Kagen the Damned

January 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.

Starred review from May 1, 2022
In the first of a series, epic fantasy blends with eldritch horror and folklore as a man seeks vengeance for the destruction of an empire. 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.

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Starred review from June 1, 2022
Most readers probably associate Maberry with contemporary action and horror: the Pine Deep trilogy, zombie novels for adults and younger readers, the Joe Ledger thrillers. But lately he's been challenging himself, with spectacular results (see, for example, Glimpse, 2018). The hot streak continues with this dark fantasy novel, Maberry's first, and the first in a projected series. Kagen Vale is captain of the palace guard, sworn to protect the royal offspring. One night, with Kagen drugged, soldiers of a neighboring country swarm into the city and slaughter its citizens, including the royals. Now, disgraced and damned, having failed at his sworn duty, Kagen vows to hunt down the people behind the slaughter and make them pay. Kagan is a big, brawny hero, a professional warrior, but don't mistake him for a thug: those who underestimate him invariably come to regret it. This is fantasy at its very best, a rousing story of revenge set in a world in which magic, long banished, is inexplicably making a return. It feels as though Maberry had a hell of a lot of fun writing the book, working his own variations on traditional fantasy themes and tropes, and readers are sure to have a lot of fun reading it. Volume two can't come soon enough.

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