Review: The Devils

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 3.5-star review. Rounding up to 4 stars as it was an engaging read.

Consider the medieval world but where magic is real. There are vampires, mages, and werewolves. Elves are around but are considered evil. The relationships are either tortured or slapstick...and sometimes a bit of both!

At one point, the she-werewolf ends up fighting a he-werewolf. At least they start of fighting...

Something similar occurs at another point in the book when two armies are poised to destroy one another until their leaders...an estranged husband and wife...patch things up. Ah..l'amour!

The Pope is a pre-teen/early-teen girl who performs powerful magic on a whim.

And a street rat girl is plucked from the streets and told she is to the heir to an empire. A select team is assembled to see her installed on the throne. A vampire, a mage, a werewolf, an immortal fighter, an elf, and a jack of all trades.

Much jocularity ensues. Along with a lot of bloodshed and other forms of nastiness.

The author continues his reign as the lord of all grimdark; leavening a heavily flawed world with some spicy banter and a little spicier action. A nice enough read.

View all my reviews

Grimdark Magazine and the End of an Era

I have been a long-time supporter of Grimdark Magazine (hereafter GdM).  Fantasy stories featuring morally compromised protagonists doing the best they can in a flawed world appeal to me.

I have nominated the publisher Adrian Collins and editor Beth Tabler for the Best Editor, Short Fiction Hugo Award as well as the magazine itself in the appropriate category.  They generally do a great job at finding interesting stories for GdM.  GdM's anthology projects have also been outstanding.

To be clear, I wish them the best in their efforts to provide top-notch fantasy fiction to Grimdark fans and readers.  I hope they continue to attract new customers.  

I've traded emails with Adrian over the years and interacted with him on the Grimdark Readers and Writers group on Facebook.  He's a great guy.  I've also had some contact with Beth via an anonymous account.  Again, a perfectly delightful individual.

The direction of the magazine has shifted over the last 12+ months.  As a result, I have canceled my Patreon support for the magazine.

The short version is that I have less interest in reading GdM.  I downloaded the 10th Anniversary issue (#40) and found that I had 4 or 5 issues that I had left unread.  My motivation for reading GdM has apparently declined.

Issue #40 made it clear why I haven't been as interested in GdM.  There has been a significant shift in the editorial objective of GdM.

In past years, it seemed that GdM was committed to publishing the best stories, interviews, and reviews within the Grimdark sub-genre.  GdM didn't care who you were.  If you could tell a great story, do a great interview, or write a compelling review, then they wanted to print your work.

The lead editorial in issue #40, by Krystle Matar, was titled "Grimdark, Home of the Other".  In it, she proclaims:

The future of grimdark lies in its diversity.

Hogwash.  The pursuit of diversity is absolutely a vice.  Pursuing diversity at the expense of excellence harms everyone.  It harms readers by neglecting to provide the very best writing possible.  It harms authors by reducing the opportunities and incentives for them to refine their craft and tell the best stories possible.

My past practice was to skim through GdM interviews and reviews.  I stopped doing even that much after running into far too many articles that included an identitarian "As a [inserted gender/ethnicity combination here], I feel...".

Their identity may well contribute to the types of stories an author tells.  But it is not the measure of their ability as a writer.  Can they tell a solid story?  

One potential illustration of how an emphasis on diversity may be harming the genre is the first featured fiction story in GdM issue #40.  "Little Mermaid, In Passing" by Angela Slatter was originally published in 2017.  It is a fine enough story.  It is also a derivative tale that relies on existing stories to tell a new one.  If there were not enough solid stories in the slush pile to fill out this issue, then re-running a previously published story is a reasonable choice.  But should an older, derivative work be the leading piece of fiction in an anniversary issue ahead of new and original work?

Story/interview/review selection and placement also tell the reader something about the priorities of a publication.  

Being open to new perspectives and different sources of fiction is absolutely a virtue.  While it is harmful to use diversity as a key performance indicator, everyone should be open to new perspectives and new sources of genre fiction.  The doors should be open wide to everyone.  

I enjoy the works of a wide range of authors.  Currently, two authors whose works I almost automatically purchase have identity-related features that might surprise some.  Reading the works of C.T. Rwizi and Rebecca Roanhorse is almost always a solid, entertaining experience.  If you haven't experienced their fiction, please seek it out.  You will not be disappointed. 

I am a Hugo nominator and voter.  I participate in that process because I value high-quality genre fiction regardless of the source.  Being a nominator and a voter has led me to discover some outright gems.

The experience has also had disappointing moments as the small cadre of Hugo nominators appears to read and appreciate a very narrow range of works.  It is a group that is sorely in need of diversification.  But that is a subject for another day.

I might re-subscribe to GdM at some point in the future.  My experience with the magazine has been positive, overall, even if there have been some recent disappointments.  But for the moment, I'm taking a step back.

A final thought for Adrian and Beth, should they ever find this piece.  There is a subtle but important difference between being open to a broad range of perspectives and purposefully subjugating quality storytelling to the purpose of representation.  

If the very best submissions come from left-handed members of a tribe in Borneo, then so be it.  The issue will not be very diverse, but it will be filled with great stories.  The reverse is also true.

Review: The Darkness That Comes Before

The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is a 1-star review which is a reasonable estimate of my experience.

I didn't make it 10% through the book before Dorothy Parker's purported ghost launched it across the room. Within that span, we meet three different individuals. None of them are supplied with sufficient detail to establish a connection with the reader.

There are tons of references to other social/cultural elements of this world. There are several different "1000 shrines of..." or "1000 temples of..." references that feel a lot like Robert E. Howard's Conan stories. The difference is that the number of references to cultures existing outside of a Conan story are relatively few and eventually Conan takes center stage.

At 10% of the book, I was still trying to figure out which characters mattered and why. All of the references to mythic events, people, and other civilizational elements detracted from my engagement with the story.

View all my reviews

Review: A Crown for Cold Silver

A Crown for Cold Silver by Alex Marshall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. I think it is closer to 3.5 stars, but I have a hard time rounding it up to 4 in this case. I made it to the end, but it was a close thing.

A while back, I read the "Evil is a Matter of Perspective" anthology that included a story written by Alex Marshall from the Crimson Empire universe. (also, read that anthology. It's great!)

Like Veruca Salt seeing a boat driven by Oompa Loompas, I so wanted to read A Crown for Cold Silver. I want it, daddy! I want it nooowwww! I did not break out into song.

The short story told of the ascension of the new Black Pope to her current office.

But then I got roughly halfway through the book.

I changed my mind, daddy. I do _not_ want a boat driven by Oompa Loompas.

While the book is reasonably well written, well-paced, and with relatable characters, there were a couple of features that undermined my experience.

The first feature was the use of modern phraseology coming from characters that are obviously not living in our modern world. That approach works when the book is obviously riffing on a modern cultural feature such as Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. It creates a disjointed reading experience when characters in a fantasy setting are using modern vernacular.

The second feature was the abundance of drug use. Almost everyone was almost always high/drunk on something despite either wandering in dangerous wastelands or on the brink of martial combat where a drug-addled mind almost certainly will lead to disaster rather than success.

The combination of the two led to the observation that the characters really were just playthings allowing the author to have a series of "wouldn't that be cool" moments; periodically driven by a smattering of identitarianism.

The third feature is that this was obviously written as the first book of a larger series. It ends with none of the plot threads resolved. I like the Peter V. Brett approach of the first book being a standalone novel with few (if any) cliffhangers.

If those features do not interrupt your reading experience, then give this book a read as it is otherwise well written. I doubt I will be returning to this series anytime soon.

View all my reviews

Review: Gideon the Ninth

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this book as part of voting for the Hugo Awards this year. This book was in second place on my ballot. A 4.5-star review reflects my experience with this book.

Gideon is of the Ninth House. She feels that the Ninth House has been oppressing her for her entire life. She is stuck living in a place and among people that reject her on a regular basis.

Harrow is the heir to the Ninth House. She has the ability to transmute the smallest bit of bone into a full-scale skeleton that will act (and fight) on her behalf. The Ninth House in general is a goth dream world with skeleton slave workers and everyone mincing about as though they will be in their grave within the next week. Harrow is called to the Emperor's House to train to become something more. She needs a knight at her side, and Gideon is all the Ninth has to offer. So they set off to unravel a series of mysteries and work towards the objective of becoming something more.

This book contains all of the hallmark attributes of good grimdark fiction. Morally compromised characters that inspire the reader to not really support any of them. At least not until it becomes clear at the end that there are worse options. Gideon is also imbued with a tremendous sense of wit.

At the heart of the book are themes of acceptance; acceptance by others and acceptance of oneself. There are times when the world denies you enough knowledge to be self-aware. How do your opinions of yourself and the world change once those obstacles fall away?

This was a fun romp with a thoroughly inventive bit of world-building. Who would have matched bone magic with rocketships and galactic armies? Every page was a delight. My biggest complaint is that it is written to be the first book in a series. The story is not reasonably well contained within this single tome.

Author Peter V. Brett has expressed his desire to write the first book in a series as a well-contained story that will allow the reader to walk away from the series satisfied with that single volume. His hope is that it will also be good enough to entice the reader back for more. While this book is a broadly satisfying read, it falls short of that ideal.

View all my reviews

My reviews of all of the 2020 Hugo finalists for best novel are here.

Review: Middlegame

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book as part of voting for the Hugo Awards this year. Middlegame was at the top of my ballot. A 5-star review reflects my experience with this book.

A set of twins, brother and sister named Roger and Dodger, are bred to achieve ultimate power over reality. The man, James Reed, that bred them maintains a laboratory of Lovecraftian work where researchers continue lesser experiments. Reed is himself the product of a dark experiment by another scientist, Asphodel Baker, whose work was rejected by the academy for the crime of it having been created by a woman. Roger and Dodger were bred to be tools for someone else. Can they break free of that control and work on their own behalf?

There are lots of delicious layers to this book. There are some passages dealing with sexism in science. There are also some themes involving long term planning. Reed was created by Asphodel to execute her research on the world. The creation of Reed involves the death of Asphodel. Before her death, Asphodel seeds the global human consciousness with fictional literature that illustrates the theories of her scientific research. Which characters are playing the longest game of all?

Themes involving individuals complementing one another are present as well. Rodger and Dodger have different perspectives on the world; he lives in words while she lives in numbers and equations. Only together do they possess the potential to control the definitions of reality.

This book is a literary rollercoaster ride. Lots of ups and downs. There are many sections where there is a graceful pause just before the bottom drops out and you fall in terror. It skips back and forth between fantasy and horror with the lightness of a ballerina.

View all my reviews

My reviews of all of the 2020 Hugo finalists for best novel are here.

Review: The Girl and the Stars

The Girl and the Stars by Mark Lawrence
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. My experience was closer to 3.5 stars.

This book is set in Mark Lawrence's "Book of the Ancestor" series. It features a young woman, Yaz, who lives in one of several tribes that wander the nearly ice-covered world of Abeth. There was another people living on Abeth a long, long time ago. Technology allowed them to "improve" themselves and they left Abeth. New people came to Abeth to live among the ruins and build a new civilization. Since their arrival, the star that heated the world slowly died; hence the ice encroaching from the poles towards the equator of the world.

The descendants of that second group now live semi-primitive lives among the technology left behind by the first group of people. That technology seems a bit like "magic" to the remnant that is left in the ruins and/or wandering the ice.

Among the second group of people, there are four sub-groups that occasionally show up that seem to exhibit some sort of enhanced abilities. Yaz is one of those four.

Among the people living on the ice, people exhibiting behaviors from those sub-groups are removed from the general population. Specifically, they are tossed down a deep hole in the ice. Those that survive the drop do....other things.

Yaz is identified as being from the one useful sub-group and is set aside by the "priests". Her brother is identified as being from one of the other three and is dropped through the hole in the ice. Yaz, who loves her brother, dives in after him.

That is the setup and based on my reading of the "Book of the Ancestor" series, this book should be another tremendous adventure.

It fell short for a couple of reasons. The first is that we spend a lot of time in Yaz's head while she feels things. The second reason is that Yaz is inexplicably determined to save everyone. She works to save people that she's known her entire life, those she has barely met, and people that she never really met.

Yaz essentially determined that "it's all so unfair" and proceeds from there. Her interactions with others are limited to either trying to save people or emoting about the need to save people. By the end, her efforts seemed to be more self-serving than self-sacrifice.

The end of the book had some interesting plot twists. If this book connects with another reader early on, then they should stay to the end.

It didn't connect with me and I would have DNF'd this book if I had not read (6) other fantastic books written by Mark Lawrence over the last year. I'm unlikely to read the next book in this series.

View all my reviews

Review: The Court of Broken Knives

The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been meaning to give this book by Anna Smith Spark a try for a long time. Several grimdark oriented groups have raved about it. And Anna is a sparkling addition to some of those groups. But now I have to separate the work from the author.

This is a 4-star review of this book. In reality, I think it is more of a 3.5-star book. The world-building was interesting. There were cultural clashes between characters that suggested some decidedly different bases for their respective nations/cities.

Spoilers lie ahead...

One protagonist appears to be descended from some sort of deity-like person that once ravaged the world. All their ancestors wanted to do was to kill. By the end, those qualities are apparent in abundance in the protagonist. God-kings do not fall far from their proverbial trees.

The other protagonist was chosen at random to be a high priestess who committed ritual human sacrifice on a regular basis because her religion says that such sacrifices are needed so that humans can still be born, live, and die. If she were to stop, then no one would be born and no one would die. There isn't any evidence to support that faith within the text. However, it does seem that she possesses some extra-human abilities as a result.

They come together and fall in love. He passionately. She reluctantly. He sees no flaws in her. She sees many in him. But in the end, two beautiful but scarred people must be in love.

[

One protagonist appears to be descended from some sort of deity-like person that once ravaged the world. All their ancestors wanted to do was to kill. By the end, those qualities are apparent in abundance in the protagonist. God-kings do not fall far from their proverbial trees.

The other protagonist was chosen at random to be a high priestess who committed ritual human sacrifice on a regular basis because her religion says that such sacrifices are needed so that humans can still be born, live, and die. If she were to stop, then no one would be born and no one would die. There isn't any evidence to support that faith within the text. However, it does seem that she possesses some extra-human abilities as a result.

They come together and fall in love. He passionately. She reluctantly. He sees no flaws in her. She sees many in him. But in the end, two beautiful but scarred people must be in love.

With her love as the motivation, he moves to reclaim his position within his family. This turns out poorly for pretty much everyone near him. He has the ability to instill a sort of blind bloodlust that causes people to kill whoever happens to be nearby if an enemy isn't more available. The blood....it flows.

(hide spoiler)]
With her love as the motivation, he moves to reclaim his position within his family. This turns out poorly for pretty much everyone near him. He has the ability to instill a sort of blind bloodlust that causes people to kill whoever happens to be nearby if an enemy isn't more available. The blood....it flows.

While it has been a few years, this book reads a lot like Michael Moorcock's Elric stories. That is meant as a strong compliment.

While I had a pretty good idea about what makes the various characters special by the end of the book, it ended with me wondering if I really cared enough about their success or failure to want to continue the series. I never found a positive perspective to root for. There weren't any gems covered in grimdark grime. It was just blood, blood, blood and death, death, death. [read it to get the reference]

A second issue is that we spend a lot of time inside the character's heads; looking longingly at someone or plotting their next move. I am less attracted to spending pages upon pages on internal monologues.

There are several large and small scale political intrigues that unfold along the way. There is a broad range of characters with a diverse set of conflicting interests. The author adroitly manages all of those competing plot lines.

Fans of the grimdark subgenre should definitely give this book a try. It may connect better with you. Most of the elements of a fantastic read are there. And the series may unfold in a way that is more enjoyable than this single entry permits.

I probably won't find out for myself anytime soon.

View all my reviews