Monthly Archives:
sFafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Affectionately known as the Twain, these rogues are two of the most legendary characters in all of fantasy. While R. E. Howard, C. L. Moore, and Clark Ashton Smith laid the foundation for sword and sorcery in Weird Tales, Fritz Leiber codified the genre with the first appearance of his […]
Sensor Sweep: Gary Gygax Interview, Tarzan comics, August Derleth, Appendix N
Monday , 27, February 2023 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentRobert E. Howard (Paperback Warrior): “Robert E. Howard’s Iron Shadows in the Moon”, starring Conan the Cimmerian, was published in Weird Tales in April, 1934. The story was renamed to “Shadows in the Moonlight, and appeared in the Gnome Press volume Conan the Barbarian in 1954. It was later edited by L. Sprague de Camp for inclusion in Swords & Sorcery, a 1963 collection […]
Michael Z. Williamson’s That Was Now, This Was Then is just out in mass market paperback. It is the sequel to A Long Time Until Now (2015). A short description: SOLDIERS OUT OF TIME Then: First Lieutenant Sean Elliott and nine other mixed-service U.S. soldiers on a convoy in Afghanistan suddenly found themselves and their […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 25 February 2023
Saturday , 25, February 2023 Uncategorized Leave a commentEvery week, the Castalia House Blog spotlights some of the many new releases in independent, pulp and web novel-influenced science fiction and fantasy. Adrift (The Lost Warship Book 1) – Daniel Gibbs There is a time to weep and a time to mourn. For the CSV Lion of Judah, that time has not yet come. The […]
Osprey Publishing’s Pictish Warrior AD 297-841 is number 50 in their Warrior series originally published in 2002. Author is Paul Wagner with illustrations by Wayne Reynolds. The Picts are an enigmatic people of the British Isles first mentioned in 297 A.D., a regional power until succumbing from hammer blows from the Scots and Vikings. Robert […]
Sensor Sweep: Red Nails, Non D&D RPG, Louis L’Amour, Private American
Monday , 20, February 2023 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsRobert E. Howard (M.C. Tuggle): Ernest Hemingway and Robert E. Howard had a lot in common. Both were passionate outdoorsmen who relished food and drink and brawling. Though identified with different genres, both infused their fiction with athletic, vivid prose that still stirs the imaginations of appreciative readers. They have inspired countless writers, and decades […]
A very recent Baen Books’ anthology is Worlds Long Lost edited by Christopher Ruocchio and Sean CW Korsgaard. This is the description: ALL-NEW STORIES OF ANCIENT ALIEN ARTIFACTS FROM TOP NAMES IN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY The universe is older and more alien than we can ever understand. We were not alone. The farther we […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 18 February 2023
Saturday , 18, February 2023 Uncategorized 1 CommentEvery week, the Castalia House Blog spotlights some of the many new releases in independent, pulp and web novel-influenced science fiction and fantasy. Apprentice to the Gods (The Seventh Shaman #4) – D. T. Read The Resistance Pact’s attack on the Supremacy’s “ally” world, Jassem, has succeeded in taking the Jax out of the fight—for […]
Sensor Sweep: Hill Giant Chief, Jim Henson, The Sunless Citadel
Monday , 13, February 2023 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentConan (Paperback Warrior): If you look online for the definition for “convoluted”, it should just provide a link to Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp’s “Hawks over Shem” short story. In my quest to absorb as much Conan literature as humanly possible, I read half of this particular short story and found myself so confused that I re-read the […]
The Normans in Italy 1016-1194 by Raffaele D’Amato and Andrea Salimbeti from 2020 is a fairly recent addition from Osprey Publishing. This is the latest addition to volumes on the Normans. Terence Wise wrote Saxon, Viking, and Norman (Men-at-Arms # 85, 1979) and David Nicolle wrote The Normans (Elite #5, 1987). The Normans in Italy […]
Below are reviews of Web-novel inspired fiction from the Popadanets, isekai, and litRPG/GameLit genres respectively. For more on these genres, please check out “Here Be Dragons: The Web Novel’s Accidental Travels into Otherwhere”, which discusses these three common genres from the web novel branch of fiction. In M. H. Johnson’s Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior […]