Grimdark Magazine #33, Beth Tabler, ed. January 2023
This quarterly magazine has quickly become one of my most-wanted reads. So I started this issue with a little trepidation: the From The Editor warns the stories may not be “typical grimdark fare.” Well in the grip of withdrawal from the last edition, I started to take umbrage at the pronouncement that “Today’s lover of the dark and grim goes beyond blood, gore and body count.” (“Uh, wait.” I thought, “Says who, exactly?”) Fortunately, the adjusted mix of grim and dark -- maybe a tad less blood-stained than it might have been -- still brought good reading.
To me, the first story was strongest: Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s Bargaining. This is set in Gareth’s wider Black Iron Legacy series -- which I now feel obligated to buy and read. This story delivers both on grimmness and darkness -- and is sketched out in electric, vivid language. You can almost feel the hope leaching out of the situation as the story unfolds to a taut and satisfyingly bleak ending. Excellent stuff.
Next best, from my perspective was Essa Hansen’s searing Save, Salve, Shelter. This is a haunting and vivid enviro-apocalyptic trip. The protagonist’s mind deteriorates rapidly under the pressure of desperately wanting to do the right thing but being given a searing moral and ethical dilemma instead. Vivid and dark, an all-around solid story.
Eric La Rocca’s Crimson Shows the Way of Joy is a well-crafted exploration of revenge and the unexpected limits to getting back at one’s enemies. There’s no redemption on offer here, just a story twist coming straight from a dark crevice in the protagonist’s heart. Christian Cameron’s Lan Thena--Tales from the Bronze Age starts off like old-school swords and sorcery, although perhaps it’s less dark and than simply grim. Rounding out the more-or-less traditionalist school is The Cavalry, a haunting story from João F. Silva which effectively mixes mil SF with horror.
In the non-fiction section, John Mauro has four good reviews: The House of Good Bones by T. Kingfisher, Kelly Barnhill’s The Crane Husband, Jacqueline Holland’s The God of Endings and Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee. All offer clear, even insights into the works at hand. There are two interviews. Mauro talks to Fonda Lee. Editor Beth Tabler joins Mauro for an interview with David Dalglish that offered good insights into the mind and imagination of an author with whom I wasn’t familiar.
Bringing up the rear was Yaroslav Barsukov’s The Last Radio God. This is about a music fan planning to...murder the spirit inhabiting a radio mast? I found it both well-written and disappointing. There’s a very abstract overlay of grimness. There’s darkness, too, but that seemed to mostly be a shadow over Barsukov’s musical heart and wasn’t something to which I could relate.
Finally, both The Toxic Side of Fandom and There’s a Monster in the House (and it is us) venture in different ways into tensions at the heart of the grim-dark world. The former is a cry from the heart about distressing behavior that anyone who’s at all on line will recognize. The latter seems to share the angst, but slips it into an intellectualized wrapper. Both touch on a great question: why does the attraction to grim and dark things play out the way it does? Monster in particular suggests human nature is in play. This seems right, but neither piece really offers a good answer to the key question -- how do we make sure we’re letting the right ideas live rent-free in our heads?
Smirk factor: More than acceptable: 1.5 pts (Lots of lovingly crafted words.)
Immersion factor: Chest-high: 1.5 pts
Writing quality: High: 2 pts
Character/plot development: Average: 1 pt (Averages in the non-fiction.)
Innovative/interesting: Average: 1 pt (Averages in the non-fiction.)
Total: 7/10
And uh, huh…Looking closely at the dudes on the cover of the magazine, is there a family resemblance to these gentlemen?
