Malarkoi

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Dashini takes them below to a chamber in which the corpse of god – the source of the Master’s power – is contained. Fear of what he had become, to have determined to do what he was about to do and sadness that he wasn’t a stronger and better person. An original, unnerving and immersive depiction of dark travesty: a vicious, viscid phantasmagoria.”– Republic of Consciousness Prize This can be exhausting. It’s also exhilarating. Pheby is nothing if not generous with ideas: These resurrections happen in a world where nested pyramids stretch into the sky, where magic runs on the power of human sacrifice, and where the city of Mordew is built on the corpse of God. That is where the trilogy opens; the first book, published in 2020, follows Nathan, a destitute boy living on Mordew’s fringes. Nathan has something called a “Spark,” a magical ability that sets him apart from the other children in the slums. In Malarkoi, Nathan’s Spark has upended Mordew and his allies have escaped the slums — and are now being tailed by a team of assassins.

His companions are scattered, making for Malarkoi, the city of the Mistress, the Master's enemy. They are hoping to find welcome there, or at least safety. Next to Anatole was a pretty-looking person, all ringlets and almond eyes and glistening lips, quiet, shrinking into her chair. On each finger she had rings, and every one had been taken from someone she had killed, all at the direction of Mr Padge, who had recently sequestered himself in his office, having delivered a lunchtime peroration to the gathered that had now concluded. He currently (2020) teaches at the University of Greenwich and has studied at Manchester University, Manchester Metropo Alex Pheby is a British author and academic. Malarkoi starts with a selection of chapters that take place within the timeline of the first book, from the point of view of a variety of characters. Seeing these key events from perspectives other than that of Nathan, our primary protagonist in Mordew, was not only setting the tone for the rest of this book amazingly well, but it gave us our first big look behind the curtain of how this world works on a fundamental level.The sequel to Pheby’s universally acclaimed and monumental fantasy epic Mordew, this delves even deeper into the vividly realised world inhabited by assassins, demi-gods, occult weapons and the sinister Master and Mistress.”– Waterstones Mordew is a darkly brilliant novel, extraordinary, absorbing and dream-haunting... crammed with grotesque inventiveness. This is an outré book, often mannered and sometimes arch; but it is also oddly, stiffly, immensely vital – is indeed about vitality, in both its creative and its cancerous form. It’s an extravagant and often unnerving marvel.”– The Guardian

With the money they have stolen, the gang go to see the gangmaster, Mr Padge, to buy the medicine for Nathan’s father. There is something self-serving it seemed to Joes in that kind of thinking, it is much easier to do the wrong thing when you given yourself permission to be weak and bad. Throughout this compelling novel the space between reader and Schreber becomes a sombre reminder of how alone we all are.”– The Guardian Sebastian CopeThe Master of Mordew’s real name. He deserves no sympathy – he has committed many crimes – but that is not to say that he is not a man like any other, possessed of that breed’s foibles, insecurities and weaknesses. It is customary to paint the antagonists of history as one-dimensional monsters, but Sebastian has many dimensions to his monstrosity, so it is only fair to recognise them here. Time passed, as it must, and to alleviate our boredom let us turn to an illustration of what manner of people these assassins were.

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Mordew] is weird and wonderful… bleak and beautiful… An extraordinarily vivid slice of world-building.”– The Sunday Express