Adrian Collins's Blog

Grimdark Magazine had the absolute honour of hosting the exclusive cover reveal for Anderson Versus Death written by our ridiculously talented friend Anna Smith Spark back in May.

I was then lucky enough to get my hands on an advanced copy of the novel. It was my first experience stepping in to the off screen world of Judge Dredd and holy smokes, I was not disappointed. Anna Smith Spark is a phenomenal author and her story in Anderson Versus Death is a wild cyberpunk ride that is brutal, bloody, and oh so beautifully written.

Here the queen of grimdark meets a grimdark legend. Anderson Versus Death is sure to be a hit with fans of Judge Dredd and is also totally accessible to newcomers to this world.

Read on for our exclusive extract:

Grimdark Magazine’s Exclusive Extract from Anderson Versus Death by Anna Smith Spark

Teeth. Old bones scavenged from a garbage pile and gnawed yellow grinning teeth. And they are grinning, at her, at everything. Skin around them strained, on the edge of ripping. The skin of something pulled back for surgery. The skin of an old man’s hands, dry and cracked, too thin, too old, fumbling at the zip of his piss-soaked flies. Green and putrid, too taut, too dry, yes, but also there’s a sense, if she… touched it, shoved her hand into its face, it would be soft, waxy, cheesy, yield, let her crunch and squeeze it, running fluids, because of course it’s dead, dead, dead. Gangrenous. Collapsing. Dead.

 There’s a mercy that it doesn’t realise—its helmet covers its eyes. She’s never seen Dredd’s eyes, rarely sees even friends’ like Neirn’s and Winstanley’s. But. Its helmet closes with a visor like a barred gate, and what it doesn’t know is that it’s a kindness—that it’s stopping her from seeing into where its eyes should be.

It grins at her. Stretching the skin around its mouth tighter. Its gums are grey and red. She imagines its teeth opening. Biting. 

It has too many teeth. It’s in her skull, and she thinks of teeth chewing their way out of her. Its claws following where the teeth bite. Ripping. 

Its fingers are very long, and its hands are too big. Its fingernails are yellow and filthy as its teeth. Nicotine stains. The ceiling of a Smokatorium. Its fingers twitch and waggle like insects. She can feel them running across her skin, peeling her face back. Probing at her brains, her lungs. They’re too long and awkward for living hands, couldn’t touch, hug, eat, drink. Barriers again, from being or doing anything living. 

It’s dressed in a parody of her own uniform. 

She looks… pretty drokking hot, actually, in her uniform. She’s not stupid, she has eyes and everything, she knows perfectly well she looks hot. [Also the thoughts broadcast loud as a Lawmaster revving its engines full throttle pretty much everywhere she goes.] “Practical, these skintight uniforms with the easy-open zipper front.” Dredd looks gruddamn terrifying in his uniform, like he’s made of solid rockcrete. Hard to think there’s an actual body with bellyflab under there. Winstanley looks so smart and neat you really would trust him to help your granny cross the road or your kids find a lost kitten.

  This thing, this sick twisted parody of her and Dredd and all of them, it manages to make the uniform look…

the only word for it is…

…obscene.

It’s dead. Vile. Dead and dried up and crusted and rotten. If it ever was alive, it can’t remember that life. Like a dead stuffed animal from the olden days, as she said, sickly-unreal like that. But it lolls in its chair, its too-long fingers, too-big awkward hands it can’t use to touch or hold or live with, its dead smile, its dead face, its red gleaming gums, and the way it moves its body, the thrust of its limbs… Its body is obscene. 

It reeks and runs with its desire for death. 

She—Anderson, Judge Cassandra Anderson of Psi-Division—stares at the visor hiding the dry holes it must have instead of eyes. Its fingers curl, opening and closing. It lounges in its chair. Judge Death, it calls itself. 

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Blood-soaked, horrific, and gritty, Rob J Hayes’ Demon is a novella that pulls no punches and doesn’t shy away from showing off Hayes’ vivid imagery. Brutal ‘till the end and supremely fast paced, Demon is a book that demands to be read in a single evening. 

“Consequences are like your shadow. Sometimes they’re before you, and sometimes behind, but they’re always there. You can never escape your shadow, no matter how far you try to run from it.”

Demon starts off in a village where people are afraid to use fire in fear of garnering the attention of demons. Dien, our protagonist, is a girl who’s learning her father’s trade and dealing with bullies and friendships. While page one shows us her father allowing himself to get beaten for a perceived mistake in his crafting, it’s mostly a quaint and peaceful setting. 

And then demons come. 

An absolute massacre occurs. The survivors are forced on a brutal march where they are occasionally forced into cannibalism. They’re weak, they’re tired, and they’re ready for a break. 

They get no reprieve. The suffering continues in Demon where characters are forced into the servitude of their captors. Torture and death are fairly commonplace in the dank cave they exist in, and it’s breaks more than a few of them. Still, there’s a certain unbreakable resolve in some of the characters. The tenacity of the human spirit is a trope that always sits well with me, and Hayes has that in spades with Demon. 

The pacing in Demon is mostly rapid, excluding a slower lull in the middle. Hayes has always had an ability to keep readers engaged, but Demon was frustratingly difficult to put down. Without the responsibilities of life I’d have easily finished it in one sitting. 

What truly makes this story shine is the gruesome imagery and action. Visualizing the setting to the highest degree is unavoidable in Demon. Guts and viscera coat the ground, blood coats the wall, and suffering fills the air. Still, Hayes adds a dash of human connection and bonds. He uses it like a lever: at times frustrating in the bullies’ cruelty, others deeply tragic when the characters we’ve grown to like suffer. This is a novella that makes you feel a wide gamut of emotions. 

Dien is a nicely created protagonist. She mostly clings to rage, but every once in a while you see the mask slip. Her shoulders slip as the weight of being the beacon of hope for her friends becomes too much to bear, but after a breather, she’s right back up and trying to make escape plans. Dien is the heart of Demon. An angry, bitter heart with teeth instead of veins, but a heart all the same. 

“If you can retain enough pride to do the right thing, even in the face of scorn and ridicule, you can inspire that same pride in others.”

One of my very few problems with Demon is that I found most of the side characters fairly one-dimensional. That’s probably to be expected in a story of this length—and certainly doesn’t apply to all of the side characters—but I could have used a bit more nuance in some of the humans. My other problem is that the ending feels a bit sudden. There’s angels in this world and some sort of war going on between the divine forces, but we see very little of it.

Ultimately, Demon is a gritty, heart-breaking, viscerally horrifying story that should delight any and all grimdark fans. It’s book one of one of the three trilogies that Hayes is writing for Godeater, and something about the series feels special. Hayes is calling his homerun here, and Demon is a deliciously dark story that shows he’s living up to that promise. 

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Anthony Ryan, best known for his dark fantasy novels, branches out into horror for a second time with The Feeding. After reading Red River Seven I was chomping at the bit to get another of his horror books to read, and once again it made me feel like the author has come up with another fun concept and story that would transfer amazingly to the silver screen.

In The Feeding, the world as we know it has ended. What started out as random acts of violence and some murder has become a wilderness of savage, animalistic vampires who have hunted humanity to the brink of extinction. Small fortresses of humanity remain behind high walls, with scarce resources to feed their people and few bullets left with which to protect them from the planet’s new apex predators.

Facilitating trade between the settlements are the Crossers—an elite group of people brave or desperate enough to venture out beyond the walls in the hope of reaching another settlement and trading for what the people need. An added incentive to become a crosser is the ability to claim an item for yourself, and when Layla’s father figure comes down with a horrible illness, she finds out that her settlement does not have the medicines he requires to live. When a crosser team is wiped out by feeders and the remaining crosser needs a new team, Layla puts her hand up to help her adopted family.

This post apocalyptic horror was an easy and fun read, with light themes of distrust, found family, and what you’d do at the end of the world at the fore. Themes that you could lean into easily and just enjoy the book for what it is. This allows Layla to shine as the main character, as she deals with trying to help her family, protect her friend / adopted brother, and then, once she’s out past the walls, protect herself so she can save her adopted fathe. At times we are asked if it’s okay for others to die so that those we love may live, and I quite enjoyed that aspect of Layla’s internal monologue and actions.

The overarching world is a nice mix up of some of my favourite end of the world-style IPs, creating an eerie and enjoyable backdrop to the story of the Crossers. I really enjoyed the way Ryan provided the colour of what the cities have become over the 15 years since the end of the world, and how the Feeders survived and thrived in those environments. I’ll certainly be peering deeply into any shadows on late night walks for the next few weeks.

The only thing I didn’t enjoy about the book was the last part of the last chapter. It seemed an unnecessary and unlikely wrapping up of a story arc that I didn’t realise was in play at all, but clearly mattered enough to the author to finish the book that way.

Overall, Anthony Ryan’s The Feeding is fast, comfortable, accessible, and just flat out fun to read. I don’t read many horror books, but I will 100% pick up anything further Ryan releases in this genre.

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Having failed in his attempt to strike down his captor, the ruthless sorceress Athyr-Bast, Conan finds himself struggling to resist her mind domination magic. Zula, a shape-shifter Conan previously encountered in the jungles of the southern Black Kingdoms, appears in the nick of time, knocking Athyr-Bast unconscious and freeing Conan from her influence. Still indebted to Zula after their previous encounter (Conan the Barbarian #20), Conan agrees to help the magician sabotage his Set-worshipping Stygian enemies, provided they return to rescue Livia once their mission is complete. Zula uses his magic to disguise himself as Athyr-Bast and Conan dons the armor of one of the sorceress’ slain bodyguards. Together they set out to uncover the aims of Thoth-Amon, leader of the sorcerous Black Circle and an influential figure in Set’s snake cult.

Part III of A Nest of Serpents, this issue is entitled “Power and Influence.” Finally, Jim Zub delivers the much-teased first encounter between Conan and Thoth-Amon. While Thoth-Amon and Conan never actually meet in the original Robert E. Howard short stories, Conan only indirectly comes into contact with Thoth-Amon’s malign magic, Thoth-Amon is a fan-favorite antagonist from the pastiche novels and comic adaptations. Finally seeing the two characters together in the current Titan Comics Conan the Barbarian run was a long-awaited treat. Zub makes their meeting a tense one, showcasing Thoth-Amon’s great mystical powers while also depicting him as an embattled leader, beset by enemies both distant and within his inner circle. As one potential threat Thoth-Amon namedrops Natohk the Veiled One, who Howard fans will recall as the antagonist from the 1933 Conan tale “Black Colossus.” Thoth-Amon also demonstrates how well-informed he is when he recognizes the name Amra, Conan’s current nom de guerre; Conan hurriedly claims that he is a DIFFERENT Amra, not the notorious Black Coast pirate of which Thoth-Amon has heard.

Fernando Dagnino continues to showcase his strength and versatility as an artist in this issue. The architecture in this issue particularly stands out. Dagnino makes the teeming slums of Keshatta come alive, and Thoth-Amon’s Temple of Set is appropriately monumental and imposing. Thoth-Amon himself also looks “right,” maintaining the sinuous build and vaguely reptilian aspect popularized by Cary Nord in the 2004 Dark Horse Comics Conan title. In an interview in Conan the Barbarian #21, Dagnino laments that Conan’s face is tricky to perfect: if the bridge of his nose is even slightly too short, he ends up looking like the Incredible Hulk. True enough, in this issue there are some borderline Hulk-faced Conan depictions. But that’s less a critique of the artwork on my part than an amused acknowledgment of the two characters’ resemblance.

Conan the Barbarian issue #23 gives readers the Conan and Thoth-Amon encounter they have been waiting for. Zub and Dagnino deliver a briskly paced issue packed with tension and spectacle.

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When Among Crows ( the first in the Curse Bearer duology) brings old world folklore to modern-day Chicago in a compact urban fantasy package that tackles ideas of redemption, retribution and belonging alongside themes of emigration/immigration, culture and the ills of Christian colonialism and its associated, persistent violence. There is a lot to think about packed into this novella from Veronica Roth, some of which brought to mind the film Sinners (2025) and its exploration of shared-oppression, of being crushed under the heel of the same boot despite the differences among us.

Fans of Slavic folklore in fantasy should feel at home with When Among Crows’ displaced Polish community of ‘creatures’ that protagonist Dymitr immerses himself in as he searches for Baba Jaga, the most powerful witch there is. He encounters Ala, a zmora suffering under a blood-curse that forces daily visions of death and murder on her, and Niko, a strzygoń who can use magic as a defender of his community but is likely to die younger because of it. These three must work together, fight together and learn to trust each other enough to achieve their goals.

It’s a little difficult to delve too deeply into plot points here, given the overall length of the novella, needless to say I’m sure if you imagined a slighter Witcher with the ability to feel guilt – and a lot of it – and transplant him into Chicago that would get you partway to the feel of When Among Crows. There’s an added M/M attraction mixed in, and some rich history and magic lying beneath the surface, and my only criticism is that there’s perhaps too much vying for attention in only 165 pages that some aspects feel rushed.

The timeline of When Among Crows is spread over little more than a day, which contributes to the feeling of being a bit of a whirlwind. While it works for some parts of the plot – adding tension and stakes – other parts do feel a little starved of attention. The novella feels like a hasty introduction, a whistle-stop origin story for a trio of characters I expect we’ll see much more of in the future, and in much more depth, maybe in a Murderbot-esque format with novels interspersed among novellas. Despite feeling a tad brief, there’s enough intrigue teased out and enough character building that makes me root for these three misfits to bring me back for To Clutch a Razor, the second novella that releases in September 2025.

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Last Updated on September 4, 2025

I went through a big Stephen King phase in my teens. The Stand was a life changing read for me, one of those books that just alters your brain chemistry. Other favourites at the time included Misery, The Mist, and The Jaunt (the latter two both part of Skeleton Crew, a short story collection which really fucked me up for a while). Time passed and I moved on to other things. But my love affair with King briefly rekindled in my early twenties, with reads of It, The Dark Tower, and The Running Man, first published under the nom de plume Richard Bachman. I mention the latter specifically because in many ways it’s very similar to The Long Walk. Both involve post-economic crash dystopian USAs; both involve men voluntarily signing up for deadly gameshows; and both involve constant movement.

But The Long Walk is not The Running Man, so let’s talk about the former, not the latter.

It goes something like this.

America has gone to shit, and a mysterious despot known as The Major (Mark Hammil) now figuratively and literally runs the show. The show in question is the titular Long Walk, a competition in which fifty-odd men—well, walk, across a desolate, but beautiful, rural USA. There’s no finish line. Keeping pace is a handful of armoured cars full of fascists with assault rifles and one enormous howitzer for some reason.

There are three rules:

You must walk at or above 3 miles an hour constantly;If you drop below 3mph, you get three ten-second warnings to make it back to pace; andEvery hour you keep pace, one warning is erased from your record.

If you fall behind for thirty seconds, you get “your ticket”—i.e. shot. Last man standing gets untold wealth and one wish (this is important!).

Of the fifty men who volunteer, the story unsurprisingly focuses on a handful. The main character is Raymond Garraty, played with decidedly chequered acting ability by Cooper Hoffman, very capably supported (read: undeniably overshadowed) by British actor David Jonsson playing Peter McVries (the only criticism that can be levelled at Jonsson is that his occasionally hammy South-USA drawl is at times unintelligible).

Garraty and Hoffman’s friendship forms the thematic and emotional core of the movie. As they walk for—eventually, hundreds—of miles through burning heat, freezing rain, blazing arguments, and the violent elimination of their fellow contestants, they form a profound and intimate fraternal bond, made all the more unlikely by the fact that they are direct competitors.

A movie like The Long Walk is an interesting concept. Unlike, say, The Stand, which is a plot-heavy apocalyptic narrative you simply sit back and marvel at, The Long Walk is constantly asking you the question ‘what would you do in this situation?’

Well the first thing I would do is not sign up for it.

One of the most surprising things I learnt about The Long Walk was that participating in it is entirely voluntarily. The script has Garraty try to explain/handwave this, by arguing that the dystopian system in which they all exist means it’s voluntary only in name (it’s the system, man! It’s the corporate fat cats, man!); but even with this ham-fisted sociopolitical spiel, the movie tells us that Garraty was entirely free to abandon the whole thing up to a day beforehand.

I am a professional writer, and so I do really genuinely appreciate the concept of suspension of disbelief (promise!) and I’m prepared to accept all sorts of things in the name of the Rule of Cool. But it feels to me like it wouldn’t have been much of a stretch to have made the Long Walk mandatory, like the frickin’ Hunger Games. It really is quite difficult to understand the motivation to sign up for something with a 49/50 chance of violent death, even if you are living in a dystopia, and even if you get a bajillion dollars as the winner. Statistically you’re just committing suicide.

(And yes, Garraty has his own special emotional reason which I can’t spoil, but even that isn’t enough to penetrate this reviewer’s grey matter and stick).

The men who participate do so initially, gleefully, backslapping and trading jokes and stories, and then are shocked and dismayed when the first of them gets shot. Well what did they expect???

Even knowing what it was they were signing up for, some of these guys had the survival instincts of a wet cardboard box. Being shot in the face with an assault rifle—and the movie delights in showing you these gory cranial explosions in very high definition—is, arguably, one of the worst things that can happen to you. Yet as you watch men yield to cramp, trips and spills, a hill—a hill!—and Chekhov’s howitzer, the temptation to shout at the screen becomes overwhelming. I suppose having 49 of them simply drop down from sheer exhaustion and lack of sleep would have been a more boring movie.

(To be fair to the movie, one of the characters does walk for about 10 miles with a disgustingly 90-degree-broken ankle, so terrified of death is he. That is the kind of desperation that felt much closer to the mark).

Anyway, this feels like nitpicking. “You don’t get it Swan,” refined enjoyers of the book shout at me through the internet. “It’s not about that. The Long Walk is really an exploration and celebration of male friendship and brotherhood, the unbreakable bonds we form in extreme situations, and ultimately the triumph of altruism, compassion, self-sacrifice and espirit de corps that define the best humanity has to offer—and that’s a good thing.”

“Yes, but the howitzer—” I shout back, but you cut me off: “We need more of that in the modern world. We need movies that show young men just unashamedly enjoying the ritual of bonding! Sure, at times this is grating and annoying; but at others, especially towards the end of the movie, its actually very poignant!”

“Certainly,” I shout, sweating, “but they shouldn’t have signed up for it knowing they would die!”

“You’re missing the point!” You rejoin. “Even the character you are very obviously supposed to hate—and do, because he’s very hateable—epiphanises: “my dad always said everyone’s got to have a few buddies”. Friendship, kinship, sharing experiences good and bad, defines us as people! As McVries says in the movie, better to be friends even if it’s just for a couple of hours!”

“Aha!” I shout. I play my ace. “Anthony O’Connor of FilmInk told me after the ending in the book was really good and this ending is ridiculous.”

You thrash about for a counterargument like a drowning man searching for a life preserver. But there’s nothing. Even you, enjoyer of the beautifully explored themes of the novel, cannot deny that the movie’s ending is, in a word, stupid.

“Whatever,” you mutter, closing the laptop.

And I, the winner of the internet argument, reach for my old, dogeared copy of The Stand, and begin to read.

The Long Walk is out Thursday 11 September.

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Great writers take the theme of their book, and they don’t just say it, they show it with the rhythm of their writing: the flow of it, the feel of it, the pulse of it. What the hell do I mean, to the extent I ever mean anything? Well take the remarkable Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson, out on September 9 from Black Crow Books in the UK and Random House in the US. This feels like a book about the pride and rage of man, and how utterly pointless it is, and the hollowness of revenge. And boy does Rosson tell us that through the plot, but he also shows us through his writing, which is propulsive third person present tense, beating, fast, never slowing, vital, hot, a runaway train that reflects the inevitable, unavoidable, combustive emotions of the flawed protagonists and antagonist. And that makes Rosson a great horror writer—surely soon of the greats if he carries on like this—and it also makes Coffin Moon one of the must-read, visceral, unforgettable horror experiences of the year, and one of the great vampire novels.

When we meet our male protagonist Duane Minor, a troubled Vietnam vet in 70s Portland, it’s already clear his anger has cost him; some initially undisclosed recent event haunts him. But still, he has a loving wife and they’ve adopted her niece, thirteen year old Julia, after Julia’s mother killed her abusive step-father. But things take a turn for the very bad when some bikers start selling drugs in his mother-in-law’s bar, and despite her protestations to leave alone, Minor’s pride intervenes and he crosses John Varley. Which is even worse, as Varley is a vampire built like a brick shithouse whose pride and anger and penchant for violence are more than a match for Minor’s, and now his wife is dead and it’s just Julia and him. Wounded by guilt, he should leave well alone… but oh, that anger, oh, that pride, and soon he sweeps a more-than-willing Julia up in a nightmarish road trip of revenge against an incomprehensibly powerful foe.

There’s many astonishing things about Coffin Moon but I’ll settle on two. The first is how Rosson examines the cost of rage, pride, and vengeance through his three subtly distinct character studies. Minor is a man whose war-induced rage and life-induced male pride has ruined him, and he knows it, but he can’t stop; the tragedy of it smothers the reader even as the action barrels along. The terrifying, iconoclastic villain of the vampire Varley is similarly prideful and rageful, and also self aware, but he justifies it with an almost Buddhist-style mantra of it’s just the present moment that matters. Whether he’ll pay for this stance creates one of the more intriguing subplots of the book. And then there’s Julia, the thirteen year old girl who’s had to grow up before her time, who’s so consumed by rage she’s willing to throw her life away. I didn’t foresee how dark Rosson would make her path; but, at some point, there is beauty in it too.

But if I’ve bombarded you with character work, let me note the other astonishing thing about Coffin Moon: the sheer ferocity of its pace and violence, especially in the last third. There’s about ten crime novels in here: bike gangsters, drug rings, police chases, saloon gangster, 1900s flashbacks, massacres and dogged detectives. And then there’s the violence. Constant, visceral, horror, laid out in that don’t-look-away grim detail that Rosson has. I’m used to gore and violence with my horror obsession. But you can’t get used to this. The vampire lore is strong here too; Rosson gives us a vampire foe who is horrifically powerful yet in some clever ways unaccountably weak.

Smeared all over this is the grime of the 70s, an America dealing with the cost of Vietnam. The 70s were the decade where America lost its innocence; it never recovered from Vietnam and this loss of innocence is shot through the book from the characters who know they’re damning themselves but can’t stop to the sense of pointless death seeping from the book like a bloated corpse.

Overall, Coffin Moon is a bullet train midnight descent into a purgatorial hell that never stops from the first page, a simply stunning tour de force of the cost of rage and vengeance painted in scenes of unending carnage, topped with a blistering set of character studies. You won’t have another horror experience like this for a while.

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In K.J. Parker’s dark fantasy novella Making History, usurper king Gyges has gathered the finest minds in all of Aelia to rewrite history and cement his invented legacy.

One of those fine minds is our protagonist, who, along with this fellow academics, has been press ganged into making history. He’s a bit of a genius rogue, with a courtesan at home and a cynical and cheeky approach to life and this project. But he’s also a rogue who is dearly attached to being alive, and we ride the roller coaster of disbelief, acceptance, hope, confidence, and horror as he discovers that the biggest project of his life may also be his last one.

Making History follows a group of scholars as they try to make history suit the narrative that their people fled an evil empire to create their nation–naturally as a reason for their king to justify attacking said nation in the coming months. Each scholar brings a different insight into the story that makes the ancient and modern history of a nation, responsible for creating a small part of a larger fiction. And if the scholars can’t bring this story together to become a real justification for war, then death for all of them is the likely outcome.

Thematically Making History is about how the victors create history, while the vanquished are doomed to the footnotes or to play the villains. I loved that about this book and the characters, and it–like all amazing fantasy books–makes you immediately start mentally picking through your own home’s history. (Honestly, if you’re an author wondering how to create a world to write in that feels real and lived in, this would actually be a pretty good book to read from a research perspective.)

The protagonist is another in a line of characters I loved because they were people in interesting, non-warrior jobs, having massive impacts on the world around them. That started for me with Jasaray from David Gemmell’s Rigante series, who, if memory serves, was a physically useless procurement officer who ended up having the highest rank in the army after a devastating loss. The voice Making History is told in I absolutely loved—breathing life into this novella through the way the character explored himself and history through mental tangents, as opposed to just chasing the next thing that happens.

The only part of Making History that didn’t knock it out of the part for me was that the end was a little too contrived for my tastes, but I didn’t mind the message that it sent. A minor blip on an otherwise amazing read.

Making History by K.J. Parker is an almost perfect modern dark fantasy novella. It’s insightful, holds a mirror up to our society, and is such a fun way to spend a few short hours reading. If Parker had stuck the landing on this one, it’d likely go down as one of my all time favourite novellas.

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In equal parts profound philosophy and cynical foreshadowing, Ruocchio has delivered an all time great sequel in Howling Dark. Intensely interesting world-building, some great character work, and an ending that will shake readers to the core, Howling Dark improves on the already great start of Sun Eater and marks the arrival of one of the best voices in SFF right now. 

“We are clay, shaped as the mountain is shaped: by the wind, the tramping foot, and the rain. By the world. The mark of other hands is on us, but we are ourselves alone.”

Following Empire of Silence, Hadrian has more questions than answers. He has prisoners, a semi-loyal crew, gusto, and no idea where to go. He’s searched the galaxy for ways to contact the Cielcin and put an end to the war, and he’s done so mostly fruitlessly. When he gets a hint of where the planet of Vorgossos is, he’ll find threats both larger and more insidious than the Cielcin.

Howling Dark begins in media res, something I wasn’t fully expecting given the framed narrative of Suneater. Hadrian and crew are targeting a being known as The Painted Man while they search for information. From the intro alone, you can tell Howling Dark is going to be a special book. The imagery and attention to detail for The Painted Man feels fresh out of a horror film, as well as the intensity and action that follows. 

While you can tell right from page one that Howling Dark is firing on all cylinders, you can also tell that Ruocchio has improved his game in pretty much all facets. Empire of Silence is a great book, Howling Dark is better. The rumination of Hadrian has always been a treat to read, but now it’s paired with increased action, sprawling world-building, and some really interesting philosophizing. A lot of the novel feels inspired by Book of the New Sun in its weirdness and the twists and turns it takes, and while Ruocchio has always had a nice feel for action, it’s vastly improved in this.

There’s a touch of horror in every aspect of Howling Dark, especially the ideas brought to life in Vorgossos. Sometimes it’s in your face, sometimes it’s insidious, but it’s ever present, like the blackness of space. Creepiness oozes off the page and leaves you feeling like you need a shower. 

Amidst the fear is a lot of philosophical discussion. Characters debate, and what I love is that they’re never right or wrong. The conversations feel real and high-level. You can tell that every character truly believes they’re right and they’re willing to state their case until the very end. 

“The world is filled with monsters: dragons in the wilderness, serpents in the garden. We must become monsters to fight them. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never really had to fight for anything.”

While the beginning of Howling Dark is one of my favorite parts of the book, that is in retrospect. In real time, I must confess the beginning threw me off and I’m curious why Ruocchio took this approach. The narrative of Suneater is an intimate one—full of minute details about Hadrian’s life—so to skip years and years of Hadrian’s life felt like a head scratcher. 

Once we get out of the first bit, Howling Dark does slow down to the pace of Empire of Silence. It’s not bad, but it is frequently slow at times, so the read does require patience. Lots of dialogue, lots of wandering, lots of soul searching. It’s a book that needs you to bear with it for a while, but once things kick off near the end, Ruocchio has you trapped. 

The ending of Howling Dark is an epic whirlwind that is impossible to put down once you hit The Red Scene. There’s multiple instances of jaw-dropping scenes, but it’s not just flash. The substance behind it builds the plot and makes me extremely eager to see what Ruocchio has in store in the next books, and my mind has been kept busy by the foreshadowing and hints provided. 

All in all, if you liked Empire of Silence then this is a must-read. I encourage any fans of Name of the Wind or Book of the New Sun to pick this series up, and I encourage them to be patient. Ruocchio rewards the faithful, and the ending of Howling Dark is the cherry on top of one of my favorite sequels of all time.

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Shauna Lawless returns to her Gael Song Saga with Daughter of the Otherworld. This is the first novel in a second trilogy set in Lawless’ Irish historical fantasy world. It is with great happiness that I can say that this story is more of the same that readers will know and love – an incredibly readable, well-paced, believable fantasy tale, inspired by Irish mythology. If you have already read Lawless’ other novels and novellas in this world, you will feel very comfortable hitting the ground running and immediately re-immerse yourself in this saga. However, I think you would be able to begin with The Daughter of the Otherworld and still enjoy it. Lawless is a very thorough writer, and there is usually a detailed Dramatis Personae (including a pronunciation guide for those of us who butcher the Irish names) available to refer to if needed.

The Daughter of the Otherworld is the story of the next generation of Descendants and Fomorians. The children we met in the first trilogy are all grown up, and still hell bent on destroying each other. For Broccan, this is a very personal vendetta; he blames the Fomorians for the death of almost everyone he has ever loved. For Isolde, it is prophesied that she will be the one to destroy fire. But Isolde presents no magical gift; she is young, untested, and horribly naïve of the world beyond the tiny island where her cousin raised her in near isolation. Before, the Fomorians, Gormflaith, her brother, and their offspring, plotted to rule Ireland. Now that they are returning to their homeland, they still desire it and will burn everyone who stands in their way.

So, as I said, this is a follow on from the earlier trilogy. The first chapters are relatively soon after the ending of The Land of the Living and the Dead, but then there is a time jump of one hundred and fifty or so years. Given that the magical characters have a life span of half a millennium, it is enough time for the mortal world to move on and forget, but not a tremendous amount of time for our main characters. I’ve always liked the historical details in Lawless’ writing, which continues in The Daughter of the Otherworld in a slightly different era. There are more Normans than Vikings now, they travel to ports and castles that I recognise with the city of Bristol and Chepstow Castle (which is still a very cool castle to visit if you ever find yourself around the area).

There is a shift in perspectives in The Daughter of the Otherworld. Where Lawless’ first novel, The Children of Gods and Fighting Men, was told exclusively from female perspectives, there is more variation here. We switch from male and female POVs, Fomorian and Descendant’s, first- and second-generation perspectives. Increasing the number of narrators is a great way to show how the power is shifting in this new trilogy and the contrasts between them, but I miss that female-focused viewpoint. It showcased how Fódla and Gormflaith had to exist (and persuade or scheme) whilst not actually being in a position of power, and we don’t get as much of that here.

However, there remains the same mix of mythology, history, and magic that I enjoyed so much. There are some violent moments, and a lot of betrayal and double crossing, making it enjoyable to fans of dark fantasy, even if it might not tick all their boxes. If you liked the first trilogy and were left wanting more, you will not be disappointed with the next era, and your time spent reading Daughter of the Otherworld. Thank you to Shauna Lawless and our friends at Head of Zeus / Ad Astra for sending me an eARC for review.

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