‘Villains Never Die’ Is Deserving Of More Than Just A Read

I love the fantasy genre but sometimes it can get a bit repetitive, formulaic, and stale. So, when an author takes a chance and changes the formula or kills off whole swathes of characters (*cough* Red Wedding *cough*) I tend to take notice. I like a break from THE QUEST to get THE THING that saves THE WORLD from the BIG BAD (TWIST). When that book is also well written, full of action, has great pacing and introduces several well fleshed out POC’s as main characters, the book moves beyond palate cleanser and dances straight into the realm of molecular gastronomy at the literary level. Such is the case with Villains Never Die. I flew through this book in record time; I didn’t want to let it leave my fingers. The story of villain and hero is intertwined and complicated without becoming confusing. The moral dilemmas and personal ethos of all involved are so grimdark-esk, even Joe Abercrombie would be pleased with the shades of grey and moral ambiguity our protagonists and antagonists find themselves in. Plots on Plots There are a quite a few simultaneous storylines in Villains Never Die but I would like to focus on the care and character building that DeWolf takes with Danny Endwright. He eventually (inevitably?) becomes Doctor Dendrite, main antagonist. I use the term “antagonist” instead of villain quite intentionally. I can’t quite bring myself to call Dendrite a villain. He engages in behavior that teeters from the understandable to the sociopathic but at each step of the wa…