting images that resonated with each role, and slowly allowing them to coalesce in my mind like a soup left to simmer for several weeks.

[MC] How many books will the series be comprised of, and how epic will the story become?

[PT] I’m planning for this to be a five book series, with Book 3 nearly finished and the broad strokes already outlined for Books 4 and 5. I’m hoping to make it pretty epic – I’m going to push my world as far as I can without breaking it, and don’t yet know what it’s going to look like when the dust settles. That’s part of the fun in writing the series – seeing how everybody recovers (and who survives) after all the horrible things that are set to happen.

[MC] What do you draw from your real life?

[PT] I’ve travelled a fair bit, and lived in a variety of different countries, so perhaps my outsider’s point of view may have influenced not only Asho’s being a pariah but also my fondness for comparing and contrasting cultures. I’m fascinated by how people’s languages and upbringing shape their world view, and can’t help but wonder how many of our core beliefs are objective and how many of them are dependent on our circumstances. Hence my fun in playing with them in the Chronicles.

[MC] Your self-publishing career started out with The Grind Show, an urban fantasy, back in 2014—what challenges have you met in self-publishing since then to get to this point where your latest book is kicking arse in the Self Published Fantasy Book Blog-Off?

[PT] I’ve made so many mistakes over the years. Abandoning series after a successful Book 1, designing awful covers myself, failing to hire top notch editors, picking lousy titles – all such basic and elementary aspects of self-publishing. Everything changed for me when I discovered the Writer’s Café on KBoards, and started plumbing its archives for wisdom and asking questions of the local success stories.

I think the most fundamental things I’ve learned is to pay for the very best cover you can afford, make sure your title resonates with your readers, and publish as frequently as you can in the same genre to build momentum with Amazon’s algorithms.

Luck has also played a large role in all this, especially with my success so far with SPFBO. I have absolutely no illusions about being any better than anybody else in my cohort, but am instead simply very grateful that the judge of our group enjoyed reading my book as much as he did.

[MC] From your perspective, what is the general reality of self-publishing vs. chasing the tradition dream?

[PT] I think that anybody with discipline, drive, and thick skin has a chance to make it now as a self-published author. The resources are out there. If you’re willing to invest under $1,000 on cover, editor, layout and any other services that you need, you can launch your book in grand style and compete with the very best that traditional publishers have to offer.

This isn’t for everyone though. Many authors simply don’t want to function as small business owners. They don’t want to do marketing and design and oversee freelancers and wear all the hats that go with being an indie. For them, sending a book off to a trad publisher might be the way to go, though it’s apparently becoming increasingly hard to get noticed and compensated for your work.

I’d encourage anybody who is serious about making a career out of being an author to do their research first and ask themselves if they can’t take on these duties in order to increase their chances of success. Check out authorearnings.com, buy Chris Fox’s how-to books on Amazon, browse Writer’s Café on KBoards, and jump right in. The odds have never been better.

[MC] Did your time spent living and working in Australia help develop your writing and themes?

[PT] It did! It was while I was in Australia that I wrote my first serious piece of fiction. I entered into NaNoWriMo while there, and managed to cough out an atrocious 50,000 words that, while pretty objectively terrible, showed me I could actually write something approximating a novel. I never looked back thereafter. 

[MC] What can we expect to see from you next?

[PT] Book 3 of the Chronicles, The Siege of Abythos, is slated to come out in late October. I’ll be publishing Books 4 and 5 right after, and hopefully have the whole series wrapped up by early next year. Then? I’m not sure. I’ve got plenty of ideas. One thing’s for sure, though: I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

Check out our review of book 1 of The Chronicles of the Black Gate, Path of Flames on the GdM blog!

Review of The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

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A review of The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Review by malrubius

The Stars are Legion is the new space opera from critically acclaimed, two-time Hugo Award winner, author Kameron Hurley. It is the story of two enemy lovers, Zan and Jayd—the story’s two narrators—and their attempt to rebirth a world-ship, the Mokshi, that is capable of leaving their dying, deep-space Legion of world-ships at the Outer Rim of the galaxy. Although the first thing that comes to mind while reading The Stars are Legion might be the complete absence of male characters of any kind, the story quickly takes off on a fast pace with plenty of action, conflict, fighting, gore, tension, deceit, revenge, political intrigue, monsters, moral ambiguity, and brilliantly vivid and original world-building that will excite even the most diehard grimdark sci-fi fan. Meanwhile, the choice of an all-female cast sets a fascinating stage for the exploration of themes that include birth and rebirth, love, atonement, forgiveness, revenge, loss, hope, memory, and too many more to mention, all of which give The Stars are Legion the type of resonance that is supposed to be reserved for so-called ‘literary’ novels. And even though I generally find myself reading grimdark fantasy in the Lawrence, Polansky, Lynch, Abercrombie mold, I loved The Stars are Legion and couldn’t stop turning the pages and enjoying Hurley’s crisp, concise prose.

The world-building in The Stars are Legion is what really pulled me into the story in the beginning. Unlike most sci-fi that I have read, the world of The Stars are Legion is almost entirely organic. The world-ships, of which there are primarily three in the story, are gigantic floating, tentacled living worlds with a seemingly unknown number of levels from the bottom, where people are recycled by terrifying monsters, all the way to the top, where the elite and powerful live and conspire. The entire world-ship is organic, made of some kind of fleshy substance that can be cut through to form new passageways, and eaten, if entirely necessary. It is alive with tubes like umbilici, and growths, and blood, and on the outside, a blackening cancerous rot, evidence that the worlds are dying and will continue to do so. Beneath it all, or at least in parts, are some mysterious metal beams and scaffolding that may have been part of the original structure or used to sure up the dying organic structure. When Zan, who has lost most of her memory, is recycled by the Lord of the Katazyrna world-ship, she and a small team of feisty misfits must climb back up from the bottom of the ship on a frightening journey to reunite with Jayd at the controls. This part of the narrative reminded me of some of my favorite story worlds like Jeff Vandermeer’s living organic New Weird settings in his Ambergris and Southern Reach novels and the climb through various vivid and scary places that Senlin must make in Josiah Bancroft’s Books of Babel series. Each new scene is stunning and surprising.

While Zan is climbing out of the bowels of the Katazyrna, Jayd the daughter of its Lord, has made a deal with her enemy on the world-ship Bhavaja. This part of the narrative propels the political intrigue conflict at breakneck speed. The Katazyrna and Bhavaja are long-time enemies but both realize that they are doomed unless they can combine powers to bring ‘the world and the arm’ together on the Mokshi to rebirth that world-ship and leave the Legion. However, neither the rulers of the Katazyrna nor the Bhavaja can be trusted. Both are brutal, self-seeking militant peoples who want to subjugate their enemies through intrigue, deception, and brute force, which is part of what we love about grimdark in any setting. The two world-ships are constantly at war for dominance, and something must change or they will both die out. When the best of plans goes awry, all hell breaks loose between these fierce, competing powers, and Zan must reunite with Jayd to settle their age-long war. All along, however, we become aware that Jayd has done something very wrong to Zan.

The intertwining first-person narratives of Zan and Jayd make for an extremely compelling and entertaining story, and Hurley’s use of present tense adds an extra level of suspense to the tale’s unfolding of a variety of interwoven plot types: quest, revelation, voyage-and-return, etcetera, all of which are thrilling by turns. Nevertheless, the complete absence of men or male characters in The Stars are Legion is kind of like an elephant in the room. As a male reviewer, I cannot decide whether it would be more sexist of me to ignore that casting decision in this review or to attempt to understand it and utterly fail. It seems like a lose-lose proposition to this humble reviewer, but since I consider myself a bit of a feminist and I enjoyed this book so much, I choose to take the latter risk. The lack of male characters in The Stars are Legion is never actually mentioned in the story itself—even awareness of their absence is absent. The only reason I can think of for this choice is that the story and its themes are more compelling without them. One main theme of The Stars of Legion deals with birth and rebirth—at what cost. There are so many things that need rebirth in this story—from Zan’s memory to her climb up the umbilical of the Katazyrna to the love between Zan and Jayd to the world-ship Mokshi itself—that the idea of rebirth takes center stage in terms of thematic relevance. There are wombs to be swapped and stolen, pregnancies to deal with, and even the world-ships themselves impregnate their passengers to birth their needed parts and peoples. Not only are men (male characters) unnecessary to this story world, but in the humble opinion of this reviewer, their inclusion would obfuscate or at least dilute the plangency of this theme. Even if men were just subservient to women in the story, their presence would add all kinds of complications and battle-of-sexes themes that the story does not require. The Stars are Legion is a fantastic read just as it is, and the choice of an all-woman cast is part of its charm and its grit.

Although The Stars are Legion seems, on its surface, to be sci-fi for women, I think any fan of gritty, violent, tense SFF will enjoy it; even fans of military sci-fi should find this story tense and forceful. Specifically for our purposes here at Grimdark Magazine, I think our readers will enjoy the relationships between these fiercely competing, brutal yet loving women. Jayd’s love for Zan provides perhaps the grimmest morally grey punch to the story as Jayd continues to deceive and betray Zan for the good of the Katazyrna even though Jayd truly seems to love her, and Zan’s faulty memory prevents her from fully understanding their relationship. Also, all the characters here, with only a couple of refreshing exceptions, are violent, conniving, deceitful, and cruel in their self-serving quests, and rarely do questions of morality enter the minds of its characters. So . . . as a fan of grimdark as well as a fan of superb writing and grand storytelling, I highly recommend Kameron Hurley’s new novel The Stars are Legion.

The Stars are Legion is due out on 7 February 2017 on Saga Press in the US.