I have an exciting announcement. I have a new book coming out! And this one is a little bit different to usual…

The Sublime is a non-fiction book, inspired by the incredible creativity I see all around me. It’s an exploration of art, myth, horror, and fantasy, composed of 28 essays, taken from my Substack, my blog, and articles published in online magazines, all re-worked and woven together to form a new whole.

The wonderful cover art was done by my mother. Her piece, “Penny Crow”, to me is the epitome of the sublime: beautiful yet also slightly uncanny, with the hint of a transformation—from woman into crow. I’ve always had a special love of crows. They are, after all, divine messengers.

My father has also made prodigious efforts to help with this book, including proofreading and creating an index. I’m indebted to him for his help.

Here’s a bit more information about the book:

What is the sublime? Where do we find it? How do we create it?

This book explores these fundamental questions by delving into a rich cornucopia of art, literature, games, and film. Through twenty-eight essays, the author examines the many facets of sublimity: how it makes us feel; how it relates to mythology; how it can transport us to other worlds; how it can transgress conventions and boundaries; and how it can reach us in disguised form.

As the author of more than thirty-five books, along with several screenplays, and as a professional editor for eleven years working with some of the best new voices in horror and fantasy, there is no one better to guide you through the mythological labyrinth to the heart of the sublime.

The Sublime is a must-have for anyone looking to learn more about art, beauty, myth, horror, and fantasy, or who is looking to expand their to-be-read list with a plethora of little known, yet wondrous, gems.

Pre-Order Now

I was drawn to this series because in some ways Aria Ligi’s approach to writing poetry mirrors my own. I have always been drawn to the voices of the dead, and believed they have much to tell the living, and so when I came to write my epic poem, Virtue’s End, the hero Horus meets six voices from the past, each one embodying an Aristotelean virtue: in Volume 1, Edmund Spenser embodies Truth; in Volume 2, Hope Mirrlees takes up the mantle of Magnificence; in Volume 3, Charles Maturin represents Liberality; in Volume 4, Mary Shelley teaches Pride1 ; in Volume 5, we learn of Courage from J. R. R. Tolkien; and in the final Volume, Chin Ning Chu embodies Magnanimity. Thus, Aria Ligi’s own “necromancy” appealed to me.

But while my own epic imagines these voices reincarnated in a fantastical realm, thus providing an opportunity for action and adventure, Aria Ligi’s approach is more historical, giving voices to the poets that seem to echo out of their time but also in ours.

There isn’t space for me to review the entire fourteen-volume series here—if you are interested in such a comprehensive review, you should check out ’s Substack for incredibly thorough and detailed analyses of the whole collection. Instead, I wanted to focus on the volume and poet I was most drawn to: Mary Shelley.

Escape From The Nether Pit is a deeply reflective examination of Mary Shelley’s complex, even contradictory life. The biographical introduction at the start of the collection is well worth a read, for it provides an extraordinarily succinct yet comprehensive overview of her life that provides a necessary context for the poems. Aria Ligi is at pains throughout this introduction to emphasise Mary Shelley’s formidable independence despite her hero-worship of her father and subsequent transference of that worship to the charismatic Percy Shelley, and I think this emphasis is justified, for it is clear that Mary Shelley was in no way a typical woman of her time or indeed of any time.

This is also revealed in the poems Aria Ligi has written from Mary Shelley’s perspective. The poems often combine classic Romantic imagery with psychological reality. This feels apposite, as Mary Shelley’s work was so rich with psychological insight. Take the poem, “Faerie Walking”, as an example:

Faerie Walking

I walked with faeries.
Translucent wings pluming from abdomens.
Their fury faces, azure, gilded gold-
Pledging HER return.

I slept, sidled ‘gainst the urn silver, reflective and clear
whispering her name; an act of contrition.
Awaiting mercy; the words, honey-brewed.
Rising, vanilla diffused nesting within my being.
The promise, sacred, their wings antennae
quavering; twirl a tight sibilant dance
beating, midst my breast eternal, fervent.

The “HER” here refers to Mary Shelley’s mother, who passed away when she was a child. The image of the fantastical “faerie”, described so beauteously with their “fury faces, azure, gilded gold”, mirrors the fantastical nature of Mary’s desire—to see her mother again. Faeries are notoriously capricious and tricksy, flitting in and out of awareness, deceiving mortals with illusions. In this poem, Aria Ligi cunningly imagines Mary Shelley allowing herself, almost, to be inveigled and deceived, just for the momentary sweetness “vanilla diffused nesting within my being” of dreaming her mother is still alive. This juxtaposition renders the poem poignant. Boldly, she chooses to end it on a note of quixotic uplift, as though Mary Shelley never truly lost the hope that her mother would return, and that perhaps this was the source of her creative power.

In the titular poem, “Escape From The Nether Pit”, we see a different side of Mary Shelley. The title alone has many readings. The “Nether Pit” could well be the home that her stepmother destroyed, and that Mary escaped by virtue of travelling with Percy Shelley. It could also be allegorical of her emotional state of depression and disappointment with her father—whom she idolised—for taking her stepmother’s side.

Escape from the Nether Pit

Our parting left me fighting, not for tears,
but joyful, hips and shift gathered.
Silken nest, encircling belly and breast.
Upon the rocks, it does not leave me cold
or wanting but ravenous; hope pulling
under; pinioned in my girth, hope for more!
(No more the wretched wreathed cacophony!
No more; only the issuance of life!).

It seems to me that Aria Ligi chooses her words very carefully even though they convey an impression of “stream of consciousness” or sudden outpouring. There are several details and choices in this, therefore, that bring to my mind the famous apocryphal story that Mary Shelley lost her virginity on a gravestone. Perhaps that is my mis-reading, but it seems to me that lines such as “Upon the rocks, it does not leave me cold” allude directly to this tale, while sexual words such as “pinioned”, “ravenous” and the final phrase “issuance of life” overtly inspire a sense of release. Perhaps sex is a metaphor for freedom, here. That, with the loss of virginity, Mary Shelley conquered both the literal death of the grave and also the spiritual death of existing under the “cacophony” of her stepmother’s evil.

The final poem of the collection is in some ways the most straightforward, but no less powerful for that. It is the culmination of the work and, I feel, a true tribute to Mary Shelley, even a true channeling of her inner being.

“Bygone Days” describes Mary Shelley mourning the loss of Percy Shelley at sea.

Bygone Days

Glorious roads I have tread.
Beset over syllables
and the breadth of your being.
Oh, Shelley among the sea!
Cast as you are far from me.
My feet which softly went to
our Genoa; now no more
to know the dulcet timber
of the play, nor your sweet voice
drifting darkly off the page.

Aria Ligi uses a clever technique here to emphasise the loss and make the final line hit with tremendous power. Throughout, the poem deploys simple rhymes: “sea / me”, “more / timber”, only, in the last couplet, to give us an unrhymed pair: “voice / page”. The sudden loss of harmony jars us, making us realise the sense of loss Shelley is herself experiencing.

For fans of Mary Shelley, Escape From The Nether Pit is a worthy tribute. But it is also a fine collection of poems on its own merit. While some of the phraseology is a little too historically archaic for my personal poetic taste, those who love historical accuracy will fine it delightful. Overall, this is an enchanting, raw, and sometimes unsettling window into one of the great minds of the past.

To support Aria Ligi’s series, and acquire your own copy, you can check out her IndieGoGo campaign.

Go To Campaign

My daughter and I were playing a game where we explore a big jungle with our backpacks. Sometimes she is the backpack on my back. Sometimes, we both have our own backpacks. We point out all the amazing animals and plants we can see. Sometimes we are chased by crocodiles.

One time, I offhandedly mentioned there might be a Jabberwocky about.

My daughter’s eyes went wide.

“Daddy, what’s a Jabberwocky?”

Uh-oh, I thought. I might have just opened a can of worms, here.

That is the problem with being really, really into books. Occasionally, the madness slips out.

I knew she would not be satisfied until she got a proper explanation. And as it happens, I have a gorgeous, illustrated version of Lewis Carroll’s poem (the art is by Charles Santore, one panel of which is below)—a gift from my wife. What could the harm be? I thought. It was, after all, a nonsense poem, perfect for a child.

So, I and my daughter sat down to read it together. But little did I know what was about to transpire. Here was me thinking, “I’m about to win father of the year award,” when the reality would prove quite different.

We read the poem. The beauty of the nonsense sounds had her in stitches of laughter and wide-eyed awe. But then, after I’d finished reading it, with as much gusto and gesticulation as I could muster, her bottom lip began to tremble.

“Daddy, is the Jabberwocky dead?”

Uh-oh again.

I realised then the enormity of my folly. I’d been so concentrated on the entertainment-factor, I’d forgotten to consider the simplest problem with the poem: it centres on an act of violence. If it had just been the poem alone, I might have gotten away from it. But the illustrated version left no room for doubt. My daughter is only three, and she is very sensitive and perceptive. I should have known she would pick up on this.

I quickly reassured her, saying that Nature has extraordinary ways of renewing itself, that flowers can regrow, soil become fertile once more, and life return where there is none. But of course, she saw through these vagaries and obfuscations.

“Daddy, is the Jabberwocky dead?”

Maybe, it is a failure of my courage. Maybe, I should have ripped the bandaid of mortality off then and there. She was halfway to the concept already; all it required was my pronouncement of finality.

But I found myself meeting her steady gaze and saying, “No.” And it felt like truth.

That night, I sat down to write a poem. I meant to read it to her the next day, but no sooner than I finished it than I realised I could not show it to my her. It is too adult, and if I read it to her, it would only compound the errors I had made the previous day. But, still, it is for her, and from the bottom of my heart. One day, perhaps, she might like to read it, and know what her dad intended.

Some may say this is false comfort. But then again, we have seen the powers of nature many times throughout history. What seems irrecoverable is found again. The seasons turn; cycles ever renew.

And deeper even than Nature is another force in the world, an almighty force that at times seems to defy physical laws and certitudes, and that force is hope. I think that is,—rightly or wrongly—the gift I wanted to impart to my daughter. A little bit of hope.

So, here is the poem. I hope it brings a smile to your lips, perhaps even a small measure of comfort. I know it did for me.

For Isabel

All things, in time, must find rebirth.
And so, within the mome rath woven wood,
where lies the corpse of that proud Jabberwock,
a wind comes blowing from the rood,
bearing blossoms of a holy tree. 

And there they settle on the Jabberwock,
headless and bruised, besmirched with blood;
a moment longer, all is still—
the slithy toves weaving their dance of light—
and then within that dull, 
dead tonnage, movement creeps, stirring of life, 
like saplings first breaking the earthen roof. 

Cries of terror—sure, there were.
But drowned by joy gallumphing through 
the misty glades and dingly dells,
as every living creature fled to tell 
of how that mighty dragon's head,
like Lernea's hydra—regrew,
sprouting from rotten flesh, a rarest rose. 

And thus, what Death has taken, God re-gives, 
for in the tulgey wood—
The Jabberwocky lives.
 

by Joseph Sale 

Thank you for reading this short little piece. If you’d like to receive more like it, please consider subscribing. If you like my poetry specifically, I have several long-form poems available, most recently Ourobomundus.

Much love to you all!

I thought this was an absolutely brilliant window of insight into his work, and helped me see the contours of what was shaping his writing at any given time. It also helps that he and I share a love of heavy metal!

For me, music and writing have always been closely interlinked, to the point where usually when I am working on a book one album, or even one song, will tend to become my sole listening experience—a kind of focal point or anchor to keep the story connected to the original imaginative impetus. I use this touchstone to help me keep on track tonally.

It has also led to me heavily associating one album with each of my books / series, to the point where I can still remember exactly what scene I was writing when a given song plays!

In the light of this, I thought it would be fun to imitate Mr. Stred and open up this new window upon my work. Interestingly enough, comparing my work to musical albums was much, much easier than comparing them to other novels. Maybe we should all start doing that in our blurbs?

The Book of Thrice Dead: City of Evil - Avenged Sevenfold

The Book of Thrice Dead is a multiverse apocalypse epic that re-imagines the narrative of the Four Horsemen. Fittingly, the album that came to most inform it was Avenged Sevenfold’s metal masterpiece, City of Evil.

I first heard City of Evil around the age of seventeen, and it left an indelible mark on me. I had quite simply never heard anything like it, and I still think it is an unparalleled album in terms of technical virtuosity, musical inventiveness, and sheer grandeur. From the chthonian heaviness of Beast and the Harlot to the operatic enormity of The Wicked End, this is an album that lives up to its biblical source-material. It is unapologetically grandiose, reaching for only the loftiest emotions of despair, terror, craving, and—perhaps most ambitiously of all—hope.

But not only is City of Evil a tour de force of musicality, it is also lyrically impressive. Some tracks, like Beast and the Harlot, take the poetry of Revelation and put it to music. Other songs take elements of the bible, meditate on them, combine them with other sources, and produce something startlingly new. Bat Country, for example, opens with the quote by Dr. Johnson: “He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man”, and concludes with one from Hunter S. Thompson, “Too weird to live but much too rare to die.” For all its wildness and bombacity, City of Evil rewards the attentive, sensitive listener. And while City of Evil paints a picture of the end-times worthy of the dreaming priest-poets of the medievals—unashamedly biblically and spiritually rooted—the focus returns always to the human condition, wherein both damnation and salvation truly dwell. As Christopher Marlowe once wrote, “Why, this is hell. Nor am I out of it.”

I cannot say that I got anywhere close to emulating this titanic album with my series, but certainly such themes were at the forefront of my mind as I wrote it. City of Evil inspired me to do away with modesty and to reach for the heights—even at the risk of a precipitous Fall.

The Illuminad: The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance

Dark Hilarity is a novel about two girls who are obsessed with a heavy metal screamo band called Valentine Killshot. What they don’t know is that the band’s highly fantastical concept albums are actually based in truth. The strange world of Dae’eshta they describe is real, and it can be accessed—for a price. For the enigmatic lead singer of the band, and the novel’s antagonist, I drew on many sources, but in my head, I always imagined him looking a bit like Gerrard Way. Perhaps because My Chemical Romance was one of those bands that inspired an almost religious fervour in their listeners—even now!

Dark Hilarity was the first book where I acknowledged that whilst creativity has been a hugely positive force in my life, nothing is without drawbacks. There is yin to every yang, and even imagination can become negative when it leads to obsession, escapism, and disillusionment with reality.

I feel all of these themes were perfectly encapsulated by MCR’s The Black Parade, particularly in the song “Disenchanted”, which bleakly describes how the magic of life ebbs away as the horrors of modernity set in. Yet, for all its melancholy, “Disenchanted” remains strangely hopeful, as if there is still one last whisper of magic in the very act of longing.

The album was also an inspiration in that it charts a journey through an afterlife realm that mirrors our journey through the real world, from the idealism of youth into the sorrow of age. While that sounds immensely depressing, The Black Parade remains fundamentally rebellious and paradoxically uplifting. It is a roar of defiance in the face of death and disillusionment. Thunderous vocals and exuberant guitar riffs—that change tempo with the same vigour as Queen’s multi-part epics—reverberate out of the darkness of depression and despair, reminding us that the pain of life is nothing compared to the triumph of the human spirit. As is sang in Famous Last Words, the closing song of the album:

“I am not afraid to keep on living
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
Honey, if you stay, I'll be forgiven
Nothing you can say can stop me going home”

It is this optimistic vein that I hoped to capture in the ending to Dark Hilarity, in which the two girls must face up to the Sorrow Storms in order to gain their audience with the Laughing God, Ebisu.

Lost Carcosa: Ride The Lightning - Metallica

Ride The Lightning needs no introduction; it is one of the definitive metal albums, one that has set the bar for all that followed it. But what I think really drew me to Ride The Lightning as a deep source of inspiration for Lost Carcosa, my occult, portal-fantasy, erotic-horror epic following the adventures of Alan Chambers in the world of mythical Carcosa, were its medieval influences. Listen to tracks like “Nothing Else Matters” and “Fade To Black”, and amidst the growling guitars and dirge-like vocals, there is a melodic frame of reference echoing from another time, or perhaps another world. This gives the music a mythical and—at least to my mind—timeless fabric. The songs transport you to another plane of existence, where the real-world horrors of suicidal depression sit alongside the phantom-world of “Ktulu”.

Whereas the tone of The Black Parade is strangely jubilant and ultimately moves towards rebellious heroism, the tone of Ride The Lightning is more ambiguous, and thus the story of Lost Carcosa is likewise darker, murkier. Revelation sits alongside catastrophe. Elation precipitates despair. Good can possibly win the war, but only at terrific cost. And on the subject of war, Metallica’s guitarwork is marshal in a very different way to My Chemical Romance. Whereas the latter has the pomp and grandeur of the military parade, Metallica’s album more evokes the grit and grimdark of trench-warfare. Lost Carcosa is a tale of war—and love, which is another kind of battlefield. And in order to win the war against both the external and internal forces of darkness, we have to ride the lightning of divine inspiration and awakening.

Levi’s Game: Dark Souls III OST - Yuka Kitamura

While Dark Souls will always be my favourite of the Souls-like games, Dark Souls III in my view had the best soundtrack by far. Mythically resonant. Ghostly and ethereal, yet warlike and rousing too. Elegant, yet operatic. It has it all. The fight with the Dancer of the Boreal Vale is the embodiment of the soundtrack, a slow graceful ballet that hypnotises and enchants—then ends with a brutal, swift death.

Though there were many influences on the Levi’s Game series, from Elder Scrolls through to Metal Gear Solid, Dark Souls remains its biggest source of inspiration. This is both true on a mundane level of designing and building the game-worlds of the story, but also more subtly in terms of the foundation upon which the tale is built. Dark Souls is a story—albeit a convoluted and non-linear one—of cycles and evolution. The fires of existence itself are lit by some heroic enterprise, then begin to dim and must be relit again. But each time this is done, things change, and the cycle—while eternal—is never quite the same again.

I’ve written at length about the lore of Dark Souls and possible secret interpretations of its ending, but suffice to say this cyclical approach is mirrored in Levi’s Game. The fires dim, and Levi must act to save those he loves. He succeeds, but at terrible cost. The fires begin to dim again. The world changes. Once more, Levi is called forth to relight the fires—metaphorically speaking. And so on. This story structure was unusual for me, running counter to my usual approach, but I am so glad that I stuck with it, because it produced something different from my usual oeuvre. In the west, heroism tends to be defined by success and victory. But in the Japan, where Dark Souls originates from, there is a more nuanced and subtle view. Heroism is not always victorious. In fact, the greatest heroism sometimes lives in the greatest defeat.

The Vicissitudes: By The Way - Red Hot Chilli Peppers

A few eyebrows might raise at this. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are not currently popular, and many feel they have lost their way and touch. Be that as it may, they produced some immortal songs, and one totally immortal album: By The Way.

Radiohead once said that their goal was to achieve maximum emotional impact with minimal skill. I always admired Thom Yorke for this, because it speaks to great humility and self-awareness. He knew that none of the members of Radiohead were musical virtuosos, nor was his voice flawless, and yet they had the ambition of working within their abilities to create something truly unique.

By The Way, whilst tonally different in almost every conceivable way from a Radiohead album, feels like an embodiment of this principle. None of the band members are “stand out” in the way of a jazz musician, or a heavy metal lead guitarist, or a piano maestro, or an opera-singer turned pop idol. Many of the songs are extremely easy for beginners to learn. And yet, somehow, when the parts are assembled, they become so much greater than the whole. The album exudes boundless wit, humour, and energy as well as pathos and sorrow. It is spiritually transcendent as only the overcoming of addiction—undoubtedly the central catalyst for the album—can be.

It is also worth noting an important adage that is often applied to jazz (but really applies to all music): it’s not always about what notes are being played, but the way they are being played. There is a ferocity of passion here that speaks of a phoenix rising from the ashes, of a reborn life after a time of darkness and despair. A child could easily learn the notes of the guitar solo from “Can’t Stop”, but they would then have to spend another thirty years learning how to play them with the same howling madness as 2002 John Frusciante.

Absurd as this claim might be, I think By The Way is not only the best Red Hot Chili Pepper album, but maybe one of the greatest albums of all time.

And this brings us to The Vicissitudes, my sci-fantasy epic—serialised on Royal Road—which is now coming to paperback and eBook!

The Vicissitudes marks a change in my approach to writing and storytelling just as By The Way is a tonal departure from the albums listed above. I’ve talked about this before, in social media posts and articles, but for those who didn’t get the memo, The Vicissitudes is going to be different from my other work in a major way. There will still be complex, deep characters. There will still be eye-popping worlds to explore. But there will also be another secret ingredient: joy. The Vicissitudes is fundamentally an uplifting story. Yes, there will be darkness and danger, as there must be in any good story, but there is going to be far more light and hope to combat that darkness than ever before. Despair will rear its head once or twice, but never long enough to quell the hearts of our heroes. Joy is coming, on wings of fire. And we cannot gainsay him!

If this sounds like your cup of tea, then please check out the placeholder cover (true cover art soon to be revealed) and book description below:

No one survives the fire…

At seventeen, Telos fled home, abandoning a life of wealth and luxury to live on the streets with rogues and carnies. He became the greatest thief in Gorgosa—until he was caught.

Now, imprisoned in Ob-Koron, the harshest prison in the world, Telos faces punishment by Daimonic flame. Few survive. Those who do are crippled and scarred for life, their wills broken.

But Telos’ skills have drawn the eye of the gods. They need Telos to retrieve a weapon for a coming war millennia in the making.

Caught up in seismic events in which shapeshifting Daimons, rogue gods, and mad despots are all closing in on the same prize, Telos—who has only ever relied on himself—will have to learn to lean on others. For, if he fails, the whole world will be consumed in black fire…

From Black Fires Rise is an action-packed, heroic sci-fantasy adventure perfect for fans of The Majipoor Cycle and Dungeon Crawler Carl.

The book will soon be available for pre-order, so watch this space!

Of Dust & Demons by Martin Shannon is one such surprise gem. I had the pleasure of meeting Martin at AuthorCon VI, and we immediately hit it off due to a shared love and admiration of Clive Barker. As such, it was inevitable really that I would check out his work and find a few books that took my interest.

Of Dust & Demons drew me not just because of its cool premise, but also because of its dedication:

To the 90s. I miss your music, your optimism, and your magick.

As a child of the ‘90s, I had to take a look.

Of Dust & Demons is, unsurprisingly, set in the ‘90s. It follows a seal breaker called Jackson Miller. If you’re unsure what a seal breaker is, think demonhunter John Constantine mixed with occult detective Harry D’amour, and you’ll have a pretty good idea. Jackson sends bad things back to where they came from; but the catch is he has to make sacrifices to do it.

Jackson is a fascinating character, equal turns heroic everyman, flawed antihero, wise-cracking action hero, and sorcerous poet. This might seem like an overly eclectic mix, but we soon realise there is a good reason why Jackson is like this. He’s broken too many seals. This has taken a physical and psychic toll on him. Yes, it’s granted him power, but it’s also driven him to the edge of madness and back again.

Enter Rachel. Rachel is a client, a bad-ass goth girl who’s taken her revenge fantasy too far and summoned an actual demon. Having gotten cold feet, and realised what she’s done, she’s brought in Jackson to sort out the problem. But Rachel isn’t just a damsel in distress, and Jackson soon realises he could use someone with her skills, combined with youth and optimism, to help him. It’s a classic Holmes and Watson relationship, master and protege, although like Conan Doyle before him, Shannon plays delightfully with this trope, and sometimes we aren’t sure who is teaching who.

One of the central themes of Of Dust & Demons is consequences. Learning to live with them. Dealing with the fallout. We make decisions every day. We try to make the right ones. But more often than not, we are making Hobson’s choices. We’re damned either way. All we can do is hope for the best, hope our decisions are more right than they are wrong, while knowing that every decision carries with it the weight of consequence.

Shannon says that he misses the optimism of the ‘90s. But despite the book being set in the ‘90s, it screams more into our present day fin de siecle, our fear of everything blowing away like so much nuclear dust, and more than that, that the fragile web of our society will come undone, and all the really beautiful, good stuff of life will die, never to be reclaimed. This isn’t a horror novel in the traditional sense—our heroes are too powerful for that—but there is a deep and dark fear underlying everything. And that’s what drives the plot of Of Dust & Demons so frenetically to its epic conclusion.

This is a story about a pair of people desperately, desperately trying to fix an increasingly broken world. Each new decision they make only seems to make things worse. In the hands of another writer, the escalation would actually become frustrating, but Shannon is so deft with his character-work, and thus we sense the good—if misguided—intentions behind the decisions, we sympathise with their plight.

One other important thing for me to mention is the relationship between the big and the small. Good writers are usually good at one or the other, but truly great writers get the big stuff and the small stuff right. Shannon is one of those great writers. The small stuff—the little details about Jackson’s apartment, the way Rachel is dressed, the smells and sights of Florida—are all there, bringing the thing to life. But the broad strokes are also dazzling. If I had to pitch this book to an agent, I’d say it was Constantine meets Grady Hendrix. But even that does not do it justice, because where Shannon’s work really steps away from both of those is in its fecundity of imagination.

Fantasy authors could learn a thing or two from Shannon’s world-building. There are no run-of-the-mill demons here. Instead, there are terrifying entities worthy of a Barker novel. The two encounters that stick out most in my mind are The Unnamed, who hunts those who’ve become lost to themselves and wears the dreaded “Coat of Personalities”, and The Weaver, “She of Spun Deceit”. Shannon writes the encounters with these powers so vividly you feel you are having a religious experience. And despite the wit and word-play of his characters, Shannon isn’t afraid to dial into real, mythically resonant poetry. In one of the closing scenes, Jackson—who has been on an odyssey that has reshaped him in so many ways—pronounces:

“I am the Bringer of Dust. I am the Wings of Finality, the Duchess’s Right Hand. I am the last man you will ever see.”

I have chills just thinking about it. Notice how he uses a sneaky, secret rhyme (“finality” with “ever see”) to make that third line hit like a freight-train. Also, the juxtaposition of highly poetic imagery with something so ominous and prosaic again amplifies the power of the line. This is real writing.

Speaking of which, the novel is full of spine-tingling moments. In one scene, a character’s memories are devoured by a mind-eating Weavelick—horrible parasites that feast on memories—as an act of revenge. As the Weavelick enacts their vengeance, they proclaim, “May you hate the man you become.”

What a curse to bestow!

This brings me to my penultimate point: many books claiming to be occult horror novels very quickly expose themselves as knowing nothing at all about the world of the occult. Even very prestigious and famous writers seem to think magick is all about Satan-worship and wearing cloaks. Shannon, on the other hand, shows he understands what magick is really about: belief, intention, will, metaphor, and love. He understands the phantoms and eidolons we create are realer than steel. The best example of this is to be found in the “character” of Marcy Preston.

Clive Barker famously wrote,

“in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there [is] only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between adoring spouses, a seducer, or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers, Death.”

Marcy Preston is the “third figure” of the story, despite the fact we never actually meet the “real” Marcy Preston. She is a mental construct that appears in different guises and goes through many iterations as Jackson and Rachel evolve. This might seem far-fetched, but in fact, it is oh-so believable. Don’t we all walk around with characters in our heads? Voices, idols, mentors, friends—some of them no longer with us.

Not only this, her presence achieves two important things. Firstly, it points to the occult truth I previously mentioned: that the ghosts in our brains are realer than anything in the “outside” world. They influence us. Whisper to us. They determine who we are (if we let them).

And secondly, it introduces that mysterious third element that somehow rounds and completes the picture. Id, Ego, Super-Ego. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Spirit, Matter, Desire. Marcy Preston is the completion of the occult trinity that makes this book come alive in so many ways: by humanising Jackson, by showing Rachel’s background, by proving a foil and antagonist, and by finally leading us to the union with the Shadow Self. It’s frankly a masterstroke, and takes the novel to another level.

If I have one criticism of Of Dust & Demons, it’s that it took me a little while to get into. The first two Parts are written more like episodic adventures, little self-contained escapades in Jackson and Rachel’s world that help us get to know the characters. Thus, there is perhaps slightly too much recapping and the stakes aren’t immediately apparent.

But from Part 3 onwards, this changes. We're introduced to an incredible villain (or two) and the noose of the plot suddenly tightens about our necks. From that point on, the pace and sheer imaginative exuberance does not let up. For context, the book is in 20 Parts, so it really is only a small chunk to get through before the Weavelick—I mean book—sinks its teeth in your brain runnels.

Of Dust & Demons has become a favourite book of mine; it's easily one of the most absorbing reading experiences I've had in a long time, and I found myself meditating on it long after it was finished.

If you want to get your hands on this book, then listen carefully. Martin Shannon is a rare-book author, which means he only produces limited print runs, he’s not on Amazon, and you can only get stuff from him directly. Therefore, if you want your copy of Of Dust & Demons, you need to click the link below and shop from his website.

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And if you need any more incentive than what I have already given you, consider that the book is illustrated by John Cobb! Check out a small sample of his gorgeous work below!

That does it for now. If you’ve read this far, my sincere thanks. If you enjoy discovering new authors, and reading about horror and fantasy, then please consider subscribing to my Substack. It’s free!

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This list is, of course, arbitrary and highly subjective, but hopefully you will find a smattering of logic in the reasons for my choices. I’m also very curious to hear which games you would regard as the greatest works of horror, so please feel free to let me know in the comments.

Now, without further ado:

5 — The Evil Within (2014)

A lot of people are probably going to be confused by me putting The Evil Within on my top five. Firstly, because the game received incredibly mixed reception on release. And secondly, because the sequel is generally regarded as a superior game. But contrary old me thinks differently.

The first Evil Within may have had issues with its design philosophy but none of these were large enough to take away from the unbelievable atmosphere and immersion. Legendary horror author Dean Koontz once said, “I can forgive a writer a lot if they can weave a warp and weft of mood.” My memories of playing The Evil Within are of total absorption in the game world. There are certain audio-visual cues still indelibly imprinted on my brain runnels; every time I hear Debussy's music, for example, I am taken back to deep dark woods and the desperate hunt for a safe room.

4 — Doom 3 (2004)

Another potentially controversial choice. Doom 3 took a radical side-step from the frenetic action of its predecessors, swapping relentless bloodthirsty gun-combat (resurrected in the recent Id Software titles such as Doom Eternal) for a claustrophobic, nerve-shredding horror experience. For many, this was too much of a genre switch-up, and it was critically panned. However, the game in isolation was one of the most immersive horror experiences of my life. Descending through the many, Dantean levels of the Martian facility, discovering more and more about what happened through PDA entries and other environmental storytelling, obsessively absorbed me. Few horror games can balance a feeling of total vulnerability with satisfying action. Many horror games eschew combat elements altogether, making you a powerless “watcher” whose only option is to run. But Doom 3 managed, in my view, to have the best of both worlds. You could not, as with its sequels and prequels, “rip and tear” through demons like they were made of paper. But on the other hand, slowly accruing more and more weaponry and knowledge eventually made you into a powerhouse who could take on even the most fearsome dwellers of the underworld, but only with intelligence and planning. Victories felt all the more satisfying as a result.

Doom 3 is not a perfect game by any means, but it is an iconic game, partly because it dared to be different. Decades after its release, a friend of mine still talks about hosting a Doom 3 party, with the intent of playing the game with lights out and headsets to maximise the horror experience. Yes, one may eventually learn the location of every jump-scare, but that does not take away from the story, which every time manages to drag me into its hypnotic undertow. If Doom 3 has a literary parallel, it is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A tale of madness and descent and visions that somehow is all the more powerful for its archaisms.

3 — Resident Evil (1996)

I may be accused of nostalgia with this entry, but it is hard for me to think of any horror game that has been imitated more frequently than the original PS1 Resident Evil. Yes, all games and works of art have their sources, and this is good and healthy, but Resident Evil set such a precedent it is still the foundational stone for horror games 30 years on.

So much has been written about this game and the series, it is hard to say much that is new, so I want to talk about two aspects of Resident Evil that I think are less well-trodden.

Firstly, one unusual aspect of Resident Evil is the way it blends so many contrasting horror ideas. We have the gothic mansion, a staple of horror literature since its earliest roots, dripping with antiquity and mystery. Yet, we also have a modern twist: the mansion is built upon a laboratory, and is therefore hiding technological secrets and terrors. This combination isn’t groundbreaking in and of itself, but it serves to show that we take for granted what Resident Evil is. Zombies. Gothic mansion. Evil laboratory. Survival story of a stranded team of soldiers. It’s all the horror tropes in one basket, and somehow, it all comes together coherently.

Secondly, Resident Evil is often lovingly made fun of for its terrible voice-acting and stilted dialogue. I’m not about to defend either, but I will say that rough edges can sometimes amplify the uncanniness, and I think that is the case here. The awkward dialogue, with its jarring pauses and inflections, might make some people laugh, but it is that same kind of nervous laughter deployed to diffuse tension. The same phenomenon is true of film. Modern films may be more polished and seamless visually and in terms of their sound, but this can never quite conjure unease in the same way a film like Hellraiser, with its overdubbed Atlantic accents, does. Resident Evil used primitive technology to its absolute fullest, and created a horror masterpiece that still calls us back to the mansion to this day.

2 — Silent Hill (1999)

And speaking of PS1-era horror games, we cannot overlook Silent Hill. While there is much to be said about Silent Hill 2 and 3, which are both phenomenal games in their own right, there is something mesmerically haunting about the first game. How the developers permeated the humble PS1 disc with such palpable dread is a mystery for the ages. Even now, playing the game, I get a prickle across my skin of some origin-less fear. Yes, the combat has hugely dated—more so than Resident Evil. Yes, some of the early puzzles in the town are tiresomely elongated. But I will never forget the first time I stepped through the triple-locked door into the garden and night suddenly fell. It was a moment of pure nightmare. My stomach lurched with palpable anxiety. Then there are the more subtle moments, too, such as the time I found a child’s drawing by the side of the road, and stared at it for a good thirty minutes, knowing there was something wrong with it, but not quite able to say what.

The game is frankly cursed in my view. Every aspect of it exudes malice and malignant intent. It is a direct one-on-one confrontation with evil. The previous games I’ve listed in this article are masterpieces because they immersed me so deeply, and I could not put them down. But Silent Hill is a game I could only tolerate in short bursts, and that is a sign that it evoked a deeper level of horror.

1 — Fear & Hunger (2018)

I’ve been wanting to write about Fear & Hunger for a long time. It is one of those games that is difficult to categorise, and that is precisely its brilliance. It is an RPG, a rogue-like, and a horror game, and so much more. It is vile. It is decadently sadistic. It is also strangely beautiful, both in terms of its visual aesthetic and in terms of how each piece of it, from gameplay to narrative to level design, is fitted together. Like so many of the entries on this list, it has re-drawn the map on what is possible for multiple genres, and produced an aesthetic so iconic that it has spawned countless imitators.

There is so much that has been said, and that I want to say about Fear & Hunger, but for the sake of sanity, space, and not repeating what better writers have explained, I’m going to focus on one element only: how the game plays with your mind.

While the title of the game is Fear & Hunger, I feel like the true theme of the game is madness.

Horrible things happen to you, and you ask the question “Why?” Why is this happening? How can I stop this happening? You prepare. Something equally if not more horrific happens. You ask the question “Why?” again. You prepare.

Something totally unexpected and mind-obliteratingly bad happens.

And so on and so forth.

The game is constantly inviting you to peer down a well. You know you are going to see something absolutely awful at the bottom of the well, but your own human nature—combined with your desire to “beat” the game and survive—compels you to look anyway. But what is genius is that the game has a way of pulling the rug out from under you. Just when you think you have it figured out, it changes and shows you something else. Something new.

Something worse.

Fear & Hunger has been criticised for its excessively sexual elements. The ogres guarding the dungeon possess grossly swollen phalluses that, if they attack you with them, can infect you with parasites. There is an “anal bleeding” status effect. There is almost constant reference to sexual perversion, to the extent it could be construed as insensitive, obsessive, or even downright childish.

I agree with all three criticisms to an extent, but I think that the game’s creator, Miro Haverinen, has done this intentionally. They saturate us with this gross, sexual content and the threat of physical violation in order to desensitise us to it.

Because the real horror is deeper.

The horrific sexual elements are there to highlight how one of the worst things that can ever happen to a person is nothing compared to a vaster, more existential horror that simultaneously exists “out there”, in some forbidden city whispered of only in dreams, and also within the prison that is your own mind.

It takes a lot to scare me, these days. But my first visit to Ma'habre, and encounter with a Harvestman, did. We all have moments in our lives—our real lives—when we encounter the ungraspable. These can be terrifying and enlightening, healing and destructive, in equal measure. Fear & Hunger somehow manages to capture the electric terror of these kinds of moments, when you stand face to face with something and realise your own smallness, or stupidity, against what is really out there. Be it the whistling of a strange, spiderlike creature that is immune to anything you throw at it, or else the sudden abyssal plunge of a dungeon that runs deeper into the subterranean world than you ever realised, Fear & Hunger time and again hurls your sanity at the iron wall of its difficulty and hopes that you break.

I could not stop playing The Evil Within. It hooked me. I could only play Silent Hill in short bursts, lest I start to find myself unduly effected by it.

And Fear & Hunger?

I had to ban myself from playing it. The obsession ran too deep. The thoughts turned too dark.

I’m a happier man, now. And yet, I still think about those halls sometimes, and mist-cloaked Ma’habre, and the place that lies even beyond the city…

I think I’ll put down my pen for a while.

I hear a soft, whistling sound…

Thank you for reading this article, dear friends. As I said, I’d love to know your thoughts on my choices and your own picks for the top 5.

If you like horror, especially the kind that subverts and blends genres, then you might be interested in my epic, six-part horror-fantasy series The Book of Thrice Dead.

The Book of Thrice Dead is a multiverse apocalypse epic that follows three legendary anti-heroes: the serial killer Craig Smiley, the mad weapons-scientist Dr. Monaghan, and the dark prophet known as The Prince. Spread across the ravaged multiverse, these three titans must ultimately join forces to face an evil greater than themselves that will bring about an end not just to one universe but to all.

Lezlie Smith of The Nerdy Narrative described the series like this:

“The range of emotions I felt through this series was insane. I have been asked so many times over the years about a book or series that I considered life changing and I never had an answer...until today. This is the most beautiful story that began with the world getting destroyed, but the end was only the beginning… I'm upset that I can't find adequate words for the sheer brilliance of it.”

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…I wrote an anticipatory piece about a little video-game called No Man’s Sky. Back then—ten years ago, eek!—No Man’s Sky seemed more of a vision of the future of video-games than something concrete. We were all enraptured by the idea of infinite exploration, a living universe populated by the unbridled creativity of algorithmic chance. And then came the fall—the disastrous release of No Man’s Sky that garnered it such negative reviews and perception.

It would be pointless for me to write about this, or indeed No Man’s Sky’s epic recovery and transformation into potentially the most beloved sci-fi exploration game of all time. Many other writers and journalists have covered this topic in extensive and sometimes hands-on detail with the developers, so there is very little I can add.

What I do want to share is how, ten years later, No Man’s Sky still manages to feel fresh. Slipping back into the game feels like walking back into a bright dream. There is an energy about it. A ferocious clarity of vision. And I think the core of this is something that we writers, artists, and creatives can learn from.

There are two intertwined elements that make No Man’s Sky such an immersive and, frankly, addictive experience.

The Glorious Vicissitudes of Chance

The first I have alluded to already: chance. The randomness of the worlds creates a feeling of personal discovery that is intoxicating. This is something we writers, in particular, often forget. The visual artist intuitively understands that the accident of a brushstroke, or a combination of colour, can create revelation. Glass-makers literally do not know how their final composition will appear, for in the firing process colours change, structures shift, and the whole warp and weft of the thing transforms. There is an element of randomness, of chaos, inherent in the art-form, and a part of its joy.

We writers, by contrast, tend to believe in working everything out logically. Yes, we receive surprises when our characters misbehave, but rarely do we leave anything to chance.

But sometimes, chance is what a story needs. Sometimes, rolling a die to see whether a character lives or dies, or where a party of explorers end up next, is exactly what a story needs to take some unprecedented leap into the unknown. I have used this technique, particularly with my GameLit / LitRPG series Levi’s Game, where certain locations and creations were procedurally generated.

I did this because the locations actually are procedural in the story, so it felt fitting to reflect this in the creative process and challenge myself—and my characters—with an unexpected outcome. Incidentally, if you’re curious about how this turned out, the first book in the series has recently been released on audiobook! The book is narrated by the incredible David Freeborn, who is one of the best narrators in the world in my opinion. His range and passion are just phenomenal. Check it out, below:

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But procedural generation can be applied in any number of ways. Once you start thinking more like a Dungeon Master and less like a writer, you begin to realise that storytelling is pure play, and randomness becomes not your enemy, but a way of accessing previously inaccessible powers of surprise.

The Depth of Mystery

The great David Lynch once said, “The more unknowable the mystery, the more beautiful it is.” And he is absolutely right. Human beings are called by the siren-song of mystery. We yearn to know the unknowable. Nothing intrigues us more than a riddle that seemingly has no answer. It is why Mystery fiction will remain evergreen.

Mystery is the second—and far less talked about—element that No Man’s Sky gets right. We awaken on a strange world with no memory of who we once were, only the stark reality of a destroyed ship, limited supplies, and the will to survive. However, it seems there is some kind of benevolent force in the universe, for we are given clues in the form of cryptic messages, guiding us back to the true path and towards some ultimate destiny.

We know so little, at the start of our journey. And the more we find out, the less it seems we know. There is a species called the Gek who leave ancient standing stones, imparting knowledge of their language to explorers. Why? There are robotic sentinels patrolling some planets and protecting their bio-diversity. Why? Were they left behind by some colossal civilisation now undone? Every answer prompts a new question. But most mysterious of all is the question of our own nature of why we are called to strive, survive, and reach the stars. It is an unanswerable mystery. The heart of the human condition itself. And somehow, impossibly, No Man’s Sky captures this.

As writers, we tend to want to explain our reasoning, to provide motivations for our characters, to ensure our plots hang together logically. I am not advocating we abandon this entirely. But what No Man’s Sky—and indeed the great masters of literature—teach us is that mystery must prevail. Without mystery, there is nothing to compel the human imagination. The unknown is not to be feared; it is our natural habitat. If we are to inspire and ensoul the world, we must go forth into that vast dark without fear, without caution, and fully embrace the divine mystery of the universe, for it is only in embracing the mystery that we can finally embrace ourselves.

Hello everyone.

The response to my work has been so positive, I thought I’d share a little more. This is from Chapter 15 of SET GOLD SKIES ABLAZE. It’s a fairly self-contained chapter that follows Ylia Hart, one of my favourite ever characters to write.

You don't need to know much about their former adventures to understand this chapter. But I hope after reading it you will be curious to learn more!

As always, I welcome all comments, critiques, compliments, and feedback. Plus, let me know what you’re reading, especially if it has a fantasy flavour!

With love

Joe / The Mindflayer

Ylia had always thought of herself as tough. She had suffered under the Wagemaster from a young age, and that’d strengthened her mind. She’d worked hard all her life, and that’d given her physical strength too. When running her House in Yestermere, she’d had to deal with unpleasant patrons more often than not. Of course, she had Urgal to back her up, but even then, befriending the felidae was itself a testament to her strength of character.

She had never, however, thought of herself as someone who inspired fear.

But that is precisely what arose from the inhabitants of Wayfarer’s Rest when she, and an army of two-hundred battle-slaves, marched into the port-town. Sat high atop her Daggerfoot, she could not help but look down upon the wide-mouthed explorers below, who scrambled to get out of her way as though she were the wild queen of some feral kingdom hitherto unknown to the bustling world. She was all-too-aware of the bow slung across her back, the weight of The Avenger about her neck. A millstone of death, she thought sourly.

Jubal and Julya caused their own ripples. The huge theront, horned head gleaming in the blistering sun, with the god-hammer slung in the leather satchel across his back, was naturally a fearsome sight to behold. He held the esoteric wand in his hand which drew on the battle-theronts the way that a hypnotist’s charm draws the eye. Julya, though not possessing any kind of arcane weaponry, nonetheless held herself with the steely pride of a noble, projecting an aura that commanded respect.

Only when it became clear that this was no invasion did people settle, though still giving the trio and their warriors a wide berth.

The theront army assembled by the House, standing in eerie silence that made them seem statues in some Emperor’s tomb, rather than living creatures of flesh and blood. Even Gorm’s golem possessed more personality, she thought with a spike of ice through the nape of her neck. Even the machine-man had more freedom, more life.

Ylia, Jubal, and Julya all dismounted and tied off their Daggerfeet on the available posts outside the tavern. The horses tied in similar fashion eyed the sharp-beaked birds with apprehension.

“If Quen Yu has any spies here,” Jubal said. “He will know shortly what is coming his way.”

Julya laughed.

“He is truly mad if he paid to have spies in this backwater. But I think we need not worry too much.” Julya lowered her voice, “Qala is not with us, after all.”

Ylia and Jubal nodded. Ylia was beginning to see the wisdom in Qala’s decision, though it still pained her to be parted from her friend. It would certainly throw informants off the scent.

She cast her eyes about the way-station. Men, women, and even one or two theronts were coming to and from the wharves. Ships listed at anchor, caught in a stern breeze blowing from the north. The sight of the sea was a strange comfort to her. It marked the end of her time in Memory, and now that she saw an end, she knew she would be glad to leave. The jungle was a painful place, suffering and war too deep in the soil for there to be any chance of healing. Her past was tied here. Her father, buried, along with things she had seen in the battle against the Daimons she would rather forget. Better to leave it behind, she thought. Though it seemed likely her future held more bloodshed—more death, more loss.

“I hate waiting,” Ylia admitted. “How long do you think Xheng will be?”

“If he left port as soon as he received the summons,” Jubal began. “Then perhaps ten days. But it’s likely he spent some time gathering his strength. An armada cannot be readied overnight.”

Ylia nodded, seeing the truth in his assessment, but also hating that it meant she would have to wait longer.

“I suppose we shall have more time for archery lessons,” she said through a forced smile.

***

The first day and night passed without incident.

Then hell came to Wayfarer’s Rest.

It came aboard a ship called The Flawless Pearl, which like any ship’s name worth its salt contained a shred of bitter irony.

At first, there was nothing untoward. The Yarulian galleon—too large to dock at the wharves—arrived and laid anchor out to sea. Its crew rowed a skiff to shore. They were suntanned men—not a woman among them, in fact—grinning with the black teeth typical of Yarulian sailors who were over-fond of sugar. They had traded Yarulian hounds to the Qi’shathians, a prized commodity for which they had received significant recompense, and then traded the Qi’shathian treasures to the Aurelians, becoming within a mere four months wealthier than some of Yarruk’s most storied houses. They were here to sell the last dregs of their plunder and enjoy a night of excess on the long road home.

Ylia learned all this because proud men loved nothing more than to talk to beautiful women of their conquests. They swarmed her like clouds of sharks to the spillage of blood. She wished, in these moments, she still had Urgal with her. One sight of the felidae’s bared teeth was enough to make most men retreat. Now, she had to stand up for herself, she supposed. At first, she was polite. By the end of the evening, however, after one too many a sailor had drunkenly draped their arm about her waist, she slammed the Avenger down on the table.

“The next man who touches me gets this to the face,” she snarled.

After that, she received no more crude solicitations. They may not have known exactly what it was, but they knew enough to know it was not of human origin, and she was not to be trifled with.

That night, the House did not quieten until dawn. The dancing and shrieking song was so incessant Ylia gave up on sleep, and instead went out to the wharves, and sat watching the darkness and the water blur together. The stars overhead were white coals in black flame. She thought of Telos, as she always did when looking at the stars. The world seemed colossal and frightening and beautiful all at once.

Even as dawn showed herself, there were still a few sailors drinking, albeit this group were older, more subdued. They played cards, smoked Goldleaf, talked of distant friends, or escapades together, or hopes of the future. Meanwhile, another group of sailors puked their guts off end of the wharves, turning the crystalline seawater bilious. Is this why Nereth hates us?, she found herself wondering. If we were more civilised, would she spare the fire?

But if legends were to be believed, the gods were just as prone to disgrace, if not more so, on a grander scale than human imagination could reach. Folly, all is folly. She knew such thoughts were hopelessly negative, but that is where her mind was.

The true warning signs came the following day, their third in Wayfarer’s Rest. Ylia leapt up suddenly from her seat at breakfast, pointing at a huge insect scuttling across the floor of the House. Jubal stamped on the thing. It was grey, about the size of a rat. Its insides were a putrid beige, like porridge that’d congealed in the vague semblance of organs. Before Jubal’s foot had unmade it, it’d possessed a host of scuttling legs, and two feelers on its head. It might have been a louse, but its size belied Ylia’s ability to categorise it as such. It’s nearly the size of a Rynu-dragonfly, she thought, remembering the huge, buzzing pests of Yestermere.

“That’s a Festerbug,” Julya said, quietly. Her eyes flashed as she stared hard at the sailors, a handful of which had made it to breakfast, and were crowded around a nearby table. “It appears you had a stowaway from Qi’shath.”

One of the sailors—wearing an indigo sash denoting he was the captain—shrugged.

“So what?”

“These creatures carry plagues.”

The captain shrugged again.

“There isn’t a ship that doesn’t carry rats, or lice, or these bugs, or some fever from somewhere. I wouldn’t worry yourself.” He smirked at Jubal. “Might want to wash your foot, though, bull-man. Or buy some shoes.”

The sailors guffawed at this.

Jubal stood, nostrils flaring. Ylia feared that the hammer of Beltanus was about to be put to uses for which it was not made. Then the anger went, as suddenly as it had come, and Jubal let out a derisive laugh.

“My feet are too big for shoes, little man,” Jubal said. “Unfortunately, you would not know what it is like to be big enough for anything.”

The captain stood, which only served to emphasise that he was two feet shorter than Jubal, and scrawny as a scarecrow. The other sailors quickly rose and pulled him back into his seat with remonstrations of, “He’s not worth it, Captain”, and “Think of the girls we’ll get back home,”, thus allowing him to save some face in what would clearly have been an unequal contest.

Jubal now got to be the one to smirk, though his bovine teeth made the gesture more threatening than funny.

“My appetite has been spoiled,” Jubal said. “I wish to take a walk.”

Ylia and Julya nodded and followed him out of the door.

***

They saw two more of the Festerbugs. One scurried across the sand for the shadowed line of the trees; the other snooped around a pile of vomit not yet picked clean by kites. The warning in Ylia’s heart grew like an Engine flame being fed Daimonsblood. But it was not until later that day that her deepest fears were confirmed.

They heard a sailor shrieking from the outhouse. When they came over to him to see what was wrong, wondering if he had been attacked by some creature or even one of the battle-slaves gone rogue, they saw him writhing on the ground, scratching at himself so viciously he was drawing blood, rending great gouges in his flesh. He had boils all over his skin, every inch covered in red, ripe welts. Some had burst, leaking a pustulous fluid that was eerily reminiscent of the insect’s insides.

Julya’s words came back to Ylia, sinking into her with the slowness of a malignant knife. These creatures carry plagues.

What had The Flawless Pearl brought with them?

***

Soon, it became apparent.

The name of the plague was unknown. It was not the Kiss of Eresh, for which they could feel some gratitude, but it was virulent, infectious, and repulsive. By the fourth day, half of the sailors had fallen ill with it. They could be heard nearly a mile away from the port-town, shrieking in their beds. The barmaids were put to work changing their filthy sheets and rubbing primitive ointments on their wounds, overseen by an eagle-eyed Julya who it seemed knew more about medicine and disease than anyone Ylia had ever met.

By the fifth day, however, the maids had caught the plague too. The House stopped functioning as a tavern and simply became a place for people to lie down and scream in pain as their boils burst. Some men scratched their flesh so manically they had to be tied down, lest they do themselves serious harm.

Ylia feared for herself and the others. But most of all, she feared for the battle-theronts. She feared not because she cared about them as living creatures (though she dearly wanted to, it was hard when they behaved like automata) but because if they fell sick, all of Qala’s plans would come to ruin.

But the theronts, it seemed, were immune to the plague. Qala had mentioned something about them healing more rapidly, and Ylia could well believe it, for not a single one acquired even the smallest spot or boil. Silent, as always, they stood vigil, as the rest of the town fell to pieces, the sands painted with blood, pus, and the bile of disgorged stomachs. The House of Rest, that’d once welcomed them with song and warmth—that’d been where Ylia and Telos made love for the first and only time—was turned into a prison for the diseased and deranged.

And then on the sixth day, Ylia saw the boil on her arm.

“Oh gods,” she whispered.

Jubal and Julya put a brave face on it, told her they would tend her and that all would be well, but she knew they were afraid. She could see it in their eyes. None of them knew, yet, what this plague precisely was, or whether any of those afflicted were going to survive.

By the seventh day, Ylia lay abed screaming and ranting just like the rest. The itching beneath her skin was like a thousand insects trying to hatch at once.

Ylia had always thought of herself as tough.

The gods, it seemed, wanted to put that to the test.

Thank you for reading this tale from the world of Erethia. I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of what has become a huge story. If you want to read more there are currently 246,000 words available to read on Royal Road for FREE!

You can also check out my other dark fantasy novels over on Amazon.

Once again, thank you so much for stopping by and reading my work. May a star shine over our next meeting!

Most writers use writing as a way of getting to know themselves. And there’s no doubt that this works. Writing—whether it be journalling, fiction writing, poetry, or some other form—allows the writer to make external what was once only internal, to take the secret inner jewel out of its cloth of flesh and turn it about in the light, examine it, and learn some of its properties. But there is a catch with this: getting better as a writer, learning how to delve deeper into the secret inner cave, requires you to develop a different form of self-knowledge, a type that writing itself does not easily afford.

So, if you are one of those people who knows how good writing is for you, who can feel its benefits, but equally has struggled to tune into the current, to channel it, to produce good work, to feel like you are flowing in the right genre and with the right sustainable habits, then the following tool is for you!

Christa Wojciechowski is not only a close friend of mine, but one of the best novelists I’ve ever met. Her Sculptor series is a tour de force of psychological insight. Is it any wonder, then, that she has just released a deeply psychologically insightful tool, modelled on Jungian archetypes.

This tool, known as Write Catalyst, helps writers to discover which of twelve mythic archetypes they belong to. Each archetype behaves differently and is looking for different things in the act of writing. This last piece of the puzzle is, to my mind, the most key. There is an assumption that all writers are looking to get the same thing out of their writing; that, or that the act of writing is itself the only reward. But neither of these are true. Writing is as a means to an end. And while, yes, enjoyment of the process is paramount, this only comes through understanding what our deeper drive is.

So, what type of writer are you?

The Mystic, The Rebel, The Explorer, The Sage, The Dreamer, The Warrior, The Healer, The Creator, The Guardian,

The Lover, The Jester, or The Every Man?

Find out by taking the test. It’s free and only takes about 3 or 4 minutes, and then you get your report.

Take The Test

As it happens, I am a Mystic writer, which means my core desire is: “To serve as a bridge between the spiritual and material worlds, translating cosmic revelations into accessible stories”.

This may sound high-falutin, even a little pretentious, but it’s true of how I think about the world. I’ve always believed my stories came from somewhere else; I was just the monk /scribe writing them down. I even wrote a non-fiction book about creative inspiration and channeling the divine, so I suppose it was inevitable this would turn out to be my underlying motivation.

So, what is your archetype? If you feel brave, share your result in the comments below. And don’t hesitate to check out the other incredible features on the Write Catalyst website. Christa is an experienced writer who has been in the trenches and experienced all the pain and vicissitudes of trying to make art in the modern world, and I think she sincerely wants to save other writers the pain of what she’s had to go through, and help everyone gain that self-knowledge which is hard-won but totally without price.

I also picked up a beautiful painting from Lucy Leitner and a bunch of other stuff, but as you all know I am not great at taking photos.

I've left so much unsaid, but if you take one thing away from this, it is that I am so grateful to be a part of this amazing community and charity (for more information about the charity side of things, visit Scares That Care — they do incredible work).

Every year I am emotionally overwhelmed by the love and kindness on display; I feel like my lovely American friends have adopted this here crazy Brit with a loving embrace, despite his flaws.

Keep being awesome.
And let's keep fighting real monsters!

P.S. Some photos pinched from those with much better photography skills than me. All credit goes to them!

What’s Next: PASCIFY in the UK!

For my UK friends who are feeling very left-out of the fun: never fear! This April (10th - 11th), there’s an AMAZING convention taking place in the UK. It’s called PASCIFY, which stands for Paranormal, Science Fiction, and Fantasy. There will be plenty of horror authors there too, however. Seriously, if you need a break from the troubles of the world, or if you’re like me and have a book addiction, this is the place to be.

I’ll be attending with a weird and wild selection of books including some special editions, convention-only editions, and hand-bound editions. There will also be a ton of other incredible authors, including the great Lee Mountford. Here is the complete list of authors and vendors:

But wait, there’s more!

You could be in with a chance to win a FREE TICKET.

All you have to do is subscribe (for free) to this Substack by March 8th:

I’ll announce the winner on Monday morning, March 9th!

I’ve written many times over the last decade about the importance of games as a storytelling medium. Games, in general, tend to have their narratives overlooked—even by developers in the industry—because they are viewed as a “nice to have” rather than the soul of the matter. But as with films, you can have all the special effects, beautiful shots, and beautiful actors you want—but without narrative, the whole experience feels hollow. Games have stories. Some of them even have great stories. And a rare handful go one step further still and create a totally unparalleled and unique narrative experience: a lived myth. To quote the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, “A story in which YOU are the hero.”

So, without further ado, here are—in my view—the five greatest RPGs of all time, games that set my imagination on fire, that taught me lessons, that made me a better artist, and in which I got to be a hero—if only for a while!

5 — Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance

One Christmas, when I was ten or eleven years old, my entire family saved up to get me a very special and in many ways life-changing present, one I still have to this day: a PlayStation 2.

There were so many games I loved from that era, absolute classics that are still incredible to play to this day, but there is one title that is particularly special to me because it proved one of my first ever entry points to RPGs, and forever cemented a love of them.

This was Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance.

There may be some readers who would question why I have not chosen the original PC Baldur’s Gate titles. These were arguably “purer” RPGs than the Dark Alliance spin-offs, which pitched themselves as character-action games with significant RPG elements. I think I can give three answers. Firstly, a complete biased one: Dark Alliance was my first encounter with the series, and thus will always have that primacy. Sometimes, you just can’t shake the nostalgia, connection, and magic of that first dip into a series. The first Final Fantasy you played (6 for me). The first edition of Dungeons & Dragons or Warhammer (1st and 3rd editions respectively). These first forays have a kind of power that is very difficult—if not impossible—to break.

Secondly, there is a deeper point to be made here that the accessibility of the Dark Alliance series matters. And I mean accessibility in multiple ways. For me and many of my friends, a gaming PC would have been impossible to obtain, but a PS2 was affordable and, more importantly, not as complex to maintain or set-up. In addition, Dark Alliance’s streamlining of the RPG formula meant people who had never played an RPG before could throw themselves in and still have a great time (often with a mate on the second controller!) If you knew how to customise your character’s build, and optimise their weapon loadout, you could break the game. But you didn’t need that kind of knowledge to get stuck in.

In many ways, Dark Alliance is the precursor to something like Elden Ring: Nightreign, although I would argue it was even more successful in its distillation of the RPG experience. The developers of Dark Alliance took the essence of D&D and enshrined it in a dark, action-packed adventure crammed with memorable dungeons, characters, and a surprisingly moving story that links its dungeon-crawling segments together.

My third reason is perhaps the most simple: Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance—particularly the first one—gets its mood and setting so, so right. The feelings of epic fantastical adventure it evokes are, frankly, sublime. One can never forget first walking into The Elfsong Tavern and hearing the ghostly song of the elven maiden, singing for her lost love; or the first sight of the Beholder, Xanathar; or the final epic ascent into the Onyx Tower… These are moments of mythological weight miraculously captured upon an ancient technological wonder. Glorious and—without a doubt—life-changing.

4 — Final Fantasy X

If we are going to talk about RPGs on the PS2, then we cannot omit what many regard as the magnum opus of the turn-based RPG genre: Final Fantasy X. Considered by many one of the greatest games ever made, it will likely not be a surprise I have included it on this list. Indeed, I have already written about Final Fantasy X before, particularly with a view to how it deals with mythic themes like Original Sin.

But here, I want to talk about it in a different way. I want to talk about what FFX means to me on a more personal level.

As a kid, I never owned a copy of FFX. My dear friend Rob did. Whenever I went around his house we would play Soul Calibre. We had countless hours of fun bashing each other into oblivion with match after match, until we knew not only the move sets but the dialogue off by heart.

Then one day he showed me a new game he’d acquired. Final Fantasy X. Having played 6… and been completely blown away, I was curious to play this newer iteration with 3D graphics.

What began that day was a spiritual odyssey. The screen on which we played would be considered tiny by today's standards and yet the world we saw there felt as colossal as Jupiter.

We played. And played. And played. Then we went back to school. The waits in between play-sessions were agonising. But they made the journey all the more epic and rewarding. We lived Tidus’ quest with him. We sailed great oceans. Battled mighty monsters. And found friendship. We were part of the party, members of the fellowship, feeling with every one of them.

This kind of epic voyage is one of most unique gifts an RPG can give us. For that reason alone, FFX must be regarded as one of the all time greats.

3 — Dark Souls

A work of art’s title becomes the short-hand for an entire genre, you know it has left a legacy. And having played Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls I — III, and Elden Ring, I can say with confidence that while all the games are spectacular and beautiful in their own right, it is the first Dark Souls that is the absolute masterpiece.

There are many reasons why Dark Souls is so unique, even among its prequels and sequels, but perhaps the most glaring difference is in the design of the world. Where so many epic fantasy RPGs design their worlds across a flat plane, Dark Souls opted instead to build vertically.

Orson Wells famously remarked, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” And he is exactly right. Limitations often engender creative solutions that elevate a work to even greater heights, and that give it a unique stamp. Dark Souls’ verticality was one such creative solution designed to overcome the limits of storage inherent in disc-space. This meant that rather than having a vast, linear map that the player travelled through, they instead would travel a more looping route, continually circling back to the central hub of Firelink Shrine, but unlocking short-cuts and secret passages that linked disparate segments of the map. Picture a descending, Dantean spiral, and you might have some idea of the epic voyage that Dark Souls entails.

This, combined with the decision to withhold the ability to map-travel (aka, teleport to any discovered location) meant that rather than the map being a triviality to be sidestepped at the first opportunity, it became a lived entity the player must continually interact with and overcome. I love Dark Souls II and III, but I forget huge swathes of them. The different locales of their worlds feel disconnected. More, in fact, like “game levels” in the traditional sense, rather than part of a huge, interconnected world.

Dark Souls, on the other hand, is indelibly ingrained in my brain. Every brick of the Undead Burg, every lava-slagged stairwell of the Demon Ruins, every hairpin turn of the Tomb of Giants. I can still remember the horrifically perilous route down through Firelink Shrine, through the secret gateway into the Valley of Drakes, then cutting through into the lower part of Blighttown. It is muscle memory. A real, lived experience.

Each piece of Dark Souls’ puzzle is fitted together so adroitly, it is seamless. Fifteen years later, I still stumble upon secret paths, roads not taken, and wonder at the labyrinthine majesty of the thing. And this is speaking only of the level-design. If we take into account the mysterious mechanics, such as Humanity, then that is another level of mystery and depth. Time and time again I am drawn back to the original Dark Souls. No matter how competent I become at playing the game, it still holds some kind of secret magic that I cannot fully penetrate, so there remains always the mystery, the sense of discovery, the feeling of dark truths just beyond understanding.

Dark Souls II and III attempt to add quality of life improvements to Dark Souls, which is something all players can and should appreciate. But it is precisely the enigmatic difficulty of the first game, juxtaposed with a world so real it is a marble statue beneath your fingertips, that makes it more than merely entertainment, but art and legend.

2 — Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

There aren’t really words to describe the effect Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion had on me. Once again, my dear friend Rob is responsible for initiating me into this magical world. This time, I bought my own copy. We would play in our spare hours, and then come together at school and discuss our wild adventures, comparing notes, awed by the sheer range of outcomes and possibilities. The closest I can come to explaining the effect Oblivion had on me is that it detonated an atom bomb in the part of my brain responsible for creativity. I at last understood what artists meant when they talked about having the appropriate “canvas”. Oblivion, perhaps more than any other game before or since, was a canvas that contained just enough structure to set the imaginative wheels rolling, but more than enough freedom to let one’s creativity run wild. The power of that beautiful combination of structure and freedom is still being felt, still inspiring work, as is evidenced by Tyranid Lord’s exceptional fan-fiction set during the Oblivion crisis (see link below for more information).

Tyranidlord

Bloodtide Rising

If I was to describe, Bloodtide Rising, it would be the flagship of what has developed into my wider ‘Bloodtide Universe…

Read more

9 months ago · 4 likes · 1 comment · Tyranidlord

In many ways, Oblivion is the exact opposite of Dark Souls. Whereas the world of Lordran is lonely, habited only by dangerous madmen and ruinous gods, the world of Cyrodiil is bustling with everyday people, with commerce, and with humour. Whereas Dark Souls contains mysterious mechanics that are never explained to the player, and some of which continue to baffle analysts even to this day, Oblivion is at pains to tutorialise every element of its gameplay. Dark Souls is minimalist; Oblivion is maximalist.

And yet, they share two things in common: both games give you as close to absolute freedom as is possible, and both games force you to learn their worlds. And with learning comes understanding. With understanding comes appreciation. With appreciation comes love, a sense of connection. Both games understand—whether through developer intention or intuition—that emotions trump intellect every time. They want to make you feel. Having played Morrowind, Daggerfall, and Skyrim, I can say that while they are all fine, fine games, none of them come close to evoking the feeling that Oblivion does.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly where the feeling arises from, and likely, it is a combination of factors: music, aesthetic, the charm of the dialogue, the twists and turns of the quests. In Japanese philosophy, great emphasis is placed on the ineffable, the role of the Void in creation, and it is with games like Oblivion that such thinking rises to the forefront of my mind. I cannot point at one element of Oblivion and say, “It is this that makes it great”. Rather, it is the space between all the lovingly wrought aspects that somehow has become luminous. Living, almost. When I step back into Cyrodiil, it is like being welcomed into a tavern by a long lost friend.

And for all the years and hardships and wars, he hasn’t aged a day.

1 — Dragon Age: Origins

And so we arrive at my number one spot. To me, this is the RPG to which all other RPGs must be compared, the bar that has never quite been equalled, though some have come close.

Dragon Age: Origins is, quite simply, one of the greatest games ever made, and there is a reason it has become a living legend. The developers of the highly acclaimed Baldur’s Gate 3 stated almost unequivocally that Dragon Age: Origins was the benchmark to which they aspired. But great though their game is, it could not reach the lofty heights of Origins. One of the reasons BG3 cannot equal Origins is the pure poetry of it. The game opens with an epigraph written in flame upon a black screen:

“And so is the Golden City blackened
With each step you take in my Hall.
Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting.
You have brought Sin to Heaven
And doom upon all the world.”

—Canticle of Threnodies 8:13

It is from this point onward you know that you are not merely playing a game, but living a myth.

There are so many interlocking factors that make Dragon Age: Origins special, from its absurdly deep and idiosyncratic combat system, to the incredible player choice it offers. But it is the characters ultimately that make the game. Whereas in Dark Souls and Oblivion, one feels like a lonely god, always separated and above the lesser mortals that surround us. In Final Fantasy X and Dragon Age: Origins, you are gifted with memorable companions for the road. However, Origins goes infinitely further than Final Fantasy X. We are not merely spectators to the lives of our allies in DA:O, but an active shaper and participant. Their fate is in our hands along with the fate of Ferelden. And that is why the stakes feel so real.

Has there ever been a more rich, varied, delightfully entertaining, and interesting cast of fantasy protagonists in a video-game? Possibly not. And I think this is because David Gaider, the chief writer and shaper of Dragon Age’s world, understood myth. He and his team married biblical narrative, church history, pagan mythology, and Shakespearean plotting so seamlessly, it is dazzling. The characters that inhabit this world, therefore, likewise feel born from myth, realer than real.

When the heroic Duncan, leader of the Grey Wardens, is betrayed by the military general Loghain, it is not merely plot device, but a Macbethian treachery you feel in your bones. When we encounter the king of Redcliffe, and must seek out the Ashes of Andraste—sealed in a sacred urn hidden deep in the mountains—to heal his magical wound, we are transported to the realms of King Arthur and the Grail Quest.

These are but two examples, yet they serve to illustrate my point: everywhere you turn in Origins, you are treading upon mythic fabric. And yet, the game does not feel like a simple derivative hodgepodge. Gaider and his team managed to synthesise all these mythological components into a fresh warp and weave, a coherent dark fantasy world that touches the mythic chords within the human psyche. As Flemeth, a dark goddess of the forest, remarks, “Men’s hearts hold shadows darker than any tainted creature.” This is the poetic sentiment that underpins the whole narrative.

DA: O constantly presents us with the tropes and traditions of fantasy, but then subverts them. The companion, Alistair, for example, seems the epitome of the “unwilling heir to the throne” trope, the Aragorn-type figure who lives in a kind of exile, but must inevitably come to terms with power and responsibility. But the twist? He is gay. This isn’t shoved down our throats as a political sentiment. It’s simply a compelling aspect of his character. It is part of why he is an outcast, of why his ascension to the throne is controversial and problematic in an essentially feudal society. Despite his sense of justice and his bravery and willingness to put his life on the line, Alistair will never “fit” the throne, nor provide an heir.

Similarly, there is Morrigan. Her name is derived from the Irish goddess of war, wisdom, and Fate, a kind of Gaelic Athena—itself a mythological reference. But what is more, she seems—at first—the very image of the femme fatale, the dark, wild, beautiful sorceress who will seduce us with a glamour (I use the word in the old sense, here). But the reverse is quite the case. Having lived a life in the wilds, she has little interest in matters of the heart. She has no interest in seducing us. We—the player—must work very hard indeed to seduce her. And if we don’t win her favour, she will merely use us for her own ends.

I have played through Dragon Age: Origins four times fully, and many times started new characters just to play around in the world. I am constantly astonished by how much there is still that I have not seen. New ways of dealing with problems. New moments between characters. New moral quandaries and battles to fight and even places to explore.

But despite how incredibly open Dragon Age: Origins’ world is, it once again puts a twist on the RPG trope and subverts our expectations by imposing one hard limit: time.

The Darkspawn are coming. They are advancing always across the map. Areas are slowly removed as they are either outright destroyed or become too infested. This puts pressure on you. You can’t do it all. You have to make hard decisions. Spend time waiting for peace to be worked out between two warring factions, and you risk the Darkspawn claiming another city. On the other hand, the more factions are available to fight at the end, the greater one’s chance of success will be at finally defeating the Darkspawn.

In most open world games, you meander, aware that at any time you can backtrack, pick up all that’s missing, complete every side-quest. This is not so with Origins. The story is always advancing. You are part of the weave. And your every decision—including your omissions—have consequences. Leave a village about to come under attack to go run another errand? When you next arrive, it will be burned to the ground—all its people dead. Dragon Age: Origins fundamentally understands the role play aspect of Role-Play Games. Decisions only matter where there are loss and stakes. And despite how objective you may try to remain, the game has a way of forcing you into becoming invested.

I could go on and on about all the things Dragon Age: Origins gets right, but ultimately, similarly to Oblivion, there is an element of the ineffable about it. A team of people came together, a sense of spirit formed, and from this communion was forged something unique and special bearing its own kind of soul. This special quality is like lightning trapped in a bottle. All artists strive for it, but few ever attain it. Whatever the fate of Dragon Age’s sequels, or the state of BioWare or EA, we will always have this first magnificent opus that I sincerely believe will be remembered not merely as a game, but as one of the great works of fantasy for all time.

Thank you for reading this epic article; I hope you enjoyed it. I would love to hear your thoughts on which games / RPGs rank as your best!

And, if this article has whetted your appetite for deep RPG systems, sprawling fantasy worlds, and the players who must navigate them, then you might enjoy reading my GameLit series LEVI’S GAME, currently available on Amazon. The series follows Levi, a down-on-his-luck school dropout whose only hope of saving his family is the million-pound cash prize awarded to the winner of a dark and dangerous online game, Fate of Ellaria.

Don’t take my word for it, see what these reviewers had to say about the books:

“Save Game is heavily fantasy but absolutely has horror elements. It gave me the feeling of Elden Ring with a mix of Skyrim and a touch of Cyberpunk. If you are a gamer and you enjoy a good dark fantasy story I think you will also devour this one.”
-Kylie Trombley, Goodreads review

“An estus flask for the soul.”
-Samuel Parr, author and winner of the Ron L. Hubbard Writers of the Future Award

“Save Game is triumph, one of the most richly written pieces of fantasy that I've ever read. Sale's mastery of the genre in Save Game is startling, his characters are fresh and unique, his plot sharply woven, intuitive and beguiling, all of these things make Save Game an earth-shattering experience.”
-Ross Jeffery, Bram Stoker Award Nominated author of Juniper and Tome

SHOP NOW

Hello everyone!

As promised, here is part 2 of the Prologue for SET GOLD SKIES ABLAZE. In this section, we get to see another side of Quen Yu…

As always, thanks to everyone who reads my work, provides feedback, and generally supports me on this writing journey. I hope this work resonates with people; creating this work was a huge labour of love and it continues to invigorate me. I hope the same is true of those who read about it!

The rest of the evening passed with the morbid tension of familial ties severed. Jan Jin and Mila made excuses and retired early, exactly as Quen Yu had hoped. Jan Jin so loved to play his little games—he was an avid Tarod addict among other things—but he had been more right than he knew when he said that Daimonwine had slowed him. He was not the same dagger blade he had once been. He still played the buffoon, but there was less underneath it now. At last, unable to goad Quen Yu, he had petulantly declined to have any real meeting of minds, retreating to his bedroom with his frightened wife in tow.

Quen Yu would have to have them both killed, eventually. But tonight was not the night. Not when he lay at the nadir of disgrace, and not when his brother’s significantly larger retinue waited behind a veil of ricepaper for the slightest sound of betrayal.

Instead, Quen Yu had other ideas in mind. He needed diversion. The endless pretense bored him to insanity. His flesh itched. His brain felt as though it were too swollen from his skull, and needed lancing. Yes, he would use the information his brother had provided him to find welcome distraction.

His room was situated on the third story of the Dominion, some seventy-five feet from the ground. As Quen Yu leapt from the highest window he thought again of Shia’sha, of her descent. Had she resembled a pale cormorant hurtling towards the black of the night-clad sea for food? Had she felt the joy of flight moments before she struck the stone ground and was rent limb from limb?

He summoned the name, holding an image in his mind. Invocation is merely directed imagination, he heard his old master say. Feel the atoms of existence. The feeling is the key. The feeling, the image, and the name. This is the art! Children know it instinctively. We must learn to remember their wisdom as adults.

“Nereth, who wears the wings of crows,

Grant wings to me,

That I may soar above the woes of men!”

Halfway to his death, the energy condensed. It shifted from his head to his hands and then his hands to his spine. Wings erupted, black and nearly invisible against the night sky save for an absence. The wings ballooned, catching the air. And suddenly he was gliding rather than falling, descending towards the lip of the battlements with smooth flight.

Soldiers patrolled there, ever vigilant.

“Koronzon, darkest lord, conceal my form,

that I may be as black-wormed loam,

unseen beneath the tread of feet.”

He felt the darkness envelop him, and as the soldiers cast their eyes upward, hearing the beat of wings, they squinted and scanned the sky, but saw nothing. The most perceptive of them might have descried a movement of darkness, more shadow than substance, passing over the golden orb of Nilldoran as though the planet were a winking eye. They might have felt the prickle of sorcery, like the nearness of a scalding vapour. But if they did, they said nothing. In the land of sorcery, some mysteries were best left unsolved. This was something Qi’shathians learned from youth.

As a winged nothingness, Quen Yu flew over the wall and the heads of the soldiers and alighted in the filthy streets below. His invocations faded, like the details of a dream upon waking. He shivered, and felt a current running through him, alive, not just from the use of magic, but from the awakening of anticipation.

The bright disc of Nilldoran illuminated his path, drenching rooftops in subtle gold. He found his way through the warren of abodes easily enough. Xi’ten was not large by Qi’shathian standards, though it might have daunted a Yarulian newcomer, unused to larger settlements and dense populations.

Soon, he stood before the numberless, nameless house. Such places were numerous across Qi’shath, identifiable only by a unique perfume—a mix of fumeseote and jasmine that burned in a small brazier dangling from its eaves. They were entirely legal and beyond repercussion, but as with all things Qi’shathian, face and public perception were everything. To be seen entering or leaving such an establishment was social oblivion.

What went on unseen was not of concern.

He approached the door and knocked. It opened silently, a woman of middle years standing there, her aura redolent of sorcerous power, a red robe draped across a body still lithe and athletic—likely with the practice of martial arts. She wore white powder, her hair tied tightly back, her lips pursed austerely.

“What business brings you here, traveller?” Her eyes never seemed to leave his, but he knew she had already marked the quality of his cloth, the cast of his face. He bore the features of a Jin. He, more than any of the others, resembled the Great Mother.

“I seek a Way,” he replied.

It was a form of code, known throughout Qi’shath, indicating honest intentions for simple pleasure. She smiled warmly then, stepping aside and allowing him to step within.

The room was lit only dimly by candles and blood-lamps. The smell of Daimonsblood was faint, masked by burning incense.

“We are humbled to receive your person,” the matron said, bowing. She came as close to acknowledging his rank without outright stating as was seemly in Qi’shathian manners. He bowed in return, a silent expression of gratitude for her discretion now and in future.

“We have a number of fine Flowers for you, should you care to choose.”

The matron rang a bell that would have been invisible to him. Its clear, light sound made his flesh tingle. From secret doorways emerged three beauties. One was clad in white, one black, and one a dark emerald.

The one in emerald immediately drew his eye. She stood between the other two, her head lowered slightly. She was by far the youngest, though clearly a woman grown. Her features were pale and, to his mind, indicated a mixed ancestry. Her hair was not quite the lustrous black common to Qi’shathians, but rather a brunette so dark it reminded him of deep loam. Her eyes, again, were neither obsidian nor jade, but the darkest shade of hazel, like wood wetted in rain. He found her fascinating.

“This one,” he commanded. Instantly, the matron clapped her hands, and the other two women departed.

“Her name is Ynia,” the matron supplied.

Quen Yu reached into his robe, produced a pouch, and paid the matron her Demons. She bowed and vanished without a further word, knowing her place in this dark dance.

Ynia, without looking at him, indicated the doorway. Quen Yu approached and stepped through. The door was slid shut behind him, forming a seamless wall.

His pulse began to quicken. His heart hammered in his chest.

The room was small, tiled with yellow-gold squares. There was a bed upon the ground—not raised like western beds—and a small cabinet, filled with drinks.

Ynia approached him from behind. She placed her small hands upon his chest. She was trembling.

“Are you afraid of me?” he whispered.

“No, my lord.”

“Liar,” he snarled. He turned and saw she was still averting her gaze. He grabbed her chin and forced her to look upon him. “Do you find me so hideous?”

“No!” she squeaked. She was trembling more violently than a victim of palsy. Her alien eyes were wild, filled with a bovine terror. Perhaps he had made a mistake in choosing her? “No, it’s just… Your power…”

“You mean my reputation,” he snarled. The world, it seemed, had heard of what he had done, of his appetite—and the consequences. “Oh bitter irony! A whore thinks I will ruin her reputation!”

Suddenly, the door to the room sprang open. Ynia slipped from him and fled. He snarled, took one step to pursue—then faltered. Some power, or perhaps more accurately instinct, prevented him from following. Beyond the door, all was darkness, as though every last candle had been snuffed out. There was only mist and black shadow. A penumbra of sweet scents, drowsy and languorous and yet full of threat.

His eyes narrowed.

“Show yourself! Whoever you are!”

Within, he began summoning the energies of magic. He thought of the Kwei-Shin Beltanus, and a great shield of metal. He would deflect whatever came forth from the darkness.

But all was still. The smoke, even, seemed frozen in place, as though he gazed upon a painting.

Or a dream.

“Quen Yu Jin…” The voice was a black whisper, an utterance of decay. It was somehow familiar to him, and yet he was sure he should be able to identify such a voice with more certainty. “The dark prince… Keeper of the Twin Flames… Heir to the Jade Throne…”

A chill went down Quen Yu’s spine. This was a trap, one he had willingly walked into. But how, how could they have known he would come here, when he had not known himself until an hour before setting off? Unless, of course, his enemy was also a sorcerer, a haruspex of uncanny predictive abilities… He had known one or two fortune tellers kept at the Palace of Eternal Dream. He had at first dismissed them as charlatans preying upon his mother’s increased paranoia, but when more of their predictions came true than not, he had begun to revise his opinion. Clearly, there were some who could read the webs of Fate. He was highly skilled in the magical arts, but this was one ability seemingly denied to him.

“Who are you?” he cried. “I warn you, my death will be swiftly avenged!”

Laughter answered him. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. He nearly released the magical force gathering within him in a scream, such was the shock of fear that ran through him, but he just held himself in check.

A shadow appeared in the smoke. It moved towards him with horrible deliberateness, the slow shuffle of something perhaps physically disabled, but of unbreakable will.

He saw the red robes first—the same red robes of the matron who had greeted him at the door. But where the robes had adorned a beauty in her middle years, they now mantled a crone. She looked amphibian, such was the distortion time had wrought upon her features. The hair was lank, tangled like bindweed. The eyes were suken so far into the skull they seemed shrivelled. Her smile was toothless. One leg was game as she hobbled, using a stick for support.

“Who are you?” he asked a third time.

The crone laughed again.

“Not quite the pretty Flower you saw before,” she crooned. “Appearances can be deceiving, can they not?” She sniffed, and he sensed she was scenting him, apprising herself of more than ordinary knowledge. “Take you. You walk and talk like one disgraced. They whisper of you in the smoking dens and the parlours. They say ‘Quen Yu is nothing, nothing but a dog. He will die forgotten’.” The crone smiled at Quen Yu’s look of horror. “You know it is true. But I, I see differently. I see before me the Emperor of Qi’shath, crowned in resplendence.”

“Treason,” Quen Yu said, but he only managed to whisper it, for his heart was not in the words.

“Destiny,” she answered. “Destiny, Quen Yu. It hovers above you like the Jubjub bird. Your Fate is not the dirt of defeat nor the hovels of whores, but the skies where clouds dream! Oh, the feast is coming, my lord! The feast is coming like no feast you have known, where thy bladed beak shall bathe in the gore of your enemies, and the night-black moon shall herald the ascension of your star!”

“Enough!” Quen Yu snarled. “Do not fill my mind with pretty fantasies. I have met many flatterers and conspirers in my time. My mother is immortal.” He paused. It was only now, speaking aloud, that he realised how truly defeated he was. He pretended towards ambition, but in truth, he had accepted his lot in life. He had accepted the squalor of the Jubjub bird.

“Immortal, yes,” the crone said, her eyes glittering. “But not invulnerable. Even gods have been known to die, Quen Yu. This I have seen in the Abysm of Remembrance.” A shudder went through him.

“Do not speak of such things…”

“Why do you fear it? You are a sorcerer of rare art—possing knowledge of both Daimomancy and Invocation.”

“How do you know this?” he snapped. But he already had his answer. She had wielded the forbidden concoction, the Abysm of Remembrance, a drug so potent that it had made men gods—while at the same time driving them mad. The drug was magical, granting knowledge of hidden places and things. But the toll it exacted was heavy: sometimes for body, sometimes for mind, often for both.

The crone stepped toward him. The reek of decay was about her, but somehow he did not find it unpleasant. There was a richness to the smell, a thickness that reminded him of the potency of Daimonsblood.

“Come,” she whispered. “Come to me, Quen Yu. I have seen your destiny. I have seen you sitting upon the Jade Throne, all of Qi’shath and the world bowing before you. I have seen the webs of Fate. I have descried the mysteries of the Kwei-Shin. Heaven ordains it. The Way is yours. I ask only that you allow my to serve.”

She knelt before him, bowing her head low. Quen Yu stood, rooted to the spot, staring down at the locks of serpentine hair falling from her grey scalp. Minutes passed. The crone looked up at him, perplexed.

Quen Yu smiled then. But the smile he wore was not one anyone living had seen. It was a smile so dreadful that the crone’s aura of mysticism was shattered, and her lips quivered, and her breath caught in her throat.

“Fool,” Quen Yu whispered. It was not his voice, and yet it was him. His face was his face and yet it was not his face. The features, somehow, had been rearranged. The shadows of the room stuck to the wrong parts of him. His eyes were burning jewels. “You come to me with your charlatan’s ways, thinking to dupe me. You would put me on the throne as a puppet, wielding the power of the Empire from the shadows. I know your heart!”

“N-no, my lord—”

“Be silent,” he hissed.

The crone turned white. Her eyes shone with tears.

“Forgive me…” she whimpered.

“You know not who I am, nor in what fires this blade was forged.” Flames seemed to shine from his eyes, and a black light played around him, an inverse sorcery, a kind of void-fire. “I have glimpsed secrets of Reality that make your Abysm of Remembrance seem but a child’s toy glass.”

The crone trembled.

“I did not understand, I am so—”

“And still you do not…” he whispered.

The crone’s eyes widened. It was then she realised the horror of the mistake she had made. His smile widened until it was freakish, and his eyes blazed with a flame blacker than Daimonic fire. He looked not at all like Quen Yu, now, because he was not Quen Yu. Or rather, Quen Yu did not exist. He was a fiction who believed in his own reality, being worn by something far deeper and darker. She could only wonder at the childhood horrors that’d made a man like this, a man who—like the flatworm—wore flesh like clothes, manipulating from within, and never allowed themselves to be seen.

She gazed now upon a secret face, a face that had been hidden long decades, that could never be seen except by those about to die. She realised then that the visions she had seen had been fed to her, that what she thought of as the power of her foresight was indeed planted there by another hand, a hand of sorcery more powerful than anything she could ever imagine. She thought she had trapped the prince, but in truth, it was he who had trapped her.

“Who are you?” she now asked him. “Who are you really?”

“Why…” he said, laughing. “I am Quen Yu.”

The blade of black light fell swifter than a bird of death.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed this short two-part extract from my new novel. If you want to read more, you can read the first three volumes in their entirety on Royal Road. Please consider subscribing for free to get more epic fantasy delivered to your door!

Today is a bit different.

I want to shout out work by not only an absolutely incredible author but a constant source of profound inspiration in my life. I am biased, of course, but then I’ve declared my relationship to the author in question in the title of this post!

I’m talking about my wonderful father.

My dad is a poet. Quite a major one too. What I mean by that is not necessarily that he’s famous or sold lots of books, although there are cases to be made for both, but rather than his work is sort of revolutionary.

We are at a tipping point now in the West in which we have railed so stridently against tradition, have argued so volubly against meaning and truth, that now to create within traditional frameworks, to honour the past, and to embody religious values has become a radical act.

Every day, I see people posting on Substack that they would like to read more poets and see more poetry. Well, here is your chance. The Burning Word is a frankly masterful collection of poems spanning a fifty-year writing career, bridging the gap between old and new, traditional and modern, formal and free. There are poems here written with a young man’s burning ardour, and poems written in the “recollected tranquility” of older age. There are poems here about direct encounters with God, and poems about more humanistic concerns: a battle with cancer, the loss of loved ones, the hell of self-doubt—and the triumph over all of these.

The framework of this poetry is undoubtedly and unashamedly Christian, but like the Christians of old, the wisdom here is designed to cross the borders of language, culture, and religion. I sincerely believe my father does not aim to preach with this work, but he does aim to lay his own story bare—whether you believe his testimony or not is up to you. But one cannot help but be moved in uncovering his story one lyric at a time.

There’s one more thing I should say about this book: my mother did the artwork on the cover. She, too, has been a constant source of strength and inspiration in my life, and instilled in me a love of fantasy novels which has never died. So, here’s to my mother and father, and the wonderful things they do, and the beautiful thing they have made. May your ears too be opened by the Burning Word!

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But wait, there’s more!

My mother, father, and I will actually be collaborating even more closely on an exhibition of art, poetry, and book-bindery. This is taking place at Upton Country House, in Poole, and runs from February 5th and 11th. There is a special event on February 7th (Saturday) from 2pm till 4pm, where there will be readings (I plan on reading from Ourobomundus), great conversation, food, drink, and general celebration. If you’re in the UK and you’re free, please do come down. It is going to be a very special event indeed.

Hello my dear friends. Today, I wanted to share with you the first half of the Prologue of my current work-in-progess, SET GOLD SKIES ABLAZE, which is a sequel to FROM BLACK FIRES RISE. This novel deals with the war for the Jade Throne, which was a looming prospect in the first book.

I wanted to share this because the Prologue is relatively self-contained, and also I am particularly proud of it in terms of the world-building and characterisation—but see what you think! I welcome all feedback.

There are virtually no spoilers in this, because it actually takes place five years before the events of FROM BLACK FIRES RISE. So, you don’t need to have read the previous novel to enjoy it. We do, however, finally get up close and personal with Quen Yu, a character who is only a distant figure of threat in the previous novel.

I hope you enjoy this dark little episode. Please do let me know what you think in the comments. And if you like what you’ve read, feel free to read FROM BLACK FIRES RISE, which is available free on Royal Road.

Prologue

Year: 547 I.A. (5 years before The Battle of Fates)

Quen Yu

The Dominion of Eternal Watching was, by the standards of most Royal Houses, a modest affair. It overlooked the shanty port-town of Xi’ten and the Emerald Sea like an overzealous guard dog. Its grey walls and buttresses, sculpted from huge blocks of granite—hauled from Wuzin during the time of the Serpent Wars—partly resembled the muscular shoulders of a squat dog. Hackles raised. Growling its displeasure and distrust of the world.

Quen Yu Jin despised the building as much as he despised dogs. Dogs were filthy animals who brought their reek wherever they went. They were good for nothing but eating, and even then, their taste was crass.

Compared with the grand palaces of the southern Dominions, the Dominion of Eternal Watching was but a hovel. Nothing more than a glorified military outpost. It was emblematic of his fallen state. In the eyes of the Great Mother, the Jade Empress, he knew he was the least of his siblings. Qala—wretched Qala—was the one who commanded Mother’s favour.

Night mantled the building as he approached on foot, the stars hugging its upper battlements and squat turrets. Soldiers bearing the spear-tipped banners of the Jade Lotus patrolled its walls, their eyes vigilant gemstones in the dark. Despite the fact he wore a cloak of Imperial workmanship, and was accompanied by a retinue of soldiers, he was still challenged at the gate. An irksome humiliation.

“I am Quen Yu!” he proclaimed, but his proclamation died against the silence of the walls.

He waited, his boots sinking into the slick mud that surrounded the Dominion like a moat of sewage. He wondered whether his mother could even remember the smell of mud, sealed as she was at the heart of the vast labyrinth of Eternal Dream for nearly three centuries. It was a terrible fate, in some ways. And yet, it was all he aspired to.

After an age, the gate creaked open. There was his brother, opening his arms in greeting, his yellow silk robes loose about his corpulent frame. He bore the stylised goatee of a court official, and the smile of a reptile. Quen Yu wore his own false smile and stepped forward to greet his brother. Formal bows were exchanged. There was no embrace. That was for commoners.

“I trust your journey here was pleasant, dearest Quen Yu?” Jan Jin was a master of small, meaningless talk. Quen Yu was certain he could kill people with the sheer banality of his words. “It pleases me greatly that you shall be inheriting this mighty estate.”

I’m sure it does, Quen Yu thought coolly. You have risen in my mother’s estimations, where I decline.

But no one in Qi’shath spoke their feelings directly. To do so was social and sometimes literal suicide. There was a saying in this country: “The man who is first to declare what he knows is first to lose all knowledge”. The euphemistic implication eluded Yarulians and Aurelians, who were easier to read than picture-books given to children, and knew nothing of the subtlety of Qi’shath.

“My dearest brother, my heart fills with immutable joy to inherit a Dominion you have so carefully cultivated,” Quen Yu said, noticing that the walls had not been scrubbed of their sea-moss, that the roadways leading to the separate manors of the Dominion were unswept, and the servants looked gaunt and underfed. They bowed as the two brothers sauntered past. Misery lived in their eyes.

Jan Jin laughed heartily, barely concealing his mockery. There was little Quen Yu could do or say. Were he to abandon the post, his mother would soon hear of it, and he would be chased out of Qi’shath like a rabid dog. That thought was intolerable. He hated Qi’shath, and he hated his birthright. He hated a great many things. But Quen Yu was possessive with his hatred. Qi’shath was his to hate. He would not be removed from it, any more than a stubborn plague be removed from its victim.

“We will feast tonight in celebration,” Jan Jin said. “The cooks have prepared the finest delicacies for you.”

There was his wicked little smile again. Jan Jin was enjoying himself far too much.

They reached the central building within the walls of the Dominion, a three-tiered tower block carved out of Qi’shathian ebony, each story adorned with a sloping roof, crimson tilework gleaming like the scales of a dragon. They passed through an archway into a foyer pretending it was larger than it was, its walls hung with gaudy tapestries, one depicting the legendary conflict between Xi Bey and Li Zhong, half-brothers who had vied for the Jade Throne, whose conflict had torn Qi’shath asunder. The divide between north and south was still felt to this day, more than a thousand years since their feud.

“The dining room is upstairs,” Jan Jin said, as a pretty maid removed his outer silken robe, revealing the inner one, a vibrant shade of orange, like flame transmuted into silk. As the maid turned to take the outer robe to some cloakroom, Jan Jin slapped her behind and let out a haughty guffaw.

Quen Yu did not react. He was not disgusted by his brother’s behaviour because he knew that Jan Jin only performed the role of the lecherous buffoon to deceive his enemies into thinking he was stupider than he was. Within, he was just as calculating as any of the line of Jin. All three siblings wanted the throne. All three siblings knew the chances of success were slimmer than a thread of silk. But the prize was too great to be passed over.

Quen Yu’s outer robe was also removed. Jan Jin blanched when he saw what was emblazoned across Quen Yu’s inner robe. For a moment, the portly idiot vanished, and eyes of hard malice glinted in their sockets, trying to decipher what Quen Yu was up to.

Quen Yu smiled.

His robe was of the blackest silk, dyed seven times—ostensibly in accordance with the Seven Gates of the Immutable Way, but more truly in accordance with the Seven Gates of the Palace of Eternal Dream, the way that led to the Jade Throne, the throne that would one day be his. Spreading its long wings across the vast, night-black landscape of the robe was a pearl-white Jubjub bird. The hideous, blade-mouthed bird leered as it flew, its radiant yellow eyes seeming to scour anyone who dared to meet its gaze. They were eyes of madness. There was bloody flesh in its beak.

Quen Yu was born under the Manse of the Jubjub Bird, the most opprobrious constellation of all the thirteen Sidereal Manses. In the West, there were only twelve Manses. But in Qi’shath they had added one more, dedicated to the most nauseating of all creatures.

Qala, of course, had been born under the Monoceros—the unstoppable beast that bestrode the world, its mighty horn uprist. Jan Jin was born under the Scorpion. Both were signs deemed fitting for prospective rulers and heirs.

Quen Yu’s birth-sign, on the other hand, had been a point of mockery for most of his life, for in Qi’shath astrology was also religion. The Jubjub bird was considered ill-Fated, for it was a creature that preyed upon human beings, that procreated in nests of its own shit, and was frequently documented committing acts of hideous necrophilia. Legends said that the souls of Daimons, having been driven out of their bodies by the wrath of the gods, had fled into the Jubjub birds, hence their mercurial natures and bloodthirsty appetites. They were a plague upon Qi’shath, a loathsome emblem of nuisance, predation, and degradation.

Quen Yu had not chosen this symbol. It had been given to him by the hour of his birth. He had resented it his whole life. But when his mother had stripped him of his former Dominion and sent him north, he’d realised that the time had come for him to embrace what he was. If he could not be loved, he would be reviled. If he could not be favoured, he would be infamous.

They mocked the Jubjub bird because they feared it, after all.

His inner robe was of a gauche styling, antithetical to the subtle fashions of Qi’shath. It was the visual equivalent of a black powder bomb, and he’d known beforehand the shockwave it would case.

Jan Jin stood speechless.

“My, dear brother,” Quen Yu said. “It is most unusual for the Scorpion to lack his sting. You must have been without a sparring partner for many moons, marooned in these northern climes.”

Jan Jin showed teeth for the barest flicker before concealing his wrath and bowing—an acknowledgement that Quen Yu had won the social altercation this time round. It was the only way for him to save face.

“Indeed. My mind grows soft with the northerner’s love of Daimonwine—accursed import!” He covered his shame with bluster. “I long for the delicate ricewines of the south! But come, you are not opposed to sharing some of the Aurelian vintage with me?”

It would be rude to decline, so Quen Yu bowed his agreement. The two were led to a set of stairs by a team of servants. Their soldiers trundled along behind them, giving no indication of requiring sustenance or rest, as alert as though they walked the blackened streets of some nameless gutter town. Such was the way of the Qi’shathian military. Qi’shathian soldiers were trained from childhood to master the needs of the flesh. Their greatest weapon was the spirit of their resilience.

And even in this fortress, there was no guarantee of safety. The number of siblings who had murdered one another in the annals of Qi’shathian history were legion, as were the number of assassinations that’d taken place within the strongest fortifications. Neither Quen Yu nor Jan Jin could afford to release their bodyguards, not even while they slept. The soldiers would dine with them, though at another table, behind the thinnest veil of ricepaper, and they would eat in shifts so that some were ready at all times to act.

The dining hall was likewise a parody of opulence. The low table, meant for sitting at cross-legged, was wrought of dark ebony and stretched long enough to seat maybe a hundred diners. The wall of ricepaper that separated nobles from serfs was daubed with inked designs, depicting animals symbolic of the Great Rulers of Qi’shath. The last was a great invincible Serpent constellated in the heavens—paradoxically immutable and unchanging as the stars and yet able to shed its skin and be born anew. This was the emblem of the Jade Empress, and the Sidereal Manse under which she was born.

Qi’shathian lamps hung from the ceilings, casting the room in an orange glow. The walls were adorned with ceremonial weaponry and lesser known artworks by painters of the Shadow-Eye Dynasty. Despite the faux opulence of gold-filigreed cups and bowls, the cold drafts that filtered through one broken shutter, and the disrepair of the wallpaper, indicated the true state of affairs here.

They sat near the end of the table, Jan Jin at the head—as was proper given he was host—and Quen Yu to his right, the position of second highest authority. Jan Jin clapped his hands and serving women bowed and departed to obtain drinks for them. The banquet would be long and tedious, a trial of endurance and manners.

“Xi’ten is not so bad, brother,” Jan Jin said, and for once he sounded moderately sincere. Perhaps Quen Yu’s surprise had rattled Jan Jin out of his superiority complex. Perhaps he was more relaxed now that they were engaging in Jan Jin’s favoured pastime: eating and drinking. Or perhaps this, too, was a ruse. Quen Yu dare not let his guard down for an instant, but he bowed.

“Tell me of it, dear Jan Jin.”

And his brother did, in gallingly exhaustive detail. Quen Yu listened, however, because he knew a midst the sundry irrelevancies and trifles, there would be nuggets of information worthy of perusal, unseen advantages that could be exploited. He kept his face neutral on every point, nodding along like an interested tourist, all the while taking note of Jan Jin’s mention of the high theront population, and the limestone bluffs that framed Xi’ten’s bay.

They had finished their first course—shrimps—and had imbibed their first bottle of Daimonwine when a delicate, high bell rang and a woman entered. Quen Yu knew, purely by her garment, that this must be Jan Jin’s wife. But he had never seen her before.

She was an extraordinary beauty. Unusually pale, with obsidian eyes, and lustrous hair falling down one side of her face, almost to the waist. She wore a robe of pale yellow detailed with floral patterns, and moved with the elegance of one born to nobility.

She bowed twice to each of them and came to sit at Jan Jin’s left.

“My wife, Mila,” Jan Jin said. He grinned foppishly at Quen Yu. Ah, so this is how you will drive the knife in once again. All the chatter was merely lulling into a false sense of security so that he could begin his assault again. “Such a shame,” Jan Jin said, before Quen Yu could ever exchange a formal greeting with Mila. “What happened to yours.”

Quen Yu could not stop his teeth from clenching, nor his hand tightening into a fist below the table. Rage travelled through him like the tides of sorcery. Then grief. He felt a glow in his palm, the wealth of power there cultivated over a lifetime of study and hard practice. Images flashed before his mind’s eye, accompanied by god-names. Images of flame and devastation, of flesh seared from the bone. The power yearned to be invoked, to be called.

Jan Jin was smiling at him. An ordinary person would not have noticed anything amiss about his posture, but Quen Yu saw he was sitting too still, bracing himself for the magical attack he had provoked. Jan Jin was many things, but he was no slouch when it came it the magical arts. He would counter whatever Quen Yu threw at him. Quen Yu could sense his subtle, evasive summoning of power. It was like light playing in the periphery of his vision, yearning to coalesce, but if he tried to look at it directly, it snuffed out like a candle.

Quen Yu sat back, and smiled. He thought of the Jubjub bird. Such creatures did not care for the insults hurled at them, for how their name was timelessly evoked in old Qi’shathian poems, synonymous with filth and decay and squalor and evil. They waited until their prey looked away, then eviscerated them with their rapier-like beaks. Jubjub birds did not fight fairly. They were more cunning than their ugly natures let on.

So Quen Yu ignored his brother. He turned his eyes toward Mila, who was looking at the ground intently, clearly an unwilling participant in this charade. Weakness, Quen Yu thought. Never show the Jubjub bird you are afraid of it.

“You are referring, of course, to my wife’s suicide,” Quen Yu said, coldly.

Mila could not stop herself from raising her eyes, staring at Quen Yu in something betwixt awe and horror. He had violated so many codes of social conduct with that one, simple statement. The utterance of truth in Qi’shath was often tantamount to blasphemy.

“Brother—!” Jan Jin hissed.

“Come now, Jan Jin,” Quen Yu talked over him with a slow, deliberate drawl he had learned from Aurelian traders. They bamboozled their marks with their easy-going way of speech, giving them no opportunity to butt in. “It is a sensitive topic, but you have raised it, and it would do not good for Mila to be under any kind of false impression.” Quen Yu smiled at Mila, who was still staring at him as though he’d revealed himself to be from the planet Nilldoran. “I was having an affair, Mila. It is the talk of all the courts, and the reason that I was sent here. When my wife discovered it, she killed herself.” And the guilt haunts me still, he thought, but that he kept to himself, for it would be exploited as weakness. “A toast, then,” Quen Yu continued brightly. “In loving memory of Shia’sha. To her ghost. May it find peace beyond the Seventh Gate.” More likely she shall burn in Hell for violating the accord of life. Oh Shia’sha, how could you have been so stupid? But he knew this last question was really directed at himself. How could he have been so stupid? To stray from the Way. And with a Daimomancer… Oh, he had learned much from their trysts—too much—but the price had been heavy, a lodestone upon his immortal soul.

Jan Jin and Mila both stood speechless. Then, slowly, each raised their glass to match Quen Yu. Etiquette dictated they accept his toast, no matter how much it disturbed them. All three drank, and Quen Yu barely tasted the spice of Daimonswine, for its aggression was no match for his constitution now. He had consumed much more than this diluted gimmick of commerce. He had drank from the fresh blood, snorted the power of bones… But hush these thoughts. There were many in Qi’shath who had made it their life’s study to read thoughts from faces, and his brother was one of them.

“I am… sorry for your loss,” Mila stammered. Jan Jin looked at her sharply, but seemingly could find no fault with expressing such a sentiment. Quen Yu smiled. The woman had sounded sincere, bless her.

“Well, if we are done discussing such shocking matters…” Jan Jin prompted, his expression more sour than next course—some pickled confection.

“Ah, yes,” Quen Yu said. “Let us leave the past behind. Come, my brother, tell me again of Xi’ten, and the shithole I am inheriting.”

I hope you enjoyed this extract. Part 2 is on its way. If you liked it, please consider subscribing to get more epic fantasy fiction delivered to your inbox, or letting me know what you thought in the comments below!

I’ve got fantastic news. The paperback and kindle editions of Ourobomundus is officially out today! Here is the incredible cover with art by Vermeulen-Perdaen:

For those paid subscribers who followed along, and who want to own a physical copy, now is your chance to take the Serpent World home. But of course, this is also a chance for anyone who did not get to experience the serialised release of the epic to purchase and read the poem in its entirety. Fear not paid subscribers, you will be receiving bonus, behind-the-scenes content unavailable anywhere else.

From the vicious crags of the World-Spines to the harrowing Scabland Mire to the treacherous courts of Vehemoth, follow Zara The Imperishable as her epithet is put to the ultimate test…

Purchase from:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

So, while imperfect, this is my list of my favourite—in my view the greatest—fantasy films I’ve seen.

Honourable Mention — Die Nibelungen (dir. Fritz Lang)

In all honesty, I regard Honourable Mentions as cheating. However, I believe I am justified in making an exception to my own rule in this instance, as the film in question is from the silent era, and therefore, in many ways, not entirely of the same medium as the others.

Das Nibelungen is not only one of the greatest fantasy films of all time, but possibly one of the greatest films ever made. This two-part, four-hour, silent epic from 1924, based on the German epic poem The Nibelungenlied, is astounding in every sense. Despite being in black and white, it is a visual feast. Every frame looks like a painting. The vast architecture of of this ancient, feudal world—touched by magic—unfolds before us like mirages in a dream. The actors on stage seem like the shadows and caricatures that appear to us in nightmares and visions, performing a kind of coordinated dance in which every minute hand-gesture is loaded with symbolic, communicative significance.

The film opens up a universe to us that breathes with magic, passion, and mystery. Yet it is also intensely physical in a way modern films simply cannot match. The cavalry charges, the trials of Brunhild, the fight with the incredible animatronic dragon—which breathes real gouts of flame—feel kinetically charged. The absence of sound effects is compensated by the extreme emphasis of the physical actions and motions. It is exhausting to watch but in a good way. The emotional climaxes are hair-raising in their sheer, distilled intensity—so much communicated through merely the direction of a gaze, the slightest flutters of an eyelid, the architecture of body language.

While not easy viewing for the modern cinephile, it is without a doubt worth the effort, as it will reward time and time again with scenes of dreamlike wonder and horror—courage and devastation—so vivid they cannot but be burned onto the brain like photographic chemicals onto celluloid.

5 — The Never-Ending Story (dir. Wolfgang Peterson)

No list of fantasy films would be complete without Wolfgang Peterson’s adaptation of Michael Ende’s young adult masterpiece The Never-Ending Story. While the film only deals with the first half of the book, it is nonetheless a tour de force in its own right. Though it would be easy to dismiss the film’s success as merely the product of ‘80s zeal for fantasy, and a glamorous soundtrack, The Never-Ending Story is a remarkable film for so many reasons: the lovingly detailed animatronics, that so vividly bring the world and creatures to life, the breakout performances, and the way it so effortlessly oscillates between our reality and the dream of Fantasia.

But what truly makes The Never-Ending Story special, in my view, is the way it uses its visuals to convey myth—and mythic grandeur. The landscapes of Fantasia are so stunningly realised that they feel familiar, in a strange way, like places we have visited before in dreams—or nightmares. We recognise the White Tower, the Swamp of Despair, the horrific rocky crags where the demon-wolf lies in wait. We have been to these places, and even where they are frightening, we long to return to them.

And that is why the destruction of Fantasia—the advance of The Nothing—is so terrifying. It is the erasure not just of a specific place, but of all places, of dream, of the human imagination itself. This thesis belongs to Ende’s novel, of course, but it is so vividly realised in the film that we hear it in a new transcendent key. And Peterson conveys the message not only trough the overt storytelling but through subtle ways as well. For example, time and again he uses clouds and mist—that warp with translucent, changing colour—almost resembling paintings that are melting, becoming unmixed. This repeated image serves as a visual clue as to the central threat and horror that nestles within this so-called children’s film. Masterful film-making and storytelling.

4 — Legend (dir. Ridley Scott)

In recent times, this film has gained cult-status, particularly the Director’s Cut. However, I would argue that even the Theatrical Cut of Legend is a phenomenal piece of film-making that exemplifies all the unique and best qualities of fantasy: whimsy, beauty, poetry, metaphysical and spiritual commentary, promise and prophecy, desire, world-building, and powerful symbolism.

If you forced me to pick one word to describe Legend, it would be synesthesia. Its imagery and sound combine in strange and often unpredictable ways, creating haunting, glittering vistas that seem arisen moment by moment from dreamstuff, and moments of terror that resemble nightmares. The scene where Jack (Tom Cruise) dives down into the pool to retrieve Lili’s (Mia Sara) ring—and winter ruinously arrives, sealing the ice above his head—is nothing short of breathtaking. So, too, is disturbing yet erotic dance of the Shadow that enacts a physical transformation upon Lili, changing her appearance to reflect her draw to Darkness. These moments are potent not just for how well acted and choreographed they are, but how the editing, music, sound, and visuals all combine to overwhelm the senses—as though the vital forces of magic are trying to break free.

Legend follows the logic of a dream. It is not about “plot” but about how one state transforms into another. Love into jealousy; jealousy into anger; anger into resentment; resentment into lust; lust into desire; desire into transcendence. As a result, the story feels realer than real, like a memory dwelling in the substrata of our psyche of a mythic reality we all once participated in. In this respect, for all its whimsy, it is a frightening film. The goblins and their banter are meant to entertain us, and yet, the slaying of the unicorn is hideous, distressing. Like the killing of the albatross in Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the lack of true motive perturbs us at the deepest core. We feel the presence of evil throughout the film, not merely in Tim Curry’s immaculately charismatic Lord Darkness, but in the ever-present threat that attends all goodness in the forest. This magical world is beautiful, but monsters dwell just beneath its surface.

One other thing to say about Legend is like all great fantasies it contains deep wisdom; its dialogue borders frequently on pure poetry. For example, when the goblins tell Darkness that Lili “…is a female; she has no power.” He replies sardonically, “Only the power of Creation.”

Likewise, when Lili refuses Darkness’s initial temptations, claiming that she has other dreams, he replies, “The dreams of youth are the regrets of maturity.” Has ever a villain made a more compelling argument?

Despite the power and seduction of evil, it is goodness that prevails in Legend, and the ending is one that will jerk tears, not because of any bittersweetness or loss, but because of the sheer imaginative purity of it. In a way, Legend defiantly reverses the myth of Eden, and imagines what could have been had the first man and woman resisted temptation and remained in the innocence of the Garden. Quite simply astonishing.

3 — The Fall (dir. Tarsem Singh)

This film has been criminally overlooked for too long. In my view, it is one of the greatest explorations of fantasy—and the power of human imagination—ever put to film.

Following a stuntman now suicidal after being paralysed in an accident—and losing the woman he loves to another—he begins to manipulate a young girl at the hospital into bringing him pills by telling her stories. But what he cannot predict is that the act of storytelling, and the innocence of the young girl, become transformative and healing.

The Fall is unashamedly about storytelling itself, but it is anything but pretentious. This is because storytelling is not seen merely as a cultural artefact but as a spiritual act. The Fall—as its biblically loaded name suggests—is a film about the soul, about the sin that stains us, and about liberation and redemption. The imagination—coupled with love—becomes the vehicle for healing and transcendence on a simply awe-inspiring scale.

This is partly achieved through the way Singh treats the world of the story, or the fantasy. The fantastical world is not simply a device to make clever commentary, but an entire reality that exists alongside what we recognise as “real”—no less valid, and in some ways more valid. Unlike Nocturnal Animals, whose fictional scenes are ultimately just that—worse even than dream sequences for they illuminate nothing and are merely the imaginative flights of a single character—The Fall’s fantastical story is its heart and soul. Through the “darkling glass”, we see the truth of the inner condition of mankind, both in its most depraved and fallen state, but also in its liberated ascension. The story-world proves in many ways to be the true and triumphant reality of the film—for it has the power to change the “real” world. And in turn, the film changes us as we watch it.

The film forces us to see through the eyes of a child. And over the course of the narrative, we take on that same transformative, wonder-filled gaze. It is an aptly named film, for the Garden of Eden is metaphorically envisioned as the pure state of childhood in which the world is magical, ever-changing, and filled with beauty and brilliance.

Whereas Legend envisions a world in which Adam and Eve never strayed, The Fall is arguably even more powerful and emotive, for it shows us the way back to Eden, even after so much loss and pain.

2 — Pan’s Labyrinth (dir. Guillermo Del Toro)

There has been much discussion of Guillermo Del Toro recently in the wake of Frankenstein. I love his work, both old and new. But to my mind his greatest and most perfect film will always be Pan’s Labyrinth. It is at once a dark fairy tale and a promise of salvation. I never fail to cry at the ending.

We talk a lot about myth and its importance on this Substack, but Pan’s Labyrinth is the epitome of channeling the mythic current. Set in 1944, the story takes place—like many myths—in a time at once far gone from the contemporary world but at the same time near enough that we recognise it and find parallels to our own situation. The story follows Ofelia, a young girl forced to move in with her cruel, fascist stepfather—Vidal. Vidal’s estate, however, borders a mysterious labyrinth inhabited by magical creatures, who take a special interest in Ofelia.

The genius of Pan’s Labyrinth is how fantasy and reality collide. The story seems to be formed from these two contrasting columns—much like the temple of the High Priestess in Tarotic symbolism—and yet increasingly the distinction between the two becomes blurred. Vidal’s estate, for example, is part of the “real” world. Yet its crumbling splendour, and eerie, labyrinthine gardens feel more like a dreamscape, something leapt from the pages of a gothic novel. Likewise, the fantastical creatures, who occupy the hidden spaces of secret tunnels beneath trees, and banqueting rooms accessible only via imaginary doors, become all-too-real when they suffer gruesome injury and death, just like our human protagonists.

As with The Fall, Pan’s Labyrinth forces us to look through the eyes of a child, eyes still open to the imaginative potential and “ensoulment” of the world. But whereas The Fall showcases the healing power of imagination on the real world, Pan’s Labyrinth aims for something even more spiritual—the transcendence of reality altogether through the power of the imaginal act.

The imaginative reality is the deeper and truer one in Pan’s Labyrinth—this is the home to which the human soul is destined to return if it can remain true, good, and pure. The horrors and miseries of the real world become insubstantial next to the glory of heavenly reunion. This world, our world, is but a testing ground, a purgatorial initiation, and death is the doorway to the kingdom of eternity, where magic still exists.

Pure cinematic poetry.

1 — The Lord of the Rings (dir. Peter Jackson)

Not only is The Lord of the Rings arguably the greatest fantasy film ever made, but it also holds the title of one of the greatest adaptations of all time. Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh so deeply understood Tolkien that it is hard at many points to tell where he ends and their additions begin. Many of the film's most iconic lines have been mistakenly attributed to Tolkien, they are so authentic to his spirit and world.

The word I hear most often to describe Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings is “definitive”, and I think that hits the nail on the head. It is definitive not only as an adaptation of Tolkien but as an expression of the mythological currents of fantasy. It is the prime and nigh-on-impossible-to-surpass exemplar of the medium.

The Lord of the Rings contains it all: the wild, joyous eucatastrophe of heroic cavalry charges that deliver brave defenders from death and destruction, glorious elegiac poetry inspired by the Anglo Saxon bards, the figure of the Dark Lord, whose presence is palpable even where he is unseen. But what is more, it is all so stunningly wrought, down to the last link of chainmail. The Lord of the Rings is not merely impressive because of its source material—it is a film of staggering workmanship that is still a benchmark for filmmakers to aspire to more than twenty years on.

If you enjoyed this article on fantasy films, you might enjoy my epic fantasy series Lost Carcosa, now available in audiobook.

What is Carcosa?

For Alan Chambers, a jobless loner, it’s the answer to his problems. Or so he thinks…

Rejected by family and friends, and soon-to-be homeless, Alan makes his last desperate bid to discover the truth of this miserable reality by journeying to an occult brothel where it’s said the worthy might obtain passage to this fabled land of Carcosa.

But proving one’s worth is more dangerous than Alan could have imagined.

Lost Carcosa is an epic fantasy-horror that reimagines the astonishing mythos of Robert W. Chambers, combining Clive Barker’s eroticism and fantasy with Stephen King’s pulse-pounding narrative.

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So, we have arrived at the final canto. I hope you enjoyed the journey—and the ending too. I want to thank everyone who has come this far from the bottom of my heart. This poem was exceedingly difficult to write and especially to finish, but the feedback has been so wonderful, it has made it all worth it. I hope to produce this book in both eBook and paperback, possibly with some extras included. But for now, I simply hope you find meaning in the ending, as I did.

With love,

Joe

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I hope you have all had a good holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah or something else entirely. I wanted to take this moment of in-betweenness—before the New Year but after the epic finale of Christmas—to pause, reflect, and say a massive thank you. Thank you to my family, especially my mother and father, wife, and daughter. Thank you to my fellow writers who have supported me throughout the year, and are too numerous to name (but you know who you are). Thank you to the Hidden Gems community for accepting me into their ranks. To the Royal Road community for all their love and support. And thank you to all of you on Substack for making this such an absolute blast, and for teaching me a lot.

This year has been crazy on a number of levels. I went to America and met Matt Dinniman. We moved house, relocating near my hometown, which a bit of an overhaul of our lives. My daughter turned two and thus entered a completely different stage of development. But despite all the chaos of this, from a writing perspective, 2025 was one of my most productive years to date. This year I completed:

• A 246,000 word epic fantasy novel FROM BLACK FIRES RISE (which is available for FREE on Royal Road)

• An epic poem, OUROBOMUNDUS, which I serialised here on Substack for paid subscribers.

• More than 50 Substack articles!!!

• Two screenplays, one of which is currently in the Quarterfinals of Stage 32 & Mammoth Pictures’ “Search For New Blood” competition.

Phew!

I also published three books in the Levi's Game series.

With all this creative output, I feel—surprisingly—not exhausted but energised. It just goes to show that we are fuelled by doing the things we love. And the more we do of what we love, and do what we do with love, the less like work it feels.

However, I’ve also had a lot of lessons to learn—some of them very difficult. This year was really a year of experimentation. Substack was itself an experiment for me, one that I feel has gone extremely well—and again, I’m grateful to all of you for that. But I have tried several other experiments—the TikTok Shop for example—which I will definitely not be continuing into next year.

I think 2026 is going to be a year of consolidation—fine-tuning what is already in place and making the most of things rather than trying to take gambits.

So, on that note, what does 2026 hold?

OUROBOMUNDUS paperback and eBook coming January 12th!

There will be an official announcement with more information nearer the time, but here is a sneak peak at the cover! I have to say, I am a big fan of the retro-style windowed covers.

More free fiction coming to this Substack — starting January 26th

I really wanted to do something special for my paid subscribers, which is why I decided to serialise OUROBOMUNDUS exclusively for them. However, I don’t want everyone else to miss out on the fiction. So, next year, I am going to be releasing more fiction on Substack. Mostly, it will be self-contained extracts from my latest novel, but there might also be some poetry, short stories, and other works. I’ve been hugely inspired by the Fiction Renaissance occurring on Substack, and I’m keen to share more of what I do—and get your feedback too! So, look out for more prose. The first extract should appear January 26th.

February 2nd - 12th, Exhibition in Poole, UK

From February 2nd to February 12th, I will be participating in a family exhibition at Uptown House Gallery, in Poole (UK). The exhibition will feature my mother’s artwork, my father’s poetry, and book bindery and poetry from me (including a special dragon-scale binding of OUROBOMUNDUS). If you are based in the UK, you should definitely mark this date in the diary and consider coming along. There is a special launch event on the 7th February, and there will be food, performances, and great conversations.

February 26th - March 1st, AuthorCon Virginia

As if February wasn’t busy enough, I’ll be heading to AuthorCon for the third time. This incredible event, organised by Scares That Care—a charity that facilitates expensive medical treatments for those in need—hosts traditional and indie authors in horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. I’ll be there with a special, omnibus edition of LOST CARCOSA featuring artwork by the legendary Michael Hutter. This bumper paperback edition is only available at conventions, so if you want it, make sure you come to Virginia! Check out the beauty below.

April 10th-11th, PASCIFY

As well as AuthorCon, I’ll be attending PASCIFY this year, which is an incredible new convention taking place in Harrowgate, UK, organised by the same people who host “Authors At The Armouries”. This is aimed at people who love fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal, and speculative fiction. Don’t miss your chance to buy books, chat to authors, and have a blast.

Film — HellWard & Black Knife

Last but not least, I think 2026 could be the year we finally shoot the short film HellWard and maybe also Black Knife, my feature film. I am not 100% sure of this yet—it’s obviously an ambitious undertaking—but I feel the stars might be aligned and the time right. We’ll see!

So, enough from me, what about you? What does 2026 hold? Are you going to be making an resolutions or intentions? Please let me know in the comments below. And if we don’t speak before, I’m wishing you a happy and prosperous New Year, where all that you desire may become manifest!

I staggered back. This could not be.
And yet, His words rang true. 
Had I not often said I worshipped Death, 
sought Him in dark corners, in drink, 
in drugs, in secret ecstasies? I’d prayed to him, 
though knowing not to whom I truly prayed,
nor what I called from dark slumber, 
nor what horrors I’d wrought on man. 
And here He was, my god, my black ru…

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For those reading this in real time, I just want to say a quick merry Christmas, merry holiday season, happy solstice, and general good will and blessings whether or not you celebrate an occasion this time of year or not. Thank you to those who have loyally supported me and my writing, and continue to read this serialised tale. The Serpent World means a lot to me, and—appropriately given the snake symbolism—catalysted a bit of a creative rebirth. We approach the moment of that rebirth now, so stay tuned for the epic conclusion over the next two weeks…

—With love, Joe

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