Tim Hardie's Reviews > Quenched In Blood

At first glance, Sean Crow’s 2021 cyberpunk fantasy novel Quenched in Blood is a flashy, violent affair. This tale revolves around gang warfare, focussing on a group of Norse gunrunners known as Valhalla Steel, led by their Jarl, Angus Jarlson. Having been driven out of their native Norway after incurring the wrath of a magical race known as the Fae, Valhalla Steel have fallen on hard times and are seeking to rebuild themselves in America, carving out a place for themselves in the sprawling Twilight City.

The setting of Twilight City has strong sci-fi influences and readers will be able to pick up various nods to classics such as Bladerunner, Terminator, The Matrix and Altered Carbon in the imagery and ideas used by Crow. Probably the closest comparison is Judge Dredd’s post-apocalyptic world of Mega-City One in the 2000 AD comics. However, Crow takes that concept of the police as judge, jury and executioner and amps it up with his truly terrifying creation of the cyborg Justicars, who are unswervingly loyal to the Tenocore Company, which runs everything in Twilight City. Virtually unstoppable ten-foot-tall machines, they enforce the law with a shoot to kill policy, using a variety of deadly weapons.

With its intense gun battles, car chases and brutal hand to hand combat, melded together with Fae magic and Norse mythology, this novel is a thrilling, unpredictable ride from start to finish. There’s plenty of action, building up to a fantastic climax and in terms of pure entertainment the novel really delivers on that count.

However, this isn’t just about cheap thrills – there’s a lot more beneath the surface. This is a labour of love and the worldbuilding here is simply incredible. Quenched in Blood reads like an alternative future history of Earth, where familiar countries and places exist, such as America, Russia, Rome and Norway, although some have been wiped out by orbital nuclear bombardment. This is a world featuring fantasy races (trolls, the fae, Jontun, cyclops), where magic and technology have been brought together to create deadly weapons. Whilst the history of the world, as we know it now, has occurred, in Crow’s version all this has been intertwined with fantastical elements.

The other great strength of Crow’s writing is his ability to bring a variety of disparate and often unlikable characters to life on the page. There’s no obvious hero here and the format involves various POV characters and several interlinked but separate storylines.

This certainly isn’t a struggle between good and evil – more a case of a fight for survival and dominance, using whatever means necessary to prevail. For example, whilst Valhalla Steel operate within a strict code of honour system, for them glory in combat is everything as they strive to be worthy to join Odin in Valhalla. Valhalla Steel are really a group of religious zealots, where the manner of their own death is more important than the suffering they cause to others. Their leader, Angus, reflects this, with his many flaws on full display:

“Helen watched him for a time. Some men were addicted to chems, others to pills or alcohol. Angus’ vice was hatred, and she wasn’t sure he’d ever break himself of it. He despised the Fae. It was, in her mind, his greatest weakness. It drove him to act in a way that broke from his normally calm and calculated manner, tainting his decisions with an almost blind rage.”

If this novel had just been about Angus, I think it would have been tough going. However, there are so many standout characters in this story and Crow’s gift is he makes you care about all of them.

Helen's relationship with a tortured Angus works really well. As I’ve mentioned, he's an interesting character who is very morally conflicted and his past blinds him. Helen’s struggle is trying to make Angus see there could be more to their life together.

His Thane, Yuri, lives on out of loyalty to Angus, his body augmented so he's half human, half fighting machine. Yet he’s also kind and considerate in his own way, for example helping Sigurd deal with the death of her brother:

“It is no easy task and some never learn to let it go. They bind their loved ones, hiding them so the Valkyrie cannot find their soul."

We also have Tiam, a paraplegic ‘net runner’ who fights his own wars through technology and linking his consciousness to the Net. The development of his relationship with Sigurd and the impact his disability has on this is handled very well. We also have the concept of the Net itself which, whilst clearly drawing inspiration from The Matrix, later moves in a very interesting direction.

The Fae called Ahearn is probably the closest thing to an antagonist in this novel, although again things are not that simple. Ahearn is appointed as a champion for the Fae, involving him having an odd symbiotic relationship with his 'Guardian', who gives him magical power but at considerable cost. There are parallels here to Ahearn’s past as a drug addict, which he struggles to break free from.

For those wanting to explore this world further, a novella, entitled Valhalla Steel, was released in 2020. This is where I started with Crow’s writing, although I think you could read these books in either order. The novella is really a proof-of-concept creation and the short form was almost groaning under the weight of all Crow’s ideas. In Quenched in Blood, the expanded novel format works really well, although this is still a relatively short book considering all the ground it covers.

I have to be honest, I’m surprised this book hasn’t already found itself a much wider audience because I really enjoyed this. I think this is in part because it’s very different to anything else I’ve read and is rather difficult to classify. I think if you like sci-fi or fantasy you would enjoy the Valhalla Steel universe. With his well-crafted characters, each with their own detailed history and motivations, Crow draws you into an amazing fantasy world. If you pick up this book you’re in for an exciting, action-packed adventure. This series really is brilliant and there’s lots of potential and fascinating possibilities to come in terms of where Crow takes this next.