Blog Archives
sHowie K. Bentley is one of the rising stars in the sword and sorcery genre. He started out as a guitar player with his band Cauldron Born. Life has included playing in heavy metal bands, teaching guitar, and also writing fiction. He writes dark, violent stories the way sword and sorcery should be written. His […]
There has been a quiet rebirth in the historical novel in the past 15 years– Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow, Ben Kane, Harry Sidebottom etc. Most are Sassenachs (i.e. Englishmen) who have a Roman fixation. I picked up David Gibbins Rome Destroy Carthage at a Dollar General store last week for $3.00 in the paperback rack. […]
Imagine an alt-history world where the United States of America consisted of a filthy, disease-ridden hell-hole ruled by vicious devil-worshipping psychopaths. Go ahead and write your own joke. I’ll wait. Got that out of your system? Good. Because if you made the joke that I think you did, have I got a book for you. The Devil’s […]
The Ghost Who Walks returns in Hermes Press’s reprinting of the Phantom’s classic novels. In the second, The Slave Markets of Mucar, the Phantom leaves his jungle stronghold for the deserts of Arabia. Prisoners have been escaping from a legendary impenetrable fortress. So when one of the Phantom’s Jungle Patrol agents investigating the prison goes missing, […]
There is a secret passed down from one sitting President to his successor. Whenever the fight against crime or foreign meddling endangers the very Constitution itself, each new President is instructed to dial a secret number and ask for the services of a special man. Then hang up the phone and know that the threat […]
When perennial loser and MMO junkie Kazuma Satou dies trying to save a girl from a runaway tractor, he finds himself in the waiting room of heaven, where, after a goddess roasts him for being an idiot, she gives him a choice. Kazuma can enter heaven, or take a continue in an MMO-inspired world as […]
As the yet-to-be-invented Gregorian Calendar ticks over from the third to the fourth millennium, the Roman Empire has ninety-nine problems decides that the upstart Cult of Christ is responsible for just about all of them. Beset by everything from the gods falling silent to military defeats to economic downturns, the zeitgeist of the day finds […]
I wrote a review of The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly two years ago. For various reasons, I did not read the online stories as they appeared since then. I waited for the next volume (#2) that covers 2011-2013. The book has a nice cover by Robert Zoltan that is better than most of the […]
Like so many science-fiction and fantasy readers these days, roping back into modern works took some doing. Steve Rzasa’s writing was one of the things that helped steer me back into reading contemporary science-fiction and fantasy. His Hugo nominated Turncoat provided the proof of concept that these Rabid Puppy maniacs maybe had a point, and his […]
“The Little Black Train” by Manly Wade Wellman
Thursday , 15, March 2018 Book Review, Fiction, Short Fiction 4 Comments“Only thing is,” the mouth-harp man went on, “folks say the train runs on that track. Or it did. A black train runs some nights at midnight, they say, and when it runs a sinner dies.” While out on a walk, John the Balladeer is pulled into an outdoor party and asked to play. It’s […]
Over the past couple years, the marriage of tabletop and video game RPG rule with fantasy adventure novels, known as the litRPG, has been the major development shaping fantasy genres, perfectly complimenting the logical fantasy and hard magic championed by Brandon Sanderson. But where most logical fantasy stories are content to remain in the safe […]
In 1991, Lucasfilm reignited interest in Star Wars with Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn. This first book of the Extended Universe showcased new adventures of Han, Luke, and Leia as they struggled to keep the New Republic together years after the Battle of Endor as the threat of the Imperial remnants faded. But […]