Black Stone Heart

Some of the grimmest grimdark I have read! The main protagonist is a reborn fragment of a previous super powerful despot, who ruled the world using demons and fear. He wakes up with only a fragment of his memory. Encounters with other fragments of himself lead to him gradually reassembling his obsidian heart and regaining memories.

This story is bleak, violent and definitely at the darker end of the spectrum. The characters are extremely flawed, all of them operating in various shades of grey. The main protagonist obviously has a horrific past. The theme of predestination is played on a lot, but obviously from a darker angle (ie if you were previously a violent despot are you destined to become one again?)

I am a massive grimdark fan and this really ticks all the boxes for me. I am really looking forward to continuing the series and seeing where it ends up!

3.5*
I loved the first half, and the final 3 chapters. The rest, the middle, was rubbing me the wrong way a bit. The question Khraen asks himself, “Am I evil? Is this an evil act?” Dude, if you must ask, the answer is yes. He's not particularly clever, just very easily angered. And easily manipulated.

I might pick up the sequel next time I'm in the mood for this absurd sort of dark fantasy. Still curious about these obsidian stone heart pieces.

”Your actions will define you.”

I love stumbling across really good fantasy that nobody’s heard of. I’ve sort of fallen out of the fantasy genre as a whole in the last few years, mostly because it felt like everytime I dipped a toe in it just felt like more of the same. And that’s fine! Everyone loves comfort reads! But when I read something new, I want it to feel new. I’d honestly never heard of this author before randomly adding this to my to-read list earlier this year, but holy cow does he have a ton of books out! This definitely was new to me, it was different, and it was delightful.

A note for my friends, whom I know love fantasy dearly: this is definitely grimdark fantasy. It’s very dark, very descriptive, and not exactly fluffy. There’s a lot of blood, a lot of description of gore and dismemberment, but all of it has a place in the story and didn’t feel gratuitous. Just know that before giving this a look based on my review.

The book follows a man who wakes up, claws his way out of a dirt grave, with no memory of how he got there. Around his resting place are the corpses of animals and people, but he certainly didn’t put them there. Who is he? How did he get there? Where does he go from here? Instinct guides him for the next period of time, until he finds himself drawn to a man in a cabin who inexplicably looks just like him. Before he has time to think, he reacts, kills the man with his own face, and is compelled to dig out his heart. But instead of a heart he finds…a black shard of stone. Touching the stone pulls it inside our main character, and restores a small portion of his memories in the process. Thus our man, Khraen, starts walking the path to restore his own black stone heart, piece by piece, and discovering along the way how bad of an idea it might be.

I loved the detailed worldbuilding going on here, and the philosophical ponderings about what makes a man and how memories can shape someone. Khraen meets few people on his path to restore his own heart, but each one has a reason for being there, a place in Khraen’s story, and I really felt compelled to continue to find out who Khraen was and where the story was going. The best part about the book for me was how, even with all the terrible things Khraen finds himself doing in pursuit of his goal, the author manages to make him sympathetic at the same time and includes moral dilemmas along the way. I thought that was a neat touch.

There’s even a bit of romance, but…maybe not in the traditional sense.

This was a delightful find, and I can’t wait to read the second book.