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The Scrolls of Sin
Enter the world of Mulgara, where conquerors and ghouls and sordid necromancers await.
"In The Scrolls of Sin , David Rose paints a fully realized fantasy realm with ingenious plotting, complex characterization, and cleverly lush language. It's also viscerally involving. The collection is so steeped in the sin of the title that it plunges the reader into a sordid otherworld of corruption, treachery, violence, torture, lust, murder, and dark magic — though not without fleeting moments that grope toward something like tenderness and redemption."
--- Matt Cardin, author of To Rouse Leviathan
"In The Scrolls of Sin , David Rose paints a fully realized fantasy realm with ingenious plotting, complex characterization, and cleverly lush language. It's also viscerally involving. The collection is so steeped in the sin of the title that it plunges the reader into a sordid otherworld of corruption, treachery, violence, torture, lust, murder, and dark magic — though not without fleeting moments that grope toward something like tenderness and redemption."
--- Matt Cardin, author of To Rouse Leviathan
404 pages, Hardcover
Published March 26, 2022
6 people are currently reading
880 people want to read
About the author
David Rose
14 books130 followersDavid Rose (1983-) is the author of No Joy and The Scrolls of Sin, among others.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 18, 2021
David Rose is a king of the gothic horror/fantasy genre! I get so immersed in his books, his style of writing is so unique it draws you into his world. The Scrolls of Sin brings us back into Mulgara, a world of dark magic and horrors beyond imagining. Thank you David for allowing us another glimpse into Mulgara!!
February 10, 2022
I think that people who like fantasy may like this book. But it is not what I would call horror in any way. Fantasy featuring necromancers, yes. Horror, not so much.
As I am a horror reader and not a huge fan of fantasy, I feel like my opinions should be considered "with a grain of salt", as they say.
There were a few parts of this book that held my attention but far more that felt more to me like listening to an old man tell a story I wasn't really interested in, with lots of endless sentences and a hundred names of places I've never heard of and people I've never met but am supposed to keep straight.
I don't want to say it's a bad book, I just think I'm the wrong audience for it.
Fantasy lovers, read on.
Horror lovers, look elsewhere.
As I am a horror reader and not a huge fan of fantasy, I feel like my opinions should be considered "with a grain of salt", as they say.
There were a few parts of this book that held my attention but far more that felt more to me like listening to an old man tell a story I wasn't really interested in, with lots of endless sentences and a hundred names of places I've never heard of and people I've never met but am supposed to keep straight.
I don't want to say it's a bad book, I just think I'm the wrong audience for it.
Fantasy lovers, read on.
Horror lovers, look elsewhere.
February 13, 2022
Necromancers, Ghouls, Thieves, Writers, Revenge, Sex, and Violence
The Scrolls of Sin (2021) by David Rose is a set of gritty, graphic, grotesque, unpredictable, dark fantasy stories in the vein of Brian McNaughton’s splendid Throne of Bones. Rose’s six short stories and two novellas are set in a world of rival and mutually antagonistic cultures possessing magic and medieval technology. The narratives share characters and situations and plot lines, coalescing into a composite novel that paints a morbidly fascinating portrait of a fallen fantasy world with echoes of our own (e.g., religion, politics, corruption, class, education, crime and punishment, popular writing, war). The stories explore love, hate, revenge, greed, violence, sex, and power. They rarely end happily or feature protagonists who are paragons of virtue. Rose’s necromancers, students, scribes, prostitutes, soldiers, writers, conquerors, thieves, morticians, body snatchers, and ghouls are neither wholly abominable nor very admirable. A necromancer utters what may seem to be the credo of the book: “Do as you will. For inside Good’s gilded halls, hide, my son, the scrolls of sin.” Rose’s characters, however, tend to (finally) get what they deserve. And despite often feeling soiled by their exploits, I wanted to continue reading and cared what happens to the immoral people.
Rose’s ironic, outre, and funny sense of humor runs throughout. His writing is muscular and tight and features big words and bad words and potent figures of speech, like “Toadly’s tower wasn’t so much a tower, more a farmer’s silo, complete with thatched rotting top, giving the whole thing the appearance of a giant’s refracting phallus that had caught Thina’s Poxy.” He writes some neat descriptions of fantasy elements, like
“The statue, a hand itself, was made of pure lapis lazuli. The size of your average man’s, strains of gold feathered and swirled in the deep blue of its outstretched fingers. In its palm, three faces made a row. The outer two left trails at its base near the wrist, thus completing a long-agreed-upon murmur that they resembled haunted tadpoles. And these both seemed poised to circle the central visage; caught in an eternal, devilish sneer.”
He imagines some remarkable names: for people and ghouls (e.g., Arcus Zevon, Somyellia Ordrid, Propagord Phern, Conabitt Lotgard, Aricow Amphilliod, Dandana Nix, Gorial and Ghila), countries and cities (e.g., Orisula, Azad, Nilghorde, Pelliul), and streets and districts (e.g., Do-Gooder’s Row, Burnt Beetle Lane, the Morgeltine, Laugher’s Lot)
However, there are typos, and sometimes the writing gets ungrammatical (e.g., “Toadly was laying on the table”) or awkward (“Fire has seemed to have forgotten you the craft”). At times I was yanked out of the stories by pondering things like, shouldn't “You don’t look like a tradesmen” be “tradesman”? Or by rereading particular sentences, not to savor them but to figure out what they mean. The stories often barge across the gross-out boundary (e.g., “Irion had personally prepped the body, bathing it in a preserving oil that wreaked [sic] of amniotic fluid and semen”).
But Rose has a big imagination and a big ambition to do something different with the traditional epic fantasy genre beyond depicting struggles between good and evil. He can construct an intricate plot, as in his composite novella “Revenge,” comprised of eight short story chapters, an involved chain of events that almost lost me but never bored me. His set piece scenes are often entertainingly imaginative in their over-the-top Grand Guignol invention.
Here is an annotated list of the stories:
“Black Magic Summer”: In a world of grim conflict, never trust your sadistic, imbecilic, necromantic twin.
“The Leaf of the Palm”: What does a boy really want, home or adventure? Vibes of Conan in Zamboula and Solomon Kane in Africa crossed with The Jungle Book and The Sword in the Stone.
“Arigol and the Parilgotheum”: The dangers of writers (“fictionalists”) getting inspiration for their stories from firsthand experience, especially of a subterranean sort involving ghouls.
“A Conqueror’s Tale”: Even heroic leaders can’t control the stories that grow up about them after they die.
“Revenge”: a novella comprised of eight short stories demonstrating that revenge is a dish best served necromantically:
I: The Final Meeting: A slimy treaty with a necromancer patriarch who promises revenge.
II: The Mortician’s Tale Part One: A hulking mortician called Smeasil recounts his youth: a whoring father, a necromancer prostitute, a beloved black sheep, and an interest in dissection.
III: Maecidion: The contested will of His Virulence (a dread necromancer), a reanimated skeleton, a possessed dead baby, a tricky imp, and a grossly hidden and revealed lapis lazuli hand of power—and more—all ending perfectly.
IV: The Mortician’s Tale Part Two: Smeasil recounts living with his prostitute lover while grave robbing and opium smoking with a dinky thief pal Snier.
V: The Municpal Dungeon: Snier is in prison when rumors of a necromancer paying a visit start spreading, the moral being, Don’t go to prison, whether as inmate or guard.
VI: All Malevolent Masquerade: A Halloween-esque costume party attended by Smeasil’s prostitute girlfriend.
VII: The Mortician’s Tale Part Three: Venereal disease, necrophilia, patricide, grave digging, specimen taking, and opium smoking lead to a new career path for Smeasil.
VIII: Snier’s Tale: Revenge is liable to end up entangling unexpected victims (like orphaned former rent boys now thieves posing as butlers).
“Bosgaard and Bella”: A star-crossed romance featuring rival body snatchers, rival ghouls, a cemetery heist, and a morbid but touching resolution via identity and flesh.
“The Archer and Adaline”: A veteran addicted to sex becomes the bodyguard/pet of a businesswoman who likes to send caravans into a desert renowned for its ghouls.
“A Hero, Emerged”: a nifty novella tying up “Revenge” and “The Archer and Adaline” in a stained bow: a necromancer father and disappointing son; a hungry, curious, and clever ghoul; a former grave robber and mortician now cemetery master and wannabe writer; his cute, pure, and very unsqueamish little daughter; and a surprisingly good priest in hiding.
If you like dark fantasy with plenty of sex and violence (and ghouls), The Scrolls of Sin should scratch your itch.
The Scrolls of Sin (2021) by David Rose is a set of gritty, graphic, grotesque, unpredictable, dark fantasy stories in the vein of Brian McNaughton’s splendid Throne of Bones. Rose’s six short stories and two novellas are set in a world of rival and mutually antagonistic cultures possessing magic and medieval technology. The narratives share characters and situations and plot lines, coalescing into a composite novel that paints a morbidly fascinating portrait of a fallen fantasy world with echoes of our own (e.g., religion, politics, corruption, class, education, crime and punishment, popular writing, war). The stories explore love, hate, revenge, greed, violence, sex, and power. They rarely end happily or feature protagonists who are paragons of virtue. Rose’s necromancers, students, scribes, prostitutes, soldiers, writers, conquerors, thieves, morticians, body snatchers, and ghouls are neither wholly abominable nor very admirable. A necromancer utters what may seem to be the credo of the book: “Do as you will. For inside Good’s gilded halls, hide, my son, the scrolls of sin.” Rose’s characters, however, tend to (finally) get what they deserve. And despite often feeling soiled by their exploits, I wanted to continue reading and cared what happens to the immoral people.
Rose’s ironic, outre, and funny sense of humor runs throughout. His writing is muscular and tight and features big words and bad words and potent figures of speech, like “Toadly’s tower wasn’t so much a tower, more a farmer’s silo, complete with thatched rotting top, giving the whole thing the appearance of a giant’s refracting phallus that had caught Thina’s Poxy.” He writes some neat descriptions of fantasy elements, like
“The statue, a hand itself, was made of pure lapis lazuli. The size of your average man’s, strains of gold feathered and swirled in the deep blue of its outstretched fingers. In its palm, three faces made a row. The outer two left trails at its base near the wrist, thus completing a long-agreed-upon murmur that they resembled haunted tadpoles. And these both seemed poised to circle the central visage; caught in an eternal, devilish sneer.”
He imagines some remarkable names: for people and ghouls (e.g., Arcus Zevon, Somyellia Ordrid, Propagord Phern, Conabitt Lotgard, Aricow Amphilliod, Dandana Nix, Gorial and Ghila), countries and cities (e.g., Orisula, Azad, Nilghorde, Pelliul), and streets and districts (e.g., Do-Gooder’s Row, Burnt Beetle Lane, the Morgeltine, Laugher’s Lot)
However, there are typos, and sometimes the writing gets ungrammatical (e.g., “Toadly was laying on the table”) or awkward (“Fire has seemed to have forgotten you the craft”). At times I was yanked out of the stories by pondering things like, shouldn't “You don’t look like a tradesmen” be “tradesman”? Or by rereading particular sentences, not to savor them but to figure out what they mean. The stories often barge across the gross-out boundary (e.g., “Irion had personally prepped the body, bathing it in a preserving oil that wreaked [sic] of amniotic fluid and semen”).
But Rose has a big imagination and a big ambition to do something different with the traditional epic fantasy genre beyond depicting struggles between good and evil. He can construct an intricate plot, as in his composite novella “Revenge,” comprised of eight short story chapters, an involved chain of events that almost lost me but never bored me. His set piece scenes are often entertainingly imaginative in their over-the-top Grand Guignol invention.
Here is an annotated list of the stories:
“Black Magic Summer”: In a world of grim conflict, never trust your sadistic, imbecilic, necromantic twin.
“The Leaf of the Palm”: What does a boy really want, home or adventure? Vibes of Conan in Zamboula and Solomon Kane in Africa crossed with The Jungle Book and The Sword in the Stone.
“Arigol and the Parilgotheum”: The dangers of writers (“fictionalists”) getting inspiration for their stories from firsthand experience, especially of a subterranean sort involving ghouls.
“A Conqueror’s Tale”: Even heroic leaders can’t control the stories that grow up about them after they die.
“Revenge”: a novella comprised of eight short stories demonstrating that revenge is a dish best served necromantically:
I: The Final Meeting: A slimy treaty with a necromancer patriarch who promises revenge.
II: The Mortician’s Tale Part One: A hulking mortician called Smeasil recounts his youth: a whoring father, a necromancer prostitute, a beloved black sheep, and an interest in dissection.
III: Maecidion: The contested will of His Virulence (a dread necromancer), a reanimated skeleton, a possessed dead baby, a tricky imp, and a grossly hidden and revealed lapis lazuli hand of power—and more—all ending perfectly.
IV: The Mortician’s Tale Part Two: Smeasil recounts living with his prostitute lover while grave robbing and opium smoking with a dinky thief pal Snier.
V: The Municpal Dungeon: Snier is in prison when rumors of a necromancer paying a visit start spreading, the moral being, Don’t go to prison, whether as inmate or guard.
VI: All Malevolent Masquerade: A Halloween-esque costume party attended by Smeasil’s prostitute girlfriend.
VII: The Mortician’s Tale Part Three: Venereal disease, necrophilia, patricide, grave digging, specimen taking, and opium smoking lead to a new career path for Smeasil.
VIII: Snier’s Tale: Revenge is liable to end up entangling unexpected victims (like orphaned former rent boys now thieves posing as butlers).
“Bosgaard and Bella”: A star-crossed romance featuring rival body snatchers, rival ghouls, a cemetery heist, and a morbid but touching resolution via identity and flesh.
“The Archer and Adaline”: A veteran addicted to sex becomes the bodyguard/pet of a businesswoman who likes to send caravans into a desert renowned for its ghouls.
“A Hero, Emerged”: a nifty novella tying up “Revenge” and “The Archer and Adaline” in a stained bow: a necromancer father and disappointing son; a hungry, curious, and clever ghoul; a former grave robber and mortician now cemetery master and wannabe writer; his cute, pure, and very unsqueamish little daughter; and a surprisingly good priest in hiding.
If you like dark fantasy with plenty of sex and violence (and ghouls), The Scrolls of Sin should scratch your itch.
October 5, 2021
David Rose is the king of his vile, fantastic mileu of Mulgara--an ancient world, dripping with evil, blood, and dread necromancy in equal measure.
"Scrolls of Sin" is aptly named because I could smell the reek of betrayal, rotting vegetation, hot blood and cold steel lift off the pages as I turned them. The damn book was so compelling I read all 400 pages in one day!
I honestly haven't had this much fun reading swords and sorcery since I discovered Robert E. Howard back in the 70s.
If you like gritty action, adventure, and magic you owe it to yourself to check out the poison pen of David Rose.
"Scrolls of Sin" is aptly named because I could smell the reek of betrayal, rotting vegetation, hot blood and cold steel lift off the pages as I turned them. The damn book was so compelling I read all 400 pages in one day!
I honestly haven't had this much fun reading swords and sorcery since I discovered Robert E. Howard back in the 70s.
If you like gritty action, adventure, and magic you owe it to yourself to check out the poison pen of David Rose.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews