Delving Into "Inferno of Madness"

...a look inside the possibly penultimate "Barbarians of the Storm" book

Well, it’s been a few days since Inferno of Madness has been released. It’s the 3rd Side Quest book and the 9th Barbarians of the Storm entry, overall. It was actually two separate book ideas that I smashed into one, as I thought it would benefit both stories to do so. Also, it allowed me to check off a third box for an idea I have had for awhile, which was to force the unlikely duo of Erzulyn and Vasilia together in a buddy adventure like Fenrik and Dan. But do not be fooled, this is not a modern Hollywood gender swapped reboot! No, it is a story where the female leads are very much themselves and strong characters because of it. There are no Mary Sue reimaginings of legacy characters here! In fact, these women get their asses kicked heavily in this epic and terrifying tale that leans much more into horror than simple fantasy adventure.

So what stories got pushed into one?

The first was an idea for a book I had called The Planet of the Witches, which would have featured Erzulyn as the main character in a solo adventure offworld that sent her to (surprise!) a planet of witches. I actually laid the groundwork for this in the short story Of Wings and Wrath (from the anthology A Crown of Furious Color & Other Stories). In that story, Fenrik’s younger brother Magnar meets some witches that live in the caves under the mountains south of his kingdom. There is still mention of them in Inferno of Madness, but I shifted gears quite significantly on what the threat was going to be in this book. Things got much, much more grandiose, as Erzulyn (and Vasilia) encounter eldritch gods, a lich queen, actual demons, undead kaiju, and a titan-sized angelic abomination.

The second idea was a Vasilia story I had in mind called The Queen of Carrion, which would have seen her have a showdown with a secret heir that the Nekroking had hidden away for centuries. This whole idea got absorbed into Inferno of Madness once I realized that I wanted to have Erzulyn and Vasilia together, during Fenrik’s 7 year absence, and it just fit really well with the bigger picture I was developing. Read the book and you will see why.

Additionally, I felt that having Erzulyn encounter a planet of witches, while cool, just wasn’t “epic” enough to challenge her before the final war for her world and the level of threats that are on their way there. I also needed to establish the eldritch entities place in the saga much more than I did in Devil Killer Fenrik, as we are now in the end game for the saga. Plus, I wanted to give a peek at the sort of angelic-eldritch abominations that are to come. I also needed to reveal Dark Elizabeth to the heroes more directly, as well as establishing the saga’s true secret villain and his mega strong underlings like the mad pharaoh Nephren-Ka (formerly the Lovecraftian god Nyarlathotep who has been depowered by Hastur aka the King in Yellow).

Lastly, I had an idea a long time ago about a lonely sentient sun that created his own world and tried to force life into it so that he would have companionship. That idea just fit perfectly with this story and ended up being the final piece and perfect way to bring together all the elements of this bizarre tapestry.

Now, all that being said, and I know it sounds like a lot, what I ended up with is, by far, the best book I have ever written. It’s also a vast departure from the earliest books in the Barbarians of the Storm series. This series was created so that I could experiment, and with that, I have improved considerably since the first book was released just under three years ago.

The tone of this book is dark, very dark. I would say that it eclipses the anthology Eyes In All Shadows & Other Stories, except in gore. That book had some pretty gory but necessary things in it. But for fans of that book, this one serves as its most direct sequel. The Erzulyn and Vasilia childhood stories from Eyes are revisited in Inferno of Madness, and there are some very long awaited payoffs for fans that have stuck with the series this long.

Now, not only is this my best book, in my opinion, it is my favorite. The funny thing about that is it’s the only book that doesn’t have Fenrik in it. Even the anthologies had minor Fenrik cameos, but this does not.

Like almost all of my numbered saga books and Side Quests, this one features a bonus short story at the end. I won’t say much other than it picks up Killer’s story from An Axe to Eat the Gods and it ends in a way that leaves the reader with hope and a smile. I felt like I needed to do that after the absolute darkness that is Inferno of Madness.

That’s it for now. I think my next post should be about my plans for what’s to come, as I have decided that I can probably cap things off with just one more (thick) book. But I will elaborate in a separate post next week.