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sSensor Sweep: LoTR at 20, Manga, The Northman
Monday , 27, December 2021 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentScience Fiction (Cryptofictional Records Wing): This trend started out in 1871 with Sir George Chesney’s “The Battle of Dorking”, a novella in which England is invaded by a fictional (but German-speaking) country assisted by some form of secret technology. Due to this story’s popularity with readers, other British invasion thrillers soon followed. However, while these […]
Phantasmagoria: Special Edition Series #5
Sunday , 26, December 2021 Book Review, Just Released 2 CommentsKarl Edward Wagner (1945-1994) is a figure that still casts a shadow. I discovered him in 1983 when Warner Books reprinted the five Kane paperbacks and also the horror collection In a Lonely Place. I have fond memories of reading Wagner, Michael Moorcock, and Fritz Leiber in the summer of 1983 while listening to the […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 26 December 2021
Sunday , 26, December 2021 Uncategorized Leave a commentExecutioners, cultivators, and mercenaries fill this week’s new releases. Age of Bronze (Rise of Mankind #2) – Jez Cajiao A world gone mad. Creatures of nightmare walk the streets, but worse are those we once knew… Matt survived the Dungeon’s founding, and managed to gather a small, but dedicated team to him, but when he […]
The Christmas season is a time of gift giving and celebration, precisely because of the gifts of repentance and redemption given to all by a condemned Man who died on a hill. Let’s take a look at a similar tale of repentance and redemption, penned at a time when science fiction and fantasy were still […]
A FLOCK OF SHIPS by Brian Callison Reviewed by Richard Toogood The year 1970 witnessed the salvaging of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s derelict S.S Great Britain from its ignominious scuttled fate in the Falkland Islands. But it also saw first publication of a novel which depicted the discovery of another lost vessel, similarly at a […]
Publishing (Goodman Games): The Skull and his various minions, flunkies, lieutenants, and, yes, even interns would like to send a hearty congratulations to our sword-brothers over at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, on the occasion of their 50th issue! Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is an online magazine specializing in adventure fantasy of all kinds, from eponymous tales of […]
August Derleth is probably best known to the readers here for his Cthulhu Mythos stories, often billed as by H. P. Lovecraft. I am not a fan of his Mythos fiction. I do like his weird stories that appeared under the “Stephan Grendon” byline in Weird Tales. He also had some Gothic stories set in […]
The Shadowcast: Interview with Will Murray
Saturday , 18, December 2021 Uncategorized Leave a commentAgents of the Shadowcast, report! Razorfist returns with the latest edition of The Shadowcast, the only podcast devoted solely to the exploits of the Knight of Darkness, The Shadow. This time, he interviews pulp historian and author Will Murray. They discuss, among many topics, The Shadow’s history, publishing The Shadow reprints with Anthony Tollin, Murray’s […]
Prehistoric murder, mad kings, and unwilling mercenary henchmen fill this week’s new releases. Cirsova Magazine of Thrilling Adventure and Daring Suspense Issue #9 – edited by P. Alexander In this issue: Infinite universes are filled with myriad worlds of infinite possibilities—and infinite selves! One man hunts and is hunted across the multiverse, seeking absolution! The […]
Sensor Sweep: Gorilla Galaxy, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Kalevala
Monday , 13, December 2021 Sensor Sweep 4 CommentsComic Books (Post Cards from the Age of Reason): How do we get comics get into our hands? These are a few brief opening thoughts on comic book distribution. I will return to the topic in a later post. Much like Pulp Magazines, comic books started out their existence as print matter distributed by the […]
Mixing up the reading with a return to hard-boiled crime fiction this week. Donald Westlake wrote a series of novels about Parker. Parker specializes in heists. From Donaldwestlake.com: “When he sat down at his typewriter in 1962 and started writing The Hunter, using the name Richard Stark, Donald E. Westlake thought he was writing a […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 11 December 2021
Saturday , 11, December 2021 Uncategorized Leave a commentMalfunctioning armadas, culinary orcs, and ancient rebel angels fill this week’s new releases. Acheron Redemption (Federation Chronicles #3) – Ken Lozito Sentinel warships were the answer to the Federation Wars. They brought peace and stability…or so they thought. The Sentinels are a menace, terrorizing spacers across the galaxy in their hunt. But change is coming, […]