After waking up in a forest \u2013 minus any knowledge of who he is, or how he got there \u2013 a giant, formidable being butchers his way through the army that attempts to take him prisoner. Adopting the name Stratus, he finds himself caught up in one kingdom\u2019s war, trying to understand both his demonic nature and why he\u2019s in the situation he\u2019s in.<\/p>\n
The stage is set for a progressively more entertaining (and bloody) romp as Stratus rampages through the narrative, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Even though his actions are horrific, his almost childlike detachment and literal response to every question and conundrum make him an entertaining figure \u2013 a murderous Drax the Destroyer-esque individual. You\u2019ll still be rooting for him even as he butchers his umpteenth anonymous henchman.<\/p>\n
This is pure pulp horror, but in no way is this a bad thing, especially when the story is this fun. Antiheroes (if you can even ascribe Stratus this level of moral ambiguity) are by their very nature hard to write well \u2013 especially if they\u2019re not only the lead character, they\u2019re the actual narrator \u2013 but the author achieves that feat here. There\u2019s an end goal in sight, and an ultimate aim for Stratus, although this all becomes of secondary interest compared to the sheer perverse hilarity of the journey.<\/p>\n
Even so, there are nitpicks. Such is the story\u2019s focus on Stratus that few other characters really get fleshed out \u2013 aside from warrior with a history Tatyana, and dandy prince Lucien. The narrator is such an enrapturing character that ultimately this doesn\u2019t matter too much, but it might well do later on, especially with the open-ended finale pretty unambiguously hinting at the possibility of sequels.<\/p>\n
Epic fantasy without any pretensions of changing literature or establishing itself in the canon, Infernal<\/strong><\/em> is only concerned with being entertaining. And it definitely succeeds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Find out what we thought of Mark de Jager’s demonic fantasy, Infernal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":90089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[1624,8],"tags":[5286,5287],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Infernal-Mark-de-Jager.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}