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Sisters of Mercy
Hannah-9 is a a child of Heaven and Hell, bred in the bowels of the Last City. Implanted into an ancient, nuclear-powered war machine—a God-engine—she stalks the wastes with Rachel-3, her sister-in-arms.
Their mandate is to wage war against the Adversary, to purify the Earth, and to endure—until the radiation consumes them.
This is her story.
A bold new novella from the creator of Dark Legacies.
Their mandate is to wage war against the Adversary, to purify the Earth, and to endure—until the radiation consumes them.
This is her story.
A bold new novella from the creator of Dark Legacies.
- GenresFantasy
92 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 20, 2025
3 people are currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Yuval Kordov
8 books52 followersYuval Kordov is a chronically creative nerd, tech professional, husband, and father of two. Over the course of his random life, he has been a radio show DJ, produced experimental electronic music, created the world of Dark Legacies™, and designed custom mechs with LEGO® bricks.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 14, 2025
BLAME! meets Claymore with a drop of Ghosts of Tomorrow in what could be my favorite novella of 2025. Read Kordov now and thank me later.
December 9, 2025
Sisters of Mercy is about love, futility, hope, and giant robots.
In a world destroyed by a war against demons, girls raised in a secret facility are symbiotically bonded with giant robots called God-engines and sent in pairs to patrol irradiated wastelands to destroy anything that might threaten what’s left of society.
If that sounds like the premise of an anime from 2010, I promise it isn’t. I’ve been making a habit of not learning anything about the books I’m reading in order to not bias myself before I go into them, and I’m really glad I have that rule for myself, because based just on the premise I might have dismissed Sisters of Mercy as being silly. It’s not. It’s a thoughtful, interesting book that engages really meaningfully with a lot of big themes.
The big one is religion. Hannah-9 and Rachel-3 live in a world whose boundaries are defined by their religious belief. Prayer and liturgy and theology infuse their lives and their narration, and their belief in the higher power whose engines they’re using is fundamental to most of their decision making, both when they do as they’ve been taught, and when they don’t. Any kind of religion is really hard to get “right” in speculative fiction, I find; it often either feels shallow or it feels like the book is trying to convince you of something. Sisters of Mercy isn’t trying to convince you of anything, the religious elements of the book feel like they’re there because they’re part of the story and world and it comes across very strongly how meaningful and important those rituals and prayers are to the characters.
One of the other major themes that stuck with me about this story is hope. Yuval Kordov has created a pretty bleak world here, where everything is destroyed and everyone seems to just be hoping to stave off death for a few more days. Without spoiling anything, the hope doesn’t come in the form of believing that anything will get better, but that to makes it all the stronger—hope in Sisters of Mercy means that, despite everything that’s happening, we will continue. I think it’s very possible to read this the opposite way that I have and see it all as futile and meaningless, a cycle from which we can’t escape, but my takeaway from the final pages of this book was hope because, despite everything, we go on, and we will learn to be okay.
The relationship between Hannah-9 and Rachel-3 is the absolute star of this book. They’re co-workers who feel filial bonds with each other and call each other sisters, and though they only meet at the beginning of the book, it’s clear that they love each other and will do anything for each other, evidenced by the fact that they do. It’s a really powerful relationship that really helps pace the book really well. They communicate a lot over messages sent through their God-engines, and Kordov chose to have those messages always include sender and recipient names as part of them, which I personally find clutters the page visually, but does give a clear vision of these two as having no choice but to communicate through an artificial medium, thanks to the modifications made to their bodies.
One thing I wish had had a bigger narrative impact is resource scarcity. It’s all over the book, you have people encountered by the sisters who are just scrounging for supplies to live, you have Hannah-9 talking about how she has to be careful with her ammunition because it’s not infinite and once they run out that’s it, but it doesn’t ever seem to matter aside from as flavour. The comments that she has to be careful not to use too many weapons unnecessarily feel like they should culminate in a resource issue that forces her into a hard decision or something, but she never seems to have any issue unleashing her arsenal on the demons (which are very effectively scary, grotesque, and alien) when they appear. The fight sequences go on a bit long for my personal taste anyway, and I might subjectively have found them more compelling if I’d had a sense that Hannah-9 might be in real danger of running out of options.
But that’s not what the book is really about, and what it is about Sisters of Mercy does really well. War is futile and endless war is hell, and this book is about those things, and it’s a delight.
In a world destroyed by a war against demons, girls raised in a secret facility are symbiotically bonded with giant robots called God-engines and sent in pairs to patrol irradiated wastelands to destroy anything that might threaten what’s left of society.
If that sounds like the premise of an anime from 2010, I promise it isn’t. I’ve been making a habit of not learning anything about the books I’m reading in order to not bias myself before I go into them, and I’m really glad I have that rule for myself, because based just on the premise I might have dismissed Sisters of Mercy as being silly. It’s not. It’s a thoughtful, interesting book that engages really meaningfully with a lot of big themes.
The big one is religion. Hannah-9 and Rachel-3 live in a world whose boundaries are defined by their religious belief. Prayer and liturgy and theology infuse their lives and their narration, and their belief in the higher power whose engines they’re using is fundamental to most of their decision making, both when they do as they’ve been taught, and when they don’t. Any kind of religion is really hard to get “right” in speculative fiction, I find; it often either feels shallow or it feels like the book is trying to convince you of something. Sisters of Mercy isn’t trying to convince you of anything, the religious elements of the book feel like they’re there because they’re part of the story and world and it comes across very strongly how meaningful and important those rituals and prayers are to the characters.
One of the other major themes that stuck with me about this story is hope. Yuval Kordov has created a pretty bleak world here, where everything is destroyed and everyone seems to just be hoping to stave off death for a few more days. Without spoiling anything, the hope doesn’t come in the form of believing that anything will get better, but that to makes it all the stronger—hope in Sisters of Mercy means that, despite everything that’s happening, we will continue. I think it’s very possible to read this the opposite way that I have and see it all as futile and meaningless, a cycle from which we can’t escape, but my takeaway from the final pages of this book was hope because, despite everything, we go on, and we will learn to be okay.
The relationship between Hannah-9 and Rachel-3 is the absolute star of this book. They’re co-workers who feel filial bonds with each other and call each other sisters, and though they only meet at the beginning of the book, it’s clear that they love each other and will do anything for each other, evidenced by the fact that they do. It’s a really powerful relationship that really helps pace the book really well. They communicate a lot over messages sent through their God-engines, and Kordov chose to have those messages always include sender and recipient names as part of them, which I personally find clutters the page visually, but does give a clear vision of these two as having no choice but to communicate through an artificial medium, thanks to the modifications made to their bodies.
One thing I wish had had a bigger narrative impact is resource scarcity. It’s all over the book, you have people encountered by the sisters who are just scrounging for supplies to live, you have Hannah-9 talking about how she has to be careful with her ammunition because it’s not infinite and once they run out that’s it, but it doesn’t ever seem to matter aside from as flavour. The comments that she has to be careful not to use too many weapons unnecessarily feel like they should culminate in a resource issue that forces her into a hard decision or something, but she never seems to have any issue unleashing her arsenal on the demons (which are very effectively scary, grotesque, and alien) when they appear. The fight sequences go on a bit long for my personal taste anyway, and I might subjectively have found them more compelling if I’d had a sense that Hannah-9 might be in real danger of running out of options.
But that’s not what the book is really about, and what it is about Sisters of Mercy does really well. War is futile and endless war is hell, and this book is about those things, and it’s a delight.
May 17, 2025
Fair warning this one isn't for the feint hearted but I'll wager that Sisters of Mercy will be one of the most powerful books I'll read this year.
Whether you have read the other books in the Dark Legacy Series or not I'm certain you'll enjoy this tale, which although dark is lifted up by the humanity of Rachel-3 & Hannah-9. Human children (symbiotes) installed into God Engines (think ED209 but on steroids) and sent out as part of a holy war against hell itself.
In a world ravaged by war and demons we follow these "sisters" as they do battle against Eldritch demons, armed with a high calibre arsenal and their faith.
The Dark Legacy trilogy were some of my most favourite books in recent years and Yuval has expertly delivered another fantastic story from that world.
Thanks to Yuval for the e-ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review
Whether you have read the other books in the Dark Legacy Series or not I'm certain you'll enjoy this tale, which although dark is lifted up by the humanity of Rachel-3 & Hannah-9. Human children (symbiotes) installed into God Engines (think ED209 but on steroids) and sent out as part of a holy war against hell itself.
In a world ravaged by war and demons we follow these "sisters" as they do battle against Eldritch demons, armed with a high calibre arsenal and their faith.
The Dark Legacy trilogy were some of my most favourite books in recent years and Yuval has expertly delivered another fantastic story from that world.
Thanks to Yuval for the e-ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review
May 13, 2025
Follow Hannah-9, a symbiote God Engine, and her sister Rachel-3 as they attempt to wage holy war against the Adversary. This is an emotional and atmospheric story that is deeply rooted in faith and family. Kordov writes characters and tense situations in such a masterful a way. You will be on the edge of your seat while also wiping your eyes.
If you are in the mood for a little Eldritch Horror meets The Road, you should definitely read Sisters of Mercy!
If you are in the mood for a little Eldritch Horror meets The Road, you should definitely read Sisters of Mercy!
May 26, 2025
I am blistered by the grip of thy flaming sword, and I praise the Lord, that I may warm myself upon the ashes of my enemies.
Even in the small page count of a novella, Sisters of Mercy packs an enormous punch. You follow two God-engine mechs as they systematically move through a city, sector by sector, to clear it. They of course find enemies to fight and the story takes off from there, but I loved the layered themes that were woven in with the intense battle sequences. Yuval Kordov's excellent prose makes the battles cinematic, while also easy to grasp-that's not an easy feat.
The ending is quite touching and this is another novella that left me thinking days after finishing. I can't recommend this enough. Yuval Kordov is firing on all cylinders here and I'll be reading his main series very soon.
8.04/10
4.5/5 ⭐️
Even in the small page count of a novella, Sisters of Mercy packs an enormous punch. You follow two God-engine mechs as they systematically move through a city, sector by sector, to clear it. They of course find enemies to fight and the story takes off from there, but I loved the layered themes that were woven in with the intense battle sequences. Yuval Kordov's excellent prose makes the battles cinematic, while also easy to grasp-that's not an easy feat.
The ending is quite touching and this is another novella that left me thinking days after finishing. I can't recommend this enough. Yuval Kordov is firing on all cylinders here and I'll be reading his main series very soon.
8.04/10
4.5/5 ⭐️
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March 10, 2026I hate to say this, but I really struggled with Sisters of Mercy by Yuval Kordov. I’ve read one of the main books set in this world before and do think it’s a neat addition that you’d probably enjoy if you like the series (or vice versa).
It has really cool world building. I generally love the tech, the religious themes, the relationships. But those same things also hindered my enjoyment of this particular novella. They were done too heavily for me to be able to focus on the actual story. It felt too culty and the tech-focused language was distracting to the point that I struggled to get attached to the characters or feel the emotions.
The author has a very strong voice and I can see it working for other readers. It just isn’t quite for me.
It has really cool world building. I generally love the tech, the religious themes, the relationships. But those same things also hindered my enjoyment of this particular novella. They were done too heavily for me to be able to focus on the actual story. It felt too culty and the tech-focused language was distracting to the point that I struggled to get attached to the characters or feel the emotions.
The author has a very strong voice and I can see it working for other readers. It just isn’t quite for me.
January 27, 2026
I read this novella for the indie novella competition, SFINCS. The following review is my own personal opinion as a judge and does not reflect the views of the team as a whole.
Sisters of Mercy by Yuval Kordov is a grim, post-apocalyptic sci-fi novella about two children implanted into giant war-machines, God-engines, to fight their Adversary in the wastes of what’s left of humanity and civilization, protecting the last bastion of life that exists, the Cathedral. The story is told from the point of view of one of them, Hannah-9, and follows a mission of the two characters to its end. The novella is also connected to the author’s larger series, the Dark Legacies trilogy.
The story starts with Hannah-9’s awakening, or birth, a visceral, confusing, and ominous scene that placed me inside the dark and desperate mood of the novella instantly. We get an incredible description of the world Hannah arrives in, a desolate plain riddled with decrepit ruins of ancient cities, and Hannah, and her Sister, Rachel-3 start their patrol: every God-engine performs their holy duty in pairs, where they roam their assigned Sectors, hunting corruption and sometimes humans who often attract said corruption. Apart from the harsh weather, the endless wastes, and the giant, abandoned ruin-cities, we also get a running commentary of Hannah’s inner experience with being connected to her monstrous mechanical body. She was a human, not so long ago, bred and raised for this exact purpose, but it doesn’t mean that her path is easy or seamless. She is often disconnected, confused, and afraid. Rachel-3, her older Sister, is a taciturn, experienced, and seemingly much more drained and tired presence beside Hannah’s sometimes doubtful and fearful one, but both of them are clear on their purpose and absolutely, religiously (literally) devoted to the goal. They fight and hunt their Adversary, following a group of humans who have crossed the desert recently, getting to know each other slowly, and Hannah learning more and more from Rachel about this life she has to live now. They become especially close, and their similarities and differences more apparent, when they spend some time in a facility fixing up their mechanical bodies, connecting their half-digital minds together for a short time.
Needless to say, the novella, although short, packed. There’s a lot of action when the Sisters are battling different abominations along their way, but just as much interiority with them thinking about or discussing their place in the world or humanity and the remaining civilisation. They are godly killing machines, but there’s such emotion in their devotion, such heavy burden on their shoulders they themselves might not even understand entirely, having been made for this exact purpose and knowing nothing else. Children turned into nuns turned into war machines, they care for and love each other, because not much else does. I was really taken by the strength and purpose they both show, but also by their vulnerabilities which appear intermittently in surprising and very emotional ways. I was completely engrossed in their journey, their suffering, their losses, and their victories. I’m going to avoid giving spoilers here, but I had become really attached to both of them, even knowing things cannot end well in such a world as the depicted, and the ending touched me deeply.
It’s also obvious there is much more to this world than what we see in the novella. We only get to know the basics, with a couple of flashes of what I thought might be wider plot- and world-relevant intricacies, and some things do remain slightly confusing while just understandable enough to serve the story. The Cathedral, the mothers, the exact process of the symbiosis, what this Adversary truly is, and what exactly happened to the world—these things all remain half-unknown, but I felt like that was fine, and the author had a good sense of what to explain and what would be superfluous to tell the story of these two characters. One of the strengths of the writing was definitely word choice and atmosphere: even though there were some cases I felt like I couldn’t follow what was happening or it was hard to visualise the setting, these were few and far between, and most of the time I thought everything perfectly served the telling of this cruel but ultimately, in a unique way, hopeful story.
Sisters of Mercy was an excellent dark sci-fi read, and felt like a perfect taster of the author’s wider world in the novels. It was honestly everything that I expected and more when I read the blurb and looked at the cover beforehand—a devastating, emotional, violent, complex experience.
Sisters of Mercy by Yuval Kordov is a grim, post-apocalyptic sci-fi novella about two children implanted into giant war-machines, God-engines, to fight their Adversary in the wastes of what’s left of humanity and civilization, protecting the last bastion of life that exists, the Cathedral. The story is told from the point of view of one of them, Hannah-9, and follows a mission of the two characters to its end. The novella is also connected to the author’s larger series, the Dark Legacies trilogy.
The story starts with Hannah-9’s awakening, or birth, a visceral, confusing, and ominous scene that placed me inside the dark and desperate mood of the novella instantly. We get an incredible description of the world Hannah arrives in, a desolate plain riddled with decrepit ruins of ancient cities, and Hannah, and her Sister, Rachel-3 start their patrol: every God-engine performs their holy duty in pairs, where they roam their assigned Sectors, hunting corruption and sometimes humans who often attract said corruption. Apart from the harsh weather, the endless wastes, and the giant, abandoned ruin-cities, we also get a running commentary of Hannah’s inner experience with being connected to her monstrous mechanical body. She was a human, not so long ago, bred and raised for this exact purpose, but it doesn’t mean that her path is easy or seamless. She is often disconnected, confused, and afraid. Rachel-3, her older Sister, is a taciturn, experienced, and seemingly much more drained and tired presence beside Hannah’s sometimes doubtful and fearful one, but both of them are clear on their purpose and absolutely, religiously (literally) devoted to the goal. They fight and hunt their Adversary, following a group of humans who have crossed the desert recently, getting to know each other slowly, and Hannah learning more and more from Rachel about this life she has to live now. They become especially close, and their similarities and differences more apparent, when they spend some time in a facility fixing up their mechanical bodies, connecting their half-digital minds together for a short time.
Needless to say, the novella, although short, packed. There’s a lot of action when the Sisters are battling different abominations along their way, but just as much interiority with them thinking about or discussing their place in the world or humanity and the remaining civilisation. They are godly killing machines, but there’s such emotion in their devotion, such heavy burden on their shoulders they themselves might not even understand entirely, having been made for this exact purpose and knowing nothing else. Children turned into nuns turned into war machines, they care for and love each other, because not much else does. I was really taken by the strength and purpose they both show, but also by their vulnerabilities which appear intermittently in surprising and very emotional ways. I was completely engrossed in their journey, their suffering, their losses, and their victories. I’m going to avoid giving spoilers here, but I had become really attached to both of them, even knowing things cannot end well in such a world as the depicted, and the ending touched me deeply.
It’s also obvious there is much more to this world than what we see in the novella. We only get to know the basics, with a couple of flashes of what I thought might be wider plot- and world-relevant intricacies, and some things do remain slightly confusing while just understandable enough to serve the story. The Cathedral, the mothers, the exact process of the symbiosis, what this Adversary truly is, and what exactly happened to the world—these things all remain half-unknown, but I felt like that was fine, and the author had a good sense of what to explain and what would be superfluous to tell the story of these two characters. One of the strengths of the writing was definitely word choice and atmosphere: even though there were some cases I felt like I couldn’t follow what was happening or it was hard to visualise the setting, these were few and far between, and most of the time I thought everything perfectly served the telling of this cruel but ultimately, in a unique way, hopeful story.
Sisters of Mercy was an excellent dark sci-fi read, and felt like a perfect taster of the author’s wider world in the novels. It was honestly everything that I expected and more when I read the blurb and looked at the cover beforehand—a devastating, emotional, violent, complex experience.
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January 21, 2026Read for SFINCS3
Note: The following review contains only my personal thoughts as a judge and does not reflect the views of the team as a whole.
Yuval Kordov's Dark Legacies series has been on my radar for a long time, so I was happy when Sisters of Mercy ended up in Team WIPs’ Round 2 allotment. I'm also happy to say that I wasn't disappointed.
Sisters of Mercy is a standalone prequel novella set in a post-apocalyptic North American prairie world where the landscape is terrorized by giant Cuthulu-esque horrors literally from Hell. Giant mechs called God-engines police these wastes, powered by a dedicated sisterhood raised to be symbionts for the machines, then sent to fight the beasts and to purify the land.
I was surprised at how powerfully emotional this relatively short novella was, especially given how much action is packed into it. It follows two characters--the new God-engine Hannah 9 and the much older engine, Rachel-3, to whom Hannah-9 has been bonded. Hannah-9 has only recently been a small, sickly human girl, but Rachel-3 has been performing her violent duties of justice, purification, and protection for many hundreds of years. Hannah-9, finally in possession of the power she's been raised to wield, tends to think in terms of wreaking vengeance. Rachel-3 seems worn out by all the vengeance she's wreaked, and is now in search of mercy, mortality, and hope.
The land itself also figures prominently in the narrative, as it has been crippled and mined by human willfulness and hatred in the World War that destroyed it. Kordov's love of the North American prairie comes out in his writing. His descriptions of the setting give the story a kind of brutal bleakness not unlike what the landscape has become in the novella. It’s hard to put this into words, but if you’ve ever visited the North American prairie lands—particularly to the north as they butt up against the eastern-facing Rockies—I think you’ll recognize that feeling in the story. In the Western landscape, big things can seem vanishingly small under the enormous expanse of sky, and I think Kordov does an excellent job of conveying that feeling, with two giant mechs wandering, mostly alone, through an empty, broken landscape.
Considering its subject matter, I think the story could have fallen into two traps: it could have been unremittingly bleak or it might have just turned into an action flick featuring giant mech battles. Sisters of Mercy manages to avoid both snares, though. Yes, it's a story about giant mechs battling enormous squid monsters in shattered badlands. But in the way the sisters care for each other, in their struggle to hold onto the best parts of their humanity as well as their belief that their actions will matter eventually--this is a deeply interior and emotional story. And I will admit that a certain paragraph at the end had me struggling not to burst into tears in a crowded room as it highlighted just how seemingly impossible their struggle was. And yet, I also felt like this was a deeply hopeful story. I think it will remain with me for a long time.
All right, so now I'm supposed to be a judge. I did have a couple of quibbles, which in the long run I feel don't really matter that much. There were moments, during action scenes, or when the characters themselves were disoriented where I felt a little over-disoriented. Sometimes I had to back up and re-read. In addition, I do wish Kordov had included some of the worldbuilding he mentions in the Acknowledgments section in the narrative itself, as it helped me understand a bit more about what was going on, including the history of the world. However, I don’t think these quibbles detract overmuch from the story. I was also curious but content to have some worldbuilding remain vague—for instance, the presence of "the humans", who are alternately portrayed as pests or wards the God-engines are designed to protect.
On the other hand, maybe the God-engines aren’t designed to protect anybody. I think that one of the larger themes running through the novella is: how does humanity deal with the consequences of this world-destroying war—a sin not just against other humans, or even against God, but against creation itself?
Sisters of Mercy is a really masterful book in my opinion. If you're a fan of mech battles, post-apocalyptic science fiction, and you'd like all this wrapped up in a deeply emotional, character-driven narrative, I highly recommend Sisters of Mercy.
Note: The following review contains only my personal thoughts as a judge and does not reflect the views of the team as a whole.
Yuval Kordov's Dark Legacies series has been on my radar for a long time, so I was happy when Sisters of Mercy ended up in Team WIPs’ Round 2 allotment. I'm also happy to say that I wasn't disappointed.
Sisters of Mercy is a standalone prequel novella set in a post-apocalyptic North American prairie world where the landscape is terrorized by giant Cuthulu-esque horrors literally from Hell. Giant mechs called God-engines police these wastes, powered by a dedicated sisterhood raised to be symbionts for the machines, then sent to fight the beasts and to purify the land.
I was surprised at how powerfully emotional this relatively short novella was, especially given how much action is packed into it. It follows two characters--the new God-engine Hannah 9 and the much older engine, Rachel-3, to whom Hannah-9 has been bonded. Hannah-9 has only recently been a small, sickly human girl, but Rachel-3 has been performing her violent duties of justice, purification, and protection for many hundreds of years. Hannah-9, finally in possession of the power she's been raised to wield, tends to think in terms of wreaking vengeance. Rachel-3 seems worn out by all the vengeance she's wreaked, and is now in search of mercy, mortality, and hope.
The land itself also figures prominently in the narrative, as it has been crippled and mined by human willfulness and hatred in the World War that destroyed it. Kordov's love of the North American prairie comes out in his writing. His descriptions of the setting give the story a kind of brutal bleakness not unlike what the landscape has become in the novella. It’s hard to put this into words, but if you’ve ever visited the North American prairie lands—particularly to the north as they butt up against the eastern-facing Rockies—I think you’ll recognize that feeling in the story. In the Western landscape, big things can seem vanishingly small under the enormous expanse of sky, and I think Kordov does an excellent job of conveying that feeling, with two giant mechs wandering, mostly alone, through an empty, broken landscape.
Considering its subject matter, I think the story could have fallen into two traps: it could have been unremittingly bleak or it might have just turned into an action flick featuring giant mech battles. Sisters of Mercy manages to avoid both snares, though. Yes, it's a story about giant mechs battling enormous squid monsters in shattered badlands. But in the way the sisters care for each other, in their struggle to hold onto the best parts of their humanity as well as their belief that their actions will matter eventually--this is a deeply interior and emotional story. And I will admit that a certain paragraph at the end had me struggling not to burst into tears in a crowded room as it highlighted just how seemingly impossible their struggle was. And yet, I also felt like this was a deeply hopeful story. I think it will remain with me for a long time.
All right, so now I'm supposed to be a judge. I did have a couple of quibbles, which in the long run I feel don't really matter that much. There were moments, during action scenes, or when the characters themselves were disoriented where I felt a little over-disoriented. Sometimes I had to back up and re-read. In addition, I do wish Kordov had included some of the worldbuilding he mentions in the Acknowledgments section in the narrative itself, as it helped me understand a bit more about what was going on, including the history of the world. However, I don’t think these quibbles detract overmuch from the story. I was also curious but content to have some worldbuilding remain vague—for instance, the presence of "the humans", who are alternately portrayed as pests or wards the God-engines are designed to protect.
On the other hand, maybe the God-engines aren’t designed to protect anybody. I think that one of the larger themes running through the novella is: how does humanity deal with the consequences of this world-destroying war—a sin not just against other humans, or even against God, but against creation itself?
Sisters of Mercy is a really masterful book in my opinion. If you're a fan of mech battles, post-apocalyptic science fiction, and you'd like all this wrapped up in a deeply emotional, character-driven narrative, I highly recommend Sisters of Mercy.
May 15, 2025
Sisters of Mercy is a great standalone introduction to Kordov's Dark Legacies universe if you haven't already read the trilogy, or new depth to the God-engines for those who have.
Sisters of Mercy focuses on two God-engines - mech walkers whose AI has been replaced with mutant clones. The horror of telekinetic children born into deformed bodies becoming machines of walking death is one of the driving themes of the novella. And it gets worse for the girls: the machine that finally gives them the freedom they have craved their entire short lives will irradiate what's left of their bodies until it ultimately kills them.
Hannah-9 is newly entombed in the sepulchre that allows her to pilot the walking tank that is now her body. Rachel-3, her "sister" and mentor, is dying.
Short as it is, the novella manages to hit on a surprising number of themes. Found family, abuse survivor, faith, disability, child soldiers, an uncaring health care system - these themes and more come up as the duo travels the wasteland slaughtering demons.
Yet despite its grim themes, Sisters of Mercy is ultimately a story about yearning, about compassion, and about finding growth in the unlikeliest places through faith in each other and in something greater.
It's an incensepunk story with more depth and emotion than you'd think can fit in been the covers. Must read for fans of mechs, body horror, metaphysical sci-fi, and demon slaying!
Sisters of Mercy focuses on two God-engines - mech walkers whose AI has been replaced with mutant clones. The horror of telekinetic children born into deformed bodies becoming machines of walking death is one of the driving themes of the novella. And it gets worse for the girls: the machine that finally gives them the freedom they have craved their entire short lives will irradiate what's left of their bodies until it ultimately kills them.
Hannah-9 is newly entombed in the sepulchre that allows her to pilot the walking tank that is now her body. Rachel-3, her "sister" and mentor, is dying.
Short as it is, the novella manages to hit on a surprising number of themes. Found family, abuse survivor, faith, disability, child soldiers, an uncaring health care system - these themes and more come up as the duo travels the wasteland slaughtering demons.
Yet despite its grim themes, Sisters of Mercy is ultimately a story about yearning, about compassion, and about finding growth in the unlikeliest places through faith in each other and in something greater.
It's an incensepunk story with more depth and emotion than you'd think can fit in been the covers. Must read for fans of mechs, body horror, metaphysical sci-fi, and demon slaying!
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January 27, 2026rtc
May 22, 2025
Not entirely sure why this didn't work as well for me as I was expecting or hoping.
Perhaps having the two God-engines, with their internal dialogue, took me out of the story a lot more as I was not always sure who was talking to who.
The Dark Legacies trilogy is phenomenal, but I didn't find myself as emotionally invested in this story.
Maybe it was a bit too short for me to get invested in the new characters.
Despite my ambivalence, the writing is as good as always, and experiencing more from this world is always a good thing.
If you've not read The Dark Legacies trilogy, then you are missing a treat.
Perhaps having the two God-engines, with their internal dialogue, took me out of the story a lot more as I was not always sure who was talking to who.
The Dark Legacies trilogy is phenomenal, but I didn't find myself as emotionally invested in this story.
Maybe it was a bit too short for me to get invested in the new characters.
Despite my ambivalence, the writing is as good as always, and experiencing more from this world is always a good thing.
If you've not read The Dark Legacies trilogy, then you are missing a treat.
Read
February 19, 2026I read and reviewed Sisters of Mercy by Yuval Kordov as part of the SFINCS3 novella contest. My review is honest, and my opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my team (Team TBR).
Sisters of Mercy by Yuval Kordov is a companion novella to his Dark Legacies trilogy. It’s a bleak, post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi tale full of brilliant, immersive writing and heart-wrenching emotion.
The character-driven story is told entirely from the point of view of Hannah-9, a God-engine; a killing machine with part of a young human girl, including her consciousness, inside a sepulcher, fused to her outer robotic mech carapace. Hannah-9 is a righteous soldier, brainwashed and trained since birth, working with an older partner, Rachel-3, to rid their patrol sectors of the terrifying demons who have risen from the void following World War III. The two of them use call and response of learned-by-rote scripture to buoy each other up during the battles. By destroying the demons, they will hopefully clear a path for the future of humanity.
These battles with demons are gripping, and the emotional pull of the narrative is heightened through expert pacing during both these and the more introspective segments. Hannah-9 has to come to terms with her new horrific reality as a God-engine, trapped inside for the rest of her life, her hands amputated and eyes removed, replaced by technological enhancements. Her ‘sister’ Rachel-3 is approaching the end of her life, her symbiotic connections are beginning to fail, and she will soon have her human parts replaced by a sepulcher containing a new expendable human (rather like changing the batteries). She is able to recall some of her humanity; sharing her love of painting sunrises when she was still fully human with Hannah-9, which helps them to bond.
The author has filled this depressing, imaginative view of the future with powerful imagery and cinematic world-building, and he injects a much-needed beautiful vision of hope near the end with the idea that Mother Nature will always prevail, no matter how much damage we humans are determined to do to our home. An emotional cautionary tale.
Sisters of Mercy by Yuval Kordov is a companion novella to his Dark Legacies trilogy. It’s a bleak, post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi tale full of brilliant, immersive writing and heart-wrenching emotion.
The character-driven story is told entirely from the point of view of Hannah-9, a God-engine; a killing machine with part of a young human girl, including her consciousness, inside a sepulcher, fused to her outer robotic mech carapace. Hannah-9 is a righteous soldier, brainwashed and trained since birth, working with an older partner, Rachel-3, to rid their patrol sectors of the terrifying demons who have risen from the void following World War III. The two of them use call and response of learned-by-rote scripture to buoy each other up during the battles. By destroying the demons, they will hopefully clear a path for the future of humanity.
These battles with demons are gripping, and the emotional pull of the narrative is heightened through expert pacing during both these and the more introspective segments. Hannah-9 has to come to terms with her new horrific reality as a God-engine, trapped inside for the rest of her life, her hands amputated and eyes removed, replaced by technological enhancements. Her ‘sister’ Rachel-3 is approaching the end of her life, her symbiotic connections are beginning to fail, and she will soon have her human parts replaced by a sepulcher containing a new expendable human (rather like changing the batteries). She is able to recall some of her humanity; sharing her love of painting sunrises when she was still fully human with Hannah-9, which helps them to bond.
The author has filled this depressing, imaginative view of the future with powerful imagery and cinematic world-building, and he injects a much-needed beautiful vision of hope near the end with the idea that Mother Nature will always prevail, no matter how much damage we humans are determined to do to our home. An emotional cautionary tale.
June 27, 2025
Another great novella from Yuval Kordov
I read Orders of Magnitude earlier this year, but have not read any of his novels. This novella is set in his Dark Legacies world, so I am very interested in reading those stories now that I have read this one. Kordov is an excellent writer who has built an interesting post-apocalyptic world. I am also fascinated at the way he uses Christianity in his stories to build and define the humanity of his characters. I enjoy religion in stories and Kordov is very unique in that aspect.
I read Orders of Magnitude earlier this year, but have not read any of his novels. This novella is set in his Dark Legacies world, so I am very interested in reading those stories now that I have read this one. Kordov is an excellent writer who has built an interesting post-apocalyptic world. I am also fascinated at the way he uses Christianity in his stories to build and define the humanity of his characters. I enjoy religion in stories and Kordov is very unique in that aspect.
May 24, 2025
This review was originally posted on SFFINSIDERS.COM
As I was reading Yuval Kordov’s Sisters of Mercy (a self-contained novella set in Kordov’s Dark Legacies series), I kept finding myself thinking about An Inhabitant of Carcosa, the 1886 short story by Ambrose Bierce. In the story, a nameless protagonist finds himself wandering through a desolate waste, arriving shortly thereafter at an ancient graveyard. He discovers, as the tale continues, that the graveyard is the remnant of the town he once lived in, Carcosa; and he finds there in the ruin his own tombstone. The world has ended, and he too with it. Bierce writes of this horrid place:
“In all this there was a menace and a portent—a hint of evil, an intimation of doom. Bird, beast, or insect there was none. The wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead trees and the grey grass bent to whisper its dread secret to the earth; but no other sound nor motion broke the awful repose of that dismal place.”
So too in the world of Yuval Kordov’s Dark Legacies series is there a “menace and a portent,” but unlike Bierce’s apocalypse, Kordov’s is not silent. This world is dead in some ways, yes, but all too alive in others. The wind carries with it the howls of the damned. Grotesque abominations prowl the blasted land, “innumerable mouths [screaming],” a living corruption poisoning the Earth. And often, punctuating what little silence does linger between these screams, there is the cacophonous din of gunfire.
Wielding these guns are the warriors of Cathedral, sent two by two into these wastes to purify the land in the name of God. It is in the execution of this task that we meet the protagonist of Sisters of Mercy: Hannah-9, a human pilot implanted into an ancient mech—a God-Engine.
The story follows Hannah-9 and her companion Rachel-3 (another God-Engine, older than Hannah) as they methodically patrol, grid by grid, the remains of the Earth. But despite being the operators of such powerful machines, these patrols cannot last forever. Between the danger of the wastes and its demonic foes and the radiation leaking from their own reactors, the pilots of the God-Engines are—from the moment they’re implanted in their sepulchurs—on borrowed time. Their responsibility then is to do what they can, as Gandalf says in J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Fellowship of the Ring, “with the time that is given us.”
What follows is a beautiful, violent, melancholy, hopeful journey towards a final sunrise: “a quilt of violet and gold,” Kordov says (and as is the case in all of Kordov’s work I’ve read, he does things with words that I previously thought impossible. Beyond the stories themselves, these books are worth reading just to glimpse the way in which Kordov writes. It’s remarkable).
I have two favorite moments in this book, one of which involves the sunrise mentioned above, and another that involves paintings of previously witnessed sunrises. I won’t say more. It’s a short story, so you should read it for yourself; but I am a sucker for loving depictions of the natural world. I know Yuval knows this, and so I’d like to selfishly believe that there are a few paragraphs near the end that were written just for me. But even if they weren’t I would not love them any less.
I mentioned in my review of Kordov’s The World to Come that I felt the story arcs relating to that book’s God-Engine characters would make for interesting companion reading with Anne McCaffery’s The Ship Who Sang, and I feel that even more strongly here (“We’ve all known this grief,” one ship-character says to the protagonist-ship Helva, “...if we couldn’t feel it… we’d only be machines wired for sound”). Both Helva and Hannah sing, and for similar reasons. It is beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measure. In these days of machines seemingly automating as much human input out of our lives as possible, Kordov’s human-piloted machines are fascinating inversions.
Sisters of Mercy shows the importance of finding joy in the small things. I hate to use “these days” again, but these days, amidst the overwhelming tsunami of horrific news trickling in from what seems like every corner of the Earth, it is easy for us to throw up our hands and retreat into darkness, to protect ourselves in solitude and isolation. But doing so would cut us off not just from the horrors all around us but also from the beauty that remains. As the Psalmist says: “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Sisters of Mercy stresses the importance of the small moments of human connection that will bolster us against the struggles of everyday life, and of the small moments of beauty and wonder that can be found all around us. How many of us have truly appreciated the sunrise for what it is? Have you ever sat in your backyard and just watched the bees and butterflies wander from flower to flower? Has the song of a distant bird ever brought a smile to your face?
I have not asked Yuval about this, but I wonder if the names of Hannah and Rachel are deliberate (I think they must be). Both are the names of, in the Biblical narrative, long-barren women; but Rachel eventually becomes the mother of Joseph, and Hannah, likewise, eventually becomes the mother of the prophet Samuel. This, by itself, could warrant some deeper thematic exploration, but it’s in Hannah’s prayer of thanks over Samuel’s conception that I think there is (or at least I, personally, most clearly saw) some evidence of connection to Sisters of Mercy. In her prayer Hannah concludes by saying:
“[God] will guard the feet of His faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by might shall a man prevail. The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; against them He will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; He will give strength to His king and exalt the horn of His anointed.” (1 Samuel 2:9-10)
Sisters of Mercy ends with a different prayer, and the start of a new quest against “the Adversary,” evoking the words of the Biblical Hannah. Near the end of The Ship Who Sang, Helva muses (echoing the Psalmist):
“Tonight… each day dies to let night with its darkness for sorrowing and sleep complete its course and bring… a new day.”
So does Sisters of Mercy end with a beginning—the beginning of a new day.
As I was reading Yuval Kordov’s Sisters of Mercy (a self-contained novella set in Kordov’s Dark Legacies series), I kept finding myself thinking about An Inhabitant of Carcosa, the 1886 short story by Ambrose Bierce. In the story, a nameless protagonist finds himself wandering through a desolate waste, arriving shortly thereafter at an ancient graveyard. He discovers, as the tale continues, that the graveyard is the remnant of the town he once lived in, Carcosa; and he finds there in the ruin his own tombstone. The world has ended, and he too with it. Bierce writes of this horrid place:
“In all this there was a menace and a portent—a hint of evil, an intimation of doom. Bird, beast, or insect there was none. The wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead trees and the grey grass bent to whisper its dread secret to the earth; but no other sound nor motion broke the awful repose of that dismal place.”
So too in the world of Yuval Kordov’s Dark Legacies series is there a “menace and a portent,” but unlike Bierce’s apocalypse, Kordov’s is not silent. This world is dead in some ways, yes, but all too alive in others. The wind carries with it the howls of the damned. Grotesque abominations prowl the blasted land, “innumerable mouths [screaming],” a living corruption poisoning the Earth. And often, punctuating what little silence does linger between these screams, there is the cacophonous din of gunfire.
Wielding these guns are the warriors of Cathedral, sent two by two into these wastes to purify the land in the name of God. It is in the execution of this task that we meet the protagonist of Sisters of Mercy: Hannah-9, a human pilot implanted into an ancient mech—a God-Engine.
The story follows Hannah-9 and her companion Rachel-3 (another God-Engine, older than Hannah) as they methodically patrol, grid by grid, the remains of the Earth. But despite being the operators of such powerful machines, these patrols cannot last forever. Between the danger of the wastes and its demonic foes and the radiation leaking from their own reactors, the pilots of the God-Engines are—from the moment they’re implanted in their sepulchurs—on borrowed time. Their responsibility then is to do what they can, as Gandalf says in J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Fellowship of the Ring, “with the time that is given us.”
What follows is a beautiful, violent, melancholy, hopeful journey towards a final sunrise: “a quilt of violet and gold,” Kordov says (and as is the case in all of Kordov’s work I’ve read, he does things with words that I previously thought impossible. Beyond the stories themselves, these books are worth reading just to glimpse the way in which Kordov writes. It’s remarkable).
I have two favorite moments in this book, one of which involves the sunrise mentioned above, and another that involves paintings of previously witnessed sunrises. I won’t say more. It’s a short story, so you should read it for yourself; but I am a sucker for loving depictions of the natural world. I know Yuval knows this, and so I’d like to selfishly believe that there are a few paragraphs near the end that were written just for me. But even if they weren’t I would not love them any less.
I mentioned in my review of Kordov’s The World to Come that I felt the story arcs relating to that book’s God-Engine characters would make for interesting companion reading with Anne McCaffery’s The Ship Who Sang, and I feel that even more strongly here (“We’ve all known this grief,” one ship-character says to the protagonist-ship Helva, “...if we couldn’t feel it… we’d only be machines wired for sound”). Both Helva and Hannah sing, and for similar reasons. It is beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measure. In these days of machines seemingly automating as much human input out of our lives as possible, Kordov’s human-piloted machines are fascinating inversions.
Sisters of Mercy shows the importance of finding joy in the small things. I hate to use “these days” again, but these days, amidst the overwhelming tsunami of horrific news trickling in from what seems like every corner of the Earth, it is easy for us to throw up our hands and retreat into darkness, to protect ourselves in solitude and isolation. But doing so would cut us off not just from the horrors all around us but also from the beauty that remains. As the Psalmist says: “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Sisters of Mercy stresses the importance of the small moments of human connection that will bolster us against the struggles of everyday life, and of the small moments of beauty and wonder that can be found all around us. How many of us have truly appreciated the sunrise for what it is? Have you ever sat in your backyard and just watched the bees and butterflies wander from flower to flower? Has the song of a distant bird ever brought a smile to your face?
I have not asked Yuval about this, but I wonder if the names of Hannah and Rachel are deliberate (I think they must be). Both are the names of, in the Biblical narrative, long-barren women; but Rachel eventually becomes the mother of Joseph, and Hannah, likewise, eventually becomes the mother of the prophet Samuel. This, by itself, could warrant some deeper thematic exploration, but it’s in Hannah’s prayer of thanks over Samuel’s conception that I think there is (or at least I, personally, most clearly saw) some evidence of connection to Sisters of Mercy. In her prayer Hannah concludes by saying:
“[God] will guard the feet of His faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by might shall a man prevail. The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; against them He will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; He will give strength to His king and exalt the horn of His anointed.” (1 Samuel 2:9-10)
Sisters of Mercy ends with a different prayer, and the start of a new quest against “the Adversary,” evoking the words of the Biblical Hannah. Near the end of The Ship Who Sang, Helva muses (echoing the Psalmist):
“Tonight… each day dies to let night with its darkness for sorrowing and sleep complete its course and bring… a new day.”
So does Sisters of Mercy end with a beginning—the beginning of a new day.
March 11, 2026
Interesting, Short, And Dark. This is one of those novellas that you can read in a couple of hours - I did. And yet there is also *so much* within this particular one. For those who try to claim that sub-100 page tales can't really do much... this one proves you wrong. ;)
Now, I picked it up because of some controversy on Twitter wherein a couple of judges for some random "contest" got all up in arms and claimed they couldn't handle the "zealous" religious talk or praying or even mechs in this tale. And I'm going to get to that in a moment.
But for exactly what this book is in and of itself, outside of what anyone else says about it, it really is damn solid. It thrusts you straight into its post apocalyptic world the way few books do - Jeremy Robinson's UNITY (which, full disclosure, I literally have a tattoo of a version of the symbol that plays a major role in that particular tale) is one of few I can think of off the top of my head that do *this* good a job of putting you *right there*, *right now*. And again, given the sub-100 page nature of this book... it doesn't have much choice there. ;) And yet even after that introduction, Kordov manages to layer *so very much* into this tale, and in the end... well, there may yet be a dusty room or two. ;)
Now, getting back to what brought me here (and I'll put a brief yet relevant bio as a post script to this review for those unfamiliar with me)... yes, this book has a *lot* of directly religious language. Hell, there's more prayer in this novella than a lot of *Christian Fiction novels* I've read over the years! In that regard, it is quite similar to how prayer and religious language are used in other post-apocalyptic scifi IPs such as Handmaid's Tale, Doom, or Fallout New Vegas's Honest Hearts DLC. Which, obviously, are some quite highly praised properties!
Thus, yes, if you have a problem with religious language generally... this tale really isn't going to be one for you. Just leave it be. There is no need for you to read it and severely mischaracterize pretty well everything about it because *you* have a problem with religious language.
As to how the religious aspects are used within the text here, again, it is more generic scifi than anything remotely real world. The closest it gets to "real world" is that after a sufficient amount of time has passed after a World War III event and human knowledge has sufficiently regressed, yes, such a society likely would return to exactly this kind of religious language to explain things that they've now long lost the ability to speak to more scientifically. This isn't some crusade to "cleanse" anything remotely like our world. This isn't a Brave New World allegory of the previous' centuries Western European global expansion. It is a story of mechs and demons and symbiotes in a far future world and the potential for even man made creations whose explicit purpose is to kill may find that there may be things they haven't been told about.
And again, Kordov does a truly excellent job of telling his story his way. If that way isn't something you can stomach, well, there are other stories for you. Be well and have a nice day!
Ultimately an interesting story that serves as a seemingly solid and even tantalizing taste of Kordov's style and this particular world (apparently this novella is set in the world of a trilogy Kordov wrote) that could well entice readers to experience the larger trilogy.
Very much recommended.
Post Script Brief Bio: I was raised in the Southern Baptist Convention, though I left it over 20 yrs ago now and now the closest religious tradition to my own specific views are some incarnations of the Anabaptists. My earliest exposures to scifi reading were actually largely Christian scifi, such as Josh McDowell's Powerlink Chronicles and the works of Frank Peretti and Bill Myers. I became such a fan of Robinson that I eventually got a tatoo inspired by his work specifically due to his ability (displayed more earlier in his writing career than more recently) to bury deep and thought provoking allegories underneath what are ostensibily kickass scifi action tales. Indeed, Unity itself is just such an allegory, in this case of the Triune God. I also happened to grow up in the town where Lottie Moon, one of the SBC's earliest missionaries and the person whom its annual Christmas fundraiser ("missions offering") is named after, once lived a little over a century before my birth. My dad was a deacon for many years, and my last Pastor when I was still in the SBC eventually became a President of the Georgia Baptist Convention. My Christian education - even just via going to church at this particular church for so long, without ever having actually been to a religious-based school - was such that when Robinson first announced one cover of one book several years ago now, I immediately messaged him and told him what the allegory of that particular book was, given its title and that cover. He quickly changed the cover to make it less obvious. ;) All that to say... yeah, religious language in a book doesn't scare me. At all. ;)
Now, I picked it up because of some controversy on Twitter wherein a couple of judges for some random "contest" got all up in arms and claimed they couldn't handle the "zealous" religious talk or praying or even mechs in this tale. And I'm going to get to that in a moment.
But for exactly what this book is in and of itself, outside of what anyone else says about it, it really is damn solid. It thrusts you straight into its post apocalyptic world the way few books do - Jeremy Robinson's UNITY (which, full disclosure, I literally have a tattoo of a version of the symbol that plays a major role in that particular tale) is one of few I can think of off the top of my head that do *this* good a job of putting you *right there*, *right now*. And again, given the sub-100 page nature of this book... it doesn't have much choice there. ;) And yet even after that introduction, Kordov manages to layer *so very much* into this tale, and in the end... well, there may yet be a dusty room or two. ;)
Now, getting back to what brought me here (and I'll put a brief yet relevant bio as a post script to this review for those unfamiliar with me)... yes, this book has a *lot* of directly religious language. Hell, there's more prayer in this novella than a lot of *Christian Fiction novels* I've read over the years! In that regard, it is quite similar to how prayer and religious language are used in other post-apocalyptic scifi IPs such as Handmaid's Tale, Doom, or Fallout New Vegas's Honest Hearts DLC. Which, obviously, are some quite highly praised properties!
Thus, yes, if you have a problem with religious language generally... this tale really isn't going to be one for you. Just leave it be. There is no need for you to read it and severely mischaracterize pretty well everything about it because *you* have a problem with religious language.
As to how the religious aspects are used within the text here, again, it is more generic scifi than anything remotely real world. The closest it gets to "real world" is that after a sufficient amount of time has passed after a World War III event and human knowledge has sufficiently regressed, yes, such a society likely would return to exactly this kind of religious language to explain things that they've now long lost the ability to speak to more scientifically. This isn't some crusade to "cleanse" anything remotely like our world. This isn't a Brave New World allegory of the previous' centuries Western European global expansion. It is a story of mechs and demons and symbiotes in a far future world and the potential for even man made creations whose explicit purpose is to kill may find that there may be things they haven't been told about.
And again, Kordov does a truly excellent job of telling his story his way. If that way isn't something you can stomach, well, there are other stories for you. Be well and have a nice day!
Ultimately an interesting story that serves as a seemingly solid and even tantalizing taste of Kordov's style and this particular world (apparently this novella is set in the world of a trilogy Kordov wrote) that could well entice readers to experience the larger trilogy.
Very much recommended.
Post Script Brief Bio: I was raised in the Southern Baptist Convention, though I left it over 20 yrs ago now and now the closest religious tradition to my own specific views are some incarnations of the Anabaptists. My earliest exposures to scifi reading were actually largely Christian scifi, such as Josh McDowell's Powerlink Chronicles and the works of Frank Peretti and Bill Myers. I became such a fan of Robinson that I eventually got a tatoo inspired by his work specifically due to his ability (displayed more earlier in his writing career than more recently) to bury deep and thought provoking allegories underneath what are ostensibily kickass scifi action tales. Indeed, Unity itself is just such an allegory, in this case of the Triune God. I also happened to grow up in the town where Lottie Moon, one of the SBC's earliest missionaries and the person whom its annual Christmas fundraiser ("missions offering") is named after, once lived a little over a century before my birth. My dad was a deacon for many years, and my last Pastor when I was still in the SBC eventually became a President of the Georgia Baptist Convention. My Christian education - even just via going to church at this particular church for so long, without ever having actually been to a religious-based school - was such that when Robinson first announced one cover of one book several years ago now, I immediately messaged him and told him what the allegory of that particular book was, given its title and that cover. He quickly changed the cover to make it less obvious. ;) All that to say... yeah, religious language in a book doesn't scare me. At all. ;)
February 24, 2026
“Sisters of Mercy” by Yuval Kordov, a stand-alone Novella from his world and works of his “Dark Legacy” series. This found its way to my library by way of the 2025 SFINCS Novella Competition…and finding itself among the finalists. I thought to myself…how wonderful, I've been wanting to read his series for some time now, and what better introduction to his world than this! 👊
What we are dropped into, is a wonderfully crafted trek across the bleak landscape, filled with grief, torment, destruction and death. I know what you're thinking…why call this wonderful?! Well, that's because Kordov has seemingly mastered the art of taking a world of desolation and agony, putting it to page with raw and unforgiving passion, and painting a poetic description for his readers to immerse themselves in…case in point, a jarringly beautiful description of ruin,
“A crest of shapeless buildings jutted from the desolation, their peaks glinting red in the dying light of the sun. Listing and leaning, they stood as anonymous tombstones before a great black basin, once a city, cauterized beyond recognition.”
World building and scene setting at its finest people! This descriptive passion doesn't stop at the landscape…our two MC’s, Hannah and Rachel, children of the Cathedral, born and bred to give themselves to the Almighty and his religious plight to cleanse this shattered landscape of any that dare to foul it! 💀
The sisters are what this world calls God-engines, once human beings, now sacrificed to the machine…implanting each chosen being into the very machine they occupy with binary precision, into copper and polymer and steel. A God-engines duty…
”to purify the land, to push the adversary back to the Hellmouth so that one day it might be closed forever.”
Yea…strap in, this is a journey you won't soon forget! 🤯
This is a brutal, unrelenting journey of religion, sacrifice, resilience and grit. As well as compassion, growth, acceptance and unfailing love. Yuval has taken the worst of what mankind can resort to, and spun it into a wildly creative, darkly poetic, survival story that has the reader clinging to its pages as if our very existence depends on it! 😰
4⭐ and I am absolutely certain that I will be traversing the shattered landscape of the “Dark Legacy” series in my own (imaginative) God-engine! Say your prayers, check your ammo, and make sure all systems are ready …the world isn't ready for Kordov, but I will meet the challenge head-on! 👊
What we are dropped into, is a wonderfully crafted trek across the bleak landscape, filled with grief, torment, destruction and death. I know what you're thinking…why call this wonderful?! Well, that's because Kordov has seemingly mastered the art of taking a world of desolation and agony, putting it to page with raw and unforgiving passion, and painting a poetic description for his readers to immerse themselves in…case in point, a jarringly beautiful description of ruin,
“A crest of shapeless buildings jutted from the desolation, their peaks glinting red in the dying light of the sun. Listing and leaning, they stood as anonymous tombstones before a great black basin, once a city, cauterized beyond recognition.”
World building and scene setting at its finest people! This descriptive passion doesn't stop at the landscape…our two MC’s, Hannah and Rachel, children of the Cathedral, born and bred to give themselves to the Almighty and his religious plight to cleanse this shattered landscape of any that dare to foul it! 💀
The sisters are what this world calls God-engines, once human beings, now sacrificed to the machine…implanting each chosen being into the very machine they occupy with binary precision, into copper and polymer and steel. A God-engines duty…
”to purify the land, to push the adversary back to the Hellmouth so that one day it might be closed forever.”
Yea…strap in, this is a journey you won't soon forget! 🤯
This is a brutal, unrelenting journey of religion, sacrifice, resilience and grit. As well as compassion, growth, acceptance and unfailing love. Yuval has taken the worst of what mankind can resort to, and spun it into a wildly creative, darkly poetic, survival story that has the reader clinging to its pages as if our very existence depends on it! 😰
4⭐ and I am absolutely certain that I will be traversing the shattered landscape of the “Dark Legacy” series in my own (imaginative) God-engine! Say your prayers, check your ammo, and make sure all systems are ready …the world isn't ready for Kordov, but I will meet the challenge head-on! 👊
July 7, 2025
A decent enough addition to the very good Dark Legacies series expands somewhat on the symbiosis side of the Godwalker mechs touched upon in the original trilogy and the dynamic of two sisters in tandem. This relationship is probably the best part of the book along with the glorious descriptive prowess employed in the telling of a decayed future. Family is at the heart of Dark Legacies and that is continued here.
Outside of that, there’s not much to note. I didn’t feel overly interested in the individual sisters and their dynamic until the latter stages of the book where the tension and emotion finally kicks in with great deal of power. My main issue is that the "journey" winds its way there laboriously, at times feeling over-written and messy. I get trying to convey a dreamlike or non-linear narrative, but much of the story struggles in describing the more liminal spaces, even if the story set up is overall strong. As a result, it feels like the pacing is off even for such a short book.
The biblical parallels likely exist - I don't care and they're not written for me anyway - and there's a lot of questions surrounding faith which work well. The action is excellent as it always is and I could argue it gets repetitive given how the mech combat is often rather one dimensional, however the bookending of it here is a very effective and powerful storytelling tool.
This isn't the strongest of the four books so far since it doesn't bring anything notably new to the table, but overall the tale works and should satisfy most fans of the series. Importantly, much like the finale of the trilogy, the ending more than satisfies - something that is sadly rare to see these days. I have no doubt I will continue to read more.
*Also, shout out to the magnificent cover art on this one.*
Outside of that, there’s not much to note. I didn’t feel overly interested in the individual sisters and their dynamic until the latter stages of the book where the tension and emotion finally kicks in with great deal of power. My main issue is that the "journey" winds its way there laboriously, at times feeling over-written and messy. I get trying to convey a dreamlike or non-linear narrative, but much of the story struggles in describing the more liminal spaces, even if the story set up is overall strong. As a result, it feels like the pacing is off even for such a short book.
The biblical parallels likely exist - I don't care and they're not written for me anyway - and there's a lot of questions surrounding faith which work well. The action is excellent as it always is and I could argue it gets repetitive given how the mech combat is often rather one dimensional, however the bookending of it here is a very effective and powerful storytelling tool.
This isn't the strongest of the four books so far since it doesn't bring anything notably new to the table, but overall the tale works and should satisfy most fans of the series. Importantly, much like the finale of the trilogy, the ending more than satisfies - something that is sadly rare to see these days. I have no doubt I will continue to read more.
*Also, shout out to the magnificent cover art on this one.*
May 21, 2025
There are two kinds of people who will love Yuval Kordov's Sisters of Mercy: readers and writers.
Most reviews will come from the former. I'd like to switch things up and offer a writer's perspective on this marvelous novella.
Metaphysical science fiction is tough. All writing is, I suppose, but there is added pressure when a writer takes on the big existential questions. Getting them wrong or treating them superficially feels...deceptive? No, even that doesn't quite capture it. "Disrespectful" comes closer---like using an ancient relic as fidget spinner.
Rest assured, there is no danger of that, here. Kordov draws on deep philosophical and metaphysical currents, both Jewish and Christian, to craft this post-post-apocalyptic world. His monsters are authentically menacing, meaning that their threat is rooted in spiritual rather than physical danger. Likewise, his characters struggle not only to eke out survival and protect their loved ones, but to make sense of a world God has abandoned.
His prose is spectacular. Reading it, I get the same feeling as I do when watching a great athlete whose focus is on winning the game rather than showing off for spectators: restrained power. Power trained and honed to the sharpest possible edge. Not that he doesn't let it rip occasionally with metaphors or descriptions that sing like Seraphim before the Throne. When he does, they always feel natural, effortless. As if he could have been doing it all along but is confident enough as a writer to know that readers can't handle too much beauty.
He has called his style "Old Testament Gothic." I love that term, and I think it's apt, especially here. Kordov describes haunted landscapes that mirror the interior lives of his characters: stark, beautiful, desperate, and shadowed with a longing that cannot be satisfied.
The pacing is flawless, with rising and falling action that builds to a climax that is both unexpected and, in retrospect, inevitable. Sisters of Mercy is a novella written by someone who has achieved true mastery of his craft.
The characters aren't just there to serve as filters for the plot or the thematic material. They are ALIVE. They are co-authoring the story with Kordov.
What more I can I say, really? Readers should read this book because it is a great story, well told. Writers should read it to become better writers.
I know I will be reading it more than once.
Most reviews will come from the former. I'd like to switch things up and offer a writer's perspective on this marvelous novella.
Metaphysical science fiction is tough. All writing is, I suppose, but there is added pressure when a writer takes on the big existential questions. Getting them wrong or treating them superficially feels...deceptive? No, even that doesn't quite capture it. "Disrespectful" comes closer---like using an ancient relic as fidget spinner.
Rest assured, there is no danger of that, here. Kordov draws on deep philosophical and metaphysical currents, both Jewish and Christian, to craft this post-post-apocalyptic world. His monsters are authentically menacing, meaning that their threat is rooted in spiritual rather than physical danger. Likewise, his characters struggle not only to eke out survival and protect their loved ones, but to make sense of a world God has abandoned.
His prose is spectacular. Reading it, I get the same feeling as I do when watching a great athlete whose focus is on winning the game rather than showing off for spectators: restrained power. Power trained and honed to the sharpest possible edge. Not that he doesn't let it rip occasionally with metaphors or descriptions that sing like Seraphim before the Throne. When he does, they always feel natural, effortless. As if he could have been doing it all along but is confident enough as a writer to know that readers can't handle too much beauty.
He has called his style "Old Testament Gothic." I love that term, and I think it's apt, especially here. Kordov describes haunted landscapes that mirror the interior lives of his characters: stark, beautiful, desperate, and shadowed with a longing that cannot be satisfied.
The pacing is flawless, with rising and falling action that builds to a climax that is both unexpected and, in retrospect, inevitable. Sisters of Mercy is a novella written by someone who has achieved true mastery of his craft.
The characters aren't just there to serve as filters for the plot or the thematic material. They are ALIVE. They are co-authoring the story with Kordov.
What more I can I say, really? Readers should read this book because it is a great story, well told. Writers should read it to become better writers.
I know I will be reading it more than once.
August 11, 2025
Wow. I've been sitting on this review for a while, because this was one of those books that haunts you for days and weeks after you've finished it. I've not read anything else by Yuval Kordov before now although the name had popped up in a few searches. I've read that he's part of the "incense punk" movement, although I do not know much about that either. In full disclosure, I was scheduled to appear with him on a podcast hosted by author Patrick Abbott but unfortunately Mr. Kordov had to cancel for family reasons. Still, this novella was excellent, and I plan to read more of his work. He hits on something really interesting - to go after some of the tropes, ideas, and conceits of a setting like Warhammer 40K, take those ideas seriously and to their obvious conclusions, or offer an alternate take. In this story and the others in its series, we get a take on Imperial Titans, psykers, Sisters of Battle, faith, and science gone horribly, horribly wrong. The twisted and devastated Earth of the setting reminds me of Wm. Hope Hodgson's Nightland. The demons are among the most genuinely horrifying, terrifying portrayals of supernatural horrors in a science fictional setting I have ever read. Incredibly effective! Deeply thematic, Kordov's own notes about this setting being the result of an inverted sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, got me thinking, that's in many ways what the entire premise of the 40K setting is at heart (as well as Nietzschean, and gnostic, and many other things). As a father, the theme of child soldiers is an important aspect of this story too. Genuinely a haunting, beautifully written, heartbreaking story. Recommended.
May 20, 2025
Hannah-9 and Rachel-3 are young girls created and honed to be symbiotes: living hunks of mutilated flesh that pilot massive, bi-pedal war-machines, “God engines”, guarding the wasteland of a devastated, demon-blighted Earth.
As they patrol the barren landscape, the cadence of their heavy, mechanical steps is often interwoven with the psalms they recite to bolster their spirits, creating a haunting juxtaposition between duty and danger, despair and hope
Hannah is the younger. What glimmers of humanity she retains drive her to look to Rachel for both guidance in her new duties and for some sort of emotional connection. Despite the horror of the premise, there is much beauty in this story of sisterly affection surviving in the bleakest possible circumstances. The prose vividly depicts both the dead wastelands that the sisters traverse, and the hidden creative life—remnants of her humanity— that Rachel secretly treasures and eventually shares with Hannah.
Sisters of Mercy is a marvelous stand-alone entry in the Dark Legacies universe. Since I’d already read the trilogy, I was familiar with the setting, but I think readers who are new to the series won’t have much trouble getting oriented and will greatly enjoy this masterfully crafted story. In a short space, Yuval has produced themes and scenes that get into the reader’s bones and will likely linger for awhile.
As they patrol the barren landscape, the cadence of their heavy, mechanical steps is often interwoven with the psalms they recite to bolster their spirits, creating a haunting juxtaposition between duty and danger, despair and hope
Hannah is the younger. What glimmers of humanity she retains drive her to look to Rachel for both guidance in her new duties and for some sort of emotional connection. Despite the horror of the premise, there is much beauty in this story of sisterly affection surviving in the bleakest possible circumstances. The prose vividly depicts both the dead wastelands that the sisters traverse, and the hidden creative life—remnants of her humanity— that Rachel secretly treasures and eventually shares with Hannah.
Sisters of Mercy is a marvelous stand-alone entry in the Dark Legacies universe. Since I’d already read the trilogy, I was familiar with the setting, but I think readers who are new to the series won’t have much trouble getting oriented and will greatly enjoy this masterfully crafted story. In a short space, Yuval has produced themes and scenes that get into the reader’s bones and will likely linger for awhile.
August 8, 2025
One of the most unique and interesting novellas I've ever read.
Is it a story about a religious cult? A story about the symbiosis of man and machine? A story of the power of sisterhood? How about massive machines of death?
The answer is yes.
Yes to all of it.
At first, I didn't know what to think of this book after reading the first couple chapters. I was confused but intrigued. The dialogue was stiff and direct, yet carried a prophetic, theological weight. Plus, it's fitting which became clear later on in the story.
The action hit hard and was visceral. The mystery of the machine sisters pulled you in. And the worldbuilding painted the dystopian bleakness with haunting clarity.
Also loved the way Kordov explored the experience of a person evolving into something beyond just a human being.
As a novella, Sisters of Mercy did its job because I want to learn more about this world and of course, the GOD ENGINES.
Is it a story about a religious cult? A story about the symbiosis of man and machine? A story of the power of sisterhood? How about massive machines of death?
The answer is yes.
Yes to all of it.
At first, I didn't know what to think of this book after reading the first couple chapters. I was confused but intrigued. The dialogue was stiff and direct, yet carried a prophetic, theological weight. Plus, it's fitting which became clear later on in the story.
The action hit hard and was visceral. The mystery of the machine sisters pulled you in. And the worldbuilding painted the dystopian bleakness with haunting clarity.
Also loved the way Kordov explored the experience of a person evolving into something beyond just a human being.
As a novella, Sisters of Mercy did its job because I want to learn more about this world and of course, the GOD ENGINES.
May 31, 2025
For a quick novella, I enjoyed it. Mostly for it's rich descriptions. I happen to be reading some of the shorter stories from Conan: The Thief, The Conqueror, The King: The Collected Adventures of the World's Greatest Barbarian and can draw that parallel. Scenes were Cinematic. Great imagery.
May 22, 2025
I loved this hauntingly beautiful nobledark novella and will read the rest of the Dark Legacies books on the strength of it.
December 27, 2025
Gorgeous prose, beautiful and horrific imagery, hugely satisfying read. That’s all I want to say.
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