Adrian Collins's Blog, page 245

Mike Fletcher announces the winners of the Beyond Redemption Giveaway!

Mike was generous enough to give GdM a few copies of Beyond Redemption and 88 in exchange for our followers to spill their biggest delusions. You've thrown down, he's picked up, and we've got three winners! Over to Mike for the announcement.

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I must admit, I expected this to be easier. At first I thought, “I’ll just pick the most entertaining.”
And then I read them and thought, “I’ll pick the one I most relate to.”
Then I thought I should go with the scariest.

Since I’m supposed to pick three, I can do all of that.

Wrychard Wrycthen clings to sanity with a mad desperation I can both understand and appreciate and is the winner of Beyond Redemption.

Travis and celtic_ronin both win copies of 88, a nasty slice of cyberpunk.

Email me at mike@michaelrfletcher.com and let me know your preferred format (EPUB/MOBI/PDF).

Thanks to everyone for entering!

Cheers!

Mike Fletcher

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Wrychard Wrycthen, Travis, and celtic_ronin have all picked up a freebie! Mike's asked that you drop him an email so he can shoot the prizes through to you personally. You can either email him at mike@michaelrfletcher.com, or let me know your email and I'll send him the details. Thanks everyone for getting involved!

First Place

Wrychard Wrycthen
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My biggest delusion is that I apparently have no delusion. I perceive humanity as traveling through space on a giant, vegetation covered rock at speed, surrounded by billions of other filthy, lying animals that will betray them at any and every turn. Everything that can be made difficult and counter-intuitive is, seemingly for the sake of frustration itself. Everything was fundamentally pointed and constructed for hundreds if not thousands of years before anyone living had even been born to create a societal structure that keeps the rich as rich as possible and the poor as poor as possible. But again, maybe this is my delusion.

Second Place

Travis
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A little self-delusion goes a long way.

My delusion is believing that self-delusion actually helps us in life. Think of any big decision you’ve made or any goal you’ve set for yourself: asking your future wife(husband/partner) to marry you; deciding to have a kid; writing a novel—FINISHING a novel… Without some level of self-delusion of thinking you were worthy enough, smart enough, or talented enough to go after your dreams, would any of us have been able to make them happen?

Or perhaps my delusion is believing that a little self-delusion is a wonderful thing.

 

Third Place
celtic_ronin
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We are shale fossils from the Paleozoic era. She is a broad-leafed fern and I am a carnivorous thunder lizard who refuses to devour her. Years pass, tectonic plates shift, and we crumble into dust as we drift apart.

I want to impress her, so I steal all the starlight from the sky. You try too hard, she sighs, shaking the shale dust from her hair. She casts the glowing box aside.

A few people complain about the missing starlight. The police promise to look into the matter, but their hands are really tied, what with budget cuts and all.

Cormac McCarthy's Outer Dark: A Tale of Delightful Despair

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Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark:
A Tale of Delightful Despair

by Jeff Suwak

Going by the shock and outrage routinely expressed by Games of Thrones fandom, one might be tempted to believe that George R.R. Martin invented gruesomeness, depravity, and moral ambiguity. Going by some of the critics and comments floating around the internet, one might be tempted to believe that the grimdark genre had ushered in some wholly new depravity in storytelling. Listening all of this banter and debate from the dark recesses of his cell at the Santa Fe Institute, author Cormac McCarthy laughs with insane, mocking glee (I have no proof that he actually does this; I just assume).

McCarthy had been treading bleak, nihilistic landscapes for longer than most of us have been alive. He describes things such as the consumption of human fetuses with casual mastery and disturbing vividness. He systematically destroys every bit of his reader’s hopes, not only in the turnout of the story but in the turnout of their own lives. And he manages to do all of this with language so intoxicatingly poetic, imagery so nightmarishly beautiful, that we thank him even while we despair under his existential abuses.

Of all McCarthy’s grim, dark catalog, 1973’s Outer Dark stands out as being singularly pertinent to the grimdark landscape. You want to talk about a prevailing sense of moroseness, darkness, and violence? Game of Thrones might leave you sharing a sense of indignant outrage around the water cooler on Monday morning, but McCarthy will leave you in full-blown catatonic despair.

Outer Dark is unique among McCarthy’s books for the fact that it takes place in a blatantly fantastic setting. Namely, it is a dark, twisted version of rural Appalachia that sets the stage for our tale of perverted Americana. This world is not as overtly mythical as books such as Manly Wade Wellman’s Who Fears the Devil? or as obviously magical as books like Orson Scott Card’s Tales of Alvin Maker. Yet, it is set in a reality that is not our own.

Perhaps because McCarthy is such a darling of serious academics, the fantastic elements in his books are often ignored or explained away as purely psychological devices. From the wampus cats and panthers of The Orchard Keeper to the black magic ritual of Suttree and the surreal encounters infusing the Border Trilogy, however, McCarthy’s work blends the real with the mythic so subtly and pervasively that I’d argue he can be read as a certified fantasist. That is a bold claim, though, and one that may bring hordes of chain-wielding English professors down upon my head, so I’ll let the larger argument die. In regard to Outer Dark, however, only the most stubbornly elitist critic can deny the otherworldliness of the book.

Outer Dark is similar to GoT in that the events of both tales are set in motion by an incestuous brother/sister relationships. Unlike GoT, however, the sibling-fornicators of Outer Dark come from the absolute bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Culla and Rinthy Holme are what city folk today might be tempted to call “backwards-ass hillbillies.”

Culla is consumed with shame at the baby he has produced with his sister, so he takes the child out to the woods to die. He doesn’t have the stomach to actually end the child’s life, so he just leaves it for the elements. The infant refuses to die and is picked up by a “small gnomic creature wreathed in a morass of grizzled hair” that we only ever know of as “the tinker.” Culla tells his sister that he buried the baby after it died in birth, but Rinthy doesn’t believe him. Eventually, she discovers the truth.

So it is that Rinthy sets out on a journey down a dark road leading into a nameless country to get her baby back. Culla, meanwhile, strikes out blindly, trying to escape all the sins he’s committed. They travel through the same world, but their experiences are vastly different. Where Rinthy finds kindness and charity among the grotesque, carnivalesque company of the dark world, Culla finds nothing but scorn and threat. Everywhere he goes he is mistaken for a criminal and hunted.

Through this meandering tale run three demonic figures who seem to spawn from the countryside itself. This crew, ruthless and efficient murderers, seem to somehow be connected to Culla, though it’s never entirely certain to us to or him what that connection is. Whoever or whatever has sent them, the figures seem to have been called to destroy Culla.

As with most of McCarthy’s books, the true gold is not in the plot but in the ambience that the novel creates. A heavy, gloomy sense of despair hangs over the story, unerringly hopeless and yet infallibly beautiful in its own peculiar way. From the consumption of human flesh to a strangely unsettling account of a stampede of hogs, the book is like a window looking into a serial killer’s daydreams (but in a good way). Even seemingly innocuous things are described with a hellish slant. The woods are described as “trees beginning to close him in, malign and baleful shapes that reared like enormous androids provoked at the alien insubstantiality of this flesh colliding among them.” A swamp is “a faintly smoking garden of the dead that tended away to the earth’s curve.” From beginning to end, everything we encounter is ominous and twisted. The total reading experience is delightfully horrific, ecstatically repellant.

Spoiler alert: no justice or light awaits us in Outer Dark. People pray, but their prayers are never answered. Lives are cut down and forgotten. Evil seems to be self-justifying and self-perpetuating force. In short, the book takes us into a grim, dark universe devoid of hope or illumination—the kind of thoroughly despair-swollen place that, for some reason, I love spending my reading time in.

As a grimdark fan, this is a must read.

Sounds like something you'd like to check out? Use the buy links below for Kindle and paperback.

Review: The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

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The Water Knife
by Paolo Bacigalupi
Review by Jeremy Szal

An ARC of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

According to William Gibson, the future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed. According to Paolo Bacigalupi, the future is right around the corner, and there’s very little left to distribute at all.

In the future portrayed in The Water Knife (2015), there’s only one form of currency that really matters: water. The American Southwest is parched dry, the bickering states of Nevada, California and Arizona all fighting for the dwindling commodity that is the Colorado River. The federal government still exists, but is unable to control the feuding states from tearing each other’s throats out. It’s a harsh landscape of dust and grime and blood, where the poor will do anything to scoop up a tiny sip of muddy water and the rich lounge next to their water fountains and sit in air-conditioned coffee shops. When you dig deep enough to the core, it’s possible to sum up The Water Knife in a single chilling sentence: 'Some people had to bleed so other people could drink.'

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Bacigalupi’s bleak future has a strong environmental bent, filtered through the lens of a very plausible future. His masterpiece of a debut, The Windup Girl (2010), revolved around similar topics, focusing on genebanks and GMOs in a 23rd century Thailand where corruption, greed and violence ran through the city like the Chao Phraya River, bleeding into everyone’s lives as they struggled to stay afloat.

But unlike The WindUp Girl, The Water Knife takes a sharp left and slowly rolls away from science-fiction territory. The novel takes place in the near future, and there are a smattering of gadgets and gizmos like military glass, but otherwise The Water Knife leans away from the science-fictional block and more into the realism zone. Or perhaps this is Bacigalupi’s intent to demonstrate just how close we are to this parched and waterless future. Realism and science-fiction are by no means mutually exclusive, as noted in almost all of his novels and short stories, including The Tamarisk Hunter (2006) where he first started building this universe. But it would be entirely possible to read The Water Knife and call it a near future analysis, and it certainly wouldn’t be unfair to classify the novel as a science thriller. I read this book while in the south-western United States, and a good chunk of it was consumed while driving from Los Angles to Las Vegas. I only needed to glance up from the page and peer out the window to see how plausible Bacigalupi’s waterless future really is. And that’s what makes it so terrifying.

In sketching up a future based on contemporary concerns, it’s easy to slide into the pit of polemic fiction. Bacigalupi did this in The Doubt Factory (2014), and he hasn’t managed to crawl out of it just yet. It’s easy to view The Water Knife as holding one big plaque of this is what we’ll become, especially when characters start referencing a real life nonfiction book titled Cadillac Desert (1986). Interestingly, they call it the Bible of water rights and how it served as a danger sign to us all those decades ago. This book and others like it pop up several times, even serving as a rather ironic and pivotal plot point that’s severely lacking subtly. Fiction has always been an excellent way of utilizing contemporary concerns and themes and finding new ways to address them, but Bacigalupi doesn’t employ the same nuance and tact in discussing these ideas as he did with The WindUp Girl and Ship Breaker (2010), and it comes across as very blunt and even didactic. I was hoping that Bacigalupi would hit the bullseye on the ending, but instead he performs rather poorly and left me scrambling ahead to the next chapter, only to find that the novel had ended.

But Bacigalupi makes up for this in his trio of characters. Angel Velasquez is the water knife after who the novel is named, protecting his boss, Catherine Case and making sure all water diverts to her and her interests. If you have money, you’ll have enough to drink. Otherwise you’ll get nothing but dust. The other two PoVs characters include Lucy, a journalist intent on sticking her head into the hornet’s nest, and Maria, a farm girl who does a deal with the devil.

These three characters live in a land of dust and violence, and they’ll do just about anything to not slip through the cracks, and this desperation inevitably comes back to bite them in ways that’ll make your skin crawl. But while none of them are sort of people you’d want to spend time with, Bacigalupi sculpts them with ingenuity and care, giving us a slow drip of a backstory as we slice our way through the novel. The time spent with the story and action is carefully balanced with the time spent inside their heads, allowing us to draw closer to their thoughts even when might not want to. Summoning sympathy for characters such as these is tough work, and Bacigalupi nails it perfectly. They are certainly not above questioning their own morality and gazing at the guilt that slowly gnaws away at them, something only the best grimdark novels are capable of achieving.

Credit must also be given to the superb writing. His depictions of a draught-ravaged south west will leave your throat parched and your skin itchy. A lot of liquid had to be consumed in order to keep reading, which is feat in itself. His clipped sentences and tight dialogue allow for an intense and thrilling read, every sentence teetering on a knife’s edge. His writing can’t be described as minimalist, but for the most part there are no lavish or long descriptions of anything other than the desert and its unforgiving Dust-Bowl state. In all fairness there’s not much that he can describe, a complete contrast to The WindUp Girl with the colours and spices and flavours of a rich-imagined Thailand simply oozing from the page. He’s not playing with the same tools, so he’s decided to switch tactics, and he’s fairly successful in doing so.

There’s a constant sense on impending doom on almost every paragraph, and you’re just waiting for the hammer to fall with every chapter. Unlike The WindUp Girl which jumped straight into the action and didn’t slow down from there, The Water Knife starts with a (literal) bang, but takes a while to really pick up the pace again. But when it does you’ll be hard pressed to put it down.

Bacigalupi is an exceptional writer of smart and science based science-fiction, which is why The Water Knife comes across as a mild disappointment. It’s a razor sharp novel set twenty minutes in the future with raw intensity, but when it comes to discussing the themes within it’s sometimes more likened to a brick through a window. Thankfully Bacigalupi is skilled enough to give us fantastic character and tight dialogue to carry his story forward. It’s nowhere near the lofty heights of his debut masterpiece, but The Water Knife is still a good novel that’s equal parts intriguing and terrifying, partly because one day we might not even regard it as fiction anymore.

I give The Water Knife three grimdark lords out of five.

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Purchase links:

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Paperback

 

Beyond Redemption Giveaway

Mike Fletcher, author of the brilliant Beyond Redemption and 88, wants you to get delusional!

What's the deal?

The Geisteskranken in Mike's Beyond Redemption (check out our review here) twist reality with the power of their delusions. 

Knowledge isn't an axiom, it's a force of nature. What the masses believe is. But insanity is a weapon, conviction a shield. Delusions give birth to foul new gods. Violent and dark, the world is filled with the Geisteskranken--men and women whose delusions manifest, twisting reality

You've got 100 words to answer "What's your biggest delusion and why?" Just pop it into the comments section below and then wait to see if Mike makes it rain books on you. There's no set requirement for comedy, morbidness, sci-fi, fantasy, honesty, etc, etc beyond the 100 word limit -- so go berserk, get inventive, and have fun with it!

Mike's favourite entry will nab an ebook copy of Beyond Redemption, while the next two favourites will be sent ebook copies of 88.

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How does my delusion win?

As your posts come through into the comments I'll approve them (give me 24hrs before chasing me if you feel the need) and they'll pop up below.

On the 30th of November 2016, Mike will pick his favourite responses from the comments section and we'll hand out a bunch of prizes to the top 3 entrants. It's that easy.

Now get delusional!

Battle-Off Competition Winner Announcement

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The competition for the 1st and 3rd places in the Battle-Off came down to one point in each case. One. Point. With such an epic bundle of prizes on offer it was great fun to see the judges come through with their scoring - the lead changing with pretty much every list of rankings I received - and some additional feedback (above and beyond the rankings I asked for!) for our finalists.

With no further stuffing around, I give you your winners!

 

First Place
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The Art of Forgetting: Nomad
Joanne Hall

Graham McNeill said, "brutal and vivid, good understanding of fighting, no loss of character in the scale of battle."

Richard Ford said, "The short sharp prose of this really places you in the thick of it. And there was good use of emotional impetus through dialogue which gave the action meaning."

Joanne's won an absolute swag of prizes, including a signed un-numbered Unfettered from Grim Oak Press, a signed first edition of Half a War from Quill and Claw Signed First Editions, a kindle with all of Realmwalker Publishing's titles loaded to it, editing services from Mike Myers, cover services from Spiral Horizon Art, Blackguards from Ragnarok Publications, Fubar from Cohesion Press, and a GdM first year bundle pack! How's that for making it hail?

 

Second Place
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Theos Kthonios
Scott Oden

Graham McNeill said, "Well described scene, nice to see a potential development of Leonidas as Eternal Champion…"

R. Scott Bakker said, "The strongest piece overall, I thought (though Joanne's piece matches it in certain respects). Impeccable pacing. Impeccable imagery. A deft eye for distinctions of scale: battles are vast, self-cannibalizing machines with as many pieces as fingers and hands, let alone limbs or men. The ability to slide up and down the different descriptive scales is an impressive one, and Scott demonstrates an enviable command of it here. Battles transform struggle into setting, but there's no reason they have to remain merely such. Battles can also be characters (heroes, charlatans, villains), births, conclusions, and they can be revelations, as is the case in Theos Kthonios. Very well done."

Richard Ford said, "The writing in this was far the best of any sample. It reminded me of a lot of Warhammer fiction, the description was visceral and really placed you in the midst of the action. If Scott hasn’t applied to be a fiction writer at the Black Library already he really should!" 

Scott, apart from having the world's coolest surname, has grabbed himself The Testament of Tall Eagle from Ragnarok Publications, a SNAFU bundle from Cohesion Press, editorial services from Mike Myers, cover art from Spiral Horizon Art, and a GdM First Year Bundle!

 

Third Place
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Fae: The Realm of Twilight
Graham Austin-King

Graham McNeill said, "nicely described setting, good hook for wanting to know more of the mysterious guy at the end."

Last, but certainly not least of the prize-winners, Graham has landed himself The Heresy Within trilogy from Ragnarok Publications, 2x Cry Havoc novels from Cohesion Press, and the GdM First Year Bundle Pack.

 

Fourth Place
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An Altered Fate: Echoes of Imara
Claire Frank

Graham McNeill said, "well described scene, easy to understand and still appreciate the chaos of battle."

Richard Ford said, "Clear unambiguous prose helped keep the sustainment of tension throughout. I really liked the heroic elements."

 

Fifth Place
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Lords of Dyscracia
Seth Lindberg

Graham McNeill said, "Good to have one from a non-human perspective and clearly a vivid mythos backstory…"

Richard Ford said, "The prose in this was really unique and the worldbuilding very rich."

 

Sixth Place
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Seven Undying
Khassan Warrad

Graham McNeill said, "nice, vivid battle scenes, good to see non-Western themed characters and lore"

Richard Ford said, "Short sharp sentences made the violence flow. ‘Blood and gore spun off the blade to make way for a fresher coat’ is a great line. Wish I’d written it!"

 

Seventh Place
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Eternal War: Armies of Saints

Livio Gambarini

Graham McNeill said, "interesting setting and I’m a sucker for angels vs daemons"

Richard Ford said, "This was a great portrayal of the chaos of battle."

 

Thank You!

The Grimdark Magazine Battle-Off Competition was our first crack at running a major competition. Thank you to our prize partners for making the competition so attractive and providing some real meat for our prizes, our judges for giving us their time and opinion, the entrants for trusting us to represent their work to voters in a fair manner, and our voters for placing nearly 1,600 votes!

Goodbye Kennet, you absolute champion

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Today, we lost a grimdark enthusiast. The GdM team said goodbye to a team mate and fellow grimdark enthusiast, Kennet Rowan Gencks, GdM First Reader and fucking great bloke.

 

Kennet approached me on May 20, 2015 in response to an ad for first readers. He did his testing and kicked arse, subsequently landing himself a spot on the First Reader team due to his spot-on opinions of grimdark short fiction.

 

In his approach to interacting with our submitting authors, Kennet took the approach of treating people as he'd like to be treated, telling me during testing, "I wasn't really sure if direct and blunt was the correct style or if I should soft-pedal it, so I went with what I'd want to hear myself." I'm certain there are plenty of authors out there who submitted to GdM who benefitted from Kennet taking the time to write helpful feedback on their piece

 

After spending months getting stuck into the mag, responding to fiction submitters, being a part of team discussions on developing the magazine and what we could do to improve each issue, Kennet's health issues really grabbed a hold of him. If you followed him on his page, you'll have seen the horrifying updates as his health issues really took hold.

 

Today, as we see so often in the grimdark fiction we love to read, is not a happy ending. Today, we lost Kennet Rowan Gencks; and the grimdark community lost a person I wish I'd had more time with, but am so glad I got the opportunity to know.

 

Goodbye mate. You're an absolute champion and I'll miss you.

Review: Blackguards

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This book should be one of the introductory bibles to grimdark. There, I said it.  

It's got a wide range of awesome authors writing for a very specific audience. And boy, do they do it well.

What is Blackguards?

Besides fucking awesome? It's an anthology by Ragnarok Publications featuring assassins, mercenaries, and rogues written by some of the best grimdark and dark fantasy authors out there.

Back in 2014 I spotted something from a small publisher I didn't know a whole lot about on a website I'd never looked at before. Ragnarok Publications' Blackguards had gone up on Kickstarter. The Kickstarter had a fun vibe to it -- cheekily written with plenty of content -- so I threw down my hard earned and waited for the paperback to be delivered in the mail. In all honesty, I clean forgot I'd ordered it until I received an email from reception at work and ran downstairs to see what it was.

When I first started reading Blackguards and taking notes for the review (with a memory like a sieve, you've got to take plenty of 'em!), it occurred to me that while some people might love to hear me crapping on about each individual story, others might not. So I've written two reviews: one that's an overall review with a few favourites, etc, picked out, and one where I've just gone berserk.

I give you the long and the short of my review of Blackguards.

The short of it

Blackguards is a thoroughly enjoyable collection grimdark fantasy written by some of the premier authors of grimdark fantasy -- eg. Mark Lawrence, Peter Orullian, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Cat Rambo, John Gwynne, Anthony Ryan -- and a bunch of newer faces. The stories range from the cheeky and funny, to the super dark and vicious, running the full gamut of the grimdark fantasy genre.

There are some absolutely cracking stories in there. Irindai by Bradley P. Beaulieu, The Subtler Art by Cat Rambo, Better to Live Than to Die by John Gwynne, The Secret by Mark Lawrence, A Length of Cherrywood by Peter Orullian, Seeds by Carol Berg... as you can tell, there are a fair few in here I'm a big fan of. There are a few stories that weren't for me, which isn't surprising. I have pretty specific tastes, and a pre-set opinion of what is a grimdark story, so that was bound to happen.

The production as a whole is excellent. Beautiful art, a solid printing, an excellent design from cover to cover, and a well thought out collection of authors to make this really attractive. The Kickstarter itself is a deadset template for how to run an anthology Kickstarter (check it out here if you've got a minute) with engaging posts and a range of fun and enjoyable backer rewards and stretch goals (I especially liked the author pay-bump and will definitely be pilfering that idea in the future).

Overall, Blackguards is an excellent production by a publishing house that is fast becoming one of my favourites in the market. That'll be all I'll say about them for now. If I blow any more smoke up Tim or Joe's arse they're likely to pop.

The long of it

Here we go. These were my thoughts on each short story in the print edition. My apologies to the wonderful Charles Phipps and the others in the ebook extra to Blackguards, but I'll review their work in another post. This was going to turn into a bloody novel otherwise.

Presentation: this anthology is a work of art. It's beautifully thought out and presented. Shawn King and Joe Martin have done an amazing job on this. The exterior art is a great summation of the content, while the individual interior sketches really add to the appeal of each story as you move through. Top marks.

Foreward by Glen Cook: Enjoyable read. Great opinions. Funny. A little sad with the death of his step mother mid-production. It's also refreshing to get a piece from a bloke who sounds like a more intellectually standard person. Sometimes I read pieces by authors and just think, "How the hell do I even compare to that?" To have Glen speak to me like I'm the average Joe provides a really enjoyable entry into this anthology.

Intro by Joe Martin: I want to buy this bloke a pint. A stout. Because it's dark. Really on point with the grimdark sub genre and started with the same first book in those travels, The Hobbit, though with a perspective I've not really seen before. Added a few new authors to my to read list.

Now, into the thick of it. Some of these run a bit more stream of consciousness than structured review, but, hey, I draft these on the bus to and from work. I'm sure you can cut me some slack. I've also tried to avoid spoilers as best I can.

Mainon by Jean Rabe: world's best assassin hired by a rich noble to prevent a seer's vision of him being assassinated prior to his wedding in two days time. Really enjoyable depiction of noble wealth with a pretty solid twist and ending.

Irindai by Bradley P. Beaulieu: story about a messenger, whose package was poisoned and killed the recipient, trying to not land in the shit. She ends up in the mix with the sons of a god and a drug lord you can't say no to all while preparing for a pit fight. Author writes beautifully. I'm definitely a new fan. His world is magnificent and a refreshing change from European medieval or post apocalyptic world's I'm used to reading. The ending has a nice twist and the use of moths to create a collective mind is really cool. Really enjoyable story. I want to find out more about Ceda and this desert realm of gods, godlings, and Magic.

The Subtler Art by Cat Rambo: Rambo writes an excellent short piece based on two not often seen protagonist types -- the married middle aged couple finding stuff to complete over in retirement. Nice end twist with a top of the hat. A dark, feel good story, I guess. Enjoyable story of one upmanship.

Seeds by Carol Berg: this felt like the first true blackguard of Blackguards. The character is cheeky, depraved, addicted, running scared, but like with most good grimdark, there is a ray of hope. Excellent atmosphere around this character driven story. Some comments have me grinning like I do at Lawrence's Prince Jalan. When a drug addicted, on the run Mage finds himself in the slammer, he must help a man escape in order to save his hand from the chopping block.

Nancy's Justice by Kenny Soward: enjoyably told with Jancy, a kind of thief / warrior with a sense of justice to guide her actions. After hearing a bard's tale, she heads off to save a 300 year old child from its kidnapper. Soward writes in a fun-to-read manner that dragged me in by the scruff of the neck and held me there, but I felt the story lacked a solid ending. Don't leave me hanging like that dammit!!!

Professional Integrity by Michael J Sullivan: two thieves are asked to kidnap a girl (by that same girl) to impress a man who doesn't know she exists. Why? Because her dad locks her in a box when that man visits. There are some really enjoyable twists and turns that changes this from a thief story to more of a sleuth story. Great fun, though the ending with the banter of how they worked it out lacks the punch I usually prefer in what I personally read. I'll take a punt and say this is Shawn Speakman's favourite story. 

Troll Trouble by Richard Lee Byers: a soldier trying to start a new life outside of killing has an old friend drop by - an old friend in a pickle. I found the initial conversation between the protagonist and his mate a bit awkward when it was supposed to be comfortable. Interesting troll - human setup. Different to what I've read before. Bit too much of s happy convenient ending for my tastes. This story was one of my least favourites.

A Better Man by Paul S Kemp: Nix and Egil, in need of adventure, accept a job to protect a wizard while he makes a deal. The details are scarce, and their contact hesitant to reveal anything further, but they're bored as hell and in need of mischief. The banter between these two is the best part of the opening, though the rest provides a slow start. Kind of has that feeling of when I used to read Asterix and Obelisk as a kid, only more sneaky, conniving, bloody, and intriguing. Awesome story twist when you get to it. Didn't see that one coming. Ending is different, more somber. From an editing perspective, there's a few typos in this one. 

The First Kill by Django Wexler: Andreas takes his assassin apprentice Beth out to meet the famous Gray Rose, a highly feared and respected spy/intelligence officer/killer. There's a nice relationship between the protagonist and Beth, and the ending has an enjoyable twist to finish you off. Great little story.

Manhunt by Mark Smylie: the night falls, the City Watch hide in fear of their own lives, gangs drag people from their homes and murder them unchecked. One man walks out into the darkness, dreams of grandeur beckoning him to keep the High King's peace. The story is a good bit of roguish fun, with multiple POVs letting you get a whirlwind story. Sometimes, the author dumps a bit of backstory on you that feels a bit too much for a short and could have been cut back or left out. Excellent use of light and darkness in combat. The desperation and confusion of not knowing where the next blade is coming from is really well written. Pretty somber, somewhat drawn out ending after the climax.

Better to Live Than to Die by John Gwynne: a young member of a group of outlaws gets involved in a leadership battle. This is a short brutal piece that sent me straight to the bookstore to add Gwynne's 'Malice' to my ever growing to read stack. The characters and setting are gripping and the battle scenes had my arse firmly attached to the edge of my seat. One of my favourites. 

The Secret by Mark Lawrence: a story about Brother Sim, one of the most intriguing secondary characters in the Broken Empire series. Love the little nod to George Orwell - some brothers are more equal than others. Knowing brother Sim, I picked the ending pretty early on, but it made this tale no less enjoyable, written in Lawrence's always brilliant use of prose. A stand out.

Friendship by Laura Resnick: Najdan the assassin is ordered to kill one of the brutal Outlookers, an order with dire consequences. Bit of a slow opening with a sizeable info dump to get you into the authors world and understanding the politics that make the assassination a dangerous one.

The Long Kiss by Clay Sanger: Raddox, a murderer and rapist has fled the war he started to spend the gold his dead mercenary company no longer need. It's a fun and raunchy short story with a vicious little ending that's fairly telegraphed but that last scene is a favourite of mine. 

The White Rose Thief by Shawn Speakman: Rosenwyn gets dragged back into a life she thought left behind. A nice slower paced piece where we discover a little more about the protagonist in each scene. Definitely building towards something. His character and writing reminds me a little of Rothfuss' Kvothe in The Name of the Wind with the focus on music - the aim being losing yourself in the beauty of it.

A Length of Cherrywood by Peter Orullian: we're really walking in the shadows with this one. Really dark. A highwayman who kidnaps women and sells them for their wombs deals with his horrible past in the only way he's been taught how. Pretty hard topic to put into a story, I imagine. It has a nice moment in the end where we see a little light through the storm clouds of this tale. For getting me to understand someone who could so easily be seen as evil, I tip my glass to you, mr. Orullian.

A Taste of Agony by Tim Maquitz: straight into the action. Gritty, highly detailed. The detail sometimes slows it for me at times, the flip side being that you're right inside Tim's imagination -- exactly where you want to be. As you can always expect from Tim; it's fast, bloody, and action packed.

What Gods Demand by James A. Moore: an assassin tracks a land manager on behalf of the war gods. Interesting premise with a really enjoyable combat scene. It's brutal and merciless. A nice addition to the anthology. More of a vignette as it's pretty much the assassin owning a couple of hapless bastards with her badassery.

Take You Home by David Dalglish: a young woman on her way through Veldaren when she is kidnapped. She's shocked when her knight in shining armour isn't so shiny. Similar to What Gods Demand in that it feels like more of a vignette from a novel, with the antagonist coming out of nowhere at the end which doesn't deliver the level of punch I would have liked.

Seeking the Shadow by Joeseph R. Lallo: a man enters a tavern (I swear this occurrence was a mandatory element of submitting to this anthology!) and confronts two drunks. He's searching for the Red Shadow. As his story unravels and more is revealed the story gets more intriguing. I'd say it's required to have read his other two books this story sits between to fully grasp what the author is saying.

Sun and Steel by Jon Sprunk: a company of mercenaries is betrayed by their employer. Bit of a predictable and unfulfilling story after the initial defeat. It's written in a way that's easy to read, but this one wasn't really for my tastes.

The Betyar and the Magus by SR Cambridge: really somber, nostalgic opening as our protagonist, a highwayman in post war Hungary, remembers his fallen mentor. Hungry, cold, he sees a carriage approach. The first in months. This is a heart warming story more than a grim one. Yes the setting's rough and dark, but the ending is quite uplifting. 

A Kingdom and a Horse by Snorri Kristjansson: I've been waiting for this one. Plenty of good talk about him out there in the Grimdark community. A group of young Vikings go for a pilliage. Short, sharp, fun, enjoyable as a rollicking tale that reminded me of the a Asterix and Obelix comics I read in primary school. Didn't have the darkness I was hoping for but an enjoyable Viking tale nonetheless. I did, however like that Snorri did this without resorting to blood and guts. Made it different.

Thieves at the Gate by James Enge: a take on the story of Odysseus. I liked the opening, hoping this would be a story to remind me of Gemmell's Troy series. However, the ending lost me. It was different, but not for me. 

His Kikuta Hands by Lian Hearn: a lot of telling in the opening. A young assassin in a feudal Japanese setting finds his organisation set upon by a perceived weak new ruler of the Three Islands. Much like the last story, this one didn't grab me. The telling of so many stories out side the now meant that this short piece spent too much time telling you about the past, future, and political systems, and not enough about what the protagonist was going through.

The Lord Collector by Anthony Ryan: a grim introduction to our protagonist, Jehrid, leader of and Excise Guard unit (think a kind of investigative military) to kick this story off. Jehrid is tasked by his Tower Lord with working with Brother Sollis of the Sixth Order and two others with finding a passenger from a month-old shipwreck. But Jehrid has another agenda: vengeance. A story told with standard Anthony Ryan style. Enjoyable, violent, somber at times and galloping like a horse at others.

Scream by Anton Strout: an art forgery investigator meets with a new client and embarks on a mission to steal a stolen painting. This was fun, and a really engaging ending to the anthology print edition.

If this doesn't tickle your interest, you're dead inside. Seriously. Go find yourself a spot in the extras cast of The Walking Dead or something.

Get that card out and go buy yourself a copy of Blackguards. Hands down the best anthology I've read to date.

The Moral Ambiguity of Geralt of Rivia

The Moral Ambiguity of Geralt of Rivia and the Grimdark World of the Witcher Series

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By Joseph Price
Artwork sourced fromCD Projekt Red: 
ttp://thewitcher.com/witcher3/

 

In the genre of grimdark fiction, heroes are not always the most savoury of people. They are not always the valiant knight on a crusade to rid the world of evil or magicians seeking to educate the world and find magic artefacts of ages past. Grimdark heroes come in a multitude of different flavours, and even the shadiest guard or common pickpocket can rise to greatness through dark and inhumane deeds that lead them to power and greatness. Within the world of The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski, one Witcher stands out above the rest: Geralt of Rivia (Gwynbleidd, The White Wolf, The Butcher of Blaviken, Geralt Roger Eric du Haute-Bellegarde) is that Witcher, a man mutated to be able to fight all of the creatures that prowl in the night. Geralt is held as a martyr to some, a legend to others, and to still others, he is a creature who haunts the night. When asked if Geralt is a hero, most people would not outright say that he is; however, in this world even a villain can be a hero in their own eyes. But what does Geralt think of himself one might ask? Geralt is a Witcher who sees himself as neutral in the affairs of others. However, he is not opposed to helping in others’ affairs for the right price. Within the world that Geralt lives he must walk a morally grey road in order to survive; otherwise, he would be food for the worms, leaving the defenceless for the day when the White Frost will destroy all. But what makes this Witcher so special?

Geralt of Rivia, throughout the Witcher short stories and novels, makes many considerably evil decisions. In ‘The Lesser Evil’, for example, Geralt is forced to make a decision where no matter the outcome people will die. While passing through the Blaviken, looking for his reward for killing a Kikimori, he brings the carcass to the alderman, who points him towards Master Irion, the city’s resident sorcerer. Upon meeting him, he learns that Master Irion is actually Stregobor, a Kovirian sorcerer, who tells Geralt that he is required to kill the girl Renfi, who is after the sorcerer. At first Geralt refuses, stating that he does not know Renfi and that he could not justify killing her. Later that same evening Renfi and crew of ruffians make their way into Blaviken and get a room and a private drinking quarters in one of the city’s taverns. Geralt introduces himself and learns Renfi’s side of the story—how she was raped and magically turned into stone before finally meeting her band of fighters and making her way toward revenge. After their conversation Geralt leaves to stay at the alderman’s and is visited by Renfi late in the night. She asks Geralt to kill Stregobor for her, and he declines. In the morning Renfi is gone, and Geralt now knows what she intends to do. Renfi plans to coax Stregobor out of his tower by killing everyone who goes to the town market that day. Geralt is then forced to make a decision that is the ‘Lesser Evil’. He kills Renfi and all of her band, saving the lives of everyone in Blaviken, but also gaining himself the title Butcher of Blaviken, and souring his reputation.

In the novels, Geralt is forced to make many similarly no-win decisions, most of which involve his ward, Ciri, who is basically his adopted daughter. She is a child of destiny and the last known source of the Elder Blood, the Blood of Elves. In the first Witcher novel, Blood of Elves, Geralt has to make choices on how to keep Ciri safe from those who would do her harm. Most heroes in this situation would decide to keep her in a completely safe location; however, Geralt has other ideas. He brings Ciri to Kaer Morhen, the stronghold of the Witchers. Geralt and the other three Witchers at Kaer Morhen begin teaching her about different monsters, instructing her in swordsmanship, and having her run the dangerous trails leading up to the stronghold that young Witchers have named ‘The Trail’. Geralt sends word to request the help of a sorceress friend, Triss Merigold, to aid in Ciri’s teaching. Triss helps Ciri in several ways in which Geralt, being a man in a stronghold generally only ever used by Witchers who are all men, would not have been able to understand. Soon Triss makes the decision that she is not the best suited sorceress for the job and mentions that Geralt should have chosen Yennefer, scolding Geralt for letting his petty differences with Yennefer get the better of his judgement. She says Ciri needs to go out and meet people around her own age. Geralt already has a plan for this, to send her to the temple of Melitele to learn under Mother Nenneke, where he knows Ciri will be safe and more likely to learn the necessary social skills. But instead he first brings her, a child of twelve, to a place where she could have died countless times but would learn to protect herself, showing the lose-lose dilemmas that can confront the grimdark hero even when they do not directly involve killing.

Within the world of The Witcher games there are many characters that are constantly portrayed as evil, such as the emperor of Nilfgaard Emhyr var Emreis. Emhyr is a power-driven monarch who seeks to make all of The Continent his own and find his only child, the child of destiny he granted as reward to the man who enabled him to marry his late wife. That child is Ciri, whom he wishes to become his successor, and that man is Geralt. Emhyr begins multiple wars in order to achieve these goals. What makes him a complex character is that he destroys Cintra, the country of which Ciri is the princess and her maternal grandmother the Queen. Therefore, Emhyr is the reason for his mother-in-law’s death and the complete disappearance of Ciri. He makes many decisions like these—decisions that seem to both aid and hinder the achievement of his goals—even after countless years of war, while still searching for his daughter and hiring Geralt to find her during the events of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. Nevertheless, he does not consider himself a villain because he does what he thinks will succeed.

Similarly, in the Witcher games, the player is thrust into the shoes of Geralt, controlling his actions and making decisions for him in countless situations, almost of all of which have multiple consequences no matter the outcome. One series of quests in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt shows the hardship of living in The Continent far better than any other. These quests start with ‘The Ladies of the Woods’ and continue until the end of ‘Family Matters’ in which Geralt, on the trail of Ciri, is led to Crookback Bog. Once there he is tasked by The Ladies to kill an evil spirit resting under a tree on the Whispering Hillock. When Geralt reaches the tree, the spirit asks him to set it free. The spirit tells Geralt how to do so and that, if it is not freed, the children that The Ladies keep in their bog will die. With that the player is given three options: help the tree spirit and save the children, trick the tree spirit by bringing the objects it requires but not piercing the heart of the tree with his sword to rescue the spirit, or straight out killing the spirit. No matter which course the player takes either the children of the bog die or the spirit is freed and the people in the town near the Whisper Hillock die. Soon after, the player is tasked with finding the family of the Baron of Crow’s Perch, whose daughter became a religious fanatic and whose wife made a deal with The Ladies, giving one year of her service to the crones in exchange for terminating a pregnancy. Once the Baron goes to rescue his wife from the bog, Geralt’s actions determine her fate. If the tree was killed, the Baron’s wife will live but still serve her year with the crones, from which the player, as Geralt, can rescue her. However if the player saves the children by freeing the spirit, the Baron’s wife will die, but not before at least saying her goodbyes, which leads the Baron to hang himself out of grief. These are the types of decisions that characterize Geralt’s life in a grimdark world of the Witcher games.

In a world so dark and gritty Geralt is forced to walk a line of moral ambiguity to survive. He is a prime example of a grimdark hero, constantly forced to choose between lesser evils in favour of the greater good. His actions can often be viewed as evil, but every action is something he must do in order to live another day and continue to fight in the ever-changing world around him.

Sound like your sort of deal? Support GdM by purchasing The Last Wish: Introducing The Witcher[image error] through our affiliate link.

 

Second Apocalypse Art by Jason Deem

You may know Jason Deem from the brilliant issue #4 and #5 Grimdark Magazine cover art. Others that know him online will recognize the name from some of the premier pieces of R. Scott Bakker fan art out there.

Being the great bloke that Jason is, he agreed to answer a few questions for our blog and release a little teaser about an upcoming project he’s involved in that every R. Scott Bakker fan will be deadest frothing over.

 

[GdM] What made you want to get into R. Scott Bakker fan art?

[JD] “The Darkness That Comes Before.”

What a cool title, I thought to myself. I discovered, quite by chance, this book in a WH Smith’s bookstore in ’04, I think. I devoured it – not literally, but if someone told me I could gain a deeper insight into Bakker’s world by doing so, I might have. There was no keeping me from The Warrior-Prophet and The Thousandfold Thought. Best. Ending. Ever. And worst, because the story was far from over, and like the qirri from later books, I was addicted.

After living with Scott’s saga in my head for nearly a decade, and prompted by some discussions on the Second Apocalypse forum (thanks to Madness, Wilshire, Francis Buck and Quinthane, among others), I finally tried my (unpracticed) hand at interpreting some of Bakker’s characters. That was in 2013, I think, and I guess I just kept on going.

 

[GdM] What are some of your favorite pieces that you’ve done so far?

[JD] Here are a few of my favorites.

Fallen

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For this piece, rather than a specific scene from the books, I wanted to represent the disturbing, insidious nature of the Consult. These are Shaeonanra, Lord of the Consult, and Aurang, a Prince of the Inchoroi.

 

Kings

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The Nonmen are tragic on a scale unequaled in literature, I think. Equally, the Inchoroi are devoid of any redeeming quality. The early clashes between the two are nothing short of epic and terrifying. Here, Cu’jara-Cinmoi faces off against Sil, the Inchoroi King After the Fall.

 

Ancient Glory

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Maybe the most tragic figure of a tragic race, my take on Cu’jara-Cinmoi, greatest of the Nonman Kings.

 

[GdM] What are we, and the R. Scott Bakker fans, going to see from you next?

[JD] Well, a little over a year ago, I received an email from Bryan Bakker, Scott’s brother. Bryan had agreed to produce a video trailer for Scott’s books… and they wanted to use my art as the primary imagery for it. After I regained my faculties, I was like, ‘Hell, yes!’ Since then, I’ve been cleaning up older art and creating new pieces for the trailer. I’m honored to be a part of the project, and in my own way, help spread the word about Scott’s books. Beyond the trailer, who can say? Scott has more books on the way, and I’ll be here making fan art. In the meantime, Bryan suggested I share one of the pieces I recently finished for the trailer. Fans of the series should recognize the scene (I hope!).

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You can check out more of Jason’s work over on his Spiral Horizon Art website. He’s also been awesome enough to donate a cover for the GdM Battle-Off competition that will create a highly sought after part of the 1st and 2nd prize packs.

Attention submitting authors!

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Ever received a rejection from an ezine and just wanted to scream, "JUST WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE LITERARY GODS DO YOU PEOPLE WANT!!!" I certainly have. It's hard to know what these often faceless and nameless first readers want.

After a year and a half of reading through hundreds -- probably thousands -- of submissions, I decided to jump on the opportunity to interview our first and second readers on behalf of submitting authors to help you all get a look inside their heads.

Here's what they had to say.

1. What kind of grimdark story are you enjoying reading the most at the moment (genre, style, etc)?

[Kristy] Honestly, I love reading anything that fully displays the author's batshit crazy imagination at the moment! Things that I could never have imagined in a million years, yet is made totally believable through the author's writing skill! It's fantasy, it can be anything, everything and occasionally nothing.. It's inherent in it's genre title! If I want to pick the author's shiny imagination like a bower bird after reading their book, you know I'm a happy camper.. Hawkins, Hurley, Dickinson..

[Joey] Right at this moment, none.

That said, I recently finished reading Batman: Knightfall (2012 collected edition). I also finished watching Gundam SEED and Gundam 00 and am currently re-watching DS9. None of these are strictly grimdark but they are somewhat grim with interesting plots, strong characters and far from being morally simplistic.

[Cheresse] I always love a good grimdark fantasy. Particularly something with a distinctive setting.

[Kennet] I really like future-dystopias, Cyberpunk and post-apocalypse.

[Jewel] I am now setting my teeth into the fabulous 'Prince of Thorns'. Late, but better than never. I love how dark Jorg is, yet he still evokes emotion from you.  

 

2. What kind of grimdark story have you seen too much of?

[Kristy] Formulaic fantasy that has simply had the grim turned up to 11. It's had it's turn, time to get creative!

[Joey] In terms of what's out there, I am not well-read enough to say.

As for submissions to GdM, I find too many stories with too much text but lacks a plot.3.Who was the last submitter who made an impact on you?

[Cheresse] Ironically, fantasy. A lot of fantasy is in the D&D gone dark range, and it's hard to top what we've already seen.

[Kennet]Barbarian hordes.

[Jewel] I guess I would say if something has been seen once before, don't try to repeat it. Grimdark stories are unique and should stay that way. 

 

3. Who was the last submitter who made an impact on you?

[Kristy] First They Came For The Pigs.. It was in issue #5!

[Cheresse] T.R. Napper with, 'A Shout is a Prayer.'

[Kennet] It was a serial; a space setting with a wrecked ship and madness and cannibalism. 

[Jewel] 'Ashes' by Tara Calaby stuck in my mind. I enjoyed how it was beautifully dark and different. Happily ever after in grimdark? I think not.

 

4. What's the one thing 80% of submitters could work on to improve their work before they send it in?

[Kristy]Making sure it's Grimdark, is a really great start! I hardly ever see an actual gd story.. Try to tell an original story; it's hard to look past what's popular, but unless you can do Abercrombie better than Abercrombie, it just won't hit it! Pacing in shorts can be brutal, but if it's 95% introduction, 1% twist then 4% post twist, my attention is going to dwindle somewhere around the 50's! And, make sure you get somebody else to read it before submitting! I see lots of continuity, flow, plot hole etc. errors that the author probably doesn't notice because of their brains ability to subjectively skip the blanks, but probably would be picked up by an objective eye. It could make the difference between a rejection or moving it up to 2nd reads..

[Joey] I had an old-school English teacher who, in regards to short story writing, said: "Keep it tight and make every word count!"

That was good advice and one of the few things I did learn at school. Pacing is important in any form of storytelling but it is particularly so in short stories. Unlike a novella or a novel, there is little room for filler which usually stagnates the plot. I have read submissions where the first half is the setup. (Even if one is aiming for a two-act structure, that is excessive. I've tried that myself and it doesn't work.)

The 4000-word limit at GdM is a limit and not a target. If the text doesn't contribute to moving the plot and/or signposting and/or characterization, then cut it. It's natural to put down all the background exposition to introduce the story and set the tone. We all do it and it is, to some degree, necessary but subsequent editing should discard what is unnecessary.

Not that I'm a stellar writer myself but, in hindsight, my relatively better pieces are the ones where I do slaughter the text. Amongst editors I work with, a common recommendation is to try reducing the word count by up to 30%. From experience, the piece improves and it is good practice.

[Cheresse] I have two things: 1, make sure it's a grimdark story before submitting, and 2. make sure that the prose flows nicely and it's as error-free as possible. If I'm on the fence about sending something to the hold folder, I often look at how difficult it would be to iron out the flaws. If the story's too clunky, I won't send it on.

[Kennet] Make sure your story has conflict to drive it, internal, external, both. Show us the conflict.

[Jewel] It feels like a lot the stories we receive aren't grimdark. I would like to see more ambiguous characters with a moral dilemma. For me, the characters are what make grimdark so interesting.

 

5. What do you hope to see drop into the GdM queue next?

[Kristy] Pretty much the above! I really want to see some more emotionally evocative pieces too.. Any emotion will do! I honestly think gd can span the whole gamut, it doesn't have to be dead behind the eyes all the time...

[Joey] In terms of genre and style, I am not picky. I like sci-fi but that doesn't mean I will reject a fantasy piece. It's not any one particular aspect I look for but an effective balance of all the elements.

[Cheresse]Something funny! I almost never see darkly humorous pieces.

[Kennet] See #1.

[Jewel] I'd love to see something dark and gritty that surprises me and leaves me breathless. I want to hate to love the protagonist and for the descriptions seared into my mind. Most of all I want to be excited to pass the story onto the second reader and, hopefully, see it end up in the magazine.

 

Hopefully that gives you a bit of an inside edge. Head on over to our submissions page and get submitting!