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REVIEW: Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff

Empire of the Damned continues the bloody and unforgiving tale of the silversaint Gabriel de Leon. Gabriel remains the prisoner of the vampire Margot, the Empress of Wolves and Men, and she wishes for the infamous legend’s story to be told to future vampire generations. The historian Jean-François is again the chronicler of these events, even though he and Gabriel did not conclude Empire of the Vampire on the most civil terms. Reluctantly, with many inventive swears and sarcastic wit, Gabriel relays the next stages of his heroic and tragic life. The action picks up with Gabriel, Dior Lachance, and a ‘deathless bloodmage’ contemplating what to do next regarding the vampire assaults and domination of Elidaen, and how they can go about ending the eternal night of daysdeath.

Gabriel dislikes vampires. Throughout this part of his recounting, he has a vendetta to settle with the most powerful vampire in the empire, Fabien Voss. Although Blood Voss are a constant presence and threat to the Silversaint and those he holds dear, Blood Dyvok are the main adversaries in Empire of the Damned. This house contains brutal, seductive, intelligent vampires, intriguing politics and histories, and are mysteriously much more powerful than they have any right to be. They have recently taken hold of the formidable Dun Maergenn and about forty percent of the novel happens within this city’s walls.

Empire of the Damned features an almost perfect mix of familiar characters and new exciting players in Kristoff’s well-realised fantasy world. A former Silversaint apprentice of Gabriel’s and members of Dun Maergenn’s court, both vampire and civilian, make great additions. As mentioned, we are presented insight into yet unfamiliar vampire houses, plus revelations regarding skinchangers, and the holy vampiric faction of the Esani. It makes for gripping and detailed worldbuilding as readers learn further details while Gabriel reflects on his escapades.

While recounting his story, one day to be read to the vampire children of this world, the banter and exchanges between Gabriel and the historian are once again top-notch. The back and forth is a battle-of-wits, a multilayered and energetic verbal joust. As per the previous book, Gabriel drinks a fair amount of wine as he dictates but, in his current predicament, the joys in his life are currently limited.

Alongside the present day happenings of Gabriel and Jean-François, Empire of the Vampire presented two distinct storylines at varying stages of the silversaint’s illustrious vampire-destroying career. Empire of the Damned focuses on one flashback period, making up most of the narrative and this was welcome to me, getting my teeth into this drama wholeheartedly. I understand the need for many authors to have the formative years sections, especially in the first novels of a series and this was worked proficiently in the previous entry. Kristoff does alter his presentation with how the narrative is delivered at certain points. This was initially unexpected and extremely fulfilling so I will not go into the details. I enjoyed the change in dynamic so much, that I would not want to take that moment of realisation away from other readers.

Empire of the Damned delivers many moments of high-intensity, including memorable showdowns, exchanges, and unpredictability, with very little going the way expected or in Gabriel’s favour. Certain scenes may arguably be over the top yet Empire of the Damned is an undeniably addictive and fun read. Yes, with some characters’ incredible powers of recovery, sometimes it seems as if fights do not have concrete consequences (Gabriel has many broken ribs!). Moreover, when reading it is not always obvious when someone’s death means a character is actually dead. These minor points do not take away from the stunning spectacle that is Empire of the Damned. It is a dark fantasy read/experience of the highest quality, with an amazing and tragic finale that is worthy of these well-conceived 700 pages. Fellow Grimdark Magazine reviewer Fiona advised me that she was a ‘whirlpool of feelings’ when she finished this novel, and I concur, believing that is an excellent way to express post-Empire of the Damned emotions. The next entry in this series cannot come soon enough.

I received advanced review copies in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Harper Voyager and St Martin’s Press.

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REVIEW: The Fireborn Blade by Charlotte Bond

Novellas like The Fireborn Blade by Charlotte Bond are exactly the reason I love shorter form fiction. Engaging, fast-paced, inventive, and just a damned-fun few hours to spend engrossed in a story, The Fireborn Blade could have been the intro or extro story for an anthology, but is certainly strong enough to stand on its own two feet.

In The Fireborn Blade Maddileh is one of the very few women to become a knight, and she’s had it all wrenched away from her by reacting to the cruelty of a man. As a favoured knight of the king due to her gallantry, she has been given one chance to re-attain her station and honour. The what of it is up to her, but it needs to be epic. Taking on the White Lady dragon deep in its lair to claim back the fabled fireborn blade for her king is about as epic and dangerous as it gets. However, the recurring nightmare where she burns does not bode well for the success of her mission.

The story is full of betrayals and bait-and-switches, long-games, shady characters, and magic. And the magic I think is one of the coolest things about the book–and I think the last time I said that was when I read Beyond Redemption. Dragons influence the world around them while they sleep and dream, with everything from magic bubbles which burst into the tunnel of their lairs to make questing knights and treasure seekers forget the reason they are there, to the ghosts of the dragon-slain who haunt the tunnels of the dragon’s demesnes and, should they touch you, torture you with nightmares for years to come, to dead dragons expelling a magic burst of leeches which devour the knight who killed them. Mages study the dragons and all they do, and the snippets from the books which detail the mages scientific approach to documenting the dragons people (usually knights) encounter and survive (usually just, if at all) are one of my favourite parts of this story. I love, love, love the way these help set the scene and signpost a few things to come, document the wildly varied nature of the dragons and the danger they and their lairs presented, almost as much as I love the fun of the interview-record-style way the chapters delve into some of the less honourable knights and their retellings of their exploits.

The story also delves into male-dominated industries and the hardships women face gaining success there, which is smoothly done for the reader through the use of a European-style medieval setting. While this theme is a foundational part of the novel throughout, the main focus is on Maddileh getting some form of revenge by regaining her station through a heroic act–the loss of which she realises is on her for not having the restraint to not deck her former lover (right in front of the king) for his emotional cruelty to her. From a grimdark fan perspective, there is a lot to love when reading the records of the knights who fought dragons, and the explorations into the secondary characters’ reasons for being, but the main character is generally a slightly flawed, but over-archingly good character trying to regain her good standing by doing something very dangerous.

The Fireborn Blade by Charlotte Bond is a brilliant novella that I absolutely loved reading. Make sure you grab yourself a copy, pour yourself a glass of something, and lose yourself in one of the best dragon dark fantasies I’ve read in ages.

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Top five grimdark stories hiding behind pink and pastels

Last Updated on March 29, 2024

We readers are always advised not to buy books because of their covers. But thinking about how we at Grimdark Magazine decide to pick up stories, it becomes clear that covers are key to setting expectations. Just like every retelling of Robin Hood has a bow and arrow somewhere on the cover, grimdark tends to come in shades of black, red and grey. (Of course, there are exceptions.) Covers indicate market positioning and intended audience, as does cover copy. I’m sure all of us have fallen prey to a pretty cover promising something it doesn’t deliver on. However, we’ve reviewed a range of books that fit our definition of grimdark (TL:DR a morally grey protagonist in a world stacked against them) while looking like fun and fluffy reads – the proverbial wolf in a sheep’s pelt. This list will shine a spotlight on books with pretty, colourful covers that you should give a try.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson is a perfect example. It comes in fluorescent pink but proceeds to captivate with an incisive discussion of trans rights in an age of rampant TERF-ery. Set around a magical shadow government founded by Anne Boleyn, HMRC is a story where the ends justify the means. The characters range from a young trans witch trying to find her place in the world (and witchcraft) to a woman willing to kill whoever she needs to to regain her position. This one is a chonker, as is the follow-up The Shadow Cabinet. A series that hits all the right notes.

From the publisher:

Hidden among us is a secret coven of witches.

Know has Her Majesty’s Royal Coven,they protect crown and country from magical forces and otherworldly evil.

But their greatest enemy will come from within…

There are whisperings of a prophecy that will bring the coven to its knees, and four best friends are about to be caught at the centre.

Life as a modern witch was never simple … but now it’s about to get apocalyptic.

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste

Similarly, The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste comes in a pretty pink package. This is an urban fantasy YA story on the ways in which love can be a tool. Venus (aptly named) is a brewer of love potions – both highly illegal and very dangerous. The world of this novel has split love into a range of facets and looks at them from a very cynical point of view. Because love is power, and love can be manipulated. The main characters of The Poisons We Drink are brilliantly selfish people, stubbornly working towards their own goals. A book I didn’t quite expect, but one that’s a great fit for readers of Grimdark Magazine.

From the publisher:

In a country divided between humans and witchers, Venus Stoneheart hustles as a brewer making illegal love potions to support her family.

Love potions is a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within her.

Then an enemy’s iron bullet kills her mother, Venus’s life implodes. Keeping her reckless little sister Janus safe is now her responsibility. When the powerful Grand Witcher, the ruthless head of her coven, offers Venus the chance to punish her mother’s killer, she has to pay a steep price for revenge. The cost? Brew poisonous potions to enslave D.C.’s most influential politicians.

As Venus crawls deeper into the corrupt underbelly of her city, the line between magic and power blurs, and it’s hard to tell who to trust…Herself included.

The Poisons We Drink is a potent YA debut about a world where love potions are weaponized against hate and prejudice, sisterhood is unbreakable, and self-love is life and death.

Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender

You might be forgiven for thinking Kacen Callender’s Queen of the Conquered is a YA novel and not one of the bleakest stories of recent years. The cover, white with some pink, featuring the profile of a Black woman, is about as misleading as the stubborn insistence some people have when shelving The Poppy War as YA. Queen of the Conquered is an incisive story discussing slavery and colonialisation of the Caribbean. Set on the islands of Hans Lollik, the story picks up when Sigourney Rose, last living member of her family, uses her supernatural ability to influence the powers that be to accept her as a contender for the island’s throne. She is a creature of rage, forged in the fires of seeing her entire family being massacred as a child. And Sigourney is out for revenge – revenge that is sweetest when the people she wants to fall ultimately concert their own end. The story is grimdark, and Sigourney a fascinating, nuanced morally grey character. Even if the reader ends up hating her (or perhaps that’s just me).

From the publisher:

An ambitious young woman with the power to control minds seeks vengeance against the royals who murdered her family, in a Caribbean-inspired fantasy world embattled by colonial oppression.

Sigourney Rose is the only surviving daughter of a noble lineage on the islands of Hans Lollik. When she was a child, her family was murdered by the islands’ colonisers, who have massacred and enslaved generations of her people – and now, Sigourney is ready to exact her revenge.

When the childless king of the islands declares that he will choose his successor from amongst eligible noble families, Sigourney uses her ability to read and control minds to manipulate her way onto the royal island and into the ranks of the ruling colonisers. But when she arrives, prepared to fight for control of all the islands, Sigourney finds herself the target of a dangerous, unknown magic.

Someone is killing off the ruling families to clear a path to the throne. As the bodies pile up and all eyes regard her with suspicion, Sigourney must find allies among her prey and the murderer among her peers… lest she become the next victim.

The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon

Thea Guanzon’s voice in The Hurricane Wars is refreshing and so addictive. The debut novel follows Talasyn, a helmsman in the Sardovian army, who finds herself up against the heir of the opposing empire, Alaric. In the flurry of battle, Talasyn’s quietly-kept powers are exposed to Alaric; powers that was believed to have once been eradicated from existence. We follow both parties navigate the war amidst this revelation, as well as team up to prevent a threat greater than the Hurricane Wars themselves. Guanzon makes use of several classic Grimdark elements: battles, wars and the brutality of an empire. These set the foundations of the novel, which are then balanced out with the angst and tension that seeps through the novel from the growing feelings between Talasyn and Alaric. The Hurricane Wars is perfect for readers who like their Grimdark books with a side of romance.

From the publisher:

All Talasyn has ever known are the Hurricane Wars. An orphan of the struggle, she uses the power of light to fight for her people against the Night Empire.

All Alaric has ever known is darkness. The son of the Night Emperor and their deadliest weapon, he wields terrifying shadow magic to crush the rebellion.

Then he sees Talasyn, his sworn enemy burning bright across the battlefield. The moment they clash their lives are changed forever.

Now a greater threat is rising and only they can stop it.

The coming storm threatens to destroy everything. If they don’t destroy each other first . . .

After the Forest by Kell Woods

After the Forest by Kell Woods may not be quite as pink on the outside than some others on this list, but it is certainly as dark. Set after the end of a familiar tale, this story reckons with the aftermath and looks at how a (small-minded) community deals with people they consider different. After the Forest combines plain human cruelty with a fantastical story about werewolves and witches to create a masterful debut. It not only picks up on reference from familiar fairy tales but understands what makes them recognisable – and brings back a cruelty we may recognise from the Brothers Grimm.

From the publisher:

Fifteen years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their father and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.

Greta has a secret, though: the witch’s grimoire, secreted away and whispering in Greta’s ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you’ve ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat. But in a village full of superstition, Greta and her mysteriously addictive gingerbread, not to mention the rumours about her childhood misadventures, are a source of gossip and suspicion.

And now, dark magic is returning to the woods and Greta’s magic – magic she is still trying to understand – may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn’t kill her first.

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REVIEW: Halo Season Two

This is a big improvement. I’m not the kind of guy who gets caught up in trivialities. There’s plenty of people who would only want a Halo TV show if the Master Chief never removed his helmet, and it only depicted a straight ten-episode adaptation of the first video game with most of it being using Needlers on Grunts. I mean, I’d watch the hell out of that, but it doesn’t get into the deeper lore of the Halo universe. Halo does have a pretty deep lore too despite being the Expanded Universe for a bunch of third person shooters. I’ve read dozens of books in the setting, and they mostly hold up.

Unfortunately, Season One wasn’t good despite the fact it got into things like the recruitment of child soldiers, unethical medical experimentation, the Insurrectionists, and the fact ONI is full of a bunch of incompetent man children. The Halo games were made at the height of the War on Terror and were influenced by the geopolitical situation of the time. There was the seemingly all-powerful Covenant and humanity’s own authoritarian government as the two choices for the setting but Master Chief just trying to save everyone. We’re in a post-War on Terror environment, sort of, and the story is much more muddled in the idea anyone can save anyone. Plus, no one really wanted Master Chief to have sex. Not unless it was a virtual reality simulation with Cortana. Ahem.

Season Two realizes that most viewers want to watch the Master Chief versus aliens and the Covenant finally shows up to start glassing planets. The fact the season opens with the glassing of the planet Madrigal and the elimination of every single plot from that world kind of says what the developers think of it too. Season Two has the Covenant as a threat humanity is on the backfoot fighting and that instantly raises the stakes as well as provides the season some well-deserved focus. Indeed, we finally get the goddamn Halo as a focus for the season with its discovery a central theme. I feel like the fact the Halo WASN’T the focus of a show called Halo until this point as one of the bigger issues of the adaptation. Sort of like The Legend of Zelda without Zelda (or Triforce or Ganon).

The premise for this season is that humanity is being pushed back by the Covenant in every engagement with Master Chief considered unreliable after briefly being possessed by Cortana during their confrontation with the Prophets. Doctor Hasley is under house arrest for her role in the SPARTAN-II insurrection and Admiral Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) is now in charge of the project with Parangosky (Shabana Azmi) seemingly removed from her position as ONI’s chief. Unfortunately, any Halo fan knows this precedes the Fall of Reach where humanity is opened to full-scale invasion by the Covenant. Makee (Charlie Murphy), the human raised by the Covenant, also has some of the keys necessary to find the Halo and has been assigned an Arbiter (not the one from Halo 2) to help find it.

There’s a lot more going on with the season and the show seems more interested in redeeming character’s plotlines than ditching them. Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha), Soren (Bokeem Woodbine), and others are still all in the show, but they are more closely tied together. We also get some casualties among the SPARTAN-IIS that I feel was badly needed to establish the threat of the Covenant after their poor showing in the first season. SPARTANS never die but there’s a reason the Master Chief was the last of them for a long time.

Overall, Season Two is just a huge improvement to the series by incorporating a lot more of what people loved about Halo. Unfortunately, it’s not an unqualified success as the show is still weighed down by cramming too many extraneous plots into eight episodes. The Fall of Reach lasts all of one episode when it could have been three episodes of fighting for survival. Hell, it could have been an entire season. For a show based on an action video game, Halo suffers from not that much action. Still, there is some action and most of it is pretty good. I’ll never look down on Master Chief versus an Elite using plasma swords.

In conclusion, Halo Season Two is a success and I am glad that they listened to fan feedback to modify what they were doing. They also manage to finally get the story to where it probably needed to be by the end of Season One. I’m not going to spoil the ending of the season but a lot of buildup for fan favorite elements are realized and they leave me excited for Season Three. Would I have done things differently? Yes. However, it’s no longer a series that I feel fails to represent the franchise that I love. Halo: Infinite on the other hand…

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REVIEW: Necrotown by Alexander Nader

Necrotown by Alexander Nader is a dark urban fantasy noir narrated by Sam Flint, a quasi-immortal private detective living in squalor on the wrong side of Mountain City—not that there’s any right side of Mountain City, a town overrun by drugs, violence, and corruption.

Mountain City is also teeming with monsters, including arms dealing werewolves known as Hairs, usurious Trolls, and several other magical races. The only part of the city where these races coexist is the Glow, the neon-drenched slum that Sam calls home.

Sam’s sleuthing partner in Necrotown is his voluptuous wife, the appropriately named Fox, a body-hopping kitsune with a living fox tattoo. The fox tattoo has a name, Sune, and exhibits plenty of personality as it scampers over her body, baring its teeth in anger toward any perceived threat.

As the novel opens, the loving couple are desperate for rent money. They accept a job from Lloyd Burgess, a deep-pocketed sleazebag who instructs them to retrieve his wayward daughter, Sarah, from the notorious Necrotown. Was she kidnapped by gang members? Or perhaps running away from an abusive father? Sarah has more than a few surprises of her own in store for the reader.

Necrotown is the worst section of this godawful city, overrun by death Mages and plenty of necromancy. As a quasi-immortal, Sam himself is not immune from death, and in fact dying is still quite painful. But if he’s lucky, death may be followed by an equally painful resurrection:

“‘This week is gonna suck for you.’ Fox trails a delicate hand across my throat. ‘You are going to die at least six times.’”

The loving and overly flirtatious relationship between Sam and Fox is the highlight of Necrotown, especially as Fox inhabits other beings’ bodies. This keeps their enemies guessing while also providing fuel for Sam’s lowbrow humor.

Alexander Nader’s pulp fiction-style writing superbly conveys the noir vibes of Necrotown, striking a nice balance between humor and horror without ever taking itself too seriously. That being said, the novel would benefit from another round of editing to polish the text and clean up a number of distracting typos. For example, discussion of the five “burrows” of New York City conjures a more leporine image than I believe the author intended.

Nevertheless, Necrotown is an intoxicating read, offering plenty of fun for fans of urban fantasy and noir fiction. The Mountain City Chronicles continues with Vampire Valley, the second book of the series.

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REVIEW: Space Punks 2 by Anna Mocikat

Space Punk 2: Nightingale’s Song is the sequel to Space Punks, which is at least a very accurate title to the story. I’m a huge fan of Anna Mocikat’s Behind Blue Eyes series and really enjoyed the first of this series.  If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s close to Cowboy Bebop except hewing closer to cyberpunk motifs instead of Western.

A bunch of sexy cybernetically augmented mercenaries live on the starship Nephilim, doing odd jobs for their mysterious boss, while being involved in both organized crime as well as politics. Most of humanity was exterminated when Earth was destroyed in the wars against the machines, but the survivors live in comparative high tech luxury.

In the previous book, we had the discovery that newcomer David was actually an android that had been sent to infiltrate the crew. We also had Nightingale being horribly injured. This book picks up with giving us David’s origins as well as a follow-up on Nightingale’s condition. Well, it’s not good. If he doesn’t receive a super rare part then he’ll be dead in a week. He also can’t have sex with his girlfriend, Aztec, whom he has just proposed marriage to in a time when that institute is considered to be obsolete.

Much of the book is divided between the protagonists showing their complicated and fascinating relationships, world-building so we understand how this new society works, and the “big heist” where they attempt to hit a military depot in order to get the rare part that Nightingale needs to survive. Say what you will about the Nightingale crew but they are willing to do whatever they have to in order to protect one another.

The best part of the Space Punks series is definitely the cast. All of the characters are interesting with a variety of dark and troubled pasts. They’re a rare sight in science fiction in that most are in committed relationships and deeply devoted to one another while still being no less “cool” and edgy for it. As stated, the crew is intensely loyal to one another and seeing how they can rely on one another makes them easy to root for despite being a bunch of dedicated ruthless cyborg mercenaries.

We get a good look at Mars in this book and find out how he’s gone from being first of Earth’s colonies to the center of human civilization in the setting. Despite being a space-based series, it is very cyberpunk and the Pentad substitutes for the evil megacorporations of most fiction. They are a ruthless oligarchy with control over all of humanity’s vital supplies as well as militaries, so they can do whatever they want without fear from the public. We also get regular tidbits from an in-universe encyclopedia that help fill in the blanks on how the universe functions.

I’m especially fond of Lucien, the villain, who fills all the depraved psychopath folders that make for a good cyberpunk villain. It may be cheating that one of the heads of the cyborg armed forces is also a serial killer but it certainly makes for a delightfully hateable villain. His scenes have genuine menace and you are worried about the protagonists when they are up against him.

In conclusion, Space Punks 2: Nightingale’s Song is an excellent dark and edgy piece of science fiction that would make a good television show with a sufficiently pretty cast. Anne Mocikat is one of my favorite indie writers right now and if you want dark, foreboding, and yet fun adventure fiction then this is definitely for you.

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REVIEW: Neither Beg Nor Yield by Jason M. Waltz

The definition of Sword & Sorcery is a perennial topic of discussion in related forums. While the unacquainted often use the term to label any variety of fantasy fiction containing edged weapons and magic, fans usually have a very specific style of story in mind: one that hews closer to the blood and thunder-filled stories by Conan creator Robert E. Howard rather than the more genteel work of J.R.R Tolkien. Despite reasonably widespread agreement among enthusiasts of what stories and characters can be categorized as Sword & Sorcery, it becomes surprisingly tricky to nail down what, precisely, differentiates S&S from other varieties of fantasy. Sword & Sorcery stories tend towards grittiness and the horrific, but so do Dark Fantasy and Grimdark. Is a barbarian or thief hero required? Must magic always be treacherous and evil? Must the stakes be personal and localized, or can an S&S story be epic in scope? In his introduction to Neither Beg Nor Yield: Stories with S&S Attitude, editor and Rogue Blades Entertainment proprietor Jason M Waltz sidesteps the endless hair-splitting. He makes a convincing argument that Sword & Sorcery is all about attitude. S&S heroes stubbornly cling to life, no matter how the odds are stacked against them. According to Waltz, “Sword & Sorcery is a clenched fist thrust into the sky, a raised middle finger in the face of the Unknown, an epithet spat into the dirt through a rictus of bared teeth.” At 446 pages in length, Neither Beg Nor Yield brings together 20 stories showcasing this vigorous and defiant attitude. While story quality is uniformly high, in the interest of brevity this review focuses on a subset of stories either expected to appeal to Grimdark fans or those that demonstrate the breadth of the anthology.

“Prince of Dragons” by William King is one of the outstanding entries of the early portion of te book. King is a prolific contributor to Games Workshop’s Black Library fiction line, and is particularly celebrated for his Gotrek & Felix novels. Here he provides an origin story for his own original hero, Kormak. After massacring his entire village, the infernal Prince of Dragons leaves young Kormak with a promise that some distant day, at a time of the demon’s choosing, the Prince would return to claim Kormak’s life. While Kormak is taken in by the Order of the Dawn and trained in the art of monster-slaying, the Prince of Dragon’s threat is never far from his mind. The story traces several formative episodes in Kormak’s life leading up to his lethal reunion with the demon. “Prince of Dragons” has a compelling sense of grim inevitability throughout, and while I’ve read other Kormak stories by King in the past, this particular story has convinced me that I must investigate further.

While many of the stories in Neither Beg Nor Yield stick to familiar Northern or Western European-inspired settings, feudal Japan is used as the backdrop for two contributions. “Hunters and Prey” by C.L. Werner, another popular Black Library writer, is a new tale featuring wandering ronin warrior Shintaro Oba. While Oba frequently appears in issues of Tales from the Magician’s Skull, Waltz notes that the character’s initial introduction was in Rogue Blades’ Rage of the Behemoth anthology. “Hunters and Prey” has Oba on the trail of a diabolical spider demon while Oba is, himself, in turn being stalked by a relentless bounty hunter. Glen Cook (The Black Company, etc.) provides the other samurai-themed entry with “Isekai Sengokumonogatari.” War veteran Shinzutoro finds himself tasked with escorting three orphaned noble children and their guardian through bandit- and monster-infested wilderness. Nearly everyone Shinzutoro encounters on the trail proves threatening, and he senses fairly early on that his travel companions are likewise not what they seem. The Japanese trappings of both stories offer a refreshing change of scenery while still delivering the horror-tinged action expected by Sword & Sorcery fans.

Waltz’s introduction-cum-manifesto argues that attitude is everything when it comes to Sword & Sorcery, so it’s perhaps no surprise that some of the entries in this book reject the conventional tropes of the sub-genre. Set in our era, “Suspension in Silver” by Eric Turowski features a massive biker (a modern-day barbarian?) desperately fighting against a pack of werewolves driven to recruit him. Joe R. Lansdale’s “The Organ Grinder’s Monkey” ranges even further afield, with two mechanics embarking on an inter-dimensional journey (via Chevy) to stop a giant trike-riding monkey’s misguided revenge against the men who killed the monkey’s sloth lover. Neither story is what most readers would typically expect to find in an anthology of this type, but the sort of fierce determination in the face of overwhelming odds lauded in Waltz’s introduction is undeniably present.

“The Last Vandals on Earth” is a gritty historical fantasy by Steven Erikson, of Malazan Book of the Fallen fame. Narrated in the first person by their cook Ulfilas, this story chronicles a small band of misfit Vandals living recklessly for loot and excitement with seemingly the entire world against them. “The Last Vandals on Earth” pairs wry humor with graphic combat as the last Vandals prepare to sell their lives dearly.

A Hanuvar adventure not included in last year’s Lord of a Shattered Land or The City of Marble and Blood, Howard Andrew Jones’ “Reflection From a Tarnished Mirror” was an especially welcome entry. While working to free his Volani countrymen from enslavement at the hands of the oppressive Dervan Empire, fugitive general Hanuvar encounters an impostor masquerading as himself. Further investigation reveals that the man is a soldier with a brain injury that has had Hanuvar’s personality sorcerously overlaid upon his own: an experimental Dervan plot to track the real Hanuvar by creating a mental duplicate that acts and thinks like the original. Deep behind enemy lines, Hanuvar has the delicate task of working with the tragically addled impostor to free the Volani slaves while simultaneously avoiding the scrutiny of the Dervans hunting them both. While nobler in intentions and character than many of the frequently mercenary-minded protagonists in this book, Hanuvar shares their grit and indomitable spirit.

Adrian Cole’s “Maiden Flight” is a truly fitting finale for Neither Beg Nor Yield. Grievously wounded on the battlefield, viking warrior Ulric Wulfsen finds himself chosen for Valhalla by a newly-minted Valkyrie. Ulric and the Valkyrie find themselves at an impasse; Ulric still clings to life and refuses to accept death, while the Valkyrie has no choice but to forcibly escort her unwilling charge to the afterlife or risk being stripped of her divine status and exiled. The struggle between the pair escalates until Ulric finds himself in defiance of Odin himself. While a dogged refusal to capitulate to death is a common hallmark in all of the stories included in this anthology, “Maiden Flight” in particular effectively embodies the “S&S attitude” described by Waltz in his introduction.

Publisher of 15 books over the span of nearly two decades, Rogue Blades Entertainment has been a steadfast supporter of 21st century Sword & Sorcery fiction. Neither Beg Nor Yield is intended to be the final Rogue Blades anthology and the capstone of Jason Waltz’s editing career. Packed with thundering adventure from a wide variety of authors, Neither Beg Nor Yield sends Rogue Blades off on a triumphant note.

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REVIEW: All Who Wander Are Lost by Gemma Amor

Let Gemma Amor be your guide in All Who Wander Are Lost, a new anthology of destination horror stories that lead the reader across adventures on five different continents from northern Norway all the way to Antarctica.

All Who Wander Are Lost kicks off with “There’s Something in First Landing State Park,” an ill-fated trip to Virginia Beach where the narrator, Melanie, spots a grotesque, slime-covered man emerging from the sand at sunrise, disappearing into the ocean as he oozes a trail of goop behind him. Amor combines science fiction and horror to astonishing effect, taking the story in bizarre directions on her way to a perfectly executed, jaw-dropping conclusion.

The next story, “The Reunion,” is narrated by Tim, a formerly poor boy who was bullied in school and is now returning to his high school reunion as the successful vice president of a pharmaceutical company accompanied by his beautiful wife. But Tim’s plans of proving his worth to his classmates are disrupted by his ex-wife, Louise, who exacts the ultimate revenge on her former husband for abandoning her and their child. Devoid of supernatural elements, “The Reunion” proves that the most horrific monster may be man himself.

Gemma Amor drops us on a giant glacier in “Fields of Ice,” the third story of All Who Wander Are Lost, which is set in either a near-future dystopian society or some alternate reality. Hayder, an explorer working for an autocratic leader known as the Minister, is sent on a special mission in pursuit of precious ore, but perhaps she is the one being pursued.

The following story, “Let Sleeping Gods Lie,” delivers an Indiana Jones-style adventure as we join an archaeological expedition in Egypt. Written in epistolary format, Gemma Amor takes us on a haunting journey through an underground labyrinth, showing that some ancient powers should be left undisturbed.

Amor channels Daphne du Maurier’s “Don’t Look Now” in her Venetian horror, “The Final Wish Foundation,” bringing several thrilling twists to this familiar backdrop to horror. Next up is “A Song for Sam,” in which two brothers travel to Norway to fulfill their late father’s wish to scatter his ashes beneath the aurora borealis, but one brother has a more sinister plan in mind.

The remaining stories in All Who Wander Are Lost include “The Ancient Ram Inn,” a classic haunted house horror turned inside out, “A Gentlewoman Abroad” about a businesswoman who despises tourists to an unhealthy degree, and “Less Exalted Tastes” about a rather sadistic form of artistry. The anthology concludes with “Christmas in Antarctica,” a decidedly chilling supernatural horror that will make you want to stay at home for the holidays.

Altogether, All Who Wander Are Lost is a masterfully conceived and executed anthology that serves as Gemma Amor’s homage to the human desire to travel and explore. I enjoyed the variety of styles that Amor brings to the concept of destination horror across this anthology.

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Grimdark Magazine Issue 38 to feature the best of South East Asia SFF

Last Updated on March 25, 2024

We have two announcements for the upcoming release of Grimdark Magazine Issue 38. As somebody who lives in the Asia Pacific, the first announcement I think is one of the ones I’m the most excited about in my almost ten years of running this little publication. The second one is one of those announcements I dislike making. Let’s get to it.

GdM#38 to focus on SEA authors

Nearly nine percent of the world’s population live in South East Asia. A lot of history, mythology, stories, and world views sit in those nations and their peoples, and we feel that often the English speaking markets miss out on those stories for a range of reasons. Books like Sons of Darkness by Gaurav Mohanty have joined the list of authors giving us a lens into non-Euro grimdark fantasy, and I think the opportunity to really push the boundaries of our little corner of the subgenre world lies in giving authors from SEA a spot to play about with their characters and ideas in short form. For this issue, our contributors will be:

The contributor lineupR.R. VirdiGourav MohantyYudhanjaya WijeratneVajra ChandrasGautam BhatiaekeraLavanya LakshminarayanAaron S. JonesAlex Valdiers

We also have a few people yet to sign off on their inclusion, whose names we will be releasing when we do the cover release (a snippet of which you’ll find in the header of this post!).

GdM#38 to be published on the 15th of April

Now, to the part that we never like to announce: we’ve had to push back our publication schedule by a fortnight to make sure we got all the content we needed. As it is with small groups of people trying to build things, sometimes life gets on top, and in this instance, it got on top of a few of us and we weren’t able to meet our commitment to you.

Rest assured, however, this will be worth the wait.

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REVIEW: Dreams of Fire by Shauna Lawless

Shauna Lawless already sits pretty high on my auto-buy author list based on her first two novels, The Children of Gods and Fighting Men and The Words of Kings and Prophets. So I was extremely excited to learn that Lawless was returning to her Middle Ages Irish historical fantasy Gael Song series with her novella Dreams of Fire. Let me tell you: I pressed that pre-order link as soon as it appeared on my newsfeed. I love Shauna Lawlewss’ writing and I love novellas. It was going to make a great reading day. And it did.

Even if you have yet to read the other novels in the Gael Song series, you can start with Dreams of Fire as a bit of an amuse-bouche and enjoy it with no other knowledge. The events in Dreams of Fire take place about a century before the first novel, so it is the perfect introduction if you are still unsure if this series will be for you. If, like me, you have read and loved the other novels, this novella allows you to see these beloved characters from a different perspective and learn more about my favourite character, Rónnat.

Rónnat is the sister to Fódla, one of the main characters from The Children of Gods and Fighting Men and The Words of Kings and Prophets. They are Descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and their peaceful life with their father is threatened. Rumors are that all the Descendants must move to their hidden fortress for protection from mortal men and their sworn enemies, the fire-wielding Formorians. Rónnat feels trapped in the fortress, surrounded by people, with no space to roam or find solitude. Worse, her arrival there triggers a strange voice whispering to her of death and destruction and disturbing dreams full of fire. 

Shauna Lawless is a brilliant writer, even in a shorter piece of fiction that shines through. Dreams of Fire is just over a hundred pages, but it is still an utterly immersive novella, and in that short time, Lawless makes you genuinely care for the characters. You feel the sisterhood between Rónnat and Fódla, their hopes, their fears. I accept that I already know the characters and the wider plot, but even if I did not, I genuinely believe it would evoke the same response. Lawless blends Irish mythology and history perfectly, and Dreams of Fire is reading time that is very well spent.

I want to say a huge thank you to Shauna Lawless and the team at Head of Zeus for sending me an eARC of Dreams of Fire. Also, thank you to fellow GdM Team Member John Mauro for arranging it with Shauna! Although I was sent an eARC in exchange for providing this review, I also bought the novella, which is available now as an e-book for the princely sum of 99p or $1.99, depending on your area. The third novel in Lawless’ Gael Song series, The Land of the Living and the Dead, is scheduled for release by Head of Zeus in September 2024.

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