Author Scott Oden has a new blog that might be of interest to readers of this one. It’s called The Wine-Dark Seas, and Scott has several posts up already. Check it out.
Scott Oden Sails the Wine-Dark Seas
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Author Archives: Keith West
A Review of the Warrior Women in Black Gate
New Epoch Press, $18.95
I wrote a post about Bud Webster’s column on Tom Reamy a couple of days after receiving the magazine in the mail, but since then I’ve been busy with other projects to read much of the fiction in the current issue of Black Gate. On the flights home from my meeting last week, I made sure to rectify that omission. Since it looks as though Black Gate will be an annual publication now, I’ve decided rather than read it all at once, I’m going to ration it. That way the wait for the next issue won’t be so interminable.
This issue has as its theme Warrior Women. The stunning cover by Donato Giancola kinda makes the point. Eight of the twenty-one stories (not counting the excerpt from The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones) are part of this theme and have their own separate table of contents. They’re scattered throughout the volume rather than having their own section. I’m not sure what I make of that editorial decision, considering most issues with special themes I’ve seen tend to group the themed stories together, although I have no problem with Mr. O’Neill arranging them this way. He’s also taken a pretty broad definition of warrior woman, including stories with characters that don’t fit the image of the woman on the cover. Let’s take a quick look at them, shall we?
First up is “The Shuttered Temple” by Jonathan L. Howard, featuring the return of his thief for hire, Kyth, who made her first appearance in “The Beautiful Corridor” in BG 13. Of the two, I think I preferred the first story because it had more humor, but this is still a clever tale well worth your time, even if it is somewhat darker in tone. In both stories Kyth is required to survive by her wits, rather than her brawn or skill with a sword. I’m not sure I would consider her a warrior based on what I’ve seen of her so far, but I’m certainly open to having my mind changed by further adventures (that’s a hint Jonathan and John). Mr. Howard has an inventive imagination, and I enjoyed trying to figure out the puzzle of the temple in this one.
Next is “The War of the Wheat Berry Year” by Sarah Avery. This has a traditional warrior woman, who is leading an army in revolt against her former kingdom. It’s part of a larger story arc, with a novel being shopped to publishers and a novella scheduled to appear in a future issue of Black Gate. That may have been why I felt like I was missing something a few times. Still Ms. Avery did a much better job than many writers would have done with this subject. The heroine, Stisele, has to face her old mentor on the battlefield, making this a story of greater than expected emotional depth. I look forward to Stisele’s further adventures.
Paula R. Stiles tells the tale of a sorceress who challenges the Queen of Hell for the soul of her husband in “Roundelay”. It seems the woman’s son died of fever and her husband went in pursuit of the boy’s soul only to end up trapped himself. The story takes place on a flying ship over an ocean. There are a couple of supporting characters, and Ms. Stiles does a great job of fleshing them out so that they are more than just stock characters from central casting.
“The River People” by Emily Mah is the story of a young woman, Sora, and her blind mother who have fled their homeland and have been taken in by a tribe of the River People. Of course they’re more tolerated than accepted (I had to wonder if Ms. Mah had ever moved to a small town, she captured the feeling of being an outsider in a closed community so well). In order to survive, Sora attempts to enter the warrrior’s trial and become a warrior for the tribe.
Maria V. Snyder’s heroine, Nysa, in “Cursing the Weather” is probably as far from the sterotypical warrior woman as you can get. She’s a young girl working in a tavern, trying to earn enough money to buy the medicine needed to keep her dying mother alive. Then a weather wizard moves in across the street, and things begin to change. Ms. Snyder has training in meteorology, and she puts it to good use here. The fantastic is pretty minimal in this story, and the conflict, while deadly, in primarily nonviolent. I wouldn’t have considered this one to really fit the theme of warrior woman. In spite of that, I think I enjoyed it the most. I’m going to be checking out more of Ms. Snyder’s work.
“The Laws of Chaos Left Us All in Disarray” by K. Hutson Blount is one of the darker, if not the darkest, of the warrior woman stories. This one concerns a woman acting as a guide to some pilgrims on their way to a shrine. Only for some reason they keep getting attacked by various unpleasant creatures. Perhaps one (or more) of the group is hiding something? The impact of this story comes in its final paragraph.
“World’s End” by Frederic S. Durbin pits two women, one a fighter and a killer, the other a princess on a quest, against each other in a confrontation that can only end with one of them dead. While I was initially a little dissatisfied with the ending, upon further reflection I found the story to be a meditation on the conflicts each woman has to deal with in the different roles she plays in life.
The final story of the theme is “What Chains Bind Us” by Brian Dolton. In this one a young conjuror fights a supernatural battle against a ghost and the conjuror who sumoned him. This one reads like its part of a series. If so, I would like to read some of the other entries. The author keeps raising the stakes with each encounter with the ghost. The character, Liang Zao, is different from your typical fantasy heroine. I won’t say how because it will give away too much.
So, to recap. Some of the stories relating to the issue’s theme stretch the definition of warrior woman pretty far. Still, it’s not often that I can find eight stories by eight different authors (four men and four women if anyone’s counting) in a single venue that I enjoyed this much. Usually there’s at least one or two that don’t click with me. Not here. Every selection was a winner. (So were the two stories I read that weren’t part of the theme.) There are no chain mail bikinis or comic book bodies among these women. Instead, they have brains, wit, courage, faith, and love. If I had to choose, I’ll take those qualities over bouncing bosoms and ridiculous underwear any day.
If you haven’t picked up a copy of Black Gate, this issue is a good place to start. I’ll have more to say in a future post about the rest of the stories. The previous issue had three novellas, a length I greatly enjoy. All the fiction seems to be short stories with one or two novellettes. While I miss the novellas, if the rest of the fiction is as good as what I’ve read so far, I won’t make a fuss about it.
Blogging Conan: A Witch Shall be Born
It’s been hectic the last few weeks. I just finished two back to back conferences at which I made presentations and will fly home tomorrow. As a result, I’ve not posted much other than a review at Futures Past and Present of a Jack Vance novel I read on the plane. Things should start to pick back up.
“A Witch Shall be Born”, although not without flaws, inspired the Margaret Brundage cover seen on the left. This is one of my favorite Conan stories, even with the flaws. Some of the strongest imagery in the whole series can be found in this story. Also some of the most unbelievable protrayals of women.
The story opens as Taramis, the queen of the small city state Khauran, is awakened during the night. She had a twin sister at birth, Salome, who was left to die in the desert. A curse lies on the royal family of Khauran, so that every century a child is born with a cresecent shaped birthmark on her chest. The child will become a witch and do much damage to the kingdom. When Taramis and Salome were born, Salome had the mirthmark and was left in the desert to die. Found by an eastern sorcerer returning home from a visit to Stygia, she was raised to become a powerful sorceress. Now she’s come back to take what she claims is her birthright.
How she can speak the language without any accent is never addressed, which was something of a stumbling block for me.
With Salome is a mercenary captain named Constantius. He had entered the city a few days ahead of Salome and had publicly proposed marriage to Taramis. She of course rejected his proposal. Constantius joins Salome. After a brief discussion, in which Salome reveals that she intends to take Taramis’ place, she goes to declare herself queen, leaving Taramis to be raped by Constantius.
She orders all the soldiers to assemble in the city’s central square unarmed. They all do, except for the Queen’s guard, who are led by a certain Cimmerian. They show up armed. Conan doesn’t fall for the trap. Instead he declares Salome an imposter. The Queen’s guard are butchered, and Conan is crucified by Constantius outside the city gates.
One of the guard escapes, a young man named Valerius, whose devotion to the queen comes across as though he’s in love with her. His lover Ivga tolerates this. Why, I don’t know. He clearly cares more for the queen than he does for her. Ivga comes across as child-like, the way Muriela did in “The Servants of Bit-Yakin”. This was the other portrayal I thought was unrealistic.
Still, this is a better than average story. One of the things that Howard does is to tell the story from the viewpoints of Taramis, Salome, and Valerius as much as from Conan’s viewpoint, if not more. In fact, we don’t actually get a passage from Conan’s viewpoint until the crucifixion scene. A variation of this scene, by the way, was in Conan the Barbarian, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. While this approach does lend itself to some infodumps, it has the advantage of defining Conan’s character through the eyes of others. One thing I thought interesting was how Conan treated Taramis. I’ll not elaborate on that, at least not in this post, since I’m trying not to give too many spoilers away.
There’s plenty of action and intrigue, with touches of the civilization vs. barbarism theme Howard included in many of the Conan works. The crucifixions are especially well done, and the images I Howard’s words formed in my mind the first time I read this story are still with me, a quarter of a century later. This one is worth checking out.
Blogging Conan: Jewels of Gwahlur/The Servants of Bit-Yakin
This was one of the last Conan stories Howard wrote. Only four more would follow, but those four contain two of his greatest masterpieces, “Beyond the Black River” and “Red Nails.” Howard’s title was “The Servants of Bit-Yakin”, but Farnsworth Wright changed the title to “Jewels of Gwahlur” when he published it in Weird Tales. That’s the title it was known by until the Wndering Star/Del Rey editions, which restored the original title. However, there are some collections in print which are using the Weird Tales versions of Howard’s stories, so you might find it under either title. Unlike some of Howard’s work, there’s no difference between his preferred version and the version that appeared in Weird Tales.
This isn’t one of the better Conan stories. The plot requires swallowing a pretty large pill, namely that a treasure as valuable as the Teeth of Gwahlur (as they’re called in the story) could remain unmolested in a lost jungle city for so long. Also, the heroine is way too hysterical. She’s certainly no Belit.
The basic setup involves Conan working as a mercenary in the Black Kingdoms. He’s there because he’s heard rumors of a great treasure in a lost city, Alkmeenon, and is waiting around to find out the details. When an old enemy, the STygian Thutmekri, shows up and bribes some of the priests to take him to Alkmeenon, Conan is able to find out where it is. Knowing Thutmekri is working for the kingdom of Zembabwei and the whole thing is a set-up for an invasion, Conan leaves ahead of them.
Alkmeenon is hidden in a natural amphitheater surrounded by sheer cliffs. Not knowing the location of the secret entrance to the valley, Conan climbs the cliffs. Near the top he encoutners a small cave in which he finds a mummy holding a tube containing a parchment. Of course he takes it. This was one of the more powerful images in the story for me. Conan is hundreds of feet above the ground and comes face to face with a corpse.
I’m a sucker for lost city stories, particularly those that take place in jungles. The thing that makes this one unique is that so much of it is set in a series of caves and underground passages beneath the city. We know that Howard was inspired by a visit to Carlsbad Caverns when he wrote this one.
Another powerful scene, occurring about halfway through the story, is when Conan is attempting to sneak up on one of the people who have not followed but preceded him to the valley. Knowing the location of the secret entrance has its advantages. It’s dusk, and Conan sees the white of his face contrasted against the darkness of the forest. When he approaches the man, Conan discovers its only the man’s head he sees, tied to a branch by the hair. The valley is supposed to be deserted…
“TheServants of Bit-Yakin” (or “Jewels of Gwahlur” if you prefer) isn’t the best Conan story, but it isn’t the worst either. It’s simply an adventure story, and a better than average one at that. While there are some problems with the characterization and some of the plot details, it still has its moments. In my opinion, it’s worth reading.
Blogging Kull and Conan: Of Axes and Swords
And so we reach the end of our look at the Kull stories (almost; I’ll have some general comments in a separate post) and the first of the Conan posts. I’m looking at both of these because the first Conan story, “The Phoenix on the Sword”, is a rewrite of an unsold Kull story, “By This Axe I Rule!”.
The rest of the story concerns the conspiracy attempting to assassinate Kull and failing. In the end, he uses his axe to smash the stone tablet on which is written the law forbidding slaves and nobility to marry. He declares that he is the law.
It’s easy to see why Farnsworth Wright rejected this story when Howard submitted it to Weird Tales. The whole romance subplot basically ruins the story. The slave girl comes across as both childish and childlike. She speaks of being spanked as punishment by her master at one point. She’s weepy and clingy. And her dialogue reminds me of early Shirley Temple movies or child characters in Victorian novels, all sweetness and earnestness. There’s was no way I was buying that this girl and the nobleman were madly in love. That whole aspect of the story had an almost pedaeophilic tone to it. I’m sure Howard didn’t intend anything of the sort. It’s just a combination of his still developing skill as a writer and my twenty-first century cultural concerns coming together. Still, the whole thing gave me the creeps.
“The Phoenix on the Sword”, while not one of Howard’s best stories, and certainly not the best of the Conan tales, is clearly the work of a more mature writer. Howard drops the whole romance subplot, and instead introduces a villain whose hand would be felt in a couple of other stories, the Stygian sorceror Thoth-amon. He’s a slave to the bandit as the tale opens, having lost a ring by which he maintains his power. Of course he finds it, and uses it to wreack his revenge by sending a creature from the Outer Darkness against the bandit. This is the only thing that saves Conan. The creature attacks during the assassination attempt. In the Kull story, it’s the nobleman who saves the day.
“By This Axe” isn’t a bad story, but it isn’t a particularly good one, certainly not be the standards Howard had set in some of the other Kull installments. There are two main aspects to the plot. First, a group of dissatisfied men, two noblemen, a guard captain, and a poet, have recruited a former diplomat turned bandit, Ascalante, to help them overthrow Kull. This portion of the story is the better half.
The second portion of the plot concerns a young nobleman who wishes to marry a young slave girl who happens to be owned by one of the conspirators. This type of situation seems to be a recurrent theme in the Kull series, mostly in stories not published in Howard’s lifetime. Kull’s Councilor Tu insists that for a nobleman to marry a slave is simply not done; it would violate a centuries old law.
Kull sneaks out of the palace to wander the woods for a few hours. He feels like a slave himself. There’s a great deal of discussion on Kull’s part at various places in the story about how holding a throne is much more difficult than taking it. During his walk in the woods, he encounters a young girl weeping. Not recognizing him, she tells him that she’s a slave in love with a nobleman, who went to the king to request permission to marry. Kull is sympathetic, but argues the king has to abide by the laws himself.
The rest of the story concerns the conspiracy attempting to assassinate Kull and failing. In the end, he uses his axe to smash the stone tablet on which is written the law forbidding slaves and nobility to marry. He declares that he is the law.
It’s easy to see why Farnsworth Wright rejected this story when Howard submitted it to Weird Tales. The whole romance subplot basically ruins the story. The slave girl comes across as both childish and childlike. She speaks of being spanked as punishment by her master at one point. She’s weepy and clingy. And her dialogue reminds me of early Shirley Temple movies or child characters in Victorian novels, all sweetness and earnestness. There’s was no way I was buying that this girl and the nobleman were madly in love. That whole aspect of the story had an almost pedaeophilic tone to it. I’m sure Howard didn’t intend anything of the sort. It’s just a combination of his still developing skill as a writer and my twenty-first century cultural concerns coming together. Still, the whole thing gave me the creeps.
One thing did make me wonder just what Howard was dealing with in his own life when he wrote this story. At one point the girl deeclares: “Why should laws not change? Time never stands still! Why should people today be shackled by laws which were made for our barbarian ancestors thousands of years ago-” It sounds like Howard may have been feeling a little bit shackled and enslaved by the culture he was living in. I know from first-hand experience that small towns in that part of Texas can be extremely conformist in their outlook, and in the 1920s I’m sure it was much worse. Howard was in his early 20s when he wrote this, and I suspect was still feeling some of the natural rebellion of youth that questions why things have to be the same as they were. This is entirely speculation on my part, but it fits with what I know about Howard and my experiences in similar environments.
“The Phoenix on the Sword”, while not one of Howard’s best stories, and certainly not the best of the Conan tales, is clearly the work of a more mature writer. Howard drops the whole romance subplot, and instead introduces a villain whose hand would be felt in a couple of other stories, the Stygian sorceror Thoth-amon. He’s a slave to the bandit as the tale opens, having lost a ring by which he maintains his power. Of course he finds it, and uses it to wreack his revenge by sending a creature from the Outer Darkness against the bandit. This is the only thing that saves Conan. The creature attacks during the assassination attempt. In the Kull story, it’s the nobleman who saves the day.
There’s also a new scene in which Conan in a cream meets a wise man who died fifteen hundred years earlier. This man tells Conan that his fate and that of Aquilonia, the kingdom Conan rules, are entertwined. He places a phoenix emblem on Conan’s sword, which is what allows Conan to kill the supernatural creature.
The scenes retained from “By This Axe”, portions of the conspiracy, Conan complaining about the duties of ruling, and the assassination scence are to a large extent unchanged except for some of the names. Only when Howard made significant changes to the plot, such as the addition of the creature in the fianl fight, does he engage in any extensive rewriting. Since the parts he retained were by far the better passages, this doesn’t hurt the story any.
Unlike the Kull series, the Conan stories weren’t written in any kind of chronological order, but jumpmed about throughout the character’s life. Also, Kull has no interest in women. Conan has plenty. Even a casual reading of the two series will reveal that, while there are similarities, Kull isn’t simply Conan-lite.
So, we’ve looked at all the Kull stories mostly in the order they appear in the current edition from Del Rey. I’ll be jumping around more with the Conan stories, looking at whichever one I’m in the mood to read at a given time. I’ll also be giving fewer spoilers in the Conan posts. With the movie less than a month away, I suspect I’ll pick up one or two new readers. I don’t want to spoil any of the fun for those who haven’t read the originals.
The American Invasion of Russia
Paul McNamee is the guest blogger today over at Home of Heroics. His post is about the American invasion of Russia at the end of World War I. I suspect many of you are asking, “What invasion? I didn’t know America invaded Russia. When and how did this happen?” Read Paul’s post and find out.
And don’t forget to comment. Everyone who comments on one of this week’s posts (posted Monday, Wednesday, or Friday) will be entered in a drawing to win a limited edition copy of Rage of the Behemoth. It’s a fantastic anthology, so comment early and comment often.
New Post at Home of Heroics
I’m in the middle of trying to put together presentations for back-to-back conferences next week, so I’m a little late in mentioning this. (Plus Blogger and Firefox don’t seem to be on good terms lately, forcing me to use a idfferent browser; what’s up with that?) The latest installment of my column Dispatches From the Lone Star Front is up at Home of Heroics. It deals with Robert E. Howard’s legacy, so if you’re a Howard fan (if not, why not?), check it out.
Contest at Home of Heroics
I got an email over lunch from Jason M. Waltz, the publisher of Rogue Blade Entertainment. He’s running a contest next week for a chance to win a limited edition copy of Rage of the Behemoth. I reviewed the book here, if you’re wondering what it’s about. All you have to do is comment on one of the posts at Home of Heroics next week. There will be one Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I’ve written the one for Monday, so I obviously can’t reply to that one, but you can. Details of the contest are here.
The Death of a Dream and the Need for Manifest Destiny
I always knew I would see the first man on the moon. I never dreamed I would see the last.
Dr. Jerry Pournelle
Tomorrow, as I write these words, and earlier today, as I post them (thank you software glitches for the delay), the last Space Shuttle, Atlantis, will land for the final time. And then, for all practical purposes, it will be over.
Yes, I know we’ll still have an astronaut corps. They will still fly, on other nation’s launch systems, to the International Space Station. At least until it’s deorbited in a few years. But we won’t have the capability to send our people into space. We’ll simply be hitching rides on some else’s rockets. Like other countries used to do on ours. We will no longer be the wold’s leader in manned space exploration.
The government, through NASA, originally said that a replacement launch vehicle will be built and are continuing to say that. Let’s ignore for a moment that retiring your launch vehicles without having a replacement is akin to quitting your job without finding a new one or selling your car when you haven’t bought a replacement and are a few hundred miles from home, shall we? These are the same people who have been promising for decades to balance the federal budget and reduce the national debt. Given the negative progress they’ve made, I’m not holding out hope for a replacement vehicle from the government. Especially since our leerless feeder fearless leader last week said that it was time for private industry “to capture the flag.”
That’s almost certainly the only way we’ll ever get back into space. Through private industry. Our government won’t do it. The Chinese might. The Russians will probably keep something going not only to service the Station, but as a matter of pride. “The Americans beat us to the Moon, but we’re still in space while they’ve quit and gone home.”
If our government wants to implement a real stimulus package, perhaps our elected officials might like to consider this little fact: For every dollar spent on the space program, the government has received approximately $7 back in corporate and personal income tax due to the development of spinoff technology. For that type of increase in taxes, there would have to be more money circulating in the economy. There are several websites that list some of the things we enjoy today that came out of research and development in our space program. For starters try this one, and this one, and this one.
I know that we’ll send probes on various missions. At least for a while. And I know all the arguments for using robots and unmanned probes rather than people. And to a point, they’re valid. But there are some things robots can’t do. Do we quit when we get to the point that we’ve done all we can with robots? Or do we keep going?
There’s something in the human spirit that needs frontiers. Well, the healthy human spirit anyway. That’s why as a species, we’ve always been explorers.
Just the opposite in fact. We have only a limited amount of resources here. There are plenty of resources out in the inner solar system, in the asteroids and comets. If we are going to be good stewards of what we have, part of that stewardship could, and should, involve using the resources available off-planet.
We need to recapture that sense of Manifest Destiny. Only instead of taming the wilderness, we need to see space as the focus of that Manifest Destiny. Our future lies not only on Earth but in this solar system, and hopefully others one day. Cheesy Hollywood movies are probably not the way to instill that dream. It’s become pretty clear that in the area of space exploration, as in most areas, government isn’t the best choice either.
Private industry on the other hand…private industry can provide the motivation. I pray that it happens. There’s money to be made in space, just like in the 1500s and 1600s there was money to be made in the
I grew up dreaming of one day living in a spacefaring society. I’m afraid I’ll die doing the same.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse, Viking Style
Viking Dead
Toby Venables
Abaddon Books, 351 p. $9.99
We’re rather fond of vikings here at Adventures Fantastic, so when I saw this in the store, I knew I had to at least consider giving it a try. After reading a sample in the middle, I took it home (after paying for it, of course) and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
While I’ve not gone in much for the current zombie craze, that might start changing, especially if I can find more stuff that’s this well written. For a first novel, Toby Venables sets himself a hard act to follow.
The story concerns a grew of down on their luck vikings, led by a man named Bjolf. The book opens with a raid on a small village. The only problem is a rival crew of vikings got there first. Bjolf and his crew end up fleeing for their lives, but not before acquiring a stowaway, a thirteen year old boy from the village named Atli, who just wants to escape his overbearing father.
Pursued into a fog, Bjolf and and his men lose their bearings and are only able to find land after a raven lands on their ship and they follow it to shore and into a fjord. They’re not sure where they are, but it’s no place they want to be. This is something they quickly discover when one of the crew is attacked by a draugr, an animated dead body. Seems the woods are crawling with them.
Still pursued by their rivals, they managed to escape both the draugr and the other vikings. Fleeing into a tributary of the fjord, they end up at a stockaded settlement, where they are welcomed as heroes come to rescue the people. That’s not quite what they had planned to do.
Bjolf and his first mate, Gunnar, have two continuing conversations throughout the book. The first is what would be the best country (i.e., one without a price on their heads) in which to settle down on a farm with a large farmhouse and a large woman in the door. (I’m not being sexist; Gunnar, a large man, actually says that at one point.) The other conversation concerns whether a man controls his own destiny or is at the mercy of fate.
The people are led by Halldis, daughter of the former chieftain, who was killed by his slave Skalla shortly after the draugr began to plague the people. Skalla now demands tribute each month from the remaining villagers. He’s working for some masters on an island further up the fjord. These masters are viewed as sorcerers and as the source of the draugr infestation. Of course, Bjolf and his men eventually do stay to help.
This is a book with many stories contained within the larger story arc. For Atli, it’s a coming of age story. For Bjolf and Halldis, it’s something of a love story, although given the situation, that never develops into a major plotline. But mostly it’s a story about friendship, loyalty, and sacrifice. And fate. And heroism. Oh, and did I mention sacrifice?
Venables does an outstanding job of balancing a large cast of characters. The crew is more than just window dressing and red shirts, to be killed off when convenient to the plot. About a dozen of the crew are given personalities and histories. And while many of the ones we get to know don’t make it to the end, at least not alive, their deaths aren’t just for cheap shock. The men feel each loss, and the reader does too.
On the other hand, juggling so many characters is a difficult trick. Venables doesn’t always pull it off. His viewpoint character shifts not only from chapter to chapter, but often several times within a chapter. The chapters are short, and this can be a little disorienting at times.
This being a zombie novel, and a viking one to boot, there’s a pretty high gore factor. If you’re squeamish you’ll want to keep some Pepto handy, because this book is worth reading. It’s not one long zombie fight, although there should be enough to keep most zombie fans happy. Instead the focus is on the characters and how they change throughout the course of the novel. Venables keeps things from sliding into silly most of the time, although I did find the flesh-eating ants to be a bit over the top.
One thing you should be aware of, though. Your understanding of the situation will change completely within the last fifteen pages. Some readers might feel cheated a little by the twist at the end, when the identity of the masters is revealed. Be prepared to have your chain yanked. I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone, so that’s all I’m going to say.
Viking Dead was a fun read. Toby Venables will have a bright future ahead of him if he continues to write like this, especially if he improves throughout the course of his career. If you like a bit of zombie mayhem with some depth; if you like vikings; or if you like both, then you’ll definitely want to give this one a try. It’s part of a series called Tomes of the Dead. They’ve got a novel by Paul Finch in the lineup, so I’m going to at least have to try that one. I have yet to read anything bad by him. There are several others in the lineup that should appeal to fans of heroic fantasy. Abaddon Books is a British publisher, and from what I can tell a subsidiary of Solaris Books. Seems like our friends on the other side of the pond are publishing some good stuff.