The Corpse-Rat King

Marius don Hellespont #1

by Lee Battersby, Nick Castle (Illustrator)

Marius dos Hellespont and his apprentice, Gerd, are professional looters of battlefields. When they stumble upon the corpse of the King of Scorby and Gerd is killed, Marius is mistaken for the monarch by one of the dead soldiers, is transported down to the Kingdom of the Dead. The dead need a King--the King is God's representative, and someone needs to remind God where they are. Marius is banished to the surface with one if he wants to recover his life he must find the dead a King. Which he fully intends to do. Just as soon as he stops running. File Fantasy [ Royal Prospect | Loot | Keep Running | Living Dead ]

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Humor, Adventure, Comedy, Science Fiction Fantasy

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Lee Battersby is the multiple-award winning author of the novels 'The Corpse-Rat King' and 'Marching Dead' (Angry Robot, 2012, 2013) as well as the children's novel 'Magrit' (Walker Books, 2016) and over 70 short stories, many of which are collected in 'Through Soft Air' (Prime Books 2006). He has appeared in markets as diverse as Year's Best Fantasy & Horror Volume 20; Year's Best Australian F&SF; Year's Best Australian Fantasy & Horror vol. 3; and Dr Who: Destination Prague.

His work has been praised for its consistent attention to voice and narrative muscle, and has resulted in a number of awards including the Aurealis, Australian Shadows and Australian SF ‘Ditmar' gongs. He was the 6th Australian, and 1st Western Australian, winner in the international 'Writers of the Future' competition in 2001.

Lee lives in Rockingham, Western Australia, with his wife, writer Lyn Battersby and an increasingly weird mob of kids. He is sadly obsessed with Lego, Nottingham Forest football club, dinosaurs and Daleks.

You can read more about him at his blog The Battersblog, and he will often wave back if you throw pebbles at his window.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When battlefield scavenger Marius mistakenly winds up in the Kingdom of the Dead, he's given a chance to win his life back. All he has to do is find them a king...

After a series of disappointing books, The Corpse-Rat King is just what I needed. Marius is from the
Cugel the Clever/Drake Douay/Rincewind school of loveable cowards and his quest had me smiling a great percentage of the time.

On the surface, the plot doesn't seem all that complicated, and it isn't. What makes the Corpse-Rat King such an enjoyable read is that Lee Battersby is nearly as hilarious as a Monty Python marathon. He's like a mean-spirited Terry Pratchett. He's also Australian. I lost count of hilarious one-liners. "As mad as a ferret in a bucket of honey" was one of my favorites. I also love that one of the more colorful locales visited was The Dog Crap Archipelago.

Marius's semi-dead condition lends itself to a surprising amount of comedy. The bit with the old fortune teller was one of my favorites. The humor is a combination of Monty Python and Terry Pratchett with some of Sam Raimi's Hercules: The Legendary Journeys thrown in. Bruce Campbell could easily play Marius if this was made into a movie. It also reminded me of Michael Shea's Nifft the Lean a bit.

The supporting cast was an interesting bunch. Gerd, Marius's dead and dimwitted sidekick, Nandus, Scorbus, the pirates, all of them were fairly memorable. The story came to a satisfying conclusion but was open-ended enough to allow for a sequel. Please, let there be a sequel!

I don't really have anything bad to say about The Corpse-Rat King. The ending wasn't what I was expecting. I was thinking it would end in a cliche with Marius becoming King of the Dead but it didn't go down that way. I guess my only complaint is that I wish it would have been longer. Four easy stars.

[atmatos · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I finished this story last night, I contemplated what to write about in my review. The only thing that my cold riddled brain could come up with was this story is like a hot Scottish man reading a grocery list.



That is something I could listen to for hours, I am sure I am not alone in this.

Reading this book is a treat. The words, people, the words are oh so pretty.
Each sentence is a dessert more decadent than the last.



This is where I found I was looking for the forest among all the trees. The trees are very enchanting and nice to look at, but when you have trees as fine as these you want to see the whole forest.



The story was a little boring. The excitement, that the author tried to build up, was never enough and to be honest was too predictable. There was one point of the book, I cried bullshit even though I saw it coming. Part of me wanted to disbelieve that the author would do something so obviously ridiculous.



So here is the conundrum of rating this book…the words, as pretty as they are, do not make a story. No matter how hot the accent is, you can only hear milk, eggs, and bread so many times before it gets old.

Thank you Net Galley and Angry Robot for allowing me to read this book.

[Experiment BL626 · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book bored me. It was off to a good start, exactly as how the blurb described, but then it got kinda confusing and then boring. By 1/3 of the book, I skimmed because the plot was going nowhere. By 1/2 of the book, I skimmed some more and faster with the goal to reach the end as fast possible while still getting the gist of the plot. That's how boring the book was.

When all the protagonist does is run and run futilely far away from his problems (in both the figurative and literal sense of the phrase), what interest in the plot is there to be had?

The Characters

+++ the protagonist

Marius is an admitted coward, which wasn't a big problem for me. A problem but not a big problem. No, the big problem was that he had no redeemable trait. He wasn't clever as he thought. His past wasn't tragic as he thought; if anything he was a spoiled rich kid in that flashback. There wasn't anything that made me like Marius, pity Marius, or really give a shit about Marius.

The character growth he showed late in the book was just that, too late. Too late and too small for me to give a shit. In any other book, Marius would be that side character whose purpose is to be killed off.

+++ the sidekick

Gerd was Marius's slow-witted apprentice. The blurb did directly say Gerd would die and I thought was well prepared to handle it. I wasn't. I got upset at how Gerd died at the beginning. As if that wasn't bad enough, I got more upset when I learned how he got pulled into Marius's crapfest. I felt more for Gerd the sidekick than I ever did for Marius the protagonist.

I got upset at Marius and the book and this dampened any little enjoyment I may have derived from reading the book. I felt emotionally manipulated in a bad way. Gerd may have a dull life, but at least he had a life in every definition of the word.

I did not like how things were resolved at the end with Gerd. Gerd may have forgiven Marius, but I sure didn't. This was the bumbling sidekick trope at its worst and a classic example of an abusive relationship.

The World Building

It was heavily lacking. Heavily. I couldn't tell if magic was something everyone is aware of or only those superstitious and real magicians are aware of. I couldn't tell if dead people walking around was normal or not either.

Places were thrown at me and I couldn't get a grasp on the geography.

The Writing

It dragged. Too much superfluous details that confounded me, too little relevant details that starved me of elucidation. I saw passages here and there that could be tightened. The prose encourages skimming.

The Plot Holes

As I mentioned before, I skimmed but I did get the gist of the plot. Got enough that I spotted plot holes.

+++ the love interest

Middle of the story, Bob realized Keth's unrequited love for him and promised himself that he'll return to resolve the matter.

He had a real mission now, one that sank into his bones with an urgency he had never before experienced. Getting back to the dead was only the first part. After that, he had to get to Keth.
—chapter 17

Yeaaaaah, he never did. In the last third of the book, Keth was completely forgotten about.

+++ alive again

At the end when Marius completed the dead people's demand for a king, we learned they couldn't returned him back to life. Turns out he was never dead to begin with and that he had the magic of disguise (or something like that, the book wasn't clear). Marius deluded into thinking he was dead because the dead people tricked him into thinking he was dead which made no sense at all.

Basically, the book's resolution of Marius's dead-state problem was a deus ex machina.

In Conclusion

The premise of the book was attractive, but its execution was awful. I was detached from the protagonist, detached from the prose, and detached from the plot. I may have skim a lot but I didn't need to read every passage to see that the plot didn't make much sense. I believed if I did read every passage, I would have spotted more plot holes.

I rate TCRK 1-star for I didn't like it. I do not recommend this book for readers who best prefer urban fantasy and occasionally venture into traditional fantasy. Readers who like traditional fantasy, I suggest giving TCRK a try but to borrow from library.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full Review: http://tenaciousreader.wordpress.com/...

Corpse Rat King by Lee Battersby is full of wonderfully macabre atmosphere and attitude. Marius don Hellespont makes his gory living by wading through battlefields, liberating the dead of their valuables (in other words, he is a corpse rat). Our story begins as Marius and his lackwit assistant Gerd are interrupted as they are making their latest collection.

One thing that I need to make clear about this book, is Battersby writing skills are top notch. He is able to convey the disgusting and absurd in a stunningly grotesque way. I absolutely loved this and it just makes me smile. And Marius has a very dark, acerbic sense of humor. Also love that.

But, while I enjoyed the quips and descriptions, I just never really connected with Marius, and I never felt all that drawn into the story. And since I didn’t connect to Marius, that was a real issue because there are really no other prominent characters.

If I set this book down, I was completely fine not picking it back up again. It was rather strange, because I swear I can open up to almost any page and find some bit that I enjoy reading. I guess it’s a case of enjoying the details, but not really caring about the larger picture. Which is unfortunate because the details are so amusing.

But, for a first novel, I can see some serious potential here. With a bit more character development and plot, this book could be phenomenal because of Battersby’s ability for details. Despite its flaws, Corpse Rat King by is a mire of dead, undead, blood, gore and caustic prose and I am a bit surprised this book didn’t receive more attention when it was released. But I can also recognize it won’t be a book for everyone. It is very dark, but also one of those dark books that is just filled with humorously wrong moments.

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was outstanding! The author, Lee Battersby should be proud to have written such an amazing masterpiece of imagination, sarcasm and fantastic inventiveness. The tale kept my interest from start to fnish without a hitch. Battersby is an author to watch for great things to come. The narrator sets the tone for the novel, which is sarcastic - just like real life, or at least like the life of my friend and I. I enjoyed this book immensely. No matter what you thought was going to happen, you were wrong. The author took you on a quest wth Marius in the driver's seat to places unknown, peopled by exotic characters who you would never have guessed existed along the normal course of existance. What a ride!

THE PLOT: Marius and his apprentice Gerd are scavenging a battlefield after a battle, when they come upon the dead King of Scorby. Marius takes his crown and puts it in his shirt. A dead man mistaking Marius for the King, takes Marius down to the land of the dead after Gerd has been killed by a guard. The dead want to make Marius their King. When Marius shows them that they've made a mistake, they send him on a mission to find the dead a King which is where our story really starts rolling. There are: travel, sea voyages, murders, sharks attacks, cannibalism, prostitutes shocked, crooked poker games, bandits, dead men walking, skeletons speaking, plans in action, natives, mourning, Kings swimming with their horses, prisoners executed, Captains extorting, nobles cheating and Kingly bones escaping as well as so much more. This plot is sepentine in its' twists and turns. You will never know what will happen next. The plot is literally built, layer by layer - like a faux finish, at the end you have a beautiful result, but in the middle, you're not sure how it's going to turn out. That is exactly how this book is. Will Marius get the dead their King? Will they dismember him and send him to some Under Hell if he does not? Read the book and find out! I give this plot a 10/10

THE CHARACTERIZATION: The characterization was so fantastic it was a masterwork all by itself. As the narrator, we get to see all the characterization through Marius' eyes, which makes it that more fun to have each character described. His sarcastic wit is so polished that with few words he can sum up another character and you know just the type of person he is describing down to his dress, facial features, behaviours, flaws and everthing else. Marius himself is fully three dimensional and human and as a character, changes the most over the course of the novel than any other character - making a full 360 degree turn about in ideals, morals and prinicles, though the sarcasm remains intact - Thank God! There was no, one character that Batterby did not pay loving attention to through Marius' description which made the book a very rich reading experience. As a narrator, Marius added not only color, but his observations were spot on, that he raised the level of the book's tone from simply a 4 star book to a 5 star book, easily. He made all the difference. Marius made the book, simply put. If we weren't in Marius' brain throughout the book, the book would not have been the same. He was not only my favorite character in the novel, he is one of my favorite characters of all time. For characterization, I give this novel, a 10/10.

THE DIALOGUE: The Dialogue in this book was at one time hilarious, at an other is was sarcastic, at others, it was formal, depending on if a King were present. The dialogue fit the situation. As Marius took on and put off different faces and personalitites to fit different situations, his dialogue matched his faces. Some were humorous in the extreme. Other were obsequious. Other still were pompous. Whatever fit the bill. All were credible. As an example, he is knocking on coffins, to find a King to take back to the dead, but he must find one that is not ashes, so he knocks on each coffin he says " Hello you Majesty. Are you in there?" in his most servile voice. The responses are quite hysterical, as he got more than one. For Dialogue, I give this novel a 10/10

THE GORE SCORE: The Gore Score for this novel was not really difficult. While there are people dying and limbs and other bits flying, the focus in not on blood and guts at all. The most bloody part was at the front of the book when they are playing corpse-rats, picking over bodies on the battlefield, finding something that they can sell after the battle is over. For the Gore Score, I give this novel a 5/10.

THE IMAGERY: The Imagery in the book is quite excellent. As Marius and Gerd travel different continents - either together or separately, they are in what is likely to be somewhere analagous to our Middle Ages. The images that represent this time, the people and their clothing, the dress, and their housing is wonderfully described. There is one example where a dead King has combined with his dead horse on the bottom of the sea - they now share characteristics that make them both the same. Now picture this in you head. The King lets out a big Neigh and shakes his head underwater. He shakes his boney tail and gallops off down onto a sandy stretch of sea bottom, while Marius looks on and shakes his head thinking "How am I going to sell this guy as King of the Dead?" This is one of the images that just tickled me. For imagery, I give this novel 9/10.

THE PACING: From the minute you hit the first entence, it is like the shot rang out at a horse race - and they are off! You have started at top speed, so hold on because you are on the back of something that only knows how to run full out. Until you reach the finish line (which is the end of the the book), you will be hanging on for dear life, so just enjoy the ride, because the ride is over half the fun. When you get to the end, you know you've won by at least two lengths, because nobody could be close. It was too good of a ride for anyone to touch you, much less come close. Closing the novel, with sadness and an equal sense of triumph, you walk from the field a winner, having gone through the experinence with the sheer pleasure and enjoyment that you experienced over the last few hours. What can compare to that? Don't tell me. The pacing gets a 9/10.

THE ENDING: The ending of the book came as a big surprise to me. Never would I have guessed the ending in a month of Sundays. I thought he had it hammered halfway though the book, then it was just the case of getting the King back, but I was wrong. It wasn't the other King either. WOW! Who could believe it? Will it be any of them? Marius has to get one of them to work or his future is bleak. What will happen? Will Gerd actually help him? For the ending of the novel, I give it a 10/10.

THE UPSHOT: The upshot of this novel is that if I could give it 6 stars, I would do it in a heartbeat. This novel was outrageous, hysterical, imaginative, inventive and outstanding all mixed up into a masterwork of a novel. I recommend it to everyone who reads English on the planet. Yes, it is that good. Even if you don't like fantasy, the human interest story that runs through the book is interesting enough to hold you attention, while you forget about the reanimated bodies and the other things. Sideline them, don't make them the main focus - focus instead on Marius and his view of the world. Think of it as a historical novel with some quirks. That way when you are reading it, just think that the fantastical parts are things that just happened during that time and no longer happen now. That should get you through the novel in one piece. This novel is definitely worth the price of admission, and I would recommend to all of my friends and relatives along with everyone who has a pulse who reads English and any other language it will be translated into - just buy the book and read it. It is well worth it. Trust me....

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Right, *this* is the book that you should compare to Scott Lynch.

Marius Helles is a thief, a liar, and currently hard up for cash. That's why he's picking over battlefield corpses for rings, gold teeth, and spare change, accompanied by his not-too-bright apprentice Gerd. Unfortunately, the remaining soldiers notice them. Ten minutes later, Gerd is disemboweled and Marius is... in the Land of the Dead.

Turns out the dead want something. They want a king. They send Marius back upstairs to beg, borrow, or -- more plausibly -- steal one.

This book has the juice. Marius is a classic sarcastic bastard, but he's also been through deep crap, of which he deserves a precisely-calculated 66.7 percent. The narration careens between gleeful sarcasm and honest melancholy, on top of the rapid-fire disaster that is Marius's life. Every so often, to keep you on your toes, something genuinely creepy happens. I shall not list examples, not even in my usual elliptical way, because it's just too much fun reading the book.

[Mihir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full Review originally at Fantasy Book Critic

ANALYSIS: The Corpse Rat King is Lee Battersby’s debut and one, which intrigued me strongly with its blurb. The story seems to be a curious mix of dark humor and even darker shade of fantasy. In the end its an odd book to describe but not hard to review thankfully.

The story begins with Marius don Hellespont who is a person of considerably shaky morals. Currently looting a field of corpses along with his apprentice Gerd, Marius is almost done with his picking when Gerd mistakenly alerts the soldiers to their misbegotten activities. All things aside things turn horribly wrong and Marius end up in a place unknown to mankind. He is then offered a choice of sorts; to find a king for the dead as was promised in the holy books or die instantaneously and join the dead. Marius chooses to hold on to his soul and is set free with a chaperone. His onerous task being to find post haste a dead king or otherwise he might have to join the dead congregation rather unpleasantly as well as unwillingly.

This book is a very quirky one; the narrator of the tale is a vagrant, an outright liar, a petty pickpocket and an unscrupulous grave robber. His actions beginning from the start reveal not a single bone of integrity to him. Plus after being saddled with such a task, Marius’s sole intent is to fool his chaperone and alleviate his troubles by disappearing off somewhere where even the dead can’t find him. Thus Marius then leads the reader through a series of incidents as well travels to most of his previous haunts in trying to figure out a way to end his predicament. The humor showcased within the book is what can be considered its best shiny side as it is quite dark and funny thereby showcasing the quirky nature of the characters and the situations they get in.

Also the story is quite unpredictable, beginning in the middle of a battlefield and from then onwards to all the places its goes, it is like a fairytale but darker than any imagined by the Grimm brothers. Capricious and at times horrific, the story simply is very hard to pin down and can be simply described as weird. The plot while seeming very straightforward is anything but that. The author has some sharp twists lined up and from the beginning of the story the reader will be uncertain where the story is going next, what Marius will do eventually and how will it all end. This originality of the premise is what helps the story, as readers will be compelled to flip pages to see what happens next.

The only downside to this entire story (atleast for myself) was the narrator. I hardly felt any sympathy for him or any emotional connection and that perhaps robbed the fun of the story to a certain extent. He’s an insincere excuse of a human being and one who hardly inspires any confidence in his acquaintances. Perhaps that was the author’s intent of exploring the story through such a narrative voice and if that turns out to be the case then kudos to the author for nailing the voice down so precisely. Marius is exactly the person you wouldn’t want to be saddled with if your life depended on it.

The Corpse Rat King is an odd book but it is not a bad one. It promises a different sort of read and delivers exceptionally on its word. The Corpse Rat King seems to be a dark imaginative collaboration between Joe Abercrombie and Jesse Bullington but its not! Its Lee Battersby’s debut and one that will leave a mark on the reader’s mind, though it depends on the reader’s prerogative whether it will be a remarkable one or not.

[N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lee Battersby is a talented writer. I've never read anything else he's written, but an Angry Robot rep convinced me to try The Corpse-Rat King.

The book is an interesting mix, starting with the very cover. The image is really neat -- I'm consistently impressed with AR's packaging. The title, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired.

Likewise, the story itself has its ups and downs. Battersby's prose is engaging and entertaining. Though many jokes fall flat, several more connect in uproarious fashion. The plot meanders here and there, with entire sections doing absolutely nothing to drive it forward, yet the characters are so well sketched, it hardly matters.

Marius, the titular corpse rat, is a horrible person, and predictably, as the book goes on, he is meant to become less so. And he does, to a certain extent. But not before he kills, maims, and defrauds nearly everyone he comes into contact with, including his sidekick/prodigy/"friend" Gerd. It is a difficult thing to convince a reader to like a character as detestable as Marius, and Battersby nearly succeeds. Nearly.

I will definitely read more by the author, but hope to see his plotting improve to match his prose.

[Scott Bell · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first third of this book was terrific. The middle third started lagging. By the end, I just wanted it to die. Mr. Battersby is in love with his own wit, and seems to believe dragging the reader through endless asides, rabbit holes, and diversions from the main plot will add complexity and depth to his novel. Instead, they just add tedium. Humorous, in places, The Corpse-Rat King could have been much better told with 60k fewer words. Even the deliciously wicked, and often hapless reprobate of a main character couldn't carry the weight of this tale.

It is a bloated and overdone novel that lost my interest and never got it back.

[Julia Sarene · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is hard to review... I kinda liked it, but it also kinda annoyed me at times...
It is a bit grim, but also a lot of funny. The main character is chosen by the dead (living underground, can be reached via graves) to be their new king. When they notice he want an actual king even alive, just stole a crown in a battle field, they send him back up to fetch them a real dead king. As incentive to do so, they steal his heart beat, which shall be given back when he succeeds.

The main character is a liar, a thief, a cheater and sometimes a murderer. He kinda has to find himself throughout the story. I mostly liked him, and also liked his transformation.

The plot is really crazy at times, which worked in some parts for me, where it had me laughing out loud, but in other parts it had me rolling my eyes. Especially the few dick jokes made me think of teenage boys and not an adult who been through a lot. Humour obviously is a very personal thing, so what didn't work for me might be perfect for someone else.

All in all it was entertaining, and I don't regret the time spent on it!

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marius dos Hellespont is a con man and a “corpse-rat,” a scoundrel who makes a living looting the dead bodies on a battlefield. A twist of fate leads him to be mistaken for a fallen king by the restless dead, who drag him to their subterranean realm to rule over them. When he reveals himself as both 1.) still living, and 2.) not a king, they return him to the surface charged with finding a replacement king. Or else.

While probably most aptly categorized in the “grimdark” subgenre of fantasy, this is a very humorous picaresque romp, with the cynicism of Jack Vance if not the verbosity. Clever cons and reversals of fortune abound. Some reviewers found this book lacking in substance, but I found the fast pace and breeziness a welcome change of pace.

This story works just fine as a stand-alone novel, but when I noticed a sequel was available I picked it up right away.

[sj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted at my blog.

One thing I didn't really take into consideration when I decided to take some time off after Puttin' the Blog in Balrog was the possibility of falling behind on my reviews.  I woke up this morning thinking "Oh, hey!  It's release day!  Everyone can finally go buy Seven Wonders and Mockingbird !"  This was immediately followed by the thought "Crapcrapcrap, I totally forgot to review The Corpse-Rat King, which is ALSO OUT TODAY!"  What?  These aren't the things you guys usually think of immediately upon waking?  Hm.

Anyway, Lee Battersby's The Corpse-Rat King.   I downloaded the eARC and started it shortly after it became available for the Robot Army.  The blurb sounded promising, and it was another pretty, shiny cover.  That's one thing I can always guarantee the Angry Robot folks will get right, a cover that will suck me in, because - yes, I admit it - I'm totally shallow that way.

Marius don Hellespont is a corpse-rat.  He hangs around battlefields, waiting to pick the pockets of the people who weren't lucky enough to survive.  We learn not long into the book that this is just one of the many hats Marius has worn throughout his life.  One of the pockets he picks is that of a king, and due to a misunderstanding (in which Marius pretends to be dead to avoid capture AND lets his apprentice be taken captive and killed) the dead of the underworld think HE'S a king and can take over the job of ruling them.  Cos, they need a king in the underworld, what hey.  Obviously, Marius is no king (even if he's got a crown in his pocket) and convinces the dead they need to let him go to find them a REAL KING - something he has no intention of doing.

If you're reading this on goodreads, you can see that almost all of the other reviews absolutely LOVED the beginning of this book, which made me feel like maybe I was missing something.  I thought it was okay, but not great, and almost put this book away for good without finishing it.  I read two or three other books while I was trying to decide whether or not I was going to finish before I heaved a great sigh and decided to pull up my big girl pants and soldier on.

I'm glad I did.

While I found the beginning slow (to the point of almost adding it to my DNF shelf) and had a difficult time overcoming my aversion to what I thought was overuse of the world "whilst," (sorry, that word bugs me like no other) the rest of the book makes up for the shortcomings of the first few chapters.

How could I fail to like something that features inadvertent cannibalism and a mad (dead) king that loved his favourite horse a little too much?  I couldn't - fail to like it, that is.

Seriously, I'm glad I kept reading because it really did get better after what I thought was a slow beginning.  I LOVED the final third.  Again, though, if you take a look at the other reviews, you'll see that most people seem to agree that the beginning was good, no matter their opinion of the rest of the book.  Maybe I was just taking too many Contrary Pills the day I started, or something.  I don't know.

It's not a perfect book, and I'm not running to add it to my favourites shelf, but it was definitely good enough that I'll read the next book by Mr Battersby.

You can read an excerpt from the book and find pricing and sales information over at Angry Robot.  Like I said at the beginning of this rambling review, The Corpse-Rat King is out today in the US and will be available everywhere else Sept. 6.

3.5/5 stars - I laughed quite a few times and enjoyed the references.  The flolloping made me happy.

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up on a whim when I was at B&N recently. I mention this because this isn't something that happens all that often these days, to be honest. I'm rather loathe to pay full price for a book, especially one I know nothing about outside of the blurb, and I tend to get most of my books from the library these days. But this caught my attention and then held on... though, technically, the second book did that, as I saw that one first, in the new release section, and then backtracked to the first book. And I must admit that the blurb for the first book didn't hook me nearly as much, so it's a good thing I saw the second first...

And I tell you all that as a way to set the scene. I went in knowing very little about these books, having never heard of them before I saw them in B&N, but expecting/hoping to be well amused because the blurb, at least for the second book, struck me as right up my alley.

And, hopefully, the second book will be a bit more so.

Not that I didn't enjoy the book, because I did. I liked Marius in all his awfulness, and enjoyed watching his growth as a character. I know some people had a hard time sympathizing with him, especially in the beginning, but I pretty much got him right from the start.

Gerd, on the other hand, irritated me as much as he irritated Marius - which might be one reason why I more easily related to Marius straight off - and I was glad to see Gerd develop into a more fleshed out character as well - no pun intended.

I liked the sardonic humor and wry wit, and I enjoyed the way he described things by sort of talking around them.

But there were times where my eyes just kept sliding off the page, where the fancy words and injections of humor didn't quite make up for the fact that things were moving at a snail's pace, that Marius' self-awareness was a bit belabored, and things just felt kind of off. And, aside from the whole snail's pace thing and whatnot, I couldn't quite tell you what was off about it... but, at times, I just couldn't focus on the words on the page as my mind wandered off to entertain itself or, conversely, as I began dozing off.

And I couldn't tell you why I seemed bored, at times... just that I was. Maybe it's 'cause, ultimately, it's a sort of standard quest story, and it was just meandering around too long.

But, anyway, things picked up a lot about half-way through, around when Marius meets up with the mad king, and I quite enjoyed the rest of it. You do have to go into it with a sense of humor about the absurd, because it is quite absurd with just one thing happening after another and piling on. The humor , I think, is definitely the saving grace of the story... and I look forward, in the follow-up, to more humor and, hopefully, some better pacing.

***

ETA: I did mention it in a status update but, for those who don't see that - there's a lot of casual cursing and stuff in this book. It's not something that bothers me at all, but I figured I'd mention it for those who don't like their books littered with f-bombs.

Battersby even sort of brings attention to it at one point, and references it as an amusing character quirk. ;)

[Laurielle Laurielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Otro libro que no he podido terminar: le he dado 250 páginas de ventaja y sólo he conseguido aburrirme y desesperarme.

La historia teóricamente va de un hombre que debe buscar un nuevo rey para los muertos. Pero en realidad va de un tío que vacila a la guardia, juega a las cartas, se sube a un barco y cotillea por ahí, con cierta mención ocasional al tema de que hay muertos involucrados. Es un poco una película costumbrista: vas siguiendo al prota mientras hace sus cosas y la historia se queda aparcada, muertecita del asco.

Además, el autor se dedica a describirte cosas y cosas y más cosas que no tienen nada que ver, y llega un momento que te pierdes. ¿De verdad te acaba de regalar una descripción de tres páginas sólo para presentar un personaje que a su vez sólo sirve para que el protagonista lo empuje contra una pared y le pregunte por una dirección? ¿De verdad acaba de dedicar cinco páginas a contarte la historia del sitio donde el prota va a apostar? ¿Esto es una pistola de Chekhov, o simplemente es que al autor le mola contarte todo lo que le pasa por la cabeza?

Y el prota... el prota es otro problema distinto. Va de antihéroe entrañable e ingenioso, pero en la práctica sólo le escuchas diálogos planos ("Oh, joder", "Y ahora qué hago", "Oh, mierda", etc) y le ves abusar de la gente a su alrededor. Deja que maten a la gente que va con él, pega a su subordinado e incluso le tira en cara a la prostituta de la que está enamorado que es que lo poco que ella tiene no vale nada, porque lo ha ganado prostituyéndose. Hombre del año, vamos.

Lo de las mujeres... el autor sigue la Escuela Frank Miller de Creación de Personajes Femeninos: todas putas. Las chicas que salen o son prostitutas o son la madre del protagonista, y aún así tengo mis dudas. Por no mencionar que todo el libro está escrito, claramente, pensando que el lector es un hombre heterosexual: ¿Te habla de un lugar para descansar? Tiene cerveza y una mujer dispuesta. ¿Te habla de una isla? Te describe lo follables que son las nativas (los nativos igual son célibes, o algo, porque ni mención). ¿Te habla de una ciudad? Te detalla sus burdeles y lo complacientes que son las chicas. ¿Te habla de un casino subterráneo? Te explica cómo es la chica desnuda que le está haciendo una paja al señor que abre la puerta. Que para lo que aporta a la historia, igual podría ser un loro muy mañoso. Y así, ad infinitum.

En resumen: oye, no. Si queréis enredos a lo Ocean's Eleven pero en ambientación fantástica, los dos primeros volúmenes de Locke Lamora son muchísimo más agradables de leer y entretenidos. Y si queréis una novela con nomuertos sobrados de poder, leed el primer libro de The Black Company, que al menos te ríes.

[Mikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to be completely honest and say that I didn't like this book for at least the first half of it. I don't mind admitting that I bought it on the strength of Juliet Marillier's review on the back of it. Marius was a thoroughly unlikable protagonist. He was selfish, amoral, seedy, and really the worst kind of weasel there was. I did like how clever he was, but it wasn't enough.

The only way I managed to slog through the first half was imagining him as Mark Sheppard, and surprisingly it worked. I made it all the way to the end, and Lee Battersby miraculously managed to reverse my opinion completely. It started when Marius met King Nandus at the bottom of the ocean and progressed steadily from there. Marius stopped being a disreputable scoundrel and finally became a character I will fondly remember.

One thing I also really liked about him was that he was obviously a history nut -- the book is laced with many little anecdotes of the history of Scorby, and this is the segue I will use to shamelessly flatter Lee Battersby's world-building skills. Marius travels the length and breadth of what feels like a thoroughly lived-in world, with colorful histories and breathtaking views. The prose is fantastic and the dialogue snappy and humorous, which is also partly what kept me going when Marius was an awful human being.

I wouldn't say that this book is a delight to read, but if you're looking for a clever book with the most anti- of anti-heroes to make you occasionally laugh out loud, this is probably it.

[Venetia Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. I've never come across a writer with such an amazing way with words. Battersby completely out-Pratchetts Pratchett. I wanted to give this book 6 out of 5 just for its hilarious and brilliant descriptions and one-liners.
Why then did I rate this book at 4, you may ask? Plot, pace and character. At first glance, there was nothing lacking here either. The plot is nicely convoluted and off-beat, there is plenty of forward-moving action, and the main character, Marius, is warped and engaging. However the narrative tension dropped soon after Marius's interview with the dead. Marius never had a clear plan that I as a reader could get behind, nor did his character develop convincingly. His wanderings turned into a series of entertaining, picaresque adventures, and he managed in the end to solve his predicament almost by accident.
Despite these reservations, I will definitely read any further novels Battersby produces. I sniff the emergence of a great writer here.

[Tim Hicks · Rating 3 out of 5]

The blurb mentions Joe Abercrombie as similar. Many reviews mention Pratchett. This is OK, but they don't go far enough. The setting is Abercrombie. Marius is three Pratchett characters in one: Rincewind, C.M.O.T. Dibbler and Moist von Lipwig.

I've seen worse ideas for a book.

This was good fun. The humour is dry and frequent. The plot with Keth was a tad weak, and I suspect it will stay that way in future books. Gerd's loyalty, for want of a better word, didn't feel right as explained, but he was useful to the plot.

I wonder if anyone felt that the first chapter was really familiar - two guys looting a battlefield get caught. I'm remembering a novel that started out exactly like that but went another direction.

[The Book Bunch (Sam) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf'd at 109 because honestly as good as the writing was, I just wasn't interested in the story anymore. It has some crude language and some rough scenes due to the thievery setting

Marius robs the corpses of dead Solider until he has to hide amongst them or get caught. His ruse works until he goes to get up and finds himself talking to a corpse, who is talking back. He is pulled into the underworld as he has been mistaken for a fallen king. The only way to make things right and get his heartbeat back is to bring the dead what they want, however Marius will do everything in his power to run the other way.

[Tim Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

So you are a con artist, a man who has liberated people from their money the length and breadth of your world, impersonating everyone from soldiers to chefs to courtiers, all to in order to make a fast coin or two. Kings, captains of ships and in the army, powerful merchants, lowly soldiers, barmaids, and pig farmers, gamblers and lords of crime, you’ve conned and (mostly) outwitted them all.

Can you con the dead?

That is the position that our protagonist finds himself in, one Marius don Hellespont (he prefers the last name Helles). Working as a corpse-rat with his too-new-and-too-slow-perhaps apprentice Gerd (until very recently a pig farmer), Marius had been working at impersonating a solider just well enough to get to the site of a major battlefield, loot a few of the fallen (working by his number one rule, only steal what you can swallow), and make his way to safety. A few coins, maybe some jewelry from the nobility that died in the battle, all while hopefully NOT being hung as a looter by either side.

To Marius’ surprise and delight, they come across the body of the slain king of Scorby. A major haul, the biggest possible find in a field of dead nobles. Also a body that is being actively searched for by his own men.

As so often happens in this book, things don’t go as planned. Gerd very quickly dies while next to the body and both he and Marius are dragged to the underworld by a corpse that surprisingly animates.

This presents a number of problems. Marius is not dead. The other dead, the real dead, can talk and move about. And they think Marius should fill the role of a king, something the dead desperately need and thought that they were getting. Marius, understandably surprised by the turn of events, manages to convince the dead to let him go and he promises – promises – to find them a king. The dead agree to this, sending him on his way minus his heartbeat and with the now dead but animated Gerd to accompany him on his travels.

Of course, given Marius’ history of looking out for number one, horror at the dead, and of always, always running from trouble, he ditches Gerd and runs. And runs. And RUNS. We get to see a fair percentage of this fantasy setting, of its rich merchant quarters, bustling cities, howling wildernesses, distant islands, of life on a sailing vessel, in remote villages, all while Marius avoids the dead underground and the relentless Gerd who simply will not stop tracking him. Along the way Marius meets a number of fascinating characters, some alive, some very much dead, including of course the one thing that could possibly, maybe, conceivably anchor Marius anywhere for any length of time, the love of his life, Keth.

Along the way Marius comes to the conclusion that he may be dead himself. He doesn’t need to breathe, eat, rest, and his skin looks horrid, frightening all sorts of people. However he FEELS alive and at times, times he cannot explain, can even pass for living among the living. Why is this? Marius along with the reader figures out the rules of undeath in the world, something that was quite interesting.

Overall I liked the book. Marius was endlessly interesting, with a witty, worldly view on everything around him, Gerd being the perfect straight man (when he was around). Some of the characters he encountered – my favorite was the mad king Nandus – were very vivid characters. At first it felt like there was almost too much history and backstory about the politics and nations of this novel’s setting but in the end, no, it was all relevant and very interesting. The places Marius and his sometime companions went to were well drawn and when there were action scenes they were well done. The book was also quite humorous at times, with droll descriptions of one predicament after another that Marius found himself in and his reactions to them.

Was Marius a likable character? Like with so many “villains” he doesn’t see himself as such. He does have a code of honor of sorts and maybe it was a little Dickensian but along the way Marius did develop more and more of a conscience (maybe being deprived of virtually everything has a way of focusing one’s thoughts). Likable or not, he was vivid and interesting and very detailed.

An original book, not like anything else out there. The way undead alone were handled was unique enough, but the book as a whole was something special I think.

[Mieneke · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the books signed out of last year's inaugural Angry Robot Open Door Month – and a book picked by Amanda Rutter, whose taste rarely leads me wrong – Lee Battersby's The Corpse-Rat King was always going to be of interest to me. Add to that the rather awesome cover and an interesting synopsis and you could be sure I would be along for the ride. Unfortunately, my ride wasn't as smooth as I could have wished. Partly this is completely due to my own head space: when I started this book I wasn't in the best place to focus on reading due to personal circumstances. But partly it was due to the book itself: I had a hard time connecting to the main character and the middle of the book left me a bit muddled.

To start with that first complaint, Marius was a hard character to come to grips with. I usually have no problem connecting to less than morally virtuous, I got along great with Mark Lawrence's Jorg, so the fact that Marius is a bit of an unpleasant character to start with – sacrificing your less-than-talented apprentice so you can escape with your life is usually frowned upon in civilised circles – shouldn't have been a problem, but I found it hard to connect with him. It was hard to get a sense of him and it was only after about a third of the book that I suddenly noticed I did actually care what happened to Marius; he'd slowly gotten under my skin. And in fact, by the end of the book I was sad to say goodbye to Marius and was glad to learn there's more of his story to come in next year's The Marching Dead.

Some of Battersby's other characters, such as Marius' apprentice Gerd and Kings Nandus and Scorbus are far easier to like and especially in the latter half of the story the dialogues between the different characters and Marius had me snorting out loud. By the end of the book, both Marius and Gerd are changed beyond their obvious state of—shall we say animation? They've grown and changed their outlook on life, though bad habits are hard to break and Marius remains as devious as he starts out, planning another con to help him on his way to leaving the thief's life he's led since his teens.

After the rather spectacular beginning, the story hit a bit of a slump while Marius gets to grip with his new situation and his new assignment. In hindsight, the need for this section is clear, but while reading, this was where I got stuck when I first picked it up. There isn't that much wrong with this section, other than Marius going off and doing other things before getting back to what he needs to do. Compared to the beginning and the final third of the book, the middle bit felt somewhat slow and just wasn't as gripping to me. In contrast, the final hundred or so pages just fly by and are easily the strongest part of the novel. They show off Battersby's strengths: funny dialogue and fabulous, if somewhat creepy, descriptions—a cathedral built of bones? The Parisian Catacombs gave me the creeps, this would give me nightmares!

Despite my initial qualms about Marius and the book's slow middle, The Corpse-Rat King has left me wanting more. While Marius' main quest in this book – finding the dead a king – might have been filled, there are still some loose ends and the happy ever after or not, as it might turn out, for both Gerd and Marius is still waiting in the wings somewhere and I'm very curious to see how the author will get Marius, Gerd and the reader there. If you're looking for an interesting new voice in fantasy and an entertaining read, look no further than Lee Battersby and his debut The Corpse-Rat King.

This book was provided for review by the publisher.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is like taking your least classy friend to the ballet - there is as much joy in watching responses from your selected audience as there is to watching the show and both can be a delight. When a very living corpse rat - that is, a thief who picks the wealth off of the dead in battlefields - is mistaken for a king that can lead the dead, things get complicated. The book is like my opening line because the protagonist just does not seem to care about social order- he originated from wealth, but is more interested in seeing what he can do and we learn he has done quite a lot. As he sinks deeper into his quest to find the dead a new king, he does so with an approach that the reader may find humorous and then moments later heartbreaking. He is a scoundrel, a malcontent, and a drifter which serves him well until it doesn’t. As we watch his work play out, he meets various potential dead kings, from ones that are insane to one’s that are, unfortunately, no longer available for service after dinner. He mistreats many, yet the book portrays it with humorous aplomb, as we dive deeper into his internal dialogue as we go.

This book elicited chuckles and sadness, and a sufficient amount of engagement. As I finished it, I ordered the next book immediately as Marius don Hellespont is too humorously tragic to just leave where he was - a man condemned by his own conceits, raised by his own cunning, and besieged with the joy of living and dead friends, fiends, and complications of his own construction. Some compared it to a work by Pratchett or a corpse ridden Douglas Adams - and while I can see some reason for such comparison, the narrator’s voice in the book is uniquely prodding, applying logic when the character does not. I enjoyed it and thought it was a world well fleshed out, even when discussing the dead who had little flesh at all.

[Martin Livings · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Corpse-Rat King was a thoroughly enjoyable read, which is hardly surprising as it's come from Lee Battersby, one of Australia's best writers of short fiction. It's about damn time we had a novel from Lee, and this one doesn't disappoint. Some are saying it's similar to Terry Pratchett, but I personally think it has more of Harry Harrison's DNA thread through it, particularly his Stainless Steel Rat novels. They share the concept of a reluctant anti-hero who operates on the wrong side of the law but is usually forced to do the right thing, as well as a sardonic sense of humour, sharp dialogue and, it has to be said, a bit of a meandering and episodic plotting style relying fairly heavily on coincidence. I don't think this is accidental or a weakness, though, it feels like a stylistic choice which I personally think adds a certain charm to Lee's book, the same way it did to Harrison's classics. At any rate, I devoured it pretty quickly (for me), so it was definitely an easy read, Lee's excellent conversational and largely invisible style of writing being the main reason for that. I'll definitely be following Marius Helles' ongoing adventures!

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marius follows other people to their battles, then raids the corpses afterwards for loot. It may seem like a low down job, but you have to be clever because soldiers are none too fond of people robbing their mates. Clever doesn't help Marius much when he gets pulled down to the land of the dead and given a mission to find a king for the dead or else be returning to enjoy their company permanently.

This book really wants to be a black comedy, but its tone keeps shifting all over the place. My favorite sequence is when Marius travels with an insane dead king for a while, and gradually pieces together the story of how he got that way. Great pathos. And then that segment abruptly ends and we shift gears again.

Ultimately the writing was quite good, but neither the story nor the protagonist ever gelled. I have no interest in reading any more about Marius, but I would definitely consider reading something else written by Battersby.

[Woodge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marius don Hellespont and his sidekick, Gerd, are battlefield looters. But they run into trouble and Marius gets mistaken for a king and is brought to the underworld and told that he is now the king of the dead. It's not a job he wants and he needs to find a replacement. But first he's just going to try running away from the dead.

I got completely sucked into the story in the first hundred pages. I lost a bit of steam in the middle section of the book but I didn't lose interest. It's a bizarre story to be sure, and I appreciate that, but for a fantasy adventure it was a little lacking in the suspense category. In the middle of the book I wanted to see more of Gerd. I enjoyed his interactions with Marius. I also enjoyed the above-par writing as well as the original storyline, but I won't be feeling compelled to read the next Marius and Gerd adventure.

[Mary Robinette Kowal · Rating 2 out of 5]

The prose in this is really lovely. Lee has a good sense of character and dialogue.

But.

But I stopped reading at about the halfway point, because the handling of the female characters was really upsetting.

A list of all the female characters in the novel by page 239
-2 prostitutes with hearts of gold, 1 of whom gets fridged in a flashback after knowing the main character for a quarter hour.
-Main character's mother, who has reported lines but no actual dialog.
-A nubile native girl, intent on seducing the MC, also no dialog, but she does have a magnificent bum.
-An ancient decript, terrifying witch, who performs magic via a handjob and then immediately dies.

There were some other things that bothered me. Honestly, if you're just signing up for the prose, you'll probably like this. He's a good writer with this one blind spot that broke the story for me.

[Jason Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. I always enjoy a good picaresque novel, and The Corpse-Rat King delivers this with gusto. Battersby gives us the story of a great scoundrel, forced to aid the underworld. All the while, he is looking out for himself, trying to turn the tables on a universe set against him, and generally being a scumbag. There are some truly hilarious moments in this book, and I recommend it highly. Protagonist Marius Don Hellespont is like the bastard love-child of Cugel the Clever, Severian the torturer, and Don Quixote. I salivate over this book's sequel!

[Ahimsa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. I really like the first couple chapters of this book, but with the protagonist using half the book to (in a gambit that is all too predictably futile) avoid his fate, it just feels like a wank-fest. The world-building is generic, none of the characters are very well developed, and the humor, to my eyes anyway, was forced and not funny. If I was the kind of person to put down books halfway through, I would have never made it through the tedium.

[Tehani · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into the swing of this, but wow, once I did I couldn't put it down! A unique take on the undead, in a high fantasy setting, an unlikeable but loveable protagonist and a very difficult quest. Loved it!
(note, I am friends with Lee, and he does mention me in the acknowledgements, which was very nice of him - doesn't change my review one bit though!)

[Jim Kerr · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was fun!
[x] well conceived fantasy setting
[x] anti-hero who could only be portrayed by Bruce Campbell
[x] undead hordes
[x] deliciously absurd humor

[S.B. (Beauty in Ruins) · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is almost nothing better than looking forward to an upcoming release from a favourite author, getting a chance to give it an early read, and finding out that it not only lives up to all your expectations, but completely exceeds them. The satisfaction is almost immeasurable.

I say almost, because there is one thing that really is better - stumbling across an upcoming release from an author you've never read before, picking it up entirely on a whim, starting the read with absolutely nothing in the way of expectations, and being completely blown away. If the satisfaction is almost immeasurable, than the pleasure is completely immeasurable.

Such is the case with The Corpse-Rat King by Lee Battersby.

Not only did I have no expectations of this one, I wasn't even sure I'd have time to give it a read. It was one of the newest electronic ARCs available to the Robot Army, so I snagged it alongside Adam Christopher's Seven Wonders, figuring I'd give it a cursory glance if I happened to get through the other before September rolled around. It just so happened that I was between books last weekend and, completely on a whim, I decided to give it a shot.

I think I was about 10 pages in before I knew I had something special on my hands.

What Battersby has concocted here is equal parts Bruce Campbell slapstick, Monty Python absurdity, and Terry Gilliam imaginative wonder, filtered through the same literary sense of the macabre as Jesse Bullington or Neil Gaiman. It's an extremely funny, extraordinarily imaginative tale, that never stops surprising the reader with where it's going next. Really, it's one of those novels where the less you know going in, the better the reading experience is likely to be.

Marius is one of the unlikeliest heroes I have encountered in a very long time. He's a greedy, self-centred, cowardly bastard . . . who just so happens to be clever, amusing, and embarrassingly likable at the same time. He's the kind of guy who will gladly stand at your side in the face of imminent danger, but only so he can pick your pocket and knock you down at the last moment to expedite his own getaway. He is a scoundrel in every sense of the word, but an entirely pragmatic one. While he does develop significantly over the course of the novel, demonstrating a tenderness of heart and soul, he remains delightfully despicable throughout.

The writing (and storytelling) here is absolutely top notch. Battersby has a very intimate, very casual way of telling a story, one that's more conversational than literary. He's entirely aware of the absurdities of his tale, and makes no apologies for them. Whereas some authors try too hard to justify, explain, or otherwise validate the comic elements of their tale, Battersby is content to let the humour work. What's more, he proves himself equally adept at elaborate set pieces of slapstick humour, quick throwaway gags, and ridiculous asides.

There's a particularly prolonged sequence of events that involves Marius walking across the bottom of the sea, attempting to scale a submerged shipwreck, and desperately trying to reason with the skeleton of a king who was already crazy before he inadvertently merged the bones of his horse with his own. It's a scene that should have fallen apart and worn out its welcome long before the hungry shark appears on scene, but Battersby makes it work so well, it's a shame to see it come to an end .

Similarly, whereas the various tangents and asides should begin to wear away at the reader's patience, you can't help but gleefully anticipate the next one. It was these half-pages that so often had me laughing out loud, or at least visibly smirking with glee.

"Discovered less than four hundred years ago by the famous Tallian adventurer “Literal” Edmund Bejeevers, the Dog Crap Archipelago lay like a giant turd across the passage between Borgho City and the Faraway isles. Early explorers found nothing there to recommend the place to anybody, and indeed, early maps show a simple ovoid outline with the words “Don’t Bother” written inside."

Even the throwaway gags, such as the "Secret passage closed due to repair works" sign, work better than any author has any right to expect. It's all about the balance between the humour and the story, and the simultaneous commitment to both, that makes it work. Battersby never allows one to suffer at the expense of the other, and never forgets to involve the reader emotionally as well as intellectually.

This was a novel that I thoroughly enjoyed and will gleefully recommend, without reservation. Of course, Battersby has now placed himself within the first scenario I mentioned, so here's hoping The Marching Dead manages to exceed my expectations as well as The Corpse-Rat King managed to blow me away.


Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins