Swarm and Steel

"Fletcher’s written lots of books. Swarm and Steel is my particular favourite, but what I’m saying about him stands for all his books. Mike is a friend of mine; we co-wrote a book together. He takes grimdark insanity to extremes. His books are not serious, they are funny, and just gleeful – it’s just, how far can ‘too far’ go. But his world is actually in some ways a nice world – it’s not a world where people are racist or homophobic or sexist, it’s a world of completely equal opportunities to be a complete asshole. Anyone can torture, maim, sack cities, and set themselves up as a deranged cannibalistic god. The one thing people do not talk about is disliking someone because of their sexual preferences or gender preferences or skin colour. It’s just a world where everyone does horrible things, but also will show great goodness and great kindness for the people around them they love. A world without moral limits, with extreme violence, but with real people who are muddling through. Often someone starts out trying to do the right thing, and violence becomes more and more extreme because things escalate. It’s a very human picture of how badly we all mess up. It’s just done very graphically! It’s set in his world of manifest delusions, which is a world in which a lot of people have extreme mental illnesses and delusions, but those are real. So if you believe that your body is overrun with insects, your body is overrun with insects; and you can then use those insects in combat, send them off to attack other people. There’s this wonderful character we never meet, but we read his poems, and he believes that he’s dead – so he is dead. He’s the heartbroken drug addled sort of poet; the kind that says, “I love you, I tried to be faithful to you, but unfortunately then I took an absolute shitload of drugs and slept with sixteen prostitutes, but I love you.” And it’s a ghoul writing this stuff, because he believes he’s dead, in the way of that romantic poet trope. I love that. Our main characters are a fantastically kickass young woman called Zerfall, and a young man who’s been thrown out of his tribal warrior society because he accidentally killed someone. Zerfall has accidentally founded her own religion, which has taken over the world and is now one of the big dominant religions – and it’s a really horrible religion where everyone goes to hell. But she didn’t mean it to happen like that; it just escalated. They are wandering around this world of complete insanity, where reality constantly shifts… like, if you meet someone with a split personality, then they are two people. It’s a world where everyone’s mad, and everyone’s madness is inflicting pain on themselves and other people. Our heroes are always the only sane people. Acting to defend those around you that you love is the last vestige of sanity. It’s a bit like a really violent Asterix , in the way that Asterix and Getafix are the only two sane people in the Asterix world. Yes! It’s that Asterix world where everyone is completely loopy and hitting each other and fighting all the time. But because of that, it’s recognisable as absolutely human. It’s also like classic Father Ted or Blackadder ; it reminds me of Blackadder Goes Fourth , with the complete insanity of life, and the humour – and a lot of people say it’s the most convincing depiction of the First World War . There’s that horrible final episode when they’re going over the top, and the closing line of Blackadder’s about everyone being mad. It’s real because it’s completely deranged – because the world is completely deranged! It’s a very human world about human people constantly messing up, and most of the people are deeply damaged people. But they’re never evil."