Sex, Slayer, teen alienation and getting your end away….


I love uncovering musical references in fiction, especially sounds I have a strong personal connection with and so when the main character in Matthew R Davis’s The Dark Matter of Natasha pitches up at a record shop and buys Slayer’s classic Seasons in the Abyss album I could not help but smile. The dude was just discovering the meaning of cool taste and a new way of life! Once experienced, as the unnamed main character realises, one simply cannot return to soft poodle rock of Def Leppard! Such was my youthful love for Slayer I even saw them tour Seasons in the Abyss in the early nineties, playing at the Edinburgh Playhouse, travelling down all the way from Aberdeen. The strong musical vibe throbs throughout this early nineties set novella and the days of cassettes and Nintendo cartridges took me back to my own formative years in a small town in the north of Scotland not too dissimilar from Lunar Bay.


The Dark Matter of Natasha is the second release on the new Emergent Expressions range from the excellent Grey Matter Press (GMP). In recent years GMP have had an outstanding track record in producing high quality horror, dark and weird fiction from the likes of Paul Kane, Karen Runge, John FD Taff and Alan Baxter. The latter two being responsible for two outstanding series The Fearing (Taff) and Eli Carver (Baxter) which rank amongst my recent personal favourites. The strength of GMP is its ability to effortlessly move between the boundaries of dark fiction, encompassing thriller, horror, science fiction, crime/noir, horror, speculative fiction and fantasy. The Dark Matter of Natasha continues this fine tradition with this very dark, but highly entertaining, coming-of-age tale.


The Emergent Expressions novella series began with Amanda Kool’s terrific cli-fi debut Resembling Lepus and will shortly be followed by Andrew McRae (horror) and Patrick Bard (fantasy). Their latest, The Dark Matter of Natasha is best described as a rather melancholic coming-of-age drama which morphs into a thriller but has a self-conscious and edgy sense of humour which had me chuckling. I devoured this story in two sittings and wished it was longer and would have enjoyed a longer slice of this particular brand of darkness. It delivers a moody shot of teen discontentment, boredom and the never-ending chase for any kind of thrill in a dead-end one-horse town.


The seventeen-year-old narrator and his single parent mother arrive at the small town of Lunar Bay and take over the Seven Stars Caravan Park. The story is narrated in the first person from some point in the future and it is this personal reflection which gives the story its dark downbeat edge. Looking back, on one level there is acceptance of being a normal teenager, looking to get laid and smoke dope, but on another he wishes he did things differently, wondering how things might have played out if he had been dealt an alternative hand, especially regarding the three women in his life, Natasha, Caitlin and his mother.


The reflective mood of the story reminded me slightly of the eighties thriller River’s Edge where disaffected teens roamed the streets looking for the next kick or easy fix. There is some of this in The Dark Matter of Natasha and even though some of the story revolves around one of the greatest teen storylines of them all: losing your virginity, I doubt this novella will be made into a teen movie anytime soon! This is as far away from John Hughes as you could possibly get. None of the teens involved show any interest in school and hang around abandoned areas and bridges unofficially named after suicide jumpers (Jennifer’s Crossing) nobody remembers. And like all small towns: everybody dreams of leaving it.


I do not want to put anybody off this novella by implying it was too downbeat, because it really was not and had a genuine sense of black humour and the sex scenes were gleefully funny. The sequence where the lead character loses his virginity was cringingly hilarious and brutally honest. The voice of the first-person narrator was also 100% authentic and at times I thought he was too hard on himself. But like many of us he has a person in his past (Natasha) that no matter how many years go by he cannot shake her shadow off. There are ghosts in every closet and perhaps they play a part in leading the unfulfilled life alluded to.       


The plot was very straightforward: the narrator is dating Caitlin Dempsey and doing his very best to get into her pants. After an argument with Caitlin, he meets Natasha, who amongst other things, introduces him to cigarettes, drugs, Slayer and sex. Natasha is scary, angry and aggressive, but he is equally fascinated by this girl who comes from the wrong side of the tracks and their worlds soon collide.


The Dark Matter of Natasha is a gripping, disturbing and funny coming-of-age drama which blends into a psychological thriller and once read you will realise why Natasha still haunts the narrators dreams after so many passing years. Matthew R Davis has had many short stories published in an impressive range of anthologies and was also nominated for the prestigious literary dark fiction Shirley Jackson Award for his novelette Heritage Hill. I’m also a sucker for Demain Publishing’s Short Sharp Shocks! series and have added Matthew’s The Supermassive Black Mass (Book 21) to my ever-growing TBR pile to check his work out further.


Tony Jones

If you like your fiction cut--and-dried with all its meaning up front and neatly packaged, then this astonishing collaborative novella by Tim Lebbon and artist Daniele Serra  isn't for you.

If, on the other hand, you like a story you can dwell over afterwards then come on in ...

"Without Walls" is just the right side of ambiguous: there is no wrong way to interpret its meaning. At whichever point in life you are when you read a story influences what you get out of it. In ten years time l will, no doubt, have a completely different take on what l think this story 'means'.

For now here's what l think at this moment in time (SPOILER: skip the next paragraph if you think I'm going to reveal too much. But, again, this is just one take on what happened.)

This is a story of a lonely house which creates a boy called Henry, but kills him with kindness. The house tries again, bringing into being not one but two girls. Every parent has to let go and the girls do not escape but are allowed to leave.

Or not. Because the joy of Lebbon's words and Serra's exquisite line drawings is that this is what was gifted to me on this particular reading at this particular moment in my life.

I love the combination of art and text, and for those of you who checked out Serra's remarkable colour collaboration with Alison Littlewood, "Five Feathered Tales", a few years back will delight in the subtle flowing lines of his black and white art this time around.

Like all great stories it lingers and keeps on giving long after you have turned the last page.
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AN ILLUSTRATED STORY by Tim Lebbon
COVER ART & INTERIOR ARTWORK Daniele Serra
CATEGORY Supernatural
PUBLICATION DATE May 2022
PAGES 130

ABOUT THE BOOK

Jasmine lives alone in the house. It’s her whole world. It caters for her every need.

The doors are locked, but that doesn’t matter, because there’s nothing outside.

One day, on the staircase, she meets another little girl who thinks the same. And Cassia will change her life forever.

A haunted house . . . two haunted girls . . . the diary of a lost boy.

Why is the house so keen to hide the truth from them?

And who, or what, is the ghost?

                                              Purchase a copy here 

The first line of Reluctant Immortals reads, “It’s almost sundown in Los Angeles, and Dracula’s ashes won’t shut up.” Herein lies the chief conflict of Gwendolyn Kiste’s newest delight: her protagonist, a resurrected Lucy Westenra from Bram Stoker’s classic tale, accompanied by a similarly revived Bertha Mason, fresh from Thornfield’s destruction in Jane Eyre, are living in the late 1960s California, and the men—or better stated, monsters—who devoured them in their human lives are back and in pursuit.

Of course, if you paid attention during Stoker’s rendition, you might wonder how Lucy could be walking around counterculture America after turning into a vampire, then staked and beheaded by Van Helsing and her former suitors. “There are tales about Rochester and Dracula, books and movies, ones where Bee and I have been mostly written out, deleted from our own story, our own lives. Every time I turn around, it seems there’s another version of Dracula, another casting call for nubile young women, corseted and blushing and breathless for him. He’s become an unlikely hero, a bloodsucking James Bond, and I’ve become less than a footnote. The disposable victim who should have known better.” In Reluctant Immortals, one of Stoker’s discarded players takes center stage, and she proves to be more than worthy, balancing quick wit and keen survival instinct with a deadly hunger always simmering quietly just beneath the surface: “When he looks at me, he sees what everyone else does: a perfectly fine young lady, red curls in her hair, red rouge on her cheeks. Never mind the dirt beneath her fingernails and the teeth that sharpen if you catch her on a bad night.”

When the story opens, however, it is Lucy’s fastidious guarding of Dracula’s ashes that comprises most of her time, protecting both herself and the world from her maker’s destructive force. She isn’t alone: luckily, she previously had encountered another character adrift from Gothic’s heyday and the two formed an instant friendship. “In all the movies about [Bertha Mason’s] life, she’s no more than an extra locked away in a flimsy attic. She gets a few meager frames of screen time before a fire gobbles her up in the third act. She’s ash; she’s nothing; she’s an obstacle to overcome. She has to die so that Rochester and his new wife can live.” If Lucy’s character gets a spit and polish in Kiste’s reimagining, Bertha’s receives a full simonizing. Bertha, or Bee, is the perfect complement to hypervigilant Lucy, and together, when an unlucky series of events sends them speeding north toward San Francisco, they transform into a powerhouse duo, picking up new friends from 1960s touchstones (the Vietnam War, the hippie movement) along with ones from their old haunts (Renfield and Jane Eyre herself) along the way. While Lucy and Bee begin their adventure fighting the demons that pursue them, they soon recognize that Dracula and Rochester will never stop preying upon women in general—“We’re interchangeable to them, featureless as a fistful of clay, disposable as a leaky bag of garbage”— and they must save those new friends from sharing their unfortunate fate.

Those acquainted with the classics from Stoker and Brontë will savor this story; the author coyly places Easter eggs for bibliophiles to relish. However, even if the reader is not familiar with the original source material, Immortals serves new gothic atmosphere along with well-crafted wry humor. When Dracula’s habits result in an untidy tableau at Rochester’s modern mansion adjacent to the Golden Gate Bridge, the latter “just shakes his head. ‘Look what’s become of this place.’ Dracula glances around, seemingly pleased with himself. ‘I’d call it an improvement.’ ‘I’d call it a blight on property values.’ Rochester sneers.” Sly winks to the Western canon source material, including a banter over Lucy’s three suitors in Stoker’s novel, twinkle like merry holiday lights throughout the story.
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Kiste’s 2019 precursor to her protagonist’s revival, “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary),” set the stage for her newest offering. Her Pretty Marys All in a Row wove well-known characters from popular culture into a chilling urban fantasy; The Rust Maidens danced joyfully between historical fiction and literary horror. Each of these entries added a rung on the ladder to Reluctant Immortals, a novel where the author is in top-notch form. When Dracula asks, “You’re not the nice girl you pretend to be, are you, Lucy?” and Kiste’s heroine responds, “Who wants to be a nice girl anyhow?” the reader is certain to cheer.

I’m beginning to think I’m developing a review fetish. In the months I have been writing reviews for Ginger Nuts, this will be my sixth review of an anthology. Perhaps I’m carving out my place as resident “collection connoisseur” for reasons that can only be found deep in the bowels of my subconscious. Whatever the reason, the same caveat applies here as for those other reviews; I am not going to review each story within Classic Monsters Unleashed. The quality of individual tales will be completely subjective; what works for me, may not for you, and vice-versa. I will be looking at the package as a whole and whether it is worth your time and money.

Fetish jokes aside, and ignoring whatever my subconscious might be trying to tell me, who wouldn’t be attracted to a collection that pays tribute to classic monsters such as vampires, wolfmen, witches, and Frankenstein’s monster? Throw in an introduction by the legendary Kim Newman and what else could you want?

Well, a physical copy for starters. One of the drawbacks of reviewing books before release is the occasional need to review a PDF ARC. Now, I am not knocking the opportunity to read books like this ahead of release, but the black and white PDF just didn’t do it justice; just how good does that cover look? There more illustrations scattered throughout so I am sure the physical edition of the book will be a delight to hold in your hand. It is due for release in July on Kindle, in hardback and in paperback and I am tempted to get myself a physical copy

Anyway, once I dealt with my mild jealousy over anyone with a physical copy, I delved inside to explore the dark minds of the collected writers…

I am, like many horror fans of a certain age, very familiar with the classic monsters popularised through the films of studios such as Universal and Hammer that have graced our screens for decades now. We all have a soft spot for them. Kim Newman lists a familiar selection of them in his introduction; Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Wolfman, The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Jekyll and Hyde. They are all here; villains, beasts, and creatures we all know and love. It is a comfort to be reminded of so many old friends.

Many tales take direct inspiration from their source monster, such as You Can Have the Ground, My Love by Carlie St. George which follows the Bride of Frankenstein as she finds a place for herself in the world, or Höllenlegion by Jonathan Mayberry which plays out as a sequel to the Island of Dr Moreau.

Others are more “inspired by,” taking their lead form the originals, but coming up with a new slant, such as John Palisano’s She Creature from the Golden Cove or Modern Monsters from Monique Snyman which gives us a glimpse of what is likely to happen if you mix The Fly with a mad military scientist and reality TV.

A third group of stories take a completely new approach and are linked simply by a concept or a theme but are no less effective for it. In The Invisible Man: The Fire This Time, Maurice Broaddus takes the concept of the Invisible Man and uses it to effectively explore race and discrimination. In Tim Waggoner’s Old Monsters Never Die, the legendary Werewolf is presented as more than just a simple killing machine. Here, the werewolf has a higher purpose, and the story explores what happens when commitment to duty clashes with family and species bonds.

And that is just a selection. There are twenty-nine stories and one poem in this volume, and they all pay tribute to and/or develop the mythology and lore around our favourite Classic Monsters.

As I mentioned above, I won’t review each story individually. However, in the interest of transparency, I will admit there were one or two stories that just didn’t do it for me. Whether I just didn’t connect with them or didn’t ‘get’ them is immaterial because of our own subjectivity. I don’t see any reason to highlight these particular entries as they may well turn out to be YOUR favourites, and it’s important to remember that this is an anthology and, as such, the chances of you absolutely loving every single story are slim. It’s not quite perfect (for me) but there is a lot of good stuff here between the covers. After all, two or three misses out of thirty is a pretty good hit rate and should not put anyone off. Remember, those one or two stories aren’t ‘bad’ stories, they just weren’t for me.

There is nothing too terrifying or too extreme here which feels fitting in many ways. Those classic films I was raised on, showing on BBC2 at 6pm in the UK when I was a kid, were never that scary. However, they were fun and still come with a reassuring element of nostalgia which is the same here. What we have is collection of stories that have the same source of influence but, with such a variety of writers, presents us with an eclectic mix of tributes to the Golden Age of Monsters which is both new and familiar. While there are a couple that didn’t do much for me, the majority were good stories with a few great ones that had me shaking my head and lamenting, “why didn’t I think of that?”
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If classic monsters are your thing, I think you will enjoy this volume which looks like it should be a fantastic physical copy when it is published.

Into The Never is an exploration, dissection, and discussion concerning the seminal Nine Inch Nails album The Downward Spiral. In this scholarly, meticulous book, Steiner presents a chapter by chapter breakdown of both the album itself, and the cultural and personal moments that surrounded, and fed into and off of, the album.


The Downward Spiral is unquestionably one of the great albums of the 90’s; in fact, it’s arguably one of the great artistic achievements of that decade full stop, and one of those rare cases of a genuinely uncompromising piece of outsider art achieving notable mainstream success; as such, it’s a work worthy of a full book-length exploration, and Steiner delves into the task with precision, meticulous research, and a clear passion for the subject matter.


The format of the book is almost that of a dual narrative, in that the chapters alternate between focussing on the track listing in order and discussing wider matters pertaining to the work, such as Reznor’s prior work with NiN, cultural events happening before and during the recording, and other albums and artists that were also causing shockwaves during the era.


It’s a smart approach; it allows Steiner to weave a wider commentary about the cultural moment whilst retaining a deep focus on the album itself. The song chapters are superb; taking in the themes of the lyrics, the often intricate and complex methods of both recording and production (music nerds will delight in Steiner’s grasp of this technical minutiae, though I never felt it was overwhelming proceedings), and of course the overall feelings the songs evoke, as well as their placement in the running order. Whilst it’s clear Steiner finds the album impressive, this is no simple fan service; the author isn’t afraid to interrogate the darker aspects of the often troubling source material, and for me, some of the strongest passages were when the author was almost visibly wrestling with his admiration for the artistry alongside a concern over what was being expressed. I also especially enjoyed the exploration of Rezbor’s own push/pull relationship with perfectionism and the desire for mess, distortion, chaos - all forces clearly at work in an album that is, amongst other things, a spectacular achievement in terms of production.


The bridging chapters are similarly well written and researched, and provide vital context, both for Reznor’s career and the culture at large. I especially enjoyed the frequent references to Nirvana's Nevermind, an album from a different musical tradition that nonetheless had some resonance with The Downward Spiral, in terms of being an expression of profound alienation. There’s also discussion of Reznor’s earlier album work, his infamous music videos, the inevitable post-Columbine backlash, and much more. Throughout both chapter formats, there are frequent quotes from Reznor himself, taken from various sources over his decades of public interviews, as well as collaborators and, where appropriate, critics, all of which adds to the feeling of reading a piece of journalism with real weight.


The book also closes strongly, with a whirlwind tour through Reznor's post-Spiral output; I personally could have stood to read a deal more of the excellent work Steiner put in here about the immediate NiN followup album, The Fragile, though I do begrudgingly accept that would have been, by definition, outside of the scope of his project.


Overall, I found Into The Never to be a worthy companion to the seminal album that is it’s subject; like The Downward Spiral, this is a potent combination of obsessive research and carefully constructed discussion underpinned by a deep passion for the source material.


KP
3/2/22

Howarth’s latest novella is an absolute doozy. An atmospheric slow burn, full of incidental detail where you can almost feel the cold and smell the desperation of his characters.
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Jari is a stoic hunter, still living in the tiny hunting village he grew up in. He is mourning the loss of his wife and hunting dog (although Howarth never makes it clear exactly which one he misses the most!) and is disappearing into drink. His former best friend, Asko, returned to the village around a year ago, with his gorgeous new wife.

A pack of wolves is hunting the livestock in the area, and this inciting incident puts the two friends at loggerheads. Jari wants to exterminate the wolves whilst Asko wants to leave them alone. It’s easy to draw COVID parallels here, with Asko playing the part of the COVID deniers of the last couple of years. He thinks the wolves will move on and there is no inherent danger to their presence. This conflict between the two men is the heart of the novella as they each try to sway the villages to their point of view.

Howarth packs a lot into these hundred or so pages. Each character is well drawn, with clear motivations and feelings. Their reactions to the escalating plot feel real and earned – no mean feat given there are a lot to keep track of. Howarth also packs in some great scenes, which have you on the edge of your seat – a particular stand out has two boys running for their school bus.

This is an easy book to recommend. It is superb, from its attention to detail through to the aforementioned scenes of horror. I liked Howarth’s earlier stuff too – his collection ‘Dark Missives’ is also worth your time, but this is a step up from anything in that.

Highly, highly recommended.

Book review of Growth by Elin Olausson (review by Rebecca Rowland)


Writing a piece of fiction in present tense is tricky; veterans warn that it is an approach to be used sparingly and only in cases of urgency. In many stories, such an approach can quickly wear on the reader or even feel awkward or out of place. Elin Olausson, however, pulls it off with such skill, it is unimaginable to read one of her stories written any other way. Her meticulously crafted stories of quiet horror are not simply creepy: they slash into the psyche with twists both unexpected and chilling. I had been familiar with her pieces “Uncle,” “Chalk,” and “Razor, Knife” previously and knew Olausson was gifted; when I read the rest of her debut collection, I was left awe-struck.

In “Roadkill,” the opening tale, Linda and Dolores live an isolated life, save for the occasional visit from Gabriel, who brings them news from the outside world. Travelers who venture past their house at night are greeted with an unhappy surprise. Linda herself has created a world of her own in a lonely shack filled with other people’s belongings. “When I come back inside a while later she’s in the kitchen, knife in one hand and an apple in the other. She chops it in pieces, shoving them into her mouth and chewing soundlessly. The pale flesh is streaked with maggot trails, running here and there like scabs. The knife slices through a live maggot, and I look away. In front of the sink I spot that feather from before. It’s crumpled—one of us must have stepped on it. Just another speck of dirt on a filthy floor. ‘I didn’t ask for this,’ Dolores says, apple kernels dropping from her mouth into her lap. ‘We’re just surviving. That’s all we’ve ever done.’ I don’t know what she wants me to say, so I stay quiet. In fact, I’m not sure she’s talking to me at all.” The story’s tone grows more and more ominous until the plot arc shatters deliciously into a million shards. The reader will return to read the story again just to collect the breadcrumbs surreptitiously dropped from the very first lines.

When a new family moves into the Mansion—called this by the narrator’s family because of its incongruence to others in the neighborhood, Anna introduces herself to the new residents and makes instant friends with their daughter, a black-haired girl with blood-red lips. Titled after Anna’s nickname for her beautiful companion, “Snow White” builds tension with the same quiet ferocity that is a hallmark of Olausson’s fiction. “People died on our street. Not while we lived there, but before, and the once-pretty bungalows and terrace houses lined the road like broken shells. I don’t think my parents noticed it at first. The desolation. Our house is a good one—two stories high, with a large basement and an attic. We even have a porch. But no matter in which direction you look, there are untamed gardens and weeds that have wormed their way through cracks and blocked doors. Our dead neighbors’ windows are black eyes staring into nothing, and a few tiles slide off the roof of the house next door every time there’s stormy weather. Many of the houses have been demolished, of course, leaving only foundations behind bushy hawthorn hedges. Every time I go grocery shopping I have to walk past them—the remnants, the reminders…A deserted land, and I am the only one here.” What seems to build as an admiration by a reticent schoolmate stealthily spirals into something much more malevolent until again, Olausson slyly pulls the rug out from under her readers.

There isn’t a weak entry in Growth, though a few tales shine especially bright. The intriguing new neighbor trope resurfaces in “Laurent,” but this time, the tale’s narrator finds shelter in her neighborhood’s hiding places, and when Laura appears, living with her grandmother in the “witch-house” just down the lane, their household becomes a haven for the withdrawn pre-teen, even as the specter of Laura’s unseen twin brother haunts her curiosity. Family secrets take center stage in “The Ice,” when Nina, the youngest of the sisters, dreams of their late sibling Viola in their isolated hut “beside the cold, dangerous lake” and discovers the secret that they have been hiding from her. In “Slither,” Aura is sent to live with Vera and Ivan when her mother is forced into rehab, but it’s the “wet slithering sound” coming from Ivan’s mother’s house next door that draws Aura’s full attention.
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Elin Olausson may be a relatively new reverberation in the symphony of dark fiction authors writing today, but she is one on which to keep a close eye. Her stories are on par with those of other powerhouses in contemporary psychological fiction—Iain Reid, Asa Nonami, Alex Michaelides, Gillian Flynn—and saunter with creepiness of the highest caliber. Growth is a collection that is a must-read for anyone who appreciates literary horror, as it’s certain to finish as one of 2022’s best releases in the genre.

Twenty dark tales of psychosocial horror fill the pages of Elin Olausson's stunningly creepy short story collection debut.    Three sisters live isolated in the wilderness, unbothered, until their world shatters with the arrival of a stranger. A young man revisits the childhood home where his sister danced and his mother died. A woman is promised the house of her dreams and goes mad when she doesn't get it. Two evil teens stand united against the world, until one of them falls in love. In an abandoned asylum in the desert, a girl chants her own name.       


Filled with madness, darkness and the truth of the human condition, Olausson's stories will leave readers thinking about their own sanity and questioning the motives of those who are closest to them.  ​

Over the last few years, John Baltisberger has been a busy dude. I’m not gonna list everything he’s done in this intro because that would make for a pretty clunky start, but whether he’s writing, publishing, podcasting, or playtesting, he’s constantly adding cool shit to the worlds of genre fiction, splatterpunk, and Jewish literature. His own fiction runs the gamut from kaiju to poetry and from splatterpunk to pulpy revenge thrillers and works inspired by Jewish mythology. His latest, Bel, The Last Dragon: Jungles of Habbiel is another splattery, pulpy, testament to his creativity and versatility.

To be clear, Bel, The Last Dragon: Jungles of Habbiel, isn’t technically a horror book. Sure, it’s got horrific elements, including some seriously grisly scenes of death and destruction, but it’s more akin to fantasy than horror. Baltisberger himself refers to it as Splatterpulp and says it’s part of the same series as War of Dictates.

Distinctions aside, though, this is a hell of a lot of fun. Populated by angels, demons, dragons, satyrs, succubi, and loads more awesome creatures, this book wastes no time getting us into the thick of things. If you’ve followed any of Baltisberger’s Wandering Monster podcast, you’ll know he loves his tabletop roleplaying games, and this book has that feel right from the start.

The protagonist, Bel, like all good dragons, has been asleep for quite some time. And yes, Bel is a dragon, a shapeshifting dragon who’s most frequently in human form, but who is quite capable of spitting fire and making meals of his enemies – which he does! He’s also a famed warrior from The War of Dictates, and you’d better believe he’s going to put his ass-kicking skills to good use. As mentioned before, this book is good fun in all the best ways.

Once Baltisberger has built some pathos, introduced some more of his trademark characters, and allowed Bel to experience the joy of a hot dog, he sets his protagonist up with a party of fellow adventurers and a spicy little quest into the jungles of Habbiel. At this point, you should know that Baltisberger infuses all of this with a tremendous amount of lore, but it’s delivered in such a succinct way that the story doesn’t bog down. One of the complaints I’ve often had with fantasy is that between set pieces, there can be novella-length passages of exposition. This book doesn’t have that problem.

Instead, we’re allowed to feel our way through the world without needing to know the history of every tree or have some weird gumboot-wearing hermit sing us songs. Baltisberger eschews those tropes and focuses on moving his plot forward while drip-feeding us what we need to know. As a result, even though this was my first visit to the War of Dictates series, I never felt lost, and that’s the mark of a good writer. The characters speak for themselves, and so does the lore.

Once the quest is firmly underway, there are gruesome battle scenes, epic action, a fight of truly inhuman proportions, some of the authors trademark brutality, a touch of humour, and even a love (lust) story. Throughout this, we learn the scale of how much Bel has lost during his slumber. In turn, we can’t help but take great joy when he violently takes his frustrations out on his enemies in creative ways.

In summary, this is a delightfully grisly and gruesome fantasy novella that trims the fat from the genre and delivers on its promise to leave the reader with a splattery, pulpy tale about a famed hero getting back into the business of destroying those who’ve wronged him and his people.
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It’s good stuff. Bring on the next one.