u/Nidafjoll

I recently read Contra Amatores Mundi by Graham Thomas Wilcox, and just finished today Hurled Headlong Flaming by Matt Holder, and enjoyed both a lot. Because they're both fairly obscure, short novellas (83 pp. for the former, 113 pp. for the latter), I thought I'd tie their reviews together, and also because they feel very similar to me. People often ask for books which feel like Dark Souls, and, more than BotNS or Between Two Fires, these novellas feel the closest things to DS I've read.

#Contra Amatores Mundi

Contra Amatores Mundi by Graham Thomas Wilcox is an excellent gothic, dark fantasy Sword and Sorcery novella. This was one of the best things I read last year. The premise is that two rather brutal knights are transported to a strange world under the sea, while "convincing" some heretics of the merits of their religion by the sword, and are attempting to escape. This is very medieval quest like in writing and style. The prose is a faux-Chaucer kind of style done well, and the plot is fundamentally a quest (in the end, a quest to slay a questing beast by any other name). But though that's the surface plot, the main conflict isn't really the quest, but man vs. self; the two knights trying to maintain their sanity in this strange world.

As well as following the two knights through Heironymus' PoV, we also get glimpses of his relationship with Walpurga, his lover and also a nun/bride of Christ, who may also be a witch. There's a very interesting dynamic there, regarding whether Walpurga's feelings are true or just manipulation, as well as the medium we get to see Walpurga's actions through-- visions from a demonic eye or uncertain veracity, as the world attempts to break the knights.

Though this is a short novella and I would happily have read more, I enjoyed this a lot for what it was and felt like it wrapped up well. Which is not always the case for me with novellas; I'm often left wanting more. I'm not claiming this is the closest in plot or lore to Dark Souls, but it matches the vibe better than anything I've read. That gloomy, claustrophobic, paranoid atmosphere of tension of your first playthrough.

#Hurled Headlong Flaming

Hurled Headlong Flaming I just finished, and it strongly reminded me of Contra Amatores Mundi (and Between Two Fires), prompting me to give them these mini-reviews. This is a dark, grim novella, about a Bishop's descent into an underworld/otherworld (probably Hell) to retrieve a manuscript which he believes has knowledge which will help avoid/forestall/survive an upcoming apocalypse. The novel is set against the background of the Crusades, in which the Bishop has participated, starting in Cyprus and Tripoli in the ~1290s. After finding out who has the information about how to get to this underworld, the Bishop has to pass through different trials on his journey downwards.

As well as being reminiscent of Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard, and influenced by Milton (the title is a line from Paradise Lost) and Dante, I'd say the book this most reminds me of is beyond those I've already mentioned is Vathek by Samuel Beckett. The purported purpose of the novel (and the series it's a part of) in the introduction from the publishers is to push the boundaries of S&S, and I'd say it makes a good effort at that. It's fairly philosophical, especially compared to some of the more "stab first think later" S&S novels, prodding at ideas of the interrelationship of power and violence, the Crusades, and the contradiction between Christianity's tenets and some of its believers actions. Though they're important ideas to the story, it's not overwhelmingly didactic; foremost, it's an atmospheric painting of a weird, Dantean, quest for knowledge.

My only quibble is, like many novellas for me and opposed to Contra Amatores Mundi, it does feel more like a snapshot of a story than a full tale; a snatch of music heard as the door opens and shuts, rather than a full song. There is an ending, but it feels more like a comma than a full stop. There's certainly the groundwork laid to expand into a full novel (>!is the coming apocalypse the Black Death, given the time period? How would the knowledge help, or fail to?!< >!Is the man who tells him how to achieve this quest truly just a man, or a Mephistopheles figure?!<) This also feels quite like Dark Souls in the atmosphere and aesthetic, though a more Hellish (more Izalith than Lordran), but in particular has some excellent twisted, discomfiting monsters. It also has a metal AF cover, which wasn't insignificant in me first checking it out.

I just read the novella Hurled Headlong Flaming by Matt Holder, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Though it's billed as Sword and Sorcery, I'd put it as Dark Fantasy first and foremost, and Weird second, only then followed by S&S. But genres are made up anyway so, *shrug*. I think I first saw this on Goodreads, and added it to my TBR after it sounding interesting, but one of the first things which caught my attention is the awesome cover.

Looks like a Death Metal album cover

This is a dark, grim novella, about a Bishop's descent into an underworld/otherworld (probably Hell) to retrieve a manuscript which he believes has knowledge which will help avoid/forestall/survive an upcoming apocalypse. The novel is set against the background of the Crusades, in which the Bishop has participated, starting in Cyprus and Tripoli in the ~1290s. After finding out who has the information about how to get to this underworld, the Bishop has to pass through different trials on his journey down.

As well as being reminiscent of Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard most imo, and influenced by Milton (the title is a line from Paradise Lost) and Dante, I'd say the books this most reminds me of are Vathek by Samuel Beckett and Contra Amatores Mundi by Graham Thomas Wilcox (which is another recent dark fantasy novella I loved, but never did a full review of for some reason).

The purported purpose of the novel (and the series it's a part of), in the introduction from the publishers, is to push the boundaries of S&S, and I'd say it makes a good effort at that. It's fairly philosophical, prodding at ideas of the interrelationship of power and violence, the Crusades, and the contradiction between Christianity's tenets and its believers actions. Though they're important ideas, it's not overwhelmingly didactic; foremost, it's an atmospheric painting of a weird, Dantean, quest for knowledge.

My only quibble is, like many novellas, it feels more like a snapshot of a story than a full tale; a snatch of music heard as the door opens and shuts, rather than a full song. There's certainly the groundwork laid to expand into a full novel (>!is the coming apocalypse the Black Death, given the time period? How would the knowledge help, or fail to?!< >!Is the man who tells him how to achieve this quest truly just a man, or a Mephistopheles figure?)!<Though there is an ending, it feels more like a comma than a full stop.

Still, this is a short, evocative read, which is well worth giving a shot to fans of S&S and infernal imagery. Holder's debut, as far as I can tell (I think the stuff about your Third Eye and so on is in earnest).