The Grimdwarf: Cursed
by JCM Berne
DETAILS: Series: The Grimdwarf, #1 Publisher: The Gnost House Publication Date: July 21, 2025 Format: eBook Length: 311 pg. Read Date: September 23-24, 2025
“He’ll be fine. See? He’s loving it.” Blink licked the top of the glass again, taking in a delicate sip of the amber liquid. “He’s savoring it. I think he’s a dwarf dog, not a human dog. We give whisky to everything. Kids, pets. Plants.”
“Maybe that’s part of the reason dwarven agriculture is pitied all over the world.”
What’s The Grimdwarf: Cursed About?
The book opens with a dwarf waking up and really freaking out the woman who had been locked up with him; she thought he was dead—actually, she was sure he was dead (and there was plenty of evidence to back her up). But before she really understands what’s going on, this dwarf is taking out their captors with great relish—and only his own two fists.
He remembers nothing from before he woke up—he doesn’t even remember his dog (and this is not a dog easy to forget). He pretty much remembers how to fight and that he enjoys whisky.
He, his dog, and the woman, Kayla—who turns out to be a water witch—end up traveling together, facing a series of foes, and ultimately taking on some pretty serious foes.
Cozy Grimdark?
The hard thing about fighting people with weapons is the instinct to retreat. After all, swords and daggers and axes are sharp and nasty and nobody enjoys getting cut. Almost nobody. But the safest place to be when a person is swinging a long piece of metal at you is not far away; that’s where they want you. You have to get in close, where the weapon’s reach is a hindrance. Where you can hit back.
An early reviewer called this collection Cozy Grimdark—and I love the idea, it’s a great juxtaposition of notions/genres. And somehow, it’s entirely appropriate. (Berne uses the phrase “Knuckles and Necromancy,” which is also apt, but it doesn’t fit what I want to talk about, so never mind.) Sturj is a violent, violent man—who’s pretty pleasant (under a gruff exterior) to those he wants to be, in his own special way. And the circumstances that he and Kayla find themselves in (yeah, sure, and place themselves in) are pretty violent, too.
However, the very bloody combat doesn’t feel all that violent as you read it. This isn’t Abercrombie or Michel. It’s not even the JCM Berne of The Hybrid Helix.
But oo-de-lally, the warm fuzzies this collection elicits! There’s a strong found family bond between Blink, Kayla, and Sturj. You do get a lot of the same warmth from these stories as you do from a Travis Baldree tale.
Her lips twitched at that, flashing into something not quite a smile, but maybe a smile’s younger cousin’s lonely friend from down the street, painfully shy but not really a bad sort once you got to know them.
So, what did I think about The Grimdwarf: Cursed?
All I wanted was to finish my drink, then maybe finish a few of its friends so it wasn’t lonely inside my belly, then choose between staring out the window and taking a nap. However, the captain had other ideas.
Oo-de-lally! This was just fun. I dug the various and sundry monsters—or monsterly creatures. Even the secondary or tertiary characters were fun. The bad guys were clearly in black hats—nothing like a little moral clarity to offset an inherently gray protagonist.
There’s nothing about Sturj that I didn’t like—from his fuzzy (at best) past to his “Hulk smash” present. I don’t know how he picked up the dog, but I love their bond. His determination to keep a certain other pet was a great touch. Kayla was a great balance to his character, and watching them become friends was what the stories needed to keep this from being about a grumpy dwarf version of Kwai Chang Caine wandering the countryside beating people into a pulp.*
You’ll smile, you’ll wince, you’ll feel a warm fuzzy or two. Check it out!
* Not that there’d be something wrong with that version of the stories, but this is better.
