MINI REVIEW: SHATTERED SPIRITS: THE FAILL OF ISHCAIRN

The lost city of Ish...

With spooky season upon us, I figured it might be fun to give eldritch horror a try with Cal Black's standalone novella. 

HOW I RATED IT 

4/5 As someone who doesn't tend to consume a ton of scary media and has only dabbled in a couple of Lovecraft's shortest of short stories (none of his most famous ones), I wasn't really sure how I was going to connect with a full novella in the eldritch horror category. After reading it, I have to say that I had quite a good time with this!

 

CONTENT

This tale of  haunting horrors is told from the perspective of Dr. Corrie Ecksley who is a university professor and an archeologist of sorts in that she has studied the undercity of Ishcairn which represents a place that has literally been build on top of and houses some rather deadly secrets. She's on a ferry with a young man who was her brother-in-law-to-be prior to the disappearance of Lawrence, a man she's engaged to, but went missing on the battlefront in a war between nations before the wedding actually happened. We get some establishing moments between these characters as well as a briefly peaceful look at the pair's destination. Things quickly take a turn for the worse as they prepare to make port and their rival nation suddenly drops bombs on the city of Ishcairn. With many other people on board mysteriously blinded, Corrie leaves her fellows behind and sets off in search of answers and help on the strangely desolate streets of the city. All around, people seem to be turning into monstrous wraith-zombies and she quickly finds herself fleeing for her life. She meets other survivors along her nightmarish odyssey to find answers to what's going on, but no one really sticks around for too long in the story. All of the side characters are interesting and distinct in their own way, but I didn't feel like we got to spend enough time with them to be too scared for their safety or too crushed when they inevitably fell to one terrible fate or another. Corrie herself is quite fascinating though. We slowly learn more and more about her over the course of the story and while it's easy to see where she is coming from in a lot of ways, she's also not the best of people. It's really interesting to see how her life experiences have shaped her and even more compelling is how both her background knowledge and her less-than-empathetic tendencies both contribute to her ability to survive the various threats that her and her companions encounter during her quest for answers. 

The story has all the hallmarks of a good eldritch horror from the quick. no-nonsense pacing to the themes of madness, and, of course, an awesomely powerful being of god-like proportions. It's a thrilling ride through one disturbing situation after another and there were plenty of moments where things got genuinely tense, even though you kind of know that Corrie is making it through until at least the end of the story since she's the one telling it to us. That said, the ending took a couple of rather surprising turns as the story reaches it's final crescendo. These last moments were super interesting, but also left me somewhat unsatisfied in that it kind of felt like there was more of this story to tell. Everything is well-explained and the narrative being told here does end, it just feels like there are follow up stories which deserve to be told in this world. Overall though, I really enjoyed this novella. It was the perfect amount of unsettling without ever getting too gross or gratuitous with the horror elements. It's certainly not a cozy read either, but if you're like me and not a huge horror person, but like giving more thrilling reads a try from time to time, then I'd absolutely give this one a chance. Even if you are a seasoned horror fan, I think there's going to be enough staples of the genre here for you to have a fun time with it.  

eBOOK

The cover is sort of simple, yet striking in it's design. It gives off all the right vibes without really divulging any details about the story, which I think is a good thing in this genre. The interior formatting is simple, but clean and I appreciated the short, even lengths of the chapters themselves. Novellas and shorter novels tend to be quite satisfying for me to read electronically and this was a perfect example of that. I was able to complete this in a day, reading half of it on each part of my commute (I take public transportation to work), so I think it would be absolutely perfect if you wanted to read something spooky from start to finish on Halloween.

CONCLUSION

Horror newbies and seasoned veterans alike can find something to love about this fast-paced eldritch horror tale set in a fantasy world. I'd definitely recommend anyone in the market for a good eldritch horror story check this one out. 

(+) An interesting and complex main protagonist

(+) A fast-paced thrill ride from one spooky situation to another

(+) An awesome eldritch god

(+) The way the plot is explained over the course of the nightmarish events felt quite graceful

(+) A devastatingly awesome finale

(-) The ending left me slightly unsatisfied in the sense that if felt like the larger story could/should go on

(-) Side characters were hard to connect with on account of how quickly they tend to get killed off (I often have this problem within the horror/thriller genres)