Bloody Books Review: Gloomspite

How often do you consider that moment when your mouth dries out when the sensation of nausea fills you? Would you ever consider an action that fills you inside and out with the sensation of never being fully clean again? Could you experience a emotion between regret of a mistaken choice and screaming at the insects that crawl continously over your skin?

Then my friend, i have a book for you. And it's unlike anything you've read before.

And it is insane.

Pitched somewhere between nursery rhyme and body horror, Gloomspite misses a trick by not being attached to the label Games Workshop opened up, for make no mistake, this is a creeping, crawling horror. Each paragraph skitters by on inky legs, laying fungal larva in your brain as the pages turn, one by one, as the small terrors open up into a gargantuan lovecraftian horror the likes of which the man himself would be jealous of.

Andy Clark pitches the tone perfectly, as we follow a band of mercantile adventurers as gaining an ill portent about the city of Draconium, attempt to give a warning to the city. I will not reveal any plot points here as i would not want to ruin the archeology of abhorrent dread that Gloomspite provides on a tarnished platter.

Of course, any novel lives and dies with its cast, and this has a diverse ensemble of characters with strong voices and personalities. So much so that sitting and observing them interacting is in itself an entertaining experience, with Eleanora being something of high point of character development. It is a given that other members of the cast may nothile some of the other characters don't given enough time to truly stand out as much, any and all of that time we get to spend with them is nonetheless rewarding, especially as the story progresses and events tread a fearful turn for the much, much worse.

Andy Clark has reached into some long dead thesaurus to turn phrases like a spider building its Web in a decaying compost heap. Sickening, stomach turning adjectives and delirium filled adjectives spew forth a stew that threatens to empty what nutrition you may have recently consumed.

There is no noblebright to be found here, no epic clash of armies, no war waged. There is insurrection and dread. There is betrayal of the flesh and wheels within maggot filled wheels. There is merciful humour, grapsed at like a drowning man may reach for swamp grass to stop themselves sinking into the dank Marshes. There is decisions made by the assured that edges corruption and decay every closer. There is madness, real unadulterated madness that creeps along the spine of the reader just as surely as it does the characters. There is horror unlike anything seen in the Mortal Realms, closer to Carpenter or Cronenberg than anything we could possibly imagine.

Andy Clark recreated the Gloomspite in a single book, and I can never see them as Night Goblins again

This is a masterpiece, and I cannot wait to delve back in to feel the bile rise in my throat once more