#vincent lore

The mystery of it is a delight, and Runner Owen is always my favorite person on the page, but...but... the little sprinkles of deeper lore and flecks of worldbuilding added so casually and beautifully are why I love this one so very much.

I can't say anything specific without ruining things.

Only that your descriptions, my fren, remain delectable and I forgot about my laundry and let my coffee get cold because I refused to stop reading for even a minute.

>.>

Apparently Tumblr mobile has been eating my posts because I tried to share this three times and it never showed up on my posts or feed! :/

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from Vincent Lore as an agreement that I would post a review after it was published. Links to purchase Island of the Baboon God will be available at the end of this review.

I'm a fan of old school sword and sorcery; I've been on a quest to collect the many books and comics of the Elric Saga for the past year. So when @transman-badass told me he was writing a sword and sorcery novella based on Conan the Barbarian (one of Elric's many contemporaries), I got really excited.

Once you know that Island of the Baboon God is inspired by Conan, the parallels become obvious--in the best ways. Our protagonist, Freyjrulf, fears magic and hates the gods; he and his not-so-merry band of mercenaries oppose the new king Noleux in his quest to obtain magical items to cement his rule.

But Noleux has obtained a new sorcerer, Leukos, and with a small army of warrior mages, Leukos storms the abandoned island of Papiodyas for a powerful magic item. Freyjrulf must intercept him.

Inhabited by creatures that would make Doctor Moreau flee in fear, Papiodyas hides a myriad of secrets...and treasures.

This book was so fucking fun. I'm really amazed at how much lore (no pun intended) Vincent was able to fit in sixteen-thousand words without feeling like I was slogging through constant infodumps. He really trusts the reader to come to their own realizations about the gods, the Ancients, and the secrets of Papiodyas. The final confrontation at the end of the novel was not only an excellent reveal, but an epic climactic battle.

The descriptions are lush and plentiful. I loved the villages and temples that Freyjrulf encounters on his way; so often our heroes go through abandoned temples and towns that feel like placeholder locations. But Island makes it very clear that Papiodyas was once thriving and complex. As the novel states in the final confrontation, their abandonment was not a convenience, but a tragedy.

Freyjrulf himself is much more compelling than I thought he would be. An aging mercenary, Freyjrulf knows he should be retired by now, but believes the world still needs him--and it does. As long as there will be men like Noleux and Leukos, the world will always need someone like Freyjulf. He hates the gods but loves the world he lives in; when he discovers that Leukos's warrior mages slaughtered a troop of baboons for seemingly no reason other than annoyance, he attacks them back.

If I had only one complaint, it was that I wished we got to see a little more of Leukos. Maybe Freyjrulf, while stealthing his way through the jungle, was able to spy on Leukos giving orders or tracking their way through the jungle.

Island of the Baboon God is great. It's brutal, it's dark, it's pulpy, and I really hope Vincent does more with Freyjrulf.

https://vincentlore.itch.io/lock-the-last-door

You're cool btw.

Haunted by the events at the Glint Hall Hotel, Owen writes a letter to the one person he knows will understand… Owen Rosedown is a Runner - a detective for hire - and no stranger to crime and death. Spirits, however, are not something he's so used to. When his cousin, Loretta, asks him to investigate a mourning medium, Owen doesn't hesitate to agree. Certainly, it's an unusual case, but she's family. But when Loretta leaves, and Owen follows the sound of breaking glass to its source, he finds himself trapped in a room with four others - and none of them have his best interests in mind. But it's Miss Theodora Dartmere, the medium herself, who has the most to lose. And when the lights go out, the Damned will claim their feast. A short story set in the queer gothic fantasy world of Runner Owen, a world of eternal night, with evil vampires, desperate ghosts, wicked nobles and two rivals who would do anything to claim Owen for themselves. This story features a transgender hero, racially diverse characters, multiple queer relationships living and dead, and creeping dread leading to a startling ending. It also involves elements of mild transphobia, body horror, and Victorian-inspired classism. ● Gothic horror in a fantasy Victorian world! ● Trans man protagonist! ● Queer accepting society! ● Diverse characters! ● Written as a letter! ● Ghosts! ● Homoerotic tension!  ● Women's wrongs! ● Dogs...? ● First in the Runner Owen series 30 page file, 6.6k words

The book has a trans male character, and the author is also a trans man!

Promotion length: Permanent

Markets available: itch.io

I am maybe one page in to Friend of the Damned by @transman-badass aka @runner-owen and OBSESSED

What do you MEAN "Don't hurt her, I'm the one you want?"

What do you mean using second person POV to cast the reader as the antagonist

WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S ONLY 30 PAGES HELLO????????

Coffee reviewed Cream and Sugar last week, so I'm returning the favor!

Last night was windy and stormy; the perfect opportunity to settle in with something spooky. The Darkness in Old Bellblack by @transman-badass was just the trick.

Set in the flapper era, Darkness follows Detective Lazarus Core and his best friend Sadie Goode as they are tasked by crime boss Nathan O'Tipp with retrieving an ancient grimoire from an abandoned sanitarium. But more sinister things lurk in the dark than O'Tipp's machinations...

Now, I'll admit this: I'm not a big fan of modern horror. I find it relies too heavily on jumpscares and cheap tricks to make me jump and give me anxiety. I much prefer slow, Gothic horror that creeps up on you and leaves you with a sinking feeling of dread.

The Darkness in Old Bellblack delivers. Vincent does an amazing job of mixing Lovecraftian horror with classic noir aesthetics, which are two of my favorite things. But it never feels like it's piggybacking off of Lovecraft's mythos; this is a world that exists on its own.

Lazarus and Sadie are our heroes. I love their friendship--and it is a friendship; they're brother and sister in all but blood. They are ride or die for each other, and when Sadie went missing in Old Bellblack, it made my stomach drop. I won't go deeper than that; only that it'll make you want to punch O'Tipp at the end.

If you're tired of mental hospitals being used as horror settings to take advantage of the "scary mentally ill patients" trope, Darkness doesn't take the low-hanging fruit. The horror here is purely cosmic, but the setting this intentional. My bathroom door creaked while I was reading and I nearly screamed.