Spiral Tower Review: The Many Merits of Between Princesses and Other Jobs

 

The Many Merits of Between Princesses and Other Jobs
Between Princesses and Other Jobs (Baen 2023)
822 words

When thinking of D. J. Butler, a variety of great fiction may come to mind from his epic American fantasy Witchy Eye, to his space age-of-sail accountant hero in Abbot in Darkness, to his tale of the Great Depression and the supernatural exploits of a magician in rural Utah in The Cunning Man. Certainly not last in this list of great fantasy are the tales of Butler's comic duo, Indrajit and Fix, who first appeared in In the Palace of Shadow and Joy (2020) and return in the collection that this review will focus on: Between Princesses and Other Jobs (2023).

Between Princesses and Other Jobs is made up of short stories largely printed elsewhere originally, in Baen anthologies, Libri Valoris books, and elsewhere. Between Princess and Other Jobs is a fix-up novel. (A "fix-up" novel--a term popularized by science fiction author A.E. van Vogt--is created by combining short stories or novellas into a longer, cohesive narrative. These stories are often revised or expanded to make them fit together more seamlessly). The plot device that allows the individual episodes to cohere here is that Indrajit and Fix are part of a jobber group known ironically as The Protagonists. Their tales are a compendium of far future buddy-cop stories akin to Jack Vance’s picaresque Dying Earth tales or those of Fritz Leiber’s greatest swordsmen, the sometime buffoonish, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser. 

The easiest merit to pinpoint for the book is the accessibility. Fix-ups are so rare in the publishing industry these days. It’s a breath of fresh air to read one without yellowing pages and a well creased spine. It is even more noteworthy that this fix-up is published by a traditional publishing house, Baen Books. While chronologically set after the first novel, In the Palace of Shadow and Joy mentioned above, Between Princess and Other Jobs is a great place to start for a new reader. The stories are short with a novella thrown in at the end, the perfect sizes for sword and sorcery connoisseurs. 

Another is the heroic duo, another classic trope of the genre. Indrajit Twang is the Recital Thane of the Blaatshi people. He is mahogany-skinned, but with a boney crest on his head, far apart eyes, and a greenish tint, he resembles a fish. Fix, the other in the duo, constantly reminds him of this. Fix himself is short and stocky, a Kishi common to the Lankhmar-esque city of Kish. This is a city also like Gene Wolfe’s Nessus, since it is the culmination of many iterations of city that are now in ruins beneath the surface. Additionally, in this far future, humanity has been split into a thousand sub-races by some murky past genetic war.

Beyond making money as self-proclaimed heroes and good guys, Indrajit seeks an apprentice uncorrupted by literacy to learn the Blaatshi epic. Fix grew up in a monastery for a god of useless knowledge before leaving to chase a woman. In romantic fashion, she married another man and, despite this, Fix is hopeful to be with her someday.

The jobs they perform do give us an image that many might interpret as rare in sword and sorcery: the two are good guys. They are not grey and are generally not fit for rage except for in the face of injustice. When an alien child is thrown over a bridge, Indrajit and Fix save the child. They do not let it die and they certainly do not harm innocents. Their competency and foibles mixed with their intent shines light on what it means to be a hero. 

But despite this lightness, there are Lovecraftian elements, such as in “No Trade for Nice Guys”; poisonings and politics in “Backup”; epics recited and cats (with a question mark) in “The Path of the Hunter”; betrayal and dog-headed allies that may eat their own feces in “Power and Prestige”; and secrets and sorcery of wizards in “The Politics of Wizards”. These, and more, are all packaged together in Between Princesses and Other Jobs.

While Butler is passably comparable to Leiber, Vance, and more could be drawn, he brings his own talent for wit and entertainment, colorful and vibrant world building, and authentic anthropological ideas. Butler has the merits to stand with the best sword and sorcery writers, his variety and humor mix well with ideas that are thoughtful, such as human literacy and how the stars shape human identity. He also brings in transhumanist ideas without all the tech you normally see it paired with. Instead of cyber enhancements, maybe shoes will do the job?

Between Princesses and Other Job's perfect blending of entertainment (and the too oft-accursed escapism) when mixed with worthwhile thought-provoking ideas makes it perhaps lasting literature. Michael Moorcock, Gene Wolfe, and Clark Ashton Smith would sound nicely with Butler in the same sentence. It would be unsurprising if many a reader kept the book on a bedside table to enjoy.

About the Reviewer: Liam Hall is a student of the humanities, with particular interests lying in anthropology and philology. He lives in Idaho with his wife and two daughters, whom he regales with poetry and weird fiction written by himself and others. When not writing and working he makes videos about speculative fiction on YouTube.

About Spiral Tower Reviews: The authors who maintain the pulp genres of sword and sorcery and cosmic horror merit support. Financial support is key but there are other ways the cash-strapped can show support: engaged reading and thoughtful analysis. Literary movements emerge through the interactions of editors, authors, publishers, and amateur literary journalists. Learn more about contributing your review here. We are happy to work with first time reviewers! No previous writing credits required!

Tanith Lee is the Empress of Dreams, review by George Jacobs


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TRIAPA Mailing #5



Spiral Tower Press has established an 'Amateur Press Association,' TRIAPA, and its fourth mailing is now available. We extend our sincere thanks to our excellent contributors. If you are interested in submitting a zine for TRIAPA #5, please send a 2-page zine (maximum) to spiraltowerpress@gmail.com. We invite and encourage all fans of sword and sorcery, cosmic horror, and space opera to submit.

You can read more about TRIAPA HERE. 

You can download the fifth mailing here: TRIAPA Mailing #5

You can download the fourth mailing here: TRIAPA Mailing #4

You can download the third mailing here: TRIAPA Mailing #3 

You can download the second mailing here: TRIAPA Mailing #2

You can download the first mailing here: TRIAPA Mailing #1

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Spiral Tower Review: Skelos 2 Strikes a Harmonious Blend of the New and the Old


Skelos 2 Strikes a Harmonious Blend of the New and the Old
Skelos: The Journal of Weird Fiction and Dark Fantasy, Issue 2
Published by Skelos Press (2017)
959 words.

I have already provided a glowing review of Skelos 1 for Spiral Tower Reviews (available HERE). The question I had upon opening the covers of Issue 2 was: would it live up to the standard set by the first issue? The short version is it exceeded my expectations! Those wanting a longer review may read on.

Following an editorial by Mark Finn the issue opens with a trio of excellent stories that encapsulate the scope of Skelos. Angeline Hawkes provides "The Keeping of Eleanor May," a tale in which misguided, youthful love collides with a "haunted" house. In "Slayers at the Gate," meanwhile, Adrian Cole evokes the spirit of Robert E. Howard's classic Bran Mak Morn story "Worms of the Earth" in an alternative history story that sees the Roman invasion of Britain come up against the Cthulhu Mythos. Rounding off the trio is "Of Mist, and an Heirloom Sword" by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, a light-hearted and humorous tall-tale in the vein of the 1001 Nights.

The excellence of these opening stories is matched by two found later in the issue, both by heralds of what has become known as the "New Edge of Sword & Sorcery": Howard Andrew Jones and Scott Oden. "The Black Lion" by Jones is a tale of his well-known duo Asim and Dabir, in which the titular lion indicates a curse, but not in the way the protagonists think. "Amarante: A Tale of Old Tharduin" by Oden is an early and blood-drenched preview of his now trademark orc-centric fiction to be found in the Grimnir trilogy, albeit in a fantastical rather than historical setting.

"Reverse the Charges" by Jess Nevins is possibly the finest example of "revisionist" Lovecraftian fiction I have read. It has become common within the sub-genre of cosmic horror to re-examine Lovecraft's tales from the perspective of the antagonists, not least the Deep Ones from "The Shadow over Innsmouth". While such retellings offer a much-needed corrective to Lovecraft's white, male attitudes, in my experience they occasionally do so at the cost of losing some of the outré nature of the originals. Not so Nevins's offering. Nevins's narrator, one Guilliot Abellard of New Orleans, explains how he became aware of the secret religion that inspired Lovecraft's Cthulhu, exposes the truth of the events fictionalized by Lovecraft in "The Call of Cthulhu", and ends with a re-constructed history of the Cthulhu cult as Abellard understands it. Particularly enthralling is the way Nevins intertwines and contrasts Abellard's pursuit of knowledge with Inspector DeGrasse's ruthless suppression of the cult. It is the re-constructed history that truly elevates this story though. While Nevins humanizes the Cthulhu cult, much of the nature of the cult's religion remains a mystery even to the Abellard. The Cthulhu cult thus appears as a real, living religion that has changed over time, yet the potential for Cthulhu's return remains something that can either inspire dread or excitement depending on one's perspective. My only criticism of the tale is that I don't understand why it is presented as a series of blog posts and computer files. I expected this format would be important to the narrative in some way, but, while it doesn't detract from the story, the reason for it is never made clear.

In "'The Shadow Kingdom' and the Origins of Gothic Horror in Robert E. Howard's Heroic Fantasy", Charles Hoffman provides an excellent overview of the ways in which Robert E. Howard utilized the gothic in his Sword & Sorcery tales. While previous studies have explored this element of Howard's horror stories, this is the first in-depth study of the influence of Gothic literature on Howard's fantasy. Howard's debut Kull of Valusia story "The Shadow Kingdom" provides the focus, although Hoffman also provides a thorough assessment of the gothic elements in Howard's Solomon Kane and Conan stories. It is clear that Poe and Hawthorne had the greatest gothic influence on Howard, although the latter made the tropes his own by placing them in unconventional settings. In this comprehensive article, Hoffman reminds us that we should not be constrained by genre-specific assumptions when examining Howard's fiction, just as Howard himself was not.

With its exploration of a medieval text through the lens of modern genre, I found Benjamin Garstad's "The Alexander Romance as Weird Fiction" incredibly intriguing. Garstad provides a succinct and accessible overview of the Alexander Romance text. He also demonstrates that a fascination with introducing supernatural and weird elements into historical tales did not begin with the pulps, or their gothic predecessors, even if a medieval text doesn't meet the definition of "Weird" we would apply today.

As with the previous issue, Skelos 2 is interspersed with illustrations and poetry, which serve to immerse the reader in the dark and weird atmosphere of the contents. And again, like the previous issue, this one closes with a useful selection of fiction and non-fiction reviews.

I have already said that this issue exceeded my expectations. Both fiction and non-fiction contributions were generally of an incredibly high standard. I have not had space here to do every contribution justice, and omission should not be taken as criticism. The only contribution I did not enjoy was Robert M. Price's Thongor pastiche "The Eleventh Scarlet Hell," which felt a bit flat. Compared to the previous issue, the balance between fiction and non-fiction felt like it had tipped slightly more towards the former, while more of that fiction fell with the Sword & Sorcery sub-genre than other varieties of weird fiction. Nevertheless, by providing a venue for veteran authors such as Adrian Cole and Jessica Amanda Salmonson alongside relative new-comers like Milton Davis and Arianne "Tex" Thompson, Skelos 2 successfully continues the journal's mission to publish traditional stories while also pushing the genre forwards.

About the Reviewer: Ricky Broome is an aspiring historian with a PhD in early medieval history. He lives in the UK with his partner, their three children, and two feline familiars, Lucifer and Loki. When not reading about things that happened a long time ago, he indulges in weird and fantastical fiction.

About Spiral Tower Reviews: The authors who maintain the pulp genres of sword and sorcery and cosmic horror merit support. Financial support is key but there are other ways the cash-strapped can show support: engaged reading and thoughtful analysis. Literary movements emerge through the interactions of editors, authors, publishers, and amateur literary journalists. Learn more about contributing your review here. We are happy to work with first time reviewers! No previous writing credits required!

Tanith Lee is the Empress of Dreams, review by George Jacobs
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Poet Interview: Susan L. Lin, "Unsuspecting Creatures"

Here is a brief and insightful written interview with Susan L. Lin, author of the hauntingly beautiful poem, "Unsuspecting Creatures," published in Witch House 3.

Witch House: Tell us a bit about your training as a poet. When did you first start writing poetry? Have you formally studied poetry or creative writing? Have you published poetry elsewhere?

SLL: I remember writing my first poems when I was seven. We did a poetry unit in my second grade class, studying cinquains, limericks, couplets, and haiku before compiling our own mini collections. Limericks were my favorite; I wrote at least a dozen back then, and there are a few I'm still quite proud of. As a teenager, I continued writing poems, mostly as a way to express my emotions. I didn't quite grasp the craft of the genre at that time. Later, I took a couple of poetry workshops in school, but fiction has always been my primary focus. Even so, I somehow managed to sell 14 poems this year, including one to one of my dream journals, Strange Horizons. That number feels kind of wild to me; before last year, I don't think I'd ever written 14 poems in my entire adult life.

Witch House: Who are some of your favorite poets? Whose poetry has influenced your work? Can you speculate or comment on the poetic traditions that you work within?

SLL: I don't read a lot of poetry outside of literary journals, so I can't say I have a favorite poet. However, I do love Russell Edson and Anne Carson. My favorite poem of all time is 'The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina' by Miller Williams. I've always wanted to write a sestina, but I haven't yet finished one that I'm happy with. Generally, I'm more influenced by song and rap lyrics because I listen to a lot of music, both popular and obscure, and I'm attracted to the rhythm of language, the repetition of words and sounds. I've also found that self-imposed restrictions and structures often produce some of my best and most creative work, so I admire the techniques of the French Oulipo. Whenever possible, I challenge myself by inventing new constraints to experiment with.

Witch House: Can you provide some background information about your poem featured in Witch House #3, "Unsuspecting Creatures"? Were there any specific intentions behind your choice of form, such as lineation or rhythm? Can you elaborate on the recurring theme in the poem that explores the exploration of profound realms, like the cosmic and the depths of the ocean?

SLL" I originally wrote "Unsuspecting Creatures" last year for a contest I didn't win. I can't recall the exact prompts, but they were all fire-related. Having grown up along the Gulf Coast and currently living in California, I've had to evacuate my home due to both hurricanes and wildfires, so I often write about climate disasters. This time, I wanted to draw a parallel between the current state of the planet and the days leading up to the extinction of the dinosaurs, another recurring topic in my work. The line 'My head swims, I see stars on the ocean floor' was something I found in my notes app, written long ago but never used in any finished piece. I started with that line and tried to build more imagery with a similar energy around it. I used the repetition and alteration of 'wrong place, wrong time' to emphasize a collective denial of our dire situation. Other than that, I let the form of the poem take shape organically while writing.
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Spiral Tower Review: Is Sword and Sorcery Novelistic? Maybe Not, but I'm Still on Board for the Hanuvar Ride

Is Sword and Sorcery Novelistic? Maybe Not, but I’m Still on Board for the Hanuvar Ride
Jones, Howard Andrew. The City of Marble and Blood. Baen Books, October 2023.
Words: 2100 words


Warning: This review includes plot spoilers.

Howard Andrew Jones graced the sword-and-sorcery community with not one but two splashy releases this year, namely the first and second entries in his Chronicles of Hanuvar series (you can read my review of the first book, Lord of a Shattered Land, HERE. With the second novel, The City of Marble and Blood, Jones continues his saga of an earnest hero on a quest to save his conquered people, only now the setting has shifted from the outskirts of the empire to the beating heart of the imperial city itself (plus several other locales). The players remain the same, the motivations unchanged, and Jones's ability to craft a well-told adventure story returns in full-force. Some of my previous criticisms of the first novel apply here, but there are also moments where Jones surprised me and delivered much-needed depth to his characters, their internal conflicts, and their world. Marble and Blood is, in many ways, a stronger tale, holding a tighter focus on its central cast, but it still relies on a storytelling style that is almost purely external and distances me from accessing the text at a level beyond the surface, a problem exacerbated by its novel-as-short-stories form. That said, this is still a series I would recommend to fans of sword-and-sandal adventure, genuine and earnest characters, and anti-imperialist narratives; Jones is confident as storyteller and carries the reader along with a sure hand, delivering the thrills of sprawling battles, courtly intrigue, treasury heists, and more.

I'm not one for summaries in reviews (because a book's plot is rarely what attracts me to or keeps me invested in a text) so I'll forgo the full rundown this time. Suffice it to say that Hanuvar continues to seek out his displaced people, gathers allies old and new, and foils many plots, Dervan and otherwise. Instead, for this review I'd rather highlight some key passages that, for me, serve as paradigmatic examples of both the novel's strengths and its flaws. To begin, let's talk about characterization. Here's a passage from the novel's opening Preamble:

The Dervans knew first hand that Hanuvar possessed characteristics held by few and fully matched by none. His was the finest military mind in the world, a searing, flexible intellect paired with an astonishing determination, bolstered by a lifetime of wisdom and experience.
        Those were not his only gifts. He was endowed with an unparalleled clarity of vision, a confident surety that was never conceit. Trial and tragedy had burned off the dross of vanity and pride that weight the lives of normal men; his experiences had not transformed him so much as provided fuel for the forge he had used to shape himself into a tool to achieve aims the Dervans had misunderstood from the start. (3)

A hyperbolic yet soaring, sincere quality rings out in this description, and whether you're attracted to its earnest tone will likely inform your overall enjoyment of the book. There are some notable exceptions to this broad, heroic characterization of Hanuvar, which I'll get into, but for me our titular hero is still too great, too brilliant, and, therefore, too inert; he is above the failures and weaknesses "of normal men." This is, of course, my own idiosyncratic reading of Hanuvar, my own resistance to one-note heroes and immutable characters, and I completely understand that, in a reality plagued with enough moral compromise and evil men, having a character you can actually root for, a character whose motivations you do not have to question, is refreshing. And in short doses, I could get behind broad characterization. But I've now spent almost 1000 pages with Hanuvar, and this preamble hype text is more or less exactly what you get, in every story, at every encounter. In this way, Marble and Blood struggles against its form as a novel, a form that was initially designed and built around sustained attention to interiority; in other words, the novel-as-form works because of the deep-focus, psychological investment it allows the reader to access; the novel, at its best, carries ideas and engages in polyphonic perspectives across several hours of intimate engagement with the reader. I only mention all of this because Jones is, in many ways, working against the novel's own strengths by composing his narrative as a series of short stories, a technique he likens to episodes in a television series. On the one hand, I admire the drive for resisting the novel form's own emphasis on sustained, long-form tension, opting instead for the rapid, nimble moves of the short story--a series of sprints over a marathon. It's this dynamic that gives each story its narrative thrust, and I certainly commend Jones for managing to contextualize dramatic action, crescendo toward a climax, and then resolve the immediate conflict, fourteen different times. But while the circumstances might change, Hanuvar rarely does, and across so much word-mileage, he buckles under his own mighty weight.

Luckily, however, Jones does reveal chinks in Hanuvar's emotional armor this time around, and it's in these moments where Hanuvar becomes a character of competing juxtapositions, read, more compelling. This is a moment from the second chapter/short story:

His pulse was a drum at his temples. Enemies and allies alike had called him calm, but he could feel rage, and it swept unchecked through him. His hands shook, his teeth bared … Silently he screamed, and silently he wept. Had he been granted divine powers at that moment he would have crumbled the walls of Derva, thrown lightning against its temples, and sent fire coursing down its streets. Women, children, the elderly, slaves, servants, foreigners…he would not have cared, not at that moment. He would have jeered to see flames engulf the city. (53)

Here Jones allows us access to a much more human, much more recognizable Hanuvar, a quiet moment of internal conflict as our hero wrestles with the countless Volani dead and struggles with the emotional desire for revenge. As I mentioned in my first review, I don't want or need Hanuvar to become a compromised, morally grey character, but if I'm to believe in his own earnestness, in his own "unparalleled clarity of vision" as something immutable and virtuous, it becomes much easier to identify his hyperboles as strengths when set against a moment of frailty and weakness. Without these moments, Hanuvar becomes staid and one note. Jones pushes Hanuvar's humanity forward in Marble and Blood, a welcome development from Shattered Land and, I would argue, a necessary one if, again, we're to spend over a thousand pages with the same character. Indeed, Jones sets up a series of juxtaposing contradictions in Marble and Blood, pitting Hanuvar's own goals against competing positions, asking us to weigh multiple solutions. In the seventh tale, "Mask of Beauty," Hanuvar reflects on another character's vengeance, and he reveals that he understands "how enervating it was to try and root strength in the anger and the hate … he had even asked himself the kind of questions Senanara had demanded of him. He wondered sometimes if he always wore a kind of mask, pretending everything he did was rational and sane because if he were to pause, he'd be overcome by rage and despair" (266-67). Wearing masks, convincing the self of something you might not fully believe: Jones achieves an, albeit brief, commendable complexity of character in Marble and Blood, which he carries into the novel's climax.

In the final full-length tale, Jones sets up the ultimate conflict between Hanuvar and the Dervan emperor. But rather than devolve into yet another bloodbath, we again glimpse a wounded hero caught in struggle; Hanuvar "could not contain the rage, and he bared his teeth, as though he were an animal," desperate in that moment to simply end the emperor's life, the source of all his grief and mission (488). Of course, Hanuvar resists and does the morally upright, heroic thing, sparing his life and attempting to get him to safety. One could argue it's yet another predictable outcome for Hanuvar the Hero, but the virtue in this moment is earned through our hero's denial of that more "animal" side of himself, a depth of characterization that, for me, at least, sells his genuine ethos. Identity is formed through emergent encounters with difference, and it's in these moments of difference--of struggle, of denial, and, ultimately, of grace--that I encountered the real Hanuvar, the one hyped up in our opening preamble.

In my review of Shattered Land I expressed a desire for Jones to sharpen the political edge, which isn't to suggest I wanted the novel to be explicitly political, but if you're going to engage with political themes and consequences (contemporary or otherwise), then be sure to commit. With Marble and Blood, Jones does sharpen the edge, even giving us Hanuvar's position on the abortion debate (he's decidedly pro-choice, declaring when pressed over his endorsement of pregnancy termination that "'This isn't our concern because we aren't the ones to live with the consequences'") and doubling-down on the evils of imperialism, colonization, and unjust war. In a confrontation with Ciprion's wife, Hanuvar is challenged on the moral superiority of his position and the enlightenment of Volani civilization over the Dervan empire. She pushes back:

"But you kill. I'm told more than fifty thousand perished that day with my father and brother, at Acanar. Ciprion was there. He might have died as well. You started the war. How would you have ended it."
          It was Derva that had started the war, by making their plans for domination manifest, and by gobbling up, taxing, subjugating, and otherwise interfering with Volanus' formerly free trade relations. But this was not a time for debate. By starting the war she meant that he was the one who had invaded their lands. And by that reckoning she was correct. (455)

I found this exchange compelling for the terms of the debate that it establishes, revealing that Hanuvar's decision to preemptively invade Derva ultimately cost thousands of lives and indirectly contributed to Volani's downfall. Of course the text assures us that Hanuvar was ultimately correct in his assumptions that Derva would push for total conquest and/or assimilation anyway, but Jones is at least starting to critique Hanuvar's own assumptions, as well as continuing to condemn imperial practices writ large. Hanuvar is, fundamentally, offering humanitarian aid in response to a refugee crisis instituted by imperial subjugation, and I found this moment even more stirring in the wake of the contemporary international crises in Ukraine and Palestine. Jones does not want his text to become a political polemic, but he does want the world to be better; he wants characters like Hanuvar to exist, which is a sentiment I also share. "'Basic empathy shouldn't be such a hard task,'" a character remarks, perhaps naively, but if there's one word that I would use to describe Jones's texts, it would be earnest. And the world could use more earnest empathy.

Marble and Blood is a complex book for me to evaluate (which somewhat accounts for how long this thing is). It develops the character of Hanuvar and pushes the world and its characters into more complex situations, but those moments still felt too fleeting in a novel that's 500 pages. What's more, the tales themselves felt more repetitious than they did in Shattered Land, simply more variations on the same theme. The weird sorcery returns, but the de-aging of Hanuvar that occurs early in the book-- an act that feels appropriately profane and profound--is more or less dismissed and shuffled to the background before it's easily resolved through some interdimensional magic, returning our hero right where he started. The revenants, a shadowy inquisitorial organization that felt like a significant threat in Shattered Land, are summarily dealt with without too much fuss in Marble and Blood. In short, I felt that the conflicts seemed to resolve themselves too easily, a problem likely caused by its structure; each story needs to set up its own internal drama and resolution, and then we do it all over again. Across a book half this length, I don't think I would have noticed the repetition. But for 500 pages? Things start to sag. 

My criticisms aside, however, I still thoroughly enjoyed this second entry. I looked forward to settling down to read a tale or two of Hanuvar's further adventures, confident that Jones would deliver a lean and thrilling story. And for all my critiques of Hanuvar's character, there remains a refreshing quality to his genuine empathy for his people and his continual resistance to the predictable route of vengeance and bloodlust. So I'm still on board for the Hanuvar ride, and I'll definitely be picking up book three, Shadow of the Smoking Mountain, in 2024. If you enjoy tales of high adventure, sword and sorcery, and superhero storytelling, this is the best, most contemporary commercial offering you're likely to find, and hats off to Jones for his commitment and genuine passion for his characters, his world, and his stories.


About the Reviewer: Matt Holder teaches rhetoric and composition in the St. Louis area and holds a PhD in English literature. After decades of absence, he reinstalled World of Warcraft in July of 2023 so he could fly dragons in Azeroth. His academic writing can be found at Disability Studies Quarterly and ImageTexT, his reviews at Strange Horizons, and he has published fiction with indie presses that have since folded. He lives in Fenton, MO, with his wife, Maggie, and their dog, Lily.

About Spiral Tower Reviews: The authors who maintain the pulp genres of sword and sorcery and cosmic horror merit support. Financial support is key but there are other ways the cash-strapped can show support: engaged reading and thoughtful analysis. Literary movements emerge through the interactions of editors, authors, publishers, and amateur literary journalists. Learn more about contributing your review here. We are happy to work with first time reviewers.

Previous Spiral Tower Reviews:

Tanith Lee is the Empress of Dreams, review by George Jacobs
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