The Corpse Priest

by Carson Winter

Some would call him a warrior, others a priest. 



When Corpse wanders into the city of Dross Toll, he runs afoul of a sadistic count hellbent on his destruction. But when forced to flee into the surrounding forest, he encounters threats darker than a nobleman's rage. 



Mixing sword and sorcery and cosmic horror, Carson Winter's The Corpse Priest is a fast-paced adventure through a world of magic, bloodshed, and unimaginable terror.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery

182 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2026

About the author

Carson Winter is an award-winning author, punker, and raw nerve. He's written two novels, The Psychographist and A Spectre Is Haunting Greentree. His short fiction has appeared in over twenty publications, including Apex, Vastarien, and Chthonic Matter Quarterly. He lives in Saint Paul, MN.

Reviews

[Adam McPhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hell yeah, this one's a blast. Think Frazetta vibes. Propulsive in the way of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane stories and the fuckedupedness of Spine of Night. It's good to see sword and sorcery is alive and well. Hashtag van wizard.

I won a copy while attending the author's launch party via zoom, which ended up being a real fun way to launch a book.

[David Swisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A priest devoted to death starts questioning everything he believes, leaves his tribe, and ends up in a brutal city, only to run into something far worse than human cruelty... a reality warping horror that is more horrifying than you can imagine.

In typical Carson Winter fashion this is bleak and weird in the best way. The mix of sword and sorcery fantasy and cosmic horror works amazingly well, and the atmosphere just hangs over everything like a weight you can’t shake.

Corpse, our main character, is a big part of why it works. He doesn’t feel like a typical fantasy lead, but his story is fascinating. His doubt, his distance, the way he moves through everything, it all feels grounded even as the world gets stranger around him.

This one is perfect for those fans of the old Weird Tales, anyone looking for a real fantasy/horror mashup, or anyone who wants to read a damn good story.

[aja · Rating 2 out of 5]

so this was...not good lmao. between the constant grammatical errors ("the halls of castle viniri were like that of a crypt" and sentences of a similar nature; mistakes in plural vs possessive à la its/it's but in like. ways i've never actually seen before, so kudos for that i suppose; the EXTREMELY frequent misuse of commas when we should be using periods or semicolons, which at first i was willing to cut some slack as a stylistic choice but which quickly began to grate on me and read as simple ineptitude), the clunky attempts at similes (describing our attempt at a cosmic horror -- certainly one of the attempts of all time -- as "bobbling like a duck in water," for example), strange misspellings or misuse of words (dischord is not a word!!!!!), and the bits of dialogue or prose that are delivered with all the gravitas of a video game loading screen tooltip (a character literally said she was doing something to gain status and we immediately get the incredible line "those with status were afforded more pleasures, they were more easily able to distract themselves from the great maw that would swallow them." thank you i do live in the world, the concept is familiar to me; the final chapter opening with "to see two worlds at once is no easy feat") this just felt shockingly unprofessional for a book published by an actual publishing house. it would be one thing if this had been self-published, but presumably this went through multiple rounds of editing along its journey, or even if it had been this author's first book, but this author has in fact written several others and also won awards for his fiction.

now i'm sure we've all seen the memes -- "The only media I ever watched was avatar the lost air bender and dnd podcasts can I write a novel to change the world?" [x] -- but it's still always a bit of a shock to me when i find an actual real instance of it out in the wild. here we have something possibly even better-- a combination of the "unlikely duo of sword and sorcery and ligottian pessimism," from someone who had never read sword and sorcery before starting this work (he admits this in the ending acknowledgments. just comes out & says the only sword & sorcery he's ever read was moorcock, and that was at his editor's recommendation). i can't really touch on the ligottian pessimism comp, because i've yet to actually read any ligotti (although i am given to understand he is a more subtle writer, which uh. this was not lmao), but i have read a plethora of sword & sorcery, and idk man. obvs everyone's opinions on this will vary, but i think if you're going to write in such a niche genre you should be more familiar with it than just like. knowing conan the barbarian exists, or that sword & sorcery is when you have big guys killing other people who like practice magic or something, idk, i just think the name sounds cool.

it's just really frustrating as someone who is in the early stages of my own original fiction seeing this kinda stuff getting pumped out and raved over. i wanted to create a sword & sorcery character because in my attempts to familiarize myself with the foundational works of the genre i love so much (fantasy as a broad category) i found that i really, really gelled with the s&s that i was reading. i've become obsessed with it! and then we have this story, pitched as a way of shaking up the genre, written by someone who has no clue what he's talking about, which becomes more and more clear to anyone with any real familiarity with the genre as the story progresses. this is not to say this is the worst thing i've ever read, even within the s&s genre (it's not), but it's like. fine, at best, and yet in many ways it it feels so distanced from its parent genre that i genuinely waffled back & forth through the entire span of time i spent writing this review over whether to even shelve this under 'sword and sorcery'. it really just rubs me the wrong way.

i rated this as highly as i did (a whole two stars, instead of just one) because i thought there were some interesting ideas in this, if ones that leaned a little heavily toward the teenage edge lord side of things. is it a little silly that the malwood cult goes to bed every night in graves they've dug for themselves? yes. do i think that could be genuinely fun if written by someone with a more deft hand? yes. (did "corpse left silently, his heart buried in the grave his people denied him" make me physically cringe? yes.) i did laugh when garrt and mirth fucked next to corpse's...corpse. hm. moments before garrt sacrificed his remaining years to resurrect corpse. i love magic that requires real physical sacrifice (i am in fact writing about a character who grew up in a death cult that required this regularly), and i'm always down for some weird funky deity or saint figures. but it is also clear that within the text these are not things that are meant to be funny, and i think this book would have benefited from poking a little more fun at itself. like, yes, yes, we all love our death cults. are we incapable of having a little fun with it?

idk. i'm very tired of people writing "experimental" stories in genres they have no real interest in besides thinking "oh hey that sounds kinda cool" (looking at you, starving saints). put a little effort into it now and then. why was our solution to this great heaving colossus of cosmic horror made manifest to just run its cyclopian form through with a flaming sword. why was the most thoroughly described death that of a child trampled to death by a panicked crowd when one of our main characters died entirely off screen. so much of this just read like a really thorough misunderstanding of both sword & sorcery and cosmic horror as genres, and i find that really frustrating.

[Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve always enjoyed this author’s horror works, but Winter’s first foray into Fantasy left me fairly indifferent. Whereas he really has his finger on the pulse of what makes for an effective horror tale, it doesn’t seem he’s as plugged into what makes good fantasy really spark. Regardless, I’m looking forward to whatever he writes next.

[Emma E. Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome quick read that absolutely nailed meshing sword&sorcery with Liggotian horror. I loved how developed and real all the characters felt, even the ones we only know briefly, and the action scenes were riveting, page-turning fun. Highly recommend :)

[Eugene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just vibes, no lore.

To describe a book as such seems impolite. To describe a fantasy book as such seems downright insulting. But it’s not an insult. I promise. It’s anything but, and also the first thing that comes to mind when I think of The Corpse Priest by Carson Winter, which just so happens to be the best fantasy novella I’ve read this year.

Okay, I lied. There is lore in The Corpse Priest, and quite a bit of it, but Winter imparts that lore through subtle dialogue and oblique nudges that prove far more organic as storytelling devices than cumbersome exposition drops, of which there are few. This allows the story glide along at a pace that incorporates the nuanced twists and turns typically reserved for full-length novels into this grisly 160-page novella.

And I do mean grisly. Honestly, that’s the only negative I would attribute to this story, and it isn’t even a negative. So I guess it’s a warning – this story is bleak and doesn’t pull its punches. It is, of course, a horror story in the vein of Thomas Ligotti – there’s a bit of Cormac McCarthy and Robert Browning in here as well, to say nothing of the cosmic horror elements – and I’m tempted to liken it to Dark Fantasy, but I think it resides comfortably in the realm of Grimdark Fantasy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s thrilling, but it’s supremely messed-up. But in a fun way. Consider yourself warned.

Needless to say – but I’ll say it anyway – The Corpse Priest is a brisk, violent, and occasionally stomach-turning good time that is merely the latest exceptional addition to Winter’s already staggeringly good catalog of stories. Conveniently enough, the story ends in a place where Winter could write any number of tales set in this world. I hope he does.

[Jamie Cassidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was first introduced to Carson Winter through his incredible short story collection "Portraits of Decay" and have been a fan ever since. If you identify as a fan of Indie Horror... you owe it to yourself to read this collection.

"The Corpse Priest" is something wholly different. Winter has created a lean dark fantasy novella that combines elements of classic sword & sorcery with more modern grimdark carnage. Add a layer of trademark #WinterWeird and you have a tasty morsel of indie medieval horror.

Enjoyers of Buehlman's "Between Two Fires" will certainly get some pleasure out of this novella. I am excited for (what hopefully) comes next with these characters!

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ligotti meets sword and sorcery. Very well done. I couldnt help but see it all in the minds eye as if it had been illustrated by Errol Otis.

[Rev. Joe Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, apparently this was an experiment in, as the author put it, blending Sword-And-Sorcery with Ligottian pessimism. The result, it turns out, is fast-paced Grimdark. It was pretty good. Not my favorite, but pretty good, good enough that I blew through The Corpse Priest like shit through a goose.

The Sword-And-Sorcery ingredients definitely stood out most in the pacing. This book is lean. It moves fast, the way a good S&S tale should. The horror elements, too, felt very S&S; popular misconceptions aside, S&S isn't really fully analogous with Heroic Fantasy. Proper S&S, and not the dreck that poisoned the genre's well in the 60s and 70s*, is an almost equal blend of fantasy, specifically smaller-stakes, intimate-scale Heroic Fantasy, and horror, specifically cosmic horror in the original stories. So the addition of the Ligottian element is far from misplaced or an odd combo. It's a natural progression; even moreso, since Grimdark was really the natural modern outgrowth of S&S. It's kinda like mixing old-school 80s Hardcore with metal, and getting Grindcore or Crustpunk again, and going, "Oh, shit, that's where it came from!"

The Corpse Priest wasn't without issues, though. Most of these had to do with the clash of pacing, with the fact that Carson Winter had a lot of interesting plot elements and ideas he wanted to explore with his characters, and not a lot of room to do it in. If he had stretched out the book to a proper length, it would have lost that lean, hard S&S edge and velocity. Really, I would have preferred that he drop some of the elements and focused more closely on the remaining ones; but that's a really tough call too, because all those elements were really interesting, it's just that they were kinda underdeveloped. Corpse himself, too, felt a little too flat: an acceptable flaw in the more swasbuckling, pulp-horror S&S tales of yesteryear, but in this very modern-feeling tale, I felt like I wanted him to be more of a human, and not just a borderline cardboard Grimdark blood-soaked sword-swinger. The foundations were there, he had an interesting backstory, it's just that Corpse was never given a chance to develop himself as a real human--and it sucks, because that was, by and large, the thrust of his character, as his backstory presented itself. Learning to be a man, and not a walking weapon for a death-and-misery obsessed cult. So, yeah, just to give some room for that, I feel like Winter should have either cut out some of his plot element darlings, or gone full modern Grimdark, and just stretched the novel out and given it room to breathe, even if that meant losing the action-fantasy feel.

Overall, though, still a great read. You could finish it in an afternoon, and feel like you need to go for a walk afterwards and cool off the adrenaline a little.

*(Which I still enjoy for what it is. Because I like trash.)

[Erik McHatton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carson Winter brings his subversive style to Grimdark fantasy, and the sub-genre is all the better for it.

The Corpse Priest bears all the hallmarks of the particular literary niche in which it exists, while at the same time feeling fresh, with a healthy amount of blood, guts, treachery, world-building and juicy lore to sate the needs of nerds like me. It many ways this feels like a natural evolution to those weird fantasy stories of old, and I could easily see some of those heroes/anti-heroes standing side by side with the titular Corpse, reaping away.

So if you've ever used Frank Frazetta art as a phone background, if you've ever told everyone you know a hundred times to watch Ralph Bakshi's "Wizards," if you've ever read a Michael Moorcock book while listening to Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, then this is the book for you. Or, you know, if you're young and you like Warhammer, or The Witcher, or whatever. Forgive me I'm old. Regardless, check this one out. You'll love it.

[Christopher O'Halloran · Rating 5 out of 5]

GRIM.

There's no better word to describe The Corpse Priest than the one used by the eponymous Corpse and his new friend Mirth when teasing us with just a taste of Winter's excellent world building. It's something fans will recognize: the depth he can evoke while utilizing prose sparse enough to rival greats from Hemingway to Stephen Graham Jones.

Winter brings the visceral content, but that's no surprise to anyone familiar with his writing. This is not one for kids.

I'd be interested in seeing more in this universe. The potential is there, from the cat-mounts to the philosophies of various sects of Carson Winter's delightful brainchild of Ligotti and George RR Martin.

[Ivy Grimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a fan of the author, and even though I’m not a longtime fan of this particular genre, I found myself amazed by this story. As always, there’s great sharp prose here, and a vibrant plot. Also, I was so interested in how a pessimistic philosophy comes into conflict with the urge to live. Many interesting philosophical questions are explored here, and interestingly, this book could offer comfort to those facing death or life.

[Austin Shirey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Corpse Priest is fan-freaking-tastic! Winter takes Ligottian pessimism and cosmic horror and deftly mixes them with gritty sword and sorcery to create something that feels both timeless—like the classic Conan and Elric stories of old—and modern. Oh, and did I mention they ride freaking battle cats? Yeah. I need more of this world stat!

[Stereo · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the few books I wished was longer and more fleshed out. Really cool ideas and fun times, grotesque imagery, but definitely not all shock and schlock. There are some really cool ideas here, both creatively and philosophically. A book always gets a recommend from me if I can relate my own life to it, and even this necro-conan romp managed to do so.

[David Scott Hay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. It’s on the shorter side for these kind of grimdark fantasy stories - not a bad thing. I def want more stories and novellas set in this world though. So many original ideas and characters that merit further exploration.

[Alex Wolfgang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably Winter's most fun story yet. Super dark, action-packed, gory sword and sorcery. I breezed through it in less than a day.

[Cory Brock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great grimdark horror fantasy novella. It’s like if Michael Moorcock fell in with Cannibal Corpse instead of Hawkwind.