01/10/2022
Stoker Award winner Maberry (Ghost Road Blues ) launches his Kagen the Damned series with this gripping, if somewhat anticlimactic, dark fantasy. Kagen Vale, captain of the Silver Empire’s Imperial Guard, is horribly hungover when the Hakkian army attacks the empire, killing his family and the Empress. With the empire now in the hands of the Hakkian Witch-king, Gethon Heklan, who harbors dark magic, the humiliated Kagen plunges into despair and guilt. But as the Witch-king’s coronation draws near, a group of underground revolutionaries scrambles for ways to overthrow the usurper, even dabbling with forbidden magic. Now, vowing vengeance against the Witch-king, Kagen embarks on a quest to climb the Tower of Sarsis and retrieve a fabled artifact. Maberry takes his time building the suspense, maneuvering his characters through a vivid world peppered with figures from European folklore and monsters from the Cthulhu mythos. The final twist, however, offers more questions than answers. Still, fantasy readers will be spellbound by the intricate worldbuilding and the delightful cast. This is a promising start. Agent: Sara Crowe, Pippin Properties. (May)
*Paste Magazine Best New Fantasy* Kagen the Damned is a bawdy, brutal, swashbuckling start to a magnificent epic in the making. It’s sword & sorcery the way I like it: violent, bloody, but with beautiful awe-inspiring moments of wonder. So buckle on your own sword and join Kagen on this grand adventure. You won’t be disappointed.” —James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestseller of The Last Odyssey “Jonathan Maberry is definitely channeling Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and L. Sprague De Camp—this is a great novel with sharp swords, elder gods, mythical cities, and heroes who will become legends.” —Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of Dune: House Atreides and Spine of the Dragon .Kagen the Damned is the best sword and sorcery book I have read in the last ten years. Fans of Joe Abercrombie, Pat Rothfuss, Mark Lawrence, and Robert E. Howard are going to love this." —Weston Ochse, author of Seal Team 666 is a gloriously nuanced, exceptionally brutal epic fantasy crossed with cosmic horror that manages to mine new material out of a very familiar space. It's thoughtful, beautiful, awful, fresh, and very, very welcome." —Seanan McGuire, author of When Sorrows Come Aimeereads.com "...fantasy readers will be spellbound by the intricate worldbuilding and the delightful cast. This is a promising start." —Publishers Weekly A vibrant, textured, and exciting admixture of subgenres that do not often play together." —Kirkus , starredPaste Magazine "Set in a creative and imaginative world of old gods and entities from beyond the stars, Kagen the Damned is a novel of tragedy, vengeance and redemption...Maberry lays the foundation for an incredible new series." —Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
★ 2022-04-12
Kagen Vale, sworn protector of the young heirs of the Silver Empress, awakens from a night of debauchery to discover himself naked and weaponless as the forces of the long-defeated Hakkians slaughter the royal family and conquer the Silver Empire in the course of a single night. Tormented by his failure to save his charges and by a vision of his nation’s gods literally turning their backs on him, the apparently damned man wanders the countryside in a drunken and murderous haze while nursing vengeance against the usurping Witch-king, a sorcerer and disciple of Hastur, the sinister Shepherd God. Both the Witch-king and a desperate rebellious cabal are seeking Kagen, the former to capture and humiliate him, the latter because they believe Kagen is key to defeating the Witch-king, whose ambitions threaten the whole world. Meanwhile, having lost the protection of their destroyed empire’s faith, two nuns seek the help of other, older gods. Lovecraft-ian pastiche remains a popular, some might say overused, subgenre, but it’s usually presented in a more contemporary or recent historical setting rather than a high fantasy milieu as it is here. Maberry also blends in the mythology of Robert Chambers’ The King in Yellow as well as references to Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalott” and Keats’ “La Belle Dame sans Merci.” While it’s difficult to garner any sympathy for the Witch-king and the gruesome god he serves, the author offers a shades-of-gray approach to most of the story, suggesting that not all the worshippers of the other Great Old Ones are evil, that the Hakkians had at least some justification for rising up against the Silver Empire, and that the Silver Empire’s seemingly gentle Garden faith had some fairly ruthless underpinnings. Various characters warn Kagen and the reader that things are not always as they appear, and one of the stunning revelations at the end should probably be obvious, but that foreknowledge doesn’t prevent the novel’s thrilling denouement from striking like a hammer blow.
A vibrant, textured, and exciting admixture of subgenres that do not often play together.
Narrator Ray Porter introduces listeners to the first installment of Maberry’s new dark fantasy series. Porter’s distinctive voice portrays Kagen Vale, the powerful and devoted captain of the palace guard and protector of the royal children, whose world is upturned when the empire is attacked and the royal family is slain. Porter’s dynamic performance depicts the devastation and dishonor that Kagen endures as he devotes his existence to avenging the usurper. Porter pulls listeners into this heroic tale with his rich tone and measured pace as Kagen encounters mysterious lands, gruesome creatures, and insurmountable obstacles. Listeners are in for a treat with this exciting launch of an epic new series. M.M.W. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2022 - AudioFile
Narrator Ray Porter introduces listeners to the first installment of Maberry’s new dark fantasy series. Porter’s distinctive voice portrays Kagen Vale, the powerful and devoted captain of the palace guard and protector of the royal children, whose world is upturned when the empire is attacked and the royal family is slain. Porter’s dynamic performance depicts the devastation and dishonor that Kagen endures as he devotes his existence to avenging the usurper. Porter pulls listeners into this heroic tale with his rich tone and measured pace as Kagen encounters mysterious lands, gruesome creatures, and insurmountable obstacles. Listeners are in for a treat with this exciting launch of an epic new series. M.M.W. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2022 - AudioFile
