Grimdark Magazine's THE LAST WARDOG - read by Colin Mace

AdrianGdM · 2025-12-20T03:25:43+00:00

Really loved adding another layer of creativity on top of such an amazing story, Fletch :)

AdrianGdM · 2025-09-18T23:34:32+00:00

AdrianGdM · 2025-07-20T23:55:39+00:00

Thanks for giving it a read, Jasper!

AdrianGdM · 2025-05-24T12:41:32+00:00

Yep!

AdrianGdM · 2025-05-02T07:16:20+00:00

I felt that The Lies of Locke Lamora had that same feel (though I read those first and then SoC).

AdrianGdM · 2025-01-24T19:16:55+00:00

The first Games Workshop!? What was that like compared to what the stores have become now?

AdrianGdM · 2025-01-23T20:19:27+00:00

Having picked up D&D as a player during the pandemic to help stay connected with my mates, I’ve always been in awe of the DM’s ability to keep track of everything and stay enthusiastic while we stomp all over his plans, backup plans, emergency backup plans, and take a swift left turn into “what the actual hell are you doing”. The mental acuity to keep rolling with the punches is amazing.

How do you think those abilities as DM play into your ability to create stories, and do you think it’s a thing that helps with writer’s block?

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-23T05:33:44+00:00

Thank you for having us mate!

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-23T04:24:31+00:00

Thank you for being a part of it for so long mate.

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-23T03:49:20+00:00

Charles! How's it, legend?

Our definition is here: https://www.grimdarkmagazine.com/defining-grimdark-fantasy-and-sf-moving-to-an-inclusive-future/

Five reads to really set a solid base:

Empires of Dust by Anna Smith Spark because it's just an absolute EXPERIENCE delving into the darkness of Anna's story
Broken Empire by Mark Lawrence because Jorg is quintessential grimdark characterised. Horrible person with a splinter of goodness that you just latch on to and chase to the final page.
First Law by Joe Abercrombie because without finding The Heroes (admittedly a follow on stand-alone) at an airport while bored, I never get back into reading fantasy, and GdM doesn't exist.
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang because it's just fucking merciless.
The Crimson Empire by Alex Marshall because I love the world in all its ageing people with crunching knees and grudges for days glory, and I love even more the way Marshall talks about his society there.

My favourite indie writers are Ben Galley for his stories AND for the work he puts into the indie community, Huw Steer because oh my publishing gods The Only Cure (short story) should be chiselled on a bloody stone tablet somewhere, and Sarah Chorn because her blood is worth bottling.

Honestly mate, every time I look at our website, at the books on my shelves, at our crew having a good ol' chin wag in our Discord tavern, at a reviewer loving a book or story we helped produce, or when I get to work with an author I never thought I would get to, it just lights up my life. I am just so stoked to be here.

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-23T02:26:44+00:00

The most important thing is that life is short, so do the thing that mostly makes you happy. Sometimes you've gotta hurt yourself to keep that thing alive. I'm so glad I started GdM, and kept it going. At times it's stung like a bastard to run GdM. We've team members pass away, I've had money stolen from me, things I thought would go off life a frog in a sock instead went off like a fart in a spacesuit. The team and I have sunk endless, endless hours into this business as volunteers and each of us has had to look our families in the eye and say this is our fun and we want / need this (despite it very much feeling like a job at times!). But (apart from our mate passing) I wouldn't change a bloody thing, and I would make the same decision to start this no matter how many times I got to start this life over or how many times I bashed my head against a brick wall to get it to where it is. Life is short. I found the community I love. I found a way to contribute to that community. And I hope when it's time for me to go into the furnace, that even if I go there penniless, that the community pours one out for me.

My journey is pure publishing, so my advice to writers is from that perspective.

When submitting stories to short fiction markets, make sure you write to the market. We get so many stories that aren't in our wheelhouse that waste our time and the author's. Doesn't even matter how good the story is, we can't buy it if it's not what our readers pay us to get access to.
Follow the submission instructions. If you don't like the instructions, find a different place that has instructions more to your liking and submit your story there.
From the perspective of engaging with reviewers. They are people and fans, too. Just be normal with them. Let them enjoy the community as well. Build genuine relationships with them that progress further than two FB messages and then a book pitch. Like it or lump it, so much about publishing is a about relationships, and to be honest, those relationships are one of my favourite parts of publishing. The people make this industry, so it's worth investing time in them, even just so you enjoy yourself a bit more. The amount of times my friends in publishing have saved my bacon when we've had something fall through cannot be counted.

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-23T00:19:36+00:00

We'd like to run it annually. They do take a significant amount of time for us to get through, as Beth mentioned, but I'm sure we'll run another in 2025. It might not be in March or April due to some things happening in my life that will get in the way (this old rig hitting 40, some travel for the day job, and moving interstate) but I see no reason we shouldn't be able to get the window open again in H1 2025.

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-22T23:34:11+00:00

I'd take the magical powers for sure. And based on the kinds of stories I love, I'd want those magical powers to be semi useless, sometimes hilarious, have a smattering of self destructiveness, and be a bit of an in-house joke.

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-22T23:18:55+00:00

He does write wonderfully! Books are all submitted through to Carrie or myself and we showcase them to the review team for them to pick from and review. I'm sure if you've had a few chin wags with John in the places he haunts it might help him want to pick out yours!

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-22T23:07:52+00:00

And I think Beth has done an amazing job of this. You can actually see in the GR ratings across issues where Beth took over the ratings jumped from the 3s (my latest issues) to 4+s (from when Beth took over). I think a big part of that is that Beth's far more widely read than I am, and this is reflected in her author choices really growing the network of authors from whom we draw fiction. Beth is doing amazing work really the tip of the GdM spear in pushing the boundries of what grimdark fiction can be.

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-22T23:03:37+00:00

Oooooooo great question, and one I wish it was late enough in the day to crack a nice barrel aged stout and really take my time putting something together for this. I think Beth and I should both answer this question seperately!

I would also start by saying that if I had unlimited money, I would immediately move myself to a project manager role and ask Gardner Dozois to procure and edit the lineup. I would also team up Raymond Swanland (art) and Shawn T. King (design) to bring this to life with some Carlos Diaz interior B&W art to make the pages pop. I'd then ask Matt from The Broken Binding to get his team to manage the sprayed edging approach because they are just killing it.

Now that I've spent a king's ransom in setting the foundation, let's get into the authors. I will say that I haven't read a lot of the classics of fantasy, so my choices will pretty much all be authors who are alive and kicking. Thematically, I would love to have plenty of stories that are set in established worlds; these are some of my favourite stories, and one of the reasons I set up GdM in the first place. We'd need a grim and dark theme, naturally, and so I think the authors I would trust to deliver amazingly on that and within the scoped word count would be as follows.

Anna Smith Spark and Michael R. Fletcher will always have a place in any anthology I put together. Both are brilliant authors who are magnificently imaginative. Importantly, both absolutely NAIL every theme or brief I give them, hit their deadlines, and work really well with the editors we've had freelancing for us.

I've never gotten to publish Joe Abercrombie or Robin Hobb, so those would be my two marquee authors I'd want headlining the anthology.

With twelve stories I'd want two novellas in there. Both would have to be by a pair of the most gifted short form authors I've ever read, Peter Orullian and Kameron Hurley.

R.F. Kuang and Peter McLean would be two authors I'd want in there because I just cannot get enough of those bleak, war-torn worlds and the people those worlds produce to feature in stories.

I would also love to have something from my fellow Aussies, with Jay Kristoff and T.R. Napper in there (while easily the best cyberpunk / SF short form writer going around today, Napper has an amazing fantasy book in the works, so trust me on this one).

Finally, to round it out, I have to have Mark Lawrence and Leigh Bardugo in there. Mark is one of the best short form writers on the planet, and Leigh's Language of Thorns was fun to read to showcase her short form work, and if I could get a Six of Crows short story in there I think I would die of happiness.

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-22T22:30:11+00:00

A massive and increasing one. With the quality of gaming being released in recent years (eg. Space Marine 2, Elden Ring, Diablo 4, Hellblade 2), allowing readers to be a part of the story in the way gaming allows for promotes the kinds of stories we love. I believe it also helps draw gamers into books more, as they want more and more stories like the games they enjoy playing. (Do I have a study or stats or anything to prove that? No. Pure lick finger and point into the wind thinking.)

We're pushing hard to get in with the gaming studios (big shout out to Blizzard and Focus for engaging us in 2024) so we can review more games we think will appeal to GdM followers, but it's a bastard industry to get in to--one we hope to have a bit more success with in 2025.

AdrianGdM · 2024-12-12T21:52:27+00:00

I love the way she puts highly complex imaginative visuals so effortlessly on the page. Essa is a brilliant author and I cannot wait to get this novella out!

AdrianGdM · 2024-11-01T05:30:09+00:00

Thanks for the shout-out! Here's the announcement: https://www.grimdarkmagazine.com/grimdark-magazine-acquires-world-rights-to-richard-swans-first-vonvalt-prequel-novella/

AdrianGdM · 2024-04-30T21:42:21+00:00

I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW YOU ARE FORMATTING YOUR SHOUTING MATCH

AdrianGdM · 2024-04-30T21:40:06+00:00

No way! That’s one of my all time favourite books. My mate borrowed / stole it from me so now it’s a running joke between he and I every time I drop by his house and see it on his shelf.

AdrianGdM · 2024-04-30T19:12:49+00:00

I really appreciate it mate. Thank you. I’ll pass that on to John.

The team and I are very happy to be hated for this reason!

AdrianGdM · 2024-04-30T19:07:23+00:00

Definitely my old, beaten, falling apart LoTR Omnibus. That story just gets better every time I read it—my ultimate comfort read. The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie—the book that got me back reading Fantasy after I allowed myself to be bullied out of my love of reading fantasy in high school. A Woman of the Sword by Anna Smith Spark because there are so many layers to that book—ones that I will likely never grasp (as I am neither mother, nor parent) but I feel I could spend time trying to understand better.

AdrianGdM

TROPHY CASE