Villains take center stage in this collection of 19 dark and magical
stories. Readers will be cheering for all the wrong heroes as some of
the most fearsome, devious, and brutal antagonists perform savage deeds
towards wicked ends. And why not? These characters are the champions of
their own stories—evil is a matter of perspective. Contributors also
include Mark Adler, Bradley P. Beaulieu, E.V. Morrigan, Peter Orullian,
Matthew Ward, Kaaron Warren, Deborah A. Wolf, and Janny Wurts.4 of 5 stars
A good anthology I would recommend to anyone who wants to try out new grimdark authors. This is my first reading of any of these authors. I was able to follow the stories just fine without prior knowledge of their works. There's a great variety of different settings and styles. Some of them really resonated with me, and I just loved. Others I couldn't get into and ended up scrolling through. But I'm sure those "scroll through it" stories will vary for different people, depending on what kinds of storytelling styles appeal to them.
The variety applies not only to writing styles (POV, tense, etc.) but also subject matter. The characters' motivations range from political to religious to survival to personal. There's a bit of something here for everyone.
The foreword is also worth the read, especially if you're interested in the philosophy behind grimdark.
You can find it here on Amazon or here on Goodreads.
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