Citadel of the Moon by Mike Chinn

Book Review

Ben Unsworth

After ‘Hail the New Age’ at the end of last year, Mike Chinn returns us to the cold-hearted Ramini Republic in ‘Citadel of the Moon’. It’s a novel just as no-holds-barred as its predecessor and if anything cheer is almost compulsively leeched out of it. This doesn’t make it depressing, though, more fantasy at its starkest and character interactions at their most curmudgeonly. Like someone unearthed Nigel Kneale’s bleak sense of humour and gritty cynicism and threw it into a world of magic.

Scilli and Batrix are once again the protagonists, and this time a pilgrimage they’re sent to oversee quickly devolves into another train-bound murder mystery, padded with a healthy dose of conspiracies, worms the size of behemoths, disappearing historians, and a host of other elements which tread the boundary between Agatha Christie’s brand of crime and the Sword/Sorcery genre. Batrix and Scilli are both surprisingly fun characters to spend your time with, despite the darkness that surrounds both of them, which always helps. There’s still a nice aura of mystery surrounding the duo as well, and so a compulsive ambiguity keeps us interested in them as the complex level of worldbuilding goes on around them.

To an extent, the plot is more an excuse for a lot of images Chinn clearly has in his head, and it actually works: the action and imagery are unequivocally strong. As well as sword and sorcery, there’s almost a Clive Barker-esque edge to his description of the Ramini Republic’s various creatures. Combined with the fantasy world Chinn creates, it’s almost like an iteration of the Elder Scrolls, watered down yet capable of biting all the same. A lot of plot threads keep you on the edge of your seat as well, though it’s never afraid to let some lurk in the background before unleashing themselves in the final few chapters.

Okay, it doesn’t tread new ground quite as exuberantly as you hope. The first Batrix/Scilli novel felt like a fresh blend of genres not commonly interlocked, but this felt more like the archetypal sequel in its general vibe. Perhaps it’s just the way my mind works, but at times I wanted it to push itself into almost the Giallo brand of crime. It does manage exuberance though: it comes in its embrace – or defiance – of the genre’s stereotypes, with even the prologue demonstrating the kind of melodrama you’d expect both of Christie or Robert E. Howard. 

While I won’t go so far as saying this is anything brand new, it’s a nice continuation of two characters undoubtedly worthy of your attention span. And if anyone is on the fence about the fantasy genre, this and the previous novel strike me as excellent place to begin your own pilgrimage towards a new world (of genre).