But the world of The Steel Remains is intentionally horrible (much like our own), and we are forced to deal with the horror in a way that constantly connects to the erotic. Morgan gets some slack that Bret Easton Ellis isn't allowed. The difference, of course, is that The Steel Remains is in a fantasy world of swords and darkness, so Richard K. And in some cases the violence and sexuality are as disturbing as anything in American Psycho. Sometimes the violence is sexuality and sometimes the sexuality is violence. The Steel Remains is not just packed with violence and sexuality it is packed with ultra-violence and ultra-sexuality.

Ultra-: Speaking of the violence and sexuality. It's not a classic style fantasy, and I am sure that won't sit too well with fantasy fans who come to this book without warning. It is violent, sexual, politically charged, and more than a little angry. What I've read about this book, therefore, has been positive, but I imagine there is a wealth of negativity out there, and I get that (even if I humbly disagree). Reader Response: At the time of writing, I have only read a couple of reviews of The Steel Remains, and those are from friends who share most of my sensibilities. Ringil starts as a good but scarred man, battles with time-induced madness, and ends the story as a man-sized suppurating wound with all the goodness festered out of him. And come to that, I love that he was unrepentantly homosexual. I love his guilt over the execution of his true lover, Jelim, who died a torturous death for their 'perverted' love. I love that he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (although it was never officially named that) right from the off. I love his personal struggle with idealism in the face of war and the nastiness of humanity.

He may be one of my favourite characters ever written in any fantasy novel. I intentionally slowed down my reading so that I could savour every word, but by the time Ringil came out of the grey mists with his dwenda lover, Seethlaw, and his lover's gang of futuristically armored time-slippers, I threw aside the savouring and rushed to the end. But the mind-blowingness began in the midst of the first chapter. Mind-Blowing: That's my instant reaction after finishing this book. I have too much to write about The Steel Remains to put it all into a coherent paragraph by paragraph review, so I am just going to ramble around a bit and write what I need to write.

Richard morgan the steel remains