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

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Dragon Lands (The Shadow’s Dragon #2) – Dustin Porta and D. K. Holmberg

Treylen never thought he’d be hunting his own people. Least of all, family.

In the mines of Wetherdin, a foul plot is unfolding. Someone’s stealing dragon eggs for the Jaul, and it’s up to Treylen, Aaron, and their dragons to infiltrate and root out the traitor.

This time he’s ready. His spycraft is stronger, his bond with Rime is better than ever, and his mentor has come along for the mission. Under the guise of visiting nobility, they’ll have all the comforts of a cozy mountain lodge while untangling the mystery at their leisure.

But when Marziel disappears on the night of a murder, and his own family gets caught up in the intrigue, a dire deadline is set. Treylen is faced with a choice that the abbey never prepared him for. And the solution will take him deeper into the caves of the Dragon Lands than he’d ever imagined.

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The Redemption of Alness (Tales of the Mongoose and Meerkat #3) – Jim Breyfogle

Two years have passed since the fall of Alness. And two years have passed since the brash young sellsword Mangos teamed up with Kat, the mysterious Alnessi rogue. Together, they have made a name for themselves as the Mongoose and Meerkat!

The northlands still smolder as Rhygir holds Alness in an iron grip. Rumors swirl that an Alnessi royal may have survived, but Rhygir is intent on hunting down any resistance that might rally to a rogue prince who escaped the slaughter.

Though Rhygir has been consolidating power in Alness, the Mongoose and Meerkat have been hard at work, gathering resources and making alliances in Alomar and abroad. But can the new allies and old friends overcome the army of Rhygir before it can be bolstered by elite mercenaries?

All of the pieces of the King’s Game are in place!

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

The path to Heaven runs through miles of icy Hell …

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?

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We Dare: Old Age and Treachery – Jamie Ibson

Fifteen outstanding authors. Fifteen stories about people who have been there before!

Never underestimate an old man in a business where men die young.

War is a young man’s game, and one where failure usually leads to your death. There’s a reason some people survive when others don’t—they’re faster, stronger, smarter, and usually luckier than everybody else—and you antagonize them at your own peril!

From knowing how to judge the intelligence data to understanding how to play “the long game,” or just having the experience from past operations to be able to tell when things are about to go wrong, these old men and women know what they’re doing… and woe betide the new recruits who don’t listen. Be careful, because that old timer sitting next to you—the one who doesn’t say much—may have a skill or maybe even a robot that’s going to kick your butt!

For, as the old-timers know, an ounce of experience is worth a pound of youthful exuberance!

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Death Flex – a crowdfunding campaign by Pilum Press

The headsman of Nuremburg, Franz Schmidt put an end to hundreds of convicts, each of whom merited a line in his ledger:

“Schober was beheaded by favour; Marti was hanged, and the bleachers made him a pair of very white hose, a doublet and stockings of Cologne linen.”

Introduced by the best-selling author, Brian Evenson, Pilum is proud to publish four new writers who take us into the forgotten reality behind these laconic entries in Schmidt’s fascinating sixteenth-century execution records. Brian Renninger, JB Jackson, Lester Glover, and John Daker rescue final truths only fiction can properly deliver. The back half of this beautiful, yet lugubrious volume examines the reality principle at play in the fiction of Jack Vance by leading Vance critic, Paul Rhoads. Further fictions from Messrs. Alexander Palacio and CD Crabtree transport us to settings uncomfortably proximate and movingly legendary. Finally, Jeffro Johnson meditates on the significance of death, ludic and otherwise, among players of D&D.

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Gemini Man: The Complete Series – a Kickstarter by J. D. Cowan

The Gemini Man stars young adult Matthew White and teenager Jason Vermilion as they find themselves attached to bracelets named Castor and Pollux, both of which give them strange powers unlike anything on Earth . . . or other planets! The trilogy starts with the two escaping an experiment and landing in a whole new world where magic lives and an unknown people roam. Can they escape their pursuers, or are they destined to be fuel for some warped alien being? The trilogy traces their journey from captives to free men, in more ways than one.

The crowd-funded campaign will close on 2 June, 2023.

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Misha Burnett’s Small Worlds – a Kickstarter from Cirsova

Ours is a culture that adores the elephantine, the cyclopean, the Brobdingnagian. Bigger is better, we are told, and the biggest is the best. People love big stories, with a cast of thousands, and Vista-vision widescreen special effects. Heroes must be larger than life, and devils blacker than they are painted, and entire worlds must be set aflame to create an ever-growing hunger for spectacle.

Oh, says I, that’s interesting. But that’s not what I do.

I write short stories, about little people in small worlds. That’s what you’ll find in this collection. In a couple of cases, they are literally small worlds, flyspeck heavenly bodies far out in space. In others the constraints are more metaphysical, worlds bounded by the vision of their inhabitants, an event horizon close enough to almost touch.

But one mustn’t suppose that the Lilliputian character of these stories means that nothing of significance happens in them.

Small worlds need saving, too.

The crowd-funded campaign will close on 31 May, 2023.

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Weird Works of Dave Martel – Dave Martel

The Weird Works of Dave Martel are an intriguing glimpse into the blossoming underground pulp and Hyper-Romantic movements. In over thirty pieces of poetry and fiction he blends themes of fantasy, cosmic horror and sci-fi to paint vivid and visceral landscapes, grim futures and nightmarish realities. All with his trademark flavor of alliterative tongue twisters and imaginative high weirdness.