This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on December 28, 2024.

Contra Amatores Mundi: A Gothic Fantasy

By Graham Thomas Wilcox – Old Moon Publishing – October 31, 2024

Review by Robin Marx

Contra Amatores Mundi: A Gothic Fantasy is a medieval grimdark novella by Graham Thomas Wilcox, one of the editors behind the “Soulsborne” dark fantasy fiction showcase Old Moon Quarterly. The title is Latin for “against the lovers of the world,” quoted from a sermon by 14th century religious writer Richard Rolle, and true to the name, the novella features a pair of lovers separated by epic circumstances.

Contra Amatores Mundi begins with Hieronymus of Tsorn and Prospero of Luchetti, two knights of the chivalric Order of the Dragon, at sea. As they dispatch their enemy, the Knight of Foxes, he drags both knights overboard as his dying act. The last thing Hieronymus sees as he is claimed by the depths is Walpurga, his beloved nun (who has one flesh hand and one skeletal hand for unexplained—but undeniably metal—reasons). When Hieronymus and Prospero awaken, they find themselves in a strange world beneath the sea. With only each other to rely upon in a bizarre land swarming with hostile monsters, the two knights set out across the wilderness, searching for a way home. Through the use of a relic claimed from the corpse of their first opponent, Hieronymus witnesses visions of his distant love Walpurga. Alternately comforting and distressing, on some occasions he sees Walpurga doing her utmost to be reunited with Hieronymus, at other times he sees her committing infidelities or moving on with her life. Just as the vicissitudes of their journey tests his body, the visions challenge his resolve and love for his woman.

Contra Amatores Mundi bears some kinship with an earlier work by Wilcox, sharing the setting and some characters from “The Feast of Saint Ottmer,” my favorite of the stories published in Old Moon Quarterly Volume 3. In my review of “The Feast of Saint Ottmer,” I wrote that “It overshoots Arthurian romance, ending up closer to the opening scenes of Vlad Dracula as armored warrior in the Francis Ford Coppola film Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).” To my amusement, Wilcox later admitted that he was indeed a big fan of that particular Coppola sequence, and the same bombastic, operatic feel is captured in Contra Amatores Mundi as well.

Wilcox cites Cormac McCarthy, Gene Wolfe, and Chretien de Troyes as influences on Contra Amatores Mundi. While I lack firsthand experience with Chretien, I can say that the novella does pair the brutality of something like McCarthy’s The Road with the ornate prose and archaic diction of Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun. Intriguing vocabulary choices abound, and the style of passages like the following effectively evoke an atmosphere where flowery, cultured speech collides with the grim butchery of the knights’ trade.

“…violence never authored its writ upon a man more firmly than it did upon dread Prospero. Blood, fire and death had scrawled him all over, such that by the very ink of his eye and curl of his mouth, one branded him at once a son of Cain.”

Hieronymus and Prospero’s odyssey is a bloody, arduous one. At every turn they are confronted by giants, animate skeletons, serpent-headed creatures and worse. Their nightmarish journey is accompanied by frequent meditations upon the nature of their vocation. These knights fight in the name of the Christian God (presented here as a more martial and bloodthirsty icon than some might expect), and Hieronymus is simultaneously devoted to the darkly alluring Walpurga. But the reader is also given the impression that these two warriors relish the taking and giving of blood. They are compatible with no other lifestyle; killing is their business and business is good. And trapped as they are in another realm with only a faint glimmer of hope, they have effectively become suicide commandos.

While readers may trip over the occasional unfamiliar word (likely armor-related jargon) or pause to reread a particularly florid turn of phrase, the pace of the novella is brisk and propulsive. The ending arrives abruptly. So sudden, in fact, that I wondered if my copy was missing a page or two. Upon further reflection, however, Wilcox gives us enough indication of the two knights’ ultimate fate, allowing readers to fill in the final moments themselves.

The McCarthy and Wolfe influences are clearly present, but this novella is also recommended for fans of Christopher Buehlman’s Between Two Fires, Matt Holder’s Hurled Headlong Flaming, and the Games Workshop Warhammer tie-in fiction published by Black Library. (Indeed, one of Wilcox’s previous releases is the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar short story “Grimnirsson.”) Contra Amatores Mundi: A Gothic Fantasy is a gory grimdark opera with style and spectacle.

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