Josh Reynolds (1)

Song of Carcosa is Josh Reynolds' third book about the highbrow thief and occult adventuress Alessandra Zorzi in the interwar period. But it it is not just a sequel to the other two books. It picks up a number of threads about the Red Coterie established in the Arkham Horror Card Game campaign The Scarlet Keys and its related volume of short fiction Secrets in Scarlet. As signaled by the title, it is also connected with the jauniste lore of The King in Yellow (much of it rehearsed in the card game in The Path to Carcosa).

The Venice setting of this novel flows naturally from the previous books, and it is Zorzi's birthplace. Naturally, it glances at the content of the card game scenario Carnevale of Horrors with the same location. More surprisingly, it very thoroughly puts to use the contents of Terror in Venice, a deluxe expansion from the out-of-print Call of Cthulhu Card Game. (If this older product reflected earlier characters and notions created for the Call of Cthulhu tabletop role-playing game, I have been unable to find published evidence of them.)

Given this heroic synthesis of game materials, the actual story here is gratifyingly coherent. It centers on the rescue of Alessandra's apprentice Pepper, who had "seen the Yellow Sign" in Paris in the previous volume. Pepper has become identified with Camilla, and is gradually being drawn into Carcosa through dreams and visions. Three different occult factions are vying for supremacy in Venice, and the most aggressive of them is seeking to instantiate the reign of the King in Yellow in the city, an event to be catalyzed with a performance of the eponymous cursed play.

Where the Call of Cthulhu Card Game eschewed the topical inclusion of Fascists in 1920s Italy when Terror in Venice was published over a decade ago, Song of Carcosa adds them in as yet another feature of the Venetian conflict. I appreciate the greater historical honesty, and I still have to wonder about excluding such human monsters from a game that routinely foregrounded "evil cultists" of other sorts. Reynolds explicitly invokes the totalitarian aspect of the King in Yellow, although the Fascisti are not aligned with it. They are made into competing impulses to exploit a cultural moment in which Europe seems anxious to give itself up to malign powers.

Song of Carcosa is dedicated to "Joe Pulver, who showed me the wonders of Carcosa." Pulver has edited a couple of admirable multi-author anthologies of jauniste fiction: A Season in Carcosa and Cassilda's Song. He also has a collection of his own work in this vein, The King in Yellow Tales, vol. 1.… (mere)

February 2024 Read using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project Reading Order - Omnibus IV Shattersong (https://www.heresyomnibus.com/omnibus/iv-shattersong) as part of my Oath of Moment to complete the Horus Heresy saga and extras.

This is my fifth Primarchs novel and it is the most perfectly imperfect so far, I was eager for any Lorgar lore, but disappointed by Bearer of the Word, found Lord of Ultramar well-written but truly an unpleasant reading experience, Master of Prospero was an utter shock, becoming one of my favourite past/ side stories of the Horus Heresy, and The Great Wolf was bolter porn as art until it all came together perfectly at the end and left me sobbing.

Fulgrim and the III Legion are in their early days with incredibly low numbers, after being devastated to only 200 due to a geneseed flaw during a difficult campaign (I think) with Fabius Bile being one of the few original Emperor's Children, and they have come to bring planet autocratic capitalism to Compliance. Charisma and guile are the weapons the Phoenician would most like to bring to bear...

This seems to be a novel that knows exactly what it is trying to do and executes it perfectly. While this doesn't hit the exalted heights of parts of Graham McNeill's Fulgrim, it doesn't come anywhere near the lows, misogyny, and, in my personal opinion, utter mess of the handling of significant tertiary storylines either.

The Earth didn't move for me in the way it did for McNeill's Prospero Burns and Annandale's The Unburdened, but I genuinely had an awesome times with this novel and the way Reynolds makes perfect use of telling a tale much earlier on in Fulgrim's career that does a wonderful job of illuminating elements of the Primarch, his Palatine progeny, and the future Chief Apothecary's past, personality, and shedding light on their initial motivations and how they ended up as they did.

I genuinely felt sympathy for Fulgrim and Fabius and feel I understand their characters and arcs far more than I ever have from the main Horus Heresy series. This is not surprising with Reynolds having written about the Repairer of Ruin for a decade now. The bullying Bile receives from his battle brothers is heartbreaking and he really does seem to be trying to do good, haunted by losing so many of his First Founding fraternity, which makes his fall to becoming the Dark Millennium's Mengler and the galaxy's foremost Rocky Horror Picture Show fan, cosplaying Riff Riff 24/7 all the more tragic. Just as with the burning desire to prove himself and self-assurance in Fulgrim that will fester into preening narcissism, the zeal for vivisection is there, but this is one of those wonderful glimpses of what could have been.

This book also manages to do the main thing I want from Warhammer, and especially the Horus Heresy--humanising and making its mythological figures sympathetic, showing their attempts to not be the worst, and then circumstance and the cruelty and inhumanity of the Imperium being evident as it forces them to kill the parts of them that makes them feel and become the monsters they were created to be.

Bloody brilliant, if non-essential for the main Horus Heresy storyline, book I thoroughly recommend and would consider essential reading for any fans of Fulgrim, Fabius, or the Emperor's Children.

Through using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project (www.heresyomnibus.com) and my own choices, I have currently read 10 Horus Heresy novels, 11 short stories/ audio dramas, as well as the 2 Betrayal at Calth novellas and the Macragge's Honour graphic novel, 5 Primarchs novels, 3 Primarchs short stories/ audio, dramas, and 2 Warhammer 40K further reading novels...this run. I can't say enough good about the way the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project suggestions. I'm loving it! Especially after originally reading to the releases and being so frustrated at having to wait so long for a narrative to continue.… (mere)

Shadows of Pnath is a return to the Countess Alessandra Zorzi character and continues about a year on after her fantastic adventure in 'Wrath of N'kai' which kicked off the new wave of Arkham Horror stories. This time, she has to steal back a book she stole before, whilst negotiating the pitfalls of multiple opposing cults who also want the book and struggling with her new understanding that the world hides a lot more shadows and secrets than she previously knew..

The Countess Zorzi is arguably the best protaganist in the franchise with one of the most well fleshed out back stories to boot and her second adventure continues to develop her character arc to show her growth into a morally improved person alongside her new best friend and apprentice from the first book - the spunky Boston cab driver Pepper.

The Arkham Horror franchise has changed a bit since it first began and whilst it still happily delves into the more obscure Mythos writings of Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, it has become a lot more adventurous and action packed compared to the tonally darker or more atmospheric earlier novels and novellas where it felt like the characters were genuinely testing their sanity against the unknown. Shadows of Pnath - much like The Deadly Grimoire and Lair of the Crystal Fang before it - leans heavily into the newer trend, albeit building to a spectacularly monstrous finale worthy of the mythos it borrows from. Fans of Indiana Jones and more traditional adventure pulp will be right at home here and there is no shortage of action, banterous dialogue, mystery and monsters. But, as our characters outgrow their own sceptism and horror as they do here, many of the terrors become a bit too watered down.

As a result if I'm honest, I prefer the slower builds, the character innocence and the more ever-present darker tone of Wrath of N'kai and other earlier works, but I'm still enjoying these faster paced yarns. They're great entertainment and there's an increasing level of consistency across the board game and novels as other franchise characters are starting to cross over now. For example, here we have Trish Scarborough and The Red Coterie make an appearance from the Secrets in Scarlet anthology. And Carl Sanford has another cameo. Whilst I admit to also not being as closely familiar with some of the more obscure Mythos references, I have enjoyed picking up my Lovecraft, Belknap Long and Ashton Smith anthologies to explore the works further and thanks to the author's intimate knowledge with the old stories, there are plenty of Easter eggs here to pick up.

If you want a good, old fashioned bit of pulp adventure with a big epic climax and teasers of even more weird to come, then Shadows of Pnath will scratch that itch easily, although it's perhaps recommended to read some of the older books first just to get a better context for some of the characters and their back stories. I am definitely looking forward to Zorzi's third book, which I think may have been sown in this book in readiness for something quite interesting indeed..… (mere)

I am not familiar with the Emperors Children and always thought of them as a pretty disturbed, sadomasochistic personalities. They act outright, no holding back, just driven by thirst for more sensory overload of any kind.

That is why I was taken back by this novel - Fulgrim and Emperor's Children (chosen 6 warriors Fulgrim took to place planet Byzas into full Imperial compliance) are acting more like Alpha Legion, even Custodes. Underhand strategy, luring out assassins and revolutionaries to strike them down, covert missions and assassinations..... very very black-ops-like actions.

Fulgrim's actions and especially his conversations with Imperial envoy Pyke (and this madam is one of the most deadly female characters I've seen) and local politicians from Byzas are excellent and provide means to flesh out Fulgrim ever so more ("Hubris, your name is Fulgrim").

Highly recommended for all fans of W40K and Horus Heresy.… (mere)