Darklands or a charming town? – review of the book “Wisielcza Góra”

The best guarded open-air museum in Poland

Jakub Ćwiek in Ladies of Czarists surrounded Głuchołazy with a protective spell, thanks to which the city was not visible on the map and it was impossible to find it by accident. Paulina Hendel started with a similar idea, Grobowice officially does not exist, even more so than Miasto Kozła. In addition, they are stuck in the ostentatious mental Middle Ages, and technically – at the beginning of the 20th century. They are xenophobic and have mastered their conspiracy of silence very well. Perfect place for summer, right?

The comparison of these two books cannot come out of my head for one more reason – Głuchołazy is really likeable, and Ćwiek’s cut off from the world was reasonably justified. Their inhabitants are either friendly or not, it depends on the person. But the ladies themselves are well-written characters, quickly gaining our affection. When it comes to Grobowice … Perhaps “maybe it is, ah, the town, ah, and even nice”, but not for the reader or even for the heroes of Hanged Mountain .

The city is covered with an old, mighty forest. It is small, has its own power plant, and is generally self-sufficient. For generations, residents have been doing more or less the same, and they treat the introduction of facilities and achievements of civilization as a necessary evil, defend themselves against it with all their strength and are ready to fight for the status quo . Customs also have not changed much since pagan times, the native religion persists, household members and other lesser demons roam the houses. Everything would be fine, inbreeding would have been full-blown if it hadn’t been for three kids who could spoil it all. How is that possible, you will ask. Evidently the town is sticking to its word of honor, that’s what. To make matters worse, they begin to be haunted by ghosts and other Old Slavic filth eagerly hunting people.

All the fault of the aliens

Grobowice immediately recognizes that aliens are the source of all evil. And that before any of them happen. The kids will be ostracized, reluctant, and lying. They only get along with a group of teenagers. The whole group will be acting irresponsibly together and making textbook mistakes in not-so-innovative adventure games.

Now I confess, I spent the Hanged Mountain,I did not find a single character in it that I would like, but a lot of irritating inaccuracies or rather inconsistencies. Hendel pushes the characters into schematic situations, not wondering why or if they should make any more sense. Are the kids hiding and lying? Well, otherwise there would be no tangled intrigue. Someone would help them, explain something, 200 pages of understatements to the trash. Other people suffer and even die because of stupid decisions, but in the end nothing happened, because this is a third form. The whole town is full of bad people, but there are also the main characters’ aunts among them, they must be good … As a result, the aunts get lost somewhere along with the relationship they could establish with their nephews. At least the demons are essentially Slavic.

These rancid Slavs

Slavtasy , Slavic fantasy, is quite a promising genre, slowly growing in its favorite monsters and themes, currently having a strong back in the form of the Slavic Bestiary Zych and Vargas or Baranowski’s books reprinted by Replica . Hangman’s mountainon the one hand, it seems to be an ideal representative of this species – we have a whole community organized around pagan faith and rituals, keeping our blood clean, breeding household, magical creatures. But for mine, the heroes might as well end up in a town in Providence County, only there would be all greenish faces. Like the followers of Cthulhu and the surrounding area, the Tombers are hardly sympathetic, and their attitudes in life justified and acceptable. Man begins to understand why Christianization was so necessary …

Kids making a fuss in a sectarian town, adults irrelevant to history, unclear motivation of the bad guys, general lack of reflection. Hangman’s Mountain suffers from typical youth book diseases, and it also catches some viruses that kill the tension in horror movies. I suspect that fans of Paulina Hendel will find something for themselves here, for me the book was rather tiring.