by E.R. Eddison (1900)
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Picture this: you’re knee-deep in the crimson mud of Imbros, the air thick with the roar of clashing steel and the guttural war-cries of Demonland’s lords. Juss, that unyielding captain of iron will, leads the charge against King Gorice XI’s witch-armies, his sword cleaving through foes like a scythe through wheat, while his brothers—Spune and Goldry Bluszco—wreak havoc beside him, their laughter fierce amid the slaughter. The ground shakes under the tread of monstrous demons summoned from the earth’s black heart, and you feel it in your bones: this is war as primal ecstasy, brutal and beautiful, where victory tastes like blood and salt.
I’ve lost myself in The Worm Ouroboros four times now, and each reread hits like a thunderclap. Eddison doesn’t spoon-feed you a tidy good-versus-evil tale; his Mercury is a savage paradise of towering volcanoes, frozen wastes, and enchanted seas where heroes like Lord Juss wrestle sea-serpents the size of galleons or scale sheer cliffs to raid Witchland’s strongholds. Remember the siege of Ebbing? When the lords of Demonland storm the beaches under a sky boiling with sorcery, arrows blackening the sun—it’s pure, heart-pounding rush, the kind that leaves your pulse racing pages later. And the prose? It’s a riot of Elizabethan fire, words like “wot” and “thou” weaving spells that pull you into the fray, making every duel feel like Homer reborn in a fever dream.
What sets this apart from the genre’s safer epics is its relentless amorality—no simpering elves or brooding chosen ones, just warriors who revel in the fight because that’s what they were born for. Eddison’s world loops like the serpent eating its tail, eternal and indifferent, where triumphs curdle into new wars without a hint of redemption arc. Tolkien borrowed its sheer imaginative muscle for his own vastness, admitting its “vigour” even as he quibbled with the philosophy, and you sense echoes in Lewis’s cosmic battles too. But this beast stands raw and unchained.
If you devoured the merciless heroism of Erikson’s Malazan marines or craved the unapologetic sword-clang of The Black Company, this is your unholy grail—pre-Tolkien fantasy at its most extravagant and alive.
Grab The Worm Ouroboros tonight; by chapter’s end, you’ll swear you’ve smelled the smoke of Demonland’s campfires.
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