Grimdark Magazine Issue #2

by Adrian Collins

  [GdM]: What do you find so attractive about short fiction? What makes you write and release so much of it?

  [KH]: Funny enough, I don’t write much short fiction at all. I’ve published maybe 12 short stories in 15 years. I’ve written far more nonfiction in that time, and I’m currently writing my 13th (fifth published) novel. I’m not a natural short story writer – I’ve always preferred the novel form, even as a kid. I wrote my first book when I was twelve, and seven more after that before my ninth was published. I liked the freedom of the novel form, the larger casts, the deeper world building. Short fiction restrictions were so tight I had a very difficult time writing them to word count, especially for markets that want 5k and under. These days I’ve successfully managed to write “short” fiction between 7-14k, but the under-5k is still massively challenging for me.

  [GdM]: A lot of books use the concept of badarse women, and God's War can definitely be counted among them. However, I also felt that it played with some of the most fundamental aspects of womanhood. For example, the very first line is, "Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert." A chilling opening, and made somehow more so by the fact that it was her womb she sold, rather than a lung or kidney or an organ that both women and men have. In your opinion, what does this reaction say about the future world of the series, and what does it say about the world we're in now?

  [KH]: I don’t consider the absence or presence of a womb a “fundamental aspect of womanhood,” for many reasons, so I’m not sure how her selling it plays with this idea. It simply points out that the lengths she’s willing to go to get what she wants are further than a lot of other people would go. I find it funny that “badarse women” is considered some kind of concept or trope, though. Is “badarse men” not a “concept”/trope or is that just an expectation?

  I’m also not sure whose “reaction” you’re referring to, when referencing her selling her womb. Your reaction to her selling her womb? On a personal reader level, I can’t say what your reaction to her selling her womb means to the future of the series (which is already complete – the third book, RAPTURE, comes out in the UK on February 26th, but has been out in the US since 2012) or the world we’re in now, alas. Except that maybe we need more women protagonists so people like Nyx don’t seem so shocking. I’ve said before that many of the folks who cringe at Nyx and the things she does often admit that if she was a dude, they wouldn’t think twice about it.

  I wrote her as an 80’s apocalypse action hero, complete with the damaging masculinity tropes that make her so monstrously broken and incapable of relationships. She’s Snake Plissken, really, if Snake sold his balls in exchange for a beer and then had them surgically put back on because hey, it’s just flesh, and this is a dystopia, and it’s no big deal.

  [GdM]: Bel Dame Apocrypha contains an interesting interplay between science and magic. For me, God's War read like an urban fantasy book, albeit an urban setting far in the future, on a different planet. How do these two elements gel for you? How much of it, for you, is magic, and how much is science that Nyx and her crew have no name for?

  [KH]: To be honest, I don’t think about it much. I’m not one of those writers who makes a huge distinction between fantasy and science fiction. I just write weird. Some of the weird is aliens and spaceships, some is bug magic and shapeshifters. It depends on the project. What’s most important for me is that the world I’m making is internally consistent, so if bugs power everything, they need to continue powering everything throughout; we’re not going to have bug magic and then no bugs in book three, or shapeshifters who can change into anything in book one but can only change into dogs in book three. I enjoy making up world-logic; their logic, the way they think of science and magic, will be different than the way we conceive of it, just as the ways we viewed science and magic have been totally different across times and cultures. If our own history is messy and complicated, shouldn’t our fantasy be, too?

  [GdM]: In The Mirror Empire you provide many interesting views on gender – such as a character that can chose between five different genders – and on women and men’s roles in a society. What drives you to challenge the status quo of grimdark fiction femininity and where do you see it going in the next five years of publishing?

  [KH]: I’m interrogating far more than femininity here, as to define what’s feminine, you need to define what’s masculine, and that means you’re also erasing everything in-between. I’m not writing “grimdark fiction femininity,” I’m tearing down and reimagining who gets to have a story in a fantastic world; I’m interrogating what we believe to be true about sex and gender and behaviour and relationships, because so very much of it is socially constructed. I had one person say they were disappointed with the portrayal of genders in the book because “gender seemed tied to behaviour” which made me laugh because our socially constructed ideas of gender, of who belongs in which box, are so intrinsically tied to specific types of behaviour that we can actually trick people into performing tasks better by telling them that folks who identify as their gender perform better at it. Performative gender stereotypes are a huge hurdle for all of us.

  I recommend folks check out Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference as a good primer on how different societies have tied different types of behaviour to gender and tied gender (or not) to specific expressions of biological sex (of which there are actually quite a variety, not the nice neat two we’ve been tricked into thinking are all-encompassing). And by gender I don’t just mean “women,” as “gender” is not a synonym for “women.” When I say “gender” I mean the actual dictionary definition, which is “the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones).” To which I’d then add, “And everything else.” Third and fourth genders are relatively common in both current cultures and very recent history, so putting them into a fantasy novel hardly seems revolutionary, and yet… here we are speaking about the idea that merely revolutionizing how we view femininity is a big deal, like just putting a woman into a book is some kind of trope or gag or marketing ploy or something. What I’m doing is so fucking far beyond that that I actually laughed out loud at this question.

  Where do I think “this” is going, five years from now – by which I assume you mean “this gender/women thing”(!)? Well, shit I’d hope we get to the point where having half your book full of women is, at the very least, a normal and expected thing in our fiction. Half the world in real life is full of people who identify as women. As for everyone else in-between, the real diversity of people, well, let’s hope we can get there in another ten, all right?

  I’d hope the work I do inspires more people to not just build worlds with cool new exploding trees and rainbow-shitting unicorns, but to build fascinating, complex, never-before-seen societies with complex relationships and family structures. People are fascinatingly complex, and we forget that far too much in our “fantasy” worlds. In fantasy, we’ll believe in dragons and rings that turn people to stone and fairies that eat people alive, but six genders, my god THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE. That’s a reaction I’d like to see less of, for sure. And that’s only going to happen when more people take the time to think outside our made-up social boxes in the same way they are willingly to look outside our Known Beasts and Magiks boxes.

  [GdM]: What can readers expect to see in the second book of The Mirror Empire, due out October 2015?

  [KH]: EMPIRE ASCENDANT is, to put it bluntly, the Empire Strikes Back of the series, and I mean that in the best possible way. Bad things happen to good people. Fortunes change. Every kind of horrible shit that can go wrong totally does. The big battles probably aren’t going to turn out how you’d expect. The betrayals, the double-crosses, it’s all pretty fabulous. I’ve had a lot of fun writing this one.

  [GdM]: For new readers, where should they start reading to get the best idea of your style and subjects and why?

&nb
sp; [KH]: It really depends on what you’re looking for. If you love this sort of gonzo, weird science-fiction noir stuff, then I’d start with the GOD’S WAR series – for a taste of what that world is like, you can read a short story called “The Body Project” for free online. If epic fantasy of the blood mages, satellite magic, flesh eating plants variety is more your thing, I’d start with MIRROR EMPIRE immediately. Others, especially aspiring writers, really enjoy my nonfiction work, like what I’ve compiled in my collection WE HAVE ALWAYS FOUGHT: Essays on craft, fiction and fantasy. I blog regularly at kameronhurley.com, and am always ranting about something on twitter @kameronhurley [GdM]

  Review: The Heresy Within by Rob J. Hayes

  CHERESSE BURKE

  My experience reading The Heresy Within was an odd one. On the day I got the ARC, I read for a little while, got bored, and wandered off and did my laundry.

  The next day, I picked the book up again, read for about thirty minutes, got highly irritated, and put the book down again.

  A couple of days later, I sat down to read again. I read through lunch. I missed dinner. I finished the book in one sitting.

  The first act of The Heresy Within was a hard one to swallow. But once I got a good idea of where the plot was going, everything seemed to click into place, and the result was a mostly enjoyable read with solidly dark characters and a compelling plot. Whether or not it is worthwhile to push through the first part of The Heresy Within will depend on how sensitive the reader is to rape triggers and the objectification of women, and, frankly, how much of a grammar nazi the reader is.

  Heresy tells the story of three people whose paths merge when fate forces them in the same direction. Thanquil Darkheart is an Arbiter in the Inquisition, tasked publicly with travelling to the far-off ‘Free Cities’ in order to ascertain whether a prisoner there is a witch. He has also been given a secret mission by the God-Emperor -- to root out a plot corrupting the Inquisition. Bertrim Thorn is the Black Thorn, an infamous cutthroat, banded together with equally infamous fellows who are paid to perform various unsavoury deeds in the Free Cities. The last of the trio, Jezzet Vel’Urn, is a mercenary of renown, on the run from a powerful warlord and old friend. The three come together under common cause, and events conspire to keep them together throughout the novel.

  The plot was the most masterful part of the book. Too often in a fantasy series, the first book ends when the quest is at an awkward or inopportune moment -- or worse, before the quest has even bothered to get underway (I’m looking at you, First Law trilogy). Hayes’ plot never seems forced, and this first volume does a good job of telling a complete story while leaving numerous loose ends that can be expanded upon later in the trilogy. My only (slight) criticism of the plot is that, for me, the most captivating moment came at about 3/4 of the way through the book, in a particularly vivid conflict. Following that epic scene, a large part of the climax seemed almost like an epilogue.

  Hayes’ main characters were all interesting to read about. Each was well developed and had convincing motivations and an enticing dark side. I found out a little more than I would have liked through unlikely expository monologues, but otherwise the characters kept me engaged. Unlike many books told from multiple points of view, there was no point where I was annoyed that Hayes had switched characters. The minor characters were often a little more two-dimensional than I’d have liked, but their interactions with the protagonists read as real. I did have some qualms about the main three, including an odious moment with Thanquil early on that nearly made me put the book down, but I look forward to continuing each of their journeys.

  Stylistically, the writing went up and down. At some points the narrative was powerful, but at others, particularly the beginning, it was bogged down with awkward sentences. Run-ons litter the first part of the book, and some of the descriptive imagery is jumbled. Otherwise, Hayes has the tendency to use what I like to deem ‘Abercrombie-isms,’ colloquial statements that cause the reader to make certain inferences or garner insight from the masterful turn of phrase. Hayes hasn’t quite got this up to Abercrombie’s level, with the result that some of his statements resulted in amused confusion on my part. According to Ragnarok, Hayes hadn’t read any Abercrombie prior to writing Heresy.

  The issue of the treatment of women is too broad to be discussed in the confines of a short review such as this one. However, it should be said that there were a few moments when it crossed a line for me. Matters of rape and a woman’s agency in a story should not necessarily be avoided in a narrative, but they need to be handled carefully, and in this case the author sometimes left me with the impression that he was either callous or oblivious.

  Overall, The Heresy Within has all the quintessential trappings of grimdark, and if you’re sensitive to the treatment of women in fiction, it might have a few too many. However, the trappings are used to make an overall pleasing whole, and while the writing didn’t wow me, it was a satisfying fix. Most people will find this an enjoyable addition to their grimdark libraries.

  The Heresy Within was self-published by Rob J. Hayes in April 2013. It was picked up by Ragnarok Publications and re-released on November 10, 2014. It is the first in the Ties that Bind trilogy.

  You can purchase The Heresy Within over at Ragnarok’s website:

  http://www.ragnarokpub.com/#!bookstore/c16fm [GdM]

  Drone Strikes for Fun and Profit

  AARON FOX-LERNER

  I was flying high on my first successful kill when I saw the message. I'm sure that there were others before it, but this was the first that I noticed. "Hello to the Predators!" it read in thick white letters painted upon a sloping red roof.

  At the time I didn't give any thought to who might have written that or why. I didn't think about how there might be other messages like it, messages meant for me or any other drone pilots. I just saw an enthusiastic missive that fit my elated mood. I was too busy feeling that rush to worry about the message.

  A few months before, on my sixteenth birthday, I'd come downstairs and seen the full software and supplemental hardware controls for my very own drone, a brand new MQ-88 Predator. I knew it was coming; I'd already spent over a year taking classes and doing all the certification work, but I was overtaken by excitement nonetheless.

  A couple weeks later I got accepted into The Order of the Red Condor. TORC was a pretty old and well-established clan with a solid record, but they took on a newb like me because they'd been barred from the leader boards for two years after a scandal. Some Chinese national had used these crazy complex IP scramblers and VPNs to run missions with them and they got blamed for letting a non-citizen take part in American military matters.

  Once they were allowed back on the leader boards they needed fresh blood, metaphorically and literally, so they took me on. TORC was running missions in Indonesia before and doing well enough to be considered for the top leagues blasting Islamists in the Middle East, but post-scandal they've been relegated to Ecuador. I tell other kids at my school that I officially compete in the UAV leagues and they all automatically think of Pakistan or Afghanistan. But most of us who aren't in the A leagues are stuck with the world's many petty conflicts.

  Hell, before I joined The Order of the Red Condor I didn't even know there was a war in Ecuador. Well, officially it's not a war, just a Continuous Military Situation. I spent hours on Wikipedia trying to fill in as much context as I could before my drone shipped out, researching the conflict between the National Military Government and the Pan-Andean Alliance, not to mention the indigenous separatist movement happening at the same time. Even given all that, Ecuador's still one of the more stable countries in the region, having ridden out the water and gas crises relatively well. The National Military Government's a US ally and they paid Hallwater/USAF Inc. for their services as a Class C Location, so it seemed to be a pretty good starter area.

  I began with a few uneventful weeks there. I'd circle above Ambato and the surrounding areas at an altitude too high to spot from the grou
nd, keeping an eye out for anyone matching the tags of wanted insurgents or flagged for suspicious behaviour. I didn't have much luck. The most I got to do was identify a couple of suspects and forward the footage to the image analysts.

  I lobbied my parents to allow me to stay up later so I could have a better time span to work with, but they refused. Then I tried Lloyd, my class psychiatrist, but he agreed with my parents that allowing me to stay up that late would upset my sleep schedule, which would have a negative effect on my stress levels and ability to focus. I was annoyed, but I still felt like I owed him. He'd helped convince my parents that it was worth it for me to get certified as a UAV pilot. It's funny because he used to try and get me to participate in sports or group activities, and I'm really not the type. I even wanted to switch psychiatrists, but Mom and Dad were worried that having a different psychiatrist than the rest of my class would alienate me. But once Lloyd found out that I was interested in UAVs he was actually really helpful, saying it was a way for me to realise my worth in society and ability to function within the larger world.

  Really I'd rather be piloting my Predator than hanging out with any of the kids from my school anyway. There's nothing they can give me that would match the thrill of piloting in the field. Well, maybe sex, but with the girls at my school I'm about as likely to get laid as I am to get a million dollars. Honestly, though, I imagine that even sex isn't as exciting as pulling off a successful kill.

  Which brings me back to what I was doing when I saw the message. I was on a standard surveillance run above one of those sad little towns up the mountains a bit to the east. I had a pretty good image of the region despite minor cloud cover and I got an auto-alert on what might be suspicious movements. It was two guys setting up a mid-sized mortar, apparently to fire at the troops stationed in Ambato.