"The Malevolent Eight" by Sebastien de Castell

Back in July of 2023, as my world was turning to shit in a truly spectacular fashion, with so much more to come later, I finished a book I'd found: "The Malevolent Seven", by Sebastien de Castell. I had a few thoughts on it.

De Castell wrote a sequel and I blazed through it.

"The Malevolent Eight" takes place some months after the conclusion of "The Malevolent Seven". It stars the same characters, with the addition of a completely demented new one named Temper. And it goes in the same batshit crazy directions.

I have to say, I'm hard-pressed to figure which of de Castell's works I enjoy more: his Greatcoats short stories (the longer stories are a bit harder for me to digest) or this series.

The snarky narration of the Malevolent series is a special sort of fantastic, and "The Malevolent Eight" delivers that in spades. And it goes that much further with the addition of the new character.

Overall, the story has much the same sorts of twists and turns as the previous book had (and follows a lot of the patterns I've found with de Castell's protagonist journies, for good or ill).

I'm honestly not sure he's going to try for another book in this world. The ending works as a conclusion but has just enough ambiguity that I could see him squeezing out another if he's inspired. Or takes the right drugs. I mean this book is nuts.

I thoroughly enjoyed this as a crazy romp through epic battles of... um... not really "good" and "evil" so much as... well... read the book and you'll see.

Plus there's a kangaroo. Sort of.