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reubend1ca9's review against another edition
4.0
Aside from one or two stories this is a pretty solid collection. Recommended if you like dark fantasy, grimdark or other violent entertainment.
daveversace's review against another edition
4.0
A collection of dark fantasy fiction with protagonists of dubious moral character. Some great stories in the set included "The Divine Death of Jirella Martigore" by Alex Marshall, "The Tattered Prince and the Demon Veiled" by Bradley P Beaulieu, "Exceeding Bitter" by Kaaron Warren, and "A Game of Mages" by Courtney Schafer.
Interestingly most of the stories feature characters from the authors' novels, meaning if you like a particular story there's a good chance there's an attached series to explore. So an excellent primer to guage your tastes for gritty, grimy fantasy.
Interestingly most of the stories feature characters from the authors' novels, meaning if you like a particular story there's a good chance there's an attached series to explore. So an excellent primer to guage your tastes for gritty, grimy fantasy.
alanbaxter's review against another edition
5.0
An excellent and varied collection, well worth the time of any dark fantasy or grimdark fan.
kjcharles's review against another edition
I picked this up a) because the title interested me greatly (I maintain that you can't write a good villain without understanding their motivation, which will be more than just "bwahaha I love to do bad things") and b) because I've said a lot of rude things about grimdark as a genre without reading much if any so I thought, give it a fair try.
Well.
The introduction has a passionate defence of putting rape scenes in books because moral relativism or rape happens or something. The usual but as a philosophy. I can't be bothered so here's a great piece to read instead.
Then the first story has a MC called Anomie. (Anomie, n., lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group.) I get characters called Chastity or Suffer-Not-Injustice or Gabriel Oak, but Anomie? You might as well call the MC Dystopia, or Angst.
I read four and skimmed two and got bored because for me this wasn't "evil is a matter of perspective" so much as "this story is from the perspective of an Evil Person". Lots of gory death, not so much moral and human flaws, or self deception, or honest yet rigid belief in good things leading inexorably to bad things, or whatever other texture to why the evil was done. So, yes, it was all grim and dark and if you like grimdark I'm sure it has lots of nuances that weren't apparent to me (or maybe the remaining stories had more variety, I DNFd early), but as a novice to the genre, it mostly felt monotonous. Dark, dark, dark, irrecoverably dark without all hope of day, which is fine, but my days of painting my bedroom black and listening to Joy Division on repeat are behind me, so I'm out.
Well.
The introduction has a passionate defence of putting rape scenes in books because moral relativism or rape happens or something. The usual but as a philosophy. I can't be bothered so here's a great piece to read instead.
Then the first story has a MC called Anomie. (Anomie, n., lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group.) I get characters called Chastity or Suffer-Not-Injustice or Gabriel Oak, but Anomie? You might as well call the MC Dystopia, or Angst.
I read four and skimmed two and got bored because for me this wasn't "evil is a matter of perspective" so much as "this story is from the perspective of an Evil Person". Lots of gory death, not so much moral and human flaws, or self deception, or honest yet rigid belief in good things leading inexorably to bad things, or whatever other texture to why the evil was done. So, yes, it was all grim and dark and if you like grimdark I'm sure it has lots of nuances that weren't apparent to me (or maybe the remaining stories had more variety, I DNFd early), but as a novice to the genre, it mostly felt monotonous. Dark, dark, dark, irrecoverably dark without all hope of day, which is fine, but my days of painting my bedroom black and listening to Joy Division on repeat are behind me, so I'm out.
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