“A small, mean voice somewhere nagged that it meant nothing. It all meant nothing. But there was another, stronger voice in Steven. It had no answers, only another question, but it was this question that kept him digging until well after an unseen sun set in the invisible sky.
If it all meant nothing, why did it matter so much?”

About as bleak as an English fog sticking stubbornly to the morning, “Blacklands” pairs youthful perseverance with perverse abhorrence, bordering on repugnance, seemingly witnessed by the moors themselves. A startling, unique story, not new in regard to the crimes within but perhaps the delivery. Ultimately, “Blacklands” curtains to a frighteningly sad story about repair, and more than that, bravery.

Employing such an uncomfortable and alienating perspective could have gone sour and, I admit, did skeev me out more often than not but the story prevailed and I had to see it through to the ending.

3.5/5 The monsters hidden away in humans will always be scarier than goblins, ghouls, and ghosts.