Smorgasbord Fantasia

 The reigning king of grim dark fantasy is back at it. And for a series that picks up decades after the First Law trilogy - the Age of Madness is truly rolling on in spectacular style. The "little hatred" has gone onto become full fledged conspiracy, betrayal and the spark is lit for a rebellion. The trouble with peace...is that it hardly lasts, ending too soon. And the trouble with this book, is that it ended too soon for me as well.  The Trouble With Peace , sequel to A Little Hatred , the second book in this new trilogy from Joe Abercrombie is even better than the first book and pushes ahead the overall narrative by a mile, brimming with tension and action - all coloured by the same shroud of grim hopelessness and underlined by that gut-punch of black humour that differentiates Abercrombie from others.  We start the second book, right after the catastrophic reveals and twists of A Little Hatred . Peace reigns within the Union, but a brittle one at that. And reluctan...

A new Joe Abercrombie novel is always a phenomenon to be celebrated. This time even more so. A Little Hatred , the first part of a new trilogy aptly named the Age of Madness , is Joe’s new book that has come out after a long interval. Two years, I think. A Little Hatred is set in the same Circle of World, that was introduced way back in 2006 with his debut, A Blade Itself that introduced the world to a new form of fantasy – veering away from heroic quests and destiny’s child or even multi-layered political intrigue, to give us real flawed grey characters, whose frustrations, angst and pain was etched in unerring detail and presented in a shining evocative prose, unapologetic, grim and dark. Can a new reader jump into this world, starting with this book? Err. Technically yes, but I would strongly advise anybody worth their salt to get their hands dirty with at least his First Law trilogy : Namely, the Blade Itself. Before they are Hanged and The Last Argument of Kings. Jo...

Bloodchild is the third and final book in the debut series by Anna Stephens . Back in 2017 when Anna's debut came out, I actually gave it the skip. I was inundated with other "good" books - in particular, two other debut authors ( Anna Smith Spark (Empires of Dust) and Ed McDonald's Ravencry caught my attention. I was late to this series, starting on Godblind only last year but that was a boon in disguise. I read Godblind and DarkSoul back to back. While Godblind was good, Darksoul wasn't just great, it was brilliant. A heart-rending emotional upheaval of a journey. A long fuckin' siege that went on and on, presenting drama of the darkest kinds - desperate, terrified humans fighting ugly for their very lives against forces much larger than life. And after finishing both books, I couldn't wait for Bloodchild! Bloodchild released in the UK yesterday (Sept 5) and trust me, this year-long wait has been more than worth it. To jump back once again t...

With Crowfall , Raven's Mark series might have just risen up to be one of my all-time favorite grimdark series. Ed McDonald , take a friggin' bow! Crowfall tops off this incredible series, culminating in a delirious high with the last outing into the Misery for Captain Galharrow and his friends. For people not familiar with the brutally bleak world that Ed has created in the Raven's Mark, I have one advice - go back and pick up the first book, Blackwing. Much of this review is going to focus on events only from the third book and it will be difficult to keep what happened in the first two books out of this narrative, so to build up the right continuity. Crowfall starts six years after the cataclysmic events of Raven's Cry and we find that the Blackwing Captain Ryhalt Galharrow is a possessed man, given in to a mad dream that only the Misery can help him achieve. He has spent most of this time, wandering the wastelands of the Misery, getting further and further...

Christina Henry 's darker take on the fairy tales has been nothing short of riveting. I personally was a huge fan of Alice and this summer, Christina ups the ante, with The Girl in Red - a terrifying post-apocalyptic take on Little Red Riding Hood. Check out the amazingly gorgeous cover: Here's the official blurb: From the national bestselling author of Alice comes a post-apocalyptic take on the perennial classic "Little Red Riding Hood"...about a woman who isn't as defenseless as she seems. It's not safe for anyone alone in the woods. There are predators that come out at night: critters and coyotes, snakes and wolves. But the woman in the red jacket has no choice. Not since the Crisis came, decimated the population, and sent those who survived fleeing into quarantine camps that serve as breeding grounds for death, destruction, and disease. She is just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that doesn't look anything like the one she gr...

I am surprised at the lower-than-expected levels of hype around this brilliant debut, that burst onto the scene last year - Traitor God by Cameron Johnston . Like how did this book, not make it into the Best-Of-2018 lists mushrooming around? Why didn't people read this absolute doozy of a grim-dark badassery with a bastardly wisecrack of a protagonist headlining the damaged act in a gorgeously realized, gutter-fest of a city that is seething with magic and roiling with horrors from the dark deep? Why didn't I read this earlier? Anyways - with the second act of Acts of Tyranny coming right up, it was best that I do amends for the damages sooner than later. In the first few chapters of Traitor God, it is quickly established that Edrin Walker - professional loaded-dice player, peoplemancer and an inveterate drunk, is essentially an escapist. Having escaped from his birth city of Setharis - plagued with debts and chased by daemons, Walker is not ( definitely not!)  a blas...

Ben Galley came into my notice a few years back when I got this book on improving my craft, called Shelf Help I had also bought the first two books of his series, the scarlet star trilogy ( Bloodrush)  but never got around to reading him. And then, two weeks back, his tweets on Grim Solace , the new book in this series stormed the twitter world and I felt I had to check this one out. Grim, dark and a world-building that reminds you of Michael Moorcock's Elric series, hell count me in! Chasing Graves , the first of a trilogy is set in the fascinating city of Araxes, the capital of the rift-laden Arctian empire. Also known as the City of Countless Souls where your status and richness is measured in terms of the 'shades' you own and not just the weight of silver. In Ben's beautiful prose, this bustling metropolis comes alive - beset on one side by a brutal desert, bordered by poor slum-regions known as the outsprawls which slowly lead into the city through the countle...

Godblind is Anna Stephen 's spell-binding debut that captured the fantasy world's imagination over - her unflinching story is splotched dark and grim with blood, unapologetically pitching her as one those worthy successors to Joe Abercrombie and Mark Lawrence. I didn't get to read this one last year and am kicking myself for the miss. Anna is one of the top notch talents who burst onto the fantasy grim-dark scene last year - along with the likes of Anna Smith Spark and Ed McDonald ( Incidentally both of whose second books are excellent fare establishing them as major forces to be reckoned with!) So when Darksoul came out this year, I knew I had to go back and read her debut and catch up, with this rising tide of red. The Red Gods are coming back and their thirst for blood is unquenchable. Exiled a millennia ago and plotting their return, the blood-thirsty Gods ( Dark Lady and her brother, the God of Pain) are worshiped by the tribe/kingdom in the west known as M...

Armored Saint by Myke Cole is his first foray into the world of epic fantasy - Having read his previous works, I know that Myke can spin a yarn well enough and make us care. And this being something of a dream project for him, our expectations as readers familiar with his class, were stratospheric to say the least. Does he deliver or what . No punches pulled, this turned out to be a gut-wrenching tale of reluctant heroism, forbidden love, blind faith and heady rebellion in a well realized world that I cannot wait to get back into. In Armored Saint, Myke sets his story in a quasi-medieval European world where life is hard and ruthless, men and women living in constant fear of either the devils breaking through the Veil that protects the world or of being branded as heretics by the religious order of knights, left to guard the world against evil. We encounter this world on the weary dusty roads with sixteen year old Heloise Factor , who loves her father fiercely enough to challe...

Anna Smith-Spark , the queen of grim-dark is back at it again, with this viscerally ambitious follow-up to the dark salvo, Court of Broken Knives  (that I enjoyed, ah so much!) that introduced us to the Empires of Dust and a motley crew of dark, broken damaged characters headed by Marith Altrersyr, King Ruin and his queen, Thalia. Book One was a study in violence and darkness but one that shone bright with the raw beauty of Anna's writing that was punchy, moving and just so immersive in it's unpredictable quality to enthral and shock. This one, Book Two was an emotional drain on my senses. In a good way, really. An overload of vicious no-holds-barred violence underlined by a disturbing brooding sense of darkness - Book Two in the Empires of Dust, Tower of Living and Dying is still full of those very same unforgettable characters who made book-one such a pleasure to read. They still worm and storm their way into your hearts, squirm under your skin and truly truly go thr...

Blackwing  by  Ed McDonald  was one of the best debuts of last year that put the shine and focus right back into the grim dark genre, proving that this sub-genre still breathes life and this was done in a fairly stylistic engrossing manner ticking all the right boxes. Ed McDonald's series,  Raven's Mark  opens up in the best possible manner with this compelling tale of love, loss and sacrifices. There was so much to cheer about: the assured virtuoso writing, the cold black truths delivered in layers of black humour, the hard-edged but oh-so-real characters, the magic system  and of course the amazing places like Valengrad and the Misery that come alive on the pages.  In  Ravencry , Ed McDonald has delivered a winning sequel that takes everything that was good with the debut and then cranks it up manifold. Grim to the core, with nonstop relentless action that just ups and sweeps you along to a thundering climax, this one also feels a l...

Anna Smith Spark 's debut has been hailed as the new grimdark blockbuster - and for good reasons. The book definitely has its share of darkness, seething madness, the blood, grit and the gore aplenty. But it would be a shame - and an injustice to possibly just highlight this aspect of well narrated, epic story set in a beautifully realized vast world. And hey - it features dragons! Did that pique your curiosity? It should. Because Anna Smith has the gift of language - and of storytelling, albeit wrapped and twisted in layers of grime and shiny darkness that possibly retracts a bit from the overall heft that the story and narrative aims for. Court of Broken Knives - well, what a lyrical name. The quality of writing is far above debuts we have seen in the recent past and yet, the book is not without its flaws. The pacing falters and certain characters are under utilized but this apparently is just the opening salvo in  a series called Empires of Dust, so we will wait. Because...

James A Moore is one of the three, in the Three Guys with Beards Podcast. Christopher Golden and Jonathan Maberry being the other two. Now I've read ONE book of each of these three guys. If I were to rank them, I would say I loved Jonathan Maberry best, Tin Men by Christopher Golden next and the open act of the Seven Forges series is the one I liked the least. Sadly, I didn't get back to finish the Seven Forges. But then, I happened to come across the premise for The Last Sacrifice . Brogan McTyre , a warrior whose family gets sacrificed to appease the Gods, now decides to take the battle to entirely new level. He defies the Gods and challenges them. And this act has catastrophic consequences on the entire world, the angry Gods raining down hellfire and damnation on everybody. This sounded like one hell of a plot-line. Angry gods, their pets called Undying and some stubborn fool of a warrior, who doesn't know where to draw the line. But when I actually started re...