Every week, the Castalia House Blog spotlights some of the many new releases in independent, pulp, and web novel-influenced science fiction and fantasy.

---

Apocalypse Healer – Hideous Grain

Fight. Heal. Survive.

The Integration didn’t just change the Earthen Union—it tore it apart. Monsters, mayhem, and madness turned civilization into a battlefield.

Yet, while the world crumbled under the weight of despair, David felt something unexpected: he felt at home.

Even after being forced into the [Cleric] Class, David refused to yield. He adapted, turning his unwanted gifts into tools of both healing and destruction, forging himself into a battle-hardened healer unlike any before.

---

Forsaken Outpost (First Colony #18) – Ken Lozito

Stranded thousands of light-years from home after a hyperspace experiment goes catastrophically wrong, General Connor Gates faces a brutal reality: their ship is failing, supplies are dwindling, and home is an impossible distance away.

Their only hope lies with a manipulative alien prisoner who offers a dangerous bargain. Freedom in exchange for guidance to an ancient outpost with technology that could save them all… or doom the galaxy if weaponized.

Every step deeper into uncharted space reveals new perils. The massive alien station they discover—a relic adrift in the void—hints at a universe far grander and more treacherous than humanity ever imagined.

Meanwhile, across the stars, a dormant threat awakens—silently calls to those who can hear it. The Vemus nearly exterminated humanity once. Their return could mean the end of everything.

As Connor races to unlock the station’s secrets before time runs out, he realizes the true danger may not be the vast emptiness of space, but what followed them into it. Some enemies are too dangerous to leave behind, even five thousand light-years from home.

In this gripping space epic, betrayal is almost certain, but survival demands risk. Ancient technologies beckon with salvation and ruin in equal measure.

Can humanity’s scattered defenders outsmart beings who think in centuries rather than moments?

---

Iron Blooded – Reece Brooks

A dangerous new fantasy world. A soldier in an eternal war. A champion rises.

Thrust into a new world filled with monsters and magic, Will’s life has become a war for survival. He has nothing more than a class called “soldier” and a strange leveling System he’s never seen before.

When he stumbles across a dying stranger, a mysterious questline activates.

Now Will must head to the front lines where humanity wages war against a ruthless Goblin Horde. There he will join the standing Kadian Army and forge his name from the fires of legend.

He’ll have to face goblins, hordes of the undead, cultists, and demons from Hell. And that’s just before breakfast…

---

Reversal (Kingdom Lost #2) – Chris Kennedy

The lost children of King Kotaro are reunited!

Well, Hellen, Andrew, and Jayme are together again, although the fourth child—Jonatan—remains an unknowing captive of Duke Alessio Valente, who has unjustly usurped the throne after killing the previous king and queen.

Now, however, isn’t the time for them to take back the kingship, as the war with the Algarians still rages. Worse, the Kotaro children have discovered that the war previously was a sham arranged by Valente and the Algarian queen… but now, it’s very much for real, and the Algarians are making a concerted effort to destroy the Narantean Kingdom.

If the children try to recover the kingship now, it will only lead to a civil war that will ensure the downfall of the kingdom. The war must be won first, and the siblings have found a way to do so—a secret wormhole that will give them access to the Algarian domain.

Can the siblings take the group of mercenaries they’ve amassed behind the lines to hit the Algarians from behind and win the war? If they can’t, the kingdom and their lives will truly be lost forever!

---

Swords of Steel IV – edited by D. M. Ritzlin

Ten years ago the first Swords of Steel anthology was unleashed. With its novel concept of heroic fantasy stories written by heavy metal musicians, it received a tremendous reaction from readers old and new alike. Now the time has arrived for the heavy metal bards to once again inject a much-needed dose of adrenaline into the sword-and-sorcery scene! Featuring members of bands such as Bal-Sagoth, Smoulder, Cauldron Born, and DoomSword, these authors prove they are just as talented at crafting epic stories as they are at making epic music!

As critically acclaimed author Schuyler Hernstrom writes in the introduction, “It burns horribly, the formless desire, the nameless need, the yearning. We want danger. We want blood. We want things this world can’t give us. This state of affairs would be completely unbearable without an outlet. Lucky us, the world has given us two. Metal and Fantasy. Two expressions of the thing that burns in us. Some people like one or the other. But some of us need both, a great deal of both, to make it through this world. If you get it, this collection is for you.”

---

Vein Pursuits (Black Badge #2) – Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle

James Crowley has ridden the road to Crescent City before, but never with companions like these. Never with a woman whose very presence jeopardizes everything he’s fought for over the past two decades.

The swamps are a brutal, nasty place filled with creatures most people think only exist in nightmares and fever dreams. When Crowley, along with Rosa, Bram Stoker, Harker, and Irish stumble upon such a creature, and one of their party finds themselves mortally wounded, they must find help in the most unlikely of places.

But that wasn’t James Crowley’s mission. As a Black Badge, a Hand of God, he’s been tasked with hunting down the worst Hell has to offer, and at Shargrafein’s beckoning, he must suss out the Betrayer — a mysterious being about whom no information is given.

What he finds is something he never could have guessed. The city is overrun with vampires, werewolves, and worse, including an old acquaintance with nothing good in mind.

Meanwhile, Rosa has continued her pursuit to reconnect with her dead husband, Willy Massey. With the help of a Voodoo Queen, she must do the unthinkable. Only Crowley stands between her and a choice that would forever scar her soul. But will he be able to escape the clutches of Hell in order to keep her from destroying everything and everyone in her path?

---

Dracoheim Confidential – a Kickstarter campaign from Cirsova

Return to the magical realm of Dracoheim! For the city at the nexus of myriad strange and sorcerous alien worlds, magic and monsters have become just another part of everyday life.

Magic, which was once a novel and mysterious force, has been systematized, standardized, and turned into a vocational science, necessary for day to day commerce with the realms of Nightmare. It is the job of Magus Leonid Vetch, one of the last of the old breed of “wizards,” to prepare young men attending Leeshore Technical College for careers in magic.

And as magic has become part of everyday life, so too has it become a part of commonplace criminal activity. Erik Rugar, a special agent for the Committee for Public Safety, is tasked with investigating crimes involving magic and denizens of Nightmare visiting or residing in Dracoheim County.

Dracoheim Confidential collects 6 previously published stories from Misha Burnett along with two brand new tales!

This Kickstarter campaign will be open until May 5th, 2005.

---

Kamen America Alpha: The Manga – a Kickstarter campaign from Timothy Lim

When Kamen America Volume 1 first debuted in 2020, no one could have predicted how successful it would be, or even if it would make it past one volume. The story had to be condensed to fit into 56 pages, with very little room to breathe.

If given enough time and pages, what story would have been told? What would be the quintessential adaptation of the original work? That question is finally answered in Kamen America: Alpha.

Charlotte “Carly” Vanders had high hopes of becoming a fashionista. On the advice of her agent, she joins the USO as a seamstress and entertainer with the promise that this would open up new opportunities for her.

As fate would have it, Carly’s destiny rested among the stars: literally, as her transport vehicle was impacted by cosmic debris.

Carly soon finds out that doing the right thing isn’t always fashionable: discarding her corporate overlords and the fast track to fame and fortune, she rebrands herself into a self-made, self-reliant henshin heroine known as KAMEN AMERICA!

This Kickstarter campaign will be open until June 3rd, 2005.