Bloody Books Review - THE WICKED AND THE DAMNED by DAVID ANNANDALE, PHIL KELLY AND JOSH REYNOLDS

When Warhammer Horror was announced, there would be few who expected a classic Hammer Horror portmanteau Anthology, but much to the joy of those who have a soft spot for such things, that is exactly what you get here. 

The Wicked and The Damned takes three losely linkied novellas and ties them together with a framing device of a Commissar, an Officer and a Priest meeting in a graveyard world named Silence with no memory of how they got there, surrounded a world of graves and Gravedigger Servitors. Beset by confusion and fear, they tell each other the tales of the last thing they remember. 

Which is gloriously Hammer. 

Each novella is as bleak and sinister as one would expect from 40k Horror, but loads up on themes that have been tread before, but never so deeply or so darkly. Each has a strong voice, stirring up atmosphere in a way that is rare for what is usually a combat heavy series of books. 

Josh Reynolds starts the ball rolling with "The Beast In The Trenches", a paranoid look through the eyes of a Commissar that falls into a feverish nightmare, seeing corruption in his regiment but finding nothing to collaborate his story. It is a dirty story of madness in trenches, an insanity that draws on the real life tales of World War One, but taken to a unlimited degree that comes across as almost plausible in such a setting. 

Phil Kelly's "The Woman in the Walls" comes next, a tense ghost story where an ambitious officer is haunted by her own greed with body horror results that churn and boil in the stomach. She is caught between her suspicious superiors,  vicious mercenaries and a vengeful spirit with a plan that spins out of control.

Finally,  David Annadale brings "The Faith and the Flesh" to close out the book, with the tale of a priest filled to the brim with self-doubt and fear that creates poor decision after poor decision to violent and destructive consequences.  This is the closest the anthology gets to "classic" 40k, with a recognisable setting and a tangible monster, but with much hidden in plain sight and layers of subtlety that exploits what may be expected. 

Each entry is told in a direct manner, first person and honest with a no-nonsense approach that draws the reader into the character and tales. The distinct writing styles and narrative choices to vary up the volume as a whole.  There is a sense of familiarity that breed uncertainty here, as the setting is what you may expect but lit very differently,  and in those new shadows does a new visceral form take shape, something with more dirt and gore than usual, a concept that shows vavity and innovation to introduce what Warhammer Horror sets out to be. 

All three are told in direct, no-nonsense first person, with a distinct and honest voice coming through for each one which really draws you into these characters and their stories. That individuality, along with each author’s writing style and narrative choice, provides an enjoyable variety across the book to balance out the unrelenting darkness while maintaining a sense that these stories do work together. They’re all familiarly 40k, but go deeper into the visceral, genuinely unpleasant nature of the setting than usual, showing a little more of the gore, the dirt and, yes, the horror of the Imperium than most Black Library books reveal. Overall this is a clever concept, which might not have quite the depth of narrative and character development of a standard novel but which trades that for variety and invention to provide an interesting introduction to what Warhammer Horror can be.