The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Geisbrecht
The Monster of Elendhaven hit the bookshelves right around Halloween and this seemed like the perfect excuse to burrow deeper into your night sheets, dim the lights a bit and snuggle down to devour this perfectly wicked, deviously plotted horror novella from Jennifer Geisbrecht.
It's a fascinating piece of work, in all its perfect allure - balancing character, plot and masterful world building on a razor thin platter, building up into a bleak crescendo of horror and violence. It's the kind of rare book that comes along once in a while and the writing is so sharp and lucid that the wounds linger far beyond that last page turned, forcing you think about the subtle contexts hinted to, around social injustices, homophobia, the power-play and even capitalism to some extent.
So Johann is the 'monster' of Elendhaven, a foul dying city birthed out of magical violence, which never was able to sustain the industrial revolution that swamped over and is now, just in its last throes of death and decay. And Johann represents the city itself, being the merchant of death dealing out sentences at his whim and fancy. Because Johann, from the moment he is 'aware' of himself, is content to living out and experiment with life, including the end of such. But Johann meets his match in the frail noble Florian Leckenbloom, a survivor of one of the oldest families of this city, who claims this city as his true home. For beautiful fragile Florian is actually blessed with magic and has a long-hatching sinister plot of revenge, for which Johann seems to be the perfect instrument. Their plans however, run into a hitch as a southern mage-hunter turns up. Will they follow through or die trying?
I was initially nonchalant about the characters. Despite being morbidly fascinating, Johann as the 'monster' who hugged the shadows and experimented with people's lives, quickly became a little boring. Until of course Jennifer introduced Florian's character. His character had a great backstory, fed to us drip by drip skilfully by Jennifer. I was intrigued and quickly kept up with the bread crumbs to figure out where Florian was headed, with his devious plotting to save or destroy his city. The city of Elendhaven itself is a very strong presence throughout the story, beautifully sketched out by Jeniffer's lyrical, superb prose that danced and thrilled across the pages. The elements that make up the dead decaying facade of this city, including the backstories and the myths that are strongly rooted in the backstory of Florian's character was fascinatingly portrayed. Add to this already explosive mix, a third element in the form of a 'mage-hunter' on an agenda, the fuse was just ready to blow.
My only complaint would be in resolution of the issues itself, as the climax between Johann, Florian and their opponent(s) felt a bit too rushed. I understand the limitation of a novella and perhaps, in a full length novel, the. lurid descriptions of the violence and creeping horror would have quickly become a bit too dragging. But I still would have liked things to linger on, just for a bit longer. Revenge saga aside, Jennifer teasingly brings in mysterious elements tied up with the overarching mythology of Hallandrette, the sea Goddess that keeps the page turning as we race to the finish. The big reveal does come a lot later than expected and the climax follows soon after, kind of disappointing the reader.
But overall, The Monster of Elendhaven is an enticingly sinister tale of chilling horror, written in beautiful poetic prose that cuts and slashes deep into your psyche. Packing a powerful wallop in its slim 150-plus pages, this novella is a dark fantasy fan's dream.
It's a fascinating piece of work, in all its perfect allure - balancing character, plot and masterful world building on a razor thin platter, building up into a bleak crescendo of horror and violence. It's the kind of rare book that comes along once in a while and the writing is so sharp and lucid that the wounds linger far beyond that last page turned, forcing you think about the subtle contexts hinted to, around social injustices, homophobia, the power-play and even capitalism to some extent.
So Johann is the 'monster' of Elendhaven, a foul dying city birthed out of magical violence, which never was able to sustain the industrial revolution that swamped over and is now, just in its last throes of death and decay. And Johann represents the city itself, being the merchant of death dealing out sentences at his whim and fancy. Because Johann, from the moment he is 'aware' of himself, is content to living out and experiment with life, including the end of such. But Johann meets his match in the frail noble Florian Leckenbloom, a survivor of one of the oldest families of this city, who claims this city as his true home. For beautiful fragile Florian is actually blessed with magic and has a long-hatching sinister plot of revenge, for which Johann seems to be the perfect instrument. Their plans however, run into a hitch as a southern mage-hunter turns up. Will they follow through or die trying?
I was initially nonchalant about the characters. Despite being morbidly fascinating, Johann as the 'monster' who hugged the shadows and experimented with people's lives, quickly became a little boring. Until of course Jennifer introduced Florian's character. His character had a great backstory, fed to us drip by drip skilfully by Jennifer. I was intrigued and quickly kept up with the bread crumbs to figure out where Florian was headed, with his devious plotting to save or destroy his city. The city of Elendhaven itself is a very strong presence throughout the story, beautifully sketched out by Jeniffer's lyrical, superb prose that danced and thrilled across the pages. The elements that make up the dead decaying facade of this city, including the backstories and the myths that are strongly rooted in the backstory of Florian's character was fascinatingly portrayed. Add to this already explosive mix, a third element in the form of a 'mage-hunter' on an agenda, the fuse was just ready to blow.
My only complaint would be in resolution of the issues itself, as the climax between Johann, Florian and their opponent(s) felt a bit too rushed. I understand the limitation of a novella and perhaps, in a full length novel, the. lurid descriptions of the violence and creeping horror would have quickly become a bit too dragging. But I still would have liked things to linger on, just for a bit longer. Revenge saga aside, Jennifer teasingly brings in mysterious elements tied up with the overarching mythology of Hallandrette, the sea Goddess that keeps the page turning as we race to the finish. The big reveal does come a lot later than expected and the climax follows soon after, kind of disappointing the reader.
But overall, The Monster of Elendhaven is an enticingly sinister tale of chilling horror, written in beautiful poetic prose that cuts and slashes deep into your psyche. Packing a powerful wallop in its slim 150-plus pages, this novella is a dark fantasy fan's dream.
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