Review: Grimdark Magazine Issue #18

Grimdark Magazine Issue #18 Grimdark Magazine Issue #18 by Adrian Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Hunger and the Lady” by Peter McLean – Wow! That was brilliantly amazing! I’ve never read McLean before, but I keep hearing great things about his recent novel Priest of Bones. Now I know why. The heartache is real, and this book is going on my TBR stat. ETA: Before I even finished this issue, I found myself online purchasing McLean’s novel...

“An Interview with Davin Madson” by Tom Smith – This was a great interview, with another author I haven’t yet read. But she’s also climbing my TBR after I read this, because like any good author interview, it made me want to read the books she’s talking about.

“Building a Career with Small Presses” by Alan Baxter – Great article for aspiring authors. As one that has written here and there but never finished a manuscript, this article had some great information for me. Some great tips, and it made for a good read even for the informational value.

“Review: The Ingenious by Darius Hinks” reviewed by malrubius – This was interesting, showing me another reading possibility, this one I hadn’t yet heard of. I give GdM credit here for publishing a review that points out the good as well as some things that didn’t work for the reviewer. I can appreciate the honesty. And I loved this summary: “So, if you’re not a nitpicking prose fetishist arsehole, you might want to pick up The Ingenious.” That made me laugh out loud.

“Hatred for Heroes” by Cameron Johnston – This was a cool story, told from the perspective of the “other side”. This story would have definitely fit in the Evil is a Matter of Perspective anthology. The execution wasn’t as brilliant as the McLean story, but it was still good. I just found some of the dialogue to be a bit off. The idea was damn cool though.

“An Interview with Cameron Johnston” by Tom Smith – here’s another good interview, and once again it does that trick of making me want to check out the author’s work. Nice to be combined with the story as a sample of his writing.

“Scene and Summary: An Indispensable Internal Structure of Showing and Telling” by Mike Myers – Here’s a great article that could help an aspiring author, or one that wants to improve his/her craft. Great info, and the little example paragraphs are amusing.

“Rage Wolf” by Andy Remic - That was intense. In the bio notes it mentioned that Remic is considered to be “the Tarantino of fantasy”, and I can believe it after trying his work with this story. Yet again, GdM is exposing its readers to great stuff that will result in wish lists being filled beyond capacity…

All in all, this issue was a hit out of the park. I loved the stories and the articles and interviews were fascinating as well. Grimdark Magazine once more showcases great work in the industry, specifically to those of us who likes our “heroes” that tread the darker side in their pursuits.

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