Once I entered Brian McNaughton's rich, dark world, I realized I had been captured and mastered. As I read I quickly submitted to McNaughton's prose, found myself going at his pace as I began to savor every word with delight. The Throne of Bones is decadent, witty, satiric, original fantasy that may owe it's genesis to earlier sources, but stands alone in singular weirdness. McNaughton creates a nasty, merciless world with his wickedly keen use of language and a sinfully splendid ability to show the details of his creation. The created world is never named in the ten inter-related stories.
Life is brutish, short, carnal, and frequently beset with ghouls.
For all their laughter, ghouls are a dull lot. Hunger is the fire in which they burn, and it burns hotter than the hunger for power over men or for knowledge of the gods in a crazed mortal. It vaporizes delicacy and leaves behind only a slag of anger and lust. They see their fellows as impediments to feeding, to be mauled and shrieked at when the mourners go home. They are seldom alone, not through love of one another's company, but because a lone ghoul is suspected of stealing food.