A while back I began to collect some fantasy novels I'd had my eyes on. I used to wait until a fantasy series was complete before beginning to read book1, but I did still like to purchase those that I was interested in, having them on my TBR shelves, staring at me, sitting, waiting.
   These days due to unreliable publishers, inconsistent formatting, vanishing dust jackets and a strange shift in cover finishes (from glossy to matte or vice versa), and of course, lastly and not leastly; due to the unreliability of certain authors I've mostly come to abandon my keeping in tune book-buying and instead have shifted to only purchasing books when the whole endeavour I'm interested in is complete. I'm only one person and I already have over a 1000 physical books waiting on my TBR shelves, and I frankly don't need the hassle of chasing down editions in a series that can't or won't match.
   And even then, it can still go wrong sometimes, to whit I present you the evidence:

Not once, but twice!

I did eventually get the right format though.

Had to go on ebay and have a picture where someone was holding it in order to verify that it's what I needed.

Is the series worth it? No clue, but it does have beveled edges though, which is really nice.

Books I finished in 2021

 

Hot on the heels of my last 'read in 2020' post is... the 'Books I read in 2021'...

oh boy.. been neglecting this place hmm?

Read in 2020 (part 3)

 At the end of the year I also rushed through a few novella-length books, and among these was the Soul Drinkers Novella Daenyathos.

This one had been on my shelves for quite some time, since 2013 I think when the Soul Drinkers' new omnibi editions came out, but which books I both somehow missed out on, despite actually getting the separate hardback novella, which is just bloody typical isn't it?
The Soul Drinkers series of books concerns a space marine chapter which, despite remaining loyal to the Emperor, slowly succumbs to corruption and mutation. I remember the books being hugely entertaining, visceral and as creatively gruesome and imaginative as only Ben Counter could make them. The gist of the overarching plot is that the longer the series progresses, the more mutation crops up in the characters and the more their fall to Chaos becomes, or seems to become, inevitable. But despite this, these mutations and indications of corruption, for instance; their chapter-master losing his legs and growing spider legs in place, the Soul Drinkers remain a force loyal to Terra.
I have only read the first three novels, because when the omnibis for books 4,5 and 6 came out ( yes, TWO different omnibi's of books 4,5 and 6) they were pretty much immediately sold out, because Games Workshop is stupid and prefers to stifle its production to drive up the price, and so I actually never got to finish reading the series. And though I got the Daenyathos novella at that time, it seemed stupid to me to actually go read that when I couldn't finish reading the entire saga.
But stupid or not I've finished it now, and despite having become quite vague on the details of the rest of the series, I still actually enjoyed doing so. The novella's main draw is that it follows, shockingly, Daenyathos on his journey to entombment in a Dreadnought, with several shocking revelations along the way. It's quite action-packed but also frequently ruminative and though I was satisfied, I do wish I had read the damn thing right along with the rest of the series.

Another (very) short one was George RR Martin's The Ice Dragon, which technically speaking is more of a short story than anything else, but which, given the man's popularity at a certain point, was published a few years ago all on its own in a ridiculously lavish edition, wraparound dustjacket, internal artwork and all. It's a fairy tale set in the world of Ice and Fire and it's decent, though quite a little bit too short to warrant a standalone edition. 

The plot follows a young girl who has more in common with creatures of ice than anything warm-blooded, and so when an Ice Dragon shows up (I mean, my God, what a surprise, right?) she begins to spend more and more time away from her family and more with the alien creature. But war looms on the horizon, and the girl's Ice Dragon isn't the only dragon in the skies. The ending is quite poignant, unexpected, and very good. It's a real addition to the world, not feeling out of place and yet retaining enough "alien-ness" to set it apart from the main series.

I'd been a fan of 2000AD's Tales of Telguuth comics and I picked up this short story collection as soon as I knew it existed. Both comics and the writings here were written by Steve Moore, a long-time friend of Alan Moore (though not a relation).

Despite the change in format, from comics to prose, the tales here genuinely 'feel' like the world we've come to know in the Telguuth comics, and that's because it's really Moore's writing the brought it all to life. Again we're treated to beautiful, lyrical prose, gorgeous naming, both hilarious, heartfelt and horrific stories, with memorable pro and antagonists and a feeling that you're in one of the most vibrant creations in fiction. It's a shame there's so little of it, but I recommend anyone, those lovers of the English language at least, to seek out these perfect stories. A joy to read out loud.

Lastly, there's a few novels here that I feel I should be writing a whole lot more about, and they should at least have been giving their own posts. But as writing is really something that I'm having severe difficulties with these days, this is better than nothing.

The Tooth Fairy is the last of the Terror 8 I still needed to read, and it ended up being quite a different story than I was expecting. It was a disturbing and at times rather an uncomfortable reading experience, but with the uneasiness coming from real life elements, rather than from the horror-trappings I was expecting. The Tooth Fairy is essentially a coming-of-age story dressed in dark fantasy clothing. It's a very sexually charged story, and though it never gets as ill-conceived as some of those sections from Stephen King's It, there's nevertheless some strange stuff in here. It might be better than King's novel, but only barely. Summer of Night is still the best one in this genre.

Next up, another novel that I should've given more attention to, but that for more reasons than usual I don't. 

The Dragon Waiting is one of the novels of Gollancz's Fantasy Masterworks line and should really get its own post, exploring various aspects of the story, or an in-depth exploration of something that caught my attention or whatever, but both my disinterest on writing in general (for the moment) and my opinions concerning this book in particular have conspired to make me abstain from writing anything at all. You see, despite it being highly regarded by the literary world at large, and regardless of it being a beloved favourite by anyone who's read it, I don't actually think The Dragon Waiting is all that good.

Even though, yes, of course, it is.

But it certainly isn't a Masterwork. It meanders all over the place,  Hell, it isn't even conclusive, the story ends, or rather it doesn't, and instead sets itself up for a sequel. But there isn't one.

It does things masterfully well though: the characters, the time period... hell, even the feel of the whole thing is genuinely unique; from roman, to the celtic, to the dark ages, the periods that it visits all feel authentic, but despite everything that it does right one can't help but feel that there should be more.

By and large the Dragon Waiting feels woefully incomplete; you can not help but feel, and wishing that there was more to come. Alas.

Lastly, this awesome set of books.

Part horror, part sci-fi and fantasy, the Coldfire trilogy is a brilliant piece of fiction.

 It has a heavy focus on religion, an engaging world and memorable characters.

If there's one thing I didn't like about it, then it is the ending, which was just a bit too wishful for me. Most other people would be more than fine with it I guess, but for me the ending kind of undercut the gravity of the sacrifices made along the way.

Read in 2020 (Part 2)

 

Ligotti's My Work is not yet done is another slim volume,  this time one comprising three shorter stories. Ligotti is always interesting, though he does tend to feel repetitive after a while. That said, despite some niggles that approach that feeling, I did have an unwholesomely fun time.

     The titular first story, comfortably the longest, is the most familiar one and readily the easiest to entice a reader with: a disgruntled employee is aided by a dark supernatural force and takes vengeance on his employer and co-workers. It's an alright story, and other than the really quite satisfying vicarious thrill one gets when reading the parts where vengeance gets enacted, there's not much that is memorable here. It's part and parcel of Ligotti's style for me. For some reason alot of his writing slides right off of me.

     The other two stories 'I Have a Special Plan for this World' and 'The Nightmare Network' are both of a different caliber, and though regrettably short, they do stick in the mind a bit longer, even though the stories' ideas are abstract, and the execution, of 'The Nightmare Network' in particular, unconventional. I you like dark and weird fiction this novel is one to pick up.

This book is a short collection of the stories comprising the 'King in Yellow' canon, as written by Robert W. Chambers, together with about 6 other of his stories of a more romantic nature. Those were actually  surprisingly good, and quite beautiful, 'The Street of the First Shell' in particular.

I've long wanted to read everything concerning the King in Yellow ever since I saw season 1 of True Detective, and so then imagine my disappointment that there's only 4 original stories, all depressingly short, and all rather more circumspect and vague about the whole 'Carcosa and the Yellow King' -thing than I would've wanted. There's hardly any lore to speak of, really. There's very little information on 'the play that drives men mad', the city of Carcosa or even of the eponymous king. It seems Chambers' Yellow King fame is mostly due to Lovecraft's borrowing of some of the names referenced here for his own mythos, most of which was then yet to be written, and which; those references, then was made into a kind of extended universe by gaming hobbyists and lore-scribes years and years later. They're not bad stories, mind, I was just expecting so much more, and so I couldn't be anything else but disappointed.

     The next one then I was warned about before going in; repetitive, formulaic and inconsequential, 'read one, you've read 'em all', volume 1 of the Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin.

And of course, surprise surprise, I hugely enjoyed it. Expectation, or lack of it, changes everything.

I mostly picked the 5 volumes up because of the cover art, and because I love publisher Night Shade's collected editions in general. For Seabury Quinn Nightshade collected his 93 stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin over 5 volumes. One introduction later and I had doubts about the whole thing, because the introduction advises that any new reader of these tales would do well by spacing out the stories over the course of two years, a short story a week or so. Which advice naturally does nothing less than dispirit one about quality of what one is about to read. And so, suitably having my anticipation for any further reading crushed, I couldn't end up anything other than just being thoroughly entertained.

They are repetitive indeed, but it's a comfortable repetitiveness, kinda like watching Midsomer Murders, or some other old, venerable show, where relaxation, if not actual joy, is derived from familiarity. Weekly meetings with people you've come to know, and enjoy the company of. Poirot mixed with Sherlock Holmes, with a 'monster of the week' premise. Occasionally supernatural, sometimes mere human devilry. Every time I picked volume 1 up I was looking forward to what was in stor for me.

My favourite in volume 1 is probably 'The White Lady of the Orphanage' which was one of the human culprit stories, but which was so nasty and gruesome that it managed to stick out from the rest.

     Here then, is another form of comfort food, the good old Warhammer fiction. Again I didn't read as much as I'd have liked, and I still don't have an individual copy of Wulfrik (so I can't show that one), but I did read some interesting stuff nonetheless.

These three are connected in interesting ways. And though I've already talked about Luthor huss around here, and it doesn't merit much more attention, the other two do.

  After finishing the Luthor Huss book I remembered that I still had a book lying around that also had him as a major character. And since his own book didn't delve into what I really wanted to see from him; his role in the bringing of the reincarnation of Sigmar to the Empire, I was hoping that the Marks of Chaos omnibus would end up more satisfying (, at least in this particular regard, as Luthor Huss was a damn fine book all on its own.) And though yes, we indeed end up in the company of Huss and the man called Valten during the course of Marks of Chaos, it doesn't really end up being the main event.

Marks of Chaos is also what you call a Heretic Tome, one of those novels of the Old World's middle period, where the Black library still allowed their writers to go for whatever they wanted, provided they crafted their stories around by the existing lore. And that's why the Witch Hunter's Handbook is here, courtesy of the Ink-Stained Beard, who managed to track down a rare copy just to gift it to me.

What a great chap, isn't he?

The story of Marks of Chaos is the story of Karl Hoche, who is recruited into the ranks of the Untersuchung, which is then promptly dismantled and declared ex communicado and 'order heretical' by the Witch Hunters under control by Lord Protector Thaddeus Gamow. The same Gamow who, together with another crucial player, Karen Schiller, is mentioned in the introduction of the Handbook and referenced throughout. In this it's really cool to see how close these things work together.

Karl Hoche has to go on the run and works in isolation to untangle a web of deceit and subterfuge that is being played out around him.
I admit, throughout the story I was constantly lost as to what was really going on. There are so many elements at play, and Karl himself is so out of the loop that he frequently ends up in locations where crucial events have already just taken place. This does create an interesting atmosphere and a growing conviction that there is a massive conspiracy afoot, and that Karl might just be the only one able to stop it all from playing out, working as he does just at the fringes, hunted by both sides.

And that's only the first novel in the omnibus.

It's the second that delves into the matter of Luthor Huss, and it is here that we get what we're after; the depiction of a zealous cleric, a firebrand in opposition to a stagnant church, and the man granted a vision of Sigmar reborn. Like Mark of Damnation, Mark of Heresy sticks close to the lore as it wa set out at the time. It's a good story, but incompatible with what Old World fiction came to be. Sadly it also has but a smidgen of the power that Chris Wraight's Luthor Huss novel has. It's interesting to read, but sadly outpaced and outdated, and with an ending that promises more to come, but which promise sadly enough is reneged on. James Wallis didn't return to Karl Hoche's plight, his adventures left off the page and up only to the imagination.
It feels as if I'm giving the a wrong impression here, so here it goes; I enjoyed reading the Marks of Chaos omnibus, and if by some chance you get it (which is honestly very unlikely), it's a decent read.

Read in 2020 (part 1)

     I had some trouble reading this year, and I didn't get to read even close to as much as I would've liked.

But as you can see, it's not all a loss. By the end of the year I was back up to more normal reading speed and what you see above was mostly read then, and though there's a few of those that I'd still like to review, most of these books will just have to content themselves by just being given a quick run-down here. I've also decided to split this one up over several posts. Blogger is incredibly glitchy these days...

Though it was at the time still the most significant read yet ahead, hindsight has proven it a slightly underwhelming experience. But, Scott Bakker's Aspect Emperor cycle, despite my misgivings and minor quibbles, did manage to constantly surprise and engage.

     The story of Kellhus' march towards Golgotterath in order to liberate the world from the greatest evil it had ever seen ended up being one of the boldest stories ever told. And that's not hyperbole either, sure you might not like it, but damn me if that last book doesn't quite do the unthinkable. (well, I say unthinkable, but I swear to you that I saw it coming, even though it all didn't quite go down as I thought).

     It's really quite an impressive bit of drama. Exceedingly dark, stomach-turning, and ever more fucked-up the longer it went on. Was it satisfying? I still can't tell.

     I do however still feel that the last two books should be revisited and thoroughly edited by its author. The strained relationship between Bakker and Overlook has unquestionably left its mark, and it's a damn shame. Where the Judging Eye and The White-Luck Warrior fit together seamlessly, in themes, execution and style, both The Great Ordeal and The Unholy Consult give off different vibes, and are inconsistent in both execution and writing quality. But whatever one can say about it as a whole, the Aspect Emperor's ending is unrivaled. Unconscionable and ruthless, and still haunting, even ten months later.

And then of course, there is this one:

     My feelings on Gravity's Rainbow haven't changed, and my opinion on it is still the same. But I will always doubt those that say they unreservedly love it. Closet-pederast or just lying about having read it? Who can tell? I'm using harsh words, and though there are of course many ways that one can enjoy this novel, there's also just a few too many moments where it just straight-up crosses the line.

On these three I have not much to say right now, except that I've been working on some reviews for them. One of the main goals I have here on the blog is to give every Warhammer Horror story its own review, which in itself isn't too difficult.

     But, I'm worried I've left it all too long to do them any justice, and writing these days remains a daunting prospect.

I also finished off the next two issues of Vastarien, and am now only 1 issue behind, sadly, that issue isn't in stock right now, so I'll have to find a second hand copy somewhere.

     As usual these were a mixed bag, mostly good, but there was also some really pitiful stuff. Some of these, mostly the stories at the back of each volume, are unmitigated self-centered, self-pitying shite. But what do you want? You're reading stories about death ideation and suicide, with themes that are fundamentally selfish and individualistic, and you only come seek these stories out if you've already been taken over by your darkest thoughts.

     But, there's a marked shift in the subject matter nonetheless, the ideas concerning the world and our place in it, our identity or lack of it, death and all its attendent symptoms, seem to be slowly pushed aside by issues concerning gender identity. It fits of course, there's a natural correlation between gender dismorphia and self-hate, and so I don't begrudge it its inclusion here. But I can't help but have my hackles raised whenever I read about it. At any rate, there's still good enough stuff to be found to endeavour to seek out the next (magazine) issues whenever they arrive.

Speaking of...- well no, that would give it away wouldn't it? The Wasp Factory is my first encounter with Iain Banks, and it certainly won't be the last. I've been meaning to dig into his culture novels for ages now but there's always something else that demands my attention.

     I had actually given this book as a gift to a friend some years ago, who has a proclivity for disturbing fiction, and though I frequently have a hankering myself, for some reason I held off on buying it for myself.

     And now that I've finally read it for myself;... yeah, it is weird and quite disturbing. But it is also rather beautiful, written in a unique voice and way more thoughtful than I was expecting.

     The story follows an eccentric boy living together with his father on a small island just off the coast of Scotland. When he's not doing chores, young Frank spends his days hunting small animals, crafting totems and safeguards from their remains in order to protect his home from all who would do it harm.

When he begins getting phone calls from his hospitalized brother, with promises of that one's coming escape and a visit back to the island, Frank's reasons for preparing seem well-founded.

     It's of course definitely not as simple a story as I'm making it out to be here. I'm hiding and glossing over alot. Despite the slim page count there's a lot of surprises, a few of them quite grisly, and the read itself is a compulsive one. I've remarked on the author's voice already but it bears repeating. Iain Banks is one I should maybe have read more of already, but there's always something else. Either way, The Wasp Factory is a very interesting novel and one of the few on this list you could recommend to absolutely anyone. It's a special read. A blend of mystery, coming of age drama and thriller. Go pick it up.

Gravity's Rainbow

I'm going to go and keep this one very short. I did not like reading this book at all and I want to talk about it even less. But as I am pretty compulsive, I need to write down something on it, even if it's just a little bit. and so, naturally, as these things go, the page blooms words.

Over the past few weeks I wrote down a whole hell of a lot on Gravity's Rainbow, most of it very negative, and I've deleted most all of it already, as I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not someone who can talk about it for a few reasons:
     I don't have anywhere near enough background on the facts in the book, how much of them are true and how much of them are not. Regardless, there are a staggering amount of anachronisms in the book, or so it seems to me, most of them involving drugs and drug-use during the second World War, a product of the time, and apparently also the drug trance, in which it was written.
     I am not a native English speaker, so when I'm uncertain about something I tend to give whatever I'm reading the benefit of the doubt, and despite that I think that to do so for this book would be likewise wrong. I also think it's more than likely that some of the book's much lauded humor went over my head or just came across as crass to me, precisely because of this lacking background of native English. It's also obviously dated and will be more so in time.
     I tend to read books for themes and though there were certainly some of those that were interesting to me, the esoteric, the mysticism and the metaphysics especially were fascinating, pretty much all of the rest of them were very much not. There's a huge focus on male genitalia and though it's easy to see why this is, the iconic shape of the rocket is very much a phallic one, it can be overwhelming. There is a crazy amount of sex in this book, most of it very explicit, some of it flat-out obscene, and there were a few that just made me upset with the book as a whole, to such an extent that my stance of giving every book I care to dedicate my time to a fair review, or even just to give my take on it, became impossible.

Simply put, I don't want to talk about it. And yet, here we are.

The central plot points hinge on the creation of secret rockets by the Germans, a secret British agency trying to find them, and one man's strange ability to seemingly predict where a rocket will strike through means of sexual climax. 

There are four parts to the book, and the above premise seems to go out the window by the third. But then, the premise is mine, my attempt to describe the entire plot in as little lines and time as possible, and though these things are there, to dilute the novel so would be wrong.
     Above was also the first time I termed the book a 'novel', and I've avoided doing so because it is also wrong. This is not a novel, and is instead a setting, a set of themes interweaving in and around characters interacting, conflicting and generally, living forwards (most of them). None of it is straight, not the progression, not the truths, not the ending, not anything. Characters inhabit multiple names, seemingly. Characters see angels, ghosts and signs, and all kinds of supernatural trappings are spread throughout the story. Technology rears its head and every reviewer and essayist will espouse the writer's virtues in getting it down so truthfully, and so correct, but, really, it doesn't matter in my opinion, the truth is not something to be sought after in a book like this, and that is despite my worry at the blatant misrepresentation of a drug culture 80 years gone. The first seems pointless, but it's the latter that sticks in my throat, as bizarrely as it distorts landscape, characters and events into something really quite unlikely. The world is a different place under chemicals.

My main problem is that for all the praise the book deserves, there is just so much more stick that it also deserves, which it just doesn't seem to get. 

My main impression is that Gravity's Rainbow is quite a vulgar reading experience. My second is that it fully deserves a second read.

Update

 Just to show I'm still alive.

Review: Luthor Huss

And yet another excursion into the Warhammer Heroes range, and would you know it; for once I ventured into the ranks of the goodies.

In Middenheim, one of the great cities of the Empire, Witch Hunter Lukas Eichmann has been investigating the machinations of a new cult. Another day, another misbegotten heretic creed, and it seems as if there's no end and no point to the stamping out of heresy and corruption. Over the years Eichmann has grown weary of his duty, and the faith that once gave him unshakable purpose has diminished with the never-ending tide of human weakness. Now, the desperate confessions of dying cultists are pointing him away from Middenheim onto a new trail of darkness.

In the heart of the Empire, in the borderlands where humanity's vies for dominion with beasts, at the edge of the massive Drakwald forest, a young girl's hopes and dreams for a normal life are brutally crushed with the coming of a plague of undeath. With no hope of survival, with everyone dying around her, Mila Eichen takes up sword to rage against the coming darkness. But as death closes in inescapable with ravening teeth, the undead horde is smashed aside by faith and steel.

She is saved by the wandering priest Luthor Huss, a dour, uncompromising man of faith unlike any she's ever known, and with her life in ruins she follows him as he barrels from battle to battle, to crush the enemies of mankind wherever they are found. Soon they find themselves inexorably drawn towards lands where humanity holds no sway.

Because in the depths of the Drakwald something monstrous is stirring. In answer to an unseen design the beastmen have begun to march. And as everywhere the dead rise to kill the living, and as in the cities, the corrupted and the mutated are compelled to cast off their disguise, to respond to a secret summons, it slowly becomes certain that Chaos is on the move, and that it has made plans for the men who rally against them.

     I really enjoyed Luthor Huss. It's a novel that pretty much epitomizes what the Black Library puts out, and it is probably one of, if not the best novel in the Warhammer Heroes range. Chris Wraight is a solid writer and though nothing he puts out here is truly extraordinary, the story, writing and in particular the characters are put together well and delivered with skill. Huss himself is an interesting character and a rather unique one at that. He is in fact a saint, one of those characters who genuinely are able to channel the divine might of their god, whether that is the Emperor in 40k or Sigmar in the Old World doesn't really matter, wat matters is that it's a very rare thing to see and read about, and it gives the story a much different flavour than what is usual for these books. But even though he is a holy man, he can be one harsh bastard at times. He has a complete contempt for human weakness and at times doesn't seem to understand it, and he has a divinely inspired oratorical gift which allows him to raise up from the gutter the downtrodden people of the empire and to turn them into raging zealots as he so chooses. It's a strange and frequently disturbing thing to behold and Wraight depicts it well enough.

     And as for any problems the book might have, apart from some tiny lore-errors that bothered me personally (like why the hell is Morrslieb yellow? or what the hell is that whole Well of Souls business at the end?...), those're pretty much a matter of personal taste depending on the reader in question. Some people seem to think it's too slow, others that the book focuses on battles too much, yak yak yak blablabla.
     To any one reading these books I offer this bit of advice: your expectations are too high. These are corporate-mandated novels: the page count is limited, and there are certain things that they can not deviate from. The story and the lore can't expand too much, and there's almost no leeway for experimentation.
     Now, true enough, in the recent year specifically, the Black Library has gone out of its way to actually encourage creativity in its novels, but you can bet your ass this certainly wasn't always the case, and a lot of these older books, written during the post-2006 years of Black Library will read the same way.

     These days the individual novel is out of print but can be found in the Heroes of The Empire Omnibus from the Warhammer Chronicles range, which also collects the Kurt Helleborg and Ludwig Schwarzhelm duology plus their own short stories, all of which are also very good, though in grim-darkness they are miles beyond the rest of the Old World fiction, which can be a little jarring.

Also included is Luthor Huss' own short story the March of Doom which is awesome, and which I had totally forgotten reading already until I remembered that I also own this little booklet, where I had already read it before.

It's a very short little tale which follows Huss as he and an army of zealots march to relieve a town from a siege by Beastmen. It's a bit like the main novel except here there's almost no real plot to speak of, and instead the story puts a little more emphasis on how messed-up the lives of the people who follow Huss are. Messed-up, a shadow of what they once were, and yet also lifted up into a level of grace reserved for saints and madmen. It is fascinating to see how Huss thinks of them and it shows why that he pretty much is a perfect representative of Sigmar: Fighting for humanity, cherishing so much of them, but demanding that they fight with all they have.

 This little story is a must read for pretty much anyone. It is just fucking great.

Try not to fear.

Pain is fleeting.

Then his smile truly broke out.

Salvation, I tell you, is eternal.

Review: Wulfrik

So, a week ago I finished the first book in CL Werner's Warriors of the Chaos Wastes Omnibus, a trilogy of standalone novels set in the Old Warhammer World. The individual novels aren't really connected directly, so it's not an actual trilogy, but they do share the common theme of focusing on a few characters, well-known or not, from the Old World's Chaos faction. Now, Chaos, or the Ruinous powers, tends to be flat-out, over-the-top, and always horrifically evil, so these novels are a safe bet for when you're just out to have some fun.

You see, I just finished Gravity's Rainbow and I just wanted something easy, something quick and engaging, something as far away from the so-called 'literature' that everyone seems to want to put on a pedestal, no matter what its many, many flaws.

Yeah, I didn't like Gravity's Rainbow. I understand it is important, and I can distinguish some of the really good stuff in it, but it just did too much awful, awful shit for me to ever like it or even recommend it. Maybe I've got blinds on or something, unable to see genuinely awesome writing and structuring when I see it, or maybe it's just that I don't like page-long descriptions of oh-so-loving acts of paedophilia. But anyway, I'm very much of track, Gravity's Rainbow's for another time to talk about, or not at all, I haven't decided yet.

Wulfrik ended up being a nice, quick read, not without its flaws but enjoyable and interesting enough. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of Wulfrik yet, so I had to crack the spine on my Warriors of the Chaos Wastes omnibus to read it.

Cursed by the Gods for his arrogant boasting, Wulfrik the Wanderer has been set on a never-ending quest to seek out the world's strongest warriors. to vanquish them in mortal combat, and to offer up their skulls to the Dark Gods he so foolishly challenged.

A mighty warrior even before his curse, Wulfrik has been gifted with a magical longboat capable of travelling through the dark Daemonrealm that links all places, better to seek out his new offerings, and a gift of speech, allowing him understanding of all of the Old World's tongues, and a powerful magic, leaving anyone challenged by the mighty warrior unable to deny him a chance for combat.

Renowned as he is, hated and feared in equal measure, the wild warriors of Norsca flock to his command, eager for fame and riches, for an awesome death worthy of the attention of the Gods.

But before his hubris brought his doom down upon him, before the gifts, before the curse, Wulfrik was just a man, a man with hopes and dreams, and with a chance for love.

Always desperately seeking for a way to appease the Dark Gods, to cheat them if he can, in order to return to the life he'd envisioned for himself, Wulfrik listens to a sorceror's promises of an escape from his plight, and sets out on an epic quest to undo the Gods' awful curse.

     Wulfrik was originally part of the Warhammer Heroes range, a series of novels detailing the origins for some of the Old World's most famous hero characters, and as such the novel kind of has a foregone conclusion. Maybe this is the reason why the prologue is one of those that I hate seeing in any story; you know the one, where we're actually being spoiled to events much, much later than where the novel actually begins. Maybe it's something that Werner felt he could get away with "Everyone knows how this is going to go, so why not show them our protagonist in his direst straits at about 80 percent into the novel." I don't know, I don't like the technique, its meant to wow the reader with excitement and spectacle so the author/ director can dial it back and take his time setting up his story in earlier chapters without having to worry much about boring the piss out of any regular viewer/ reader.

     It's not as if there's no action at the start even, where we find Wulfrik and his crew of the moment hunting Yhetees in some frozen place somewhere. And this honestly would have been a more than decent opener.

     Either way, foregone conclusion or not, Werner crams enough elements into the story to make it pretty much constantly engaging. Most notably there are Fire/ Chaos Dwarfs, a faction that has been sorely underused in the setting, and who were awesome to read about, endowed with a ruthless ingenuity and a culture built off of a mesh of steampunk and daemonism.

     As our central characters pretty much all hail from the Chaos branch there's constant scheming going around with various characters working against Wulfrik for their own ends, all of which revolve pretty much around Hjordis, Wulfrik's love interest and princess of a sizable Norscan settlement.

     The book moves fast and is fairly engaging throughout, and if there's one complaint I could make then it's that the ending ended up feeling a slight bit abrupt, where a few progression leaps seem to happen where events are skipped over that we should've maybe seen happen.

     This might have been an attempt of Werner's to keep his protagonist likable, keeping the truly unconscionable evil shit off-page, showing the aftermath of certain events rather than showing us the point where Wulfrik goes irredeemably too far.

     At the same time though, I wish we could've been given 'that scene', or at least that there had been a decent foreshadowing leading up to Wulfrik's decision, but as it was it felt a bit as if there was a part missing. It doesn't detract from the ending, and it might even add some proper alienation to Wulfrik's character, as we don't get to understand Wulfrik's reasoning, but we only get to see the aftermath of the violence, and it is jarring enough to finally put him beyond the reach of the reader's immediate comprehension and right into the status of a legendary character worthy of the forces of Chaos.

Small Update

Hello there,
     I just wanted to come and say hi and say that this Blog isn't defunct, but that it's just being pushed to the side a bit while I bury my face in the sand.
     I'm not writing anything and though I'm reading, it's all going at a snail's pace. Which, as should be self-evident, is very slow indeed, as snails can't read, or at least I don't think.
     This pace is down to a few factors, of which an unhealthy predilection of mine; to run away from issues and problems rather than facing them head on, is the main one, the problem, I mean. Gaming is such an easy way to make time pass, and to avoid looking at one's own life, one's own path, one generally has to spend time in/with it, rather than spending that time in worlds infinitely preferable to one's own. At least, preferable for as long as the remove is present. These worlds, whichever they are, are preferable for as long as they can be accessed at will, to be exited at nill, not all-encompassing but safe, at the remove of a television screen, a button, a thin layer of self-deception.
     Another problem is my chosen go-to book of the moment, which turned out to be quite a monumental cock-up on my part, as if I didn't have enough post-modernism with just Infinite Jest.
Now, if Gravity's Rainbow had the style, the build-up and the humour of Infinite Jest this really wouldn't be a problem, but the odd fact of the matter is that this book, this pinnacle of post-modern literature, is in reality a piece of excrement. It is out of control, at points thoroughly disgusting, throughout mostly boring, at all points too self-involved and on the whole it thinks it's way more clever than it's actually being. It's a book that I don't think would be publishable today. There are people who revere it, sure, and I admit that there are moments that I think are brilliant, particularly those scenes and circumstances where there's an almost mythical quality to what is going on, but on the whole I'm of the opinion that the bad far outweighs the good. I'll be finishing it, and I will have to kick myself to start writing down something more substantial than what I've set down here when I do, but for now my short opinion on this one is that it is garbage.
     Another factor is an over-reliance on medication, both prescription and that in a bottle, to take away any and all introspection. I'm having some help for and with this, but it's a day by day thing and progress tends to be slow.
But there is progress, and things are starting to look up. Long ways to go yet, but I'm getting there.
For today that's enough introspection, and it's time to go back to work.

I do have to say though, it felt good having a quiet sit-down and just writing this stuff down. See you around.

A glimpse beyond The Veil, Torn Asunder

Holy shit, I just noticed that I hadn't posted this one.

Obviously,

Massive Spoilers ahead:

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     In issue 1 of The Veil, Torn Asunder we begin with our main character revealing his innermost desire. He says that that more than anything he wants the truth of his reality. The Truth above all.

 He confesses to us that he has been running away his whole life, hiding in drink, flesh and other assorted debauchery, and that he at one point even deserted from the army. These days when he isn't trying to find out the truth of existence in the musty old tomes of Yharnam's libraries he instead wanders its streets thinking about his past, frequently lingering on the moments after battle where the horrors surrounding him made him believe that there was no meaning and no truth to be found in life.

     But in contrast to this there is also another memory; a moment in his life where he witnessed a monster peering through a fracture in reality, and it is this improbable event that has in subsequent years come to seem more real than anything else. It is this that has spurred him on in his quest for the truth. And somewhere along the way to the end of the first issue he is given the Tarot reading which will guide the rest of the narrative.

     Now, though it might seem as if the Tarot deck doesn't have a place in Bloodborne, it of course does. In fact, the Tarot cards are in some way already present as The Caryll Runes, and there are pages and pages of discussion on the Bloodborne forums over which Tarot Card corresponds to which Caryll Rune, which ones don't fit or seem left out, but this is somewhat irrelevant as Ales Kot, for the purposes of this story, employs them only as they are originally used; as a guide which reveals some of what the future holds.

     The reading as it goes is: all upright; The Tower, the Moon, and in the end; the Star.

If you have any knowledge of Bloodborne at all, these cards will undoubtedly already summon up some associations, but again, this is not so much about what's already in place as it is about what Ales Kot makes of it. The Tower card traditionally means destruction, even though the tower here isn't ablaze. The Moon card signifies occluded things, deception and the hiding of truth. The Star points to enlightenment and contentment.

     Also, by the end of the issue the man has begun to come into contact with an entity that appears to manifest throughout various elements, both living and not. He smiles as he recognizes that this is some sort of echo of his vision beneath the water, a sign that shows him he's on the right track.

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     Issue 2 is appropriate for the Tower Upright as it is both about destruction and awakening, both figurative and, in this world that has layers of dreaming, very much literal. Though we don't know it yet, we start in echoes of the past, and then the man awakes inside a dream.

     The man finds himself on the streets of Yharnam, now clearly under the light of the Blood Moon, which means that the story and world have progressed ahead to the time when the game's protagonist is already tumbling down the rabbit-hole of insight, and stumbling around pants-less, is after a while confronted with a sight that will provoke a profound change in him.

     The Darkbeast Paarl and the One Reborn do battle.

It is interesting to note that in this issue that I have deemed the Tower card, the monster that shows up is the One Reborn who is most associated with the Tower Card on the forums, and that just like the tower in popular depictions of the card, he is struck by lightning, here present as the Darkbeast Paarl.

     And then something happens; the man seemingly disintegrates.

Now, it's very hard to understand the correct sequence of events of the Veil, Torn Asunder, because this moment, the start, the middle, and the aftermath, are spread out over the first 2 issues (and maybe also part of the third). Maybe this is because Ales Kot was too enamoured with the loose structure that Eileen the Crow's story provided and he wanted to use it here again, but I feel the story would've been better served with a more linear approach. Because unlike for Eileen in the Song of Crows, for the protagonist of The Veil, Torn Asunder, time only flows one way... or it should anyway.

     Upon witnessing the monsters the man's body disintegrates, or seems to disintegrate, burning up until only a familiar shape remains; an echo of the form first glimpsed in the water.

Metaphor and literal destruction both; the gaining of knowledge burns the man down, mind and body.

It's very hard to figure out how this could happen but it seems obvious that the key lies with the open-mouthed shape we have been seeing throughout the story. It is because of the nature of this entity that the man will gain the ability to cycle through various moments in the Bloodborne stories.

     As I have stated, this whole sequence is a dream, but the thing about dreams in the world of Bloodborne is that they aren't just dreams. They aren't less than the reality that engenders the dreaming. They are just other, different realities, pocket dimensions that can be slipped in and out of, given the right catalyst.

     Back in his room the man ponders, but the smell of shit and blood and stained sheets intrudes on his senses and he realizes that he needs to face reality. Issue 2 ends with whatever is left of the man's life in shredded tatters, blood coating the surface of the room he's in, and dripping from the edge of the razor he holds. His private story destroyed, now there's nothing to hold him back from his work, his quest for truth, and the only way left is the way forward.

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Issue 3 has as its Card the Moon, which is most commonly associated with deception and illusion,  and as we ended last issue with the destruction of his life, his story seemingly truncated in lovers' blood, and though he needs to face what is happening, because this is a character who has only ever run away from everything, he runs away again, and somehow he runs farther than he ever could have.

He becomes unmoored from his reality, and he becomes a witness to the burning of beasts in the streets of Yharnam.

He sees Hunters fighting the Cleric Beast.

He meets and talks with Eileen the Crow as she trudges trough the forest in A song of Crows.

He sees a Blood Moon over Byrgenwyrth and the streets of the Hypogean Gaol, and he sees the burning of Old Yharnam.

And he comes upon a scene of The Death of Sleep and shares a pity-filled look with the transformed child carried by the Nameless Hunter, who in this moment doesn't yet have the insight required to see both the madness around her, and in her arms.

But our protagonist does see the monsters. His insight in his reality has grown to such an extent that he can see the Elder Horrors that permeate his existence. Of course, given the Lovecraftian nature of the world of Bloodborne, madness walks hand in hand with the seeing, and so, he becomes truly unhinged. But you could also put it that since running away is what he does, what he's always done, he runs away from the knowledge he has gained and that he instead takes his refuge in insanity.

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And so we arrive at issue 4; The Star.

The Star is the card signifying spiritual enlightenment and contentment, and in the case of our main character it signifies the stage where he achieves his heart's desire; the attainment of his much sought-after ultimate truth.

     In the asylum our character lies, sheltered in insanity, having halted his quest for truth. But he is not the one to decide the direction nor the end of this story (or is he? Tum Tum Tum TUUUUUUM), and he is visited in his cell, first, by illusions seeking to perpetuate his private tale, then by the entity that has haunted him throughout the story, this time clothed in the skin of a dead man.

     The entity goads him on, and he is reminded of what knowledge means in the world of Blooborne, that it is gained by the seeing, and accumulation, of eyes, and he is told precisely what it means to cover those eyes up. 

     To be willfully blind in this universe is to choose to just be yet another in an innumerable succession of blind thralls, all in slave to an unfathomable design.

     It is at this point that the man begins to question what the entity wants from him specifically, why he has been pushed in a direction of the entity's design. He realizes that he himself has nothing to offer, nothing to say or reveal, no hidden knowledge to impart.

But then, intuitively, revelation dawns.

     Because of his unique point of view; a life lived, guided only by constantly running away, a constant escapism into anything but the thing he needs to confront, he understands the motivations of the unknown force that has guided him here. He understands that the only thing he's actually giving it is window to look through, a story to follow. Something to distract it from its own reality. He understands that there's nothing he really can offer, nothing except divertissement, and that all that he is, for this entity that dons dead men like clothes, is entertainment.

     At this point we realize that the narrative has become a Meta one, that it's been one all along, that the entity that keeps looking in on our protagonist is probably us, staring with open mouth at the horrors we witness, or that at the very least it is Ales Kot himself, the writer, trying to coax out a story out of a subject whose sole drive has been the discovery of the ultimate truth of his world. And problematic for both subject and writer, the ultimate truth that comes out of this, is that this particular revelation does not stop at the boundaries of the world of Bloodborne, and that it goes beyond its confines to make the audience, the world at large a part of the reveal. All of a sudden Yharnam has becomes a small place in quite a large tapestry.

The man realizes he is in a story, that he is a story and that the entity wishes him to continue on, to put on a show, as it were. But the man denies the formless watcher, and, not without some malice, acts according to his nature. He runs away again, by gauging out his eyes, and since this is Bloodborne, and eyes are here the symbol of knowledge, he takes away his knowing and the possibility of progress, and so denies the entity both the continuation and the conclusion to the story, who leaves and rears away from him.

Then, throughout this section Ales Kot, via our narrating protagonist, addresses us pretty much directly, berating us,for escaping into fiction, while all around us our world is being torn apart by awful forces. Take your pick: corruption, climate change, war, famine, pandemic, any and all, all these destructive forces and yet here we are, hiding away in our stories.

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"The truth is I spent my whole life running and called it conquest'."

A line from our protagonist that hits quite hard with me, a reader who doesn't venture outside much, adding books to my shelves only when I 'conquer' them, finish them. I constantly need to escape into stories, into fiction; books, comics, tv or games because I can not handle the world outside.
I read books, and I finish games, all to avoid interacting with the world. Behold my library and you can only glimpse but an inkling of the things my mind has seen. but the truth is that all I do is run away. Escapism rules supreme.

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A small thought here at the end. Part of a larger section that I scrapped because it didn't seem to add up the way I wanted, but there's a small chance there's something here anyway.

In this way it initially seems as if the Carryl runes did not actually have a place but it does bear noting that where in the previous 2 volumes (issues 5 to 12) the end of every issue was closed out by the same Caryll rune each time, and that in this volume every issue is instead closed out by another one: The Formless Oedon rune.

A secret symbol left by Caryll, runesmith of Byrgenwerth.

The Great One Oedon, lacking form, exists only in voice, and is symbolized by this rune.

Those who memorize it enjoy a larger supply of Quicksilver Bullets.

Human or no, the oozing blood is a medium of the highest grade, and the essence of the formless Great One. Both Oedon, and his inadvertent worshippers, surreptitiously seek the precious blood.

Could Formless Oedon be in the meta way suggested in the story, be the creators that work on the stories of Bloodborne. Could the shade with hollow mouth be a form taken on temporarily to work their will? The artist's will made /almost/ physically manifest?