Michael Hicks's Reviews > The Dragon in Winter

Kagen the Damned returns for a third, and seemingly final, quest to stop the Haakian Witch-King once and for all in Jonathan Maberry's absolutely epic The Dragon in Winter.

If you dug the previous entries in this series, Maberry gives you plenty more where that came from and then some in this positively sprawling conclusion that stretches from Argon and on up through to the arctic wastelands of the Winterwilds and all the lands and oceans in between. Kagen Vale and his comrades in arms, the mercenary war-woman Filia and her balls-obsessed lover, cutthroat killer Tuke, gather their forces of Unbladed warriors into a growing army to unite what remains of the destroyed Silver Empire to launch an all-out war against the Haakian invaders. There's land battles, naval battles, one-on-one attacks, castle sieges, and a whole lot of magic and monsters as the world grows more twisted under the influence of the Witch-King and his ancient cosmic god, Hastur.

That last name in particular should ring a few alarm bells for fans of H.P. Lovecraft, and the combination of cosmic horror with good, old-fashioned sword and sorcery make for natural bedfellows here. It's an element that initially drew me to deeply into this world. I've never been a big fantasy fan and, more often than not, my attempts at approaching the genre usually ended in failure and boredom. Maberry himself was the key element that made me pick up Kagen the Damned a few years ago, having become a fan of his work and official Joe Ledger obsessive, and that book cut right to the chase with an immaculate and wonderfully violent extended opening recounting the utter collapse of the Silver Empire in a single night. I wrote in my review then that, if ever there was an author that could get me to try another fantasy book after so much disappointment, it was Maberry. And, well, goddamn if he didn't turn my attitude right around. Joe Ledger obsessive, meet Kagen the Damned obsessive.

What makes this series work so well for me is it's balls to the wall, everything including the kitchen sink approach. It's dark and violent to be sure, but Maberry also uses it to platform every single bit of pulpy goodness that both he and I love. There's Lovecraftian Elder Gods, cosmic horror, monster horror, witches, vampires, werewolves, elves, goblins, tarnished heroes, seriously wicked bad guys, and buckets and buckets of blood. And, unlike most of the fantasy books I've tried and tossed in the DNF pile, none of this stuff gets bogged down in hundreds and hundreds of pages of dry infodump to tell you all about the last ten thousand years of world history and Biblical-like lineages of who begat who that led to the modern day. Yet it's clear there is a hell of a lot of history in this world, and rather than spelling it all out Maberry teases us with it, which all by itself adds another interesting wrinkle to the proceedings.

Maberry has crafted here a large and expansive world, one that's still filled with a lot of mystery and plenty more potential to be mined. The Dragon in Winter effectively closes out this trilogy of Kagen the Damned novels, but Maberry smartly leaves the door wide open for further adventures. And by the hairy balls of the god of returning characters, I certainly hope we get to travel with Kagen again someday soon. He's too cool a character, and his world too vast, to be left by the wayside for long.