Why am I passionate about this?
I'm an anarcho-feminist who has a special interest in magic; I consider it my guilty pleasure. I write dark and gritty stories that delve into gender, trauma, and mental illness, yet discover hope and freedom in the pit of darkness. I'm best known as a horror writer, but it’s more accurate to say that I create dark-fantasy and speculative fiction. My themes reflect the darkness which feels ubiquitous in the world, especially now in this age of extremes and pandemics, but I always search for the glimmer of light, the flame of hope that we can make a better future. I've always been fascinated by the Goth aesthetic and enchanted by post-punk threnodies.
Carmilla's book list on grittiest dark-fantasy
Why did Carmilla love this book?
The setting for Hermetech is a post-apocalyptic landscape. As with Imajica, the central quest is to heal a ruptured world. Futuristic science and magic coexist in the story as a group of disparate and dysfunctional travellers retrieve Ari and escort her (and the reader) through strange, broken lands and along unfriendly and dangerous roads.
It is a highly imaginative, speculative fantasy with another character who blends and transcends gender and steals a reader’s heart. Zambia Crevecoeur is deeply flawed and tragic, and it is hir journey (emotional rather than geographical) which drew me into this extraordinary novel.
1 author picked Hermetech as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A near future Earth is dying due to human interference; Tech-Green is doing its best to repair the damage and is insisting that humankind leaves the planet to give it time to heal. Ari Famber, is the result of a genetic experiment she knows nothing about. Leila Saatchi, a friend of Ari's dead father, has promised to find her and protect her from others who may seek to use Ari for their own ends. Leila's naturotech pagan group arrives at Taler's Bump, Ari's home, with the intent on awakening her latent, potentially world-changing potential. In Arcady city, a massive sprawl…