To Sift Through Bitter Ashes (Grails Covenant Trilogy #1) by David Niall Wilson review

    TO SIFT THROUGH BITTER ASHES by David Niall Wilson is the first of the Grails Covenant Trilogy. The Vampire: The Masquerade franchise was once one of the biggest in the tabletop gaming world and in the Nineties and early Two Thousands, they created hundreds of novels set in the World of Darkness. The Grails Covenant trilogy was set during the Vampire: The Dark Ages period, specifically in the aftermath of the First Crusade.

    The premise is that a Lasombra vampire named Montravant has decided that he can use the Holy Grail to increase his power. Obviously, to do that he needs to first acquire it. Forming a order of holy knights with the help of Hugh DePanyen (real life co-founder of the Knights Templar), Montrovant sends his charges to Jerusalem. Along the way, Montrovant finds out that the future base of the Knights Templar is built over a powerful supernatural’s base that may hold the secret he desires. An ancient Nosferatu, Kli Kodesh, also seeks to involve himself in Montrovant’s scheme for pure amusement.

    David Niall Wilson is an expert in the First Crusade period and manages to properly depict the immense stresses the Kingdom of Jerusalem was suffering during the period. Politics and religion compete as the guiding force for the young state even as individuals take advantage of their incompatible goals. The vampire politics of the Pre-Camarilla era are less developed but no less interesting as individual undead play with the locals like chess pieces.

    The book benefits from the deliberate values dissonance of the period with the Templars considering the Muslims to be heathen pagans who need to be destroyed while otherwise being incredibly devoted men of God. The vampires have their own surreal views with Montrovant believing in religion only as a form of magic, Kli Kodesh viewing eternity as something endlessly boring, and the villainous Santos having lived longer than the Abrahmic faiths so he finds them all somewhat silly.

    This is a book without romance and there’s scarcely any female characters either. Minor flaw as this may be, it is a book that heavily gets into issues of faith and power. It really captures the social combat element of Vampire: The Masquerade. Everything is about politicking, manipulation, and building relationships among multiple characters before things explode into violence. Thankfully, the actual lore is pretty sparse and you could read this with no real knowledge of the tabletop game setting.

    I think my favorite character of the book has to be Kli Kodesh, who is a vampire older than Christianity but converted to it. Other vampires consider him to be mad, though, because he makes wild and outlandish (even blasphemous) claims about having known Jesus in life. He might be telling the truth or not but none of the Christian vampires would believe him while the pagan ones hold the religion in contempt anyway. For those who don’t mind a little religion in their books (written by a counterculture author), then this is handled very well.

    In conclusion, To Sift Through Bitter Ashes is a fantastic book and one that I recommend be listened to on audiobook versus in text form. This isn’t because the text version isn’t enjoyable on its own but because Joshua Saxon does a fantastic job narrating as well as bringing the various characters alive. This isn’t Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade but more like Kingdom of Heaven with fangs.

Available here (Amazon)

Available here (Audible)