THE MONSTER OF ELENDHAVEN by Jennifer Giesbrecht

Elendhaven is a festering wart at the arse end of the world. Isolated, decimated and pulsing with plague, it is every gothic nightmare fantasy rolled into one. Enter Johann, a horrible homunculus that bubbles up from the waters around Elendhaven’s dockyards intent on learning the city’s black magic. Along the way, he becomes apprentice to the last dying scion of the city’s aristocratic dynasty (who happens to also be a sorcerer), and gets caught up in a web of political shenanigans centred around a visiting Ambassador and his mage hunter assistant. Oh, and there’s a heap of sex and gore.

The Monster of Eldenhaven leans so heavily into its genre tropes that I’m surprised it isn’t horizontal. But what it lacks in originality - this is pastiche extraordinaire - it makes up for in wild gothic exuberance. It’s been a long time since I’ve read such old school horror fantasy, and while this hardly revolutionises the genre, it is a joyously silly way to spend a couple of hours in a wonderfully crafted world.

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht
Tor, 2019
159 pages