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| Short Story: “Our Lord of Quarters” |
Any story that has to unfortunately follow “Orfeo the Damned”, an amazing Hellraiser story, has everything going against it. Thankfully, Simon Clark conjured up an interesting tale that managed to delve into Hellraiser territory very much the same way Tim Lebbon did in “Every Wrong Turn”. Read on for the rest of the review…
“Our Lord of Quarters” is told through the eyes of a salve boy in Constantinople, AD 1401. He is part of the Emperors entourage and one day, while a siege is occurring in the city, the Emperor is given word that his troops have a caught a demon during the chaos of battle. The Emperor proceeds to travel to the church where it’s being held. Once there, they meet an interesting creature whose name is The Lord of Quarters. The demon proposes an interesting deal for the Emperor. He will provide plenty of riches in exchange for a certain percentage of his people. What he wants to do with those people however, is something I can’t tell you, without delving deeply into spoiler territory.
Simon Clark doesn’t write your typical Hellraiser tale, a sentence I seem to writing a lot in these reviews, but he also doesn’t fall into the traps of some of the other stories (a sentence I don’t write as much). You might think at first it has nothing to do with the mythology, but the further you get into the story, the more intriguing information you’re provided. Clark introduced some new themes to the universe and thankfully he chose wisely not to clash with any existing ideas.
I really enjoyed the story and liked all the new stuff Simon Clark brought forth. It may be no Orfeo, but it sure as hell is better than some of the others. Another excellent tale in the so far small assortment of good ones.
Rating: 4/5