Pic: Cover detail from Abomination by Gary Whitta
If you loved “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”, then there’s a work of unrelentingly grim fantasy I’d like to recommend to you: Abomination by Gary Whitta. Whitta has several connections to the Star Wars universe. He was the author of the first draft of the “Rogue One” screenplay. Abomination isn’t a Star Wars novel, obviously, but it does features flawed heroes sometimes forced by circumstances to do some very unheroic things.
The book is set in ninth century England, a time during which the small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the island are fighting for their lives against hordes of Danish invaders — you might know them as vikings. One by one, all of the English kingdoms have fallen to the invaders, leaving only Wessex standing. Alfred the Great, brother of Wessex’s king Aethelred, is the only person who stands in the way of a full Danish victory.
In our world, it’s political prowess and superior military strategy that allowed Alfred to defeat the Danes. In the world of Abomination, it is something far more sinister. Alfred’s ally, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has uncovered a powerful weapon: magic — black magic. Anyone would know that opening a door to this world is a bad idea, as it is not one that is easily shut, but Alfred is desperate. The die is cast, and a plague of eldritch horrors called monstrosities are unleashed upon the Danes.
England is saved from the Danes, but not Alfred has another threat with which to contend: The otherworldly powers that granted him victory have conquered the Archbishop’s soul. He is corrupted, and must be stopped. Enter Sir Wulfric, once the bravest of Alfred’s knights, now a battered man driven nearly insane by the things he witnessed upon the battlefield. Now his liege calls upon him to save the kingdom once more, this time from the priest.
For my money, the Dark Ages are a severely underutilized era when it comes to historically inspired fantasy fiction, and Abomination does it right. It’s a grim, bloody story, and one that’s perfectly suited for a time when life was dirt cheap and even educated people believed that demons walked the night.
Abomination might have slipped by you when it was first released in 2015, but now is a perfect time to catch it. If you love Lovecraftian cosmic horror and dark — even grimdark — fantasy, then you’re going to absolutely get lost in Whitta’s novel. I recommend it without reservation.
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