Review: In the Shadow of their Dying by Michael R. Fletcher and Anna Smith Spark
Blurb:
The third best assassin. A second rate mercenary crew. One terrifying demon.
As Sharaam crumbles under siege, a mercenary crew hires an assassin to kill the king. For Tash, it’s a chance at glory—to be the best blade in the dark Sharaam has ever known. For Pitt, it’s a way to get his cutthroat crew past the Tsarii siege and out of this hellhole, maybe even with some gold to their name. For Iananr the Bound One, it's a dream of shadows and human blood.
Review:
Anna Smith Spark, Michael R Fletcher, and Grimdark Magazine combine forces to make this darker-than-black, blood-soaked, laugh-out-loud, beautifully fucked up grimdark novella.
The plot centers mostly around Tash, “the third best assassin”, living in a city under siege. When a mercenary crew (who serve as a secondary POV) offers him an escape route if he can kill the king, Tash agrees. However, the king’s demon bodyguard, Iananr the Bound One (also a POV), stands in the way and haunts their shadows.
“The third best assassin in Sharaam. Who in the pale hells started negotiations with that? … Someone about to low-ball your rate, that’s who.”
The best way to describe this book is like a more rotten, gore-covered version of the scene of Kvothe and Denna singing together in Name of the Wind. If you haven’t read it, it’s described as Kvothe taking the role of a solid, powerful oak tree while Denna takes the role of a nightingale, darting through the branches and adding a level of beauty. The characters deliver a beautiful performance that needs an intense level of harmony to even have a chance of being successful.
That same level of synchronization is on clear display here, but instead of a powerful oak and a lithe nightingale, it’s more like an onyx crown with rubies. Fletcher handles most of the plot as well as Tash, the POV with the most screen time. He delivers cynical dialog, realistic characters, and consistently pushes the plot forward. Spark delivers Iananr to absolutely unhinged, bloody glory. The prose (as always, I mean, if you’ve ever read Spark’s work you already know) jumps off the page, complete with imagery that leaves you disgusted and addicted. I’ve never been afraid to say that Anna Smith Spark has the best prose in the world, and she proves me right once more in this one.
This merging of style, constant trading off of POV’s, the flashes of prose mixed with the meat of the work being cynical dialog and action, and its bloody atmosphere is addicting. I was on a pretty large reading rut before picking this book up and I finished it in a single day. That’s not the craziest feat since this is a novella, but I’m thankful to the authors regardless.
“I was worshiped. I was beloved. The sky and the sea boiled with blood for me. The earth opened itself like flesh. I walked the stars and the void, I was the bones of the world, I was meat and wound and scab and rotting. I was ash and dust. I was wet lust. I was everything.”
On top of the prose and atmosphere, it’s absurd how much world-building and character depth we get strewn in throughout the novel. It concurs so naturally, but it tells us all about the city, the world, and the invasion, as well as giving a cast of characters that feel alive.
While I don’t have any complaints about the novella (except for possibly the very last page, which I’m still undecided about), I will warn readers that this work isn’t for everyone. Just to reiterate, this novella is unhinged and grimdark AF. Fletcher’s Beyond Redemption is ranked as the grim-darkiest novel on Mark Lawrence’s “Grimdark. We’re nailing it down! (https://mark---lawrence.blogspot.com/2017/08/grimdark-were-nailing-it-down.html)” democratically-reached voting, and Anna Smith Spark is a love-her-or-hate-her type of author.
At the end of the day, if you’re looking for a quick, short, dark, depraved, and funny novella, this is a fantastic work. It’s also a great introduction to two of the best grimdark authors in the game (as Dr. John Mauro notes in his post “Where to start reading: Anna Smith Spark”), on top of it ultimately being just a bloody good time.
