by Anthony Perconti
in Issue 159, April 2025
Matt Holder’s Hurled, Headlong Flaming is the inaugural offering from Spiral Tower Press’ Keen Blades imprint. Keen Blades’ mission statement is “to expand the boundaries of what sword and sorcery can be.” Bold statement, to be sure. Once I read the novella’s synopsis, coupled with that (utterly fitting and fantastic) infernal cover by Jake Kelly, my mind was made up. Once it arrived at my doorstep, I waited patiently until Friday night. My initial plan was to read it in two chunks-basically Flaming was to be my weekend read. The next thing I knew, it was two AM, on Saturday morning. I had ripped through the one-hundred and three pages of the novella in one sitting. So, the obvious question is, does this work live up to the hype? Does it add something new to the subgenre? After pondering this point for several days, I am of the opinion that Hurled, Headlong Flaming is the real deal. It delivers on its promise by leaning heavily on philosophical underpinnings, while simultaneously upping the violence quotient to grimdark levels of intensity. Bear in mind that this is an intentional choice by Holder (and not a criticism). It is not merely violence, for the sake of violence. Intense? Definitely. Gratuitous? I don’t think so. Rather, it is integral to the novella’s plot and in the Bishop’s Plutonian journey.
Hurled, Headlong Flaming is structured as a classic katabasis, in which the protagonist journeys down to the underworld. The nameless Bishop has more in common with Aeneas, than he does with the fictionalized Dante Alighieri, in that there is a specific goal that he needs to accomplish (in fact, he is compelled by dreams and visions to do so). As the scholar (and seasoned delver) Yaqut al-Hamawi states; “Before you can be granted access to the structure that houses the manuscript, you must demonstrate a worthiness to traverse the world of earth-flesh.” The MacGuffin of the story is an infernal manuscript that will, if not avert the apocalypse, then give proper instructions on how best to endure it. It should be noted that the historical context of Flaming is the winter of 1291, just before the siege of Acre. The Bishop’s response to al-Hamawi is quite telling. “Must I debase myself?” It is this ritual debasement that makes up the majority the first part of the novella (“The Matter of War”). Once the Bishop enters the underworld, he is forced to run an extended gauntlet, of bloody red murder. He is just one participant of a murderous multitude, human and otherwise, with a singular goal driving their actions. Kill, rinse, repeat. The infernal environment has given the participants of this scrum the ability to regenerate from mortal wounds. Death is off the table, true, but not the physical and emotional suffering and damage derived from this senseless bloodletting. This is the cost that this netherworld extolls on this pious man of the cloth. It is in this first part of the narrative, that Flaming veers squarely into the territory of grimdark fiction.
The second (and shortest) part of the novella, “The Matter of Truth,” acts almost as a palate cleanser to what came before. Given permission by a troika of demons (Ape, Squid and the most enigmatic of the three, Innocence) to move onto the second leg of his journey, the Bishop must fight another battle, one of wits as opposed to brute physical force. The author makes the deliberate leap from martial prowess to mental acuity. “The Matter of Truth,” is the most experimental aspect of the novella. Kudos to Keen Blades (and to Matt Holder for writing it, natch) for parking an out and out, Socratic dialectic smack in the middle of a sword and sorcery yarn! The Bishop must make the case and defend his position on a seemingly simple question-where, precisely does his authority stem from? This aspect of the journey is twofold; not only must he argue his position convincingly, in addition, the Bishop must entertain the trio of debaters. It is in this segment of Hurled, Headlong Flaming, that Holder gives the readers a glimpse of his protagonist’s backstory (and some of the guilt that he harbors, due to a miscarriage of justice). As he states in his own words, “That is when I learned if you hurt a man enough, you can create whatever truth you wish.” These words and what they entail are a central tenant of the novella. Does might make right? And who precisely is to judge; those that wield power? Those that do not? Or does it stem from an outside agency altogether? Holder returns to this question, at the tales’ “Coda,” shedding more light on the Bishop’s particular form of guilt (and one could argue, his noble quest’s original sin).
The final part of the story “The Matter of Taking,” is epistolary in nature. We are reading from the Bishop’s own journals. This is a firsthand account of what transpired in that other world. We are transported much closer to the holy man’s final objective. That infinite library, hidden within a Brobdingnagian superstructure. The nameless urban landscape seems like the twisted Platonic ideal of the term, city. A decayed and blasted costal megacity, where all manner of lifeforms bustle to and fro, cheek to jowl, at war with the aquatic denizens of a black sea. It is in this section of the tale, that the Bishop meets a fellow traveler (a human who speaks his own tongue), on his own particular quest. It is this nameless stranger who enables the holy man to reach his eventual goal. The virtues of human decency, kindness and selflessness exist, and can be found, even in the most inimical of environments. The library itself brought to mind, Jorge Luis Borges’ thought experiment of the (seemingly illegible by human standards, yet) infinite Library of Babel, combined with his boundless tome, from “The Book of Sand.” The tomes that reside in this repository of the totality of all knowledge have a degree of agency in whom they beckon. It is implied that these texts are sentient.
In certain regards, Hurled, Headlong Flaming has much in common with the grimdark genre, especially in its portrayal of violence, and the novella’s all-encompassing, claustrophobic and oppressive atmosphere. That’s as it should be. After all, this is a katabasis, modeled on the works of Dante, Milton and if I were to wager a guess, Michael Shea and Clive Barker to boot. A descent into a ‘creaturely’ mirror-version of our world. And yet for all its garish and lurid spectacle, Flaming raises more questions than it deigns worthy to answer. It sticks with you, well after you’ve closed the covers and put it back on the shelf, or nightstand. Don’t let the macabre trappings fool you into thinking this is just another piece of mindless fluff. It’s not the case, despite some of its obvious window dressing. This novella carries with it some serious philosophical heft. If we go back to the Keen Blades imprint’s mission statement, I would argue that Matt Holder’s Hurled, Headlong Flaming is successful in pushing the boundaries of what sword and sorcery fiction can do. And although I’m not the biggest fan of the grimdark aspects of the story, I certainly appreciate what Holder was trying to do. I respect the fact that Big Questions were being posited. Your individual mileage may vary, naturally, but it’s heartening to discover works that are comfortable with taking risks. After all, it’s not every day that you get meaty, philosophical discourse mixed into your hell diving, hack and slash mayhem. Congratulations to Matt Holder and Spiral Tower Press. I look forward to seeing what the author and the Keen Blades imprint, respectively, cook up next.
https://spiraltowerpress.blogspot.com/p/keen-blades.html
©March 2025, Anthony Perconti
Anthony Perconti lives and works in the hinterlands of New Jersey with his wife and kids. He enjoys good stories across many different genres and mediums. His reviews have appeared previously in Swords & Sorcery Magazine.
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