Short and Sweet – October 2023

Hello and welcome to my Short and Sweet review roundup for October 2023, here on Track of Words. As usual I’ve got another trio of brief reviews for you, this time looking at three horror-tinged titles – I didn’t do this consciously, but seeing as it’s October it’s actually quite appropriate to go down the spooky route! These include an Age of Sigmar novel from Black Library, a straight-up horror novella from Titan Books, and a darkly unsettling novella from Tordotcom, all of which I’d been meaning to read for ages. So read on to find out a bit more about these three books, and what I thought.

Hallowed Ground by Richard Strachan

Richard Strachan’s third Black Library novel, first released back in March 2022, Hallowed Ground features the father/daughter duo of witch hunters Galen and Doralia ven Denst facing off against vampires, necromancers and all manner of undead nasties. Having survived the Siege of Excelsis (the events of which aren’t covered here, but rather in the Broken Realms: Kragnos background book), Doralia sets out from the city in search of Galen, who left on a mysterious mission without even saying goodbye. What begins as a personal quest, harking back to the ven Densts’ past, soon becomes a much bigger quest with stakes that could have a drastic impact on the still-reeling city of Excelsis.

I’m a big fan of Strachan’s writing in general – I think he’s one of the technically ‘best’ writers on BL’s books these days, and I always enjoy his engaging, evocative prose. That’s certainly the case with Hallowed Ground, but where I unreservedly loved his first two novels (Blood of the Everchosen and The End of Enlightenment), this one didn’t work quite as well for me. The first half, in which Doralia sets out in search of Galen and travels the wilds of Ghur, was pretty damn good (although I struggled a little to keep up with the references to the Siege of Excelsis, which I don’t know anything about), all the way up to the book’s dramatic midpoint. After that though, I never quite bought into the direction of the plot (something tells me there were some editorial directives at play here), and I found myself losing interest as it devolved into a fairly generic, action-heavy fantasy adventure. There’s nothing wrong with the second half as such, it’s just not what I wanted from the book, or what I expected given the first half.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

A Japanese-inspired horror novella published by Titan Books (in the UK – Tor Nightfire in the US), this sees a group of friends (although that term stretches things a bit) spend the night in an ancient Japanese mansion to celebrate the impending marriage between two of them. Tensions among the group quickly come to the fore though, and a night spent drinking and telling ghost stories brings out the worst in each of them. And all the while, something lurks in the walls – the hungering spirit of a spurned bride whose bones rest within the mansion’s foundations.

Short even for a novella, this is nevertheless quite impactful, drawing upon sinister Japanese folklore and brought to life with brilliantly dark imagery throughout (and I mean, just look at that cover too!). The characters aren’t especially likeable, intentionally I think, although protagonist Cat is at least relatable – still recovering from a serious mental health crisis, uncomfortable even being there, but bound to this group in complex ways. It’s very much a story about grief and pain and the fractures that develop and grow within a friendship group, deliberately playing with and confronting common horror tropes in a strange sort of meta narrative. The prose is a bit dense in places, and the unlikeable characters mean there’s little room for sympathy, but overall it’s an interesting little horror story full of creepy yokai and very human conflict.

Flowers For the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn

Taking place entirely on board an ark that’s slowly breaking down as its inhabitants weaken, this strange novella tells the tale of survivors from a flooded world, after almost five years at sea. Iraxi is a social pariah, but the child she bears may hold the key to survival for a slowly-dwindling people. As the birth of her child draws closer, Iraxi wrestles with memories of her lost family and the cruelties inflicted on her by a people who fear her, even while navigating the strained relationships she holds with those in positions of power on board the ark.

There’s no two ways about it – this is an odd book. It’s full of strange prose that’s sometimes hard to follow, but other times oddly alluring, and told from a slightly surreal perspective full of delirious imagery and centred very much on Iraxi’s body. If you struggle with pregnancy- and childbirth-related body horror then this might not be the book for you (I just about managed, with a few grimaces) as things get quite graphic at times, but for the most part that just adds to the potency of the imagery and the surreality of the plot. Rocklyn takes her time parcelling out Iraxi’s backstory, and deliberately leaves a lot of world building details ambiguous, but there’s definitely something here that’s gripping and strangely compelling.

I’m not sure I could say that I genuinely enjoyed this book, but I can’t deny that it was genuinely powerful despite its strangeness. It’s the sort of story that’s best read in one go – accept the weirdness, just roll with it and keep going, and in the end it will be worth the effort. If you’re after an easy read then try something else, but if you’re looking for something dark, unsettling and unusual then maybe give this a go.

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That’s everything for this instalment of Short and Sweet – I hope you enjoyed that. Let me know if you’ve read any of these books! I’ll hopefully be back with another one of these review roundups in a few weeks, once I’ve got some more books to talk about. If you have any comments about these roundups, or if there’s anything else you’d like to see me cover, do let me know! You can drop me a line in the comments below, or find me on social media.

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