'Skull Throne (Warhammer Horror)' – Jake Ozga (Black Library)


I'm not knocking the Eurovision Song Contest, if that's your thing then fair play to you. It's not my thing though, just doesn't do anything for me, so when I got roped into watching it yesterday evening, I thought I'd sneak a little reading onto my Kindle App to get me through at least some of it. I'm getting ahead of myself but I've enjoyed some Warhammer Horror over the weekend (review to come) so I thought I'd treat myself to a little more and it ended up being Jake Ozga's 'Skull Throne'. I love a bit of Khorne you see (although my ideal Chaos Power would actually be a Khorne/Nurgle hybrid but anyway...)

It's going to be 'quick thoughts' again as 'Skull Throne' is only eighteen pages long. I'll tell you one thing though, I'll definitely be looking for more stuff by Jake Ozga if 'Skull Throne' is anything to go by...

Life in the wild places of Shyish is not as life elsewhere in the Mortal Realms. How could it be, when Shyish is the Realm of Death itself? For one inhabitant of that benighted land, the dream of life within death becomes a nightmare when dark invaders come to Shyish and takes their skull for the pleasure of a dark god. Yet even death isn't always permanent in Nagash's domain, and the sole warrior has the chance to fight again and avenge themselves on their foes…

'Skull Throne' is a deceptively dreamy piece (much the Realm of Shyish itself I'd imagine) that likes to play it's cards close to it's chest, only dishing out plot points when it absolutely has to. What you get then, as a reader, is a story that sucks you in with some gorgeous prose and when you're nice and comfortable, likes to remind you that you're actually reading a rather vicious piece of horror. 'Skull Throne' isn't the story that you think it is and that's all I'll say.

Having read a few Warhammer Horror stories by now, I was initially a little surprised to see that 'Skull Throne' isn't particularly overt with it's horror. There's no monstrous antagonist, well there is but it's so enormous that it doesn't really care at all about our nameless lead who spends most of the story trying to get it to notice her. Which was when I realised that Ozga's prose had lulled me into missing the whole point (nice work there, dreamy prose). Not only is there is a nice little vein of Lovecraftian 'lets pit the poor human up against something god-like' horror running through 'Skull Throne' but the whole point of Warhammer in general is people living with this horror every day, getting used to it up until the point when it finally touches them and they have to make a stand. Ozga really nails that here and shows us that the real horror is also in the inevitability of what must play out and where it will end. The ending isn't a surprise but I don't think it was ever meant to be.

Another vicious slice of horror, and this one crept up on me, in the Warhammer Horror line and a note to readers that Jake Ozga is worth keeping an eye open for. I'd love to see him bring his take on horror, in the Age of Sigmar or elsewhere, to a longer work, fingers crossed. 

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