Review: The Traitor, Michael Cisco

I am dying. I sit in a cell, waiting for my execution.
My jailors are kind and would give me everything I ask, they would not hurt me.

They would execute me, but my illness will do it for them, so instead they are kind and request if there's anything I would want. 

My illness is my execution. I am dying, but this is not the sum total of my being.

I have only strength for this and when it is done, I will be done.

This writing is my strength.

I have only strength for this, to tell of Wite.

This is my account of Wite and who he was and what he is.
But this is not Wite's story. I could never tell his story. There is only one who can and I am not he.
This is only the account of my experience with Wite, no more no less, and when it is done I will be done.

I will tell you of spirit eaters and soul burners.

Of the Alaks, of my countrymen and of the apostates.

I will tell you of Tzdze and I will tell you of Nophta.

I will tell you of the mountain, I will tell you of Wite.

Self-made blurb which I thought might be necessary, because the back blurb to the book itself gave me a totally wrong impression of what I was going to read.

The text above at the very least captures the tone and stylistic approach of the novella if nothing else.

It's a little self indulgent and maybe a little expansive of me but I did try to keep it honest and in the vein of the story as I read it. I usually enjoy penning my own blurb but this was rather more fun than what I'm used to. I have a feeling that this novella is one of those that will loom larger the further I get away from it.

Needless to say, none of this is in the story verbatim. Or rather, alot of it is, but it's spread far and wide over the course of its narrative.

What we have is an endless monologue that over its rambling course becomes more and more unhinged and repetitive the more the narrator spirals into a kind of desperate mania, a fixed obsession with giving as complete an account as possible, to try and give every facet of the purpose that has given rise to the account, the ideas and reasons for its existence, or at least, allegedly. Because as readily becomes apparent the longer you read. The narrator is highly unreliable:

 p 97

"There's no end to the adjustments I can make in hindsight, and no value to them. I have little to say, but I'll say it over and over to keep it in view. If only to keep my attention fixed. Will you follow my every word, or will you skip a few here and there, and more and more often?"

A direct adressing of the reader, casting aspersion on any veracity to be found in the account of an unreliable narrator.

This little bit of text shows that Cisco is aware of the dangers of presenting a narrative such as this to an audience that likely has had no clear idea of how this story would go and how it would present itself, an audience that is maybe expecting a rather more traditional story and that likely, won't read it in its full, rambling nature.

 p98

"Who is reading me? I won't ask that seriously yet. I prefer this way, not knowing what I'm doing, not giving shape to things or refusing to."

Again, completely against the norm. Post modernism in full flow. A writer writing for himself while experimenting without restraint, going outside of convention. 

Unconventional is all well and good and it has its moments of sheer enlightened brilliance and more on that later but, for a compulsive reader, and I mean specifically someone who needs to read every sentence in a book and to have that sentence stretch, connected to the rest of the paragraph, be rooted safely, inextricably, amongst all the other sentences; conventional, there were definitely some things that rubbed me the wrong way.

For one, as should be apparent by the self-made blurb, there's alot of repitition.

It seriously got on my nerves, mostly due to that compulsion of having to read absolutely everything.

But it also added a level of anxiety to the protagonist's writings, the repetition adding a level of forceful cadence that underlined and bolded every other thought, description or justification.
The quality of the writing and the mode of delivery is rather unique. It's a success if all you're looking for is a novella that truly stands out.

The story, however, is a boring block of continuous misery, unhinged and experimental. Shades of nihilism and misanthropy a la Sartre and the unreliability of a Gene Wolfe narrator coupled with a very light lens of grimdark fantasy on a seemingly bare-bones story that hinges more on tortured character-, and I hesitate here to state character development because it seems to me that there is no progression in Noptha's character. This is likely a side product of a text written in the final miseries of a haunted man's life where everything is coloured by pain and anxiety- than any kind of actual plot.

The first person narrative is given to us from the deathbed account of a man whose time is running out. This gives Cisco the writer's conceit of repetition and grammatical errors adding to a text's alleged veracity.

The man, in a neutered, emotionless way, remembers in a few leaps and bounds, his life from his earliest remembered infancy, from the time of his being apart and being different, to his discovery of being soulless and becoming apostate and Spirit-Eater, to his fateful encounter with a Soul Burner named Wite. From this point on, the narrative becomes laden with an almost malign sort of self-recriminating introspection hinting at something awful yet to come.

It's not exactly fun to read although as remarked before, there are flashed of brilliance. moments that, for me, make the book stand out.

Oddly then, I don't have much to say about it. not much to remark on. And though the final parts of the book do give food for thought I'm not going to say much about that either as the book seems to encourage an introspective response in its reader. A personal tale, coming into its own only because of the reader. Personal, and yet, it ranges far.

It's certainly a unique book and though I doubted more than a little during the read itself over whether it was worth it to continue, I'm very glad that I did.
There was actual encouragement for this in the book as Nophta repeats time and again throughout his account to hold off judgement until it is done. That we can not yet judge until we know the full story.

And here, now that I do, I find that I have no judgement to give.

-----

Some random ideas. Possible spoilers in tow.

Dark Souls 3: A fond retrospective and the beginnings of Farewell

So, during the downtime while I didn't have a working pc and finding out that that I wasn't able to write for the blog unless I could type it out, which may or may not be a bad excuse, I used my time off to dig in and dive deep into the world of Dark Souls 3 which I had previously been visiting only rather sporadically over the last few months.

I am vastly overlevelled at this point, even though I haven't even stepped into the ring with the game's final proper non-dlc boss.

Gazing at the End

How much overlevelled you ask?

This overlevelled.

I know. 

And spoilers from hereon out.

SPOILERS I TELLS YOU

I like to wear the armour I think looks cool, but I also have to be able to roll. I also have a penchant for choosing the stats to level that give me more physical defense above all others, despite what should be advisable. Having no real problem with an hour of grinding now and then, one thing naturally leads to another. 130 hours later and I'm still not done with my first playthrough. Very close to it though.

Just ticking some things off the checklist before I step into that final arena.

Here's me at my final succesful Nameless King fight which was for the longest time a very annoying boss before I finally figured out how to beat him.

It's usually the hardest one-on-one fights that actually require complete mastery of them to beat them, as a consequence the satisfaction gained from beating them is quite pleasant.

Anyway. Lovely game with an intriguing world. Immensely satisfying combat, beastly boss fights and humongous rage moments.

I'll take my experience with it as far as the platinum trophy since it's the final platinum I still need from the entirety of From Soft's Soul series. Been here since Demon's Souls and now I'm nearing the final end.

Bloodborne was my favourite but all the fan service in this one made it just so much damn fun. At one point I picked up what I thought was just another armour set and when I suddenly realized whose it had been I felt myself shocked into silence a bit. There's a dozen moments like that throughout the game. Oblique references to past characters and jaw-dropping visits to old familiar places that have crumbled into utter ruin. Familiar places... and the occasional familiar face. Those welcome and those not so...

But damnit, they even made me love Patches... what a road that man has taken...

Despite the annoyance it maybe should engender, this scene rather got an emotional response from me. It was a glimpse into a new chapter of the story of a man who finally remembered who he was and what he did. The old punisher of greed and yet, here at the end, a true friend as well.

But we are already here, the time of the ultimate end, when and where it's all gone. All dead. When the fire has slowly burnt out.

Where and when the world darkened I moved on, and moved forward. To the time when only Ash remains.

Ash and Slave Knight Gael. At the end of all things. He and me, gorged on souls, battling over the ruins of existence. A mad clashing of undead souls and their swords because it's all there is left to do. Have I mentioned that all this world is, is tragedy piled on top of tragedy?

And when one lies bleeding in the grit, in the ash of a once glorious civilization. I find myself looking ahead to the last fight and what comes after and the choice that then must be made. What is the next step?

We could of course rekindle the flame as it's what they have all asked us to do, every single soul along the way, every helper, every enemy and every aid has asked us to burn the old world in violent cataclysm, to let it better rise anew. It is the old cycle and the old song. It is right and proper, the wise men who live in the painting know it is the right path and with the burning of cloth we too have seen it should be so.
But the flame might not be strong enough. Maybe it is past its time and should have extinguished long ago, alongside the once-Sun Gwyn.
So maybe we should let it end. Into utter dark and the end of all things. Like our prince Lothric would have wanted, sat with Lorian in his castle on top of the world, gazing in their brotherly solitude at a slowly decaying world. So we give sight back to the one who it had been stolen from and she will usher in another Age of Dark and an ending of things. Until... of course... the time when flames will dance again.

Or maybe, just maybe. we choose that the time of cycles and gods will end. And we will sup on fire and don the crown and the mantle of the Lord. With might and flame we will rule and humanity will finally have its day, unrestrained and ungoverned by the rule of disparate greedy gods. No gods but one.

Now, I messed up at the last hurdle with that particular ending which is rather a big load of  bullshit annoyance all on its own but I guess that's what new game + is for.
For now It's just Link the Fire or Let it Fade and I'm still not sure which I'd want.

But before that... lemme just first do this one thing... and ooh ooh, this other thing. And ooh ooh, this as well...

But first!

It never ends.

May it never end.

Update

Hey, hello. It's been a small while.

The blog has been lying fallow for more than a week both on and behind the screens due to my pc finally having had enough of my childish abuse over the years.
Several people took a look at it and it ultimately didn't get fixed, though that is an 'as yet, for now' and it still might get fixed. It's likely that it is the graphics card that got junked, so for me, that'd take some time to get around to replacing and since I already got tired and frustrated of the effort that it took and still is going to take and I figured that since it's been about 6 years since I bought that one I thought to myself; maybe it's time for a new one.

Quick browse, swift purchase and without all that much fanfare, a little over 12 hours later it arrived yesterday and so, I'm back in action.

Compuception!
*BWAAAAA BWAAAAA!*

I'm super tired though so I'm not actually doing much just yet today.

Thanks for being here though. And see you around.

Series review: Penny Dreadful

I wasn't planning on doing anything special for October, horror-wise, but it's easy to get swept up in these kinds of things.

The days have begun to shorten rapidly and when we finally get off from work or home from school, the light has already well begun to fail. The coat comes off as we arrive in the silent halls, and in the rooms where shadows blanket the dusty corners. Later there are the creaks and groans as the old house settles in the nights that grow ever colder. And, before we sleep, we are reminded of the beasts under our bed and the monsters in the closet. In our dreams the spooky, scary skellingtons silently roam the age-old halls.

And when terrified we wake in the nights before halloween, it's easy to believe that something has left the world of our nightmare to come back with us, to our waking world, to haunt us and to tread on silent feet as we go for a quick wee because we drank too much water before going to bed.

Apparently everyone in my friend circle has for some reason finally started watching a particular one of my absolute all-time favourite shows, aaand since I've always wanted to take an extended look at its make-up and the troubles that led to its untimely cancellation (cancellation in my opinion, you'll find adherents to the three-seasons-was-the-plan-all-along everywhere), I'm finally taking a good long look at it and of course I'm going to be giving it a review along the way. It'll be very reductive and without much spoilers because I like to encourage people to give it a go. Hence, almost all the information here will be of the first few episodes of season 1.

Here it is...

-----

It is 1891 and a killer stalks London. The police is up in arms and wonder if Jack the Ripper has returned. But the murders far exceed that one's already terrible brand of butchery. Some believe it might be a beast, because his victims are left behind, quite literally, torn apart.

But this is not the focus of our tale.

Our focus belongs to the shadowy half-world that lies between what is commonly accepted and that which is believed to be superstition. But superstition is a consequence, it arises from somewhere. It arises from the Demi Monde, the place that belongs to the souls in torment, to those that live in the dark, the monsters.

Ethan Chandler is a gunslinging circus performer who is hired by the beautiful and mysterious Vanessa Ives to protect her and her friend Sir Malcolm while they have a dangerous meeting with an underworld contact. The ensuing violent confrontation ties Ethan closer to his mysterious benefactors than he'd like.
The bodies pile up and soon sir Malcolm is forced to seek the help of a young doctor, enamoured with unlocking the secrets behind life and death; Victor Frankenstein.

Meanwhile a beautiful young man has grown bored with debauchery and sets his sights on the newest victorian society sensation; Vanessa Ives.

In the intimate story that is to come, everyone has a haunted past, and it's racing for a reckoning. It's only a matter of time before the personal demons arrive into the now.

-----

At first glance, the show seems to conform to the expected set of grooves for this sort of gothic period drama, playing to the lowest common denominator with an at first glance seemingly rote build up of tension which turns out to be a clever playing with the audience's expectations which leads to some well earned scares.

A period drama with high language, inspired by what are likely the three most famous gothic novels; Frankenstein, Dracula and the Picture of Dorian Gray, Penny Dreadful is nonetheless first and foremost a horror show. Packed with various brands of darkness, running from vampires to out and out satanism, to the scariest witches you'll ever see, accompanied by body horror, possession, various strands of eschatological mythology with egyptian overtones, dead babies, flayed and mutilated corpses and various other horror tropes.

But these are its trappings, and those work only as well as talent can make it. And the talent is almost unheard of in any show on television. It's a truly stellar cast portraying a mix of various original and popular literary characters and I can't really strain enough how exceptional the acting is.

The cast and the characters.

Penny Dreadful serves for the most part as the showcasing vehicle for Eva Green's considerable acting talents. Acting without reservation and seemingly without limits, she goes above and beyond for the role of our heroine, the complicated and incredibly tortured Vanessa Ives.

Ethan Chandler, played by Josh Hartnett, is the charming audience's straight man, the vehicle for our initiation in the Demi Monde. But it doesn't take long for Ethan's past to catch up with him and to make it clear that none of these characters come without their own darkness.

Sir Malcolm Murray, is the patriarch. An old hunter and explorer, played with dignity and gravitas by Timothy Dalton. Exuding an almost palpable sense of danger and absolutely not to be fucked with, Malcolm easily dominates many a scene with his leonine looks and imaculate beard. (what? Everyone needs a beard role-model.)

Victor Frankenstein is played by Harry Treadaway with an intensity and eloquence that easily conveys the depth of Victor's obsession. His contempt for superstition and religion shines through in subtle little mannerisms underneath all his more vocal protestations that I found quite humorous.

Dorian Gray, played by Reeve Carney, is much what you'd expect from an ageless beautiful immortal. Aloof and in control, slave to whatever is new and mysterious, he's swiftly intrigued by Miss Ives and maybe a few other things along the way.

-----

There are others. But I wouldn't want to give their presence away. Suffice it to say there's a small core of literary figures that the story is built up around of. And all of them are played with dedication and talent which on top of that is backed up with an incredible dedication to detail in costumes and set designs.

The show, written and directed by John Logan (writer: Gladiator, Sweeney Todd, The Last Samurai...) plays fast and loose with its source material but along the way pays it more homage than any straight adaptation ever could.

But it's a primal show and as such, an uncomfortable one. You'll quickly know if this show is for you, because if  it isn't you'll be out the door before episode 2 is done.
The lust and the violence and every shit-smeared facet of humanity isn't shirked and they all have an integral place in the narrative. Nudity and gore, sex and violence are stylised and yet put on full unflinching display.

With all the grotesquery comes a taste of the divine. It's as if the darkness thrives because of the beauty, and vice versa. From a pitch black roiling maelstrom at the heart of a chasm to sunlit snow on a mountain top. For a new viewer there are regular shocks and hair-raising horror, but to me it's now so deeply ingrained that nothing in the show still manages to shock me, and only moves me instead.
(Scratch that. I just saw a few episodes of season 2 again...  Bloody witches man...)

There are a few ways that counteract all that intensity and darkness that the show wallows in like a contented hog.

For starters we have the absolutely delightful Simon Russel Beale as the outrageously extravagant curator of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities in the British Museum, Ferdinand Lyle.

"Could I be more charmed?
No, I could not."

Every instant Mr. Lyle is on screen, most notably the scenes together with Ethan Chandler, is an occasion for hilarity. Maybe it's just the literal comedic relief the character brings whenever he steps into a scene, but it just wouldn't be the same show without this ray of light.

Another thing that helps is the beauty that it is on almost constant offer. The cinematography is gorgeous. It's magical and enthralling. From its opening scene to its credits incredible attention is given to the details, there's a deft hand at work that I haven't seen in anything since the likes of Nbc's Hannibal. It's something that has to be seen to be believed, to be given as much attention as it actually merits.

More than is regular for an audience, I guess, I find myself deeply in synch with a show or movie where attention and love is dedicated to the music.
And since it ended, I've found that Penny Dreadful is still incomparable in this. Sweeping and beautiful, Abel Korzeniowski's (Taboo) heart aching score accompanies and elevates many a scene. Street, Horse, Smell, Candle is still a beautiful track and if someone should happen to mention "fairy lights" during it, I'm liable to break out in tears.

It's the perfect Gothic horror show.

Or that is...

Seasons 1 and 2 are.

-----

I won't go into it here much, but the 3d season was for various reasons, a bit of a let-down. The quality goes downhill and some of the final episodes feel very rushed.

More than that, the ending came without warning and there was a campaign of disinformation following its conclusion that makes it still hard to know what actually happened behind the scenes, but it left alot of people angry and saddened. I'm not going to make a list of grievances and note down the storylines and characters that got neutered by its diminished runtime because you'll easily see those for yourself.

However, there is an ending to the story and it's the one I did expect the show to ultimately take, as such, for me, it's still a good way to close out the stories of a few particular characters. There are also some extremely good moments in the final season, including the flat-out best episode of the series as a whole. But the narrative doesn't fit as seamlessly and some things do get lost along the way. The bottomline is, it was a step down and we were promised more.

Despite those issues. Penny Dreadful still is one of my all time favourite shows and seasons 1 and 2 are still some of the best drama I ever did see. The achingly beautiful music that elevates every scene, the horror and the broken characters and their tortured existence. Its themes run personal, dark and deep. And they are still very relevant today.

Go give it some of your time, it's well worth it.

Slight warhammer chronicles update

Aha ha ha haaaah. Here's some news that only I care about.

Might this be the final cover for the Vampire wars omnibus?
I hope not. It's uninspired and a teeny bit gauche, non?

 I quite preferred the more minimalist early cover that I posted in the upcoming Warhammer chronicles post.

Heck, If you're really that uninspired, just go for the original omnibus iconography, which just oozes gothic horror.

This one would have the added bonus of  fitting way more with that beautifully updated Nagash cover.

The Steel Remains and The Cold Commands, Subterranean Press Lettered Editions

Little disclaimer here: I'm not selling these two.
I was lucky enough to get them way back when and I'm not parting with either.

-----

To go along with my read of Richard Morgan's fantasy Trilogy, here's a little bonus.

The lettered editions for the first 2 books in the Land Fit for Heroes trilogy which I bought in a distant past out of sheer bloody stupidity and avarice.

As far as I know the third book has never been released in a matching edition.
Which is rather a damn shame. I'm still hoping though.

I'm absolutely not a fan of that green case, or even the green reflective lettering.
The appearance of the cases doesn't match at all.

The books themselves though, look absolutely gorgeous.

Also lovely.

I don't know about you, but if the book comes in the case, then I'm not taking it out of it just so the hardbacks can match.
What would I do with the cases then? they belong around the books or so my ocd's tell me.

I hush myself by telling myself that the cases keep the books safe anyway.

Why add blurb to what could have been a stunning backflap?
Obviously again, I have a bias for blue.

Superdark picture but you're not missing much.
Standard blurb, nothing too fancy.

Silver's a good reflective lettering, green is absolutely not...

Look at that shiny leather.
It bears noting that the quality leather finish on The Steel Remains is superior
than that of the Cold Commands

Egar at the front,
Archeth and Ringil in the shadows.

I used some saturization to make the colours pop a bit more.
In the paper it's quite impressive.

The camera on the phone is selective this way though to be honest it's probably just me.

These are indeed in the book.
Some rather memorable scenes.

Yes, indeed.

If the Dark Defiles would be released in a matching Lettered edition my set would be a XXX one.

Naughty.

Throughout the book, between pragraphs, you'll find this symbol.

No spoilers here for who these dudes are.
Memorable and yet... ordinary?

I love, love, LOVE the blue finish on this one's artwork.

The changeling, anyone?

Review: The Steel Remains, Richard Morgan

I wrote alot again. As this is the start of a trilogy there's alot of ground to cover, so I won't have to go too in depth for 2 and 3. Expect alot less of a write-up for its sequels.

Spoiler section at the back with due warning. 

Ringil, the hero of Gallow's Gap, the famous last stand against the invading Lizard-people, lives in self-inflicted exile in a backwater town away from the judging eyes of his fellow countrymen, away from those that deem him a degenerate and a pervert. But his days of idle drinking and storytelling are at an end as he is dragged back into the world that hates and reviles him., the world that wants him dead and gone, back to his home-city, to find his kidnapped cousin.

Archeth, whenever the court and the erratic demands of her emperor permit it, slaves away in the bowels of arcane machines endeavouring to unlock the secrets of the enigmatic Helmsmen, searching for information and secrets concerning her lost race.

But as the emperor calls, she must answer and she will have to go south to investigate a sorcerous calamity.There she will be confronted with an older and more dangerous entity than the one she was looking for.

Egar Dragonbane, fearsome warrior and tribal leader, among the grass and the herds of his people, misses civilization. Back from his time in the south since the war, the traditions and superstitions of his people stifle him and he muses constantly on memories long held close. But for a hero of war, in the tribes life is bountiful and good.
But resentment brews on every side and when the gods themselves intervene, not even a slayer of dragons can call himself safe.

This one is part of a set that's been on my shelves for quite a long time now while reasons, take your pick, have held me off from starting the trilogy time and time again.
But since I needed a break from thinking about my fiction for a while (yeah, that turned out great, huh?) and just let myself loose into some fairly straightforward escapism again I ventured to my TBR-shelves where I stood for about half a second before my eye landed on this beauty.

The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan is the first novel of the A Land Fit For Heroes Trilogy.
A Land fit for Heroes because it sucks, you know. As in; it really needs itself some heroes, jow.
Morgan is probably better known for his Takeshi Kovacs novels, which is quite a brutal, smart and sexy scifi trilogy that right now is already well on its way to being adapted for television (or at least book 1 is). It might even be completed for all I know.

So, from sci-fi to fantasy. Morgan's style is dark and volatile, with deeply humane characters (read: tortured introspection) and incredibly well depicted cringeworthy violence in a storyline that is occasionally spiced up with pulse-raising sex scenes. He of course manages to bring that skill to his fantasy outing but with a little twist. Or maybe a few, I'm not sure yet what that ending implies...
Alright anyway, the big twist with this one then, or rather the hook; the big thing I knew about it before I went into it, is that its main protagonist, Ringil, is gay. That coupled with Morgan's penchant for pretty damn enticing, graphically suggestive sex scenes made me slightly wary and yet very curious to see how it would pan out.

And I pretty much got what I expected: Brutal and inventively original violence that was both graphic and disturbing. Tortured and complex characters and yes indeed: sexy sex between same-sex partners. That last part occasionally went a little more graphic (like, really) than I was expecting. It's not bad, like I said: Morgan's good at this, but if you're not open to this kind of thing, and especially if you don't like sex in your novels, you should really steer clear of this one.

Characters

The characters are flat-out the best thing about this book. We have three main characters and every single one of them has so much layers on them that their bouts on introspective musings carried the whole thing, for me at least. They're all veterans of wars, with a lifetime of sorrow and loss behind them and there's alot of backstory drip fed to us during the story.

The main one is Ringil.
Ringil's past, much like that of the others, is doled out in bits and pieces in flashbacks that are incorporated quite well into the main narrative. But since Ringil has more focus than the others, his flashbacks are more frequent and a lot more revealing. Morgan doesn't break up the flow of the text by starting a new paragraph or chapter or what have you. He just italicizes and slots the flashback neatly among the rest of the character's musings. It helps alot with the strength-of-the-moment-feeling in the scenes in which this happens. It drags up all the, frequently horrifying, baggage out of the past to give it a place under the sun alongside our main characters. It imbues scenes that previously were brightly lit, star-studded diamonds glittering in the sunlight, with some very dark shadows. It's quite a neat writer's trick.

We start off with Ringil as quite a straight-forward protagonist, albeit one with his own sexual preferences and quirks that make him stand out to many others that I've read. He obviously has some baggage but he seems well adjusted. But it's as soon as he is jolted back into the places of his youth that the horror of his upbringing comes howling forward, in memories that let the pain flood back in, and then all of a sudden Ringil is endowed with a backstory of rather horrifying levels of darkness.

He is the archetype of a tried and tested character, someone with so much pain in his past that he could be the poster boy for steel tempered by fire. Described as having a core of ice, Ringil's traumatic past has gone so far above and beyond to make him what he is that he's like a dozen tortured protagonists into one.

It's a land fit for heroes but there are none to be found.

There are only people who get beat down, who stumble and fall. It's the toughest who despite all this pain manage to pick themselves up again. Does that make one a hero though?
And yet. Ringil fights for others. Maybe. Or maybe he just likes the violence.

Archeth is an alien, or something. Lesbian and all round bad-ass, she's the last survivor of a very advanced humanoid race that, a decade ago, left the earth and humanity to its own destructive devices. Highly intelligent and like all her race mechanically geared, she's a senior advisor to a megalomaniacal but shrewd emperor. 

Even though she's a good character she is a little wasted in the court storyline.

The manipulative, all-powerful, drop-of-a-hair-pin-goes-violent emperor is something that's done to death. As such it's the only viewpoint that was a little boring.

I do expect alot more from her in the sequels though. Her backstory and past are fascinating and I would have loved more information. The Cold Commands is sure to give it.

Egar I have alot less to say about even though he's interesting enough.

He's the typical barbarian with a twist. Reared in nomadic warrior communities, as adolescent he left his tribe to become a mercenary and see the world. Various wars later he has formed a friendship with Ringil and Archeth that'll last him a lifetime. He has since returned to his tribe and has taken up the mantle of leadership. But having once gazed on civilization and the wonders that it offers there's a deep grain of discontent at the simple tribal life simmering beneath his surface. He's wiser because of his experiences than literally everyone around him but he's still pretty primal. It's the usual dichotomy of experience vs isolated nurture.

On top of that he has some of the most tantalizingly interesting world- and mythology building scenes of the novel.

World

The world is grimdark as-it-gets fantasy by way of the Dying Earth. 

An earth that is our earth, but so far in the future that science has become indistinguishable from magic. As such there are various elements and story devices that make it be fun to figure out what they mean so I'm really not going to talk about this because I don't want to spoil it. Suffice it to say I'm looking forward to The Cold Commands for more of this.

Story and trappings

The plotting was a little all over the place and if I'm being a little honest not all that great. The novel seems to stand on its own very well, existing to, beside the main plot of finding Ringil's cousin, to serving up mostly alot of backstory via those flashbacks I mentioned. There's a few loose ends that I'm assuming will be picked up in the future novels but the story itself is rather neatly contained and almost elegantly (predictably?) wrapped up.

A slight problem I had with Steel Remains is that obviously from the second you've been introduced to all three viewpoints you inevitably begin waiting for them to come together. I found that when that (finally) happened it felt rather inorganic and weirdly rushed. But though it was hurried and sloppy, it was still servicable.
I also noticed that where this happened it felt like I was reading a Sword and Sorcery novel; how characters neatly and swifly line up with eachother almost out of the blue when they meet. And the acknowledgments section at the back bears that out where Morgan acknowledges his debt to Moorcock, Karl Edward Wagner and Poul Anderson. The drugs several characters take to fight better do clearly call Elric's reliance on drugs/Stormbringer to mind.
It's still an odd novel, as it has the slow build-up of Epic Fantasy but then at times it suddenly it's clearly something else, something less meticulous and more fast-paced, unconstrained and unworried about conventional storytelling or maybe it's rather a throwback to earlier storytelling.

So plotting not great but for now I'm keeping that criticism contained to this novel, because it does seem like the whole trilogy is going to fit together rather more neatly than I was foreseeing, given this one's particular ending.

As I've mentioned before. I'm looking forward to reading The Cold Commands.

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Finally, some notes on sex.
If you can't abide sex in your novels I emphasize that you need to steer clear of Morgan's work. If you want the opposite, you'll likely love this because it really is quite fantastically well done.

To go in depth about this, sensitive soul; steer clear and for the rest; be mindful of the SPOILERS ahead.