Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis 
Published by Titan Books on May 28, 2024
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 344
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Keval Shah
Length: 11 hrs 28 min
Source: Audible
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A sharp-witted, high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, evil wizards and a garlic festival - all at once. Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, K. J. Parker and Travis Baldree.
It’s bad enough waking up in a half-destroyed evil wizard’s workshop with no eyebrows, no memories, and no idea how long you have before the Dread Lord Whomever shows up to murder you horribly and then turn your skull into a goblet or something.It’s a lot worse when you realize that Dread Lord Whomever is… you.Gav isn’t really sure how he ended up with a castle full of goblins, or why he has a princess locked in a cell. All he can do is play along with his own evil plan in hopes of getting his memories back before he gets himself killed. But as he realizes that nothing – from the incredibly tasteless cloak adorned with flames to the aforementioned princess – is quite what it seems, Gav must face up to all the things the Dread Lord Gavrax has done. And he’ll have to answer the hardest question of all – who does he want to be?Dread Lord Gavrax has had better weeks.
Clever and funny.
Dread Lord Gavrax wakes up in his laboratory–actually he wakes up wondering where he is and if the dark wizard will be returning shortly to find Gav hiding there. Something has gone wrong, and his missing eyebrows are starting to make Gav think that it was a spell gone wrong. Unfortunately Gav has no memory and more distressing, he has no memory of being the dark wizard or even why he became a dark wizard, and maybe the worst of it, is why he is keeping a Princess locked up on his dungeon?
This is definitely a case of fake it until you make it — or at least, fake it until your memory comes back so no one kills you. Unfortunately, Gav doesn’t seem to be doing a great job of faking as it seem an angry Darklord Gavrax would have been tossing a few fireballs at the staff by now, and they have definitely noticed the lack of fireballs being aimed at them.
The more Gav–since he starts to think of pre-memory wipe Gavrax as someone entirely different–the more Gav learns about Gavrax, the more he despises him. He is terrified of the other dark wizards he has associated himself with, and he is pretty certain he is absolutely no match for any of them. Was Gavrax so desperate for whatever power that he agreed to work with them or did he have a super-inflated opinion of his own skill set.
Gav is pretty convinced that Gavrax was an idiot and now a memory-wiped Gav has to host a convocation of these dark wizards and he is pretty certain his part was to bring the princess for sacrifice. Which really sucks because Gav is really, really starting to like her if only she can overlook the kidnapping and…possible sacrifice? to see the new not-so-dark wizard Gav is trying to become.
THOUGHTS:
This was a fun story and I would recommend the audiobook version of it as the narrator does a nice job playing with the characters and bringing them to life.
We have the goblin staff that know something is up with Gavrax but aren’t all that upset that he isn’t getting angry and setting them on fire.
There is a running joke involving garlic. The mayor of the tiny village next to the castle comes ready to be turned into a toad because this year’s crops have failed and there won’t be food for the winter. When she isn’t immediately turned into a toad, she indicates that the only crop that survived is garlic. In fact, the garlic did great. So she and Gav come up with the idea to have a garlic festival to raise money to buy other crops. When a young punk comes to Gavrax and announces he too want to be a great dark wizard, Gav tells him the secret to dark magic is garlic. This turns into adventurers who are trying to rescue the princess whispering that magic of garlic and that’s why Gavrax makes the village grow so much.
When the dark wizards are arriving and the King has sent adventurer’s to rescue his daughter and all these factions will be closing in on the castle, the new and improved Gav is actually worried about his goblin staff and the local village, but they are all like–‘you’re the fifth dark wizard who took over this castle. Meh, there’s always some danger. If you want safe, don’t work in a dark castle.’
I like that the staff and the village come to appreciate the new Gav and are happy to work with him, even if they don’t understand why he is suddenly nice.
Favorite Scene:
When Gav did not immediately bring forth a list of demands, Mayor Terwin stepped up. She wore a dress rather grubbier than the one she’d worn to the castle, and one hand was full of checklists. But the iron braids and iron gaze were just as he remembered. Remembering things, even from just a day before was a bliss. He wanted to roll in the sensation of looking at someone and having facts about them spring to mind. And opinions. Opinions were a delight. He would happily eat Larks Head pie again just to wallow in the sensation of remembering how much he hated it.
“Can we help you, my Lord?” Terwin asked.
He licked his lips and opened his mouth. Every eye was focusing on him. No words came out. How could he break it to them that they were about to be invaded by both dark wizards, who would see them as nothing but test subjects, and good heroes, who would see them as nothing but obstacles, and it was very much all his fault. He had no idea how they would react. Would there be screaming and crying? Would they finally discover a backbone and attack him? See this was the problem with not having facts or opinions.
Terwin did though. She was Mayor. She could tell them best. He wasn’t supposed to make grand inspirational speeches. He was supposed to be lurking in the Tower. He was pretty sure if he’d ever make a speech in his life, it was a gloating one to a hapless hero laid low. Wrong kind of speech. Yes, this was the sort of thing best left to experts. He was a coward. There was no way around it and he was pretty sure he could live with that. Fundamentally, brave people didn’t become dark wizards.
“A word with you,” he said, trying to look haughty and unconcerned.
Mayor Terwin had the kindness, or the self-preservation not to raise an eyebrow. She just nodded and turned. For a moment he stood there as she walked away and then it occurred to him that he was supposed to follow her. He stumbled along in her wake, a drunken baby duck.
He wasn’t sure where it was he expected her to take him but it wasn’t her house. Of course, the village wasn’t big enough for a proper town hall, he realized as he ducked his head to enter the little stone cottage. No weeds would ever dare to grow up against the outer walls. Inside the bare floor squeaked with cleanliness. The one room cottage was positively monastic without so much as a rag rug on the floor, except for the fluffiest pink quilt he could imagine on the bed. The edges had been appliqued with an assortment of colorful owls. Orla would have been delighted.
The Mayor turned, resolutely ignoring the fluffy mess undercutting her surly image. Now there was the raised eyebrow he’d been waiting for. He swallowed. “I’m afraid we have to call off the festival.”
Her face stilled. He could tell from the absolute lack of expression, she was warring with herself over whether to fight or to comply. He couldn’t help but notice that if he’d unleashed some horrible monster or firestorm or plague of itchiness upon her, it would be most likely be contained by the stone walls and not spill over into the rest of the village.
“I don’t understand,” she settled on. “Are the preparations not to your liking?”
He didn’t need to explain. He was her Lord. He just had to order and she ought to jump to follow his instructions, but she’d need to know anyway, wouldn’t she. To prepare.
“They look great,” he said. Well, great might have been stretching things a bit. Actually, he couldn’t really imagine anyone coming from very far away to look at some bedsheets, let alone spending much in the way of money in a bad harvest year.
“It’s not that. It’s just–“
“We’ve planned activities,” she added quickly. “Pony rides. Pony. Actually just a donkey but children can ride him. Games. Guess the number of cloves in the garlic bulb. Toss the garlic bulb through the hoop. Spin the garlic bulb. I am told such things are fun. We’d though about a kissing booth but thought it would be a bad idea with garlic breath so we were trying to figure out some way to get people to pay not to be kissed without being–well horrible. We’re still working on that one. We’re putting together a garlic costume. A giant bulb of garlic to greet people. We’ll have a dunk tank. I’m willing to take a turn and I don’t suppose–no, never mind. I’ll just take two turns,” she rushed on completely misinterpreting whatever expression had plastered itself across Gav’s face.
“That all sounds wonderful,” he finally managed to wedge in, “but that’s not the problem.”
“It’s the advertising, isn’t it. I thought about it and I let the traveling minstrels know, so they should already be telling people…”
“We’re about to be invaded.” That cut through the feverish planning. She paused.
“By whom?”
“King Barabono’s legion of heroes,” he said rubbing his temples. “He’s posting a reward to get his daughter back.”
“Well, then,” she said looking thoughtful, “that could take care of the advertising problem. They’ll come right to us. We’ll sell them some garlic and–“
“You aren’t going to want to be there, I’m afraid,” he said, “because at the same time, I’m going to need to be hosting some–ah, guests.”
She gave him that same blank look. He looked back unsure of what was going on behind those shuttered eyes. Finally she shook her head. “Alright. I know what it means when the ominous pause is before hosting. I’m afraid I’m just not following your innuendo for the guests. Unless you’re planning to kidnap another village-worth of people?”
He couldn’t feed the village-worth of people he already had. He had no idea what he’d do with another one.
“Rather fewer but more problematic. We are about to be hosts to something of a dark wizard convocation.”
Her eyes actually widened at that. Not a lot, just a fraction but it was more of a flinch than he had gotten from her to date.
“How many wizards are we talking about?” she asked after another pause to consider. “And are they likely to take test subjects from the village?”
“Three.” he answered feeling on solid ground for the first time in this conversation. At least this answer he knew. “And they’re retinues. And I planned to tell them that the village is off limits.”
“Well,” she said, almost more to herself than to him. “That’s just perfect.”
“I know,” he commiserated. “I mean, what would the chances of this all happening at the same time?”
“We couldn’t have asked for better.” she said, her features slowly lighting up.
“I…what?”
“I’ll call the troubadour’s back and send them over the border,” she said. “They’ve got just enough time to make it to King Aldeman’s court. They’re always envious of our local magic. I am sure we will be able to get at least a dozen of the minor nobles and their attendants to sneak across the border for a chance to brush elbows with not one but four genuine dark wizards.”
“Wait? What?” When had this started to slide out of control. The answer to the problem had been very obvious and yet Terwin, by all measures a very rational person, had landed on an answer involving not the least bit of running away. Gav wanted to run away. Why was she not going with the running away option. “I said I’d tell them the village was off limits but we both know how well people listen. We’ll end up getting someone turned into a toad or a living slip of fire or eaten by a wizard’s demon horse or something.”
“All the better,” said Terwin. “A little danger always brings in a better crowd.”
“But, I–They’re–what?”
“People are stupid,” she said. “And they like a taste of adventure. They don’t think anything bad could happen to them.”
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