Monthly Archives:
sScience Fiction New Release Roundup: 11 November 2017
Saturday , 11, November 2017 Uncategorized 2 CommentsThis collection of the latest new releases in science fiction features a space-based litRPG, future knights clad in mecha armor, a final confrontation against a conquering empire on an alien world, and, in time for Veteran’s Day, a collection of post-apocalyptic animal stories to support the charity Pets for Vets. * * * […]
Death Star by Tom Pace appeared in the Spring 1945 issue of Planet Stories. It can be found here at Archive.org. In promotional text for Galaxy Magazine, Galaxy bragged you’ll never see “a western transplanted to some alien and impossible planet” in its pages, while attacking straw-Bat Durston’s adventures on the planet Bbllzznaj. Of all […]
THROWBACK SF THURSDAY: A Place Outside the Wild by Daniel Humphreys
Thursday , 9, November 2017 Book Review 2 CommentsCampbellian science fiction, especially hard science fiction, gets a hard time around here. Epic fantasy is denigrated in favor of slim sword and sorcery paperbacks. I like a good pulpy adventure as much as the next guy, but I refuse to give up on my original love, epic fantasy, or my more recent discovery, hard […]
Fantasy and Adventure New Release Roundup: 9 November 2017
Thursday , 9, November 2017 Just Released 2 CommentsThis collection of the past two weeks’ new releases features litRPGs, the weird occult, pulp flash fiction, and the conclusion to an epic saga of family, war, and betrayal. * * * * * Black Hat (Afterlife Online #2) – Domino Finn Life’s a Grind Living in […]
The Deeper Magic of Comic Book Heroes
Wednesday , 8, November 2017 Comics, Superversive, Uncategorized 22 CommentsSpring is coming. Surveying the blasted wasteland of western culture, frozen and atrophied thanks to the long dark winter of post-modern deconstructionist thought embraced by the intellectual mediocrities that connived their way into positions of influence one might be tempted to give in to despair. The long years since the golden days of our cultural […]
Richard Fox’s Dragon Award-winning series continues in the action-packed The True Measure! The Ibarra Nation holds Roland prisoner. The armor soldier’s fate lies in the hands of the inhuman Stacey Ibarra. Roland will face the truth behind the Ibarra rebellion and decide if his loyalties are to Earth, or his ideals. While the Iron Dragoons […]
The sixth and concluding volume in Daniel Arenson’s Kingdoms of Sand series Zohar, an ancient land of sand and splendor, rallies for its last stand. The genocidal Aelarian Empire sends its legions to destroy the small desert kingdom. King Epher and his band of rebels stand against a fire they cannot extinguish. And it is […]
SUPERVERSIVE: The Perils of Backstoryitis
Tuesday , 7, November 2017 Superversive, Uncategorized 8 CommentsSo as I spent a couple of weeks looking at “Justified”, I find myself going back to the Death Note well recently. Partially it’s because I’m impressed at how incredibly well executed and intelligent it is, and partially it’s how even its failures – and it isn’t perfect – are quite instructive. Plus, there are […]
Stranger Things 2: Where’s a Good Editor When You Need One?
Monday , 6, November 2017 Movies 10 CommentsEverybody loves Stranger Things 2. It’s garnered, apparently, a hillion bajillion views on Netflix, is the most talked about show in the country (no, really), and even people who hated the first season think this one was pretty good. Which leaves me in the uncomfortable position of looking around at everyone else, wondering why no […]
Castalia House is very pleased to be able to announce that the Pournelle family has graciously decided to allow Castalia House to continue publishing new anthologies in the revived THERE WILL BE WAR series. We will begin work on THERE WILL BE WAR Vol. XI in the new year; Vox Day will edit the new […]
It’s been a good run, y’all. And I’m very pleased with how it turned out. I went from writing mostly about Car Wars and on to game design and role-playing games in general. After taking Lewis Pulsipher’s course on game design, I realized I liked writing about games far more than I did making them. […]
Forgotten Sword and Sorcery Artists: The Worst for Last
Sunday , 5, November 2017 Uncategorized 15 CommentsInvariably in any artistic field, there is some awesomely bad art or music that has you scratching your head and thinking “What the …?” The last entry in the Forgotten Sword and Sorcery Artists series is Patrick Woodroffe (1940-2014). There is a website for him with this biographical information: “Born in Halifax, Yorkshire, U.K. 1940. […]