Publisher: Acardia (ebook – 27 May 2025)

Series: Malevolent series – Book Two

Length: 397 pages

Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

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The always entertaining Sebastien de Castell unleashes one of the funniest books of 2025 with the dark fantasy novel, The Malevolent Eight, a compelling and impressive sequel that I couldn’t get enough of.

Over the last couple of years, I have really become attached to the amazing Sebastien de Castell, a leading fantasy author with some outstanding stories under his belt.  Known for his impressive and varied stories, including his Greatcoats, Spellslinger and Argosi novels, de Castell has a brilliant imagination, and I love the range of complex settings and narratives he brings to life.  Some of my favourite de Castell books are from his recent The Court of Shadows fantasy murder mystery series, which serves as a sequel to his original Greatcoats books.  These include the witty and entertaining Play of Shadows (one of my favourite books of 2024) and the particularly clever Crucible of Chaos (one of my favourite audiobooks of 2024), both of which were real highlights of my reading calendar last year.  However, for this review I’m going to focus on a far more entertaining series of de Castell’s that I have had a blast with.

This series is the Malevolent collection of books, which contain dark magic, over-the-top characters and ridiculous humour.  Starting back in 2023 with The Malevolent Seven, this series followed seven morally questionable mercenary mages who come together into an unlikely team to defeat a group of dangerous wizard brothers.  However, their attempt to do the right thing spectacularly backfires on them when they are tricked into allowing the hosts of heaven and hell to simultaneously invade, turning their realm into the battleground for their final war.  I ended up having an exceptional time with The Malevolent Seven, and I really got drawn into it’s clever, if outrageous plot.  Naturally I was keen to see how the series continued, and the recently released sequel, The Malevolent Eight, has long been on my to-read list.

After a great betrayal, the mortal realm is in peril as the heavenly Lords Celestine and the dark Lords Devilish have simultaneously invaded, determined to fight their long-anticipated final battle on this unclaimed ground.  As both sides recruit as many additional human soldiers and followers as they can to their cause, the survival of humanity seems to lie in the hands of an unlikely group of rogue magic users.  Unfortunately for everyone involved, humanity’s saviours are the damn fools who caused this calamity in the first place, the insane mages better known as The Malevolent Seven.

At the head of this misfit band is Cade Ombra, a man who has known power and betrayal from both the Celestine and the Devilish and is determined to allow humans to remain free from their dual influences.  Forced to work with the most emotionally unstable group of mages and wonderists in the mortal realm, including a destruction-loving lighting slinger, a fallen angel, a righteous devil trying to serve the Celestine, an uncertain blood mage, a roguish rat admirer and their newest member, a vampiric kangaroo, Cade begins to wage a surprisingly moral war on both the Celestine and the Devish.

However, The Malevolent Seven aren’t the only beings attempting to disrupt the plans of the two invading armies.  Another group of mages, as well as a mysterious woman from Cade’s past with unimaginable power, are also fighting for their own purposes, and looking good while doing so.  Forced to contend against angels, devils, and ambitious mages, Cade will need to outthink all his enemies, while also ensuring that his own chaotic allies don’t make everything even worse.  However, the harder he fights, the more Cade begins to realise that he may have to sacrifice everything, especially when it becomes clear that the origin of the apocalypse lies in his gilded past.

De Castell continues to deeply impress with this brilliant, if somewhat unhinged, novel, as The Malevolent Eight was an exceptional dark fantasy sequel that comes very highly recommended.  Taking all the comedic craziness from the first book and amping it up to eleven, The Malevolent Eight was a perfect follow-up to de Castell’s previous narrative that takes the reader on an exceptional adventure you just won’t be able to look away from.

After having a ton of fun with the awesome first book in the series, I honestly wasn’t too sure what to expect with The Malevolent Eight’s story.  However, not even in my wildest dreams did I imagine just how unhinged, wild and downright insane this sequel’s plot would get as de Castell pumped the narrative all the way up to 11 and beyond.  Starting with a fun and particularly bloody sequence that not only reintroduces the unruly protagonists but also showcases the dark scenario that they find themselves in for this book, the readers are quickly thrust into The Malevolent Eight’s plot, and frankly after the first series of crazy events, you find yourself pretty hooked as the self-proclaimed Malevolent Seven’s attempt to fight both the armies of heaven and hell.  However, as the story progresses, the unconventional heroes soon find that there are far more dangerous beings involved in this war, including a mysterious mage with previously unknown destiny-altering magic.

Determined to find out more about their new opponent, Cade leads The Malevolent Seven to both the Lords Celestine and Devilish to find out what they know and soon begins to understand his unfortunate role in the outbreak of the apocalypse.  After some hilarious interactions with both sets of lords, the protagonists embark on a series of missions, only to encounter betrayals, hidden secrets, the consequences of Cade’s lies, capture, revelations and a surprisingly humorous torture sequence.  This leads up to the big conclusion of the story, as the protagonists find themselves in the middle of a battle against three separate sides trying to claim their world for various purposes, all while manipulative figures work from the sidelines.  This big finale for The Malevolent Eight gets a little overcomplicate and convoluted, especially as we dive into alternate realms and different realities, but the entire thing is highly entertaining to behold.  It finishes off on an interesting conclusion, which has a nice hopeful note to it (especially in comparison to the previous book), while also hinting at some dark events to come.  This is an overall quite entertaining and wild story that really highlights de Castell’s creativity and ability to craft over-the-top narratives.

I deeply enjoyed the wonderful style that de Castell utilised in The Malevolent Eight, as the author pulls together a chaotic and hilarious dark fantasy that hits a lot of over-the-top notes at the same time.  Perfectly told from the single perspective of main character Cade Ombra, The Malevolent Eight is a balls-to-the-wall blast, loaded with insane action, excessive blood, crazy moments and fantastic humour.  De Castell keeps the pace of the story moving pretty fast throughout The Malevolent Eight, and the reader absolutely powers through the fantastic combination of carnage, intrigue, and hidden motivations.  Working well as a sequel to the previous book, The Malevolent Eight cleverly returns to the author’s fun setting, which has been drastically altered due to the rival inter-dimensional armies fighting across it.  Serving as the perfect background to such an entertaining and oddball dark fantasy narrative, de Castell makes perfect use of the changed setting and existing book history to go all out with his narrative.  While a seemingly simple and insane book on the surface, de Castell also adds in some impressive extra depth to the story, including through its complex magic system and the inclusion of several alternate realms that allow or some interesting inclusions from the author’s wider fictional reserves.  There is also a great moral greyness to the entire setting, as even the most noble of people or beings in this setting is generally pretty flawed or evil in their own way, and I frankly loved how cynical things got at times.

While this is a rather dark story, loaded with brutal combat and destructive magic, de Castell keeps the overall tone of The Malevolent Eight pretty light thanks to the excellent use of humour.  This is an insanely funny book, and while there is a certain subtly to some of the comedy contained within, for the most part de Castell utilises over-the-top scenarios (such as a swearing kangaroo), unhinged dialogue (the one swearword said kangaroo can say) and silly over-reactions for his comedy, which frankly fits the overall crazy feel of The Malevolent Eight.  The author gets a consistent amount of humour out of all the crazy antics of his characters, which stays pretty damn funny all the way through and never gets too tiring or overplayed.  Highlights of The Malevolent Eight’s humour for me included a very cleverly written demonic contract that spelled out the terms of a deal with the protagonists with some unique caveats, a particularly entertaining torture sequence where the protagonist causes more discomfort for his torturers than himself, ill-timed relationships with the book’s apparent antagonist, and so many crazy conversations between the seemingly sane point-of-view protagonist and every single person he encounters.  While I’m slightly salty about de Castell’s description of the Australian accent being “halfway between some poncy foreign nobleman and an inebriated fishmonger” (ok fine, it was pretty funny), this was quite a hilarious read, and I honestly laughed out loud multiple times in public as I read through this crazy comedic book.

One of the things I appreciated about The Malevolent Eight is the way in which de Castell made it accessible to all readers, even though who didn’t read the preceding novel.  While those who have checked out The Malevolent Seven are probably going to get the most out of this novel, especially as they can continue the hilarious character arcs from the first book, I feel that new readers can easily jump into The Malevolent Eight without any real context and still follow the story perfectly.  Indeed, I quite enjoyed how well de Castell cleverly and effectively recapped the events of the previous book, especially after a two-year gap between reading The Malevolent Seven and The Malevolent Eight.  Established de Castell fans will probably appreciate the references to the author’s other series, as a new major character in the novel is from the author’s Spellslinger universe and utilises that series’ unique magic to great effect in this novel.  While those readers who have read the Spellslinger books will no doubt find this inclusion really cool, people who are less familiar with this series can still follow The Malevolent Eight’s plot without any issue, especially as the events of the other series don’t really come into play here.  As such, I would recommend The Malevolent Eight to any fantasy readers looking for a dark comedic turn, although for the sake of completeness, try The Malevolent Seven first.

As with The Malevolent Seven, this excellent sequel features a fantastic cast of compelling damaged characters whose unique and often quite outrageous stories helped to ensure The Malevolent Eight was an impressive read.  Cleverly building on the storylines of the previous book, The Malevolent Eight features the immoral characters who make up titular Malevolent Seven attempting to be heroes in this book, often with mixed results.  This includes main protagonist and point-of-view character Cade Ombra, the leader of group and a man with quite a complex past.  Shown in the previous book to be a power hunger survivor with a conscience, The Malevolent Eight really dives into his characterisation even further as you look at his past as an arrogant holy warrior and his eventual fall from grace to work with demons.  His complex past becomes a key part of The Malevolent Eight’s plot, especially as much of the current issues lie in his past mistakes, and it was quite moving to see Cade attempt to make amends, especially as it gets him into even more trouble.  Despite this, Cade is still a massive bastard at times, and his manipulative nature and evil strategic mind are some of his greatest weapons.  Serving as the apparent straight man to a group of crazy friends, Cade sees himself as the sole voice of reason in the entire book, and it was fascinating to see his compelling perspective unwind throughout the book, especially when he faces certain realities about his friends and what he must do for redemption.

The rest of the cast of The Malevolent Eight is pretty crazy in comparison to Cade (at least from his perspective), and it was so much fun to see these outrageous personalities interact with each other.  My favourite supporting character is still the rude and crude Corrigan Blight, a thunder mage who serves as Cade’s unwieldly second.  Despite his outward appearance as an idiot controlled by his element (I mean, he is), Corrigan is a surprisingly deep figure and his ability to act as Cade’s conscious really highlights their great friendship.  The rest of the returning members of The Malevolent Seven, which includes a rat mage, a fallen angel, a holy demon and an uncertain blood mage, are slightly less well featured in this book, although de Castell does dive into their uncharacteristic attempts to be heroes, and their always fun interactions as a group allowed for some amazing moments.  I also must mention the newest member of team, Temper, a giant, swearing, vampiric kangaroo who has joined the team since the events of the first book.  Temper was quite a surprising figure to behold, and de Castell cleverly keeps the kangaroo’s origins somewhat hidden from the reader for much of the plot, allowing you to really enjoy his random presence without thinking too much about it.  This main cast was so much fun, and de Castell tops it off with a new magic user from Cade’s dark past with surprising connections to the Spellslinger universe, Cade’s former demonic benefactor whose intrigue, and paella, is to die for, and a variety of high demon lords and celestial beings whose motivations are never black and white.  These characters, and more, ensure that The Malevolent Eight is an exceptional read from start to finish, and I deeply enjoyed seeing these crazy characters in action.

Sebastien de Castell was in rare form with his impressive new dark fantasy novel, The Malevolent Eight.  A bold sequel that takes all the best elements from the first book and amps them up to a hilarious new height, The Malevolent Eight was an extremely entertaining read, with some brilliant comedic charm that worked well with the damaged characters and very dark fantasy elements.  Outrageous and excessive in all the best ways, The Malevolent Eight was such a great read and I couldn’t get enough of de Castell’s latest ultra-fun offering.  Make sure to also keep an eye out for de Castell’s other 2025 novel, Our Lady of Blades, later this year, which I strongly feel is going to be even more amazing.

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