Ebook of the Month May 2012 – The Stealer of Flesh, by William King
I first encountered William King’s writing when I read an ingenious post he did describing how to make your own book covers in PowerPoint. This impressed me so much that I picked up one of his short stories, GUARDIAN OF THE DAWN, when it was free on Amazon. I liked both the story’s setting and main character enough that I got a full-length novel about that character, STEALER OF FLESH.
It’s about Kormak the Guardian – the Guardians are an order of knights dedicated to defending mortal races from various supernatural threats. Kormak’s sent to recover a stolen artifact. Specifically, a bottle containing an imprisoned demon of the ancient world.
Mayhem ensues, naturally.
King’s background in writing WARHAMMER novels is quite clear – Kormak encounters numerous demons and deranged sorcerers. Kormak himself is a bit of a mix between a world-weary antihero and Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane; a man no longer sure why he does the right thing, but he’s going to do it, even though hell should bar the way (and in a quite literal fashion, too). Even the demons have understandable motivations, and Kormak’s ultimate foe has a degree of tragedy.
STEALER OF FLESH is excellent sword and sorcery. I recommend it, and hope Mr. King writes more in the setting.
-JM
I do like King’s stuff, though I’ve only read his Warhammer novels. Right now I’m reading the first part of his new trilogy about Tyrion and Teclis; fun stuff (what can I say…I love elves!).
Didn’t even know he did work outside the Warhammer universes, heh.
I may check it out, though the cover art looks terrible! Bad enough that I’d have past it by, had you not spoken well of it.
Yes. I liked his self-published books enough that I just picked up an omnibus of a couple of his Warhammer ones.
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