The Maleficent Seven

by Cameron Johnston

When you are all out of heroes, all that's left are the villains.

Black Herran was a dread demonologist, and the most ruthless general in all Essoran. She assembled the six most fearsome warriors to captain her armies: a necromancer, a vampire lord, a demigod, an orcish warleader, a pirate queen, and a twisted alchemist. Together they brought the whole continent to its knees... Until the day she abandoned her army, on the eve of total...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0857669087
• ISBN13: 9780857669087
• Release Date: August 2021
• Publisher: Angry Robot
• Length: 420 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.3" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A delightfully dark fantasy!

If one person had started their review with "This book has piggy bombs" I wouldn't have waited so long to read it! Who knew I needed bombs made out of pigs in my life!? Black Herran the Demonologist is on the verge of conquering all of Essoran when she just up and decides to quit. There's nothing to really gain from it as far as she's concerned and besides she's trained her Captains well. They *should* be able to finish it off on their own. Or so she thought. When her seven monstrous Captains realize their leader is gone their final siege which would have brought Essoran to its knees falls apart and the seven are scattered. Forty years on though one of her Captains is leading a new and terrifying religion and it threatens everything Black Herran holds dear. She knows the only beings that can stop her old comrade is the remaining six Captains, that is if they don't kill her first. I've been reading a lot of books with happy nonviolent monsters lately and they are great but oh man was fantastic to get back to demons being demons and vampires ripping people's throats out! Sometimes you just have to read a good bloody book ya know? The characters in this were all amazing and it has been difficult to pick one I like more than the rest but it's got to be Black Herran she's just a badass and the smartest person in the room to boot. That is always a deadly combination. I loathed Maeven and I'm not gonna lie I'm sad we don't get to see her get hers in this book. And yes, there absolutely were some heartbreaking moments of bravery from everyone around monsters included. The pacing in this was awesome as well, I did not get bored reading this once. Johnston brilliantly juggles action and story in this. It's laugh-out-loud funny which is probably the icing on the cake. I don't believe you can actually write a book with this much violence without inserting some humor into it and Johnston does a great job of it. Seriously. Piggy Bombs. It may not sound funny here but trust me when you get to that part in the book you'll giggle at the very least. You may feel guilty about it, but you'll giggle. I really don't believe I have any complaints, there were definitely some formulaic elements but everything else was so good it really didn't matter. Definitely recommend this to anyone that is into dark fantasy books it's 100% worth the read.