The Art of Adaptation - Fantasy Monsters Part 2

@fredthepig on DeviantArt gives us a fresh reimaging of Little Red Riding Hood. 

Hello, Sup Readers!

In Part 1 of The Art of Adaptation - Fantasy Monsters, we explored the traditional tropes in the genre, like Vampires, Frankenstein, and Fae. It's clear these creatures are evolving over time, becoming more complex and less predictable. Today, I'm sharing some wonderful and eclectic new examples, all released this year.

Let's start with Rachel Gillig's The Knight and the Moth, out May 2025

From BookTok sensation and NYT bestselling author Rachel Gillig, comes the next big romantasy phenomenon: a gothic, mist-cloaked tale of a prophetess who is forced beyond the safety of her cloister on an impossible quest to defeat the gods with the one knight whose future is beyond her sight.

Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum's windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.

Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil's visions. But when Sybil's fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral's cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she'd rather avoid Rodrick's dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.

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And then, expected publication June 19, 2025, is The Return of the Sistah Samurai by Tatiana Obey.

Afro Samurai meets The Boondocks in this anime-inspired novel. A fresh take on ancient ideas.

I've wanted nothing more than to become a Sistah Samurai. When I was expelled from the training academy for sneaking in my stupid ex-boyfriend, I still had hope that I could cry enough to convince them to take me back. Then, demons invaded the capital and decimated the clan, and there went my dreams of ever naming my own pair of pink swords.

Until I heard a rumor of one last Sistah Samurai. I packed my favorite outfits and my trusty teddy bear, and recruited my forever bestie to help me find her. If we could manage not to interrupt her lunch, maybe we could convince her to train us? We were ready to do whatever she asked, even if that meant confronting old flames and taking down the patriarchy.

As long as we looked good while doing it.

The sequel of Sistah Samurai is an Action Fantasy novella that is an homage to the anime, Afro Samurai. Both works feature a feudal Japan-inspired setting that is rife with anachronisms. In the words of Samuel L. Jackson, “Is that a motherf—ing RPG?”

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How about The Devils by Joe Abercrombie? This is what happens when the devils are on your side! Out May 2025.

Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.

Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. 

But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters, and the mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.

Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.

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And finally, The Floating World by Axie Oh.

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone in this romantic fantasy reimagining the Korean legend of Celestial Maidens.

Sunho lives in the Under World, a land of perpetual darkness. An ex-soldier, he can remember little of his life from before two years ago, when he woke up alone with only his name and his sword. Now he does odd-jobs to scrape by, until he comes across the score of a lifetime—a chest of coins for any mercenary who can hunt down a girl who wields silver light.

Meanwhile, far to the east, Ren is a cheerful and spirited acrobat traveling with her adoptive family and performing at villages. But everything changes during one of their festival performances when the village is attacked by a horrific humanlike demon. In a moment of fear and rage, Ren releases a blast of silver light—a power she has kept hidden since childhood—and kills the monster. But her efforts are not in time to prevent her adoptive family from suffering a devastating loss, or to save her beloved uncle from being grievously wounded.

Determined to save him from succumbing to the poisoned wound, Ren sets off over the mountains, where the creature came from—and from where Ren herself fled ten years ago. Her path sets her on a collision course with Sunho, but he doesn't realize she's the girl that he—and a hundred other swords-for-hire—is looking for. As the two grow closer through their travels, they come to realize that their pasts—and destinies—are far more entwined than either of them could have imagined...

What contemporary monsters are you reading right now? I'd love to hear about them!

xKim

Other Posts in the Art of Adaptation 2025

January - The Art of Adaptation - Films in 2025

February - The Art of Adaptation - Authors' Response to External Pressures

March - The Art of Adaptation - The Healing Magic of KDrama

April - The Art of Adaptation -  Reader Persuasion

May - The Art of Adaptation - Fantasy Monsters Part 1

June - The Art of Adaptation - Fantasy Monsters Part 2 

July - The Art of Adaptation - Alternate History

August - The Art of Adaptation - AI: A New Chapter for Writers

September - The Art of Adaptation - Crafting Mood with Language

October - The Art of Adaptation - Take Five

November - The Art of Adaptation - On Time

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About Kim Falconer 

Kim Falconer, also writing as AK Wilder, has released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy with Curse of Shadows as book 2 in the series. Currently, she is ready with the third book, planned to be out in 2025. TBA

Kim can be found on AKWilder.com, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and KimFalconer.com. 

Throw the bones on the AKWilder.com site.. See you there!

The Year of the Villain #5: When the Hero Is Really A Villain

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Well, here we are -- 1 June and half way through the year already, which kinda feels a little villainous! So-o -- clearly! -- it's time for another post on villains in Fantasy literature.

You may recall back in post #3, when I discussed Brandin of Ygrath (in Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana), I referred to him as more "antagonist" than "villain", because he's a sympathetic character despite being Tigana's ultimate "big bad."

In today's post I'm going to flip this by talking about "protagonists" rather than "heroes" -- because when the main character is pretty much a villain, it's a bit of a stretch to refer to them as a "hero", even when they're lead character in the tale.

Han Solo

I also believe there is a difference between an anti-hero protagonist, i.e. such as Han Solo in Star Wars, who is a smuggler and rogue but comes to the heroes' aid, saving the day in the end, and tales where the central character's deeds place them at the "villain" end of the hero-to-villain spectrum. 

Two of the more powerful examples of this are Yarvi, in Joe Abercrombie's Shattered Sea series (Half A King; Half A World; Half a War), and Rin in RF Kuang's The Poppy War trilogy (The Poppy War; The Dragon Republic; The Burning God.)

[Note: There is a spoiler regarding the ending of The Poppy War series toward the end, but there's an alert just before you get there.]

In Half A King Yarvi is dispossessed of his throne, exiled, and enslaved. In both this and Book 2 (Half a A World -- where he is a more background character) his behavior is usually self-interested, to the extent of not serving either his friends (to the extent he is capable of friendship) or the realm. And he's always manipulative. 

In the trilogy's conclusion, Half A War, Yarvi engineers the war that threatens to destroy his own and the other Shattered Sea kingdoms, in pursuit of the power that led to their shattering. (Although it's never stated, the Shattered Sea history points to the action taking place in a post-nuclear holocaust world, but far into the future.)

Rin, the central character in The Poppy War series, is a young woman who already exists in a war-torn world. (If you're familiar with Chinese history you'll recognize analogs of the Opium Wars, Boxer and Kuomintang rebellions, and the Communist revolution that created the contemporary Chinese state.) She is also able to channel the power of a phoenix god, with its ability to generate annihilating fire and inflict widespread destruction.

Rin is a protagonist who starts with considerable promise in terms of magical power and leadership skills. By the end of the first book she has already abused her power and betrayed a great many people, and when the series ends, the betrayal has extended to every friend and ally, and the destruction has completely obliterated one enemy realm. (A comparable analogy would be if the United States had not only bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but unleashed nuclear destruction on the whole of Japan.)

(Spoiler Alert: The next sentence is definitely a spoiler, so maybe skip to the end if you're not already familiar with the story.)

In the end, Rin does check her (or the god's through her) insatiable thirst for destruction by taking her own life, but only after that swathe of knowing and intentional betrayal and obliteration.

In both Yarvi and Rin's cases, it's the "knowing" and "intentional" that sets the seal on their being villains, as well as protagonists -- proof that Fantasy villainy has come a long way from The Lord of the Rings in post #1, with its clear demarcation between good and evil, heroes and big bads.

© Helen Lowe

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About the Author

Helen Lowe is an award-winning novelist, poet, and lover of story. With four books published to date, she is currently completing the final instalment in The Wall Of Night series.
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Helen posts regularly on her “…on Anything, Really” blog, monthly on the Supernatural Underground, and tweets @helenl0we.

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Previous “Year of the Villain” Posts:

January:      Ushering in 2024 -- & the Year of the Villain

February:    The Year of the Villain #1: The Lord of The Rings Pantheon

March: The Year of the Villain #2: Ursula Le Guin & “Earthsea”

April: The Year of the Villain #3: Tigana and Brandin of Ygrath

May: The Year of the Villain #4: Elidor and Formless Evil