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sThis is an excerpt from Owen Stanley’s excellent new novel, THE PROMETHEAN. Despite Harry’s enormous wealth, he was dismayed when the estimates from Bill Grogan and Vishnu were finally presented to him, not to mention Wayne Ruger’s, which looked like the defence budget for a small but unusually belligerent third-world nation. The project was obviously going […]
First up, H. P. at Every Day Should Be Tuesday points out that today might be the last day to register: You can find the final, final ballot here. The deadline to register to vote is “Sunday, August 28” (I don’t know whether that really means Sunday, August 27 or Monday, August 28) and the deadline to […]
Book Review: Lands of the Earthquake/ Under a Dim Blue Sun
Sunday , 27, August 2017 Fiction, Just Released 6 CommentsSome of you might have an Ace Double or two paperback in your collection. It was a classic format that lasted over 20 years. There would be two novels, back to back. Read one side and then flip the book and read the other. The format died out soon after Donald Wollheim left Ace Books […]
JUST RELEASED: Lands of the Earthquake & Under a Dim Blue Sun
Sunday , 27, August 2017 Just Released 1 CommentDMR Books has revived the classic “Ace Doubles” approach to releasing old school science fiction and fantasy. You can now get “Lands of the Earthquake” by Henry Kuttner and “Under a Dim Blue Sun” by Howie K. Bentley in the same book. Check it out! — After a year-long bout of amnesia, William Boyce was […]
The Pulpish Master: Rafael Sabatini
Saturday , 26, August 2017 Authors, Before the Big Three 9 CommentsWhen I mention bold fighting heroes laughing at death and their enemies, odious and powerful villains, non-stop action and adventure in picturesque settings, and brave, beautiful, worthy women, what writer comes to mind? For most readers of this blog, it would be Robert E. Howard. But another name fits equally well, that of the great […]
Grappling! It’s an integral part of mythic adventure from Gilgamesh to Hercules and on to Tarzan. And yet… you just don’t see a whole lot of it happen in tabletop gaming. Why not? Because the rules for grappling have been just plain godawful for decades. And nobody uses them! This is lame. But now there’s […]
Short Reviews – “Bull Dog” Smith, by James McCormick
Friday , 25, August 2017 Uncategorized 2 Comments“Bull Dog” Smith by James McCormick appeared in the June 1944 issue of The Wide World. Okay, so I swear I’ve seen this story before. Maybe it played out in some mystery drama or cartoon or something, and I’m tearing my hair out because I can’t place it, but this seems so familiar! James McCormick […]
Pretty much everybody in the RPG hobby has games they have never played. I am no exception. But, to paraphrase Tolstoy, played games are played all alike, games not played are not played each in their own way. Sometimes the reason really makes no sense. It is a function of human irrationality. Here’s the story […]
Heightened Brain Talent: Tabletop Role-playing’s Debt to Brian Aldiss
Thursday , 24, August 2017 Appendix N, Tabletop Games 6 CommentsOne of the first role-playing games I ever owned was third edition Gamma World from TSR. For those of you that missed it, it’s a weirder, crazier variant of D&D featuring all manner of mayhem in a wild post-apocalyptic future. Instead of fighters, clerics, thieves, and magic-users, players take on the role of pure strain […]
Acclaimed science fiction and western author Peter Grant turns to sword and sorcery with his first fantasy novel. After decades of peace, war is threatening the Kingdom of Avranche. Its old foes are stirring, in a new alliance with darker powers. Black wings bring death and torture in the night. Owain, former King’s Champion, hears […]
Months after a Lupin doppelganger is sentenced to death and hanged, Lupin III returns to the limelight, stealing a number of legendary artifacts tied to longevity on the request of Fujiko. Meanwhile, her mysterious benefactor tries to woo Fujiko, promising immortality to his personal Helen of Troy. But when Lupin double-crosses Fujiko to learn the […]
Castalia House is pleased to be able to inform everyone that both A THRONE OF BONES and A SEA OF SKULLS are free ebooks today on Amazon. That is a combined 1,354 pages of truly epic fantasy, and will cost you literally nothing except the hours required to read them. A SEA OF SKULLS In Selenoth, the war drums are […]