Adrian Collins's Blog, page 34

INTERVIEW: J. Michael Straczynski

Last Updated on October 14, 2024

Harlan Ellison’s influence on today’s storytelling is profound and far-reaching. Ellison, a figure known for his sometimes controversial and combative but always interesting nature, was a staunch advocate of the idea that stories have the potential to be transformative or ‘dangerous.’ His self-perception, as described in King’s 1981 Danse Macabre, is revealing: ‘My work is foursquare for chaos. I spend my life personally and my work professionally, keeping the soup boiling. Gadfly is what they call you when you are no longer dangerous; I much prefer troublemaker, malcontent, desperado. I see myself as a combination of Zorro and Jiminy Cricket. My stories go out from here and raise hell. From time to time some denigrator or critic with umbrage will say of my work, ‘He only wrote that to shock.’ I smile and nod. Precisely.’

However, Ellison’s influence on today’s literature, specifically grimdark, is significant but often overlooked. Grimdark, in its purest form, is not about violence; it is about characters pushing the boundaries of the situations they are in; it is saying ‘fuck you ‘ to authority and burning bridges behind them because they want to feel warm. Characters have the autonomy to step outside the “hero’s journey” and live in the gray area of humanity. Because honestly, the world is not black and white; it is shades of dangerous gray. As Ellison defined it, this ‘dangerous’ essence reflects his belief in the power of stories. It is a testament to his enduring influence, and this connection made me so excited to interview J. Michael Straczynski.

Straczynski is a great writer, producer, and the creator of the beloved science fiction television series Babylon 5, Jeremiah, and Sense8. All of these shows pushed the boundaries of the human condition. He is also the executor of the estate of Harlan Ellison and took on the monumental task of bringing forth The Last Dangerous Visions, an anthology that has been 50 years in the making. It is the capstone of what some would say is the most influential science fiction anthology collection ever written starting with Dangerous Visions (1967), Again, Dangerous Visions (1972), and now, finally, The Last Dangerous Visions (2024), a long-awaited and highly anticipated culmination of Ellison’s influence on speculative literature. I am honored that he took some time in his busy schedule to chat with me about this monumental task, Ellison’s Legacy, and the future.

[GdM] In the intro to “The Last Dangerous Visions,” you share a compelling story of discovering Ellison’s work and braving dangerous streets and busses to reach used bookstores to find more of it. Could you elaborate on that journey? I know that when finding a new author that speaks to me, I also become obsessed with their work and reading everything they have written.

[JMS] Like every other genre fan, I went through phases with different writers. At a very early age I went through an Edgar Allan Poe stage, where I would read everything he wrote and memorize as much of it as I could, ditto Bradbury, Lovecraft and Asimov. In time each of those obsessions burned themselves out to be replaced by something else. But that never happened with Harlan’s work, I kept coming back to it over and over, and it never felt old, with new aspects presenting themselves that I hadn’t noticed before. This was how I realized that reading Harlan Ellison wasn’t a phase, it was a paradigm shift.

[GdM] Can you explain your perspective, and, by extension, Ellison’s, on what makes a story “dangerous” in speculative fiction?

[JMS] The distinction you draw is correct, in terms of how this relates to speculative or science fiction. There has been a lot of hard-edged, socially challenging writing in other forms and genres. Alan Ginsberg’s Howl, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the raw emotionalism of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind, JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye…all of them pushed the frontiers of writing, and many of them got banned or ended up in court on obscenity charges. But they kept on writing, because it was necessary to take a stand for literary freedom.

The SF genre was (and to a degree still is) fairly conservative and, seeing what happened to the writers noted above, tended to steer clear of controversy. This persisted up until the time of Harlan’s first Dangerous Visions anthology and the slow birth of New Wave Science Fiction (with writers like Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. Leguin, Samuel R. Delany and others poking at the walls of conservatism) which DV codified from individual efforts into a movement.

What makes a story dangerous in speculative fiction? Anyone who is willing to risk controversy, to speak to the flaws of society, to sexual and political issues even though they might get in trouble as a result. Harlan once wrote that “the chief commodity a writer has to sell is their courage,” and for me, that’s what a dangerous vision is all about: a story that requires a modicum of courage to tell it.

[GdM] What does science fiction mean to you as an author and reader, and what part do you think it plays in society and cultural zeitgeist?

[JMS] At its best, science fiction points to a spot on the horizon that illuminates the human condition and where we may be going, and asks, “Are you really sure you want to continue going in this direction?” It illuminates what Faulkner called “the human heart in conflict with itself.” SF, by definition, is rooted in the effect of change and technology on human beings. (By this logic, Singing in the Rain is a science fiction movie.) We are in a time of rapid technological and social change, and science fiction can be one of the ways we can interrogate and better grasp the changes going on around us. But institutionalized SF, which retreated from the New Wave a while back, is still dragging its feet, leaving the work to be done by upcoming writers willing to talk about racism, misogyny, brutality…but also the great potential of the human heart to overcome adversity and effect positive change.

[GdM] In what ways do you think “Dangerous Visions” influenced and shaped contemporary speculative fiction? Are genres like Grimdark a byproduct of this?

[JMS] Dangerous Visions helped get the ball rolling, but very few of the upcoming writers tackling Grimdark, or Afro-Futurism, or writers in the LGBTQIA community telling their own stories, were/are aware of the first DV anthology. Which is understandable because the book has been out of the public eye for many years, in some cases before they were even born. When I co-created/wrote/produced Sense8 for Netflix, I heard from so many in the queer community who were moved and happy to have a story that dealt respectfully with their lives, interests and concerns. For some creators who emerged from that fandom, Sense8 may have had a more current influence, but now that the DV books are returning to the outside world, that may change.

[GdM] Do you believe we are in a cultural spot where authors can “let it all hang out,” or are we at a place where it is safer for authors to keep their heads down?

[JMS] I don’t think we will ever reach the point where nobody objects to anything. There will always be the outraged, the inflamed, the censorious. If anything, given the massive emphasis on banning books of alleged controversy, especially those that deal in any way with the simple existence of people in the queer community, the stakes and risks have gotten higher. But that makes it even more essential to keep pushing for freedom of speech.

In a strange way, we’ve come full circle to where the first Dangerous Visions was published. In the 50s and 60s books were routinely banned, burned, and censored, and its authors pilloried and persecute. Now, in many ways, after a honeymoon period where this subsided for a bit, we have come full circle, and the banners and burners are flexing their muscles once again. Playing and self-censoring cedes the battlefield to the forces of oppression.

It’s worth noting that when people say “keep your head down” that’s pretty much the exact position you have to assume when you’re about to be guillotined. I’d rather go down fighting.

[GdM] Do short-form science fiction act upon readers differently versus long-form novels? Can novels have the same form of dangerous impact?

 [JMS] The difference in length and duration of short stories, in or out of science fiction, means they will invariably have less of an impact on society. They are more the sprint than the marathon, more the rabbit-punch than the boxing match. A short story sets out to make its point, or express a perspective or character moment, then gets the hell off the stage as quickly as possible. Which is why short stories tend to be either all first-acts, or all-third acts. (With each having a bit of the middle in there somewhere.) They begin at the beginning, and end leaving the reader to wonder what will happen next/where will this go, or they begin after the inciting incident has already taken place, and we see the consequences of that event. Consequently, they lack the arc of a novel that can go at length from beginning to end. In a short story, it’s easy to fall into (or be perceived as falling into) the trap of accepted cliché because things have to be shorthanded, but in a novel there’s room to not only explore the character-based implications of the story, but also to insert nuance into social issues or plot developments that allow the author to better avoid the threat of cliché. Novels also get more press, more reviews, and are more readily incorporated into university curricula, which is where they gain traction in society.

[GdM] Bringing “The Last Dangerous Visions” to fruition has been a labor of love and I would assume work and occasional frustration for you. Can you briefly talk about getting “The Last Dangerous Visions” to life with all its moving pieces?

[JMS] It was a significant undertaking to be sure. Knowing that Harlan would’ve wanted this to be finished, so it would not be an albatross hung around his neck by detractors all the way into the afterlife, I felt honor bound to get it done. The process began by reading all of the remaining stories that were still part of the project, parsing out those that had aged out or were too closely tied to their period to the point where they were quaint rather than dangerous, and finding the stories that were still as timely, relevant and important now as when first written. Then all the contracts had to be reissued, tracking down estates and surviving authors to get fresh money into their hands, making a deal with Tim Kirk for his amazing artwork, and then soliciting a small handful of stories from current writers to fill out the bill.

What I found of greatest interest is just how much we are still wrestling today with the same issues that were present when the first batch of LDV stories were written: racism, sexism, fear of technology, fear of the outsider, and the heavy hand of political repression. We’re still having the same arguments. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could finally resolve those things once and for all, and move on to new arguments about new subjects?

[GdM] Collating and publishing a historical juggernaut like “The Last Dangerous Visions” is monumental. What were your first thoughts when starting this project journey?

[JMS] The sure and certain knowledge that I wasn’t going to get much sleep for the next three years.

[GdM] In what ways do you hope the new crop of stories will challenge and engage today’s readers?

[JMS] That may be a little beyond my remit. It’s nearly impossible to predict what will or won’t land in the social zeitgeist. My first hope is that they entertain, because if they fail in that part, the rest doesn’t matter. There are certainly some stories in here, like the piece by Dan Simmons, and the final story by James SA Corey, that will generate a lot of conversation, and I think that’s always a good thing. Change starts by talking about things that weren’t considered polite to discuss previously.

[GdM] Can you share your thoughts on the original artistic contributions to “Dangerous Visions,” particularly the illustrations by Leo and Diane Dillon and their use of woodblock print style and the new contributions of illustrator Tim Kirk to “The Last Dangerous Visions?”

[JMS] Harlan was as much a good art director as he was an editor and writer. One look at his house confirms that. Words go into our brains by one pathway, requiring some degree of analytic thinking; art goes straight in through the emotions and is more immediately reactive. Putting them together increases the impact of the story. The work of the Dillons created a consistent vibe that unified the stories in tone. Tim Kirk’s illustrations do the same, but in much greater detail, and more depth in terms of the expressions of the characters and the worlds in which the stories take place. But both are exemplary.

[GdM] Do you have a favorite story within the “The Last Dangerous Visions” collection, and why?

[JMS] I love all the children equally.

[GdM] You use the term Shibboleth repeatedly in your essay, “Ellison Exogenisis.” Can you expound a bit on what that means to you in the context of Harlan Ellison?

[JMS] A shibboleth is a word, term or sentence used to identify one person or a subgroup from another, like a password or call sign. Harlan identified himself as a writer more than any other part of his personality. It wasn’t just what he did, it’s who he was, on an almost cellular level. And for his fans, myself among them, to know Harlan was to be cool. It put you in a different crowd or subgroup. Shibboleth.

[GdM] Now that the collection is coming out, what exciting projects are coming up for you?

[JMS] We’re in the process of negotiating a follow-up to Harlan Ellisons Greatest Hits, as well as taking steps toward a deluxe edition of that book for down the road, Next up the Harlan and Susan Ellison Foundation will be looking to open Harlan’s house and his papers to academics and fans of his work through personal visits, and to secure Historical and Cultural Landmark status for the house.

As for me…after setting so much of my own work aside to get these four books either republished (the first and second DV volumes) or debuted for the first time (Greatest Hits and TLDV) so that they all come out within a six-month period…an insane amount of work…I’m circling back to my own work for the first time in a very, very long while, and working on my third novel, which I hope to finish by the Spring.

Somewhere in there, I intend to take a nap, and I’m willing to fight anyone who tries to interfere with that goal.

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REVIEW: City in the Dragon’s Eye by Jordan Loyal Short

I rarely read traditionally published fantasy anymore. Bluntly, too much of it is just the same two or three stories retold with different names. Perhaps I’m being unfair and generalizing. I almost certainly am. However, I do think that indie fantasy is the place where I most commonly find “new” stories that surprise me. Unfortunately, quality is a crapshoot, and only rarely do you find something that is up there with gems like First Law Trilogy or A Song of Ice and Fire. Jordan Loyal Short, like Richard Nell and Rob J. Hayes, is one of those rare indie authors that I put up there.

City in the Dragon’s Eye by Jordan Loyal Short is a steampunk fantasy adventure that takes place in a stylized Enlightenment-Era society loosely based on Germany during the 1700s with elements of the later Weimar Republic. A massive war has just been fought between the Continent’s great powers and Viktor barely survives a final battle with his nation’s enemies when he channels dragon power to save everyone. Unfortunately, the price of this is a tumor-like scale that will gradually consume him before turning him into a dragon. It is a fate he views as worse than death.

The second protagonist is Izola, who is a poor put-upon associate professor at the University of Dannbridge, where she is unfairly denied tenure due to the fact her ex-husband has managed to find her way onto the review board. Determined to find a way to prove her thesis about dragons correct, she ends up working with a man who has apparently lived over a hundred and seventy years. Finally, the main cast is rounded out by Devil, a snobbish nobleman who has coasted on his family name right up until the point he finds himself in debt to a crime lord while disowned by his father.

City in the Dragon’s Eye is an excellent story of intrigue, politics, and the aftermath of war. It is a definite treat for grimdark fans as the protagonists are neither hero or villains. None of them want to be involved in the larger struggles of the world but just find themselves caught up in it. It is also a place where the “good” thing is extremely questionable. I really enjoyed Jordan Loyal Short’s Skald’s Black Verse and while this is considerably lighter, City in the Dragon’s Eye is far more relatable too.

Jordan Loyal Short has a fantastic gift for prose and characterization. With his writing, you are transported to the Germanic fantasy setting he’s created and are immediately able to smell and taste your surroundings. It is a dark and unpleasant sort of place but not so much that it’s unbelievable. Even though death knights and magic exist, the true evil is the small-minded and bigoted people who live around our antiheroes. City in the Dragon’s Eye feels grounded and all the better for it. It’s steampunk in that there’s guns and machinery starting to take root in civilization but not so much that it dominates society or even warfare.

In conclusion, if you’re looking for an indie author who has a fantastic mastery of writing real literature then you could do worse than giving this book a try. There’s a lot being said in City in the Dragon’s Eye but it is done subtly rather than overtly. The characters are well-written, their actions believable, and the oppressive sense of doom is because readers know where this is all probably headed.

Read City in the Dragon’s Eye by Jordan Loyal Short

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INTERVIEW: Shauna Lawless

Shauna Lawless is an Irish author, whose debut fantasy series the Gael Song has had us here at Grimdark Magazine hooked from the very beginning. The series is a perfect blend of Irish history, mythology, and magic. Now, with the release of the third instalment The Land of the Living and the Dead, we have had the chance to sit and chat with Shauna about the series and what is up next for her.

[GdM] Shauna thank you so much for interviewing with us to celebrate the release of The Land of the Living and the Dead. I am a huge fan of the Gael Song series, and this latest novel is a top contender for my favourite read of the year.

[SL] Oh, thank you so much!! That is very kind of you to say so.

[GdM] Just in case people reading this are new to the series, how would you pitch the Gael Song to new readers?

[SL] It is a historical fantasy set in 10th and 11th century Ireland. The fantastical elements are derived from Irish mythology and based on two tribes—the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorians. In our mythologies they had a variety of magical gifts, from witches, warriors, harpists, cupbearers and fire magic.

The Gael Song weaves these characters’ stories with the historical figures who were alive in this period. Expect lots of battles and political scheming.

[GdM] And for those who have waited with bated breath for The Land of the Living and the Dead what should they expect from this book?

[SL] A major battle that happens in the 11th century is the Battle of Clontarf. So, in the historical context, the novel builds up to this. However, the mythological tribes both still have their struggles and as they become more and more involved in the mortal realm, things become very chaotic. I don’t really want to stay too much, because delving into these struggles will give spoilers for the earlier books.

[GdM] One of the things that I really love about this series is that it is told mostly through the female lens. Fódla and Gormflaith are very different women on opposing sides of a long-standing conflict, but (to my mind) both ultimately have the same goal of keeping their families safe. How did you craft their characters and why did you choose them as the main voices in the series?

[SL] For me Fódla and Gormflaith represent the two sides of being a parent. Do you want a better world for all children, or are you more focused on finding a way for your own child to thrive? Fódla wants Ireland to be a safe place for everyone, not just her family members. Gormflaith believes the world is corrupt and seeks to manipulate events to her own advantage. I feel that everyone has these conflicts at times. The world is dangerous, how are you supposed to move forward when everything seems so difficult? That was definitely a theme I wanted to explore.

[GdM] In The Land of the Living and the Dead there are more narrative perspectives than in the earlier novels. What led you to make this change?

[SL] I think the world just opened up as I continued to write. Fódla and Gormflaith still have the most chapters, but I found it interesting to sprinkle in a few chapters from other perspectives. Sometimes to showcase another viewpoint on an event that was about to happen. Sometimes to give a secondary character greater emotional depth. I always loved writing these chapters and finding my way into writing a new voice.

[GdM] I describe the Gael Song series as a historical fantasy, and the world feels so solid and real that as a reader I become lost in it. What was your approach to researching the series from a historical perspective?

[SL] I did a lot of research! From reading non-fiction to reading the historical texts that still survive today. I think the days of writing in a historical setting and making it up or doing only a little bit of research is over. Readers expect more these days. And I did everything I could to make 10th/11th century Ireland feel real. From researching indigenous trees and animals to what the houses were made of, to clothing and the legal system. I’m also lucky in that I live in Ireland—so I was able to visit historical sites too. That always helps a lot.

[GdM] Are there any details from your research that you wish you had been able to include?

[SL] To be fair, I do think I found ways to include most of it, even if it was only vaguely referenced. One thing that I might be able to use in a later novel is my research on indigenous Irish plants and which ones are poisonous!

[GdM] What was it about this era of Irish history that appealed to you?

[SL] I’ve always been fascinated by this era. Firstly, it was because I didn’t think we were taught about it correctly in school. Brian Boru is often depicted as a saintly character—a man who prayed and drove the Vikings out of Ireland. On doing more reading, I discovered this wasn’t true at all. He was a warrior, not a saint. And he didn’t drive the Vikings out of Ireland at all, in fact the port of Dublin continued to thrive. The war between the Irish and the Viking settlers wasn’t religious either as the settlers had converted to Christianity by this point. And so, I guess, when you realise something is wrong, you want to correct it and discover the truth of what really happened and what I found was just incredible.

[GdM] Would you recommend any further reading (fiction or non-fiction) to those of us interested in learning more about it?

[SL] Yes—here are four books that might be of interest.

Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf by Seán Duffy Viking Pirates and Christian Princes by Benjamin Hudson Irish Kings and High-Kings by Francis John Byrne Wars of the Irish Kings by David Willis McCullough

[GdM] There are two novellas in the Gael Song series, Dreams of Fire and Dreams of Sorrow, how does your creative approach differ when you are writing shorter fiction?

[SL] I think writing a novella is very freeing. As it’s shorter, you don’t need to have huge arcs. You can just focus on one single story/character. I usually know what story I want to write/the character I want to focus on, but I don’t really outline. I let the story pour out on the page and then see what works or doesn’t work when I reach the editing phase.

[GdM] I have been lucky enough to visit Dublin before but would love to explore more of Ireland. Is there a place that you think we could visit today and feel like we had jumped through the pages into one of your stories?

[SL] Oh, that’s interesting!! One of my favourite places is Newgrange. It’s a 5,200-year-old passage tomb that was built in the stone age and is older than both Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Egypt. It is full of pagan symbolism, and you can go inside it if you take part in a tour. It’s honestly amazing and a different experience to visiting castles.

[GdM] I read that one of your childhood writing inspirations was The Animals of Farthing Wood—which I also loved as child, but having now watched the series again with my own children it is actually a pretty bleak world! What are other surprising sources of inspiration for you?

[SL] Yes, The Animals of Farthing Wood is so bleak. There is a book in that series called The Fox Cub Bold and it really made me cry!

I remember when I was very young The Little Mermaid was released by Disney, and I loved it. A few months later, my mother saw a cartoon VHS in a store and bought it for me, but she did not realise that it wasn’t the Disney movie, but rather an animated version of the real story. It was so sad and tragic that I cried and cried when I watched it. However, the next day, I watched it again. I think I was secretly fascinated by tragedy. Of course, The Little Mermaid is about being and outsider and not fitting in—and I think both Fódla and Gormflaith feel that at times.

[GdM] I love learning more about how writer’s approach their work. What does a typical writing day look like for you?

[SL] I drop the kids off to school at 9am. I come home, eat breakfast, answer emails… and then I start to write. I always find putting on my playlists (usually made up of soundtrack music) really helps me to focus and I aim to reach 2,000 words a day if I’m drafting. If I’m editing, I try to read through a certain number of chapters per week (however this varies depending on the length of those chapters). Once we get to midday, I stop for a bit of lunch, then get going again. School is over at 2.30—so once I get the kids home, that’s really it for the day.

When I first started writing, I was only able to grab an hour every other evening, so I feel very lucky to be writing full time now. I certainly get a lot more done in a day.

The decision to write full-time was a big one. I realized that I couldn’t finish my contract if I was still working. I did get an advance for this series, and I decided to save it and live off it for as long as I could—and tentatively took a two-year career break. Those two years are nearly over and I’m now hoping to keep writing full-time beyond this period.

[GdM] After finishing The Land of the Living and the Dead I personally am really hoping for more in the Gael Song world. What is next for you professionally, more in this world or are you dipping your toe into other fantastical adventures?

[SL] There is a third novella to come out in March 25. I’m very excited about this one. The first novella, Dreams of Fire focused on the mythology of the Gael Song. This third novella focuses on the historical fiction side of the story.

The series is also continuing with an ‘era 2’ trilogy. I think this series has a fantastic ending, but there is one thread still left hanging that a new generation of characters will have to deal with. So yes—the short answer is—there is lots more to come.

[GdM] Shauna, thank you so much for sitting down and chatting with me. I have tried to avoid questions which might spoil part of The Land of the Living and the Dead but I just wanted to say that the novel had a perfect ending. It left me bereft in the best sort of way! I can’t wait for whatever you have next.

[SL] Oh, thanks for saying this. I was so worried about the ending and it landing with readers!!

Read the Land of the Living and the Dead by Shauna Lawless

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REVIEW: The Rings of Power Season 2

The Rings of Power S1 had a bit of a mixed reception. Yes, that probably is quite the understatement. With over a billion dollars spent acquiring the rights to material based on Tolkien’s incredible world and the first since Peter Jackson’s universally loved Lord of the Rings trilogy, there were high expectations and for some, the first season didn’t quite live up to those lofty expectations. The Rings of Power S2 had the daunting task of continuing the tale of Sauron’s mission to create the titular rings and the efforts of Galadriel and Elrond to stop him with many fans unsure if the Amazon series could live up to their expectations.

Firstly, I have to say that I love being in Tolkien’s fantasy world and whilst the first season of The Rings of Power didn’t blow me away, I was able to appreciate just being able to watch a TV show based on Middle-earth in the time before Lord of the Rings. The Rings of Power S2 feels like an upgrade on the first season but those negative voices will still have issues to pick with both the writing and the difference between characters in the show and those in Peter Jackson’s excellent trilogy.

A highlight of this season was seeing Sauron acting as the Great Deceiver, tricking Celebrimbor to make rings for Elves, Dwarves, and Men. The show gives life to a villain that was pretty much just an eye for the three of Jackson’s films and this season really delves into the character and gives him motivation and purpose for behaving the way he does, just a should be done for any great villain. Elrond, Galadriel, Durin, Gil-Glad, and even Adar spend the season doing what they can to fight against the mighty Sauron and it is great to see the different ways they attempt to do this and give a bit more depth to Tolkien’s earlier work (regarding the timeline of the world). There will be some who argue Elrond and Galadriel are very different to those seen in the movies but it shows character progression and you can see that they are on the path to becoming to the characters many know and love.

Meanwhile, The Stranger meets Tom Bombadil and this is a strength of The Rings of Power S2. For those unsure of how to portray the legendary Tom Bombadil on screen, this is it. It is pure perfection and an absolute joy in the way the unique character is brought to life in all his musical glory. The revelation of The Stranger’s identity may not be a shock but it fits in with story and I was pleased with the way it played out as Bombadil became a mentor, helping the wizard on his path to discovering his identity.

Pacing can be a bit of an issue in The Rings of Power S2. Similar to the first season, it feels as though a lot of time is spent slowly building up to the final episodes but whilst other series may end in a bit of a whimper (I’m looking at you Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon S2) The Rings of Power S2 finished strongly with two of the best episode yet. The battle of Eregion has some great call backs to Jackson’s trilogy and the final episode is just filled with greatness (The first scene is the best in the series so far). The series feels as though it really hit its stride towards the end with some powerful deaths and whole groups of characters that the audience will now care for. Even the orcs were sympathetic in their plight towards the end and the writing for characters such as Adar, Durin, and Sauron were the strongest so far. Some will argue that there are many changes to the source material but that confuses me. We are talking about a world created by a master storyteller – and Tolkien was always keen on making changes. Read an original version of The Hobbit and you will see vast differences to the familiar story that links with Lord of the Rings (Riddles in the Dark is the chapter to really read again). Tolkien knew that changes can be necessary to make the right story and the showrunners for this Amazon series have the same attitude and I’m all for it.

It may not please everyone, but The Rings of Power S2 is a high-budget fantasy series that should be appreciated by fans of the genre. Whilst it doesn’t reach the heights of Lord of the Rings, it is a still a quality fantasy series on TV full of interesting characters, sympathetic villains, heroes worth rooting for, and some of the best music in a TV series right now. And if you don’t care about any of that – just watch it for the Balrog…

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Grimdark, Home of the Other

If grimdark is the home of the obscene, perhaps it’s no wonder that it draws in the outsider. Those deemed obscene by the wider world come to grimdark to express themselves without apology.

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I’m ravenous for the resurgence of Western histfic and Western fantasy. One of my favourites thus far has been Amazon Prime’s miniseries The English (2022) starring Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer. I was thrilled to watch (and rewatch) my beloved Western setting telling the story of a doomed Englishwoman and a stubborn Pawnee veteran struggling for survival and vengeance in the post-Civil War era.

The English’s story—which takes place over six episodes—is gloriously violent, blood-soaked, mournful, determined, bleak, hopeful, and beautiful. An absolute smorgasbord for the grimdark fan, The English takes a hard, ugly stare at the history of the American West and how it treated its vulnerable.

Jumping over to books, I recently devoured The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo, thanks to a glowing review by GdM reviewer Fabienne Schwizer. Fabienne she summed up the powerful novella thusly:

“Set in rural Appalachia in 1929, we encounter a clash between queerness and entrenched small communities—and it’s also in many ways a story still relevant in this day and age, where the hate faced by the trans community has never been bigger.”

It’s not lost on me that some of the most memorable, confronting, and downright cathartic grimdark to cross my path lately has been stories about and/or written by people on the fringes of our era. Voices that refuse to be silenced are turning to fiction and to grimdark specifically where they write the stories of desperate survivors who face their bleak fictional worlds and overcome the brutal worldbuilding the author has conceived, as if to say ‘I will survive this, too.’

Grimdark has become a place where the wounded other can bleed their pain upon the page. The inherent violence in the genre lends itself brilliantly to a kind of healing that comes only when the writer can share the ugliness that lives in their existence. Ugliness inflicted on them by the world at large, ugliness that lives like a scar across their souls. When the world seemed determined to brutalize a person simply because they are themselves, grimdark is the sanctuary where they can expose the brutality and conquer it.

As the world around me spirals into chaos, I find myself retreating to the comforting embrace of grimdark. It’s a genre and a space that seems to understand the complicated mixture of my anger and my hope. It’s a stubborn genre, one that refuses to conform to the greater market. Gossip constantly cycles around that grimdark is dead, that the genre has slid out of its heyday. But grimdark spits the blood out of its mouth and stands straighter than before, supported by the army of the other.

The future of grimdark lies in its diversity. It’s built, one foundation stone at a time, by the resilient and the broken, by the outcast and the survivor. I see the future of grimdark as a protest against the world that tells us we are the obscene. ‘And if we are,’ grimdark says, ‘you made us this way.’

Grimdark survives in the hands of the reader and the writer who sees the beauty in the struggle to keep hope alive. Hope is not a clean thing; it’s hard as nails and covered in blood and wrenched from iron-hard grip of despair. And if we have to get ugly to keep hope in our grasp? So be it.

Long live the desperate hope of those of us deemed obscene.

Long live grimdark.

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REVIEW: Lullaby by Daniel Barnett

In Lullaby, Daniel Barnett takes his mania-fueled Nightmareland Chronicles to an entirely new level of human terror as we venture straight into Death Valley. It takes everything that was so darkly intriguing about Nightfall and just dials it up to eleven; this is how you write one hell of a sequel.

Look, Barnett set the bar almost stupidly high with Nightfall, which is absolutely one of the most ambitious starts to a series I have ever read. And yet, Lullaby did not only meet the quality of its predecessor, but totally exceeded it in every way possible. The storytelling becomes even more intoxicatingly intimate and the looming sense of (psychological) dread only grows more terrifying, which fully established that deep emotional investment that I was yearning for when reading Nightfall.

Whereas the first book felt a bit scattered in its storytelling with many quick POV switches to different townspeople, Lullaby really narrows down the scope and becomes a much less disorienting (though still properly insane) narrative. Aside from the first chapter, which serves as a little introductory vignette about a deaf boy who comes to play a role in the story later on, we focus solely on John and Mariah as they set off on the promised quest through a world claimed by eternal night to reach John’s estranged daughter.

And to no one’s surprise, their journey soon becomes a road trip from hell. They are haunted and hunted by terrors both internal and external, and Barnett does a scarily terrific job of capturing their raw human emotions on the page. Especially some revelations about Mariah really hit me like a brick, playing into my own deepest aversions and fears in a way I was not prepared for.

Moreover, as I listened along to the audiobook of Lullaby, Adam Gold’s mesmerising and hypnotic narration added a whole extra layer of creepiness to the mysteriously malignant eponymous lullaby that becomes one of the key threats and horror factors in this instalment. At points I felt like his performance had some supernatural force of magic to it that transported me into this horrific narrative without a way back; Barnett’s lyrical yet sharp prose and Gold’s enthralling narration are a match made in heaven, or should I say hell?

While Lullaby doesn’t provide many answers about the overarching mystery of the sudden disappearance of the sun, it absolutely shines in its terrific character development and emotional gut punches. It’s truly insane how much Barnett is able to pack into only 100-ish pages, rapidly filling my black hole of a soul with all the most disturbing and dark delights; The Nightmareland Chronicles honestly transcends genre, it is just raw human storytelling at its very best, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Thank you to the author for providing me with an audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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REVIEW: Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone #1

After being teased in the 2024 Free Comic Book Day issue and The Savage Sword of Conan #4, the first issue in the Conan the Barbarian miniseries Battle of the Black Stone has arrived. Throughout the first dozen issues of the Titan Comics run of Conan the Barbarian, the title hero has had frequent run-ins with a mysterious black stone not of this world, a substance with a malign, corrosive effect on the people who encounter it. While the ageless sorcerer Thulsa Doom was revealed to have a connection with the black stone (in Conan the Barbarian #12), it was also demonstrated that he was merely someone who harnessed the magical mineral, rather than its progenitor.

In addition to the stone itself, a crudely carved eye sigil has become a recurring motif. The 2024 Free Comic Book Day issue showed Conan working as a frontier ranger for the kingdom of Aquilonia, years after his initial contact with the stone. After defeating a particularly formidable Pictish tribesman in combat, he finds himself preoccupied with the pendant the Pict wore, bearing this ominous eye-shaped sigil.

The first issue of the Battle of the Black Stone miniseries picks up immediately after the 2024 Free Comic Book Day issue. After sensing himself become unusually prone to violent rage, Conan ventures into the Pictish wilderness in search of the sigil’s source. Meanwhile, in 1936 Chicago, occult researcher Professor John Kirowan and his adventurous compatriot John Conrad visit the Wanderer’s Club, an association of world travelers, on their own quest for information about the very same dark eye sigil. They meet with Francis Xavier Gordon, also known as El Borak (“The Swift” in Arabic), but receive a cold reception. Gordon’s own encounter with the glyph in the desert Forbidden Temple (as shown in The Savage Sword of Conan #4) appears to have left him with lingering trauma that he is reluctant to revisit. Inevitably all hell breaks loose at the Wanderer’s Club, however, giving El Borak no choice but to confront his fears.

Jonas Scharf’s artwork manages to distinguish itself from the excellent work we’ve already seen from Roberto De La Torre and Doug Braithwaite while simultaneously feeling completely appropriate for the setting and characters. His scruffy, stubbly Conan appeals, delivering the impression of a man at home in the wilderness.

The dialogue and narration has the same fittingly propulsive feel Jim Zub’s work on Titan Comics’ Conan the Barbarian and The Savage Sword of Conan. As mentioned in my review of the Free Comic Book Day prelude, story-wise, Battle of the Black Stone still feels quite close in execution to the 2019 Conan: Serpent War crossover miniseries Zub wrote for Marvel Comics. Hopefully it will diverge significantly in the issues to follow.

All-in-all, the Battle of the Black Stone event is off to an intriguing start. While not mandatory, reading The Savage Sword of Conan #4 beforehand will enhance the experience with extra character background and the full story of El Borak’s encounter with the dark eye. Even if The Savage Sword of Conan #4 is skipped, readers are encouraged to read the 2024 Free Comic Book Day issue, which is available from the publisher in digital format at no charge.

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REVIEW: Nightfall by Daniel Barnett

Daniel Barnett gives Stephen King a run for his money in Nightfall, a post-apocalyptic horror novella that creeps under your skin and feels like a mad fever dream in the best way possible. It’s dark, it’s violent, it’s disturbing, it’s emotional, and most of all, it packs a criminally big punch for a story with such a short pagecount.

Imagine if one day, for some inexplicable reason, the sun just goes out and people start losing any semblance of their sanity in the darkness. That supernatural scenario might sound like a hellish nightmare in itself, and yet the true horror is soon exposed to be much more realistic and terrifyingly human in nature. Set against the backdrop of a bleak nightmareland of a world, Nightfall gives an unflinchingly brutal and terrifyingly realistic deepdive into the darkest depths of the human mind, grappling with vulnerably raw themes of grief, madness, regret, fear, loss, and love in all its messed up beauty.

From the very first page, Barnett’s razor-sharp and intoxicatingly lyrical prose (especially combined with Adam Gold’s exceptionally mesmerising audiobook performance) immediately grabbed me by the throat and then just continued to keep me in a chokehold the entire way through. There’s no denying that I sometimes felt quite disoriented by all the hauntingly disturbing events that unfolded throughout this hectic narrative, but the irresistibly addictive air of mystery and intrigue along with the intimate and emotional storytelling just kept me flipping the pages like crazy.

While Nightfall provides a plethora of different perspectives from the townsfolk of Wrightwood, California, it is first and foremost the story of John Hawthorne and Mariah. I can’t say that I felt emotionally invested in any of these enigmatic characters (yet), but their mysterious allure made them very compelling and they simply popped off the page with personality, for better or worse. Moreover, I loved how their lives intertwined in the most unexpected ways, creating an ominous sense of foreboding that just builds and builds until it all crashes together in a beautifully tragic trainwreck that you just can’t look away from.

Nightfall is the type of story that you just can’t do justice to in a review, because you simply have to experience it on your own to fully understand its brilliance. It’s truly astonishing how much Barnett is able to pack into so few pages, both on a wider world/story level and a more intimate character/emotional level. His storytelling is beautifully efficient, delicately walking the fine balance between making you feel scarily immersed and unsettlingly disoriented.

With this being the first novella in an ongoing serialised adventure horror epic, it very much feels like a set-up book that leaves you with more questions than answers, almost demanding that you come back for more. And you better bet I will dive back into The Nightmareland Chronicles as soon as possible, you know, once I have slightly recovered my bruised emotional state. If you are looking for a short yet unforgettable horror novella that will haunt your mind for days to come, then I can’t recommend Nightfall highly enough, especially as an immersion read with the audiobook!

Thank you to the author for providing me with an audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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Project Starship: Materials Engineering Challenges in Science Fiction

Part of the delight in reading science fiction is seeing how real science can be extrapolated to envision future technologies, whether here on Earth or in extraterrestrial environments. Starships are a ubiquitous presence in science fiction and a prototypical example of technology that can stimulate the imagination of future scientists and engineers. As a materials scientist, I am particularly intrigued by the role of various materials (metals, ceramics, glasses, polymers, nanomaterials, etc.) in building the starships of tomorrow.

The purpose of this science-meets-science fiction initiative, which we are calling Project Starship, is to deepen the connection between the scientific and science fiction communities, helping to stimulate new interest in both fields. To kick off this series of articles, Grimdark Magazine reached out to three leading voices in dark science fiction to explore the materials required for designing the starships from within their fictional universes. First up is Graham McNeill, a British novelist best known for his Warhammer 40k novels, including Nightbringer. Next is Richard Swan, critically acclaimed author of the dark science fiction trilogy, The Art of War. Finally, Essa Hansen is author of the dark science fiction series, The Graven, which begins with the critically acclaimed Nophek Gloss.

The Anatomy of a StarshipWhat starships are featured in your sci-fi universe, and what are the technical requirements they need to meet?

[Graham McNeill] Most of the Imperial starships in 40k are ancient vessels that have plied the gulfs of space for thousands of years and are relics of many lost technologies. They’re gothic masterpieces of cathedral-like command decks, flying buttresses, arches, and temples, many kilometres in length, crusted with centuries of debris and micro-impacts. Their primary technical requirement is to be armoured enough to take punishing barrages as they plunge headlong into enemy formations and to survive traveling through the hell-dimension of the Warp.

[Richard Swan] Largely warships. They must be strong enough to accelerate to incredible speeds and withstand the high inertial forces of turning sharply in three dimensions; they also need to be able to withstand enemy fire (both solid shot and directed energy) and collisions with particulate space debris at near-relativistic speeds. And, naturally, they have to house human beings, weapon systems, electronic warfare systems, et cetera.

[Essa Hansen] The world of The Graven series is unrelated to Earth and leans to the fantastical side of science fiction, meaning I had the luxury of a lot of hand-waving on the technical side. The series world is a bubble multiverse: various-sized bubble-shaped universes stuck together or embedded within one another, with membrane borders, and a different set of physical laws within each universe. The difference in physics might be negligibly slight (small adjustments in this or that math) or wildly and dangerously different (the behavior of the world breaks down as we know it). The easiest way to visualize this is through physical materials and elements transforming, distorting, or breaking down as they pass through the membrane and adjust to the parameters of the new universe. The economy of the multiverse revolves around exploration, trade, and trans-universal transformation, so starships are essential, and being able to travel widely comes down to the particular materials and construction of one’s ship.

The multiverse also features a wide diversity of alien species, which I imagined would have unique designs and materials for their ships, especially in ways that might accommodate non-human biology. For example, what would a space-faring ship look like for an entirely aquatic species?

What are some of the materials required to build these starships?

[Graham McNeill] Most Imperial ships are built from stone, steel, ceramite, and adamantium: materials that are tough enough to withstand a void-battle and endure travel through the Warp. Ceramite is a kind of amalgam of high-strength steel that is all but immune to heat, which certainly helps when you’re up against alien fleets with plasma weaponry.

[Richard Swan] The ships have 3 layers of shielding to meet these requirements: kinetic force shields, a sort of nebulous cloud of particles that accrete instantaneously when disturbed by objects travelling over a certain speed; nanoform composite ablative armour, which forms the primary physical barrier; and a nanogel non-Newtonian fluid shock dissipater that sits under the outer skin and which absorbs the kinetic energy of anything that makes it through the first two layers.

In terms of materials, I wouldn’t even know where to begin with the force shield—such technology feels a century off at least. As for the latter two, strong but ultra lightweight materials are being created all the time (e.g., graphene), and polymerisation techniques are evolving at incredible speeds. As for the fluids, shear thickening fluids and magnetorheological fluids are both currently being researched by Western defence agencies for advanced forms of body armour. Therefore, it’s not so much a question of new technologies, but refining existing ones.

[Essa Hansen] In this bubble multiverse, there would be universes where it’s possible to have ships with contemporary, non-fantastical materials, but they would be confined to operating within those compatible universes. To have access to the widest range of universes—and thereby, the most personal and economic opportunity—means a starship with materials that are resilient and durable enough to withstand various and repeated translations in physical parameters. I imagined that successful materials would have to be malleable in some way, even organic—versus the rigid forms we commonly see in sci-fi—able to change in structure or in phase to accommodate potentially extreme fluctuations of environment.

One example of such fantastical material is the “Glasliq” ship in the story, conceptualized as being skinned/muscled in a sort of liquid glass or liquid crystal attached around a frame that can fold or give. This alien liquid glass can change phase between liquid, solid, and a cloud of particulates, and take on specific forms sort of like how a ferrofluid changes to magnetic fields. The ability to take on transformations without losing integrity makes the ship resilient to universe changes, lets it pass through obstacles and apertures of various size, and can alter its aerodynamics.

Unless there were a set of ideal materials for trans-universal travel, I think most ships would suffer pros and cons unique to each universe: some materials/construction function better while some things fare worse. This would shift with every new universe. Maybe the electrical system works here, but the armor is brittle. Maybe here we don’t have oxygen, but the artificial gravity is better. Only the titular Azura starship of the series is able to create a small universe of its own around it, bubbling it in constant ideal parameters for its materials. With those physics applied, the sound and function of it described as smoother and more organic, the rigidity and buzzes and separation between components soothed.

What are the greatest technical challenges for turning the starships of your sci-fi universe into reality?

[Graham McNeill] When 40k ships travel between the stars, they do it through the Warp, a hellish dimension of madness that exists out of time and space, and which is inhabited by all manner of diabolical creatures formed from the subconscious desires and emotions of mortals, so a pretty nasty place overall. To start with, they’d need engines capable of breaching the walls of reality and space/time to ‘translate’ into the Warp. And once they arrive, for a ship to survive, it needs a Geller Field, which is an energy shield that keeps out the immaterial creatures of the warp. Without that, a ship would be overrun almost as soon as it entered the Warp as the hellish monsters can pass through the ship’s armour in the blink of an eye to turn its crew into possessed monsters, drive them mad or otherwise corrupt them in all the worst ways possible.

[Richard Swan] I think creating an armed and armoured spacecraft is very much already possible with current technology. What is lacking is the need, desire, and funding. Indeed, the crew compartments of the International Space Station are already armoured with double-walls, designed to shatter and absorb debris of up to a few mm in diameter. For the ships of my own books, the real impossibility is the FTL drives and communications arrays. Everything else is simply a more advanced version of the technology we already have. Of course, in the actual future, I suspect that almost every military spaceship will be entirely robotic / remote piloted.

[Essa Hansen] As most of the starships in my multiverse are designed to be able to accommodate a wide range of worlds, including ones like ours, they would probably do fine in our reality! They would just be in the tamest possible form, without the wild features that make sci-fi such a fun playground for the imagination.

Materials Considerations in Starship Design

The materials used in starship design reflect both the technological constraints and advancements within each author’s universe. Starship design in Graham McNeill’s Warhammer 40k novels begins with well-established real-life materials like stone and steel, but also includes realistic extrapolations of new materials like ceramite. Some of the important properties of this ceramite include high thermal conductivity to rapidly dissipate heat from high-energy enemy attacks, as well as high mechanical strength and toughness. Overall, ceramite reflects a conceivable combination of properties based on our known materials science.

As a metallic alloy that is nearly impermeable to enemy attacks, adamantium is more of a stretch, but still not impossible. Recent development of metallic glass alloys, for example, offers a glimpse of the future of high-performance materials design within the field of metallurgy. The Warhammer 40k universe also features composites of ceramite and adamantium, combining the best properties of these materials to make armor with incredibly high strengths.

Composites are also central to Richard Swan’s universe, enhancing material performance by combining the best features of different types of types of polymers, metals, ceramics, etc. Swan goes beyond solid materials, also emphasizing the unique flow properties of fluids and gels, capable of dissipating energy without fracture. Fluids are particularly interesting since they can flow, but they can never be broken.

Materials must withstand the test of time, especially in the Warhammer 40k universe, where much of the relevant engineering knowledge has been destroyed or forgotten. Interestingly, the starship designs in Graham McNeill’s novels are not purely utilitarian: there is also an artistic component to their cathedral-like design, lending a sense of reverence for these marvels of lost technology. Of course, warships must withstand all types of enemy assaults, whether mechanical, thermal, or electromagnetic in origin. The physical laws governing such assaults are especially complicated in Richard Swan’s universe, since as warships approach the speed of light, relativistic effects lead to changes in the passage of time and the apparent mass of the materials making up the vehicle.

Essa Hansen raises an intriguing question of what happens to materials when there are slight changes in physical constants, e.g., when jumping between different universes. Even small variations in what we believe to be universal physical constants (like Boltzmann’s constant or Planck’s constant) could completely change the structure of atoms and how they bond to each other when building different types of materials. Hansen’s novels, therefore, pose unique requirements for multiverse travel beyond anything ever considered in real-life materials design.

I am particularly intrigued by the Glasliq material in Essa Hansen’s multiverse. Real-life glasses combine properties of both liquids and solids. Phase change materials that convert among liquid, crystal, and glassy phases have been critical in the real-life design of rewriteable memory storage. Hansen’s phase change to “cloud of particulates” may be more challenging, but many of the other properties of Glasliq are already within reach.

Altogether, starships from our favorite grimdark science fiction books involve addressing challenges across materials chemistry, physics, and engineering. Our series will continue in future issues of Grimdark Magazine, where we will take a deeper dive into how real materials could be extended to achieve the demanding performance requirement of the spacecrafts of tomorrow. The next article in this series will focus on glass science and technology, understanding how strengthened glass can be developed to offer optical clarity and protection against high-stress mechanical impact. We’ll also explore the science behind phase change materials, such as the Glasliq material used by Essa Hansen in her sci-fi universe. In the following issue of the magazine, Dr. Lourdes Bobbio from Penn State University will share her thoughts on metallurgy in starship design.

This article is published in Grimdark Magazine #40.

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REVIEW: New York Minute by Stephen Aryan

Take a dash of post-apocalyptic fantasy, add a whole heap of noir crime PI thriller, bake it until it’s dark as fuck, and then you’ve got a perfect Stephen Aryan genre-blending novella. New York Minute by Stephen Aryan is a fast-paced crime story with fantasy set dressing, imagining a world where New York is unrecognizable, with magic beasts we only catch a glimpse of, sword fights in alleys that we can’t get enough of, and a whole ocean of blood spilled in the pursuit of the truth.

“In the inner city, across all of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and part of Queens, the roads are paved with stone. There’s no Staten Island here. That’s the Old Country. Everything old is new again, or at least, the parts of history we can stomach. The rest, our ancestors tried to leave behind and good riddance. They made a mess of the Old Country. That’s one of the reasons we’re here in this new place, trying to do things right this time.”

The story that unfolds in New York Minute seems to try to ask who we are as a culture, even when all the trappings of our modern world have been destroyed by some unknown event. What Stephen Aryan manages to accomplish in such a small page count is stunning. Perhaps because he gave us just a hint of a familiar setting and plot (a PI mystery in New York City) we feel grounded immediately, even though his New York has completely changed. Cole Blackstone is everything we want in a noir detective; he’s hard, he’s seen Some Shit, he’s tired, and he doesn’t flinch from violence when it inevitably finds him. His sidekick is tragically doomed and absolutely perfect. And the crime world he has to infiltrate to find a mob boss’s missing daughter is exactly as bleak as we’re hoping it will be.

New York Minute uses its small word count to hurdle us through action that’s as gritty and bloody as any Grimdark fan could want, but also to spend a moment considering the human condition. If everything old is new again, can we reset and strive for a better version of humanity? The world that Cole is forced to navigate suggests not. Crime and violence are as familiar to us as blood.

My only ‘complaint’ is that New York Minute was short—I could have devoured a few hundred more pages!

Stephen Aryan has promised this will be a series of novellas after New York Minute, and I for one am first in line for the next Blackstone story. New York Minute should be on every grimdark fan’s TBR pile.

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