Grimdark “The Undying Lands” by Michael R. Fletcher (reprint, not reviewed)
Reviewed by Tara Grímravn
In addition to some very interesting articles and reviews, January’s issue of Grimdark brings with it three fiction offerings. The first by Michael R. Fletcher is a reprint and thus not reviewed here, but as for the two originals, M.L. Spencer gives us a story about sacrifice and saving the world while Alex Marshall brings a new piece set in his Crimson Empire series.
“Guardian of the Grove” by M.L. Spencer
Aridashar and Castigere are the last of a sacred order, the Guardians of the Grove, who are sworn to protect the gods. A traitor, Vax, leads a group that has systematically carried out the order’s decimation, his intent to kill the gods and open the world to the ravening creatures of the Aether. Having followed Vax and his Arsonists to the abandoned Hauskrad Keep, the two remaining Guardians have to face off against Vax before he destroys the world.
Spencer doesn’t waste any time getting into the action with an opening scene that drops us right into the middle of a knife fight. While it’s considered a best practice to open with conflict to help draw the reader in, one has to be careful in the approach. Starting with a knife fight, like the one Spencer has chosen, already well underway bogs the reader down in too much detail too soon. In this story, it has the effect of disorienting the reader rather than creating interest and tension.
Once past this initial opening, the story does get interesting but falls apart at the end. It’s simply not at all clear what happened. The resolution of the conflict with Vax is obvious but the few sentences which follow are not. They’re vague and seem to contradict one another, yet the reader is expected to draw a satisfactory conclusion from them. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work and the story just feels incomplete and unfinished. After all, we’ve been introduced to this world-ending event—aether is now leaking in thanks to Vax—but this isn’t ever satisfactorily addressed.
I also have to question the story’s internal logic when it comes to the gods and the aether. Can a being that requires mortals to protect it and can be destroyed so easily be called a god? What reason would mortals have to worship them as gods if they can’t even care for themselves or are so weak they can only do one task? While they do not take an active role in the story, the explanation we’re given of the gods’ nature and their role in the world is relatively flimsy. The part we’re told they do play isn’t very impressive—it takes all of the gods (who are trees) to do nothing more than hold the world together and keep it from slipping into the aether. That’s it. And, for being divine beings, they present no challenge whatsoever to the Arsonists bent on destroying them. Once the group lured Aridashar and Castigere away, killing the god was apparently easy. Based on the narrative, they don’t even fight back.
Sadly, the story has a lot of potential but is only mediocre at best.
“Bloody Roots” by Alex Marshall
Professional thief Khang-Ho has gotten himself into a bit of a pickle. At the suggestion of his partner-in-crime, Eldamar, he’s taken a job escorting a bunch of pirates to the cursed castle Myo’tab on the shores of Ito Cay. But once they make landfall, Khang-Ho soon realizes that he’s fallen in with a bunch of crazy cultists instead—cultists intent on destroying the world.
For the most part, Marshall’s story was merely okay. The opening paragraphs were on point, drawing me in and setting a nice, eerie tone. The twist on mandrake lore was quite interesting and I liked the idea of a giant mandrake root being used as a weapon. The island of Ito Cay was also a very intriguing setting, as was its history. Unfortunately, the story has a few problems.
To start, the main issue is that it needs editing, both proofreading and developmental. In terms of proofreading, there are both incorrect and missing words littered here and there. For example, in the sentence “…The whole point of the story was that this place had started out happy and as close to humble as you could get in the ostentations Isles before mortal hubris poisoned that peace…”, it seems a fair assumption that “ostentations” should instead be “ostentatious.”
As far as developmental editing goes, the writing needs to be tightened up overall and some pieces either omitted or clarified. Frankly, it was a frustrating read. There are quite a few paragraphs here and there that required re-reading a few times before I could make sense of what was happening. For example, there are two major problems with the scene where the group stops to eat at the entrance to the bone labyrinth. The first is that the way it’s written doesn’t describe a group of people taking a snack break, which is obviously the intent. Instead, it reads as Khang-Ho being forced into eating a very strange last meal as the unwitting sacrifice, parts of which were supplied by different members of the crew. It’s not until after they start moving again that we learn that everyone was eating. Second, this particular action is also not introduced very well. The paragraph above this picnic ends with the captain, having sensed Khang-ho’s desire to know more about why they’d come here, saying to the bosun, “Let’s shine some light on the situation, shall we Missus Sweetbreads?” Then they pull out drink and hardtack and, without speaking a word to one another, Khang-Ho and presumably the others, partake. Based on the captain’s words to the bosun, you’d expect some sort of discussion during this meal, even if they don’t reveal their purpose for being on Ito Cay. But that didn’t happen. They just eat in silence and the captain’s statement about “shining light on the situation” is never addressed again.
Now, I realize that, after re-reading it multiple times, this passage could be interpreted as the captain simply asking the bosun to light a lantern but, even so, that doesn’t fix things. The contextual cues available around it point to a forthcoming clarification to assuage Khang-Ho’s annoyance at the captain’s cryptic answers. There’s also no indication that he intended for them to stop and eat. It just happens rather awkwardly.
Finally, there are issues in the story’s internal logic. The cultists plan to kill the gods and their planet with the scream of one giant mandrake. I really just don’t see how this would work. The example given of the damage done by an infant-sized mandrake root wiping out all life on the island makes sense itself but, if you were to multiply that effect according to the size of the adult mandrake tree as described, it still wouldn’t be enough to kill everything on the planet or the planet itself as planned, let alone touch the gods, who one would assume don’t live in the physical realm. It’s also made very clear (both in the story and in folklore) that it’s hearing the sound that does the damage, not the vibration it causes, since deaf individuals and vegetation are unaffected by it; this is, after all, the reason Khang-Ho tries to stop his ears with mud but worries it won’t be enough to stop him from hearing it. So I have to question how this would possibly kill the planet, which seems to be the intent considering the captain says they intend to “kill the star.” I suppose “star” could mean sun instead of planet but the premise still wouldn’t work for three reasons: 1) sound can’t travel through the empty space (a vacuum) that lies between stars and planets unless that space is filled with interstellar gas and dust to give the soundwaves something to vibrate and even then only if the molecules of that gas aren’t too far from each other; 2) sound loses strength the farther it travels until it finally runs out altogether and likely wouldn’t reach the sun (nor would it reach the ears of every living thing on the planet, for that matter); and 3) like the planet, the sun doesn’t have ears to hear the scream anyway.
As for killing the gods, I’ve not read anything else by Marshall so perhaps this is addressed in other works but, in this particular tale (nor in any actual herbal folklore I’ve read), there is no mention of the mandrake’s scream affecting spirits. This makes sense because spirits don’t hear with physical ears and have no physical form to harm. Since a god is, in all technicality, a spirit and usually dwells on another plane, realm, or dimension (unless the narrative states otherwise which this one doesn’t), it doesn’t make sense that the gods could possibly be affected, unless the story stipulates this is possible and gives a reason. Since the story does not give such a reason, unfortunately, it renders the danger to the star/planet, which all the characters believe to be a genuine threat and our anti-heroes try to prevent, rather invalid.
In the end, like the previous story, Marshall’s tale has a lot of potential but once again misses the mark.