Adrian Collins's Blog, page 26

Review: Creature Commandos

Creature Commandos by James Gunn is the first new property of the new DC Cinematic Universe after the dissolution of the previous one for a variety of reasons. What does this have to do with grimdark? Well, James Gunn is a man who can do both silly as well as incredibly dark if you’re familiar with his previous work. The Suicide Squad was a story of antiheroes, black comedy, moral ambiguity, and an utterly corrupt US government among its gleefully madcap use of DC continuity. DC used to be famous for its moral paragons and colorful worlds, but it has been the darker of the two comic companies for decades now. So, yes, I’m going to say Creature Commandos is something worth watching for grimdark fans. It is the “fun” sort of grimdark where tragedy is hilarious.

The premise for this HBO Max exclusive cartoon is simple: after the events of Peacemaker, Amanda Waller has been banned as using superpowered criminals as cannon fodder for government black ops and wet work. Undeterred by ethics or the spirit of the law, she decides that instead of using criminals, she will use “nonhumans” that do not technically have rights according to US law. These include the Bride (Indira Varma), Doctor Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk), the Weasel (John Gunn), GI Robot (John Gunn again), and fish-woman Nina Mazursky (Zoe Chao). They will be led by Rick Flagg Senior (Frank Grillo), who is basically there to substitute for his dead son.

This is basically the latest instalment of the Suicide Squad collection along with the original, The Suicide Squad, and Peacemaker, Suicide Squad: Assault on Arkham, Suicide Squad Isekai, and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Frankly, it is a huge push for a niche corner of the DC universe. The world seems front loaded with morally ambiguous antiheroes forced to work for the government versus, well, Superman and even Batman projects by comparison. Let alone other heroes like Green Lantern, Flash, or Wonder Woman. Still, I have to say that this is probably the best of the Suicide Squad adaptations despite being a cast from an entirely different comic.

Creature Commandos functions a bit like Lost of all things. Each episode gets into the backstory of one of the commandos and how they got to be in the position they did. All of them are compelling with most of the “monsters” having reasons for what they did before society drove them to the brink. The most compelling of them was Doctor Phosphorous’ story despite the fact he has the most “traditional” villain origin of them all. I also felt GI Robot and Weasel’s stories were ones that reflected how society is generally scummy and incapable of accommodating anyone different. I don’t exaggerate when I say that the tales are easily the darkest and most messed up thing I’ve seen outside of The Penguin in years.

The actual story is needlessly complicated with the Creature Commandos being sent to an Eastern block monarchy called Pokolistan to stop Wonder Woman villain Circe from overthrowing its government with an army of online incels. No, seriously. To be honest, the “metaplot” that binds all the personal stories together doesn’t hang together in the slightest and ends as abruptly as it began. Still, I loved Princess Ilana (Maria Bakalova) and wish we’d gotten more of her. We also get glimpses of Batman and other elements of how the “new” DCU functions, which seme a lot denser and wackier than is typical for cinematic superhero universes.

James Gunn clearly had complete freedom for Creature Commandos and his fingerprints are all over the work from beginning to end. Everything from its over-the-top action, wacky humor, personal tragedies, extensive jukebox soundtrack, and oddball misfits trying to save the day. This is not for kids and there’s a couple of sex scenes (mostly off screen but clear as to what’s happened). The violence is also incredibly graphic as can be done when you’re animating something. Creature Commandos feels a bit like Heavy Metal from the Eighties crossed with Guardians of the Galaxy. I recommend it for people who love more obscure portions of the DCU and what the Suicide Squad should be like.

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REVIEW: Symbiote by Michael Nayak

Debut novel Symbiote, from Michael Nayak, blends The Thing with 28 Days Later and a dash of Alien. It begins as the sun sets over Antarctica and the over-winter crew at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station settle in for a long six months of night. However, upon intercepting two Chinese vehicles on a 700 mile traverse across the continent to the South Pole, our crew discover a grisly scene with far-reaching ramifications; the first murder in Antarctica. In this near-future, America and China are at a stalemate in the third World War. Besides obvious political tensions, what could force the Chinese scientists to attempt such a perilous journey across one of the deadliest terrains on the planet?

“The dream slides off in shiny fragments, littering the floor of his mind like a broken wine glass not yet swept up.”

Right from the start, Symbiote is laden with imagery that grabs your attention and immerses you in the heavy mood that blankets the South Pole station. Their season has quickly turned into something altogether unexpected – with a brutalised body frozen in the back of one of the Chinese trucks, and three Chinese scientists to keep isolated – stress begins to push on the cracks in the station. Our pivotal character, Rajan, is the only member of military personnel on the continent and is thrust into a precarious position of authority with the arrival of the murdered man.

Unbeknownst to the ‘polie’ crew, the dead man was infected with an extremophile microbe. Unseen and only active when temperatures drop significantly, it has already spread to Rajan and his crew before it is discovered. Through multiple POVs, we see the influence these microbes exert on the isolated humans. At first, feeling so hot they’re stripping off thermal layers in the middle of a -100F winter storm and galloping half naked through the snow. It makes them stronger, faster and more resilient. It also makes them angrier. This is where the book is reminiscent of 28 Days Later, invoking memories of the Rage virus that decimated a fictional Great Britain.

Nayak ratchets up the action quickly in Symbiote as one death follows another; one infected crew member becomes three, and the remaining crew struggle to grapple with what is happening as their world deteriorates around them. After the station doctor, Wei, identifies the microbes and theorises their susceptibility to variations in heat, the crew think they’ve got a handle on the infection. That is until the despair-fuelled recklessness of one crew member triggers a mutation in the microbes, transforming them into symbiotic organisms.

“Dread comes to roost in his heart, a malicious bird returning to an old nest.”

Rajan and his closest allies begin a fight for survival against not only the microbes but their former colleagues and the environment itself. Throughout Symbiote, the imaginative and beautifully descriptive language Nayak employs ensures you feel the tension and the desperation as the death toll rises and the temperature drops. The prose layers on a thick moodiness that pervades throughout the book. The main story is interspersed with extracts from supplementary sources that hint at a much wider catastrophe and at the end of the Author’s Note, Nayak mentions his intention to continue telling Rajan et al’s story, which is a welcome treat for those craving more. Angry Robot confirms a second novel can be expected early 2026. This is a fast-paced horror set at the extremes of the human condition, that will grab you by the throat and drag you along for the ride.

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REVIEW: Tomorrow, The Killing by Daniel Polansky

Last Updated on January 15, 2025

In Tomorrow, the Killing by Daniel Polansky (Low Town 2) an old general from the Warden’s days in The Great War asks the Warden to find his daughter in Low Town and return her to him. Naturally, things do not go as planned and the Warden’s conniving and manipulating of everyone around him kicks off a massive fight for power between rival gangs, veterans, the terrifying Black House, the local police, and quickly spreads to those he loves. After absolutely loving The Straight Razor Cure it took me way too long to get back into this trilogy, but I am so glad to have read this absolute grimdark masterpiece.

I love reading Polansky’s Warden, As he plies his trade in the shadows, applying pressure here, violence there, and pulling the strings of the city around him. His relationships with those he loves are hard to read at times, as the self-destructive nature that makes him so vicious in the streets, also makes him an incredibly hard person to love–and in the end, I always think there is a firm sliver of him that wants to be seen by those he thinks of as family. To be seen for what he sacrifices for them, and that, while he does so in his own rather horrible fashion, he does value them. A key example of this in Tomorrow, The Killing is the boy in his charge, Wren. Wren has the Art, but can’t control it yet, and is at risk of burning his brain out if he continues to self-teach and experiment. He needs schooling, but the Warden doesn’t want him in a Crown military school so that he doesn’t end up on the front lines somewhere, so he must look elsewhere, beyond the depths of Low Town and into somewhere more lawless. He always makes time to try to direct Wren on the right path to help him survive, but in doing so continuously damages the boy with a tough and oftentimes abusive affection, the results of which I’m assuming I’ll get to discover in book three, She Who Waits.

The relationship between the Warden and his best mate and fellow survivor of the Great War, Adolphus, is key to this story. Adolphus, the hulking hero of the front who held the line against the Dren single handed, is, in the eyes of the Warden, looking to relive his glory days as part of the Veterans’ Association protest marches. Adolphus more just seems like a soul who needs a home among those who know what he went through—but he’s also a soul who looks at what his best mate has become and doesn’t like it, while having to stomach it to fund the tavern he and his wife run. Throw into the mix a pretty epic secret twist between the two that we discover deep into the story, and there is so much to enjoy unpicking between the two.

Told in two timelines, we get the grit and desperation of the city and the people in it, accompanied with the sheer horror of the war fifteen years prior. “The war” being WW1 if rifles were replaced with pikes and short swords while artillery shells and brutal magic salvoes rearranged the landscape around the trenches and turned men into puffs of red. This helps us with the “why” of the characters in the current timeline, providing key insights into the Warden, who otherwise might get lost a bit as a character amongst the snark and cynicism.

Overarchingly, Tomorrow, The Killing isn’t just a gang story, it’s another brilliant study into what war does to the survivors and what happens when you throw a quarter million of those survivors back into society. Some band together in shared horror and an inability to properly integrate back into society. Others don’t make it very long. Some try to get on with life and find something to bring meaning back into their lives, while others find purpose in crime. Very few, become creatures like the Warden.

Daniel Polansky is one of my favourite living authors. Between the Low Town series, novellas The Builders and The Seventh Perfection, novels such as Tomorrow’s Children, Those Above and Those Below, and his short works (such as Sticks and Stones in GdM#32 and King for a Day in The King Must Fall) I just can’t get enough. His voice is merciless, cynical, funny, unrelenting, and full of dark heart. His writing is crisp and impeccable. His stories cannot be put down.

Swimming in grit, snark, violence, and featuring one of the best character relationships I’ve had the pleasure of reading amongst all of it, Tomorrow The Killing by Daniel Polansky is utterly fucking un-put-downable. I’m immediately off to read the final book in the Low Town trilogy, She Who Waits.

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REVIEW: The Crimson Road by A.G. Slatter

One of the great things about reviewing is that sometimes you come across an author who clicks for you. This happened to me when a fellow Grimdark Magazine reviewer suggested I pick up A.G. Slatter’s The Briar Book of the Dead to review. I loved it. That was my gateway into A.G. Slatter’s dark fantasy folklore Sourdough Universe. So, when I heard that another standalone tale set in this world was due out, I grabbed it as quickly as possible.

That tale is The Crimson Road, and like all the Sourdough stories, you can read it independently of the others. However, if you have read other tales such as The Path of Thorns, All the Murmuring Bones, and (of course) The Briar Book of the Dead, you will recognise some of the minor characters and be aware of some of the magical lore of the world already. The Crimson Road is a deliciously dark gothic fantasy and an excellent read for fans of Slatter’s writing. It’s got vampires, ancient witches, magic, and assassins, which is always a recipe for a good time.

The Crimson Road is the story of Violet Zennor. Violet has had a peculiar upbringing. At her father’s behest, she is trained as a fighter in underground rings, taught to be ruthless and violent. Taught not to hesitate. Taught to kill. No wonder she fantasises about smothering him with a pillow in the opening chapter of The Crimson Road. After her father’s death, Violet thinks she is finally free of his controlling ways and can finally live her life away from his madness. Her new found freedom lasts a matter of days before assassins attempt to slaughter her in her home, and she realises that if she is ever to be safe she needs to carry out her father’s plan. She must enter the Darklands, the heart of Leech Lord territory, and do what must be done.

I greatly enjoy stories with a blend of creepy and cute. It’s a delicate balance, and authors like A.G. Slatter, T. Kingfisher and Alix. E. Harrow do it exceptionally well. The Crimson Road is another fine example of this style. There are a lot of dark and horrible things that happen in this novel. Violet’s childhood (she is in her twenties as the events of The Crimson Road occur) was more than emotionally neglectful; it was physically and psychologically abusive. There are references to rape, maternal mortality, and stillbirth important parts of the narrative. There’s violence aplenty. But for all of these dark goings on in The Crimson Road, there is a heart to the novel. Slatter balances the dark with some light elements. There is a smidgen of romance, a found family, and a lot of magical lore. Slatter weaves traditional folktale references (like brownies, red caps, trolls, etc.) into the Sourdough world, so when we read them in stories like The Crimson Road, it feels a lot like we’ve picked up a classic tale for the first time, just with Slatter’s twist on it.

I had a wonderful time reading The Crimson Road and flew through the story in a few days. It has complex and enjoyable characters and takes place in a richly detailed world. Thank you very much to A.G. Slatter and the team at Titan Books for sending Grimdark Magazine an ARC so we can provide this review. The Crimson Road releases in February 2025, and Titan will also be re-releasing Slatter’s collection of Sourdough Universe short stories, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, in 2026.

The Crimson Road by A.G. Slatter

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REVIEW: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a not-so-old entry into the video game library of Konami games, coming out in 2015. Which is still ten years ago and worthy of giving a retrospective toward. It is mostly famous for being the supposed end of the Metal Gear franchise, the source of Konami’s break with Hideo Kojima, and several questionable decisions related to the franchise’s end like the replacing of David Hayter with Kiefer Sutherland as well as overly sexualized depiction of its female companion, Quiet.

The game takes place in the early 1980s with the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the Angola-Zaire conflict. It was preceded by the ultra-short game, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, which is included in Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience. For the sake of this review, I’m going to count that as part of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain since the games really should have been one continuous story except for corporate shenanigans.

The premise for The Phantom Pain is the complete destruction of everything that Naked Snake AKA Big Boss achieved in Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker. The mercenary army that Snake assembled is slaughtered, Mother Base headquarters is destroyed, his child soldier companion Chico is killed, and beautiful (but traitorous) friend Paz is used to blow up the helicopter that Snake is riding on. Naked Snake is left in a nine-year coma and wakes up with a piece of shrapnel stuck in his head among other permanent injuries. He doesn’t get long to recover, though, because the hospital he’s staying in is attacked by the black ops forces of XOF (Fox spelled backward).

What follows is a lengthy story of the rechristened “Venom Snake” seeking his former companions to rebuild his mercenary company, re-christened Diamond Dogs, to get revenge on the rogue intelligence agency of Cipher (theoretically XOF’s bosses). They must disable and kidnap soldiers from Soviet and mercenary forces before convincing them to join their cause. They must also carry out numerous missions to build up their resources that take them up against the real-life atrocities of this time period. They also must deal with XOF’s access to genetically enhanced zombie-like super soldiers, Metal Gear bipedal tanks, and a weapon they claim will surpass nuclear weapons (though they have plenty of those too).

What makes The Phantom Pain interesting to grimdark fans is that it is a much more serious take on the sometimes-goofy Metal Gear universe than previous entries. Multiple characters from the previous games are killed, often in horrific ways, while others are left maimed or a shadow of their former selves. Master Miller, who was Snake’s goofy supporter, is now a broken man with missing limbs that wants nothing more than to kill as many Cipher supporters as possible. The subject of child soldiers, imperialism, and pandemic response all come up in this story. There’s some goofy moments like in previous Metal Gear Solid entries but, for the most part, The Phantom Pain plays it all very straight.

The first half of the game is extremely well done with the slow build-up to face Skull Face and his super-weapon well-done from beginning to end. The story is a bit minimalist, and we lack the usual collection of mini bosses but the Man on Fire, Floating Boy, and Quiet are all memorable characters. Skull Face seems, in part, inspired by Freddy Kruger and is a memorable antagonist despite his short time on-screen. The gameplay is also fantastic and makes every mission worth repeating until you get that coveted “S-Ranking.” If they’d ended the game after its final mission, “Sahelanthropus”, I would have given it a 10 out of 10.

Unfortunately, the second half of the game sucks and feels like it was where Konami cut off Kojima’s funding. Most of the second half consists of NG+ style missions with extra requirements while only a handful meaningfully advance the story. There are some good moments like the revelations regarding Huey Emmerich and the end to Quiet’s story but, infamously, Eli’s (Liquid Snake’s) story is just left unfinished with his final mission never completed. It’s a massive let down after so much build-up. Another flaw is the fact that the game’s story is primarily in cassette recordings that require a lot of sitting around and listening to.

The game is gorgeous and there’s an endless amount of fun to be had sneaking up behind people, tranquilizing them, and then sending them up through balloons to be brainwashed into your followers. The game is hard but not overly so with Snake able to absorb more punishment than any human being other than the Master Chief but not so much that three people shooting him won’t put him down. I love D-Dog, D-Horse, and Quiet with each bringing something new when you bring them along missions. I also think the game has a fantastic soundtrack with “She Blinded Me With Science”, “Maneater”, “The Final Countdown”, and other classic tunes.

However, I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up the fact that the game’s biggest twist is a controversial one. Without getting into it, a lot of fans felt that it renders most of the game’s character development for its lead pointless. For me, I didn’t mind it but The Phantom Pain is also a story about how legends are lies. Given that misinformation and propaganda are running themes in the franchise, I give it a pass, but others are still furious about it a decade later.

Do I recommend the game? Yes. But once you complete the main campaign, I suggest doing the remaining story missions and nothing else. The Phantom Pain is a game that clearly exceeded its ambitions.

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REVIEW: Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone #4 by Jim Zub (W) and Jonas Scharf (A)

Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone #4 opens with Conan succumbing to the injuries incurred during his last encounter with the Beast of the Black Stone. Kirowan calls upon his occult knowledge, making a significant personal sacrifice to resurrect Conan and simultaneously allow Brissa to remain in the physical realm. Only half of the Heroes of Man survive, yet the goal remains the same: to track down and destroy the source of the Black Stone’s power.

As promised, this final issue in the miniseries culminates in the titular Battle of the Black Stone. This scene is artist Jonas Scharf’s time to shine, and he makes full use of it. Dismemberments and decapitations abound. And while by now Brissa has been illustrated by multiple artists, in this reviewer’s opinion Scharf’s rendering appeals the most. She appears alluring but tough and physically robust, a believable Pictish scout rather than a pinup model who has picked up a spear. The momentum and violence of the massive Beast of the Black Stone also effectively comes across on the page. Seeing John Kirowan shooting magic mind bolts like Doctor Strange is a little eyebrow-raising, however.

While the artwork is first-rate, taken as a whole, Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone feels far from essential. The miniseries was overstuffed with characters. Even with the prologue shorts in The Savage Sword of Conan #4, readers were not allowed much time with the cast, and as a result their individual appeal too often fails to shine through and their deaths fail to have much narrative weight. Either halving the number of heroes appearing in this miniseries or taking another year to feature these characters singly in The Savage Sword of Conan would have given the crossover event a much firmer foundation.

On the more positive side, after a year of teasing across the first twelve issues of the flagship title, the identity of the cosmic entity ultimately responsible for the Black Stone is a fun revelation certain to be appreciated by fans of the original Marvel Comics Conan the Barbarian. Writer Jim Zub could not have made a better choice. For those readers lacking that familiarity, the accompanying Jeffrey Shanks essay provides some entertaining and enlightening context regarding said entity.

While the missed opportunities and underutilized characters in Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone are regrettable, the climactic battle is genuinely exciting. The event still feels like a brazenly commercially motivated effort to (re)launch a Robert E. Howard comic universe, but—with the apparently obligatory Conan-facilitated crossover event out of the way—perhaps the characters incompletely showcased in this four-issue miniseries will live up to their full potential in their own solo titles.

Postscript: Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring was announced in late December, to release in March. Writer/artist Patch Zircher previously handled Kane’s appearances in Titan Comics’ The Savage Sword of Conan issues #1-4.

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Exclusive excerpt of Scott Lynch’s Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent

Scott Lynch is back with Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent, a relatively short story told in two parts across Grimdark Magazine #40 and #41. We go back to when Locke is thirteen-and-a-bit, and just starting to make his way out into the world of danger we love to read about in The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, and The Republic of Thieves.

With the second half of Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent due for release on the 15th of January, if you haven’t yet checked out the first half, then let us give you a little taste of the story to get you right into it.

Locke Lamora and the Bottled SerpentScott Lynch

Chapter 1

There was a place in the alley where the odorous slops and shards of daily proceedings were to be set, which was Locke Lamora’s job, until the mess could be hauled up the crooked stairs and around the block to the public dross-yard, which was also Locke Lamora’s job. This was never done before the sun was long-buried and the Falselight glass bled of illumination, so every awkward step chanced a painful adventure. Here in the Dregs, light was not so cheap that folk would gladly waste it on the eyeballs of passing strangers. One might catch a break from boat-lanterns on the canal, or from cloudless moonlight, but more often one tripped on stone or trash or bodies. Muttering curses at his own feet in the middle of the night was also Locke Lamora’s job.

How refreshing, then, to find Cyril and Vilius out back wrestling with a corpse while the thin band of sky over the alley was still hazy blue rather than starry black.

“Can’t just throw him in the canal now, too many eyes,” said Cyril.

“Can’t hardly leave the bastard here neither.”

“Cover him up!”

“Think of the smell. Think of the rats! They’re always here for the trash, they won’t miss a proper feast.”

“Bury him, then, under all these slops and scraps and timbers. Cover him tight.” Cyril deigned to notice Locke with a gesture. “Let shit-boy here sort it once the lights go down.”

“I can’t shift something that big in the dark!” Locke kept his voice low and glanced around; here in the Dregs it was one chance in ten thousand anyone might give a shit of the moral variety but getting involved in corpse-business was to put oneself at the mercy of any witnesses and whatever leverage they might desire. “What’d you two do to him?”

“Nothing by our hands,” grunted Cyril. “Found him here. Ain’t even bleeding, just dead somehow.”

“Well, after dark, we can drag him to a canal and give him the heave.” Locke set the pile of trash he was carrying down. “Or roll him into someone else’s alley. Or the dross-yard. Or bundle him over to Solana Casta’s roof garden in the Narrows. A lot of problems go into the soil in those pots, and she doesn’t charge. Or we could string him up, let the blood out, then get a good hatchet and some sacks—”

“Creeping blue fuck, boy,” said Vilius. “How many corpses you worked a disposal on?”

“Hard to remember.” Locke used the back of a forearm to wipe away the sweat dripping into his eyes. “I dunno, ten?”

That was when the corpse came back to life, swearing and flailing. Vilius and Cyril leapt back.

“You know, when it comes to corpse disposal there is a crucial first step,” said Locke.

 

Chapter 2.

Six months since the Orphan’s Moon. If anointment as a secret initiate of the Crooked Warden had yielded Locke Lamora any benefits, they were as yet being kept from him. He was thirteen and a half, emphasis on the half. Half a man, half at ease, half-voiced. Nor was he alone. Calo and Galdo were in the midst of lingering uncomfortable changes, and Jean’s voice had started to warble.

“My broken instruments, all slack-strung and jangling,” said Father Chains. “Your mechanisms are misordered, your bodily humours are jesting at your expense. It happens to everyone but here it seems to be happening all at once.”

Even Sabetha, whose customary poise often seemed like a sarcastic commentary on the chaos around her, had been swept up in the collective fit of awkwardness. Just now she was afflicted with cramps. The boys had together made a sympathetic embassy to her cotside, where Calo squeaked out such a rusty, discordant note that she had burst into giggles and honked at him like a goose. Soon they all broke down in laughter and honking, the Sanza brothers sounding as if their geese had been force-fed wet gravel. It was a rare moment of complete levity and Chains let them have it, before he quietly swept into the room shadowed by his plans for their summer.

“Placements,” said Chains. “It’s more of that tedious, invaluable, life-saving education you’re always whining about, but you won’t be false-facing this time. You’ll be out on loan. Seconded to some of the gangs we’re on better terms with. No complicated scheming, no secrets. Just do as you’re told, watch carefully, learn everything you can. Ripen in wisdom for a few months and perhaps your throats, bones, and bowels will be less at war with you when I gather you back into the fold.”

“So we are to return intellectually and physically perfected,” croaked Galdo.

“No doubt. And bring back five hundred pounds of cut rubies on the back of a unicorn while you’re at it,” said Chains. “Though of you all… the one I might be asking to perform the greatest impossibility is Locke.”

Read the rest of Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent

Read the first half of Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent (and other stories by Mark Lawrence, Anna Smith Spark, Christopher Buehlman, and plenty more) in Grimdark Magazine Issue #40 while you wait for part 2 to be released on the 15th of January! You can pre-order that issue of Grimdark Magazine Issue #41 below.

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REVIEW: Of Blood and Fire by Ryan Cahill

Last Updated on January 5, 2025

Of Blood and Fire from Ryan Cahill is the debut novel that marked the start of The Bound and the Broken series, which is proving to be a break-out favourite in the dark fantasy community. At its start, it feels like classic epic fantasy with a modern interpretation. Though this begins in familiar territory – with three young men, as close as brothers, on the eve of their manhood trial, which inevitably goes awry when the village bully gets involved – it is very much worth the read. As the story expands, many grimdark staples begin to creep in, revealing an unforgiving and dangerous world full, unsurprisingly, Of Blood and Fire.

The three lads in question are ones you can care about and root for. Calen, Dann and Rist are our freshly-proven young men, out celebrating their successful Proving when they befriend the mysterious Erik, travelling incognito with his brother, Dahlen, and father, Aeson. After coming to the aid of their new friends in a swords-drawn fight with a patrol of Empire soldiers, our main boys are landed in the shit. It gets much worse before getting better. Unable to return home now they are wanted by the Empire, they have little choice but to tag along with Aeson, Erik and Dahlen who carry a secret that will change the world: a dragon egg.

Along their journey these three make discoveries about themselves and the world around them. They witness a baby dragon hatching – the first in over 400 years – they meet elves, giants, dwarves and are chased across the continent by a Fade hellbent on destroying the aforementioned baby dragon.

Elsewhere, we also follow Calen’s older sister Ella, who left their village with her beau to start a new life together and as such is blissfully unaware of the tragedies befalling her family. Ella’s life is shattered on the road by another imperial patrol – but only after they hear Ella’s full name – and her only true companion is Faenir, a larger-than-average wolfpine raised by Ella and family from a pup.

Without giving too much more away there are high stakes, there is  tragic, violent loss,  and there is wonder and awe in this book. At times there are some words used that feel a bit jarring or out of place where a simpler descriptor could have sufficed but I think Cahill shows a lot of promise. Of Blood and Fire is the beginning of what will be a five-book series with additional novellas along the way. It is dark, gritty and keeps the feel of an epic fantasy close at hand. Since its release, Cahill has gained a dedicated following for The Bound and the Broken and, while he started out self-publishing, he has now signed a deal with The Broken Binding Press for the whole series.

Books two and three, Of Darkness and Light and Of War and Ruin, are already available and book four (Of Empires and Dust) is due this Spring – so you won’t have to wait long to continue the story. There are also three novellas and a short story released to keep you sated if you fall in love with this dark fantasy series. This includes The Fall, which you can get for free by signing up to Cahill’s newsletter at his website, and is a brutal account set 400 years prior to the events in Of Blood and Fire and sees dragons clashing in the skies and the world being rent asunder by blood magic.

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REVIEW: The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed

The Fortunate Fall is an extraordinary cyberpunk debut from Cameron Reed, back in print from Tor Essentials after decades. First published in 1996, The Fortunate Fall a worthy entry into the cyberpunk canon, one that stands a real possibility of drawing new readers and enlivening the genre, which has been in real danger of calcifying into an aesthetic defanged of political critique, as Lincoln Michel has noted in his essay “The Future in the Flesh: Why Cyberpunk Can’t Forget the Body.” 

Hopefully this reissue will introduce The Fortunate Fall to a new generation of readers. Those lucky few who read and loved it the first time around, meanwhile, can re-encounter the novel through Jo Walton’s excellent introduction, which contextualizes The Fortunate Fall at the time of its publication while emphasizing the ways in which it remains ground-breaking today.   

In a way, The Fortunate Fall is about the experience of re-reading, revisiting a narrative only to have it reinterpreted in a new light. Our narrator, Maya Andreyeva, is a “camera,” a reporter who broadcasts not only the news but memories and sensations to a live audience through assorted implants and networked interfaces. (I have to imagine that if Reed were writing today, she might have reached for a word like ‘streamer’ to describe Maya’s relationship to her audience.) With the help of a “screener,” a highly intimate kind of tech support—Maya’s screener, Keishi Mirabara, offers a beautiful complication of the cyberpunk genre’s smartmouth hacker archetype—Maya’s viewers not only see what she sees, they feel and think as she feels. 

The Fortunate Fall takes the fascinating tack, therefore, of having Maya address an audience that already knows how the story ends. The novel opens, “The whale, the traitor; the note she left me and the run-in with the Post police; and how I felt about her and what she turned out to be—all this you know.”  Decoupled from the immediacy of sensation, readers will know less of her story than they did, watching it the first time. By knowing less, they—and we, who know nothing at all—may understand more. 

This immersive approach does have its drawbacks. The first hundred pages, in which Maya and Keishi attempt to report on a recent holocaust, nearly forgotten or purposefully covered up, can feel like an exercise in learning how to read The Fortunate Fall’s specific vocabulary of Net-rune and moistdisk, Weavers and Postcops. Cyberpunk in general can suffer from proper noun disease, and Reed’s novel is no exception. 

Her prose, however, is stunning, and her characters compelling enough to make the effort worthwhile.  Maya and Keishi’s forced intimacy—not physical, but psychic—slowly gives way to a tentative, prickly, genuine connection. By the middle third, the novel comes fully into its own, serving up a taut political thriller. But then Reed raises stakes once again. How The Fortunate Fall ends—the whale, the traitor, “how I felt about her and what she turned out to be—has been known from the beginning. But in the process of unravelling what each of those pieces mean, and how they fit together, The Fortunate Fall becomes a heart-breaking meditation on love, betrayal, and the cost of knowledge. 

The fortunate fall of the title alludes to the Christian concept of felix culpa. This theodicy—a solution to the problem of evil—tries to find redemption in the fall of Adam. Without it, philosophers of the fortunate fall suggest, humanity could never have experienced the joy of redemption. In the end, The Fortunate Fall is similarly concerned with the moment of betrayal. Reed asks: what is love worth? Not, what would you do for love, but a question both harder to face and harder to answer. And so I think it’s appropriate that the novel ends on the moment of asking, a dangling question that some readers may find unsatisfying. 

What does love excuse? What crimes, what trespasses? What actions, taken in the name of a greater good? Are love, and a righteous cause, enough to undo the shock of betrayal, the sting of hurt? Maya has her answers. Yours may differ, or maybe not. 

The Fortunate Fall ends, not with an escape into the transhuman ether, but with a return to the body: a punch in the gut. 

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REVIEW: Stay in the Light by A.M. Shine

From the depths of The Burren crawls Stay in The Light – A.M Shine’s terrifying sequel to The Watchers. Escaping the forest was just the beginning. After destroying Professor Kilmartin’s life’s work at the university as instructed, Mina is urged to leave her home in the city. Now holed up in a seaside cottage on the west coast of Ireland, Mina is left to deal with her fears alone. Feverishly waiting to shoot down any mention of the Watchers on the internet, Mina has made it her mission to keep humanity safe. What’s new in this second instalment is the introduction of a very unexpected character – Professor Kilmartin’s son, Sean, who desperately wishes to continue his father’s research and legacy; much to the dismay of poor Mina.

Diving into this sequel, there was no denying that the world and its characters would expand drastically, widening the reach of fear and horror into society. Like the first book, Stay in the Light is also set in Ireland, promising a similar chilling atmosphere. It also addresses much of the lore that we missed in the first book, which I’m sure is pleasant news for fans, myself included! One note to make is the slight change in Shine’s prose, which leans a little more into its Gothic charm. While I found it unexpected at first, Shine brilliantly marries the novel’s themes of deep rooted paranoia and gloom with his beautiful and piercing narrative.

Stay in The Light exposes a very vulnerable Mina, one who has so much to fear after the months spent in those dreaded woods. Her fears are dismissed as delusions by the people around her, isolating her character even further. The novel definitely adopts the mood of its predecessor, though with one very interesting addition – Sean Kilmartin. Standing on an excavation site above The Burren, Sean is plagued by an unrequited love interest, Ashleigh. I felt Ashleigh was an excellent addition, although I am usually loath to romance. It added an extra layer of bitterness to the cold, building up the tension further, because what better circumstances to be falling in love in than on an excavation site? Sean’s desperate need for recognition and egotistical air makes him an easy character to dislike. And, coupled with the fact that his very goal in life is to unearth Mina’s worst living nightmare, I was hooked from the very beginning.

The thing I found most interesting about Stay in The Light is that although the story world had changed, Shine maintained the depth of introspection for each character, something that is particularly challenging with multiple POVs. With so many sinister details and facts to reveal about the Watchers (which I found absolutely tantalising), readers still manage to dip in and out of each persona. I will admit though, that Shine’s slowburn style still carries through into the second book – not that there’s anything wrong with that. He makes up for it with punchy action scenes and even more claustrophobic encounters in the dark. Shine surprises us with new scenarios that we can add to our list of places we do not want to get murdered in.

Stay in The Light captures desperation and helplessness masterfully, leaking terror and infecting readers with a pervading sense of paranoia that comes with knowing the truth. If you loved the first instalment, Stay in The Light is a must read. I desperately await the third book, and I will be sleeping with all my lights turned on.

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