A Dance of Cloaks By David Dalglish

 A Dance of Cloaks

By David Dalglish

David Dalglish was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida (My God…) on April 2nd, 1984. His family moved to the town of Purdy Missouri when he was four years old and he spent the rest of his childhood in Missouri (The poor soul). According to Mr. Dalglish, the pivotal moment that sent him down the path of becoming a writer is when a creative writing teacher in high school got them into the computer lab every day of the week under the rule that they spend the time writing something, anything. I got to admit that's a lot different than my experience with creative writing (He had a good teacher then.). Mr. Dalglish would go on to polish his writing in college, describing it as meeting real writers who could write circles around him. He graduated with a degree in Mathematics from Missouri Southern State University in 2006. It took four years before he was able to self-publish his first novel Weight of the Blood, the first book in the half-orc series, in 2010. Since then he has been amazingly prolific. Self Publishing over 15 novels and traditionally publishing another 12 through Orbit and 47North (which is an Amazon imprint to be fair). Most of his work is focused on his fantasy world of Dezrel, a young world that was recently created and because of that much of its history is still driven by a falling out between two of its gods. A Dance of Cloaks is one of those novels, being the first in the Shadowdance series. It was first developed as Mr. Daglish tried to give one of his characters, Haern the Watcher a backstory (When you create one life, you also create an entire universe.  A modification of an old Jewish saying…) and was independently published. However, he was approached by Orbit and given a chance to republish the book through them. Some of you might be asking why bother? Well, the simple fact is that most books stores won't carry independently published authors. On top of that lot of folks will base their buying habits on what they see in a bookstore as opposed to online. So getting even part of your library traditionally published helps build name recognition and increases the chances of someone buying your independently published work. Additionally, this let Mr. Dalglish rewrite the book to address parts that bothered him and even better, be paid for it and since he's now a married man with three daughters.  Getting paid to do what you want is great, doing that and feeding your family is even better. We'll be taking a look at the version published by Orbit in 2013.

Thern is a man with problems. A legendary assassin and possibly one of the best killers in the world, he's settled in the city of Veldaren with his sons and taken over the criminal underworld. You would think all he has to do is relax and let the money come in but that's not enough for Thern. In fact, that's the central issue with this character, nothing is enough for him. A guild/gang of devoted thieves and killers carrying out his every order? Not enough he has to rule all crime in the city. Actually, break every gang/guild to his will and rule the underworld of Veldaren supreme? Not enough he has to confront the powerful merchant families of the city and even the King and break them to his will. A pair of sons willing to follow his orders and generally looking up to him? Not enough. He needs a son that is a pure and perfect killer with no attachments beyond doing Thern's will (What the fuck?  This isn’t a guy with problems.  This guy IS the problem.{I mean… Yes?}). Even after Thern has become dust. I can't help but feel that Thern is either so terrified of everything and everyone around him that he can only deal with the world by trying to control everything completely through a combination of brutality and reward or the hole in his soul is so deep and profound that he is just unable to have relationships that don't revolve around fear and submission (He’s a sociopath.  He views other people as objects to be used.  Either that or a narcissist, but the two are...very close.{Can he be both?} Yes, it can be both.). Even with his own sons. This is established in the prologue when Thern out of a combination of pride, fear, and need to dominate everything around him not only starts a war with the Trifect (we'll get back to them) but has his younger son murder his eldest son (What the actual hell?  Okay this is… wow.  Um. This is a really abusive dynamic, just gonna come out and say it.). Why? Because his eldest son made a mistake that left Thern in a vulnerable position and almost got him killed (So the solution is to kill him, and traumatize the other one?! {Well, I mean killing and traumatizing people is what got him here…} Yes to but to a certain extent that is business.  This is his kid.). So Thern has his eight-year-old son kill his seventeen-year-old brother and proceeds to spend five years locked in a violent street war with the economic elite of the city while sidelining the government and convincing the organized religions to take a backseat (And they just… let him do this? {After a lot of killing and traumatizing}). Thern is the guy who drives a lot of the plot in that he's the one setting up and maintaining this whole insane situation through a combination of his skills, leadership, and out-of-control fear and pride. He's also our main antagonist (Oh good!  Not the protagonist!). Who is our main protagonist you ask? Why Aaron, the boy who we're introduced to as cold bloodily killing his older brother of course! (Oh this poor boy…)

Aaron is about 13 at this point and whatever energy Thern has not uselessly spent turning the city of Veldaren into a bloody battlefield has gone into making him the perfect killing machine. However, Thern has also worked very hard to socially and emotionally isolate Aaron, making sure the boy has no friends, no mentors besides himself, and a very pared-down understanding of the human experience (Killing his brother is the sort of transgression that will tend to isolate him from the rest of humanity.  Warlords who recruit child-soldiers use a similar tactic.  Make them do something horrible like murder a baby or gang-rape someone so they feel like they can never go back to being a person.  {This isn’t just done to child soldiers, terror groups will do this with adult recruits to} Holy fuck.  Where are the combat social workers!? {We’re in the not really middle ages, they haven’t been invented yet}). So a young man just entering the turbulent period of puberty has the skills to murder entire squads of armed men and underdeveloped communication and social skills. Which you know, is something that isn't terrifying at all to anyone with a drop of sanity! Thankfully Aaron channels his rebellion into wanting to do things like finding out what having friends is like, having his first crush, learning just who the heck the main god of his culture is and how to perform the actual act of prayer... (I… I want to reach through the fourth wall and hug this kid.) And also constructing an entirely separate personality and identity to aid in his rebellion against his father the world-renowned assassin. Despite his casualness when it comes to the act of murder, Aaron is touchingly innocent and wanting so hard to explore what life could be that it's hard not to react to that and that’s reinforced by the fact that Thern's own advisers go behind his back to give Aaron the moments of humanity and connection that he's desperately searching for. Such as Kayla, who is Aaron's first crush and despite being terrified out of her mind works hard to give Aaron space to be a person (I want to hug her too.). This is going to become a problem when Aaron does something unforgivable though, refusing to kill on his father's orders.

On the other side, we also have Alyssa Maynard of the Trifect. The Trifect is an alliance of the three richest and most powerful merchant families in the kingdom, their power outstrips most noble houses and they are wealthier than kings, or they were. Thern’s psychotically unrelenting war of murder, theft, and terrorism has drained the coffers of the Trifect as profits are lost or poured into increasingly byzantine security procedures and ever-growing armies of mercenaries. Thern wants the Trifect to accept his leadership in much the same way as the gangs and guilds of the underworld do. The Trifect wants to kill Thern and everyone who ever followed him to teach the thieves of Veldaren their place. Alyssa is her father's only child and as such has become a part of this and other struggles caused by this. As she returns to the city of Veldaren, from being fostered in the outer parts of the kingdom, she becomes a game piece in a power game between her father and a family of nobles looking to cut away chunks of the Maynard holdings. These nobles are emboldened by what they see as the Trifect's failure to deal with mere bandits and have encouraged Alyssa to underestimate Thern and the others (A lethal mistake…). She also becomes the center of religious struggle between two competing sects of the outlawed god Karnak (Wow.  That’s a lot for one person to handle.  This world is fucked.). Now, Mr. Dalglish doesn't get too deep into the weeds but from what's presented in the book, Karnak is a god of merciless order and brutal control, who also seems to dabble in objectivism by declaring altruism at best a delusion (Kill this God.  Right now.). Karnak is opposed by the god Ashhur, who according to the characters in the book is everything good and noble about humanity even if we constantly fail to live up to that. Shockingly (Not shockingly.) no one powerful has much time for Ashhur and despite the fact that the very worship of Karnak is illegal we see both Thern and Alyssa's father go to the priest of Karnak for help pretty quickly when they need it to control their wayward children (Because of course they fucking do.). Alyssa has to figure out how to deal with the man she thought she loved and how to create an alliance with the Faceless, a breakaway sect of Karnak, while also struggling with her father's attempt to force her into a mold of what he believes his daughter should be.

Many other factions are working for their own ends in this book as well, there's the King and his main advisor who are mainly fighting to be relevant in their own capital (I...  Jesus fucking christ.  That’s monarchy for you.  It’s almost like sortition would be a better means of selecting rulers and leaders than heredity.{To do the editor’s job, sortition is selecting people at random to fill government posts}). Which is a bad sign if you're a king I think (Yes.  Because you are sane.). Their main way of doing this is trying to put an end to Thern's war on the Trifect but so far it hasn't gone well with Thern managing to kill several members of the royal family as a way of convincing the government to stay back (Who the fuck is this king?  Nigel Thornberry?). With the new King finally reaching his age of majority though, all bets are off. There's also the temple of Ashhur. Thern initially bribed the high priest, but increasingly the priests under him are not happy with sitting on their hands while people are being butchered right in front of them and they're told not to use their divine powers to help (Kill the high priest.  Simple fucking solution.{killing your high priest is frowned upon} Well he’s obviously fallen from grace!). Just in case this pile-up doesn't have enough moving parts, there are also thief guilds who are less than happy with being dragooned into being soldiers in a five-year street war and Thern's grip is being threatened from within and without.

Mr. Dalglish has done an incredible job setting up a metaphorical pool of gasoline made up of competing interests and desires that just need a match. Well, as any writer will tell you every good story will provide that match and here it comes in the event of the Kensgold, when all the families of the Trifect come together to plot and plan and throw a huge wild party that shows off their wealth and power. As you can imagine this is an irresistible target for... Everyone. (Yes.  I can imagine it so readily, that if I were in their position I never would have held the gathering that way!). As all the competing interests and characters collide, you can be sure that no one is walking away unscathed. Mr. Dalglish spends over 350 pages of this book building the climax and he does not hesitate to take off the breaks and let the train jump the track, which is honestly what you have to do here when you get such a collision of opposing plans and factions. I won't spoil anything. I'll just say that the climax of this book does not disappoint.

That said, the book isn't perfect. I was often left feeling that the King and his adviser didn't really perform much of a function (Insert commentary on monarchism here). They're not connected to much of anything besides Thern, and are off to the side. We get the same feeling with the priest of Ashhur, where one chapter makes a big deal about the priest coming off the sidelines but they don't really play too much of a role in the climax. So I was left asking why we spent even as little time as we did with them. I did find the decisions that Mr. Dalglish made regarding Alyssa and Aaron interesting because they played counter to my exceptions. To try and avoid too many spoilers I was expecting a lot more cross-over between the two storylines than what I got. To be honest, despite Aaron being the protagonist of the book and his character arc being the main one, he's not the center of the plot nor is he what ties everyone together. Instead, it's Thern, our antagonist, who's not only the narrative core of the book but the main element tying everyone together. You could almost read this as a story of his fall from power and glory due to his obsessions and fear, but not quite. This puts the book in this odd state where the protagonist only matters for half the storylines and the antagonist is the center of the plot but the arc of the plot isn't about him, it's about the protagonist's growth and development away from him. It's an interesting experiment in writing but it honestly feels kind of awkward to me. Still, the characterization and the action is well done and while I've seen the story of the son who must grow past his father before, this version had enough interesting twists and turns to keep me interested. So A Dance of Cloaks by David Dalglish gets a B- from me.

I hope you enjoyed this week's review. If you did, consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where for a dollar a month you get a vote on upcoming reviews, theme months and more.  Higher tiers get additional bonuses.  Next week as chosen by our ever-wise patrons will be Why Did the Chicken Cross the World? By Andrew Lawler.  Until then, please stay safe and as always Keep Reading. 

Red Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black Text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Monsteress Vol V: Warchild By Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

 Monsteress Vol V: Warchild

By Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

“I am the Halfwolf and my word is Law”

When I realized I had a free week in April, I decided to grab Volume V of Monstress and catch up with the series. If you missed my review of Volume IV just a few weeks back, Monstress is a comic written by American-born author Marjorie Liu and illustrated by Japanese-born artist Sana Takeda, I speak more about these talented women in the 1st review (way back in March 2017!). Published by Image Comics, which was founded in 1992, and in less than 30 years has fought its way up from a small start-up to the third-largest comic book publisher in North America (possibly the world but wherever I search market share of the entire world I only get data for North America and I'm pretty sure Marvel isn't dominating 40% of the Asian market, for example). It's known for publishing creator-owned content such as The Walking Dead, Spawn, Saga, and Invincible.

Now I went into the world in the last review so we'll just do a quick refresher, it's an Asian-inspired, matriarchal, fantasy world. There are among the sapient races: Cats, Immortals, Arcanics, and Humans. Immortals are basically humanoid animals that are incredibly powerful and practically immortal. Arcanics are descendants of the children of Immortal and human relationships. As such, they inherited magic and various animal features from their Immortal ancestors. Humans on the flip side have no inherent magic but are the only race that seems capable of industrialization, although Arcanics are fairly skilled in technology themselves. That said some human women can develop psychic abilities and one of those women founded a religion on that, and the discovery that using the bones and other remains of Arcanics would grant magic to humanity. As you can imagine this became a wedge issue. That religion, the Cumaea, destroyed all its competitors, reduced human government to a puppet state, and preaching human supremacy waged a terrible genocidal war on the various Immortal ruled, Arcanic inhabited states they share the world with (I could comment on Imperialism here, but am spoiled for choice.). They failed, and the war effort collapsed when a massive weapon took out the main Federation Army. However, now not even twenty years later the Cumaea is ready for round two (Genocide Boogalloo), but they're not the only people who've been getting ready for a rematch. In this volume, the world tumbles over the edge into an even greater war than the last one but there are still those who hope to grab the edge on the way down and pull themselves out of the abyss.

Our Protagonist Maika Halfwolf has been struggling with a traumatic past as a captive of the Cumaea during the last war, and an overlapping set of family secrets that reveal increasingly awful truths about her ancestors, parents, and herself. There's also the little fact that she is carrying around Zinn, an elder creature of immense power and even worse hunger. She's managed to assembly a motley band around her, such as the fox girl Kippa, who serves as an adopted daughter and an Arcanic noble who is fated to kill her... Maybe (That’s gonna put a strain on any relationship…{Eh, Maika is a strain all by herself}). Maika has found herself in the fortress city of Ravenna, which is the first target of the Cumaea commanded fortress city. Ms. Liu also shows us why humanity is able to do so well in wars against magically powered Immortals and their servants here because Ravenna? Has basically been abandoned to its fate. The Garrison commander and city officials all seized airships told the local people that behind the walls was the safest place for them to be, and ran for their lives (They must all be hunted down and killed.). I can only hope such utter and rank betrayal of their duty and citizens is punished in volume VI because it's not addressed here. Ravenna meanwhile is falling apart, the committee of its remaining officers are unable to keep order on the walls or the streets. Its gates are choked with crowds of refugee farmers demanding to be allowed into the one place every human gun is going to be pointed at, while the city itself is filled with people increasingly willing to pay any price for a fast ride out of town. I'm going to take a moment here, and just say if you're caught in a warzone, run. Don't try to get into a fortress or military base because that's where the fighting is going to go. Because the biggest target of any invading force is going to be the strong points of defense, that's where most of the bombs will fall. Trust me (He’s right.). Maika, intent on preventing something even worse than this war from happening is frankly willing to keep moving but between Kippa's oath to her fellow fox refugees, and Corvus the Dusk noble whose sister is a healer in the city and refuses to leave... Her feet have been nailed to the floor and she is going to be forced to take part in the battle. So much the worse for everyone else because Maika will only fight this war on her terms and anyone who tries to stop her isn't going to survive long enough to regret the mistake.

Meanwhile, the Federation is cracking, the navy is openly mutinying against the war and the government is reaching out for a peace settlement. Maika's aunt, the warlord of the Court of the Dawn has married the spymistress of the Court of the Dusk to form a block to rally the Arcanics into a single unified force. The Cumaea itself is reeling from a body blow as its capital and greatest fortress was bombed by an explosive powerful enough to decimate the city (Good). Meanwhile, Maika is going head-to-head with a veteran commander of the Federation Army, a ruthless and savage woman whose willingness to expend her troops to achieve her objective is only exceeded by her intelligence and willingness to lead from the front(Well at least she has that going for her.). This is all bad enough but hidden parts of Zinn's past are resurfacing in his memories and Maika is going to have to deal with that before too long. Maika continues to mature throughout all of this as she makes difficult and brutal choices trying to hold the fortress while outnumbered and outgunned, because it's the only way she's going to prevent a massacre, but it also means she's going to have to add a hell of people to her body count to do it.

If you're looking for a gallant tale of heroism in the face of overwhelming odds, this isn't gonna be it. This is a horrible, dirty brutal rat fight of a story with dirtier political maneuverings being played out in the background. This is a story of war as experienced by people who are caught between a genocidal war machine and an uncaring elite out to protect their positions and power.  Ms. Liu gives us a story of the horrors of war, and the individual acts of heroism and sacrifice that take place within it are often just coins to be spent or traded by the powerful for all too often fleeting strategic advantage (And a dubious cause, typically.).Ms. Takeda's art remains beautiful even as it depicts horrors and savagery, her preference for dark colors works perfectly for this subject matter if you ask me but then I think she might be the best comic artist or just artist of this generation. It's also showing us that while Maika is as savage and unrelenting as any of them, she's at least trying to save lives because if Ravenna falls, that genocidal war machine will have a free road into the heartland of the very people they want to turn into nothing but fuel. While she didn't want this responsibility, having accepted it, she'll throw everything she has into it and she'll stop this war machine or die trying. Monstress Volume V Warchild by Majorie Liu and Sana Takeda gets an A.

I hope you enjoyed this review. If you would like a vote on upcoming reviews, themes, and other events that take place in this review series, you should join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where a dollar a month gets you a voice. Next week A Dance of Cloaks by David Dalglish, until then stay safe and keep reading! 

Thief By Matthew Colville

Thief

By Matthew Colville

Matthew Colville is an American game designer, editor, Youtuber, and most importantly for us, writer. Among the things he has written is the Vox Machina Origins Volume I comic, a Dungeons and Dragons supplement called Strongholds and Followers (which I honestly love), and a pair of novels called Priest and Thief. I reviewed Priest, the first book in this series, last year in September and I encourage everyone to go and read the book. You should also read the review of course. Quick warning, I will spoiler the hell out of Priest in the material below so if you haven't read the book and intend to, you should stop here. Don't say I didn't warn you.

In Priest, the main character of our series, Heden, a man riding the ragged edge between the full blast of PTSD breakdown and functionality, was sent into the Ye Olde Enchanted Woode to find a knightly order known as the Green (I didn’t edit that review but Oh Boy…). He was sent because the commander of the Green died under strange circumstances and in addition to that the Knights stood as having broken their oaths. Heden's job was to find out what happened, and if possible conduct a ritual of redemption and cleansing for the knights. He was sent because Ye Olde Enchanted Woode is a death trap of ancient magic left over from prehistoric times, monsters, and various nonhuman groups who regarded any human as an invader to be slain, and he was one of maybe six people who could survive long enough to do the job. Heden did survive but pretty much no one else did, including over a 1000 innocent people who trusted in the Knights to protect them (Ouch…). So to put it bluntly, Heden failed, the Knights died, the order died with them; and a whole town was destroyed to the last man, woman, and child because of it. Worse, it is all but certain that such was the desired goal of the people who sent Heden on the mission the whole time. One of them being the Bishop of the Church of the god Cavall. I should note real quick that this is a monotheistic world but Cavall interacts with the world through his Saints: people who were once mortal but because of actions in their lives were granted divine power after their deaths. Instead of being broken by his failure, however, Heden has learned from it, grown from it. In a way, he's been almost reforged by it and now he's a man on a mission. To find out why the Bishop set him up to fail and extract punishment if necessary, but first, he's got a bit of an issue that needs clearing up.

In Priest, Heden was also sent to kill a girl named Vanora. Vanora was a whore, who suffered from fits that could be a sign of epilepsy or something like it or could also be a sign of demonic possession. This isn't superstition either, in this world people who are possessed by an unclean spirit suffer fits that are perfect replicas of epileptic fits. So that nice boy on the street who falls over and twitches could just have a disorder, or his body and mind could be slowly being overtaken by a malign being who will use it to murder, torture, or worse, anyone it can get a hold of before being put down. As a result of this, pretty much anyone who has a fit is killed, often by drowning or worse ways, as demons can have powers that have to be overwhelmed (Oh sweet mother… Um, so yeah, be very careful with head injuries too!  Do they at least make exceptions for head injuries?{No idea}). Heden, however, tripped over a treatment that would work on anyone who wasn't demon-possessed and Vanora is the first person it's ever worked on. That's not the issue though, see the problem isn't that Vanora was having fits, or that she was a whore. It's that she was the personal toy of a crime boss known as the Count, leader of one of the three criminal guilds in the city. As if that wasn't enough, the Count is an unrestrained sadist and was training Vanora to be able to stand up to higher and higher levels of pain so he could have an incredibly long weekend torturing her to death (Ah, someone who needs to die very messily...). Until he decided that she wasn't working out and he could use her illness to have her killed. Thankfully, this is something that Mr. Colville tells rather than shows, having Heden work it out and discuss it with Vanora.  There are, after all, things we don't need to have described in graphic detail I think (Yes, can we maybe not?  Like, I write some fucked up shit but I don’t show the fucked up.  I describe the reaction to it because I am not writing to titillate people who need to be in a glass box.).  Since everyone knew Vanora was doomed, no one was especially careful about information discipline around her and now Vanora is out, cured, and carrying the kind of information that could destroy a third of organized crime in the city (HAHAHAHAHA!  Always maintain opsec, you fools!  I learned that the hard way!  SAY NOTHING FRIGID! {*smirks*}). So the Count wants her back. Heden however did not go through all the trouble of saving someone to throw their life away. Vanora for her part isn't content to be an object to be fought over and is struggling to move past her own past and decide what she wants for her own life. But she is certain she wants her own life and not to die under the Count's knife (It’s a start!  And she does deserve to have her own damned life!). So now Heden has to deal with the Count before he can attend to his main business with the Bishop. Isn't it annoying when your to-do list gets away from you? (Yes.  Yes it is.)

That isn't the only thing Heden has to do, see his failure in the forest has led him to confront a lot of his past life and he realizes that he has mending of fences to do. So Heden is also working to make restitution to the people in his life that he's harmed through past actions and failures, realizing it's not healthy to writhe in your own guilt and regret but forgiveness both from yourself and others requires you to at least attempt to admit, address and readdress what you've done to yourself and others (This is very Jewish.  You’re not allowed to ask forgiveness from God until you’ve tried to make amends to the people you’ve harmed.). He's gonna need every rebuilt friendship he can get through, as the Count has weaponized forbidden magic and escalated everything in a war to unify the crime world under his iron rule, and then who knows what happens? (How the hell does a sexual sadist like that recruit goons? {1: He keeps that shit under wraps 2: He has a lot of money in a feudal society 3: He kills people for saying no.  He’s a very silver or lead kind of boss}) Of course, the Count and his right-hand man, an assassin with history and a grudge against Heden named Garth, are making their plans believing they're confronting an isolated, half-broken man. It's never a good time when you're so off base on the nature of your enemy, no matter how many resources or people you have to throw at them (I believe Tzun Tsu had some things to say about that.). That said Heden is still outnumbered and considering that Garth is a better fighter than him, might be outgunned. So no one is gonna have a good time in the old city of Celkirk.

In a lesser role is also the swordsmen Teagan, a gay man who became an adventurer and has become a city watchman because he wanted something safer and more stable as he settles down with his husband, a baker (Aawwwwww!). Teagan might be the greatest swordsman who ever lived but he's utterly unwilling to take risks. In a way, I get why, while the social stigma against homosexuality in Matt's world doesn't seem as big as say... 1950s America or modern-day Saudi Arabia, it's still there and Teagan has faced rejection and scorn because of his orientation and he's finally happy (You know what?  Yeah.   I don’t blame him.  If, after everything I’ve been through, I ever find happiness with another person, I’m not throwing it away easily either.).  So any decision that he makes that takes him out of the bounds of polite society could destroy that fragile island of happiness (I could talk about the concept of Queer Time…{Not familiar with that one?} Long story short, because of The Shit we deal with, between figuring ourselves out, and dealing with society, the normal sequence of growing up gets disrupted.  The kind of Stupid Relationship Decisions a straight person makes in their teens?  Queer people often make them later in life because they never had the opportunity to make them as teens.  That kind of thing.). But how much is your happiness worth if people you respect, people who are trying to do good have to pay for it in misery? Priest also introduced us to the character of Aimsley Pinwhistle, a polder or halfling/hobbit as most readers of fantasy would call him. Aimsley is also a thief and assassin, holding a position in the underworld known as the fixer, a sort of troubleshooter who sits outside the usual hierarchy of one of the guilds to ensure that there are always options available. Aimsley is good at his job and has been at it for years. He's almost as miserable a wreck of a person as Heden was in the last book (Not surprising.). Aimsley becomes a major character in Thief as the novel turns on his decisions in a lot of ways. Will he ignore the fact that the Count is going beyond the depravity and savagery of your usual crime boss? (Is being the sort of sexual sadist who trains a sex worker for slow execution normal in this universe? {Given what we see of the other 2?  No.  I mean they’re not nice people, but they’re focused on money and avoiding the law, they don’t get jollies off of being cruel but they’re also criminals})  Ignore his mounting guilt and despair at the work that is increasingly disgusting to him and driving him deeper and deeper into a bottle until he might never crawl out? Or will he ignore his growing respect and fondness for Heden and his own desire to claw back some self-respect and agency over his own damn life for a change? There's also the wrinkle that even if Aimsely can decide what he wants, will anyone forgive him for what he's already done?

This brings us to the theme of the book in my opinion, as much of the book is an exploration of forgiveness; both of what it means to forgive yourself and being forgiven by others. Now, forgiveness is definitely a celebrated but rarely practiced virtue in our culture. It's also a virtue that is fetishized and deeply misunderstood and Mr. Colville seems to grasp that rather well. Forgiveness might not need to be earned but if you really want to be forgiven, you need to show that you understand what you did was wrong and in most cases, you need to show you understand why it was wrong. This is one of the reasons why you have to ask for forgiveness in Christianity, you have to display knowledge that you did something wrong and you grasp that (Religious diversion.  I’m actually really disconcerted by the concept of asking a third party to forgive the wrongs one has committed against another person.  I feel like it absolves the person of the need to at least attempt to make amends and grapple with what they did to another person.  Christianity broadly considers that good, but not necessary.{Christianity also believes that when you sin you have offended God so he’s not considered a 3rd party} Yes, but the problem is, it takes the emphasis off the… Temporal.  Being Redeemed is important, making amends is de facto de-emphasized. {Given that Christianity argues that we all focus too much on the Temporal…}). Beyond that, if you're honest in your desire for forgiveness you'll seek to provide some form of redress for your actions (We call this a Mitzvah.). Which at the very least means changing your behavior for the better and providing some sort of closure or restitution for the people you've wronged. Nor does forgiveness mean that the consequences of your action go away, you still have to live with those and how you live with those consequences will determine a lot about people's willingness to forgive and trust you going forward. This isn't a magic spell that happens all at once either but is an involved process that will require effort and sometimes pain. It also requires that you let go of guilt in favor of growth. This is hard and most people prefer guilt which gives you the self-satisfaction of punishing yourself so you can feel a bit superior to people who don't feel guilt and is low effort enough for most people in the bargain! Now, forgiveness isn't the appropriate reaction to every wrongdoing of course. Sometimes a crime boss has to be hunted down and killed to keep him from hurting other people. But forgiveness given to yourself and to others who are willing to ask for it and work for it is a powerful thing. Is it more powerful than dark magic and an order of assassins? Well, you'll just have to see.

Thief didn't have the things in Priest that annoyed me, but it's not a perfect book either. The first 100 pages involve Vanora trying to take command of her own life and Heden running about mending his fences instead of advancing the plot which gives it a kind of disconnected and wandering feel from the rest of the book and from Priest. There are also conversations between characters that I feel just recover ground that is already covered in the novel. The book is also in need of an editor as there are several typos and flat-out mistakes. All of these keep me from giving the book an A but what pushes it forward is a combination of great intrigue and character work that manages to reinforce the plot and keep it moving at a pretty decent clip. The punchy and unrepentantly savage fight scenes also help, I'll admit. Mr. Colville also keeps peeling back the world-building, slowly dropping dribs and drabs as if peeling an onion made out of gold. Honestly, I liked Thief more than I liked Priest, although to be fair I liked Priest quite a bit. Thief by Matthew Colville gets a B+ from me, as I enjoy Mr. Colville's willingness to grapple with the themes he's chosen and I find his world and characters very interesting. I'm really hopeful that Fighter, the 3rd book, gets written soon although given that it's been 7 years I'm not sure I should hold on to hope here. Then again given what I've already seen happen maybe we'll get lucky.

I hope you enjoyed this week's review. This was voted for by our ever-wise patrons, for a dollar a month you can to can vote for reviews, have a voice, and a vote on theme months, like last year's celebrated Fangsgiving. If that sounds interesting to you join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where the poll for May is still wide open! Next week however we're returning to Monsteress with Volume V and then we'll finish the month with A Dance of Cloaks by David Dalglish.  Until then, stay safe and Keep Reading!

Red Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

The City Beyond the Sands by Michael K Rose

 The City Beyond the Sands

Michael K Rose

Michael Rose is an independent writer from the United States of America. He graduated from Maine Gould Academy in 1997 and received a bachelor's degree in Anthropology from ASU, which just so happens to be mine and our editor’s alma mater (For undergrad, anyway.). He published his first novel, Sergeant Rieley's Account, in 2011, set in the same science fiction universe as his Sullivan's saga series, which started with Sullivan's War published in 2012. He went on to write science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. Today's review focuses on a non-science fiction work of his The City Beyond the Sands.

The City Beyond the Sands would likely be considered by most of my readers an example of what's now called the isekai genre. Where someone from our world and time ends up somewhere and somewhen else, usually a fantastical place, where the main character becomes a walking talking out of context problem for the villains of the story. The Japanese versions have become infamous for having gamified fantasy worlds, where everyone has levels and video game-style skills, and so on (Another example is Gate, where the JSDF goes through a portal to a medieval fantasy world.). Although I should note there are plenty of Japanese stories that don't feature this. My constant argument is that this genre is a living breathing example of how Japanese and American pop culture are joined at the hip, because American movies and stories have been doing this since at least Mark Twain via A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Of course the British could point to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 so who even started this idea is up in the air. In fact, given that John Carter and Dejah Thoris first emerged in 1912, we can't even say that the Japanese started the idea of giving the protagonists superpowers to help them navigate their strange new worlds, nor can we give them credit for the idea of trapping protagonists into video games since Tron is waving at us from 1982. That isn't to say that the Japanese haven't brought their own ideas and twists to the genre, they certainly have. The City Beyond the Sands, however, draws its ancestry from American pulps and adventure stories by folks like Robert Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs to give us a solidly western example of the genre. So let's take a look.

Will Kelly is pretty much an average joe in the year of our lord 2014 AD. While sadly divorced he works hard to make sure he has time to spend with his 2-year-old son so it's jarring when he goes out to water his plants one day, blacks out, and wakes up in the rather fantastic world of Dushara. While he's amazed by the sights and sounds of the new world, he cannot let go of his desire to see his son and so will go to the very edges of the known world to find a way back home (Awwww). Will is our main protagonist here and he's the driving force of the plot. It's his desire to get home that starts the quest and keeps it going and it's his doubts that tend to be the most profound because of that. Mr. Rose does a good job keeping Kelly a fairly average guy, as opposed to making him some ex-special forces genius with a rack of degrees which I got to give Mr. Rose credit for. It's way too easy to pump your main character in stories like this, in fact, the temptation has rarely been resisted. That said, I have to wonder if Mr. Rose did too good of a job. While I think for example that Will is ridiculously lucky in sword fights, he's never presented as especially skilled, in fact, I can't really think of anything about Will that stands out beyond his parental born drive to get home so he can be a bit bland.  I can't help but wonder if Mr. Rose agreed with me since he didn't make Will the leader of our adventuring band, that burden goes to another character.

Daniel Kline has been in the world of Dushara for years now, unlike Will, he's from the 1970s, although they're both Americans. Daniel's been making a living among the English Puritan descended people he lives with by writing adventure stories and selling them to Arab traders and others. This has gotten him a certain level of fame, although fortune is difficult given that the people he lives among are pre printing press, and he's rejected any attempt to recreate the printing press as too expensive.  So he suffers from people copying his work, reselling, and not sharing any of the profit with him. This gives us a peek into Daniel's character, this is a guy who is brave and fairly clever but lacks confidence and resolution. So he settled in the first culture he came into contact with, which lucky for him happened to be a group of English speakers and works out a low effort way to make a decent living and then stops. Well, low effort compared to learning to farm at the 1600s level of technology anyways.  Daniel often is the voice of caution asking if the other characters want to do this. He isn't always wrong though as the others are often willing to take rather dumb risks but without Will, he's willing to just kinda sit there. However, neither Will nor Daniel are in this alone.

There's also George, who is a native-born Dusharan even if his ancestors came from Britain. See Dushara has a number of various peoples living in city-states and scattered settlements, descended from groups that were pulled from Earth and dropped onto Dushara willy nilly. In this case, a group of British colonists ended up going a lot farther from home than they planned for. George is basically along for the ride at first and enjoys the chance to go farther than anyone else in his culture has yet. He's a good guy but is foolhardy and unfocused so in a lot of ways, he just functions as basic muscle for Will and Daniel. Second is Sobhuza, who like Will and Daniel is from Earth but was sent to Dushara from the year 1902 in South Africa where he was a black scout for the British Army against the Boers. Sobhuza would like to get home but would settle for finding other Swazi or at least other black Africans to settle down with because so far all he's found are Hindi Indians, Arabs, Greeks, Mongols, and more Englishmen (They’re everywhere…) and I'm guessing he's tired of constantly feeling like an alien (I’d feel the same way…). Although that's never really gone into (Which is a shame.).  When he finds out that Daniel and Will are proposing to explore the outer edges of the known world and make contact with new peoples... Well, he's all for that. Now I like that he has a goal that roughly aligns but isn't the same as the others but the story doesn't really explore that or the dramatically different life experiences of the four men in question. Any friction points are basically waved off by them all being just good dudes together despite their cultures being divided by centuries and the fact that all four men are bringing different baggage to the table (Which is… a touch remarkable.  But maybe on some level they’re just used to negotiating that shit by now?). And then there's Ophelia, who like George is a native of Dushara, born in a city established by Renaissance Greeks who ended up as castaways on a different world. Her father trained her to speak English, Arabic and several other languages as well as read them only so he could marry her to a very wealthy Arab trader old enough to be her grandfather. Shockingly the woman who had been allowed to travel and learn didn't like the idea of giving all that up for a fat old stranger. So she simply runs away and when she finds our main characters, she's happy to join their merry band as long as they do her a favor first. Ophelia is easily the shadiest member of our crew but out of necessity since society doesn't let her realize any of her ambitions except through shady means. Mr. Rose kinda skims on the top of this idea but doesn't really dive in, giving us a blooming romance between Ophelia and George but not really probing the gaps between George's expectations in a possible partner and Ophelia's desires. Basically what I'm saying is the characters have a really good setup in the main but not a lot is done with them (Lost opportunities…). To use a metaphor, there's a good skeleton here but not a lot of meat on these bones. Part of this could be the fact that it's the first book in a trilogy but I’ve got to grade off of what I got here.

The world-building in Dushara is much the same. There are a lot of good ideas and a solid framework that's intriguing and has a lot of hooks to draw you in but there's not a lot of meat on the bone. I like the idea that Dushara is some strange alternate earth where people and creatures from different parts of history and prehistory get dumped randomly to live or die. Although I do find the sheer static nature of those cultures strange. For example, why are Mongols still living like steppe raiders when you've put them in the hilliest and roughest parts of Spain? How is it that the people of New Britain and the Scirii can live next door to each other and not even learn the basics of each other language as Daniel declares? (What the actual fuck?  No.  They’ve been here a while.  There’s been contact.  That isn’t how humans work!) Seriously this flies in the face of historical human interactions. Look at the Romans' interactions with tribal peoples on their borders, there was constant trade and interaction between raids and wars. Same with the natives of North America and European invaders, there were periods of intermingling and trade, not just warfare. The Scirii should be just as willing to trade for New British cloth and metal pots as they are to attack and burn towns. The British would certainly happily accept furs, meats, and other goods.  For that matter given that Daniel mentions there are competing chiefs after 100 or so years, New Britain should have been drawn increasingly into tribal politics as making allies with the British might save a tribe from being overrun by its neighbors.  Not to mention after being there for 300 years!  I can also point at the Arabic city that is supposed to be the center of trade for the western Mediterranean but inhabited by an insular Arabic society that won't talk to foreigners (I… I can’t even.  Traders who don’t talk to foreigners?  What?). This is odd considering that we know from Ophelia's backstory that they're willing to marry outsiders! I mean Daniel who's known as an author even this far from home couldn't have gotten a letter of introduction or two from the traders he's helped out to give him an in?

Now there are answers to all these problems but they're never supplied in the book, likely because the characters are constantly moving so there's not a lot of time in the story to develop any single location or cultural group. This isn't a terrible thing but in that kind of situation, you need to develop your characters to balance it out. As it stands, with characters that aren't quite there yet and a setting that doesn't get any real deep development, the book ends up feeling like a series of short stories. They're good short stories and are at least united on a common theme of the group pushing against the boundaries of what is known to advance the agenda of Will and to a lesser extent Sobhuza under the direction of Daniel. In addition to this, Mr. Rose writes fairly good dialogue that sounds like things people would actually say to each other. He also writes incredibly well-constructed action scenes that are just great to read. He's also fairly good at avoiding the easy outs and pitfalls of pulps and adventuring stories, managing to even humanize a band of Neanderthals despite the characters never really being able to break the language barrier between them. In fact, I thought the meeting between our main characters and the Neanderthal band in the mountains of North Africa was a high point in the book! Displaying how Mr. Rose willing to write out scenes with attention to detail and even using non-verbal dialogue strengthened his stories immensely. Mr. Rose's skill as a writer raises the novel to an above-average standard but the characterization and world-building holds it back. So I got to give The City Beyond the Sands by Michael K Rose a C+.

I hope you enjoyed this week's review, this book was selected by our ever-wise patrons. If you would like a vote on what books are reviewed, what themes are pursued and etc, consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you get a full vote for as little as a dollar a month! Next week, we'll be looking at the fantasy Thief by Matthew Colville (which was also voted for by some of our patrons!). Until then, stay safe and Keep Reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black Text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Monstress Vol IV: The Chosen By Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

 Monstress Vol IV: The Chosen

By Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

“Why are you killing us?” Unnamed character page 16

I'm not sure why there's a giant gap in our review of Monstress. I love this series. The writing so far has been intense and focused while using the advantages of the comic medium to provide world-building and different viewpoints on what is actually going on in the world. This keeps the plot moving at a good clip while providing the context needed for you to grasp what is actually going on. The art is dark in its color choices and shading but Ms. Takeda is talented and careful enough not to let that overwhelm the details in her set pieces and character design, which results in a gorgeous display of art that I would hold up against anyone. Yet the last time we looked at this series was 2018! Well, I suppose it's past time to catch up, isn't it?

Alright, so it goes like this, humanity is dominated by the Cumaea, a female religious order that preaches human purity and supremacy (And as much as Patriarchy sucks, Matriarchy is not the answer{but what if it’s backed by dark science and darker magic?}). Their domination comes from the control of science and magic which gives them a wide array of powers; the greatest of these are powered by the bones of the Arcanics (Protip: Using the bones of sapient beings to power your magic is not a good idea culturally.). The Arcanics are a widely variable group of races and peoples who are united by their shared origin. That shared origin is that they all got their start as the results of unions between humans and Ancients. The Ancients are a collection of immortals who look like humanoid animals (So, furrie), who with their incredible powers rule vast kingdoms usually populated by Humans, Cats, and Arcanics. Cats regard themselves as the first race and grow greater in size and number of tails as they age. They also have a vast array of magical schools and secrets which means no one else really fully trusts them. However segregation is increasing as trust and tolerance between the Arcanics and humans is simply falling apart under the pressure of the genocidal desires of the Cumaea and its puppet human government, the Federation (See what I mean?). This exploded into a giant war years ago, which ended when a massive explosion for lack of a better word took out an entire city and a Federation army. However, the peace is not holding and the world looks ready to plunge back into war and this one will make the last one look like a playground spat. Our Protagonist is Maika Halfwolf, a young woman who survived not only the killing camps of the Cumaea and the war but was very involved in the event that ended the war. The series has Maika delving into the secrets of her past and trying to find out just what is going on inside of herself and what that means for the world around her. This is important because inside of her is sitting Zinn, a creature that is an “old god,” now most “old gods' ' are massive images that appear in the world without substance and draw worship from the Arcanics. Zinn very much has substance and grants Maika massive power, he also afflicts her with a dark and horrible hunger for the flesh of sapient beings (Uh Oh), and trying to find a way to control or live with it has been a bit of a focus for Maika. Zinn was also connected to the Shamen Empress, an ancient but vitally important figure in their world and the exact details of their relationship and how it ended are... Shadowed but what is being implied is...Terrifying.

Maika isn't doing this alone, she's picked up companions. Such as Kippa, a fox Arcanic who has become something of a foster daughter for Maika. Master Ren, a cat Nekomancer who can speak to and in some cases compel spirits.  however, Master Ren's loyalties have been an open question lately, as he betrayed Kippa to unknown parties who abducted her (Not really an open question in my book, at least along certain avenues.). Most recently she's also picked up Corvin, an officer in the Court of Dusk (I'll get to them) and Arcanic noble. He defected under the belief that Maika could be someone that acts as a force for good in the world, which is more faith than Maika has in herself at the moment. Maika needs every companion she can get because she is becoming the center of attention for every power in the world and most of them don't have her well-being in mind. Some slight spoilers ahead folks.

Volume III ended with the fall of Pontus, a city of Arcanics in the middle of the Human Federation. The Cumaea used fragments of the Shamen Empress' mask, a powerful artifact, to tear open a rift to allow the “old gods” direct access to the world and the results are catastrophic. We also learn that certain women in the Cumaea are indwelt by creatures like Zinn but where Zinn is amoral, they are outright malevolent (Oh Joy!  Isn’t it nice when people get indwelt by ancient horrors?). While Maika and her allies were able to close the rift, many of the Arcanic citizens were driven into a mad rage and turned on each other and everyone else. The parts of the city that haven't been outright destroyed are falling into race riots as Arcanics turn on the humans living among them, ironically killing humans who had rejected the ideology of the Cumaea. Maika doesn't have the time or the resources to deal with this, however, as she is on the trail of the people who kidnapped Kippa and she is going to stop at nothing to get her foster daughter back. Meanwhile, Kippa has proven she was paying some attention to the things Maika was trying to teach her by affecting her own escape. This leads her to, of course, go someplace even more dangerous where she'll either suffer a fate worse than death or emerge with knowledge that might be important later. We also see more overt signs that Kippa might have powers of her own to call on as Kippa continues to grow into her own.

Meanwhile, Maika gets confronted with her moment of hazardous growth, as well as finding out that as bad as the situation I outlined back in paragraph two was for the world? Things are actually worse because a new faction has formed in secret. A faction with a fanatical corps of foot soldiers, whose charismatic and genteel seeming master has recruited the greatest Arcanic commanders and champions of the last war and created weapons of unprecedented power. Calling themselves the Court of Blood, this new faction has a plan. They're not going to stop the war, they're going to pour gas on the fire, encourage the Cumaea and the Ancients to throw everything they have at each other, and then strike from the shadows overwhelming both sides. Once this is done they will crush any remaining resistance, ensuring that there will never be a war this bad again by making sure that there are no competing power centers to wage a war from. Then they will rebuild society into everything it should be and turn to the stars (It’s a sound strategy, and kinda pulling the bandaid off…{These are not the people you want in charge, trust me}). If this wasn't bad enough, the master has an offer for Maika, he can provide her answers about her past, origins, and more. He can replace what she has lost and is willing to do whatever he can to provide her a home and safety. All he wants her to do is to accept the connection between them and all the worse parts of herself (Oh dear…). Oh, and possibly play into the hands of the old gods who may want to tear apart the world so they can endlessly feed on it (Okay, so evil, not ruthless.  Gotcha. {Evil, views people as objects and massively overconfident!}). In the last two volumes, we saw that Maika's Mother was at times brutal in her upbringing of Maika, normalizing violence and murder and punishing any sign of weakness. In this volume, we learn that this might have been better than the alternative. Because as bad as Mommie dearest was? Well, wait until your Father gets home young lady (Oh.  Shit.).

Meanwhile, Maika’s only surviving maternal family member, her aunt, who is also the Warlord of the Court of the Dawn hasn’t been idle. Actually, this is a good time to explain this court stuff I've been throwing around. The Ancients divide themselves into Courts, with one Queen or King Ancient ruling everyone else as an immortal, near all-powerful but usually distant and disinterested monarch (Ugh.  Monarchism.  Just give me the order, Ghost of Ilyich). Underneath them is usually Arcanic nobility made up of their children and grandchildren. Such as Maika's family on her mother's side. The two most powerful courts left in the world, the Court of Dusk and the Court of Dawn, have decided to ally against the Cumaea and force everyone else into line for a unified resistance (Good plan.  United fronts are your friend.). Part of this is a marriage between the Warlord and Tuya, a young lady who was living with Maika back in Volume I. Tuya, however, has risen far on her own account, becoming the Baroness of the Court of the Dusk. Which is sort of the Black Widow of the Court, the arch spy and assassin willing to do anything to achieve her ends. In this case, Tuya's ends are to become a power in the Court of the Dawn and prevent the war from happening. Because she's caught wind that the government of the Federation, long irrelevant, has managed to gain enough power to break free of the Cumaea and its Prime Minister intends to make peace with the Courts, not wanting to see millions of humans and Arcanics slaughtered for the obscure aims of immortal creatures or mad-scientist witches. Of course, the Warlord, who is now also her wife, isn't on board with this idea, instead wanting to try and win the war in a first strike. Although given what's going on in the Federation, their argument may be rendered moot.

This is a volume where we see Kippa and Maika grow up quite a bit. Kippa acts on her own agenda and undertakes her own journey into darkness to win her own knowledge and experience (Awww, she’s growing up!). Maika learns to use her words even in a stressful situation and to look to something larger than herself as she argues that the war must be stopped because the risk of playing into the hands of creatures beyond the void who want to eat us all is too great. This is despite her own hatred and prejudices, Maika has grown into someone willing to put her grudges to the side for the greater good of even people she hates. If that's not a sign of maturity then what is? So I find myself thinking that Maika who has been a violent, surly, hard-headed teenager bouncing across this series in pursuit of goals that are as often self-defeating as they are dangerous... Might grow up into a mature responsible person able to learn and grow past themselves. Of course, she had to do it on top of a pile of corpses but we all have our learning disabilities. As everything gets laid out, the characters will have to decide, like Maika, what they stand for and who do they stand with? Expect a review of Volume V soon folks because I want to see if Maika can find the brakes on this crazy train or if she's going to fall into temptation and embrace her own darker urges. Monstress Vol IV The Chosen by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda gets an A. 

I hope you enjoyed this review and I certainly hope to review Monstress Vol V before the end of the year. That said, this graphic novel, was voted for by our ever-wise patrons. As was our next review City Beyond the Sands by Michael Rose, in which we'll discuss a bit about the western tradition of the genre we now call isekai. If you would like to vote on what books I review or genres I discuss or theme months, consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you get a vote for as little as a dollar a month! Either way join us next week for City Beyond the Sands. Until then stay safe and Keep Reading!