The Bone Orchard

Product Information

Whittaker, Zachary (22 June 2022). "Review: Bone Orchard: The Passageway". Bigger Than Capes . Retrieved January 18, 2023.

Originally published as a one-shot story for Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) 2022, Shadow Eater was designed to be "an appetizer for the horror to come." [8] [4] While the FCBD issue was mentioned as part of the original announcement, no details, not even a title, were revealed until Lemire teased his newsletter readers with the comic's cover a month ahead of the FCBD 2022 titles reveal announcement. [9] [10] [6] The Passageway [ edit ] Let's just say that romances and happily-ever-afters do not feature prominently in thie story, and I liked it the better for it.It has literally everything in a book I could ask for. Witchery, murder, mystery, love, whore houses, sacred protectors, deep psychological themes and strong women hell bent on surviving. Gardner, James (17 August 2022). "Bone Orchard Mythos: The Passageway". No Flying, No Tights . Retrieved January 18, 2023. I’m struggling to find a way to discuss The Bone Orchard, because I honestly struggled to follow the book while reading it. It’s an ambitious, wholly distinctive look at the mistreatment of sex workers under the guise of a fantasy story. The main character Lady Charm is the madam of a brothel who “employs” (used very loosely) girls created from fragments of her own consciousness. She’s equally as much a necromancer as she is a scientist. And if that sounds like a fascinating concept, it's because it absolutely is. But a creative concept does not make a brilliant book.

The Lady helped her injured ghost to a stool. She tied on a full-sleeved rubberized apron, collected clean clothes and a bottle of antiseptic, then peeled the gory towel away from the boneghost’s face. Shame gripped the edge of the table as the Lady wiped away the blood. The slash ran from just ahead of Shame’s ear to her nose, laying open the length of her cheekbone. Her cheek drooped, showing the white flash of bone and the upper edges of her teeth. The characters and relationships are particularly nuanced and morally ambiguous in The Bone Orchard - between Charm and the emperor and their decades-long...association, between Charm and her own boneghosts whom she pimps out to the volatile / pedophiliac / otherwise gross princes on the logic that a) she can't turn down a prince; and b) better they hurt a boneghost, who can be fixed by spending some time in a tank of empathy fluid, than an actual human, between Charm and her own, largely repressed, traumatic past. Game wardens here are full law-enforcement officers, with all the powers of state troopers. They are the "off-road police," in the language the service uses to market itself to new recruits. This special status comes as news to many urban and suburban people who mistakenly equate the job with that of a forest or park ranger. While wardens are charged primarily with enforcing hunting and fishing laws, the rural nature of the state means that a warden is often the nearest officer to any given crime scene. Call a cop in Maine, and you just might get a game warden.Corley, Shaun (12 June 2022). "The Passageway Is One of the Year's Essential Horror Stories (Review)". Screenrant . Retrieved January 18, 2023. It so happens that Mike Bowditch - an ex-game warden who was visiting his former mentor Kathy - was on the spot at the time, and was also injured. Mike, who quit being a warden because of friction with a commanding officer, feels compelled to look into the case. It's not so easy because Mike has no badge and no authority. This fascinating unique concept definitely blew my freaking mind! I cannot compare this book with the other examples because I couldn’t find any book that has resemblances with this original concept! The Lady blinked and leaned on Shame for a moment. The familiar sight of her laboratory steadied her. The Bone Orchard Mythos: Tenement #1 will be released on 21st June, 2023 and will be published monthly. Will the be more Bone Orchard Mythos stories?

This is a book where magic is a physical, visceral thing, where psychic power can wreak havoc on a person’s mind to the point that imposed control might become preferable. Mueller explores ideas about power and control in ways both familiar and unusual: A madam with great influence isn’t a new concept, though Charm herself is decidedly unique, and Borengard’s Firedrinkers are a fascinating military semi-hive-mind, generally anonymous and under psychic control. (Would I also like a book about the Firedrinkers? I would not say no.) I took off half a star because it was pretty confusing in the beginning, the world building was a little fuzzy, but I started to understand what was happening about halfway through the book. But yeah, while I understand why so reviewers DNF'd this, I'm a little sad because the last part was great. Napoleonic sci fi with rail guns, psychics, and.... whatever it is that Charm does. I'm not in a position to speak learnedly about DID but I think they have similar aspects. She peels off different aspects of her personality to protect her main psyche, but then they work for her at the brothel she runs because they're also physically different people. The Emperor dies just after psychically compelling Charm to find out who did it and kill them, so that's a thing. Then there's the war. Wars. One hot, one cold, one more or less resolved so long as nobody breaks it. It's a mystery, first and foremost, but with all the other hard questions about sex work, abuse, mental rape, and body horror -- AS AN INSTITUTION -- I wouldn't say this is a light tale. Indeed, it is handled very well and with poise and even a little charm. Because, let's face it, sometimes the only weapon anyone might have in a bad situation is charm.

I also found this world, a weird but seamless mix of high society, alchemy, and something akin to necromancy, to be fully immersive. The writing is unobtrusively good - hard to quote but easy to read. My one real lament is that the titular bone orchard takes up so little space in the book, which is almost exclusively spent in indoor spaces. I wanted to know more about how to plant bones and grow bone trees. Overall, a solid debut, and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for future work by this author.