Our Lady of Wolves adds itself to the list of bleak stories I have been reading ever since I discovered folk-tales way back in my childhood. Bleak and grim stories about people having to deal with the harsher sides of life, some of them quite horrible. Like the decimation of Kelly’s village. But life is like that. Sometimes there are no happy endings, only less worse ones.
Kelly’s faith in her Lady of Wolves was rewarded albeit differently from what she had thought but in line with Kelly’s prayers. A wonderful story about 26 pages long showing us desperate moments in a bunch of desperate people’s lives.
Bloody hell. Give the poor girl a break. Laken Cane drives her main character, Rune Alexander, hard. And can she write! All of that exquisitely described pain and anguish. Holy horror of a cow! What a life our heroine leads.
Rune Alexander fills me with compassion. I want to crawl into Strange Trouble and somehow comfort her, to let her know that she is OK as she is. My own ghost pain is awakened, and I want to tell her that things will get better. But I would be lying by saying that because Ms. Cane is a cruel mistress for the Shiv Crew.
The Rune Alexander series is a bleak and dark series. There aren’t a great deal of happy moments. Well, there are plenty of happy moments, but that is what they are. Moments. Then Rune and the gang is ripped back into the terror and ache of having to be the “good guys” in spite of all of the persecution and loss. Yet Ms. Cane’s writing makes it all endurable.
The vampires, zombies and werewolves of the Rune Alexander series are not the fluffy ones that we sometimes see in literature today. These are the good, old-fashioned kind. The ones that were told stories about around the fires while night turned into darkest dark and became all the more frightening because we could no see the world.
As usual, I have a couple of favorite moments. Rune’s gift to Ellie – perfect. That put a huge smile on my face. Rune advising Raze about relationships – pot/kettle much? The two episodes with the obsidian sword. Shad and Fie at the hospital – incredibly cute. The monster’s comment: What will you do? … Hurt me? And finally Ms. Cane’s description of Damascus – whew that lady needs to work on her charm.
Laken Cane has kept the promise of Shiv Crew. Her writing has been riveting, tense and tight through all three novels.
Stories that have the sense of the macabre about them hold a special place in my heart. Death and coming to terms with unresolved issues adds to the flavour of the story. Steven J. York spins all of this into a delightful tale about a man, his foot and once-upon-a-time beloved Betty.
Ever since his loss Christmas has become a special experience for our narrator and we get to follow that experience 50 years down the road. I believe I have become a fan of Mr. York.
If you are into macabre humour, you have to read A Holiday Explained. You just have to read about how Santa gets the presents delivered and how the Easter Bunny became hollow. A Holiday Explained is a wonderfully funny and well-written short story – all of three pages long. Well done Mr. York.
Reading this to your kids should be no problem. Kids tend to like the gross and macabre – at least that is what my experience has taught me.
I’ve been wondering for ages what being a soldier for years upon years would do to a person. That is a soldier who is out fighting all the time. It would have to be the close-up kind of soldier who has to make life and death decisions for another person on a regular basis. What would that do to you, and how many of your choices would you find bearing you down?
War is a terrible thing. The Old Warriorhas been trained for a life of killing since childhood by people who treated him roughly. His choices have numbed him to the horrors he is part of. In the end that life is catching up with him, but then …
“The Nightmare” appears in the form of a little girl who has lost her mom and dad and wolf to the killers around her. She stands there in the middle of the noise and gore with an empty look on her face. “The Nightmare”. The one who manages to break through to the old warrior and create a chink in his suit of denial.
The Old Warrior was a sad and action-filled story. It ended differently from how I had expected and that annoyed me. But I also find it refreshing (and annoying – did I mention that) when closure is not reached. But life is like that. We cannot always know how things end.
Cover art by S.M. Reine Model photo on cover by Marcus J. RanumParadise Damned is the last novel in The Descent serial. Like all the rest, Paradise Damned is dark. We get plenty of violence. Part of that violence involves abuse of Elise in the Garden of Araboth.
“SEPTEMBER 1, 5509 BCE
In the beginning, there was the earth, formless and empty. Darkness hung over the surface of the deep.
And then there was light.
It spilled over the waters, vast and powerful, and its creation severed the unity that had come before. This light was a separate entity from the darkness. Something novel and cruelly different.
The spirits called it “day.” Its opposite was called “night.” Between them was evening and morning – the First Day.
This division marked the end of peace in the universe.
Everything has been pretty much fucked up since then.”
S.M. Reine’s humour seems to fit mine just fine.
Half the fun of writing reviews is the preparatory work I do. This time I felt like checking out the ancient dates in Paradise Damned and ended up with the info at the bottom of this post.
I want to give S.M. Reine a special thanks for coming up with the old women of Oymyakon, Russia. No wonder these ladies are so tough. Oymyakon is so cold that it has the lowest recorded temperature of any permanent village (- 71.2 C). Brrr, not my kind of winter. Here, indeed, “Winter is coming”. Nothing phases these matriarchs. Give them hybrids or Malcolm, and they won’t hesitate to shoot either if they have to.
Paradise Damned is divided into four different stories that tie together. The first is from the good old ancient days, the next is from the good old days, the third is from Limbo with James and the last story occurs in Araboth 2010.
Longevity or immortality is a concept that I have found a lot of people would like to take part in. How would you stay sane? It seems to me that all the people around you would have to be immortal as well. Otherwise, you would have to watch loved ones die over and over all through “eternal life”. I see how people react to such losses already, and have to wonder how you could deal with it on such a time-scale.
Adam seems to stink at it. His one major loss gave him a liking for mayhem. Yatam and Yatai didn’t deal well with it either. In the end they got the release they sought. What about Adam? Will someone relieve him of the burden of life?
Elise is now back to her job of being a false Eve. She isn’t taking to it. Fighting against it brings grooming/training her way in the form of severe mental and physical torture. I wonder if her lifetime of abuse and pain is aiding her or hindering her in keeping hold of who she is?
Sometimes when I read stories about real life people who have gone through stuff like this (not the impossible things but the rest), I wonder how they managed to hold on to themselves through it all. I know it messed up my grandfather who was tortured during WWII. The post traumatic stress was so strong he tried to self-medicate to deal with the mental pain. The face he showed me as a child was that of a gentle and loving man who brought joy to my life. He managed to stay away from alcohol in his meeting with his grand-children.
Granted, Elise is make-believe, but not really. There are people out there who go through grooming/torture in order for another person to achieve some kind of result. Each and every one of these people will end up changed forever. While a lot of them will be able to hold on to themselves, some will not. The question in Paradise Damned is whether Elise manages to stay true to herself and her ideals in spite of what she goes through.
On a lighter tone for me (maybe not for the rest of you), Elise’s arrival at Oymyakon was amazing. I liked what she did and how she did it.
S.M. Reine does not go easy on her characters. Not really on any of them. James is not as present in Damnation Markedas he has been previously. The bond that arose between him and Elise in Dark Union is causing both of them problems, and Elise feels betrayed by the way he has handled the whole Stephanie thing. I understand why Elise would feel attracted to James. As we have seen, James was the first person in Elise’s live that showed her that some adults were worthy of trust. That he later betrays that trust in various ways is another matter altogether. Betty was the person that showed Elise that it was possible to enjoy life. Now that Betty is dead, that part of Elise’s life seems to have died along with her.
With the Night-Hag’s death Reno has been left wide open to attempts from other demons to take over. Anthony seems to have stepped in as Elise’s unofficial apsis without all of the advantages that a real apsis has. Elise seems to feel driven to keep the gate in her hands – and out of the Union’s. At the same time I also get the feeling that she has adopted Reno as HER town and along with that a feeling of responsibility for all that happens to her sphere of it. That pretty much means everything that has to do with keeping balance between demons, angels and humans. When it comes right down to it, being a balance keeper is what being a kopis is all about; and Elise has been trained to be the best kopis ever since she was extremely young.
One of Elise and James’ differences of opinion are about just that. James wants Elise to do kopis things only when he deems it appropriate while Elise realises that it is an all or nothing kind of life. This difference of opinion, one they have had for a while, is one of our first glimpses of the way James justifies his driven and self-absorbed choices.
All three of them are messes, complete messes. Despite her awful childhood and less than ideal career Elise seems to be the most grounded of the three. Perhaps it is because of her childhood that Elise is able to stay true to herself and at the same time be of use to those around her. She is going to need that sense of groundedness in her struggles with the “Shadow” and the Union.
The Union is like a cult. These people are crazy. They are so able to convince themselves that they are right, that anything goes as long as it serves their goals. James and they would be a good fit.
I understand why Anthony is a mess. Who wouldn’t be? This is a fairly regular guy who has had to kill others (granted they are demons) and had his cousin killed while he and she were trying to help a friend. In addition Elise is autistic in the way she handles her relationships. That alone is difficult enough for regular people. Poor kid for being drawn into this mess by his attraction to Elise. Some guys just seem to be ruled by their nether parts (see, trying to keep this g-rated).
I personally think that young adults (not the youngest) will be fine reading The Descent series. You need to be prepared for violence, darkness and really messed up people/creatures.
Wow. Just wow. The cover is gorgeous and so is the first story in the Rune Alexander series. I mean it – Wow. Cane practically had me bawling by the end of chapter 7. I had to put my tablet down, it was so sad.
I just had to say that before stating that I received a reviewer’s copy from Laken Cane a couple of days ago. Here is my review.
As you might have guessed, I loved this novel. There were a couple of “baby’s” that I could have done without but that is only because I’ve never used baby in my own vocabulary.
There is an adult content warning at the beginning of the novel that I felt was a bit extreme. Folks, Shiv Crew is dark, very dark. Other than that an older young adult would be perfectly safe reading it. I have read young adult novels with a lot more explicit violence (sad to say). As the sexual content is very low-tone in Shiv Crew there isn’t that to worry about either.
No romance. Can you believe it. A female hero and no romance. Oops, I lie. Toward the end there is a kiss.
What we do have is a lot of pain. My goodness is Rune Alexander, our protagonist, hurting. Cane’s description of Rune’s self-loathing and grief is amazing. Like I said, she practically had me bawling. All through the novel I carried that pain inside my chest and cheeks.
Enough about that. Action. Is there any action? Is there ever. Shiv Crew is a group of extremely dangerous individuals, of which Rune Alexander happens to be one. These guys have to kill Others (vampires, ghouls, werewolves and such) whenever they overstep the bounds humans have set for them. We are talking about seriously tough people. And huge. And protective. And sweet.
I don’t understand how Cane has managed to make Shiv Crew so adorable. Or maybe I kind of do – maybe. I think Ellis is part of the reason. He just so adorable and kind and GOOD.
Of course Rune has a huge secret she is hiding from her guys. Well two huge secrets. Both secrets will come back and bite her and the others in their behinds. But that is part of being a fantasy creature. Having one’s behind bitten is part of the game.
Humour. Yes there is humour. Dark humour, but humour. Enough to make me smile and chuckle at times.
Can you tell I loved Shiv Crew? If the next installment in the series had been out, I would have bought it already. I mean, WOW.
Huge brag before we get down to business. It has been a while since I read Shadowslave and I needed to take a quick look before getting back the feeling I had with this world. Don’t you know, I had to sit down and read the whole thing over again. A wild guess might tell you that I really enjoyed McMillin’s writing.
The Shadewright Cycle (at least the first two installments) has some interesting characters and important themes along with tons and tons of action, humour and romance (yeah, I guess I could call it that). I think Shadowslave is fairly dark, but not too dark for young adults. Nor is there very explicit violence or explicit sex in it. There is some gore though in connection with homununculi and a strange baby.
Back to my favorite part – the characters. Arick the Arcwright, Lord of Lightning T’Gantas is my favorite character. He seems kind of “simple” to the people around him. Shadowslave shows us that Arick definitely is not. He does, however, lean toward the clumsy and spectacular and explosive. That man is a wandering accident waiting to happen. Arick has to be the luckiest unlucky guy I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. McMillin made me fall in love. Praise, praise, praise for Arick’s character.
Racism. Hmmm. Plenty of racism in Shadowslave (and Shadewright). The Phantist, Serjeant Despanya Euran and Duskron are all three greyskins. That means that they have grey skin and are somehow tied to the Shadows, with the potential of being shadewrights. The degree of talent varies and Despanya has chosen to deny that side of her completely. Like our own world skin colour matters a great deal in the Shadowworld. Despanya has double-trouble in that she is a woman as well. Because gender does matter in Arlandia and Rall.
The Phantist is our main character. He worked hard in Shadewright to develop his abilities as a shadewright and became quite proficient and popular because of it. He also got into trouble with a voice he hears emanating from the earth. That threat in his life follows him into Shadowslave along with his meeting another dangerous entity in Shadows. I kind of think of the Phantist as the awkward hero. Maybe it is his character more than any of the others that leads me to think of the Shadewright Cycle as young adult. His tale is a coming of age story in the fantasy way.
Emm-Ma, the Quicklime Girl, is a very strange babysitter with an even stranger child to take care of. The two of them are fascinating characters. I can’t say more. I want to, but I can’t. I liked her though and strangely enough I liked the baby.
Healer Malleck and Colonel Brendan are into genetic tampering. Healer Malleck more than the Colonel. Both are willing to employ pretty bizarre and dangerous tools to get ahead of “the other side”. Sound familiar to any government at all? Is there any government that does not do this??? Two men who are extremely dedicated to their beliefs.
Finally we have Lesander. Or maybe Lesander’s property would be more correct. Something really strange is going on on Arliss Island. The Phantast is essential in figuring out the mystery and Duskron desperately wishes it was not so.
(Exmortus) is NOT intended for children, unless you like your kids reading about grisly murders, sex magic and genocidal demons, in which case, it IS intended for your kids.
Exmortus is in part a coming of age novel. As such I guess you could call it a young adult novel (keeping in mind the above warning). But it is also about the arrogance that comes with believing that you have the correct truth.
The Knights of Exmortus Abbey believe that their path is the correct one. They get to see a whole lot more of the more challenging sides of life than the people living inside the great wall. Ash Xavier is one of the apprentices hoping that he will make the rank of Knight. Ash is incredibly smart and knows it but he has no idea how to apply his knowledge to real life. That is what Speed and Ziggy (the duo) show him while his fellow apprentice, Simon, shows Ash that there are alternative ways of thinking.
Getting his dreams smashed within a few hours is certainly a factor in helping Ash grow. The demons that destroyed the Abbey are on Ash & company’s tails through much of the novel. People they thought they could trust (at least Ash did) show themselves as traitors while people Ash had thought of as evil end up getting Ash & company out of trouble.
We get plenty of action, some philosophising and some enthusiastic sex. The action is graphic at times while the sex is semi-explicit (probably not new to most teenagers).
The Corpse King is our introduction to the trilogy Elegy. We are in a land of sorcery, swords and adventure with arbiters running around trying to keep some kind of order and clean manna (magic) whenever it sends out bad vibes. In The Corpse King we have a dark fantasy in the way of zombies, death-manna and insanity.
Apprentice D’Arden Tal and Master Havox Khaine are two of these manna-cleaners. If you take a look at Kellen’s website you will see that for some reason the world Eisengoth is the one sending off bad manna vibes. How do you fight a world? With a world gone insane you are bound to live in a dark place. In fact, I find that the cover reflects the mood of this world gone mad.
It might be a good thing if you like zombie books. This description illustrates why:
D’Arden caught a glimpse of the old man, wizened head perched atop a naked, colorless, emaciated form that was slowly shambling toward him. The belly was swollen to the bursting point, dragging entrails across the wooden floor. Maggots writhed everywhere, covering the body nearly from neck to foot as they feasted.
As you see, not something for the faint-hearted. Well written though. Nice and gory.
I love this German cover, but have no idea who the cover artist is.
Once again Ben Aaronovitch has wowed the market, this time with Whispers Underground. And once again he wowed me.
“Back in the summer I’d made the mistake of telling my mum what I did for a living. Not the police bit, which of course she already knew about having been at my graduation from Hendon, but the stuff about me working for the branch of the Met that dealt with the supernatural. My mum translated this in her head to ‘witchfinder’, which was good because my mum, like most West Africans, considered witchfinding a more respectable profession than policeman.”
By coincidence Ben Aaronovitch and Peter Grant happen to have gone to the same comprehensive: Achland Burghley School. It just so happens that another student at that school has heard of Peter’s witchyness and asks him to come look at a ghost she has found.
Young Abigail Kamara is a delightful 13-year-old. She has all the rebelliousness of a girl turned teenager and a desire to show herself as more adult than she is. But trying that out on Peter just won’t work because she needs Peter way more than he needs here. His growing up on the same estate as Abigail probably also makes him less susceptible to Abigail’s “tantrums”. But one thing is for sure. If Abigail continues on the route she is on today she is going to turn into a version of Peter’s mom when she grows up. She is one fierce kid.
Peter and Lesley go with Abigail and, what do you know, there they see the ghost – a young white kid getting ready to spray some graffiti on the wall of the tunnel. They watch him get hit by the train then start the whole thing over again.
Lesley is still in the Folly and learning how to live with the face that fell off. Both she and Peter get a lesson in seeing people for who they are rather than how they look by Zachary Palmer, a character that turns up in Whispers Underground. That would be a wonderful lesson for me to be able to learn.
At 0300 one morning DI Miriam Stephanopolous calls Peter because of a murder that seems a bit off at Baker Street Underground Station. (Yes, the same Baker Street that Sherlock Holmes lived on.)
Baker Street underground station Photograph by Alun Palmer
When Peter goes into the tunnel where the body was hit by the train he discovers a bit of magical pottery in the pool of blood. When it turns out the victim is James Gallagher, the son of an US Senator, the British police have an international incident on their hands.
As is only natural when a body is found on the tracks, the British Transport Police turn up and give us a look at their responsibilities through Kamar – one of their officers. In fact, as Whispers Underground moves along we see that Peter and Kamar find it in themselves to put all inter-departmental rivalries aside and work together toward a solution to James’ murder.
DCI Seawoll makes Peter a part of the Belgravia murder squad so he can keep an eye on him. You might remember both Seawoll and the reason why he is a bit wary of Peter from reading Moon Over Soho. One of DCI Seawoll’s quirks is that he does not want the word “Magic” used anywhere in his vicinity. He knows it is there but he prefers that Peter and Lesley use words like “oddities” instead. It is kind of funny how Seawoll is like the rest of us in denying what is right in front of our faces. In fact, I think this might be one of the great appeals of British literature. They tend to make their characters human rather than glossed up versions of ourselves.
The fascinating thing about large cities is the many “forgotten” parts of them that work as a breeding ground for an author’s fantasy and probably also for the alternate parts of society that need a place to stay. As Peter and Kamar dig into this forgotten world Kamar comes to realise that the BTP might have overlooked certain parts of the underground system.
In their hunt for The Faceless Man Lesley and Peter are sent to Shakespeare Tower at the Barbican to interview a person DCI Nightingale suspects was a member of the Little Crocodiles (a Cambridge dining club).
Barbican towers / Shakespeare Tower in centre Photographer: Riodamascus
Being part of The Faceless Man’s gang can be dangerous for a person’s health. But you do not necessarily have to be part of his crew to get hurt, and the methods Faceless uses to keep his identity a secret are generally quite brutal – demon-traps come to mind. I would certainly think twice before joining him in his games. Part of this is because The Faceless Man comes across as amoral rather than sociopathic. That makes him completely unpredictable in a rather frightening manner.
Previously I have stated that Peter is my favorite character. He still is, but in a close second comes the dog Toby. Toby and Molly’s relationship is hilarious. The things she is teaching him to do!!!! A nutty dog for a nutty place like the Folly.
In his usual manner, Aaronovitch managed to prod my sense of the absurd. His sense of humor is perfect. I love it when an author manages to tickle my funny-bone and please my desire for action. Maybe this is why my favorite authors tend to be British. They have a sense of timing that I have not found anywhere else. Ben Aaronovitch handles the dark side of humanity well, well enough that I was unavailable to my family while reading Whispers Underground. I sometimes pity my family for having a book addict for mother and wife.
The Shadow Killer is only 10 pages long, but Mary C. Moore manages to fill those ten pages with so much sadness and hope that it made me want to weep.
Being homeless must suck in a major way. There are no safe places for you. Anywhere you lay down you risk being chased from. Others treat you as if you are invisible and those who do see you often look at you as if you are trash whose only function in life is to be stepped on.
“The girl is tired. She is more than tired; she is bone-weary exhausted. The only sleep she has had in the past few months is what she could catch while the sun was high in the sky. Only then could she risk curling in a ball on the unforgiving cement to sleep. She cannot try to find a place at night, she cannot go to a shelter, she cannot sleep without the sun because …
Because, every night the goblins come for her. The goblins are hunting, and she is their prey. She doesn’t know how or why, but she does know when. A black mass that seems to be nothing but nails and teeth follows her. Gibbering, drooling, hissing, they hunt her when the shadows become long.
She cannot sleep without the sun.”
Reading these paragraphs made me want to cry. The whole beginning of this short story made me want to cry. I know this tiredness. I know this fear. My goblins may have looked human but that was only skin-deep. Thankfully, this story like my own carries with it a lot of hope.
Dark fantasy like The Shadow Killer makes a difference in how life can be perceived. Hail to Mary C. Moore for writing fantasy in a manner that neither preaches nor gives easy solutions. Dark fantasy rules!
First of all I would like to compliment Jeff Gunzel on his choice of cover artist. The cover of Land of Shadows is amazingly beautiful. Love the work of Ronnell D. Porter.
I see that some of the earlier reviews have asked for editing of Lands of Shadow. I have an updated version from 2013 and have a feeling that there must have been quite a bit of editing done if the previous critique was true. I like that in an author – the ability to listen to what people have to say and then decide if what is said is worth listening to. So that is one plus in Jeff Gunzel’s favor.
I loved the opening scene. The warrior Morcel’s choice to leave off the life he had been leading lately brings him in a sense back to the land of the living. All because that one last drop had fallen. Life is like that (although maybe not quite as brutal as the village scenes). Sometimes that one drop extra falls and you cannot stand your own choices any longer. Change comes – sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Morcel’s having had his fill plays an important role in the plot of The Land of Shadows.
Right away I am going to warn you of a particularly gruesome scene – the one that changes Morcel’s life. This is NOT a book for Young Adults and there are definitely trigger factors for those who have been victims of sexual abuse. Consider yourselves warned.
In this scene we meet a girl who also plays an important role in the development of the plot. If you are awake you will spot her reappearance. She is quite a strong character.
There is action from the beginning of Land of Shadows. Talk about intense scenes that just grip me and will not let me go. Not until Chapter 3 do we get a description of beautiful Tarmerria. But that beauty does have a back side. There are plenty of unwanted elements, crime and scary outlanders.
What we get in the Land of Shadows is a bunch of people who have had to make terrible choices in order to stave off a potentially terrible future. But bearing the consequences of their choices takes a toll on them and the ones they have made those choices for. Life is all too often like that. A person can only do what they think is right and hope that they do not mess up too badly.
Land of Shadows is a dark novel, dark and beautiful. It is well worth the read and I would say that Jeff Gunzel has the potential of being an amazing writer. He already hits the flow over and over again and plays with my feelings like a virtuoso.
There is a timeline for Dalglish’ books. You can find it on his website. However, that does not mean you have to read the books in that order. I haven’t.
David Dalglish has created a world called Drezel. Once upon a time the brothers Ashhur and Karak came to Drezel and ended up representing dark/chaos/death and light/order/life. They are godlike-creatures who have been cast from the planet and acquired followers. Like many brothers out there Ashhur and Karak fight. Unfortunately that usually involves getting their followers to fight each other.
The Weight of Blood is a dark story, one of death and destruction. The Half-Orc brothers Harruq and Qurrah Tun are responsible for quite a bit of that destruction. These two brothers seem very different yet Harruq would do just about anything for Qurrah, even if it means killing children or friends. What Qurrah will discover in The Weight of Blood is just how far he can drive his brother. Because one thing is for sure, Qurrah manipulates his brother. In spite of this, the brothers have great love for each other.
Dalglish writes dark fantasy well. His characters are complex and loveable (in spite of their deeds). Life isn’t a matter of black and white in Dalglish’s litterary world. Instead we get shades of grey that mirror real life.
humanitysdarkerside 