Lords of Dyscrasia

De: S. E. Lindberg

Narrado por: Thomas B Hackett

Lords of Dyscrasia explores the choices humans and their gods make as a disease corrupts their souls, shared blood, and creative energies. Historically, dyscrasia referred to any imbalance of the four medicinal humors professed by the ancient Greeks to sustain life. Lords of Dyscrasia presents them as spiritual muses for artisans, sources of magical power, and contagions of a deadly disease.

Dyscrasia plagues the insectan elders of the underworld. Desperate to save them from extinction, the golem Doctor Grave infuses the soul of his dying queen into the blood of a human artisan, Lord Ante Lysis. Her soul passes through Ante's blood into his offspring, thus the Lysis bloodline carries the diseased queen's soul as the doctor perfects the necromancy needed to resurrect her. But the last descendant of Ante is determined quench the queen's soul and journeys to the underworld to do so....

©2011 Seth E Lindberg (P)2015 Thomas B Hackett

Dense Lovecraftian horror-fantasy!

A very intriguing series beginning! Lords of Dyscrasia by S.E. Lindberg reminds me of a Lovecraft/Moorcock lovechild, a sentence that sounds more profane than intended.

The language is intentionally archaic, setting a tone that marries perfectly with the macabre subject matter of a nobility in the throes of insectine disease. The prose is definitely dense and takes some getting used to. It can slow a reader down, which for me was the book's biggest detraction. One might say it's a distraction, since the erudite language evokes ancient imagery and scenes of horror and disgust too vivid not to picture in one's mind, thus drawing the reader away from the story and slowing down the reading process. But this is one of those complaints that I'll live with, because of the unique experience of delving into such a vibrant world...even if all of its walls are painted in blood.

I loved that this is an epic fantasy and yet there aren't any dragons or wizard schools or played out courtly dramas herein. This is epic in a Dante sense. You plummet with the characters into a devil's playground, a nine pits of Hell kind of world where all the players are dead, dying or parading about in the flayed flesh of the fallen. This is full-length Lovecraft. This is completely unveiled Old Testament.

After finishing half the book on kindle, I got my hands on an audio version and I'm glad I did. The narrator, Thomas B. Hackett is fantastic! I went back and re-listened to some of the book I'd already read and enjoyed the re-read even more, then finished up the book in a whirlwind of pleasure!