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Magic and miasma: Mordew, by Alex Pheby, reviewed

15 August 2020

9:00 AM

15 August 2020

9:00 AM

Mordew Alex Pheby

Galley Beggar Press, pp.608, 14.99

Mordew ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids, as Elton John nearly sang. If they escape the ravages of lung worm, then they could stray into the Living Mud — a foul, oozing substance that spawns barely animate beings called ‘dead-life’. That’s if they avoid being packed off to serve the Master, the city’s Grand Inquisitor, who broods in his Manse, demanding regular tributes of children, his magic twitching throughout Mordew.

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