Reviews and Comments

If you enjoyed Garth Margenghi's Darkplace, the odds are that you'll like this as well. There are times the joke grows thin, but there are also some really well written and truly clever parts in this horror parody. Matthew Holness knows how to write, and somehow he makes Garth Marenghi - the fictional horror writer writing a poorly camouflaged self-insert in a series of horror novellas riffing on horror writing - an almost believable character. Marenghi comes across as a at times brilliant idiot savant (granted, less the savant, more the idiot most of the time), his writing a sort of outsider art, mainly dross, but occasionally high prose. Especially some of the parts where he weaves into Lovecraftian prose shines, but other parts are flat out bad (the end of the Third Half). But it is hard to judge such meta-literature - because I have no problems believing this is how Marenghi would write.

In sum; some good parts, some bad, some laugh out loud. It was entertaining, but the Terrortome could have - some what ironically - profited from some tighter editing. But that is also a part of the meta joke.

As far as I can find out, this book is self-published by the author. And, to be blunt, this is very evident in the text. I doubt there has been any external editors involved in this book. The story isn't bad per se, but the text is riddled with mistakes, parts with very sloppy writing, inconsistencies - all things a good (or even mid) copy-editor would have noted and helped fix. One example: in the start of the book Ragnor the dragon - in his elven form, Rennyn - enjoys the novelty of the taste of ale, but it is explicitly stated he can't get intoxicated no matter how much he consumes. Later in the book this forgotten, and Rennyn is repeatedly described as being drunk. Another: distances are given in SI units, an unconventional choice given the medieval fantasy setting, and feels very jarring.

This story reads like the author wrote a fanfic of their favourite table top campaign. Which would go a long way to explain some of the oddities in the story; like the bounty hunter contracts that state how big a party they are scaled for. Or the magic maps which seems to work like a modern sat-nav. Or the way the countryside is absolutely infested with bandits.

All in all, I'm loath to give this book a rating at all - it feels too much reading a first draft. The story has potential, but in dire need of an editor. Judging from Goodreads there are three more volumes planned in this series, hopefully the author will get some assistance polishing them prior to publishing.