This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on August 12, 2024.

Conan: City of the Dead

By John C. Hocking – Titan Books – June 18, 2024

Review by Robin Marx

Conan: City of the Dead is a deluxe omnibus packaging of two pastiche novels by sword & sorcery veteran John C. Hocking: the fan favorite Conan and the Emerald Lotus and its long-awaited sequel Conan and the Living Plague. Conan and the Emerald Lotus was originally published by Tor Books in 1995 and has been out of print for roughly two decades. While Conan and the Living Plague was penned soon after the release of Emerald Lotus, a chain of unfortunate complications at the publishing end prevented the novel from receiving an official release until now, nearly 30 years after its creation.

Fans of Robert E. Howard’s enduring Conan the Barbarian character have long had a fraught relationship with the pastiche novels written by non-Howard authors. While there were occasional attempts to revive the stories in their original form as published in Weird Tales magazine—perhaps most notably by horror legend Karl Edward Wagner—in the decades following Howard’s death in 1936, the most ubiquitous editions of the stories were those produced under the stewardship of L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. In addition to reprinting Howard’s work, de Camp and Carter took it upon themselves to complete Howard’s unfinished stories, rewrite stories featuring Howard’s other pulp heroes into Conan adventures, and even write wholly original tales starring the barbarian. As the Conan paperback series shifted to different publishers, other authors including Robert Jordan, Poul Anderson, and Harry Turtledove joined de Camp and Carter in contributing their own novel-length Conan adventures, to the extent that by the Tor Books era (1982-2004) pastiche works by other hands were much more readily available than the Howard stories that inspired them. Publishers Wandering Star and Del Rey upended all this beginning in 2003, collecting and releasing the Howard texts free of the modifications and embellishments of subsequent authors. For many Conan fans, this was their first opportunity to read the unadulterated texts, and it inspired a mini backlash against the pastiche novels, many of which diverged widely from Howard’s tone and characterization of Conan. Twenty years have passed, however, and it seems that Conan fans have begun to reevaluate the role and value of pastiche. While some pastiche novels are widely considered better left forgotten, others have become much sought after. Alongside installments by Karl Edward Wagner and John Maddox Roberts, Hocking’s Conan and the Emerald Lotus has become a lucky find for secondhand bookstore shoppers. The collected Conan: City of the Dead release by Titan Books makes Emerald Lotus and its long-lost sequel available to the general public at last.

Conan and the Emerald Lotus finds the titular barbarian coerced into working as an assassin for a twisted wizard hoping to eliminate a rival sorceress and steal her cache of emerald lotus powder, an addictive herbal substance that amplifies magical power while extracting a terrible physical cost from its users. Conan switches allegiances as soon as he manages to extricate himself from his employer’s curse, however. He sets out with the sorceress Lady Zelandra and her colorful retinue—tempestuous knife-throwing young maiden Neesa and a rotund, mute bodyguard named Heng Shih—escorting them into the forbidden deserts of Stygia in search of the source of the emerald lotus and the shadowy manipulator that controls its supply. Conan and the Emerald Lotus deals extensively with the price of power and the extreme lengths to which sorcerers will go to further their mastery of world-warping magic. While Lady Zelandra is a sympathetic character and an ally to Conan, Hocking makes it clear that her lust for power and dependency on the emerald lotus put her on the same grim path as her warped competitors, just not quite as far along.

Conan and the Living Plague is another dark adventure set into motion by evil sorcery. Now serving in a mercenary army, Conan and his comrade-in-arms Shemtare (a character briefly featured in Conan and the Emerald Lotus) are hired to pilfer riches from the vault of Dulcine, a city-state both ravaged by a lethal contagion and besieged by an invading army from without. The resulting adventure is a covert heist, with Conan and a handful of companions of varying levels of competency and trustworthiness venturing into territory in which a single misstep means instant death. Along the way Conan discovers that the epidemic is no natural malady, but instead an intelligent and malignant entity with a yearning for conquest.

Conan: City of the Dead delivers the sort of blood and thunder that sword & sorcery readers expect. Both collected books share relentless pacing, frequent and savage combat, and plentiful horrific elements. Where Conan and the Emerald Lotus features significant moments of cosmic horror—fans of the Cthulhu Mythos will recognize references in the mystical language intoned by the book’s sorcerers—Conan and the Living Plague leans especially hard on the otherworldly terror. The Living Plague is rendered in an intensely creepy and alien manner, and—as Conan is dismayed to learn—it’s not the worst thing lurking beyond the stars.

According to interviews, Hocking wrote Conan and the Emerald Lotus to address some of the flaws common in latter day pastiche and recapture some of the magic of the original Howard, and by that standard Conan: City of the Dead is a tremendous success. While other authors (e.g., Scott Oden) may more faithfully evoke Howard’s prose style, Hocking demonstrates a deep understanding of Conan as a character. He captures Conan’s explosive physicality, emphasizing his pantherish reflexes over sheer strength. And where lesser authors depict Conan as blithely fearless, through both novels Hocking shows Conan as experiencing fear, but not allowing himself to succumb to it. The ability to power through that fear and do what must be done is what separates Conan from his compatriots.

Readers who enjoy Conan: City of the Dead are strongly encouraged to seek out Hocking’s novella “Black Starlight.” Originally serialized in issues of Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian from 2019-2020, the story was collected and re-released in 2023 as part of Titan Books’ ongoing Heroic Legends series of digital shorts. “Black Starlight” begins immediately after the conclusion of Conan and the Emerald Lotus, chronicling a further adventure of Conan with Lady Zelandra, Neesa, and Heng Shih in the wilds of Stygia. Not including “Black Starlight” as part of the Conan: City of the Dead package seems like a missed opportunity on Titan Books’ part but given the fact that they rescued it from falling into obscurity with their ebook release it seems uncharitable to grumble too much.

As a long-time fan of the character, it’s exciting to see Titan Books release both new novels starring Conan (e.g., Conan – Blood of the Serpent) alongside long out-of-print treasures like Conan and the Emerald Lotus. The inclusion of the never-before-seen Conan and the Living Plague sweetens the deal, making Conan: City of the Dead a must-buy even for those lucky readers who already own the original Emerald Lotus paperback. Newcomers to Conan are still advised to start with the original Robert E. Howard tales, but if you’ve devoured those and yearn for more, Conan: City of the Dead is the cream of the pastiche crop.

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on May 9, 2024.

Dark Dreams of Nilztiria

By D.M. Ritzlin – DMR Books – March 31, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

The follow-up to 2020’s Necromancy in Nilztiria, Dark Dreams of Nilztiria collects nine more sword & sorcery stories set in D.M. Ritzlin’s setting, Nilztiria. While several characters from the previous volume reappear—including Xaarxool the Necromancer, barbarian hero Avok Kur Storn, and Vran the Chaos-Warped (also featured in the 2023 novel, Vran the Chaos-Warped), the stories here are self-contained, and no prior experience with the characters or setting is needed to enjoy this volume.

Dark Dreams of Nilztiria starts off strong with the cover story, “More Blood.” A warrior awakens in a phantasmagorical arena, with no memory of the circumstances leading up to his imprisonment. With no time to pause for reflection, he faces a series of increasingly strange opponents: twin martial artists, a jester armed only with his index finger, even a walrus. All the while, the colosseum echoes with a repeated cry for “Blood! More blood!” The nameless warrior battles his way to the arena’s bloodthirsty spectator but is unprepared for what he finds. “More Blood” boasts an intriguing atmosphere and a killer finishing line.

“The Necromancer and the Forgotten Hero” centers on a cat and mouse game between the necromancer Xaarxool and Acclain Dorso, the new magistrate in charge of the Bureau of Sorcerous Affairs in the city of Desazu. The pair’s rivalry has taken a nasty turn, with Dorso dispatching an assassin and a series of summoned monsters after Xaarxool. As he attempts to flee Desazu, Xaarxool brings some protection, however, in the form of legendary warrior Hyallbor. Revived 500 years after his death, Hyallbor finds himself ambivalent about his new lease on life. While resurrection is common in fantasy fiction, the exploration of necromancy from one of its subjects felt refreshing.

Like the story before it, “The Head in the Globe” stars another of Ritzlin’s recurring heroes: Avok Kur Storn. Wandering through the forest, the barbarian hero is approached by an alluring young woman who begs him to retrieve her father’s severed head from the top of a massive tree. Avok learns that the head remains quite alive, imprisoned in a glass sphere through the magic of Syrakoss, a warlock hoping to extort magical knowledge from the head. Avok discovers that reclaiming the head is the easy part of his task, as he soon finds himself caught in a struggle between two sorcerous heavyweights, dealing with treachery and a host of bizarre creatures. Fast-paced and subtly humorous, “The Head in the Globe” covers a great deal of ground in a scant 18 pages.

“Crowned in Madness” presents a dungeon delve from hell. After choosing the wrong victim to waylay, failed bandit Rythe finds himself press-ganged into the service of the arrogant wizard Altogg Keldoum. Keldoum’s band of mercenaries are on an expedition to loot a magical crown from a dead king’s tomb, but careless tavern chatter catches the ear of Verohssa, High Priestess of the BDSM-flavored cult of Tuntilla, the Sadistic Maiden. Disaster strikes deep within the tomb and Rythe is caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to preserve his own life while Keldoum and Verohssa struggle to possess the crown. Hapless Rythe’s constantly shifting allegiances add a welcome touch of wry humor to what is otherwise a very gory and grim tale.

The shortest episode in the collection, “Diabolical Symphonies” follows the ruthless sorceress Ytra as she prepares a powerful magical incantation to get revenge on her long list of enemies and rivals (including Xaarxool and Avok Kur Storn). Epic spellcraft demands rare components, and Ytra must go to great lengths to enact her mystical vengeance. Magic is fickle at best, however, and the stakes are high for Ytra as she grapples with ancient sorcery. This story is sure to be appreciated by readers left cold by the safely reliable, almost scientific depiction of magic common in much modern fantasy fiction.

Another story starring Xaarxool, “The City the Gods Abandoned” finds the necromancer stranded in the otherworldly city of Vantophai after a magical mishap. A local ruler immediately approaches Xaarxool, attempting to coerce him into assisting his takeover of Vantophai. Sorcerers are even more resistant to compulsion than cats, however, and Xarxool decides to extract himself from the situation in spectacular fashion. “The City the Gods Abandoned” feels a little on the long side, but Xaarxool’s magical MacGuyver-like solution to his plight makes up for the slower scenes.

The longest story in Dark Dreams of Nilztiria at 40 pages, “Inside a Dead God’s Skull” has a suitably epic premise. Maniacal sorcerer Rothalzeng embarks on a mission of conquest, using a religious cult and the giant corpse of a dead god to further his aims. It’s up to Avok Kur Storn, Xaarxool’s ally Lodianux, and others to stand against Rothalzeng. While “Inside a Dead God’s Skull” includes some of the most impressive imagery in the book, it suffers from an overabundance of named characters and some pacing issues. Exciting but overstuffed, “Inside a Dead God’s Skull” might have worked better as a full-length novel.

Where “Crowned in Madness” prominently featured a cult devoted to the goddess of pain, “The Curse of Ambition” focuses on a competing religion dedicated to Veshakul’a, the goddess of death. Dantorol, a young adherent of the cult, finds himself disillusioned with the apparent complacency of his church’s superiors. When an opportunity to seize power presents itself, he takes it. While Dantorol succeeds in growing the cult, he must deal with other, unintended results. While slightly on the cryptic side, this story is another example of the recurring theme of a Ritzlin character getting what they want, “good and hard” (to paraphrase H.L. Mencken).

“The Demon’s Oak” is another story dealing with religion. An oak tree outside of Desazu becomes animated, declaring itself to be Arnvar, the god of earth and nature. A cult soon springs up around the tree, but some suspect the self-declared god has an ulterior motive. Famed mercenary Vran is hired to remove his client’s daughter Ulrika from the influence of the cult, but his task is complicated by the hidden powers of the being inhabiting the tree and the unpredictable effects that result when magic is cast in his presence. “The Demon’s Oak” packs a lot of adventure into 36 pages, without the inconsistent pacing of “The City the Gods Abandoned” and “Inside a Dead God’s Skull.”

The stories collected in Dark Dreams of Nilztiria are grim and gory, but occasionally glimmers of wry humor shine through. Many of the shorts have ironic endings, where the protagonist gets exactly what they sought, but with disastrous results. And while many sword & sorcery authors demonstrate a strong preference for either sorcery or sword (e.g., emphasizing plucky swordsmen while casting wizards as the perennial villains), Ritzlin gives equal “screen time” to both brawny and brainy protagonists. It’s also entertaining how his cast of characters seem to wander through each other’s adventures, either appearing directly through cameos or via off-hand references.

While the sorceress Ytra is a fun character who gets to star in her own story and pain cultist Verohssa makes for an entertaining antagonist, overall women tend to occupy a peripheral role in the stories contained here. Apart from Ytra and Verohssa, women tend to be either in need of assistance (e.g., Ulrika in “The Demon’s Oak”) or absent entirely. Readers hoping to read about, say, a quick-witted rogue who happens to be a woman are destined to be disappointed. Ritzlin has an engaging cast of recurring male heroes, perhaps adding another woman to the mix could address this imbalance.

Delivering swordplay and spellcasting in equal measure, Dark Dreams of Nilztiria has much to offer fans of dark fantasy. While—as presented in this book—Nilztiria seems somewhat amorphous and undefined as a fantasy setting, Ritzlin’s characters are both distinct and appealing.

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on April 10, 2024.

The Angel of Indian Lake

By Stephen Graham Jones – S&S/Saga Press – March 26, 2024

Review by Robin Marx

Four years have passed since the events of Don’t Fear the Reaper, the second volume in Stephen Graham Jones’ Indian Lake Trilogy. As The Angel of Indian Lake opens, Halloween is coming to Proofrock, Idaho, but—still scarred by the Independence Day Massacre of eight years ago and the bloody rampage of serial killer Dark Mill South’s so-called “reunion tour” of four years past—the picturesque lake town is doing everything it can to downplay the spooky season. Fresh out of prison for a parole violation, Proofrock’s perennial scapegoat Jade Daniels is likewise keeping a low profile. Back in the only home she knows, as flawed and unwelcoming as it is, she ekes out a quiet life as the local high school’s history teacher. Proofrock is one town where the crimes of the past refused to stay buried, however. When a sheriff’s vehicle lost in the mountains during Dark Mill South’s killing spree is rediscovered, a high school student’s quad-copter drone footage also reveals a number of fresh corpses in the immediate vicinity, including students of Jade’s. Try as she might to avoid becoming sucked in to the bloody affair, a subsequent daylight murder on the high school’s doorstep demands Jade’s immediate attention. Chaos erupts, bodies fall, and the legendary Angel of Indian Lake from Proofrock’s frontier days lurks around the periphery.

Much like Don’t Fear the Reaper, The Angel of Indian Lake takes place in an extremely compressed span of time: immediately before, during, and after Halloween. The pacing is similarly relentless, but the stakes are higher than ever. Not only is Proofrock itself facing an existential threat, Jade must put herself in harm’s way to to protect the few surviving residents of Proofrock that hardened and traumatized Jade has allowed herself to love. While she has become somewhat (understandably) ambivalent to horror movies after being immersed in so much real-life carnage over the past eight years, once again Jade puts her encyclopedic knowledge of slasher flicks and their tropes to work in an effort to live to see another day.

As with the first two books in the Indian Lake Trilogy, Jade remains the wounded but defiant heart of the narrative in The Angel of Indian Lake. Each of the books depends heavily on their nuanced portrayals of a misunderstood and neglected misfit that has a tendency to vehemently reject the few helping hands extended in her direction out of fear of betrayal. Misanthropic characters are difficult to get right, and are always at risk of being found frustrating or unlikable by readers, but Jade has always been rendered with such aching empathy that the audience can’t help but share her fears and see past the bulletproof shell she has constructed around herself. Jones describes her as the girl whose heart is too big for her body, and the success of the books (and popularity of “Jade Daniels is my Final Girl” T-shirts) has made it clear that she resonates with many readers. At her core, Jade remains the same complicated character that won over readers with her first appearance in My Heart is a Chainsaw, but she has matured and grown. She’s still as rebellious as ever, but time, therapy, and the support of her chosen family have rounded off some of her edges, creating a more polished and even-tempered version of herself. And where previously readers were only provided occasional glimpses directly into Jade’s mind via horror film-related essays submitted to her high school high school teacher, The Angel of Indian Lake shifts from the third person to a first-person perspective, with Jade herself as the narrator. Constantly under pressure as she struggles for her life, Jade’s mind runs a mile a minute, thoughts swirling with movie trivia, hopes, fears, assumptions, misinterpretations, and jumped-to conclusions. Her stream-of-consciousness perspective is sometimes a challenging one, as it’s occasionally difficult for the reader to distinguish actual events from flights of fancy, but the intimacy of her perspective enhances the experience. Jade and her horror-drenched worldview are the highlight of these books, making the move to first person perspective a wise storytelling choice.

While it was certainly present in the previous volumes, Jones’ masterful and empathetic characterization of supporting characters is particularly noticeable in The Angel of Indian Lake. Like Jade, her best friend Letha and her husband Sheriff Banner have also grown into themselves while doing their best to cope with Proofrock’s numerous tragedies. While the characters’ dialogue is by turns moving, wry, or devastating, Jones also manages to communicate so much through understatement, words left unsaid, and subtle body language.

In the Acknowledgments section of the book, Jones frankly discusses the challenges he faced writing The Angel of Indian Lake. While it must have been an intimidating task attempting to live up to the fan expectations accumulated with the first two books, it was surprising to see how little material he had prepared ahead of time. None of this blank space was obvious while reading the book, the ease with which Jones picked up plot threads from the first two volumes and interwove them with new events made it seem like he had everything exhaustively planned from the start. Minor characters have surprising destinies and seemingly throwaway elements receive unexpected payoffs. Jones makes executing a satisfying horror trilogy look easy, in a way that very few authors to date have managed.

With The Angel of Indian Lake, Jade Daniels’ story gets the ending it deserves. Expect award nominations to follow.

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on March 26, 2024.

Neither Beg Nor Yield: Stories with S&S Attitude

Edited by Jason M. Waltz – Rogue Blades Entertainment – January 26, 2024

Review by Robin Marx

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 the 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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This review originally appeared at Spiral Tower Press on September 2, 2023.

Looking Glass Sound

By Catriona Ward – Tor Nightfire – August 2023.

Review by Robin Marx

“If you don’t bring up those lonely parts This could be a good time” -Interpol, “Leif Erikson”

Since the 2015 release of her debut novel Rawblood, Catriona Ward has established herself as a writer to be watched. Subsequent novels have been unleashed in rapid succession, bringing her numerous accolades. She is the three-time winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel, for example, an achievement unmatched by any other woman writer. Her 2021 novel The Last House on Needless Street is still enjoying a great deal of buzz among readers and critics, and new release Looking Glass Sound seems destined to keep Ward’s name at the vanguard of the horror fiction community.

When his father inherits a cottage in coastal Maine, 16-year-old Wilder Harlow finds himself caught up in a summer that will forever alter the course of his life. Socially awkward and painfully sensitive, Wilder nevertheless finds himself swiftly drawn into an intense friendship with two local teens, Nat and Harper. Abandoned by his mother, fisherman’s son Nat spends his days outdoors, seemingly reluctant to spend time at home. Harper plays at witchcraft—perhaps to exert more control over her troubled family life—and has already developed a thirst for alcohol that goes beyond her friends’ youthful experimentation with drink. The three lonely friends discover the companionship that they so desperately need in each other, vowing to meet again in future summers. Despite their optimistic oath, the triad is short-lived, however. People have been quietly disappearing from Whistler Bay for years, and threatening Polaroid photos of a knife held to the throats of sleeping children have turned up on multiple occasions. When a shocking link between the teens and the so-called Dagger Man of Whistler Bay is revealed the following summer, the friendship is torn asunder. Even after going their separate ways, the events of Whistler Bay follow the trio for the rest of their lives.

Looking Glass Sound involves a great deal of literary experimentation. Unreliable narration in particular plays a prominent role. Wilder becomes a writer, his entire career fixated upon the summers in Whistler Bay and their aftermath, and much of the text is presented as chapters from his unpublished memoir. Perspectives shift throughout the book, and there’s also a recurring thematic emphasis on storytelling. When Wilder asks Nat about a quirk of Harper’s, he casually responds that it’s “not my story to tell.” It’s a brief passage, presented without any obvious significance, but the concept of ownership of stories—who has the “right” to tell them—is one Ward returns to again and again within the book.

While the puzzle-like construction and misdirection of Looking Glass Sound are clever, I found myself more struck by the emotional dimension of the book. The way the characters interact with each other feels brutally real and raw, and because the book follows them over the course of decades, the reader sees Wilder and friends change and grow. The explosive, white-hot infatuations and arguments of their younger years give way in adulthood to frustrated longing and smoldering grudges. Looking Glass Sound has an intimate cast of characters—one could even call it crowded, even claustrophobic—and their separations and reunions over the years result in a melancholy mélange of missed opportunities, interrupted romances, regrets, and awkwardness. The circumstances surrounding the Dagger Man tragedy leave each of the characters laden with trauma and grief, but they find themselves not just haunted by the dead, but each other. Words unspoken, kisses unstolen, and disagreements unresolved all take on weight as years accumulate in the story.

The initial premise of Looking Glass Sound feels a bit like it could have been taken from a scrap filched from Stephen King’s desk, and some readers have expressed frustration with how Ward blurs the line between actual and imagined events. However, despite Ward’s trickiness, attentive readers should be able to navigate the layers and twists. My central complaint would be that the book tends to neglect the horror half of literary horror. Apart from infrequent moments of supernatural peril (which do include an excellent climax, to Ward’s credit), this book left me more sad than frightened. That being said, the empathy and authenticity with which Ward’s walking wounded characters are rendered is thoroughly engrossing. It’s never stated in so many words, but “we haunt each other” is the core message I took away from the book.

#ReviewArchive #BookReview #Horror #LookingGlassSound #CatrionaWard #SpiralTowerPress

This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on December 23, 2023.

The Doom of Odin

By Scott Oden – St. Martin's Press – December 19, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

Third and final volume in the GRIMNIR SAGA, The Doom of Odin begins where many tales would end. The year is 1347, and Grimnir—the last skraelingr (i.e., orc)—has doggedly tracked his nemesis to Rome, a dying city decimated by the black plague. After nearly 130 years of pursuit, it is there that he plans to fulfill his oath to destroy the resurrected wyrm Níðhöggr, Odin’s chosen weapon and the ancient enemy of Grimnir’s people. As he’s closing in on Níðhöggr’s lair, however, Grimnir is felled by a crossbow bolt loosed by a terrified mercenary. Just like that, a legendary warrior seasoned by a thousand years of battle is snuffed out by a single lucky shot.

Grimnir awakens in Nástrond, a grim realm at the base of the World Tree Yggðrasil. A dark mirror of the humans’ Valhalla, Nástrond is where Grimnir’s extinct people feast, intrigue, and brawl. The family reunion is an acrimonious one, however, as his parents, cousins, and myriad half-brothers despise him as an upstart outsider. The contempt is mutual, as Grimnir feels his fellows have strayed from Loki’s path, more concerned with social jockeying and establishing petty kingdoms than honing each other through constant warfare in preparation for Ragnarök. A treacherous ambush cuts short Grimnir’s afterlife, but while “slain” souls in Nástrond are typically revived a few hours later, Grimnir instead finds himself unceremoniously shunted back into the world of the living. Subsequent deaths catapult Grimnir back and forth between Rome and the Worlds Below, where he doggedly pursues his goals in parallel. In the world of the living, he continues his quest to destroy Níðhöggr and thwart the wyrm’s master, Odin. When in the afterlife, Grimnir strives to discover the source of his mysterious resilience and the role he is destined to play in the final battle of Ragnarök.

Norse mythology figured heavily in both A Gathering of Ravens and Twilight of the Gods. But while the gods and creatures of Scandinavian folklore were marginalized by the encroachment of Christianity in the first two volumes of the GRIMNIR SAGA, having so much of the final book’s action take place in otherworldly realms allows Scott Oden to pull out all the stops, delivering a phantasmagorical epic packed with Scandinavian spirits and monsters. In The Doom of Odin humans are mostly anonymous rabble rather than the central characters they were previously. Instead, Grimnir finds himself struggling against the souls of his vanquished race, fey witches, undead draugar, winged murder-crones, giants, and Odin himself. While the story is consequently less grounded in our historical world than previous volumes, the cosmic elements feel like a natural escalation at this point in the narrative. Oden creates the sense that not only is Ragnarök nigh, it’s also just two steps away.

After following Grimnir’s exploits over two books as the sole surviving skraelingr, it was fascinating seeing him thrown in among his own people. Grimnir’s cocksure bravado and casual cruelty seem ubiquitous among his kind; they act like jackals, constantly circling each other, waiting for an opening to strike. While the skraelingar clearly share a certain base disposition, their personalities are given enough nuance to keep them from feeling one-dimensional. The fierce warrior woman Skaði is a special highlight, especially after seeing Grimnir mostly interact with smaller, more fragile human women in the previous books.

Even compared to the first two volumes, The Doom of Odin revels in vicious, graphic violence. Skulls are smashed and entrails are spilt, and it’s all rendered in vivid detail. Much like the story’s stakes had been raised, it felt like the brutality had been taken up a few notches as well. This wasn’t a negative point for me, if anything it created the sense that Grimnir was truly unchained for the first time, giving in to his empowering rage in a way most works of entertainment warn against. Sensitive readers might find themselves skimming some passages, however.

A minor issue I had with The Doom of Odin is that the cast of characters is considerably larger than before, and Old Norse mythological terms more frequently encountered. There were occasions when I had trouble keeping track of who some of the minor characters were, or what a given branch of the World Tree signified. It was only upon finishing the book that I discovered that a combination glossary/dramatis personae had been tucked away in the back. This appendix would have smoothed over the few rough patches in my reading journey if only the book had drawn my attention to it earlier, perhaps in a table of contents.

Packed with world-shaking events and operatic struggle, The Doom of Odin is an immensely satisfying conclusion to Grimnir’s saga. One of grimdark’s most compelling characters gets exactly the bloody send-off he deserves. Grimnir’s tale couldn’t have ended any other way.

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on December 5, 2023.

Twilight of the Gods

By Scott Oden – St. Martin's Press – February 18, 2020

Review by Robin Marx

It is the year 1218, and deep in the wilds of Scandinavia there is a sense that Fimbulvetr, the final winter presaging Ragnarök, is at hand. While the Norse, Danes, and Swedes neighboring them have adopted Christianity, the isolated Raven-Geat tribe reject the so-called “Nailed God” and cling to the old ways. Though surrounded by enemies, the Raven-Geats have a protector known as the Hooded One, immortal herald of the Tangled God Loki. As Twilight of the Gods opens, hot-blooded teenage girl Dísa Dagrúnsdottir has just been chosen by the Fates to serve as the Hooded One’s new priestess. She is shocked to learn that the truculent and mercurial guardian of her people is a literal monster: Grimnir, last of the kaunr, what we would call an orc. As Dísa attempts to survive her new master’s cruel ordeals, a greater threat looms just out of sight. A haunted and deranged zealot fresh from the sack of Constantinople plots a new personal Crusade, one to exterminate the heathen Raven-Geats and unite the Scandinavian peninsula under the White Christ.

Set two centuries after the events of A Gathering of Ravens, Twilight of the Gods is the second volume in Scott Oden’s GRIMNIR SAGA. Twilight of the Gods manages to be both more intimate and more epic than its predecessor. Where A Gathering of Ravens spans more than a decade, roaming from Denmark to England and then Ireland, Twilight of the Gods mostly confines itself to the wilderness of what is now Sweden. The cast of characters is smaller, but the stakes are much higher. While the first book primarily dealt with a personal vendetta, this time a reluctant Grimnir finds himself called upon both to defend the humans he’s been parasitically lording over for generations and fulfill his role in a prophesized religious war threatening to spark the end of the world.

Twilight of the Gods is a book drenched in both grim Norse fatalism and blood & thunder heroics. The novels in the Grimnir Saga depict a North where the Old Gods are in decline. Grimnir is the last of his kind, and other once respected and feared supernatural creatures have likewise become relegated to the margins of the world or gone extinct entirely. The influence of Odin and the old pantheon wanes, displaced by the encroaching Christian faith. For Grimnir and many of the other characters in this book, there’s a pervading feeling that the war has already been lost, yet for various reasons they still gear up to fight one last glorious battle. And readers familiar with Oden’s other work, from the previous Grimnir novel to historical adventures like Men of Bronze and The Lion of Cairo, know that Oden can deliver that final battle with gusto. Simultaneously rousing and horrifying, the combats in this novel blend cinematic action with gory, gritty, down-in-the-mud struggle.

As with A Gathering of Ravens, appealing characters are another strong point in Twilight of the Gods. Oden treads a delicate line with his hero Grimnir; he must appear monstrous enough to feel like an “authentic” orc and not just a brutish costumed human, but not so repellent that the reader finds themselves unable to relate to the character or enjoy his exploits. Grimnir is bellicose, capricious, spiteful, and arrogant. He’s casually brutal and an unrepentant murderer. But he’s also an orc of his word, and never fails to repay a debt. In his dealings with humans, who Grimnir views as little more than animals, Oden also imbues him with a mischievous, amused paternalism. Grimnir may not have a heart of gold, but he’s not an outright villain, either. To preserve Grimnir’s mystique, Oden wisely provides primary viewpoint character Dísa as a counterbalance and foil. Imperfect and impetuous, and sharing more than a little of Grimnir’s arrogance, Dísa is an entertaining heroine to follow. Her undying determination is admirable, and it’s interesting to watch her learn when to push back against Grimnir and when to (grudgingly) accept his brusque guidance.

Despite the exceptional quality of the book, Twilight of the Gods had the misfortune of launching in February 2020, roughly simultaneously with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. With all the societal upheaval, store closures, cancelled events, and supply chain issues that followed, I suspect unlucky timing and curtailed promotions prevented this volume from attracting the audience it deserved. Now is an ideal time to read Twilight of the Gods, however. Its conclusion will leave readers wanting more, just as more is about to arrive: The Doom of Odin, book 3 in THE GRIMNIR SAGA, is scheduled to be released on December 19, 2023.

Wholeheartedly recommended for fans of Vikings, orcs, Viking orcs, tough heroines, Scandinavian metal, and doomed battles against incredible odds.

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on November 28, 2023.

Conan: Lord of the Mount

By Stephen Graham Jones – Titan Books – September 26, 2022

Review by Robin Marx

Lord of the Mount opens with Conan as the last survivor of a vanquished raiding party. Surrounded by the dead, as the battered barbarian’s consciousness returns the first shapes that come into view are that of a small group of cattle and their herder. The eyes of both the cows and the man tending them have a strange purple tinge to them, hinting at long term use of the intoxicating powder of the black lotus. Wary of the shifty lotus addict, Conan nevertheless accepts a meal of wine and steak—carved directly from the flanks of the passive, drugged cattle—from the man. Known as Jen Ro, the herdsman tells Conan of his destination: the village of Trinnecerl, where ale and women are plentiful. He warns that the mountain pass leading to the village is guarded by a fearsome monster, however, the so-called Lord of the Mount. With no better destination in mind, the rootless barbarian wanderer elects to accompany Jen Ro, hoping to indulge himself in the pleasures Trinnecerl has to offer and see this Lord of the Mount for himself. Conan soon finds himself fighting for his life against a foe unlike any he has faced before.

Lord of the Mount is the first installment in the Heroic Legends series of monthly digital short stories starring Conan the Barbarian and other pulp fiction heroes created by Robert E. Howard. While not the first piece of new Conan fiction produced via the partnership between Titan Books and Howard franchise owner Heroic Signatures (that would be the Conan – Blood of the Serpent novel by S. M. Stirling), news of the Heroic Legends series was welcomed by Conan and Howard fans for a number of reasons. One was that the Conan stories and the sword & sorcery subgenre of fantasy as a whole originated as short stories and still tend to be most at home in that format. Another reason was the roster of authors listed with the series announcement. Experienced and reliable Conan authors such as John C. Hocking and Scott Oden were present and accounted for, yes, but there were also unexpected curve-balls like Laird Barron and V. Castro. Of the latter group, Stephen Graham Jones was a particularly anticipated contributor, as not only is his star currently ascendant within the horror genre (a field with considerable overlap with sword & sorcery), but his 2021 autobiographical Texas Monthly essay My Life With Conan the Barbarian had already fostered a sense of kinship among many sword & sorcery fans. Jones gets it, he’s one of us. We wanted to see what he could do with the character.

The strong points of Lord of the Mount are its minimalist premise and brisk pace. No time is wasted getting to the good stuff. The scene is set, Conan hits the road, and a knock-down, drag-out battle with the Lord of the Mount follows.

Unfortunately, Lord of the Mount is not entirely successful. Unlike many Conan pastiche writers, Jones made little effort to emulate Howard’s writing style. But he also didn’t seem to write in the colloquial, almost folksy voice Jones used in other works like The Only Good Indians. The result is sort of a hybrid, neither fish nor foul. Dissimilar to Howard, but also not quite Jones’ natural narrative voice.

The portrayal of Conan also felt off in parts. During his battle with the Lord of the Mount, in multiple instances Conan is described as “screaming.” Conan has never struck me as much of a screamer, but even if he had occasion to scream at least some of these screams should have been changed to “bellows” or “roars” for variety’s sake. Also, when Conan reunites with Jen Ro in the story’s denouement he reacts as if he has been subjected to a betrayal worthy of violent retribution. However, at the beginning of the story Jen Ro is pretty forthright when describing the danger of the Lord of the Mount and the means he uses to evade it, making Conan’s rage feel excessive and unwarranted.

While I expected more from a Stephen Graham Jones take on Conan, Lord of the Mount is still worth the small price of admission. I appreciate Titan Books’ willingness to go beyond safe and expected Conan writers, giving readers a chance to see a variety of different interpretations and portrayals of a familiar character.

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on November 24, 2023.

Old Moon Quarterly: Issue 5, Summer 2023

By Old Moon Publishing – August 29, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

Old Moon Quarterly has returned with its third installment of the year. Like previous issues, OMQ serves up an intriguing mix of grimdark and weird sword & sorcery fiction. Vol. 5 cover artist Derek Moore delivers the magazine’s most striking cover artwork to date: a skeleton in full plate harness equipped with a bec de corbin polearm. There are no interior illustrations or advertisements in this 89-page issue, and the text is presented in a single column layout.

After a brief Introduction expressing a desire to see more cerebral sword & sorcery tales in the vein of Robert E. Howard’s King Kull of Atlantis (as opposed to the more direct action yarns featuring Conan and his ilk), the issue opens with “Together Under the Wing,” by Jonathan Olfert. A Stone Age revenge tale with a twist, this story involves a young warrior driven to avenge the murder of his mother, the matriarch of their people. The wrinkle is that the protagonist, Walks-like-a-Rockslide, is a sentient mammoth with bladed tusks and his foe is the king of the giants. Appropriately, given the stature of these clashing titans, the struggle that follows is imbued with a palpable sense of momentum and inevitability. Mammoth and Giant King circle, close, and deal grievous wounds to each other. While the events of the narrative are straightforward, the unusual hero and heavy atmosphere of finality make this story stand out.

K.H. Vaughan’s “Champions Against the Maggot King” is another story that focuses on conjuring a very specific mood. The narrator, Grath, is a grunt in an imperial army locked in a desperate war against the monstrous hordes of the titular Maggot King. The story is presented as a series of vignettes showcasing both the formidable odds the soldiers are facing and the handful of elite heroes who may just be able to turn the tide. Sorrow Mai is a warrior woman with a massive axe and a “leather cuirass boiled in blood.” Ilhar, also called “The Raven,” is an untouchable elven duelist with a darkly poetic heart. Ko-Mon the Heartless is a scarred dwarf who wields an enchanted war chain that is powered by his pain. All these characters are anime levels of over-the-top and portrayed in a worshipful tone by Grath. Their enemies are likewise epic, especially the decomposing dragon that drips clumps of rotting flesh as it strafes the beleaguered troops below. There’s much in this story that’s excessive and even perhaps silly, but Vaughan absolutely sells it with a straight face. “Champions Against the Maggot King” is a grimdark treat that should appeal to fans of the Berserk and Bastard!! -Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy- anime series as well as enthusiasts of The Black Company and The Malazan Book of the Fallen.

In a first for Old Moon Quarterly, issue 5 includes two poems: “The King’s Two Bodies” by Joe Koch, and Zachary Bos’ “A Warning Agaynste Woldes.” “The King’s Two Bodies” is vividly lyrical, if perhaps a bit opaque. “A Warning Agaynste Woldes,” however, was peppered with Old English and tedious to decipher. The poetry didn’t add much to this issue, in this reviewer’s opinion, but I would not be opposed to seeing more verse in the future.

“The Origin of Boghounds,” by Amelia Gorman, is another grimdark entry. Boghounds are dog-like creatures of unknown pedigree. When a bounty hunter named Samphire discovers Hum, the boghound companion of her mountebank target, she decides to use the boghound to track down its master. The pair face stiff opposition in the form of two competing bounty hunters, however, and the situation becomes even more lethal when together they all discover the monstrous and delightfully gross progenitor of the boghounds. This story is packed to the brim with entertaining weirdness. The characters are all quirky and strange, like NPCs from the Dark Souls video games, and the world is evocatively rendered despite the story’s brevity.

David K. Henrickson’s “Well Met at the Gates of Hell” is one of the more sword & sorcery-oriented tales in this issue. A nameless man awakens on a barren plain, under a starless sky. Three figures await him: a massive paladin with a glowing sword, a small dagger-wielding man with a hateful smile, and a 12-foot-tall praying mantis. The trio wish to kill the new arrival for his past offenses and have agreed among themselves to engage him in single combat, one at a time. The story that follows is a triptych of duels shot through with witty repartee reminiscent of The Princess Bride. The protagonist—I hesitate to call him the hero, his enemies seem justified in their hatred of him—and his opponents are all vague sketches, but Henrickson makes the minimalism work. The result is a completely fat-free story that gives the reader just enough to satiate them and not an ounce further. This was the highlight of the issue for me.

“The Skulls of Ghosts,” by Charles Gramlich, is another sword & sorcery adventure. The muscular warrior Krieg journeys into a plague-ridden kingdom trying to locate the malady’s sorcerous origin. While there is a lot to like about this story, it suffered by following “Well Met at the Gates of Hell.” There’s some nicely hallucinatory prose here—the story shares many characteristics with the King Kull tales celebrated in this issue’s Introduction—but “The Skulls of Ghosts” felt long and overstuffed compared to the other stories in issue #5. There were more named characters and backstory than seemed truly necessary, and the evil sorcerer’s habit of assuming other characters’ identities was confusing. The components of a good story are present, but it would have benefited from some trimming and tightening.

“Today, I met a man I had killed before,” opens “The Headsman’s Melancholy” by Joseph Andre Thomas. Set in 14th century England, the final story of the issue is related by Jack Marvell, an executioner in the employ of King Henry IV. While he professes job satisfaction, Marvell keeps a diary to help cope with his depression, and this story consists of a series of journal entries describing his encounters with a strange knave he has beheaded on multiple occasions. Bizarre and gleefully gory, with a cryptic ending, “The Headsman’s Melancholy” is oddly compelling. A fitting conclusion to a strong issue of Old Moon Quarterly.

Unlike some more generalist fantasy fiction magazines, Old Moon Quarterly gives the sense of a very specific editorial vision. A desired vibe. Their submission guidelines call for “dark and weird sword & sorcery,” and while that’s not inaccurate, it feels like it insufficiently articulates what makes a given story Old Moon Quarterly material. With the launch of their first Kickstarter campaign, however, it seems like the editors have zeroed in on a pithy way to describe the type of fiction they showcase: “Soulsborne-inspired.” In short, if you enjoy the brutal, gothic, grimdark aesthetic of From Software’s Dark Souls and Bloodborne video games, Old Moon Quarterly curates fiction with a similar feel. Old Moon Quarterly is recommended for dark fantasy fans of all stripes, but for those yearning for that elusive Soulsborne atmosphere in particular, this is the place.

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on October 13, 2023.

The City of Marble and Blood

By Howard Andrew Jones – Baen Books – October 3, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

Book 2 in the Chronicles of Hanuvar, The City of Marble and Blood picks up shortly after the conclusion of Lord of a Shattered Land. Defeated general and master strategist Hanuvar continues his undercover efforts to free his enslaved Volani countrymen from the genocidal Dervan Empire. He reconnects with old allies and gains new ones, including some surprising friends highly placed within the Dervan Empire. Early in the book a sorcerous mishap inflicts upon Hanuvar a startling transformation, however. The magical disaster provides renewed physical vigor and makes disguising his identity easier, but he also finds himself unrecognizable to longtime friends and aging at an accelerating pace. Freeing his people remains his utmost priority, but even more than before Hanuvar is confronted with his own mortality.

Like Lord of a Shattered Land before it, The City of Marble and Blood is another cycle of 14 linked stories (the final 15th chapter is more of an epilogue). Each chapter is largely episodic, making this an ideal book for short reading sessions. Compared to the first volume, however, The City of Marble and Blood holds together better as a cohesive novel. Where the installments in Lord of a Shattered Land tended to be scattered both geographically and thematically, with few members of the supporting cast returning after their original appearance, the stories here share more recurring characters and the plots more connections between them.

While Hanuvar remains as clever and driven as ever, the type of stories being told in The City of Marble and Blood have shifted slightly compared to the preceding book. Where Lord of a Shattered Land took place in the outlying provinces, The City of Marble and Blood is largely set deep behind enemy lines, either in the Empire’s central territories or the capital of Derva itself. This change in locale raises the stakes, as Hanuvar is surrounded at all times by the imperial war machine and the Gestapo-like Revenants. The capture and interrogation of Hanuvar or one of his key allies has the potential to scuttle his entire plan to liberate the enslaved Volani. And while they don’t disappear entirely, the “man versus monster” stories from the first volume mostly give way to a greater focus on mystery and political intrigue. Hanuvar finds himself in the uncomfortable position of working to foil assassination attempts on Dervans responsible for the destruction of his homeland, simply to prevent the ascension of even worse figures.

Fewer supernatural monsters appear in The City of Marble and Blood than the first book, but there is a greater emphasis on humanocentric evil. While there are a number of likable Dervan characters, it remains an empire built on slavery and Jones doesn’t shy away from depicting the brutality of human bondage. Entitled “In a Family Way,” the eleventh story in the book is an incredibly bleak look at a Dervan lordling who surrounds himself with beautiful slaves. Not only are the women mistreated and forced to share his bed, those unfortunates who fall pregnant end up being subjected to an even more sadistic fate. Hanuvar is an unambiguously heroic figure and many of his adventures have bright conclusions, but when a story wanders into grim territory Jones seems happy to rip the gloves off and bolt deeper into the darkness.

Lord of a Shattered Land marked a strong start to the *Chronicles of Hanuvar and The City of Marble and Blood makes for a compelling follow-up. The nature of Hanuvar’s exploits have changed slightly, but he remains the same cunning and cerebral character introduced in the first book. He also now benefits from an expanded roster of interesting and engaging allies and foes. The Roman-inspired Dervan setting continues to intrigue. Jones provides enough detail to paint a vivid picture of the society while simultaneously avoiding the dreaded “info-dump.” The City of Marble and Blood delivers a definite sense of forward momentum that I found incredibly satisfying. Formidable obstacles remain, but it feels like Hanuvar is making significant progress towards liberating his people. He’s winning. This makes me suspect that readers are being set up for a devastating reversal of fortune in the third book.

While The City of Marble and Blood appeared merely two months after Lord of a Shattered Land, readers will have to wait notably longer for the third volume in the series. Shadow of the Smoking Mountain is scheduled for an October 2024 release.

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