The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart - Jesse Bullington

Written in the form of a medieval folktale compiled from various manuscripts and accounts, The Sad Tale recounts the true fate of the Grossbart Brothers, Manfried and Hegel, two of the meanest villains central Europe has ever seen. Their family background of petty thieves and graverobbers is nothing to be proud of, but having been abandoned by the uncle who brought them up, the brothers remain convinced that their family heritage and fortune lies in the sandy deserts of Gyptland and start their journey. Not without first settling accounts with a local farmer who once beat them in their youth for stealing turnips from his field, but taking revenge a little too far on his family, they end up being pursued by the farmer and other townfolk.

That's the least of their worries as the Grossbarts encounter all sorts of medieval horrors on their journey, both human and supernatural, plague-infested villages, lustful witches, man-eating half-man-half-beasts, devil-possessed hogs and the foulest demons of hell. The foul-mouthed, blasphemous, dim-witted brothers may not be the most pleasant of company throughout this journey, and their conversational skills leave as much to be desired as their manners, but they ain't stupid about knowing when something's a coming to kill 'em, and they make sure to strike first.

A sad tale it is indeed then, one of misfortune compounded by stupidity and self-delusions of near-sainthood to the extent that you almost feel sorry for these two ugly, murderous, heretical scum (though not quite as sorry as for the unfortunates they come into contact with), but it's also frequently amusing, the author taking full advantage of the fantasy-medieval setting to deliver an occasionally grim, brutal and shockingly profane adventure that's highly entertaining.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blood Crazy - Simon Clark

Image
What do you look for in a horror book, or a horror movie even? Personally, scares don't count for much for me and I would prefer the situation to be at least half-way plausible and make a meaningful point about society and our attitude to death. So that kind of rules out zombies even if you want to hang a commentary on it about mindless consumerism. There are exceptions of course, and it's all the more impressive when you can be surprised by an unexpected new take on the genre. I got that with The Girl With All The Gifts and I've found that also with Simon Clark's Blood Crazy . While not exactly a zombie horror - there are no living dead here - Blood Crazy has a similar sense of a feeding frenzy being unleashed on society, and indeed the sides are drawn across pretty distinct generational dividing lines that does suggest there is a deeper commentary to be found here. But first of all comes the shock, and it comes fairly quickly. Staying a night at friend's house,
Read more

Triskaidekaphobia - Roger Keen

Image
Roger Keen's writing has a way of getting under your skin. That's undoubtedly down to the nature of the approach that can be seen in the hugely ambitious semi-autobiographical and metafiction works The Mad Artist and The Empty Chair , books that are practically designed to enfold and wrap you in their rich complexity, but there are similar rewards to be found in the dark imaginings of genre work like Literary Stalker . A collection of some of his short stories confirms the impression that no matter what style he works in, Keen has the ability to draw you in, exploring his own experiences and ideas while at the same time invoking and attacking the reader's own sensibilities, sensitivities and insecurities from every conceivable angle. Once you start on any of these tales, you are no longer on safe ground. So much so that I confess that halfway through the first title story I immediately checked the contents page to see if Triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13) conta
Read more

Blood Crazy: Aten in Absentia - Simon Clark

Image
At the end of Blood Crazy we were left with the grim acceptance that the situation the world had been plunged into was irresolvable. With the adult population having been altered in a way that would drive them to tear their own children apart, everything had changed and the world wasn't ever going back to the way it was. Without giving away any spoilers, while some interesting theories were proposed to explain what had happened to trigger this apocalyptic situation overnight, it still meant that it would be up to small communities of survivors to rebuild society and find a way of defending themselves from the ever present threat of the “Creosotes”. That doesn't mean that there aren't more stories to tell and new revelations to be told, but it has taken almost 30 years for Simon Clarke to get a sequel in print. It's a long time for some fans of the original novel (recently republished by Darkness Visible), but by the end of Blood Crazy: Aten in Absentia , I'm sure f
Read more