"I hate gang wars. They're coarse and rough and irritating... and they get everywhere." That's probably what the audacious thief known as Xerdes was thinking as he moved from rooftop to rooftop across the city of Menuvia. Xerdes has recently found himself in the crosshairs of rival crime lords, the city guard, hired killers, and a fellow outlaw lass who possibly just walked out of a Whitesnake music video. And all Xerdes wants is one big score to live the good life for a while... but will his next score be his last?
You all know of RazörFist, right? He's that guy on YouTube who cosplays as Bret "Hitman" Hart and has all the catchphrases like "Fuck you, I was right!" and "That's about all. Peace out. Godspeed!" Mr. Fist has also become something of an author in recent years, starting with this absolute banger known as The Long Moonlight. Coming in at a svelte 125 pages, The Long Moonlight is a delectable crossover of fantasy and noir in pulp format that simply drips with atmosphere from beginning to end. Rife with the kind of grandiloquent wordplay you'd expect from the heyday of pulps, it's unabashedly purple, but that's not a bug of the genre, it's a feature.
If you've read any press or watched any of his streams on the subject of his book series, you may know the author is refreshingly open about his writing influences: there's just as much Fritz Lieber as there is Dashiell Hammett in tone, setting, and style. There's a shot of Robert E. Howard with how some of the action is handled, and then there's a chaser of Raymond Chandler with portions of snappy dialogue. In particular, the wiseass rejoinders that emanate from main character Xerdes from time to time has an echo of Marlowe (minus the ungodly chain smoking). There's also Mr. Fist's computer gaming influences that come to the fore - the Thief series being chief among them. I'm about as good at stealth games as Joe Biden is at balancing a budget or keeping his hands off of small children, so I've never even attempted to play Thief. My only experience with these games is watching others play them, but I can absolutely see how some of the gloomy stylings of the series made their way over to The Long Moonlight.
Something else I know RazörFist enjoys are the Death Wish movies. Without spoiling too much here, there's a certain point in the story where a vengeance angle begins to unfold, and while it's not exactly Bronson-esque in the way it's executed, the brutal results do bear some vague similarities to said revenge flicks. It's good to know that even the fictional city of Menuvia can experience its own Summer of Love!
Which brings me to perhaps my only quasi-complaint about The Long Moonlight. In the midst of Menuvia's fiery but mostly peaceful protests is Inspector Coggins, a side character who features in a few brief interludes when our main character is offstage. I actually found Coggins and his no-bullshit attitude to be a pretty based character (well... for a cop, at least) - to the point where I was slightly disappointed this character's side story of solving grisly crimes and ferreting out corruption in the city guard didn't have a tad bit more time dedicated to it. I see this as a positive complaint though, for it means I found myself invested in the author's world, lore, and characters and wanted to see even more of it.
I'd be remiss if I didn't point out The Long Moonlight also features a few pieces of black and white art provided by the author himself that are peppered throughout the narrative. The art is just as evocative as the text and compliments it well, hitting the reader with a forlorn dungeon synth album cover vibe that I can get behind.
While I still heartily recommend neophytes go back and read the masters of pulp from yesteryear, there are more than enough worthy successors in this arena in the contemporary to read alongside them, and RazörFist's The Long Moonlight deserves a spot on your bookshelves if you're a pulp inclined reader. I look forward to delving into his follow-up Nightvale novella very soon.
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