Sisters of Mercy
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
To celebrate this holiday and show how thankful I am for all of you being here, I’ve prepared a bonus review for you all. This one is for an indie novella whose genre is, in the works of its author, “incensepunk.” If you’re into mechs fighting demons in a post-apocalyptic wastelands, this novella is for you.
Let’s dive right in.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I have almost zero background with Yuval Kordov or his works. I saw a Twitter post of his about his love of incensepunk (especially, science fiction with heavy Christian themes and symbolism) that also advertised this novella, and it intrigued me enough to pick this one up.. According to Kordov’s Amazon author profile, he’s done an entire trilogy, called Dark Legacies, that is set in the same universe as this novella (or, rather, this novella is a stand-alone story set in the Dark Legacies universe). There’s apparently also a Dark Legacies RPG that he crafted (with other contributors) and a seemingly unrelated novella titled Orders of Magnitude (which I am strongly considering reading in the future). Furthermore, Kordov seems to be a key player in the Incensepunk literary magazine.
Not much I can comment on beyond that. Like I said, I have no other background with any of his other works. This novella was a blank slate for me.
STATS
Title: Sisters of Mercy
Series: N/A
Author(s): Yuval Kordov
Genre: Science Fiction (Metaphysical)
First Printing: May 2025
Publisher: Self-published to Amazon
SPOILER WARNING
Mild, unmarked spoilers for Sisters of Mercy will be provided throughout this review. Heavy spoilers will be confined to clearly labeled sections. I will keep the first paragraph of any given section spoiler-free.
PREMISE
Per the Amazon product page for the e-book:
Hannah-9 is a symbiote: a child of Heaven and Hell, bred in the bowels of the Last City. Implanted into an ancient, nuclear-powered war machine—a God-engine—she stalks the wastes with Rachel-3, her sister-in-arms.
Their mandate is absolute: to wage war against the Adversary, to purify the Earth, and to endure—until the radiation consumes them.
This is her story.
A bold new novella from the creator of Dark Legacies.
Reaction
Another vague premise that is on-point. We are promised mechs shooting at demons, and that’s what we get. The bit about radiation consuming them is also a ticking clock element that plays an important role in the development of both Hannah-9’s and Rachel-3’s characters.
RATING: 6.5/10
It was really hard for me to rate this story.
It’s not like Sisters of Mercy is a mixture of really bad elements with really good elements. Far from it. I felt the novella was cohesive and polished. The plot was straightforward, and while not a great deal of detail is provided about the world, there’s more than enough to support the story and to convince me that there’s an entire world living beyond the boundaries of the story. The themes felt earned and didn’t constrain the narrative - that is to say, while the Christian elements were very front-and-center, it wasn’t a case where it felt like the narrative had to reach a specific conclusion to avoid collapsing (which is what we got in The Demon’s Eye). I really want to give this novella an 8.0/10, if not more.
The issue comes down to characterization. The emotional core of this narrative is Hannah-9 struggling with both faith and courage as she fulfills her mission, with Rachel-3 serving as a mentor figure who is on the verge of death from radiation poisoning. While the relationship between the pair is solid, Hannah-9’s personal journey is murky. It’s hard to follow her progression and gauge, in any given moment, whether she’s standing strong or on the verge of breaking. This undermines what should have been a triumphant climax and a cathartic finale.
Maybe this is just a me problem. I’ll fully admit that I got a bit turned around by Kordov’s prose during some of the action sequences. However, in the interest of not inflating the book’s rating just because I personally enjoyed it, I’m going to give it this lower rating based on the assumption that it’s not just my failure to read the text. If I’m wrong, that just means that it’s even better than I’m giving it credit for.
PLOT
Sisters of Mercy has a very straightforward story. Hannah-9 and Rachel-3 are tasked with patrolling the post-apocalyptic wasteland, hunting down and killing any demons that they encounter with the variety of onboard weapons in their mech suits. In the course of doing this, they track a group of human scavengers surviving in the wastelands. Rachel-3 is experiencing a gradual deterioration throughout, creating a sense of stakes and mounting tension as Hannah-9 is forced to transition from being a follower to a leader. It’s a simple narrative that is enjoyable and doesn’t leave much room for holes.
CHARACTERS
Hannah-9
Our POV through the story, Hannah-9 is a fairly new as a symbiote. She has to wrestle with her terror at the demonic forces she and Rachel-3 need to combat. She also has a rather bloodthirsty attitude towards the human scavengers, initially seeing them as tainted individuals who need to be purged along with the demons.
As mentioned above, my only real qualm with Hannah-9 is that the progression of her arc is a bit hard to follow. It’s clear that the starting point is meant to be that her faith is academic, rather than fully embraced in spirit; the ending point will either be that she gives into her fear and darker impulses or else lets go of her fear and entrusts her life to God. The problem is that, at any given point, I really had trouble telling whether she was moving forward or backwards along her arc. It wasn’t even like she was zigzagging in response to different stimuli. It was all just very murky.
On the flip side, though, Kordov made Hannah-9’s mounting concern for Rachel-3 and her transition from follower to leader feel very convincing. I may not have understood her spiritual journey, but I had no trouble believing that she was grappling with the need to step into the role of her dying mentor.
Another point in favor of Hannah-9 is that Kordov made her POV very immersive. The bodies of symbiotes are held is chambers inside their mechs, while their minds interface with the myriad sensor systems, weapons systems, and motor controls of the war machines. There’s a consistent awareness that this is someone interacting with the world through a machine interface, rather than just casually strolling about the environment in their own flesh.
Rachel-3
The dying “sister” and mentor of Hannah-9, Rachel-3 is a contemplative soul who is at peace with her mission and devoted in her faith. She knows she has mere days left to live, but she doesn’t allow that to hinder her. Guiding and fortifying Hannah-9 remains her highest priority throughout the story.
I liked Rachel-3. She exists to drive Hannah-9’s story, yet she never feels like a mere accessory.
WORLDBUILDING
The centerpiece of this story are the symbiotes and the mechs. The mechs are ancient war machines that predate the apocalypse that made Earth into a wasteland. The symbiotes are girls with physical disabilities who are trained for the express purpose of being installed into these mechs and giving the remainder of their short lives to the hunt for demons. Eventually, radiation sickness (which, if I’m reading this correctly, has more to do with the mech’s reactor than the wasteland itself) claims each symbiote, at which point her vessel is removed from the mech and a new girl is slotted into place.
I’m a bit hazy on the specifics beyond that. It’s clear that a portal called the “Hellmouth” has unleashed demons onto the Earth, with the demons not only attacking people at a spiritual level but also warping reality to form colossal, monstrous bodies for themselves from the ruins of cities. There are also no stars in the sky at night, so when Kordov explains in the book’s afterword that Earth has been “cast from the Heavens”, I don’t think he’s speaking metaphorically. The last haven of humanity in this wasteland is Cathedral, also know as “the Last City”, which is implied to be a theocratic state.
I’m sure all this is explained in Dark Legacies. As a backdrop for a simple story about mechs shooting at demons, it’s enough to be going on.
PROSE
While the prose of this book was very well-polished, there were a few points where Kordov lost me. The issue is that it’s hard to tell when he’s speaking metaphorically versus describing visions or supernatural horrors that Hannah-9 is literally seeing. This feedback back into the character arc problem. It can be hard to tell when Hannah-9 is actually experiencing doubt or dark urges versus her being assailed by a supernatural evil that is temporarily putting thoughts into her head.
THEMES
If I were to boil the ideas in this story done to one core concept, I believe it would be the importance of faith in times of fear and adversity, both in terms of not fleeing when faced with a challenge and in terms of not resorting to desperate measures purely to satisfy one’s fear. This ties into the main method of hunting demons. Hannah-9 and Rachel-3 need to offer themselves up at bait to the demons, using their living souls to lure the fiends into the open so that the other sister can hammer it with heavy ordinance. It also gets reflected in the differing attitudes of Hannah-9 and Rachel-3 towards scavengers, with Hannah-9 fearing the corruption they carry while Rachel-3 sees them as innocent victims.
As stated above, while the messaging is overtly Christian, I don’t think this constrains the narrative. Until Hannah-9 completes her arc, it isn’t clear whether she will overcome fear through faith or else succumb. The story is written in such a way that either outcome would still deliver a satisfying narrative.
GIVING THANKS
Sisters of Mercy is a short read that makes simple promises and keeps them, delivering a satisfying narrative in the process. While I feel like the main character’s arc doesn’t live up to its full potential, what Kordov delivers for her is still a satisfying journey. It was an enjoyable read overall.
That does it for today’s review. I’m thankful for you all joining me for it, and for supporting this blog in general. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
