Review of However Many Must Die by Phil Williams (The Blood Scouts 1)
BlurbWild Wish was trained to do one kill.
Saved from a lonely backwater existence by a global war, Wish couldn’t believe her luck when she got into the Blood Scouts. Now she gets to share tents with an all-female platoon of night-stalking, giant-slaying, boat-sinking, battle-swaying legends in the making.
The problem is, they keep dying.
And they’ve been given their worst assignment yet.
The enemy Dread Corps are combining magics deep within the nightmare lands of Low Slane, to unleash a weapon that could sway the entire war. It’s up to the Blood Scouts to stop them – with a journey that gets more dangerous with every step.
Far behind enemy lines, death hangs in the air. Monsters lurk around every corner.
Are Wish’s skills – and positive attitude – enough to keep her Blood Scouts alive?
Or will the cost of survival finally break her?
Get ready for the first epic entry in a new series, and a new world, of dark military fantasy from Phil Williams. Start reading today!
What even to say about this book! I didn’t expect to adore it as much as I did. But then, I’ve liked darker books before, so perhaps it wasn’t a surprise. I should find another dark book to read soon, so I can get over this!
Be mindful of the warnings because this is a VERY DARK, VERY VIOLENT book and the deaths of characters are very reminiscent of GRRM, so be warned!
The book revolves around Wild Wish who is part of an Elite all women warrior group called The Blood Scouts in a time when women are not allowed to be soldiers and are expected to be homemakers and mothers and part of administrative staff and not in the frontlines. There is a global war happening between two empires, one of which is strongly reminiscent of the British Empire and the other of the Nazis if they had a child with the Spanish Inquisition.
Wild Wish and the Blood Scouts are part of the Stanclif Empire which is like the British and they want to stop the Drail who believes in purity and all that shit. But the Blood Scouts aren’t free of prejudices themselves as is shown in several instances. The book opens with the Blood Scouts going to the frontline, trying to flank their enemies. Wild Wish is on a tank and machine gun combo type of thing and kills off a lot of enemies, though it isn’t what she wants to do. She’s a sniper and a good one at that, and likes to do that, instead of butchering people with a gun that rips them to shreds.
When after the battle, they free a town from the Drail and learns of experiments going on, and of a weapon the Drail are trying to develop which could potentially end the war, the Blood Scouts are sent with Captain Brade, an adventurer and spy, to find and neutralise the weapon, deep into the heart of Low Slane which is home to monsters no one has ever encountered.
The other PoV is that of Maringdale, a purification officer with the Drail, who is also an intention mage who can sense people’s intentions. Her PoV is pretty chilling and she’s as much an oddity as the Blood Scouts are since the Drail is no better than Stanclif when it comes to women.
I loved the Blood Scouts so freaking much. They have their faults: most of them are pretty racist and classist, but for all that, they grow on one. Their journey to Low Slane is both thrilling and chilling.
Wild Wish herself is a memorable character with all the unresolved trauma from the killing she’s forced to do, the PTSD flashbacks that she suppresses and her sexuality which she dares not express for such a long time.
Maringdale is a contrast in that she absolutely has no qualms about anything she does, be it the killing of a superior or torture of others. The only thing that keeps her awake is her frustration with the patriarchy that doesn’t appreciate her or her talents. She is contemptuous of the men who look down on her and is confident she’s better than them. She is very persistent and a good investigator, making connections and contributing to the war effort because she believes in it.
As I said at the start, this is a very dark book, and deals with themes of morality, racism, classism, misogyny, and the impact of colonialism on the colonised. As someone coming from a nation that was once a colony, I appreciated the voice given to those like us.
The world building in this was top notch. There are no expositions or explanations, but we get to know the world and its many races, magical and mundane. Magic is very much existent but has limits with only a few kinds of mages that we get to see. I would really like to see Newk do some magic, because I was so intrigued by her culture and magic which seems more liberal than the empires that colonised and destroyed her land.
I loved the title which is quite fitting for this book.
If you love fantasy that veers towards darker themes with blood, gore, violence, genocide and what not, with a cast of very flawed but very memorable characters and expertly crafted world building, you will love this book.
You can find it here!
