Blog Archives
sValancourt Books has published fifteen in it’s Paperbacks from Hell series starting in 2019. I covered T. Chris Martindale’s Nightblood in the series. Lisa Tuttle’s A Nest of Nightmares is another entry in that series. A Nest of Nightmares is a collection of short fiction originally published by Sphere Books in the U.K. in 1986. An introduction to this […]
I am always up for a good alternate history novel. I think it was Harry Turtledove’s Agent of Byzantium that really got me into the genre. John Maddox Roberts had a great alternative history with the unfinished Hannibal’s Children series where Hannibal defeated the Roman and exiled them to the north. We have a new […]
The pulp magazine Blue Book had a group of forgotten writers of historical adventure in the late 1940s: David Cheney, Kenneth Cassens, Wilbur S. Peacock, De Witt Newbury, Paul K. Johnstone, and Anthony Fon Eisen. Two would go on to write novels. Paul K. Johnstone with the excellent Escape From Attila and Fon Eisen with […]
Here is a guest post by Richard: ELFWIN by S. Fowler Wright: A Review By Richard Toogood The Anglo-Saxons have made something of a belated push for public recognition over recent years. Hitherto marginalised in favour of the doomed glamour of the Romano-Britons whom they supplanted, and the more tongue friendly named Normans that came […]
Sgt. Hawk: Tiger Island is the fourth novel in the series. Originally published by Leisure Books in 1982 and just reprinted by Rough Edges Press. The Marines have landed on the island of Rechnung but the push inland is halted. There are rumors that a company of Marines have disappeared altogether. The Japanese are testing […]
Good sword & sorcery fiction has a strong horror element. It becomes Lin Carter when it doesn’t. What is more natural than putting the sword with Halloween, that spookiest of Celtic holidays? DMR Books has a forthcoming anthology of new fiction, Samhain Sorceries. The book contains 10 stories in 210 pages. Keith Taylor is the […]
Sgt. Hawk: Under Attack is book 3 in Patrick Clay’s “Sgt. Hawk” series. Leisure Books originally published the book in 1981. The opening chapter is a bitter fight on an island against well entrenched Japanese troops on a mountainside. Hawk uses a flame thrower in cleaning out one machine gun emplacement. Chapter 2 has Hawk’s […]
A fairly new small press publication is Savage Realms. It is a magazine with an ambitious monthly schedule. Their website states: “Savage Realms Monthly is a new sword and sorcery magazine for fans of R.E. Howard, Karl Edward Wagner, and Michael Moorcock, featuring heroic tales of savage barbarians, evil wizards, and beautiful maidens. We aim […]
The Return of Sgt. Hawk by Patrick Clay was originally published by Leisure Books in 1980. It has been just been reissued by Rough Edges Press. The novel starts soon after a landing in the Philippines by Hawk’s Marine regiment. They are a lone Marine regiment amide army troops on the island of Lamare. My […]
The summer of new fiction continues. This time is The Sword of Otrim by Lyndon Perry. I was alerted to this novel by the author who belongs to a sword & sorcery group I have on one of the social media platforms. I ordered it some months back and it made its way to the […]
Tales From the Magician’s Skull is one of the top magazines if not the top magazine for sword & sorcery short fiction the past few years. Issue #5 continues a continuity of contents and presentation present from the first issue. San Julian returns as the cover artist for this issue. Dimensions are 8.5 x 11 […]
The Norse sagas have inspired imitations in English since William Morris translated The Volsung Saga in 1870. Hjalmar Bjornson’s “The Maiden Mengloth” (1926) and Richard F. Searight’s “The Cavern of the Dragon” (1936) are examples of saga imitation. Edward Lucas White (1866-1934) is a writer remembered for some classic weird stories: “Lukundoo,” “Song of the […]