Movie appreciation: Filth

One of my Favourite movies to watch while drunk is Filth. And that should tell you a lot about me.
There's not much more satisfying than watching a man that isn't me commit to absolute self-destruction. (As long as it's fictional, of course.) It's a reminder of how far some tendencies can go, how depression and trauma can ruin a man, and a warning and admonishment to whoever indulges in this type of self-harm to slow the fuck down, by holding up a twisted mirror that shows where that path ultimately leads.
It makes me roar with vindictive, hateful laughter one moment and huddle in heart aching silence the next.

James McAvoy is brilliant, just as he always is, but Filth takes him all the way. It shoves him into the skin of a man who has lost all control and who is barely hanging on by the skin of his teeth. There's a sick fascination watching him abuse everyone around him, hurting them, lashing out, belittling and demeaning, doing as much damage, insidious or overt, as much as he possible can.
McAvoy gives a performance that is unhinged and the longer the movie goes on, the more out of control he gets. There comes a point where you're just watching the movie, waiting for him to go off the rails and to plow headfirst into the dirt.

The moments where he isn't a bastard he is stuck in such a deep well of misery it can only demand pity. And to then watch him snap himself out of that misery, clawing himself out of utter vulnerability back into a state of black hate, is deeply disturbing, it is a terrific portrayal of one man's utter self-hating war and a mind come undone.

The despair and misery is on counterpoint to upbeat music that manages to just barely bury the horror and revulsion beneath the surface level. I mentioned before somewhere that if a music score is good, the movie will likely sweep me along regardless of what's on display and it's the same here. It wouldn't be acceptable without it.

Filth is inspired by Irvine Welsh's novel of the same name with many references to his other novels. I'm reliably informed that, as is usual for these things, the movie doesn't hold a candle to the book but hey, that's okay, I'm good and comfortable with this.

Review: Darker Than You Think, Terror 8 edition.

As for being a Terror 8 novel... Yeah sure, obviously another good addition, its tropes fall either squarely within the Noir or the Horror camp. Pacing is good though pulpy. At times, there was some genuine suspense where the outcome of one scene or another is left somewhat in doubt leading to surprising moments of gory violence (though not too overly described), which I can always appreciate, and which through good build-up are given some extra emotional weight.

There's also a curious similarity to every novel of the Terror 8 that I've read up until now, where each of these stories has a horror beastie center stage, to then develop a complete all-encompassing mythological framework for them: Fevre Dream, Ghost Story, Something Wicked This Way Comes and now Darker Than You Think.
Song of Kali is the odd book out where this is not applicable, but it does leave me eyeing the remaining three books, and The Green Mile in particular to see if they might follow in these four books' footsteps.

I say Green Mile in particular, because I've seen the movie a few times now, and been swept along for its emotional rollercoaster every time (hey, shut up, Michael Clarke Duncan was gold.), and though initially baffled when I noticed it was included in the Terror 8, I'm interested to see if there's actually more to the novel than the movie made it out to be, whether there's in fact any horror or mythology to be found...

Review: Darker than You Think, Jack Williamson

Will barbee is a small town reporter with an instinct for a good story.

When his friends and his old mentor return from a 2 year expedition in the Gobi desert, he is there at the airport waiting for them.

 As together with friends and family, looking for the telltale sights and sounds that'll herald the arrival of the plane, he is approached by an intoxicating young woman. 

Her name is April Bell. She is a new reporter in town with green dress to match her eyes, red lips to match her hair and white wolf fur coat to offset it all. Together with Will she waits for the plane to come down and somehow he finds himself telling her everything; 

Of studying with his friends under doctor Mondrick, of the weird research into the past, research that encompassed every imaginable ethnological field. Of the geological maps of ages long gone and of the charts with every strata of human evolution, of greek and latin, and every myth the world has on offer, and then of the sudden break, when old Mondrick ousted Will out of his circle, giving no reason at all for the sudden dismissal.

And when the plane lands and when, right before announcing the results of the expedition, old Mondrick falls dead, it is to be the harbinger of still worse to come.
 In the night the dark and violent nightmares arrive, blurring the line between waking and dreaming and soon Will Barbee finds himself isolated from those he once knew.
While slowly going mad he will have to fight for his very humanity or suffer a dark and monstrous fate.

Story, Background and Writing

Expanded on from a short story and published in 1948 Darker than You Think was quite an amazing novel for its time, darkly imaginative and very original in its marriage of science and mythology, it's no wonder then that it and its author, Jack Williamson, received wide acclaim.
One of the grand masters of american Science Fiction, Darker than You Think is his only entry into horror fiction.
70 years on, however, it seems rather dated. But despite its many flaws, it still manages to build up enough drive on its own to keep a reader going.
The story makes no attempt to hide its pulp origins and is paced like one as well, with large amounts of thinly-veiled-as-dialogue exposition dumped on the reader in the very first few chapters in order to quickly kick start the narrative. The reader is forced to run to keep up with its fast-paced story or fall by the wayside, sink or swim.

Said story wil probably also seem familiar: From the Femme Fatale and the alcoholic reporter (in lieu of detective), to most of the action taking place at night, the first person narration; its tropes are distinctly noir. And its supernatural elements are also a dime in a dozen, or at least at first glance they might appear to be so. Taken on its own, in this day and age, the novel comes across as so clichéd that a casual reader is very likely to figure out what is going on in the very first chapter of the novel, if not in detail then in general plot.
But Williamson then spends the rest of the narrative throwing red herrings or complications our way, and supported by aforementioned fast pace, manages to lull expectations and conjectures to a muted background hum in the rush to the end where, even though any initial assumptions are likely to be proven correct, you're just as likely to find a few surprises there too.
That ending is quite good actually, provided you have an open mind and aren't too hellbent on dead seriousness in your literature*. It's not a long novel and can be read in a few sittings.

The writing is fast paced and workmanlike but suffers from occasional repeat-phrases to hammer home several key elements and ideas, this is also used often in the novel's more descriptive moments, clearly a holdover from its pulp roots.
There's also a genuine sense of tension preceding the novel's bloodier moments, where the shocks are rather ahead of their time.

Mythology and Themes

Darker than you think is very much a product of its time and the author who wrote it:

In 1933 Williamson submitted himself to the Menninger Clinic where he became more in touch with himself. It seemed to have helped him resolve some of his inner conflicts and as a result his fiction became endowed with a less fanciful tone.

As another result of this, Freud's teachings of psychoanalysis permeate the novel, but are carried forward only up to a certain point and without too much depth because Williamson uses it primarily as the central springboard for his mythological framework. 

Via this system the novel suggests that a supposed primordial evolution was responsible for the primal duality in man's psyche, and then carries that forward to underbuild a very specific type of genre creature.
It's clever but it's not all good, as it's mythological framework stretches too far and in fact overreaches itself in trying to bring every imaginable supernatural element under one all-encompassing umbrella.

Its magical system is built on ideas of probability which I thought was a nice touch, but I'm also pretty sure that not much of it makes much actual sense when delved into. Incidentally, failure to adhere to probability is warned against but the possibilities of that possible failure are never actually explored, leaving its precise workings up for conjecture.
Mention of possible failings also only come into play when confronted with humanity, while animals at large tend to get murdered without a second thought.

The psychoanalysis and the scientific explanations serve to undercut, to waylay the fantastical elements of the novel, at least until the supernatural events become impossible to deny. And I don't think that I'm giving much away here, because once you've read the first few chapters any guess you can make is liable to be very much right on the money.

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*The ending is very good, though that's maybe because of me glancing ahead to see how many pages were ahead, and catching a fleeting glimpse of a word that prepared me for a certain element of the novel that I otherwise might've been disbelievingly annoyed by. It was only one word, or rather one name and it would likely be met with ridicule or laughter today, and although Williamson manages to hint beforehand, there still might be a little giggle to be had.
Those final chapters were a lot of fun to read. With every expectation met in a manner that didn't feel hopelessly contrived.

Spoilers and some Meta-views

Fun with Richard Williams and a short look at the Master at Arms comic

You know what?

 Here's another. Just because I had such a good time with him.

This one gives some good insight into how much research went into the novel: On murder strokes, writing for the Black Library, some vigorous live reading and the inspiration for one of the training masters in the book; Hans Talhoffer, which reminded me of Dorison's Master at Arms, and more on that below...

That's, of course, not why I post it, or at least not solely why... but rather because this man is a genuinely funny guy. For specifics 6:07 and onwards :)

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Meanwhile, down here below, in Xavier Dorison and Joel Parnotte's Master at Arms comic the eponymous main character is called Hans Stalhoffer.

(and I don't need to explain why one reminded me of the other now, do you?)

No matter what the subject, Dorison is always an interesting writer (to me), as he usually manages to include his ruminations on religion in whatever story he's telling. But in contrast to most of his other stories, there are no supernatural elements present in the comic here. The story of Master-at-arms is in fact closer to his earlier 'Asgard' story in terms of its realism than anything like Sanctum or Third Testament, with their overt supernatural elements, but it nonetheless still focuses on Christianity as the primary canvas on which to paint a more realistic story.

Religion is still very central to the tale being told as we follow around disgraced master at arms Hans Stalhoffer as he comes out of self-imposed exile to come to the aid of a young Huguenot trying to escape catholic persecution. No world-ending or world-changing storyline here and the tale is much smaller in scope than I'm used to from Dorison but nonetheless manages to pack quite an emotional punch when it concludes.

Le Maitre d'Armes or (wrongly translated as) Swordmaster in English is on of my absolute favourite comics and I've long wanted to do a review on it. I guess it doesn't hurt to show you a little bit though huh?

As it says at the bottom. This is page 8... out of a 96 page comic.

What you've seen is just the bloody set-up and there's plenty more carnage where that came from.

But don't go and be expecting this one to be all about the bloodshed though, no, the story between the pages is a good one, it's deliberate and quite emotionally impactful.

As always, if you take your time with your fiction, you're more likely to be rewarded than if you just dive in looking for cheap thrills. There's a place for that too of course, but given the subject matter in this one, expect it to have more up its sleeve than just an outporing of gore.

Review: Reiksguard, Richard Williams

In the sprint to the new year, and mindful of imminent christmas anxiety, which has taken its horrible toll already, I thought I would just take it easy for a change and instead read some Warhammer that's been lying on the TBR-shelves.

Up first is Reiksguard.

Reikland nobleman Delmar's most fervent wish is to tread in his father's footsteps and join the Reiksguard, the Emperor's personal bodyguard. As he is finally invited into the order by his late father's friend, the honourable knight Griesmeyer, he couldn't be more pleased. However, with the clouds of war hovering over the Empire, Delmar and the rest of the noble-born initiates are forced to learn what it means to be Reiksguard knights in an emptied-out chapter house. As a divide between the initiates from the provinces and those from Reikland itself quickly forms, Delmar hits upon doubts and secrets in the shadows cast by the order's most trusted knights

This short novel can be divided in 2 parts. Part 1 is Training and Initiation, par the norm for the boy becomes a man set-up, and comes with a surprisingly subtle build-up for a personal mystery that's intriguing enough to last the whole novel (even if the conclusion, though not exactly foregone, has limited options for a surprising resolution).
Part 2 begins having concluded the initiation into the order, and it's off to war we go.
That war, by the way, is something I've not seen done much in the Warhammer novels. Always heard about but never much used as the ground-level basis for conflict in a novel; Kurt Helborg takes his Reiksguard south into the Black Mountains to respond to a plea of help from a southern Dwarf hold, in answer to the ancient oaths of friendship that Sigmar once swore when he allied with the dwarfs.
Usually, in the Warhammer novels, these oaths and treaties are almost literally given lip-service with a passing mention in many a novel but here, in this one, an entire army effectively marches out in support to uphold those ancient treaties, it's in fact the whole basis for the second part of the novel.
I know, I know, it doesn't sound that interesting but I thought it was nice regardless.

I had the feeling that the writing itself, on the whole, was rather more sharp than I was accustomed to from my brush with the Library (or maybe I wasn't exactly feeling it yet, going in, I admit I was reluctant, and with low expectations usually come good surprises). Sure it wasn't Yeovil or King, but I got the feeling that Williams is rather good on his own, with more off the cuff wisdom without even feeling try-hard. There's some clever build up for the aforementioned mystery, but also in the characters, of whom I enjoyed Siebrecht the most. Siebrecht is a genuinely clever provincial initiate who frequently has an interesting insight or two in other characters, though sometimes his cynicism carries him into a wrong direction; nevertheless, there was a raucous bravura to him that I enjoyed (which I find I should mention, because I usually don't enjoy this type of character. Again, Williams was doing something right here). He was almost the polar opposite of Delmar.
In fact, all the characters of the core squad are delivered well and manage at some point or other in the novel, to deliver a good and impactful turn or surprise. Good characters indeed and all with flaws to pull them down.

The novel also occasionally follows the point of view of one Kurt Helborg, who you might be familiar with if you know a thing or two about the Old World. More than that, Karl Franz himself also makes an appearance, though he is kept suitably austere and remote enough to keep him more than just a man.

For those not familiar; I remark upon these two characters because they are the striding colossi that give the novel a clear anchor in the grand narrative of the Old World.
But outside of just these characters, there's a little more anchorage to be found.

And you see, that's kind of a problem...


And here is where I talk bout the ending of the Old World again.

And just like many other Warhammer fantasy novel I've read, it does not adhere to accepted grimdark aesthetic at all and instead follows the heroic fantasy guideline. If not quite a happy all-is-well type of ending, then it adheres to morality and the tales of heroism that young boys are usually weaned on.
Think Gemmell but... no, just think Gemmell: It's ultimately meant to be uplifting even if technically it's got layers of grimdark.

It's exactly why I'm so annoyed about people claiming the end times were always coming for the Old World. Here's yet another novel that doesn't have doom and gloom as its final say. Instead we have good values and heroic self-sacrifice and when the novel ends, though leaving its protagonists battered, there's a definite upward trudge into the light, there's time for reminiscing and hope for the future. Times are tough, sure, but with perseverance the empire of man seems ever destined to win through.

It's then doubly ironic of course that this story takes place in the year 2522, which any experienced Warhammer reader might recognize as the early years of the End Times itself.

In the year 2522 all the Empire of man hears is the drums of war from the north, which fits well enough with the novel as several of the northern provinces have already been lost, Kislev among them, and when the novel begins Middenheim itself is already under siege.

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(But that siege, outside of our sight, is broken and the doomed ending is averted. It's hardly relevant to the events of the novel outside of the fact that it forces the Reiksguard to go south instead of any army that might be more suited to the task.)

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And even though the armies of Chaos are set to sweep down from the north to engulf the cities of man in flames it is actually from Sylvania that the darkness marches forth first and it is the Reiksguard themselves, under Theogonist Volkmar who answer the call of war and march east.
Though these End Times happenings don't directly contradict the events of the novel, they can't exactly co-exist alongside them either as they happen in precisely the same year, which necessarily rules one of them out. (Reiksguard's epilogue takes place in 2523 in Nordland, which strokes even less with the End Times.)

The End Times novels have retroactively become the pillar that holds up the Old World of Warhammer. From the second Games Workshop committed themselves to ending their world, The End Times became the goal and the unavoidable destination of every fiction set in that world. They, as that destination, have become the most important work in the setting and if something does not stroke with them then that work falls outside of the narrative.

It is a shame then, as I quite enjoyed the novel. It's a good thing to just switch off sometimes, don't let flaws or contradictions touch you, and to be able to take a novel out of the grand narrative, comfortably set it apart and enjoy it on its own merit.

Though really, you'd think that having the pick of 2500 years of history, someone would take some care to make sure that none of these novels so easily contradict each other.
I've watched Williams' three Reiksguard videos from the Black Library TV on Youtube because I was interested and they make it quite clear that he knows his stuff. In fact, in video three, it's sad to see that he made such an effort not to contradict any lore or previous stories while setting up his story, only then to retroactively have the End Times steamroll right over it. It's really a shame.
No no. I know he's not to blame for the contradictions here. We all KNOW who is to blame... *does not, in fact, blink*.

Apologies. I really was just having fun with this :)

Just like I was having some genuine fun with the video clips. In fact, why don't I just show you number three?

Always nice to see an author fully dedicate themselves to their craft :)

Literally had me laughing out loud, in a good way.

And as a bonus, here, because this is definitely relevant and I'm not looking for excuses to showcase this really quite awesome dude:

It's not perfect and this one's not hugely funny, but as there's a lot of thought and time put into both the novel and the rather pleasant marketing, I thought I'd just return the favour, both in the read and the subsequent write-up.

So yeah, very enjoyable. I think I might read another one of these this week.

Review Part 4: The Wall (and other Short Stories), Jean-Paul Sartre

Childhood of a Leader

Since the theme of this story seems so self-evident and there isn't much to figure out this isn't going to be another write-up. Instead I'll forego usual methods and as this is a good opportunity to learn to take a different tack, I'll relax a little.

(And this wasn't easy. Pages and pages of writing and over 2 weeks later I still didn't have a damn clue of how to proceed with this post. I ended up ditching everything and beginning anew.

A whole lot of narcissistic babbling got lost along the way, which, to be honest, is really to everyone's benefit.)

Childhood of a Leader follows a child as he grows into a boy grows into a man. Along the way and key to the narrative; he struggles with his identity and temporarily adopts and experiments with many a philosophy and/or creed in his path, until, in a moment of euphoric revelation, he finds his identity and accepts his place in the world.

It's comfortably the longest short story in the book and though I thought it rather irritatingly nonsensical and disjointed at the start, I confess I was enthralled by the end of it.
It is so well executed and the relentless maelstrom-drive of its narrative tugs you along regardless of your objections. And there's plenty to be had of those as the story is built on so many disparate elements that on their own are already distasteful but, looking at them all together they make me think that if I tried to lure in a mainstream reader by describing the story to them, they would just look at me in mildly revolted disbelief.

The story is impressive then not because of its narrative, and instead it is about the force behind that narrative.
There's a cumulative effect that the story produces that felt somewhat akin to the paranoia that reading 'The Room' gave me, except instead the effect produced was more positive and almost felt like the direct opposite of claustropho-

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Hmm wait hang on...

A love of tight spaces? Eh, no that's not it at all. And agoraphobia is not the opposite of claustrophobia so what am I looking for?
Okay, let's instead pin down the feeling itself;

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The story felt as if it was in need of the open spaces, it gave me that need, to be in the open, to be in the light. A desire for enlightenment and individual authenticity. An identification with the main character, to feel as he feels, as actualized, as right. In the open and proud of it.

I'll make it clear for you: Childhood of a Leader is the greatest achievement by Sartre that I've read, that manages to drive his Authenticity theme full-on home.

And it's remarkable, because that self-actualization, that placement of the self in the world, and one's own absolute acceptance of it; in the story that moment is finally delivered by the child turned man having turned to antisemitism. Past the road of Freudian self-analysis, past gay experiences described as disorder and then taken a reluctant and revolted part in, past the road of endless questions and all the hopeless self-analyzing, the soul comes to identify himself as an antisemite. More than that, the soul relishes and revels in it. Steps forward and proclaims himself loud and wild to the world as this thing that is so abhorrent, something that is so biased and groundlessly judgmental that what it should immediately receive is a denouncement.

And yet. I confess, that through the cloud of disapproval there instead roars a benediction. A blessing of sympathy for this once lost soul finally having found his place.

I felt for him, I really did.
As Sartre manages to hammer home throughout the narrative how lost he is and as we see how he so desperately and fruitlessly continues to search for his place in the world, trying and failing again and again, it can't help but invoke our sympathy.
He stumbles so much that when he finally lands at the stage for his eventual becoming, he is initially unwilling to commit to it, for fear of yet another disappointment. And maybe that fear is mirrored in the reader, yet another hurdle, a stumbling block on the way to an end that looks to be yet another unhappy ending in this collection.
But as he observes, what is around him cannot but help influencing him. And then come all the tiny allowances and the gradual accceptances and the slow process of subconsciously moulding himself (and being moulded) into this new thing that is most amenable and laudable to the others around him at that time.
And then when he finally recognizes in himself his complete-ness, accepts it because it is how others view him; that solid image of him in their minds, the reader, if suitably swept along, will rejoice along with him.

And one finds that in spite of all those nasty little elements we close out the book with a short story whose positive effects manage to linger a while.

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And somehow, this is how we end the review posts on the Wall; with a peaceful feeling.
I quite enjoyed this collection and I was initially unsure if it would suit me.
Instead it gave me a lot of food for thought and no small amount of pleasure in having completed this work, small though it is.
There's in fact quite a large disparity in how much time I spent on it and how many pages it actually has but I guess this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone who has delved into Sartre before.

Review: Wolf Riders, Warhammer Fantasy Anthology

Ooh, this is a long one isn't it? I should really stay the hell away from anthologies. The blog posts on those tend to blow up way out of proportion to the time actually spent on them. I used to think; ah, a lovely, quick little read... Not so much anymore.

Wolf Riders is the first ever published short story anthology by GamesWorkshop. Originally published under Boxtree Limited, later reprinted under GamesWorkshop's own publishing imprint GW Books. This is the latter's edition.

It's quite a pretty one too. Despite the drab green and dark colours with the ill advised red square framing the slightly creepy artwork on the front there's a few surprises to be found inside. On the cover we have the hammer and wings symbol (which I'm sure was not long for the world), which is reflective, as is the novel's name and the editor David Pringle's name on the spine and the GW logo on the spine and back. And if you're suddenly beset with a craving for potato chips, don't worry, I feel it too.

Open the book and you're met with this:

Full colour frontispiece. Which is something I've not seen in the Black Library's output other than in their limited edition novels. Oh, how the times have changed, huh?

No, not really, Games Workshop have always put care into the presentation of their novel, these times you'll just have to pay extra for that little extra.

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I just wish they would occasionally ease up on the reins so that the writers could do whatever they wanted to make the stories stand out more.
Warhammer needs a series to truly transcend the setting, to bring in a new audience but most of all: to have novels stand the test of time because as it stands this shit will be forgotten in a hundred years. And it's when I realise this that I wonder why I'm reading them. For fun I guess, to take a break from all the thinking.

In terms of contenders to stand the test of time I guess 40k has Gaunt's Ghosts but I don't believe Warhammer Fantasy ever had any series to deserve that distinction.
And what a shame that is. Imagine a series worthy to be called the Malazan of the Old World.

But I guess it's too late now, huh, and the Age of Sigmar doesn't seem up to that particular task.

Anyway, enough musing and reminiscing, moving on.

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We kick off the collection at what might be the earliest Gotrek and Felix story ever published in an anthology. It's actually the second Gotrek and Felix short story, after GeheimnisNacht, that make up, together with a a bunch of short stories, the first Gotrek and Felix novel; Trollslayer:

Wolf Riders

The short story from where the collection gets its title is truly a standout. If not in plot, which could be called fairly standard and unremarkable, if it wasn't actually a Gotrek and Felix tale; one of if not the best series in the Warhammer setting.

William King's voice is singular and pleasingly readable, the words springing off the page with the smooth flow of a natural storyteller. He's one of those writers who seems to have mastered his craft effortlessly and he's gone on to write quite a bit of fiction, including alot of non-warhammer stuff. Reading the story reminds me that he is the writer who brought me directly into both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k, via Gotrek and Felix, and the Space Wolf series respectively. I owe him quite a debt, really, or a good kick to the gonads, some days I'm not sure.

Dear lord, Gotrek...
Where's your beard?

Gotrek and Felix fall in with the exiled Von Diehl family in their search for a new place to settle. Felix, to follow a girl around. Gotrek, on Felix's coaxing; in future reward of gold and for a possible chance to fulfill his Slayer's Doom.
But the journey is fraught with danger and death, as Felix learns, from a family curse that will not stop before all the Von Diehls and their retainers are all dead. Necromancy, sorcery, orcs and monsters stalk the caravan and Gotrek might come face to face with his doom sooner than expected.

Of course he doesn't. The first book in a series of 14(?) is not going to kill off its primary character.
He does get a very distinctive wounding here, though, one that'll remain with him until the end.
And what is the end, you ask? Ahh, well. Who can tell with Gotrek. He ends up somewhere so incredible, so far off from a paltry death at the hands of orcs, that reading the early tales can make an in-the-know reader smirk a little. But I'll leave off here; the whole thing shouldn't be spoiled for anyone who hasn't read it themselves. At any rate, I didn't read beyond Giantslayer , I think, always wanted to but BL never reprinted that fourth omnibus, I moved off a bit  and by the time I got back into the universe, there were rumblings of doom afoot.

I do hope the Black Library will get off their assess and finally reprint AN ADEQUATE AMOUNT of the series in those fancy new collector's box sets that they've been releasing. I emphasise adequate because I didn't get a chance to pick up the fourth Gotrek and Felix omnibus when it was released. Supply was so poorly tailored to demand that you'll have to pay upwards of 70 euros to get it second hand these days. They like to choke their own market, you see. Just enough to satisfy their core audience so that they're assured of their money and they can up the retail price, which only adds to the inconvenience of their wider audience that ends up just getting get left out.

Yes, I'm still sore. A long relationship where one side has to swallow alot of the other's bullshit has a lot of tiny grievances building up into something ugly. I'll chill out now, though.

The Tilean Rat

This little slice of humour is brought to you by Sandy Mitchell, he of Ciaphas Cain fame. The Ciaphas Cain books form an entertaining Imperial Guard commissar series that is usually, and aptly, described as 40k by way of Blackadder, from the dry sarcasm down to the small malodorous sidekick.

The Tilean Rat here on the other hand, is a tale set in the Warhammer Fantasy setting inspired by the Maltese Falcon and unlike in his 40k series it has the small malodorous sidekick as front and center stage, except without the smell and with a healthy dose of almost sarcasm-less sleuthing beneath his little hairy halfling feet.

Passable art, although that elf looks distinctly masculine.
Not at all what I imagined a syrupy-voiced elven redhead to look like...

Apparently this short story is part of a set of detective stories in Marienburg. The Tilean Rat is the case where the halfling detective is hired by a beautiful elven refugee to reclaim an heirloom that has been stolen from her hotel room. Nothing is what it seems though, and with Marienburg enveloped in a thick fog, mystery and danger lurk around every corner and Sam will have to watch where he puts his hobbits noses if he doesn't want to have it bitten off. 

I might have given the impression above that Sam is immediately taken in by his beautiful employer but there's on the contrary a healthy dose of humorous cynicism. The humour throughout is something that elvates the story. Short and pleasant, though the earlier works of WH fantasy tend to jar slightly with the later fiction. An elven quarter, really? These days, the elves would be too proud to even deign to live alongside humans, I'm thinking. But as it's rare to see halfling stories in Warhammer I'll take what I get. A good example of how varied the warhammer fiction can (or could) be.

The Phantom of Yremy

In the town of Yremy a judge and his clerk, long busying themselves with inventing and sentencing clever judgment on criminals find first the town, and later themselves, beset by a stealthy and shadowy figure stealing various items seemingly at random. When the so-called Phantom then personally threatens the judge, giving him an ultimatum set to run out at the end of three days, the thievery is set to escalate into murder and for the judge to become the judged.

A teller tales his tale.

The Phantom is another one of those stories that showcase the variety of the tales that could be set in the Warhammer world's early days. A bare minimum of violence, and then only to punctuate a slow-burn (for a short story) mystery. The extreme opposite of what you'll find in any given Black Library novel these days. During the publication of Wolf Riders it's still so early in the game, that it becomes clear that the setting, or its fiction at least, was almost unformed and still in the progress of figuring out what it wanted to be.

It's not a particularly good tale, as the mystery is rather bare-bones and once you realize there genuinely is only just a human mystery at the heart of the matter, motive readily presents itself and suggests that there can only really be one candidate for the titular phantom.

Still, it has a certain charm, as if you're watching an earnest but not very talented group of actors make an effort to do something different.

When done the thing that stands out most is the story's, admittedly not too frequent, descriptions of casual brutality which are the hallmark of ironic writers, such as Terry Pratchett, when they wish to illustrate the absurdity of some matter or other, by giving deadpan descriptions of those things you might, through cultural shoulder-rubbing or other general familiarity, have become quite inured to.
By casually throwing it out there, black on white, without context and stripped bare, the cruelty or idiocy becomes unmistakable.

Problem is though, I was genuinely appalled at some of these descriptions here. They went beyond darkly humorous straight into the realm of the grotesque. I don't know, maybe I was feeling a mite bit fragile when reading this one, as I've read alot worse.

It's also my first encounter, I think, with Brian (Stableford) Craig whose Orfeo trilogy, also set in the Warhammer universe, I'm in the process of collecting and whose Wine of Dreams I'm eyeing right now, sitting high and dry on my shelf.
Apparently Wine of Dreams is consistently rated as one of the best stand alone Old Warhammer stories out there. Colour me intrigued.

I also noticed during reading this one, that the full colour map at the back actually makes special mention of Yremy, together with other locations mentioned in some of the other short stories.

It's fascinating how odd this map looks though. Comparing reveals it's not far off from the later day day maps but the Empire is definitely distressingly small, nothing like the prime player it will become. (At least in my mind and the most interesting one to read about.)
For the most part though, seems like the world was pretty much set in parchment from the beginning.
Although... 'To the New World'? Guess the Dark Elves weren's so present yet.

Cry of the Beast

In a small hut by the ocean Tomas lives with his foster father, the halfling Brodie. Together, they spend the days fishing, selling and trading their catch in a nearby village.

When the young man wakes one night to strange, unnatural cries from the ocean he goes out and finds a young elven maiden washed up ashore. When nourished back to health she tells her tale, and with it comes screaming horror.

Heh, I actually thought I knew how this would go. It's not as if there's a twist to be found here but Ralph Castle slyly plays into expectations and throws some suggestions here and there to then neatly and brutally subvert them at the end.

Not very well written, a teeny bit clichéd and slightly throwaway if I'm honest, but nonetheless entertaining.

Also, unlike with the Tilean Rat, the artwork is spot on.

Though, sometimes, seeing depicted what one describes could be a good incentive to being more consistent in one's imagination.

No Gold in the Grey Mountains

A small band of criminals have taken up residence in the ill-rumoured castle Drachenfels and have been using its ruined grounds to stage their robbing of the nearby road.

When a travelling coach arrives, expected to be bearing a load of taxed gold from a nearby mine they find instead of the promised gold a little girl, rich, by dress and manner. Turning a bad situation into a good one they take the girl with them with the idea of selling her back to her family for ransom.
But when they arrive in their walled lair they find that something old and hungry is in there with them, stalking in the shadows.

Aaah, Jack Yeovil, the pseudonym of the renowned Kim Newman. Likely the best writer in this anthology. William King might be a master storyteller, but Newman is more than equal to the task in skill. Details squirreled away in every sentence, forming a rich layer to the story, wholly believable and interesting characters and twist and turns to the tune of an exciting narrative.

And I'm not even exaggerating.

If you read one of this collection, let it be this one.

No gold in the Grey Mountains is one of the stories that makes up Silver Nails, one of the four Vampire Genevieve novels. It alludes to events of, I think, book 1 in the quartet.

I had already read it but the re-read was a welcome one.

I also seemed to remember it wrong and was pleased to realize that I had a few surprises coming.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

In 2018 The Black Library will re-release one of the Vampire Genevieve novels in a new edition.

You can expect a review for that one when it comes, I'm actually excited for a re-read. Newman always stood apart from the rest of the stable and I'll be interesting to see the tale with older eyes.

The Hammer of The Stars

The young scholar-squire Peredur, together with his cousin Saskia, watch a band of travelers arrive in the Empire city of Wurtbad, claiming a strange and secret quest. There are introductions. More names than pages.

And then some violence.

Well, what did I think of this one?

 Over the course of 2 hours this one made me literally wonder aloud if I had suddenly become stupid, or if I had had something happen to me that was impairing my brain function.

I did not understand maybe a tenth of what I was reading and whatever came in through my eyes just kept on going and tumbled straight out the back of my head. I had nothing to hold on to and sentences seemed to be completely unconnected from the ones surrounding them. Names and places passed in front of my eyes and I could not connect them to the characters on the page. 

Do you understand? I was literally worried for my health during reading this. I went and looked in the mirror to see if half my face had gone droopy. It hadn't.

Turned out The Hammer of the Stars was just horribly written.

For a while I didn't even know who the main character was. 

I think it was Peredur.

I'm reasonably sure it was Peredur. When the three central characters are on the page, one of them is a girl called Saskia Whiteflower and another a 30 year old called Brother Martin, then that last one, the centrallest, must be Peredur, right? RIGHT? (Relax, you have no way of knowing this. Just as I did not.)

Now, I dislike giving a negative view on anything and I've dropped writing about something more often than not because of it. But the dead hear no criticism, and with no ears to hear, Peter Garrat is way past caring when I call him a shit writer. 

He might've been good in other stories. But in this one he was awful.

-----

I wrote the above about halfway through reading the short story.
Now that I'm done with it I'm much more inclined to look on it with a benevolent eye (like always when I get done with something) and though I don't want to go analyzing why I felt what I did, and still to a lesser degree do, I'm gonna go ahead anyway and try and be quick about it.

The impression I'm getting is that the author edited his story down wherever and whenever he could, to the extent that there is almost nothing here unless it is restricted to its absolute barest minimum. It technically works but it feels so disjointed that whole sentences seem and in fact do stand alone.

The story also kind of peters out, and since it practically sets the stage for a continuation that it actually never got, it still really sucks.

Pulg's Grand Carnival

When the young albino Hans arrives in the city of Krugenheim he expects things to be different. A new life away from the insults, the jests and the laughter at his appearance or the veiled mutterings of 'mutant', but he is soon disappointed as he is assaulted right through the gate. Fate's on his side though, as he is rescued by the proprietor of a carnival who takes him under his wing and back to a veritable menagerie of monstrosities. Together with the other employees, Hans tries to make the best of his new life as a circus hand, but in a land where the exotic and the foreign are looked upon as dangerous and corrupting, a whole compound full of outlandish creatures excite more than a little ill will and soon dark clouds begin to gather.

Humans riding wyverns. Hmm.

It's another acceptable short story if not exactly a good one, with a delivery, characters and storyline very unlike the later Warhammer tales. In the later books it's all about action and war and this is nothing at all like it, just like some of the other stories in this collection. 

There's a magic flute which I thought was an odd thing to put in there, especially since it doesn't end up doing very much and as it's introduced so early in the story you naturally expect it to matter more.

The resolution is off and one of those that seems to just set up a continuation rather than being a satisfying piece of writing on its own.

An interesting story with shades of The Circus of Doctor Lao (which always makes of me a very benevolent reviewer), especially in its treatment of animals and its petty human characters and their attitudes and relationships with the monsters.

The Way of the Witchfinder

Witchfinder in training Florian is sent by his mentor to the Brettonian coastal town of Ora Lamae, divinely inspired dreams telling of a great evil corrupting that place. The task and journey ahead is a hard one, worthy of a true witchfinder and will serve as Florian's crucible. But has Florian prepared enough? Has he been tempered enough, in body, in mind?

 

Back to the grindstone with the last tale of the collection. Also not a great one with out of place oddities here and there still keeping this one from being a good one. However, the attitudes of the Witchfinder in question are actually pretty great. Genuinely heroic and (foolishly, lamentably, damningly) compassionate, as if he's a knight in shining armour, this one stands in harsh contrast to the grubby persecutors from later stories.

The workings of the the Old World gods seem off as this tale also seems to take its bread and butter more from Moorcock (who at this point is very much the prime inspiration still for the Warhammer world), with gods of Law dominating the scene, rather than the pantheon of individual deities I've come to be familiar with.

Still, it feels more as a different cloak for the old setting, rather than something that has no place being here. Enjoyed it.

-----

 With only 2 genuinely good tales, which I both had read at one time or the other, this collection was only a slight disappointment. It really wasn't all bad, in fact it was refreshing to read something that wasn't filled with as much balls to the wall horror and bloodshed like the last chronological Warhammer that I'd read; Christ Wraight's Swords of the Empire omnibus, one of those direct precursors of the End Times stories.

It's good then to revisit a time when the universe didn't feel as if it was about to be hopelessly, fatally overrun. More than that though; for me it was another decisive step taken on the road paved with Warhammer. Hurrah!

Review Part 3: The Wall (and other Short Stories), Jean-Paul Sartre

Continuation, part 3, same deal as with the previous: This is primarily for myself, to put everything in a clear perspective. As such, this is an in-depth spoiler-filled exploration proceeding from, and coloured by, personal bias.

Intimacy

Now, before I kick off, I'm aware that my view on this particular story barely grazes the theme of authenticity (or self-actualization) that is commonly ascribed to it. Once it was pointed out to me, I found that yes I could indeed see it, but I ended up rejecting that exploration as ultimately pessimistic.
Pessimistic because then the story's conclusion would mean that Lulu fails in her quest for authenticity and the failure of goals was already too present in the previous Erostratus short story so for the sake of variety I went and did my own thing. Hence, my view on Intimacy is that it's actually a story of self-acceptance and the throwing off of peer-pressure and conventionality leading to some sort of (unexplored and undescribed by Sartre, which means it's a rather hypothetical kind of) happiness. (It's a trick he uses; cutting away before the end, or giving an outsider's point of view on the 'resolution', which engenders cyclical and indefinite discussion. I should maybe loathe it, but as I'm stimulated enough to write about it, I'm just going to keep moving and refrain from casting judgement right now.)

Story number 4 is called "Intimacy" and it is about people struggling with various shades of it, primarily, it's about the struggles of Lulu, who, stirred up by her friend Rirette, and given impetus in a moment of pique, finally decides to leave her husband Henri to elope with her lover; Pierre.

We start the story in full rambling flow as Lulu's own stream of consciousness monologue blasts off the page as she lies in bed next to her husband.

Lulu abhors the physical sex act which makes her feel defiled, while here husband, for whatever reason, suffers from impotency. As Sartre doesn't explore Henri so much I'll forego commenting on him other than to say that, given how much is made of how Henri holds himself around other people, the cause for his impotency is likely a psychological one rather than a medical one, suggesting that he is so constrained and inhibited that he is unable to open himself up to others, leaving sexual intercourse as a virtual impossibility.
Lulu's revulsion for sex and Henri's impotency lead to various benefits for Lulu, which makes her decide in the end to remain with her husband rather than elope with her lover.

Oops, did I give it away? I did say spoilers.
Anyway, the big thing here, the seemingly outright conflicting element that directly opposes my approach of the theme of acceptance of (the limitations of) the self is the existence of Lulu's lover.
The fact that there is a lover seems to point to Lulu's need for something else than what her husband gives her, and because the story primarily focuses on sex and how it makes Lulu feel, we are led astray in thinking that a feel-good kind of sex is what Lulu actually wants/needs.

But what Lulu really wants is love and intimacy, without the sex-act.

We don't see the initial meeting of Lulu with Pierre. He springs into the narrative, fully formed with an already established relationship built on physically romantic entanglements.
What is also immediately established is Lulu's intense dislike of those physical entanglements.
It makes her adultery with Pierre a rather baffling thing.

-----

 (Is it in fact literally contrived? Lulu's views on physical intimacy are so out of what is the commonly accepted norm (the conventional) that it doesn't even make sense for her to go shopping for a different relationship, even if it is one in the hopes of love.)

-----

I guess, that in the hypothetical past, when the realization had set in that she did not love her husband anymore, she would then have naturally, but covertly, set out to seek greener pastures. She ostensibly finds those in Pierre, but then he turns out to be more of a regular dude with regular cravings kind of guy which leads to the state of affairs (haha) at the start of our narrative and Lulu's general unhappiness at all of it.

When Henri slaps Lulu's brother in the face she furiously grasps the moment as the perfect time to show her discontent with him, at how he has not given her what she needed and how he has made her feel (or not feel).
She takes control and locks him out on the terrace and taunts him. Because that's what she wants, she wants to dominate him, humiliate him, cause him anguish and pain as a kind of payback for the disappointment in her life with him. Just as she earlier grips his flaccid member, taking comfort in that act because it empowers her, while making Henri groan in embarrassment because it does nothing to him: by willfully causing him mental anguish she is dominating him.

Afterwards, and this is described as a regular thing, when Henri sleeps, she proceeds to pleasure herself to thoughts of purity, priests and women.
Though she states she doesn't like women, there sneak a few less than innocent observations in her musings, though she explains those away with "we all have thoughts like that...".
Is the implication here that she is a lesbian but unable and unwilling to admit and commit to that? So deeply repressed she can not even admit it to herself in her fantasies.
The most noteworthy of which is a fantasy she has of violating her female friend Rirette together with her lover Pierre. At a glance, this is just a violent little daydream, an internal thought-response to feeling wronged and an imaginary way of grasping back superiority and control. But, as in the fantasy she is the one who restrains Rirette, and holds her close, almost tenderly, without being the one who does the act, it suggests more. Also her musings on preferring to have a soft man's body against her, rather than a muscular one, as that makes her feel self-conscious, seem to work well with how she views Rirette's body, as soft and huge. Though Rirette herself tends to views herself as average, and sexy and good-looking while naked.
Either way. I blatantly disregard this line of reasoning as it would also have the story end in a negative way. (Lulu denying what she wants and regressing into her 'wife to a man' state.)

So then, after the scene where she locked her husband out on the terrace, she packs a suitcase, writes a note and leaves. But not before first making her husband a meal and putting the stove on. She then meets Rirette and relates the happenings that have led her there. When they subsequently take a stroll, Lulu engineers their walk so that the women meet with Henri as he comes out of his place of work and an emotionally charged confrontation ensues. I thought this little bit was really well done, where these people's anguish just pours off the page, with every nuance that a confrontation summons up.
The two women hurry off in a taxi to Pierre's hotel while a desolate Henri stays behind.
Pierre puts her up in a temporary apartment, has sex with her and then goes on his way, whistling merrily while he goes.
In the quiet, Lulu's frustration and resentment at Pierre's unloving attitude begins to seethe and the whole situation and the coming consequences begin to dawn on her, and she realizes that Pierre and his ways are not what she wants and then decides to returns to her husband for 'a last goodbye'. When she witnesses how distraught he is, she is heartened and takes pity on him but declares that she will take her leave of him nonetheless. They talk and Lulu draws out the conversation and her stay as long as she can. In the morning out on the landing, right out of their front door, she laments that Henri did not put up more of a struggle and she is then enveloped by a deep sense of loss.

Cue Sartre's trick; skip scene.

At the end of the day after, Pierre and Rirette sit together and read Lulu's earlier delivered letter to Pierre, wherein she omits her visit with her husband the night before while she tells outright lies and relates her decision to remain with Henri. The truth is buried in an unreliable second hand account.

It was my (stubborn) idea that, aware of her own likes and wants, (/her crippling inhibitions) she elects to remain with Henri, because his impotency enables her rejection of the physical act of love between a man and a woman. Henri, in turn, takes her confession of love-lost as the new standard and (hypothetically) accepts it just so he doesn't end up alone, maybe he even vows to do better.

-----

Again, this is all conjecture that'll suit my outcome.
If you take the text as Sartre designed it then yes of course, Lulu fails at becoming an 'authentic person'.

-----

In the end, neither takes the confrontation as an opportunity to go to a better, healthier place and they both stay landlocked in their mutually inhibition-enabling embrace.
Because inertia has its own momentum.

Ooh, ooh. Goddamn I'm good.

Oh no wait, shit. When did this become negative again?

OK, dialing it back to positive:

This all leads me to say:
Different strokes for different people, Lulu's found hers. and it's with her husband, who may need something else than what Lulu can give him but as this is not about him, that's neither here nor there.

-----

Positive huh?
It's a shame then that this is completely cancelled out by the fact that, despite of Lulu's remaining with her husband, she will continue to see her lover Pierre. Now I could again explain that away by argumenting that her statement in the letter to Pierre is a purely placatory one and that she has in fact no intentions of keeping up their affair. But I rather don't think that's true either. But hey. It's an argument that you can't actually prove wrong by just remaining within the confines of the story itself.
It's where Sartre's own tricks end up biting him in the ass.

So. Restating:

Lulu, in the end lies to herself and everyone else because what she loves is an intimacy without the grubby reality of love-making. Henri's sterility-- it's not sterility because she comments earlier that Henri isn't always clean; thus it's really the physical act of love-making that repulses her. Henri's impotency enables this and it's something that enables her to put her  own body on a pedestal so that while masturbating it's as if she envisions herself as a white tower. Or inhabiting one. A pure creature, in a white tower, capable of fulfilling her own needs, wanting no-one to fulfill those needs for her. (An authentic person here?)
But she seeks it out nonetheless.
She knew what would happen if she went to Pierre but go she did. And when the expected act then happens, she dislikes it. It affirms for her that with Pierre, this is what it will always be, so when she throws off Rirette and Pierre's urgings, she's actually standing up for herself.

Caveat

If you've read this far you'll notice how this entire write-up is all over the place.
It's something I'm very much aware of.
It's happened before in previous write-ups, most notably the time when I tried to understand the mythological framework for Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I spent way less time on Intimacy so forgive the errors throughout.

In American Gods I got caught up and wrong footed by seeming inconsistenties in the narrative that looked like they contradicted each other without ever actually doing so. The reason for this in American Gods is that there isn't enough information in the story to actually give a definitive explanation for how the gods can exist in multiple incarnations (and some other stuff besides, forgive, I'm vague on this). Gaiman walks a narrow tightrope and manages to keep the magic in the writing by giving a bare minimum of information. I got the feeling that with more information, Gaiman's mythological system would end up either contradicting itself, OR it would lose its every man's appeal or something. I don't know, it would lose something at any rate.

In Intimacy, because Lulu's story's resolution is related to us through the medium of a letter, and because said letter is proven to be unreliable by the lies which we can pinpoint in that letter, the reader can twist the ending to suit the outcome of their choice (within certain parameters).

Review: The Dark Defiles, Richard Morgan

I finished The Dark Defiles this week,
 and you better believe I've had to come back every day since I did to alter that opening sentence.

I started out stating that the book left me feeling very subdued. And though this has still remained more or less the same, I confess to feeling frustrated.
This frustration stems from seeming to be out of sorts with the blogging or something else I can't pin down, likely a lack of good sleep which results in me being (even more than usual) pretty incoherent. The aforementioned frustration doesn't even really come from the novel, it's just the write-up that consequently suffers.

It's a shame because the novel is in fact quite good. And comfortably quite a bit more than that.
I'd say it's the best violent epic fantasy I've read all year, if I hadn't also read the Crippled God in January.

The story continues on directly from where the Cold Commands ended, give or take a few months. It also adheres more to the story-beats of that book and manages to feel at its close more like its second and final part. A duology in three novels if you will, because book 1 is clearly set apart from books 2 and 3 who together form a single story and share a clear set of themes.

And it's a harrowing dark bastard of a tale too. Long, hard treks, violent bloodshed, monstrous acts and the long lusted-for, rooted-for vengeance is proven to be jarringly horrifying when we're finally delivered to what we've so unthinkingly clamoured for.
There are so many revelations and so many arcs coming full circle that have been present since book 1 that I feel that I can't give plot details without spoiling what one should find out for oneself.

Something I do feel like telling is that since The Steel Remains the characters have lived on the echoes of the past, manifested in their names.

Faggot, Oathbreaker, Black Mage, Witch, Kinslayer.

Halfblood, Hero, Dragonbane.

The names hoist responsibility, guilt, pain and pride. And in this book more than the others, the echoes of the past come forward to the present to demand action and retribution, to be lived up to. They've shaped these characters on the road to the end.

And make no mistake, it is the end, and it is beautiful. For all the blood-drenched fury and horror of the road that has led us here, Morgan, at the close, delivers his ending with an almost gentle weariness.
Even when the view finally moves away, and what comes next is found to be unwritten, untouched and undeveloped, whatever the final image we are left with; voices in calm triumph or on the cusp of violence, what comes before dictates what comes after.
And what comes before are the characters.
They are key in all things, even past the end.

Egar Dragonbane, Ringil Eskiath and Archeth Indamaninarmal matter more than ever their world, their races and cultures do, as interesting and as developed as those might be.
If you can't find yourself in the main cast you'll be lost. If you don't understand their reasoning, and if you don't feel their pain, this book will be a let-down, because the pay-off is hinged on bleak and melancholy understanding. A beat, a double-take and stark, dawning comprehension.

At its close, A Land Fit For Heroes is a song of weary souls calling for an end, coupled with a constant acknowledgment that violence breeds more violence but that pain doesn't only ever feed pain, and that sometimes it can, and will be responded to with compassion.
An acknowledgment that happiness is love, but that for most love is a lament, a could-have-been, or at best, almost always just out of reach, with one more hill, one more wish, separating one from the other.

I state again but with a caveat, the end is beautiful to those with a particular mindset.

But before we arrive at that end, the story is subverted where it needs to be; upending expectations and dashing hopes to show and more importantly; to signpost that this never was a clear-cut tale. The story is in fact unclear, it is not easily, and should not be easily summed up. It exists only because the characters do, and over the course of the narrative they progress as naturally as is possible and they end up where it most suits them, always sticking tight to who they are and the pain that has made them what they are.
Because pain is ever the great moulder.
Where goals and plans for the future are built on love or vengeance; the drives that look forward to the moment, or do nothing but exist in that moment, all of it is unshakably rooted in the pain of the past. From the point of view of those in torment all the future is, is the hope for the panacea to that pain. But when that hope is taken from you, there might as well be no future and the only thing to look forward to, is the end.

I've not often seen a trilogy that finishes so beautifully consistent, so dedicated to its characters. Even the last epilogue chapter, touching on elements only previously hinted at, delivers a last melancholy closing of a circle, defying reason and logic simply with how right it is.

Perfect as is. Recommended.

-----

Small Notes.

-Every book title of the trilogy has multiple meanings. I'm almost embarrassed to say that I didn't figure that out until this one. The Steel Remains, The Cold Commands and The Dark Defiles. Should be so obvious but somehow I missed it.

-I've seen alot of complaints about this book. from a climax out of nowhere, to a non-existant story.
I disagree with them all.
Morgan, in my mind, clearly knows what he's doing every step of the way, every chapter further serving to hammer home the ideas that will serve those final chapters and the reasons for the decisions of the characters, if not in fully thought out reasoning then in feeling and emotion.

-When reading a book it's good to take the pace that the book offers. Expect too much and you will be let down.

-Spines that don't match. Really Gollancz? How does one fuck this up?