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sScience Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 31 August 2024
Saturday , 31, August 2024 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. Lords of Dragon Keep (Dark Undermaster Saga #1) – C. T. Phillips “Give me the incredibly short summary of what the hell is going on, please. The kind you could fit into […]
Sensor Sweep: F&SF, Straight Swords, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers
Monday , 26, August 2024 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentComic Strips (Flashback Universe): I’ve been enjoying the latest incarnation of the Flash Gordon comic strip in digital format on the Comics Kingdom website. Cartoonist Dan Schkade relaunched the series on October 22, 2023, and has been doing daily and Sunday installments ever since. Science Fiction (Fandom Pulse): The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction used to be […]
Robert E. Howard’s Prehistoric Beasts: Vilayetpithecus
Sunday , 25, August 2024 Robert E. Howard 1 CommentMan-eating apes are almost ubiquitous as giant snakes in Robert E. Howard’s fiction. Howard used big ones in two Conan stories, one El Borak story, and a modern weird story. He also had a smaller type in another Conan story and a gorilla in the first Solomon Kane story. Apes and ape-men were in some […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 24 August 2024
Saturday , 24, August 2024 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. Cyclones of Chaos (LAND&SEA #7) – Blaine L. Pardoe The mysterious underwater aliens dubbed the Fish, continue their brutal war with humanity around the globe. ASHUR’s and Tridents; powerful armored Mecha suits, […]
Horror (Too Much Horror Fiction): I first became aware of Ghouls in My Grave after reading Danse Macabre, Stephen King’s essential 1981 tome of boomer memoir and horror criticism, where he includes it in an appendix of important 20th century horror fiction. For many years I searched for the book, to no avail, and virtually […]
Robert E. Howard’s Prehistoric Beasts: Saber-Tooth Tiger
Sunday , 18, August 2024 Uncategorized Leave a commentRobert E. Howard made reference to lions and tigers quite a bit in his fiction comparing characteristics of his heroes to the big cats. He also used the prehistoric saber-tooth tiger a few times. Saber-tooth cats are a sub-family (Machairodontinae) of the Felidae (true cat) family. Mammals have put out saber toothed predators in the […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 17 August 2024
Sunday , 18, August 2024 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. Call to Armor (Ember War: Terran Expeditionary Corps #1) – Richard Fox A planet in danger. An impossible enemy. Only Armor can stand against the darkness. The extra-galactic bridge between Earth and […]
Sensor Sweep: Robert E. Howard, Dashiell Hammett, World-Con, Weird Tales
Monday , 12, August 2024 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentScience Fiction (Vintage Pop Fictions): The Ginger Star is a 1974 science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett. It is the first volume in a loose trilogy featuring her hero Eric John Stark. Eric John Stark had actually made his first appearance back in 1949 in Brackett’s novellas Queen of the Martian Catacombs, Enchantress of Venus […]
A little reading of Robert E. Howard will give you the idea he did not like snakes. Giant snakes show up in three of the Conan stories and in one of the James Allison stories. That is not counting snakes of the supernatural type in “The Cobra in the Dream” and “The Dream Snake.” Snakes […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 10 August 2024
Saturday , 10, August 2024 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. Magic Kingdom at War #4 – Tao Wong The worst thing about winning a battle? The mountain of paperwork that comes after. Matt Fang may have won the fight, but now he’s […]
Robert E. Howard (Horror Babble): “King of the Forgotten People” by Robert E. Howard. Gaming (Endymion): The creator of DOOM has suddenly changed his tune claiming we must now come together & stop fighting, only after one side has started to slip in control, Sam Hyde has a thing or two to say about it […]
Robert E. Howard’s Prehistoric Beasts: The Terror Bird
Sunday , 4, August 2024 Weird Tales 2 CommentsPrehistoric animals appear in Robert E. Howard’s fiction as intrusions of creatures from past eons. They are a way to enhance the strangeness of a situation. One creature used more than once was the Terror Bird. Terror Bird is a loose term used for predatory flightless birds of the Cenozoic Era. The dinosaur extinction opened […]