Fantasy Books

I continue to listen to audiobooks daily. They fit my lifestyle and let me get to a lot more stuff than I would if I just read. I mean, driving with a paperback in hand is quite the challenge!

I just re-listened to the entire SPQR mystery series by John Maddox Roberts (who I have written about several times, including here). No way I could have sat down and re-read all thirteen.

And I plodded through listening to all 44 hours of Toll of the Hounds, the eighth book of Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen. It was the first book in the series I didn’t really care for – possibly because I don’t like the narrator. But I’ve had a paperback copy on the shelves for ten years, I think. At least I worked in listening to it. I have the audiobook for Dust of Dreams, which is just as long. But the same guy read the whole series, and I don’t want another 40+ hours of him.

But, I do like to still read a physical copy. So, let’s get to what I’ve been checking out on the printed page.

 

FLYING FREEBOOTERS – Frederick Nebel

Nebel’s is the second face on my Hardboiled Mt. Rushmore (Hammett on one side, Norbert Davis on the other). I’m not into the Aviation Pulps, but I am a fan of Nebel’s Gales & McGill action stories. I added several of Nebel’s Pulp Collections from the Black Dog Books table at Windy City. This included some of his other aviation stories. And I’m becoming more of a fan. Flying Freebooters contains three stories. “Isle of Lost Wings” and “Flying Freebooters first appeared in Wings magazine, in 1930.

Nebel used two organizations for many of his aviation stories. Garrison Airways is a flying service (passengers, mail, and freight) in the Far East. Feisty little Sam Garrison is founder and boss, with hardboiled pilots working for him. I’ve read a couple Garrison stories.

The second, the Strait Agency, is essentially a combination aviation security and private police force, also operating in the Far East. The use of airplanes in these reminds me of Horace McCoy’s Air Texas Rangers stories.

The first story is third person, while the second (and also the third in the book, are first person). These are high action, hardboiled stories that fly along, page after page. Nebel was writing for Black Mask at at this time as well, but he had developed, and continued honing, his craft in the Aviation Pulps. I am enjoying these, and I look forward to the other books I picked up, including some of his Canadian adventures.

 

MURDER: STRICTLY PRIVATE – Norvell Page

Version 1.0.0

Page is best known as the primary writer of the hero Pulp, The Spider (under the house name, Grant Stockbridge). Like most Pulpsters, he wrote many genres, including weird menace, and G-men stories. I have his limited Western output as a Black Dog e-book.

I really struggle with the Spicy Pulps. Briefly a popular genre, they’re just so goofy I can’t take them seriously enough to enjoy them. I wrote a post on a Robert E. Howard spicy story – and it was more of a saucy-tinged adventure. Whereas, I can’t even finish a Dan Turner (Hollywood Detective) story in one -sitting.

Robert Leslie Bellem’s Turner is the most popular of the spicy detectives, even getting his own magazine. But to me, it’s like a parody of Race Williams. And Williams can be hard enough to absorb, without making it a spicy parody.

Page wrote a series of spicy stories featuring Bill Carter (who is not his Weird Menace star, Ken Carter), an investigative reporter in Miami. This volume collects (all?) twenty of them. Page is still kinda over-the-top for me, but these are FAR more readable than the Dan Turner stories. I’ll work my way through this book.

 

Speaking of Page, I recently picked up his short novel, Flame Winds, which originally appeared in the June, 1939 issue of Unknown magazine. It’s his take on the Prester John myth. Lamb included the Prester John legend in the Khlit story I’m currently reading now, “Changa-Nor.”

Roy Thomas used the novella for a three-part Conan comic, “Flame Winds of Lost Khitai.” I got the book because I plan on doing a Black Gate post on the whole Flame Winds thing. Should be neat, and I can incorporate the Lamb story as well.

 

WOLFE OF THE STEPPES – Harold Lamb

Lamb was a prolific Pulpster in the early 20th Century. A historian as well, his adventure stories are detail-filled thrill-rides. There are eighteen tales of Khlit the Cossack, a gray-bearded survivor on the Asian steppes around the start of the 17th Century.

Lamb was a great influence on Robert E. Howard, and Howard Andrew Jones collected all the Khlit stories in four volumes. There are four more books of Lamb’s adventure tales as well. The first story, which was much shorter than the others, didn’t do anything for me. The next three were novella length, and better Then I hit two linked stories: “The Mighty Manslayer” and “The White Khan.” I’m definitely into these tales now. I am reading the next, and I am enjoying Khlit.

Other than REH, I don’t read Adventure stories, but Lamb was good. I’ve read a couple of his Viking, and Crusader, stories, from other books. They were also good reads.

 

HIRED GUNS – Steve Hockensmith

In February of 2024, I read/listened to the entire Holmes on the Range series, then I did a new post, a comprehensive chronology, and then a Q&A with Steve. I’m a HUGE fan of these fun Western mysteries, with a Holmes influence. Link to all three posts, here.

Later in 2024, he published two new Hired Guns, and No Hallowed Ground, featuring other operatives of the Double-A Western Detective Agency. I read the first book, and I liked it. These are Western mysteries – no Holmes influence. More like hardboiled cowboy stories. Looking forward to the second one when I can fit it in the schedule. I really enjoy reading Steve’s stuff.

Other What I’ve Been Reading

What I’ve Been Reading: November, 2024: (Glen Cook, Dodgers’ baseball)

What I’ve Been Reading: September, 2024 (Harold Lamb, Hugh Ashton, Scott Oden)

What I’ve Been Reading: November, 2023 (Holmes on the Range, The Caine Mutiny, Jules De Granden)

What I’ve Been Reading: September 2022 (Columbo, Douglas Adams, Cleveland Torso Murderer)

What I’ve Been Reading: May, 2021 (Cole & Hitch, Dortmunder, and Parker, and Tony Hillerman)

What I’ve Been Reading: September 2020 (Jo Gar, Sherlock Holmes, Casablanca the movie, more)

What I’ve Been Reading: January, 2020 (Glen Cook, John D. MacDonald, Howard Andrew Jones, more)

What I’ve Been Reading: December, 2019 (Scott Oden, Norbert Davis, David Dickinson)

What I’ve Been Reading: July, 2019 (Clive Cussler, Gabriel Hunt, Max Latin)

Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.

Buy The Knight and the Moth

FORMAT/INFO: The Knight and the Moth will be published on May 20th, 2025. It is 400 pages and published by Orbit Books. It is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: "Swords and armor are nothing to stone." That's the mantra of Aisling Cathedral, home to the six Diviners who dream of Omens and predict the future for those who come before them. Sybil Delling is one such Diviner. Like those who came before her, she and her fellow sisters were foundlings who have given ten years of their lives in service to the Cathedral in return for a place to call home. But with just a few months to go before their tenure ends, Sybil's sisters start to disappear without a trace, until only Sybil is left. Fleeing for her safety, the only person she can turn to is the heretical knight Rodrick, notable for his disdain of everything to do with Omens. Together, then two journey forth in search of the missing Diviners, only to uncover a darker truth than they could have imagined.

The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig is an absolutely beautiful gothic romance full of feminine fury. If the term "romantasy" (which I think is overly applied to any fantasy book that happens to feature a love story) is a turn off to you, I beg you to give this a second look. This isn't a race to get to spicy scenes; this is a slow burn romance of two people falling in love while exploring the dark mystery that surrounds the kingdom. While there is a spicy scene, it feels completely earned and keeps the descriptions fairly PG-13.

If you've read the author's previous Shepherd King duology, you may find some familiar beats in this plot, which is the one slight drawback to the story. Like the other series, there's an ominous kingdom full of dark forests and unforgiving landscapes, a group trying to collect magical items, and a romantic pairing at the center of it. But while I can spot the broad similarities, there's no denying the author executes the story extremely well.

In fact, in many ways The Knight and the Moth improves on the formula that came before (and I say this as someone who enjoyed the Shepherd King duology). I vastly preferred the romance in The Knight and the Moth to One Dark Window, finding Sybil and Rodrick equally matched foils who slowly move past their disdain for each other and find love. I also think the author does a much better job of keeping the main character of Sybil on the same pages as the reader, with her having epiphanies at the same time as me, instead of several chapters after the fact.

I also loved the growing evolution of Sybil of the course of the book. She begins to take strength from her anger at how her life has been controlled and manipulated. One of my favorite arcs of a character is when they go from relatively submissive to a strong individual capable of saying No to those who have taken advantage of them in the past. It was on full display here and it was glorious.

CONCLUSION: The Knight and the Moth earns every bit of its gothic romance label in the best way possible. It is atmospheric, romantic, and mysterious. It had me flying through the pages, and I am counting down the days until the sequel can be in my hands.

Dorsai! by Gordon R. Dickson (Ace Books, February 1980). Cover by Jordi Penalva

In 1959, Robert A. Heinlein published Starship Troopers, one of the founding works of military science fiction as a genre. But that same year saw the serialization of Gordon R. Dickson’s Dorsai! in Astounding Science Fiction, a work that may have been equally influential, though it seems now to be less remembered. In fact, both were nominated for the Hugo Award in 1960, though Starship Troopers won.

Dorsai! is set in an interstellar future, with some sixty billion human beings inhabiting 16 planets of eight solar systems. Several of the stars are named in the novel, and as was common at that time, many of them are astrophysically implausible candidates to have biospheres, being of spectral types with relatively short lifespans: Altair (type A7), Fomalhaut (type A4), and Sirius (type A0). Fomalhaut and Sirius are also multiple stars, which limits the possible planetary orbits around them. At least Ceta, orbiting Tau Ceti, is a plausible Earthlike planet! It’s also noteworthy that several of these solar systems have multiple habitable planets — though that’s also true of our own, where Dickson has Mars and Venus humanly colonized, a project that seemed far more daunting only a few years later!

Astounding Science Fiction, May 1959, containing the first installment of Dorsai! by Gordon R. Dickson. Cover art by H. R. Van Dongen

But all this is somewhat beside the point, because unlike his lifelong friend Poul Anderson, Dickson isn’t writing about the physics of his planets, or the biology it enables. To a first approximation, his focus is sociology: the planets of his interstellar future have largely divided up into groups that emphasize different types of human activity, almost like the varnas [“castes”] of ancient India — and different ethical values along with them.

Thus, we have the “Venus group” (Venus itself, Newton, and Cassida), whose focus is on technology and the physical sciences; Ceta, a planet of commercial enterprises and investors; the “Friendlies,” Harmony and Association, two worlds of devout monotheists; the “Exotics,” Mara and Kultis, whose emphasis is partly philosophy (more in the Hindu or Buddhist style than in the Western) and partly a science of human potential, called ontogenetics, that apparently can be used for selective breeding for specific desired behavior.

Book 2 in the Dorsai series: Necromancer (Ace, April 1981). Cover by Stephen Hickman

And then there’s the Dorsai, for whom the book (and several of its sequels) is named. It’s the name both of a planet and of the people who inhabit it. Compelled by a shortage of natural resources, their men hire out as mercenaries, known as the best soldiers in the humanly inhabited universe, both naturally talented at war and intensively trained. One of these is Dickson’s protagonist, Donal Graeme, the focus of the entire narrative.

This diversity of planetary societies sets up the novel’s conflict. In the first place, the planets are specialized, not merely in broad cultural patterns, but in economic detail. There are more specialized occupations than any one planet can afford to train for itself; the human race has a sixty-billion-person division of labor. This creates a need for specialists from each planet to travel to other planets where their services are needed, just as the Dorsai do.

Dorsai, Book 3: Soldier, Ask Not (Ace, March 1980). Cover by Enric

But the terms on which they do so are set in different ways by different planets. At one extreme are the tight worlds: the technologically advanced Venus group, the religiously fanatical Friendlies, and Coby, a mining world controlled by a criminal cartel. At the other are Old Earth and Mars, described as “republican worlds”; the Exotics; and the Dorsai, which are counted as loose worlds.

In between are several miscellaneous worlds, including the commercial Ceta and two worlds with strong central governments, New Earth and Freiland. The tight worlds treat labor contracts virtually as indentures and are in a position to dominate the labor markets, putting them at odds with the loose worlds.

Dorsai, Book 4: Tactics of Mistake (Ace, May 1981). Cover by Stephen Hickman

It struck me on this reading that Dickson’s view of Harmony and Association seems to have changed as he wrote the series. Here they are harshly authoritarian societies with no evident redeeming features. In Soldier, Ask Not, published eight years later, they appear much more sympathetically, and it seems that Dickson’s unfinished final volume would have shown them as an essential element in the reunited human race — the element of faith, as the Dorsai are courage and the Exotics wisdom. (The other major tight faction, the Venus group, are seemingly left behind as having nothing essential to add to human destiny.)

Donal Graeme himself fits this theme of human reunification: both of his grandfathers were Dorsai, but both of his grandmothers Maran. (This hybrid ancestry made me think of another military genius in later science fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold’s part-Betan, part-Barrayaran Miles Vorkosigan.) This gives him a peculiar mix of abilities. He’s a brilliant warrior and commander, fitting a work of military fiction. But he also have some gifts that transcend normal humanity, as he’s told during his employment by the Exotics.

Nine paperbacks in the Dorsai series by Gordon Dickson (also called the Childe Cycle)

We get a foretaste of this when he finds himself able to walk on air, apparently simply by believing he can! But more profound than that is a peculiar kind of insight that deepens over the course of the novel, as a result of various stressful experiences. And that insight sets him up, almost from the outset, as an opponent of another major character: William of Ceta, a master entrepreneur whose aim is to take full advantage of the interstellar labor market.

Donal and William become both political and romantic rivals, but both rivals reflect Dickson’s underlying theme of human destiny and the question of who will shape it. In this theme, Dorsai! in a lot of ways transcends the category of military science fiction.

Nine paperbacks in the Dorsai series by Gordon Dickson (back covers)

On one hand, this theme strikes me as more mythological than science fictional — which I’m not sure Dickson would even have disputed! On the other hand, it points the way toward the deeper emotional resonance of some of the later books, especially Soldier, Ask Not.

Dorsai! also sets a pattern Dickson will follow in later novels in the series, of presenting conflict ultimately not as a clash of institutions (despite his comments about loose and tight worlds) but as a collision of two larger than life figures on opposing sides: not so much realistic fiction as epic. This volume is a somewhat simple first presentation of the theme, but at the same time one of the clearest in the series.

William H. Stoddard is a professional copy editor specializing in scholarly and scientific publications. As a secondary career, he has written more than two dozen books for Steve Jackson Games, starting in 2000 with GURPS Steampunk. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, their cat (a ginger tabby), and a hundred shelf feet of books, including large amounts of science fiction, fantasy, and graphic novels. His last article for us was a review of Singularity Sky by Charles Stross.

This year’s Women in SF&F Month ends this week with one more guest post and an international giveaway. Thank you so much to last week’s guests for their excellent essays! Before announcing the rest of this year’s schedule, here are last week’s guest posts in case you missed any of them. All guest posts from April 2025 can be found here, and last week’s guest posts were: “The Power of Community” — Pat Murphy (The Falling Woman, Points of Departure) […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Final Week & Week in Review first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

Kingdom of the Spiders (Dimension Pictures, November 23, 1977)

50 films that I dug up on Tubi.

Enjoy!

Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)

Ah, the 70s. My formative years. Angry nature films were rampant around this time (much to my delight), and now it’s time for tarantulas to be miffed at our overuse of pesticides.

William Shatner plays Rack Hansen (staggeringly good name), a lecherous animal doctor in rural Arizona. When I say lecherous, I mean toward female humans. When Woody Strode finds his prize calf dead, the Shat is called in to figure it out. He calls in an expert from Flagstaff, and unfortunately for the expert, she is hot and blond. Shatner is all over her like tribbles on a starship.

They eventually ascertain the death was caused by spider bites, and then all eight-legged hell breaks loose.

The film is seriously daft in some spots, egregiously misogynistic in others, and cheesy to the extreme, but I had a great time with it. The climax in town is particularly Irwin Allen-style over the top chaos, and the final shot, though portrayed through a sub-par matte painting, is suitably chilling.

Worth a look if you haven’t seen it.

7/10

Slime City (Media Blasters, 1988) and Little Corey Gorey (DML, 1993)

Slime City (1988)

I’m sometimes asked why I haven’t gotten around to watching The Brutalist or Wicked yet, and that’s because I’m too busy watching this sort of stuff.

Alex moves into a decrepit apartment building and soon encounters some fellow tenants (goth poet Roman and seductive vamp Nicole), both of whom are into eating ‘Himalayan yogurt’ and drinking a strange green liquor. It turns out these vittles are the sustenance of cultists who have possessed their bodies, and Alex is next in line. Tempted by the drink and Nicole’s jangly bits, Alex succumbs to the dark sorcery afoot, and slowly turns into a slimy murderer, ultimately going full Darkman. As you do.

It’s all quite daft and low-budget, but the dodgy line delivery and goop-stained pillows are all worth it for the final act, which involves Re-animator-levels of dismemberment (albeit less refined).

Alex’s prudish girlfriend and sex crazy Nicole are played by the same actor, Mary Huner, and I have to give her credit for fooling me. The effects are mucky and rubbery, and there are a couple of funny lines, mostly from Alex’s doofus pal.

A good entry-level flick for other fare such as Street Trash or The Abomination.

Slightly recommended.

6/10

Little Corey Gorey (1993)

I’ve seen this one listed as a comedy (it’s not), and a slasher (still not), but at the end of the day, Little Corey Gorey is just a nasty bit of schlock, and not the good kind.

It’s that timeless story of a teen (9th grader) bullied and tortured by his step-mother and brother to the point where he snaps and goes on an accidental killing rampage. There’s not much else to the plot, but that usually doesn’t bother me when I’m watching one of these flicks.
However, virtually all of the main characters are so cartoonishly vile, including our ‘protagonist,’ that it was ultimately a miserable watch.

Corey, for whom we are supposed to be rooting, is a creepy, knicker-sniffing stalker and, though he certainly doesn’t deserve the abuse from his step-family, it’s impossible to sympathize with him. The only characters in this film with any decency are a Black family that live next door, and I trust this was done for a reason. There is an ongoing subplot about an escaped serial killer, but this one is nipped in the bud fairly quickly when it could have been used in a far more interesting way.

3/10

Rituals (Astral Films, August 26, 1977) Rituals (1977)

Here’s a Canadian film (shot in Northern Ontario) that is often dismissed as a Deliverance rip-off — but it’s much more than that. Sure, it takes the form of the tried and tested ‘fish out of water’ genre by throwing five surgeons into the remote wilderness to try and survive a deranged killer, but there’s a grittiness to the whole affair that elevates the film. Also, the characters are well-written, and an early scene where they are trying to cross a river, a scene full of unintended plunges and improvised cajoling, helps us to empathize with the group before their nightmare begins.

The kinetic camerawork gives the film an authenticity, and semi-obscured shots from the killer’s POV provide a real sense of danger. Before this film I’d never really appreciated Hal Holbrook as anything more than an interesting character actor, but he really impressed me with his physical and emotional depth.

Definitely worth a look.

8/10

Grotesque (Empire Pictures, 1988) Grotesque (1988)

You want weird, and yet strangely compelling? I’ve got you.

Grotesque is executive produced (and briefly stars) Linda Blair, and Tab Hunter has a main role in it, along with Donna (Angel) Wilkes, so the schlocky cult movie DNA is intact. However, this home invasion horror is such an odd beast; bookended by a couple of movie fake-outs, and being a lot tamer than one might expect for a film that has special effects at its core.

The tale is as old as time: a special effects artist invites his family to their remote lodge, where they are set upon by a roving gang of ‘punkers’ who proceed to slaughter said family. This is witnessed by a disfigured man-child, who promptly goes on a murderous punk-slaying spree, and then the film shifts gears into a boring police procedural complete with prolonged ‘good cop/bad cop’ routine, while Linda Blair excuses herself offscreen. Then it turns into a sort of Twilight Zone episode and then descends into a ‘comedic’ finale (your experience may vary).

My brain is telling me I enjoyed it — but I really don’t listen to my brain any more.

5/10

The Vineyard (New World Pictures, 1989) and
Insect! (International Spectrafilm, September 25, 1987)

The Vineyard (1989)

James Hong, right? RIGHT?

We all love him, from Big Trouble in Little China to Everything Everywhere All At Once, from Kung Fu Panda to Balls of Fury.

James decided he wanted to make a horror film, so he wrote one, co-directed it, and starred in it. What makes him a legend? Did I mention he wrote this for himself?

EXT. DAY
A large, gothic mansion bordered by lush foliage. A bird cries in the distance.
DR. PO (me, James Hong) is standing on a balcony, fondling the pert chesticles of a blond lady.
CUT TO:
INT. BEDROOM
DR. PO (me) is having it away with the blond lady. She’s still naked.

DR. PO (me)

Awesome. I love knockers, me.

You go, James Hong!

The Vineyard is a tale as old as time (again). The descendant of a long line of immortals has become a famous vintner, but his secret ingredient is chained up ladies, of whom he supps in a strange concoction to maintain his youth (his middle age TBH). When he’s finished with them he buries them in the back yard where they lay as restless zombies, unable to rise because he is keeping them in the ground with Mayan voodoo.

Dr. Po holds a fake audition at his mansion for a fake film and a lot of pretty girls and boys turn up for it, only to discover that they are mere ingredients for his latest vintage. Po is also keeping his ancient mom in the attic room, and she is a dead ringer for Zelda from Terrahawks (if this means anything to you).

Shenanigans ensue, involving much running, shooting of arrows, extremely heavy facial prosthetics and dodgy late 80s visual effects. It’s drastically cheesy and somewhat hilarious, and I had a great time. God bless James Hong.

7/10

Insect! (aka Blue Monkey) (1987)

Find any dictionary worth its salt, look up ‘hokey’ and you’ll find the poster for this film. Then you’ll see a small print addendum that reads “see also: hilariously awesome.”

Insect! is a proudly Canadian schlockfest, and it features a who’s who of the best Canadian character actors; John Vernon, Don Lake, Joe Flaherty, Robin Duke, and a 7-yr-old Sarah Polley!

The main protagonist is a weather-beaten detective played by Steve Railsback, who I always thought had more of a serial killer look than a leading man, but hey ho — I’m sure he has his fans.

Long story short, an old fella is infected by a parasite, which promptly busts out of him, grows enormous, makes itself a mate and goes into egg production, all the while eating the hospital staff.

Speaking of the hospital, this has to be the most unsecure, ethically murky, run-down medical establishment ever put on film — and I’ve seen Session 9.

Anyhoo, nurses are eaten, bugs are squished and Steve smokes next to a pregnant lady. The gore is limited but gooey, and the effects on the whole are surprisingly fun. Special shout out to a gaggle of seemingly parent-less children who run free around the hospital (and are, in fact, responsible for all the deaths in the film).

See it if you enjoy stickiness.

6/10

Previous Murkey Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

Tubi Dive, Part I
Tubi Dive, Part II
What Possessed You?
Fan of the Cave Bear
There, Wolves
What a Croc
Prehistrionics
Jumping the Shark
Alien Overlords
Biggus Footus
I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie
The Weird, Weird West
Warrior Women Watch-a-thon

Neil Baker’s last article for us was Part II of Tubi Dive. Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, teacher, and sculptor of turtle exhibits. (AprilMoonBooks.com).

Sibling relationships can resemble a battlefield more than a family gathering. In this LitStack Rec,…

The post Intense Sibling Relationships | 6 Novels of Rivalry, Malice, Duplicity…and Murder appeared first on LitStack.

Cover for Born with the Dead by Ron Walotsky
Cover for The Saliva Tree by Lee Edwards

Tor Double #3 was originally published in December 1988.  The two stories included are Brian W. Aldiss’s The Saliva Tree and Robert Silverberg’s Born with the Dead. The volume was published as a tête-bêche, with Les Edwards providing the cover art for The Saliva Tree and Ron Walotsky painting the cover for Born of the Dead.

The Saliva Tree was originally published in F&SF in September, 1965. It won the Nebula Award and was nominated for the Seiun Award.

Set in the mid-1890s, The Saliva tree is the story of Geoffrey Rolles, a young gentleman of leisure in the East Anglian village of Cottersall. His head filled with socialism, he has embarked upon a correspondent with H.G. Wells, one of England’s preeminent socialists of the time. He has also taken an interest in local farmer Joseph Grendon, who has demonstrated his forward thinking ways by installing an electric generator on his farm.

The specific events of the story are sparked when Rolles and a friend see a meteor streaking through the sky, possibly striking the earth on Grendon’s property. Although Grendon welcome’s Rolles’s presence, his farmhand, Bert Neckland, sees Rolles as a rival for the affections of Grendon’s daughter, Nancy. Although Rolles claims not to be interested in her, his relationship with her will grow throughout the several months it takes for the story to unroll.

There is an interesting dichotomy to The Saliva Tree, which Aldiss handles well. The average reader, even if they don’t read a lot of science fiction, lives in a world in which the tropes of science fiction have existed since the 1890s and have seeped into the mainstream. For Aldiss’s characters, the concepts are not even new, they are non-existent. Rolles has read The Time Machine, but the ideas of alien invasion or invisible creatures are not part of his world view. Even faced with the evidence, it takes him a long time to begin to understand what is happening, and longer to convince Nancy, Grendon, and others of that truth. And that delay has terrifying consequences for both the human and animal inhabitants of Grendon’s farm.

In many cases where the reader figures out what is happening before the characters, the reader can get annoyed with the characters, but Aldiss manages to avoid this trap, partly by focusing on the characters’ relationships, but also because he has clearly defined Rolles as intelligent and forward thinking (if aimless), and it is clear that he is steps ahead of everyone in putting together the pieces with which he is presented.

Rolles maintains a correspondence with H.G. Wells, who has, by this time, published The Time Machine, but publication of The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds is still in his future (which places the story in 1896). The implication of Rolles’s letters is that Wells based those two stories on the events that took place on Grendon’s farm, with the creatures’ invisibility inspiring the first novel and their extraterrestrial origin leading to the latter book.

While Wells is the primary and most obvious influence on The Saliva Tree, the isolated setting, the horrors occurring there, and the one person who comes to understand what is occurring despite every bit of human experience, indicates the story also owes a debt to the eldritch horror written by H.P. Lovecraft and his followers. The Aurigans, as Rolles refers to them, remain something of a mystery, but they serve their purpose of being an otherworldly presence that threatens the characters’ understanding of the world and limit their ability to respond, even as they realize what is happening on Grendon’s farm.

F&SF 4/74 cover by Ed Emshwiller
F&SF 9/65 cover by Bert Tanner

Born with the Dead was originally published in F&SF in April, 1974. It was nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, winning the latter as well as the Locus poll. It is also the first of five stories Robert Silverberg had published as part of the series.

Silverberg follows Jorge Klein, who is trying to come to terms with the death of his wife, Sybille. Klein has travelled to the island of Zanzibar, a place his wife had studied and never managed to visit before her death. Klein’s visit to Zanzibar, however, is not just an homage to his dead wife. Upon her death, Sybille went through a process called “rekindling,” which made her a “dead,” a sort of zombie, but one who can continue their life, although the dead cut off all their ties to their previous life and live in “Cold Town” communities. Klein, therefore, is grieving for a wife he knows is still pursuing her interests, just without him.

Sybille is traveling with companions, including dead anthropologist Kent Zacharias, who specializes in the Ohio Mound Builder cultures. Although Silverberg hints that Zacharias and Sybille have become a couple, he doesn’t fully explore their relationship and it may be a more platonic relationship built on shared interests. When Klein indicates he wants to meet with Sybille Zacharias informs him that she has no interest in meeting with Klein.

Despite the rebuff, Klein continues in his attempt to talk to Sybille, going so far as to work with a friend to impersonate one of the dead and travel to a Cold Town to try to meet with Sybille, breaking all rules of propriety that govern the relationships between the living and the dead. In the process, Silverberg is able to show the biggest different between the living and the dead. The rekindled have left their emotions behind. Sybille (and her companions) may not want to meet with Klein, but they seem incapable to getting angry at him for his attempts to talk to his one-time wife.

Klein, for his part, can’t accept that he is living in a world where his wife walks among the living, but is no longer interested in him, unable to get past her death, which in many ways is more reflective of a divorce. He seems positive that if he can only talk to her she would be willing to take him back into her “life,” despite what everyone tells him.

Eventually, Klein’s intrusiveness eventually becomes too much for Sybille and her companions and they have to come up with a way to help Klein get over his sense of loss since Sybille’s death and his inability to understand that even though she still exists, he is no longer part of his life.

Silverberg sets up an interesting problem, and his way of flipping the narrative between Klein and Sybille almost makes it difficult to tell whose story he is telling. In death, Sybille has a group of friends and seems to have a full life, while in life, Klein is alone, using his acquaintances to achieve the goal he is fixated on to the detriment of his job and life. Born with the Dead is an interesting and well-crafted look at a pervasive love that turns into something worse with the death of one of the partners, placing it against a fantasy background, since the method of rekindling is described in scientific terms, but without a scientific rationale.

Ann interesting note. While the concept of the Tor Doubles is that neither side is the A-side, the placement of the ISBN on one side makes it feel like the B-side. With the publication of the third Tor Double, there is a further distinguishing feature. For the first two volumes, the titles on both sides of the book were embossed. Beginning with this volume, only one of the titles is embossed.

Steven H Silver is a twenty-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.

 

Captivated by the Alien Warlordby Bella Blair
What is it about:There is nothing in this universe that I want more than to make her MINE. 
Rhiannon: Because I was born with a cleft lip, everybody in the village has always thought of me as bad luck. So much so, that I’m beginning to believe it myself. It is not until he, Dracor—our new warlord—rides through our village, that I dare hope for a different future. He is the most handsome man I have ever seen, but I’m convinced he will never notice someone like me, no matter how much I’m falling in love with him.
Dracor: Having earned the title of warlord on my own merits, my dream of commanding my own stronghold has at last come true. I thought I would never desire anything more than being a warlord, but that achievement pales in comparison to when I lay eyes on the human kallini. There is nothing in this world that I want more than for her to be MINE. My pursuit of her is interrupted by strange things happening in my new home, things that indicate the stronghold is haunted. 
What did Voodoo Bride think of it:I read another one of Bella Blair's Newsletter Freebies.
This one was... interesting.The overall storyline was more present than in the second freebie I read, and I was cautiously interested in the world. But the spicy scenes...There was so much talk of wetness and wet, I pictured the lead characters floating out of bed because of all the wet! The MINE* might be completely capitalized in the blurb, but in my opinion WET should have been there.
Once again terms like kallini are used with no or minimum explanation what it means and it's left to the reader to understand the meaning in context of the story. Understood: this series uses kallini as a word for woman.
So, in the end I wasn't too happy with this story.One more freebie to go and then I'll decide if I want to read more by Blair and what series might be the most satisfying if I do.
*Don't get me wrong. I really don't mind a bit of possessiveness by the hero or a well placed 'mine'. I just don't see the need to capitalize it.*
Why should you read it:The world is interesting.

C2E2 mailing insert with our Expo passes

Though Black Gate photog Chris Z and I have affectionately referred to ourselves as “horror nerds” almost from the beginning of working together, I was never quite sure if the term “nerd” was offensive to others. Therefore, in making a small nod to Big Cheese John O’s constant plea to not embarrass him, we only said “nerd” (and “geek” for that matter) in private or in hushed tones.

Then suddenly, either due to the term being liberally employed on the Netflix hit Stranger Things, or because compared to the rest of the world right now “nerds” are downright endearing, being one is akin to being a cool kid. So it’s no surprise that I absolutely loved the mailing insert that accompanied our Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo passes this year.

Chicago C2E2 Entrance Hall

The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, affectionately known as C2E2, is where the geeks and nerds collide with the fantastical and the macabre in a celebration of pop culture of epic proportions. Drawing fans, creators, and industry professionals from across the globe, this annual Chicago event is a haven for enthusiasts of comics, gaming, cosplay, television, movies, and more.

C2E2’s story begins in 2010, brought to life by ReedPOP, the masterminds behind globally recognized events like New York Comic Con and PAX. It was envisioned as a platform for fans to connect with their favorite creators and discover emerging talents across entertainment industries. Over the years, this vision has transformed into a pulsating, larger-than-life experience.

The crowded halls of C2E2

​We have been covering the show since its inception fifteen years ago, and it has gotten bigger each year, consuming more and more space in Chicago’s behemoth McCormick Convention Center. C2E2 2025 kept the trend going by achieving a record-breaking attendance of 100,000 fans over its three-day event, marking this year as the highest turnout in the convention’s history.

Of course, a couple of other “firsts” definitely contributed to the fandom crush. First up was a Lord of the Rings reunion that included ​Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins), Sean Astin (Samwise Gamgee), Dominic Monaghan (Meriadoc ‘Merry’ Brandybuck), Billy Boyd (Peregrin ‘Pippin’ Took), John Rhys-Davies (Gimli), and Andy Serkis (Gollum).

C2E2 cosplay

Though many of these actors have appeared together at other conventions such as the Fan Expo in New Orleans and Cleveland, C2E2 marked the first time they have all appeared at the same event. We walked by literally the longest line of people we have ever seen at a convention and learned it was for none other than Gollum (Andy Serkis) which is even more incredible when you think that his actual face never appeared in the film.

The Breakfast Club reunion at C2E2

Another first was a reunion of The Breakfast Club cast including Emilio Estevez (Andrew Clark), Molly Ringwald (Claire Standish), Judd Nelson (John Bender), Ally Sheedy (Allison Reynolds) and Anthony Michael Hall (Brian Johnson). This event was teased all over our local TV stations for the week leading up to C2E2 and generated a huge amount of buzz before, during and after the show. We had a great encounter with Anthony Michael Hall, but more on that in a few.

C2E2 cosplay

What makes C2E2 truly spellbinding is its seamless fusion of traditional comic convention staples with broader pop culture allure. While comic books and graphic novels form the heart of the expo, it’s also a playground for major studios, publishers, and independent creators unveiling their latest marvels. The event has become a must-visit destination for exclusive announcements, tantalizing sneak peeks, and insider insights.

C2E2 2025 played host to over 800 exhibitors and artists, so describing even a fraction of the cool stuff we saw would blow up Black Gate.com, but here are a few of our favorites.

Geeky Girl Stitches

Geeky Girl Stitches: Creating handmade embroidered keychains paying homage to all manner of pop culture iconography, Tabitha Minnich wins for high-quality workmanship on these small bits of awesomeness that nearly everyone would want. We couldn’t believe the incredible range of interests represented by Tabitha’s merch; from Harry Potter to Disney, and Marvel to gaming there was something for everyone. Priced at $10 each Chris Z and I both walked away with some.

I Contain Multitudes by Christopher Hawkins (April 30, 2025)

Author Christopher Hawkins: There’s nothing like discovering a new horror author. His works of short fiction have been published in Sinister Tales, Murky Depths, and The Harrow, as well as in the anthologies Read By Dawn Vol 2, Shadow Regions, and The Big Book of New Short Horror. However, Hawkins was a C2E2 promoting his latest work I Contain Multitudes.

Unstuck from reality, Trina Bell never wakes up in the same world twice. Lost and alone, she crosses paths with an old librarian who is the only person who remembers her when everything else changes around them. When an encounter with a sadistic doctor makes Trina question whether she herself might be the cause of the shifting realities that are escalating out of control, she sets out to stop them.

As each successive world becomes more unstable and dangerous than the last-and with the librarian lost and descending into madness-Trina must confront the secrets rooted deep in her own past in order to find a way to repair her world before it collapses for good.

I Contain Multitudes will be available April 30th and is available for preorder on Amazon.

Look What you Made Me Do, by Joe Prosit (May 1, 2024)

Author Joe Prosit: And while we’re gushing about new authors, we also were intrigued by Joe Prosit, an independent author living and writing in Brainerd, MN. His novels include Bad Brains, 99 Town, 7 Androids, Zero City, and most recently Look What You Made Me Do, a final-girl, psychological slasher horror which caught our attention.

At only seventeen, Taylor Mosley was the sole survivor of a brutal mass murder. She lived through “that night” and killed the madman who slaughtered her friends, but twenty years later, she still struggles to function in her modern corporate workplace.

Taylor is convinced the killer from her past is back and stalking her through her suburban neighborhood. Someone is sending her threatening texts, vandalizing her home, and following her on her daily runs. Is it her strange and aggressive therapist, her toxic ex-boyfriend, or the murderer from her youth? She manages to get free of her ex, only for the police to become more interested in what she’s done than who is still after her. As the threats of her present day collude with the nightmare of her past, she struggles to understand what is real, what is memory, and what is hallucination.

Maybe someday she can enjoy her idea life, but for now, Taylor must evade the police, unmask her tormentor, juggle her romantic relationships, find a healthy work-life balance, quench her thirst for revenge, and make a stand for women everywhere while still finding time to relax and enjoy a nice merlot.

Prosit has published many short stories in various magazines and podcasts and compiled them in his short story collection title, Machines Monsters and Maniacs Volume I. The second volume is coming this October. Look What You Made Me Do is available now on Amazon.

Fandom Alley

Fandom Alley: Producing what they explain are “Film Cell” presentations, Fandom Alley has framed art that contains one or more clips of real 35mm film from the movies. We pressed the representative we spoke to regarding the classic horror movies they had on display, specifically as I was drooling over Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.

Clearly these aren’t cells from original films as cutting those would not only be blasphemous but downright impossible. The rep told us that each cell was real film from the movie and each art piece came with a certificate of authenticity. Beyond that, he could not say more has he was “bound by a non-disclosure agreement.”

So, the bottom line is these are real cells of real movie reprints, but still, one of the coolest things we saw – especially as they had small light boxes that fit behind the framed pieces making them true bits of art. Prices start at $35 and go up from there, and are available online.

Geekify does Patrick Rothfuss

Geekify: We first met the crew from Geekify at C2E2 2015 where I purchased a leather cover for my tablet that looked the “Handbook for the Recently Deceased” from Beetlejuice. A Colorado-based creative studio that masterfully blends the realms of geek culture with artisanal craftsmanship, Geekify Inc operates as a fusion of a mad scientist’s lab and a full production workshop.

They officially license pop culture merchandise from beloved franchises such as The Princess Bride, Labyrinth, and The Hobbit, and their booth featured an array of handcrafted items, including leatherbound books, cloth maps, enamel pins, and cosplay accessories, all reflecting their commitment to quality and detail. They also make custom items such as maps, and I’ve already hit them up for a “life size” version of the map of the ” time holes” of the universe, from the 1981 film Time Bandits.

Chicago C2E2

Chicago Horror Writers: The HWA Chicagoland Chapter is the regional chapter of the Horror Writers Association. The Chapter consists of local writers, editors, artists, publishers in and around the Chicagoland area to help support, promote and network with others in the genre. The Chapter hosts monthly meetings at local libraries and/or bookstores in the Chicagoland area for anyone who is interested in horror or dark literature.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is a nonprofit organization of writers and publishing professionals around the world, dedicated to promoting dark literature and the interests of those who write it. HWA was formed in 1985 with the help of many of the field’s greats, including Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, and Joe Lansdale. Today, with over 1250 members in countries around the world, it is the oldest and most respected professional organization for the much-loved writers who have brought you the most enjoyable sleepless nights of your life.

I am super excited about meeting members of the Chicago chapter and am in the process of establishing membership after all these years of covering HWA’s Stoker awards.

It cosplay at C2E2

And finally, a short story of our meeting with Anthony Michael Hall. Chris Z and I were walking past the many celebrity tables trying to get a peep at some. The configuration has the celebrities at quite a distance, behind long, roped off aisles where the hoards of fans line up. As it was late in the afternoon on a Friday, some celebrities were gone while others weren’t making an appearance until Saturday.

We walked by the area where the stars of The Breakfast Club were seated, though only the boys were in attendance on Friday. The only person at his table was Anthony Michael Hall and I paused at the end of his aisle squinting to get a look at him. It looked like he might be packing up for the day as there was no line of fans. Hall was chatting with his C2E2 “handler.”

Gone With the Wind cosplay at C2E2

Suddenly, Hall looked up and raised his arm, waving enthusiastically in my direction. Instinctively I raised my hand and waved back with equal enthusiasm and started making my way down the aisle toward him. Chris Z recovered from his temporary shock and said, “Wait! You know Anthony Michael Hall???” I said, “Sort of, we have some mutual friends.” Chris just kept saying, “Wait! What?”

When I reached Hall’s table a little ahead of Chris, I whispered to Hall to play along. I then proceeded to say how great it was to see him again, and he did the same. We acted like old friends while Chris was speechless. I finally owned up, and the three of us had a wonderful chat. Hall told us stories about filming in Chicago and his great memories of our city. And who had Hall really been waving to? None other than Judd Nelson who stuck his head around a curtain to also say hello.

Looking ahead, C2E2 2026 is scheduled for March 27–29 at McCormick Place. For more information and updates, visit the official C2E2 website.​ Embrace the dark, the delightful, and everything in between — it’s what C2E2 does best.

Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is Lindsey Byrd! She is the author of On the Subject of Griffons, a fantasy novel about a woman who ends up working with her deceased husband’s former mistress to seek a magical cure for one of her children. The Sun Blessed Prince, her next novel, is the first book in an epic fantasy duology with romantic elements that features a prince and an assassin with opposing gifts who might be able to put […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Lindsey Byrd first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

Harriet Tubman Live in Concert is an inventive, wondrous novel about American hero Harriet Tubman…

The post Spotlight on “Harriet Tubman Live in Concert” by Bob the Drag Queen appeared first on LitStack.

 

Her Soul for a Crownby Alysha Rameera
For readers of Sarah J Maas, Scarlett St. Clair, and Tasha Suri's The Jasmine Throne, this epic, slow-burn romantasy inspired by Sri Lankan mythology follows a fierce orphaned young woman with an affinity for poisons and revenge who would do anything to end the reign of heartless rajas—even sell her soul to the most dangerous cursed god of all—the Blood Yakka, Reeri.
Anula Ramanayake of Anuradhapura calculated her ascent the moment she was orphaned—when her village burned in an endless war and the gods forsook her prayers. First, she would marry the raja. Then, she would poison him and take the throne for herself and her people. But when an unexpected coup thwarts her careful plans, Anula is left with one desperate option. She offers her soul to the cursed gods she renounced in exchange for the crown.
In the Second Heavens, Reeri the Blood Yakka, the most dangerous and powerful of his clan, hears her prayer. For eons, he's waited for such a valuable offering—one that could finally give him the chance to kill his divine tormentor and return his fellow Yakkas to their former glory on earth. Reeri accepts Anula's bargain, tethering them until their goals are achieved, or until they die.
As the war presses on, Anula must move quickly or lose her chance to become the first raejina. But while she is skilled at many things, especially in stopping hearts, the closer she grows to Reeri, the more she finds her own heart at risk. And when the time comes to fight enemies both human and divine, Anuradhapura and the Heavens will never be the same.

Expected publication August 12, 2025

 

Book links: Amazon, Goodreads

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A native of Ames, Iowa, Dave loves writing, reading, boardgames, computer games, improv comedy, pizza, barbarian movies, and the cheaper end of the Taco Bell menu. Also, his wife and kids.

Dave is the author of Snood, Snoodoku, Snood Towers, and other computer games. Dave first published Snood in 1996, and it became one of the most popular shareware games of the early Internet. His most recent game is Scryptix, a word game for cell phones.

Dave taught geology, environmental studies, and computer programming at Guilford College for 24 years before stepping away to write full time. He does improv comedy every week at the Idiot Box in Greensboro, North Carolina. He’s also played the world’s largest tuba in concert. Not that that is relevant, but it’s still kinda cool. 

Publisher: Dave Dobson (May 21, 2024) Length:  395 pages Formats: ebook, paperback

I did not expect to enjoy this one as much as I did. I picked it up thinking I was in for a goofy sword & sorcery romp and I was right. What I didn't expect was how much personality it packed between the quips, one-liners, and brawls. 
The Glorious and Epic Tale of Lady Isovar is a fun mix of sword & sorcery, heroic epic, Monty Pythonesque humor and a buddy-cop tropes. Lady Isovar is a knight in shining armor. She’s brave, bold, big on honor, and low on planning. She's also unstoppable. 
Chevson, her squire and damage control specialist, trails behind with a notebook and a growing sense of dread. He's doing his best to rescue bystanders and stop Izzy from offending people or starting conflicts. The lad deserves a raise.
The plot is quite simple - there’s a wrong that needs righting, and by the gods, Izzy will right it! Possibly twice, just to be safe. The duo faces lots of classic fantasy villains - necromancers, dragons, tyrants, an oversized snake, and more. Lady Isovar dispatches them with a flair, usually in fun and chaotic ways. The plot consists of multiple interconnected (mostly) mini-quests.  
Tonally, it’s a joyful romp with likable characters, laugh out loud moments, and no brooding. The humor worked for me - it's clever, a little absurd, and occasionally so ridiculous I couldn't help but laugh. The sacred vows alone are worth attention. The friendship between Izzy and Chevson glues everything together. The knight has ADHD and the squire is just trying to get through the day without concussion, but despite being so different, they make a wonderful team. 
Dobson pokes fun at genre tropes but in a good-natured way and with respect. Brave deeds and heroic speeches do happen, but they never feel forced or out of place. Instead, they add some nuance, especially that Izzy's past isn't explained for a while. 
Now, the humor is very subjective. so it may not work for everyone. And yet I believe the humor here is good-natured, not very cynical and balanced so cjhances are most readers will find it amusing. Especially that beneath all the hijingks and jokes, there’s a surprising bit of heart. And the leading duo has an excellent chemistry and dynaimicvs. 
It’s silly. It’s heartfelt. It’s occasionally bloody. And I very much enjoyed the ride. I’d follow these two into battle.

You go on a hike with your friends through the woods, as the trees clear you notice a staircase. No walls, no ceiling. Just stairs. You’d be curious and maybe ascend those stairs. When a group of teenaged friends (Owen, Laura (Lore), Hamish, Nick, and Matty) who have dubbed themselves “The Covenant” comes to this…

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

The Butcher’s Masquerade by Matt Dinniman

Mogsy’s Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction

Series: Book 5 of Dungeon Crawler Carl

Publisher: Ace (April 8, 2025)

Length: 720 pages

Author Information: Website

Five books in, and Matt Dinniman shows no signs of slowing down! The Butcher’s Masquerade is arguably the darkest and most unhinged book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series—so far, at least—and I say that with the utmost glee. Observant readers will also notice that each subsequent volume has grown longer in page length, and that truly is a direct consequence of the story becoming bigger in every way.

A new sequel means a new level, as Carl and his cat Donut continue their deadly descent into the dungeon which formed after the hostile takeover of Earth by a massive, alien-run game show. The duo finds themselves on the sixth floor, also known as The Hunting Grounds. As with every third floor, the dungeon introduces a major mechanic, and the rules are turned upside down once again as outsiders registering as hunters are allowed to enter the dungeon for the first time. Most of these will be tourists, paying for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bag a few crawlers, but a good number of the participants will also be seasoned professionals. Among them are the famed veterans who live for the glory of the hunt, and they will be brutal and merciless, playing to collect as many trophies as they can.

The remaining crawlers, whose numbers have dwindled to a fraction of what they once were, now must contend with these aliens hunting them on top of trying to survive everything else the dungeon will be throwing at them. For Carl and Donut, who have consistently stayed in the top ten crawlers list, this also means their bounty will be especially attractive to hunters. Of course, it hasn’t helped that Carl has been putting up a resistance against the showrunners and their supporters, poking a finger in their eye every chance he gets. But all this is done with a purpose. Unlike previous iterations of the dungeon crawl, this season Carl and his fellow crawlers will not be helpless, because he’s made damn sure the Earth survivors won’t go down without a fight.

Every book in this series raises the stakes, but in this one, they escalate dramatically. Dinniman has turned up the tensions and delivers some of the most satisfying moments yet, especially the ending when the hunt culminates in the titular Butcher’s Masquerade, a pivotal plot point but also a grand party that celebrates the coming together of the various and often antagonistic groups of guests who are all expected to play nice for just that one night. That’s because everyone in attendance is promised a gift in the form of a boon from an in-game deity, but there’s a catch—the gathering must conclude without any violence. In the long history of the crawl though, that has never happened. And with Carl and his friends in the mix, you can bet that’s not about to change now.

World-building also steps up a notch in this installment. Even as crawlers and hunters duke it out on the sixth floor, a greater struggle is unfolding in the greater galaxy as the structure of the game, those investing in it, and the political maneuvering of the alien factions all get more attention. These glimpses behind the scenes make Carl’s quest even more critical while still maintaining the personal nature of his revenge. At this point, series fans who have long learned to embrace the chaos will be rewarded with meaningful action and payoffs, with our protagonist unleashing retribution in a way only he can—in a torrent of ruthless mayhem.

And yet, while the tone remains humorously irreverent and action-packed, there’s also a deeper, emotional thread running beneath the surface that changes the game entirely for the characters and readers alike. Carl might be growing more powerful with each level and loot box, but the horrible things he’s seen and experienced have left their mark. The story balances his rage and thirst for vengeance with heartfelt moments of humanity, where grief and despair will come to the surface, but so too do hopeful feelings like love and camaraderie. The relationship between Carl and Donut continues to develop in wonderful, surprising ways, with both their arcs taking darker and more complex turns, but it’s their undying support for each other that keeps their friendship strong and the banter light.

Finally, if I had any reservations about Dinniman losing control of the snowballing narrative, he’s proven that he can keep multiple plotlines in the air and juggle them without neglecting any of them. But how long will that last? Admittedly, I’ve started noticing a bit of wobbling in this book’s pacing—some slowing down in the middle as the story branches off into side quests and supporting character arcs, which is the natural result of an expanding series and its growing universe. Sometimes the narrative will linger a little too long on something that doesn’t always feel essential, even if it is entertaining. It’ll be interesting to see if future installments can maintain the same tight balance of content and clarity as more books are added and the plot keeps getting more complicated.

Bottom line, the Dungeon Crawler Carl series is unlike anything else out there, as Matt Dinniman continues to single-handedly redefine the LitRPG genre. Onward to the next level!

More on The BiblioSanctum:
Review of Dungeon Crawler Carl (Book 1)
Review of Carl’s Doomsday Scenario (Book 2)
Review of The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook (Book 3)
Review of The Gate of the Feral Gods (Book 4)

Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is Mia Tsai! Her debut novel, Bitter Medicine, is a xianxia-inspired contemporary fantasy book featuring a magical calligrapher descended from the Chinese god of medicine and a half-elf security expert working at the same agency. The Memory Hunters, her second novel coming out on July 29, is the first book in a science fantasy duology featuring an archaeologist and her protector that is described as a “mind-bending queer adventure for fans of Inception, Arkady […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Mia Tsai first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

1983? Let me tell you how it was.

In a World Without the Internet, before Youtube, before Netflix, before Prime, before 4K UHD smart TVs, before social media or Substack or niche newsletters, before IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, before DVDs and Blu-rays, even before blogs (gasp!), you would find yourself sitting around late at night, channel surfing, listlessly flipping through TV Guide, restlessly looking for something to watch, and you would come across a movie like The Horror of Party Beach and you would think, “What the hell? Is this worth ninety minutes of my life?” And since you would likely have only once chance to see the thing, it was a decision fraught with import. (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase.)

In the absence of all of the resources and options we now take for granted, how did you decide what to do? I’ll tell you what I did — I reached for The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film.

The brainchild of Uber-Geek Michael Weldon and an offshoot of his Psychotronic Video magazine, the book is, according to the back cover, “The complete viewer’s guide to the weirdest movies of all time!” It’s a boast that the volume makes good on with one pseudopod tied behind its back.

The back cover also sports an important disclaimer:

WARNING! The author of this book has been watching these movies obsessively since the age of 6. He is now unfit for conventional employment. Because of the addictive nature of these films, we the publishers cannot guarantee that your sanity won’t be endangered by reading this book.

Just what is a “psychotronic” movie? Well, it’s a broad category covering all manner of films, from horror and science fiction to juvenile delinquent dramas to women behind bars sleaze to sword-and-sandal epics; in other words, low-budget exploitation movies generally, with some exceptions for big-budget productions with low-budget souls. To again quote the back cover (and let me tell you, it’s one of the greatest back covers of all time — and the front cover is no slouch, either),

From the slightly offbeat to the outlandishly bizarre… from the no-budget quickie to the multimillion-dollar box-office smash… PSYCHOTRONIC films range from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes to E.T…. from Angel’s Wild Women and Hellcats of the Navy to I Dismember Mama and Let Me Die a Woman… from sincere social commentary to utter trash. PSYCHOTRONIC stars are ex-models, ex-sports heroes, dead rock idols, future presidents, would-be Marilyns, and has-beens of all types.

Once you manage to get past the cover — no easy task — the book consists of over 3,000 punchy reviews of psychotronic movies (most written by Weldon himself), seasoned with tons of great photographs: movie posters, lobby cards, publicity stills, and images from the actual films adorn almost every page.

It was a great day when I bought my first copy of The Psychotronic Encyclopedia. (I’ve gone through several over the years, and when I wear one out, I give it to a prospective acolyte; I aim to earn my way into psychotronic heaven by actively proselytizing. These days if you want a copy your best bet is eBay, where you can also find copies of Psychotronic Magazine.)

In the bad old days, it was extremely hard to find out about these films, and a surprising number of people — some of them capable of speaking in complete sentences and holding down real jobs, believe it or not — wanted precisely the kind of information that only The Psychotronic Encyclopedia could provide.

But don’t take my word for it. Let card-carrying Respectable Citizen and certified Hero of the Mainstream Literary Establishment Colson Whitehead, who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Underground Railroad and who also penned the zombie apocalypse saga Zone One, vouch for the value of the psychotronic worldview. Whitehead declared that

Weldon’s book was proof that even the most unlikely idea had a chance. If these movies existed, then surely whatever measly story was bubbling in my brain was not so preposterous. The psychotronic movie’s disregard for mimesis, its sociopathic understanding of human interaction, its indifferent acting, and its laughable sets were a kind of ritualized mediocrity. The filmmakers were so inept in their portrayal of any kind of recognizable reality that their creations became a form of grubby science fiction, documentaries about an alternative planet.

Bull’s-eye. Disreputable, shocking, embarrassing, tasteless, tacky, trashy, revolting, hilarious (intentionally or, more commonly, unintentionally), utterly free from the constraints of competence and good manners imposed on “serious” filmmakers, offhandedly subverting every decent value (often including that of minimal coherence), psychotronic films are rebellion made flesh — or celluloid. Just watching one feels like striking a blow for liberty, and Michael Weldon’s book is a revolutionary manifesto more radical than anything ever tossed off by Marx and Engels. (Just imagine what that pair of stuffy Germans would have made of Hot Rods to Hell or Robot Monster!)

Of course, because the book was published in 1983, it also an artifact from A World Without any Movie Made over the Last Forty Years — no Repo Man, no Silence of the Lambs, no Dark City, no Revenge of the Sith (ok, not having that movie might be a feature rather than a bug), no Shaun of the Dead, no Independence Day.

This admittedly limits the Psychotronic’s utility somewhat, but I still find myself thumbing through its well-worn pages with embarrassing frequency. Sometimes you just have to know who starred with Bela Lugosi in The Devil Bat or what year Roger Corman made Ski Troop Attack, and it’s one of those books that’s truly like a bag of potato chips — you can’t read just one entry. Before you know it, you’ve blown an hour seeing if Weldon did justice to Count Yorga, Vampire or The Mole People, gaining new insight into Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory or Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and admiring photographs of Chubby Checker, Jayne Mansfield, and Vincent Price (not from the same movie, unfortunately — some things will never happen this side of paradise).

Anyway, if the years 1984 to 1995 are all that important to you (I can barely remember them, myself) Weldon produced a second volume called The Psychotronic Video Guide in 1996. But while the original Psychotronic Encyclopedia still lives right under my wide-screen TV where I can lay hands on it at a moment’s notice, I found that I never used the Psychotronic Video Guide that much.

Maybe that’s because by 1996 we were on the cusp of a change the magnitude of which we couldn’t even begin to imagine, and the old world of B-movie, cult movie, low-budget, late-night old movie TV was about to vanish forever, or at least be transformed almost beyond recognition. Today if you want to investigate The Horror of Party Beach, you can watch it any hour of the day or night on Youtube (at least as of last weekend — as you know, the streaming world is as inconstant as our nation’s trade policy) and there are countless people on that same platform who do nothing but yammer endlessly about these kinds of movies.

It’s great, in its way, but sometimes I miss the old days when opportunities were fleeting and consequently the choices seemed more important; hell, I even miss the used car commercials.

So, what did I do about that non-hit of 1964, The Horror of Party Beach, when I came across it all those years ago? Did I sacrifice an hour and a half of the only life I’ll ever have to watch such a manifest piece of junk? Such a momentous decision would paralyze most people, but I consulted the Psychotronic Encyclopedia, and on page 331 I was told,

Forget anemic teen horror movies like Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. This low-budget gem from Stamford, Connecticut, features kids on the beach dancing to “The Zombie Stomp” and a girl who drinks hard liquor and strips for bikers. Meanwhile radioactive waste turns human skulls on the bottom of the ocean into horrible monsters! They kill the wayward girl on the beach, then all the girls at a slumber party. If you don’t understand what’s happening, newspaper headlines (MONSTERS STRIKE!, MONSTERS STRIKE AGAIN!, and MASS MURDER AT SLUMBER PARTY!) are shown to keep you informed. With great music by the Del-Aires, lame jokes, phony blood, a sportscar driven through New York City, and a maid named Eulabelle who saves the day by knocking a beaker of sodium on a living monster hand, which promptly disintegrates. Billed as “the first horror monster musical!” it’s a cool classic that was also turned into a photo comic book. EXTRA! EXTRA! FIVE MORE KILLED BY MONSTERS!

Did I watch The Horror of Party Beach?

Don’t ask stupid questions.

Thomas Parker is a native Southern Californian and a lifelong science fiction, fantasy, and mystery fan. When not corrupting the next generation as a fourth grade teacher, he collects Roger Corman movies, Silver Age comic books, Ace doubles, and despairing looks from his wife. His last article for us was Movie of the Week Madness: Duel

Here are 7 Author Shoutouts for this week. Find your favorite author or discover an…

The post 7 Author Shoutouts | Authors We Love To Recommend appeared first on LitStack.

 

Phantasma (Wicked Games #1)by Kaylie Smith
What is it about:When Ophelia and her sister discovers their mother brutally murdered, there is no time to grieve: Ophelia has inherited both her powerful death-driven magic and enormous debt on their home. Circumstances go from dire to deadly, however, when Ophelia’s sister decides to pay off the loan by entering Phantasma—a competition where most contestants don’t make it out alive and the winner is granted a single wish.

The only way to save her sister is to compete. But Phantasma is a cursed manor, with twisting corridors and lavish ballrooms, and filled with enticing demons and fatal temptations. Ophelia will need to face nine floors of challenges to win... if her fears don’t overtake her first.
When a charming, arrogant stranger claims he can protect and guide Ophelia, she knows she shouldn’t trust him. While Blackwell may not seem dangerous, appearances can be deceptive. But with her sister’s life on the line, Ophelia can’t afford to turn him away. She just needs to ignore the overwhelming, dark attraction drawing them closer and closer together.
Because in Phantasma, the only thing deadlier than losing the game is losing your heart.
What did I think of it:Ever since Battle Royale (Yes, long before The Hunger Games) I've had a soft spot for stories where people have to take part in dangerous/deadly games. It's almost as good as some decent zombie mayhem. So even though I suspected it might be more romance than action I got my trotters on this book. When I finally picked it up to read for an online book club, Voodoo Bride decided to read along.
And we both had a great time with this book!
I will say I really liked Ophelia, which surprised me as she's (once again) an older sister thinking she needs to save her younger sister. But where I usually dislike those meddling older siblings who think they know better Ophelia surprised me. She doesn't think she's better. Far from it in fact, she feels like a failure, has her inner demons, and feels like she is at fault for her younger sister disappearing, hence why she enters Phantasma to find her sister.
Then there's the whole game element which was really cool and exciting. There are scheming contestants, thrilling tests, death, creepy and icky stuff, hauntings, you name it. The whole of Phantasma was really well thought out, and had me engrossed, eager to find out what would be thrown at Ophelia next.
The romance was also excellent (and super delicious according to Voodoo Bride) and we rooted for Ophelia to win both Phantasma and at love. Blackwell was a very cool character (and dreamy and yummy) who clearly has his own agenda, still we rooted for him as well.(We could easily guess what his deal was, but if a story is as well written as this was, that doesn't really matter.)
Overall a really awesome read. We will most definitely get book two as well.
Why should you read it:It has it all: action, romance, thrills, & mayhem.

Image by Siggy Nowak from Pixabay. This looks like a Stargate. Where’s the dial?

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

Once upon a time, a much younger me fell into an obsession… Well, several related obsessions, if I’m being honest. Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology dug its claws into my brain and would not let go. In what might have been a profound waste of money, I followed that obsession into university, acquiring a Bachelor’s Honours Degree in the subject, with a focus on Celtic Studies. I wrote a thesis that was four times as long as it needed to be (with permission). I wrote on the Continuity of Religious Iconography From the Upper Palaeolithic to the Pre-Roman Iron Age of the Atlantic Façade. Which is to say, basically, some religious beliefs and practices of the Iron Age Celts might just have had their origin in the pre-Celtic peoples of the Stone Age. That’s a lot to cover in just twenty pages, so I handed in eighty-three.

When I say I was/am obsessed, I absolutely meant it.

Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

I had wanted to follow that obsession even further in a Master’s Degree and then onto a Doctorate, but I had no money, and was far too scared of my already accrued debt to willingly go further. As such, I’m not really working in my field of study. In fact, I’m nowhere near it. My day job is working as an accounting clerk. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t used my degree. I have. Sort of.

You can find me still pouring over news from the prehistoric anthropology and archaeology world. The information sits in my head and ferments, becoming part of the fabric of my imagination. Every so often, that information pops out in the form of a fictional story. Sometimes, there are things that are discovered after a story is written and out in the world that reflect the stories so very well. Let’s explore!

Image by Joshua Choate from Pixabay A Child and Their Dog

In 1994, Jean-Marie Chauvet discovered a cave in southern France later named for them (Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc). Inside, undisturbed, thanks in large part of a landslide that sealed off the cave, were tracks, cave art and animal figurines dating back to the palaeolithic. Of particular note were the fossilised footprints of an eight-year-old child dating back some 26,000 years. The child was barefoot and walking, making the tracks beside his remarkable. These were the tracks of a very large canine. Possibly a wolf. The child was not running, so there wasn’t any kind of pursuit. This discovery has led to some interpretations that this child and the large canine were quite possibly travel companions.

In 2010, I published a collection of short-stories all designed to be quite like fairytales or origin myths. Included in this anthology – The Dying God & Other Stories – was the story The Taming of Man I. In this tale, a young orphan boy is adopted by the ancestor of the Black Hounds; a giant, wolf-like dog named Cysgod Mawr (literally: The Great Hound). They travel together, away from the volcano responsible for the death of the boy’s parents and Cysgod Mawr’s pups both. It is the mythological telling of how wolves came to be domesticated.

The Melsonby Hoard

This is an example of something that was discovered long after a story was written that just fits with the story so very well. In 2017, I was lucky enough to have a historical fiction published by Renaissance Press. Set in Roman occupied Britain and Gaul, Daughters of Britain follows the eldest of Boudicca’s daughters. Boudicca, incidentally, in one of my favourite historical figures. If you want to hear me rant at length, just mention her. I will not shut up. I know that not everyone has heard of her, but in short, Boudicca was the queen of a powerful Celtic tribe in the south east of Britain called the Iceni or Magni Ceni. The long and short of it is that Rome treated her and her people horribly; claiming them annexed following the king’s death when they were, in fact, a client kingdom. That distinction matters. Anyway, Boudicca and her two daughters were not treated well. That is an understatement. Boudicca was stripped naked and publicly flogged. Her two daughters both very young were raped. In retribution, Boudicca gathered warriors from three separate tribes of the south east and went on a rampage around the region. So much so that there is a layer of blood, ash and broken pottery in the archaeological strata dubbed the Boudiccan Destruction Horizon.

She is goals.

Anyway, she was eventually defeated, and died either from her wounds of taking poison to avoid capture. We don’t know what happened to her daughters. So I kind of… made it up. I sent them north to the Caledonian Federation, where the eldest, Mederei, joined the resistance and continued her mother’s fight for British freedom. In my imagination, she remained in the north, fighting for the remainder of her life.

This year, a month ago in fact, there was a discovery near Melsonby, North Yorkshire, of an incredible Iron Age hoard, dating to roughly the time when Boudicca was about. Folks have immediately jumped to naming it the burial of Cartimandua (Cartimandua was queen of the Brigantes, a powerful northern British Celtic tribe in the region and a contemporary of Boudicca. She was also a pro-Roman ruler and thus deeply unpopular). Near as I’ve read, human remains have yet to be found, so a burial is not yet the verdict. This could be an impressive collection of grave goods. Or it could be something else. Either way, given the deep unpopularity of the queen, and the rescue of her by Roman auxiliaries when her ex-husband and his forces attacked the capital in order to take it from her (successfully, I might add), makes it unlikely that Cartimandua would be buried there. Certainly not with honours.

But an another woman could be. One who fought with her fellows for freedom against Roman imperialism… Boudicca’s eldest daughter. At least, that’s where my mind went the moment the news of “Cartimandua’s Burial Discovered” headlines hit my feed (no one’s even sure if it’s a burial yet, so that’s quite the claim to make).

A double aside about this story — I got the name Mederei from Trioedd Ynys Prydein (The Welsh Triads), which lists three female champions of the island of Britain: Llewei daughter of Seitwed, Rorei daughter of Usber, and Mederei Badellfawr (Mederei “Big Knee,” lol). The Trioedd Ynys Prydein are collections of things in triplicate, possibly the written down version of what was a mnemonic device designed to help remember the names of important people, and thus their important deeds and therefore the history of the island of Britain. Alas, for the most part, only the names survived. The deeds of most are lost (and I weep). But it’s an excellent place to go hunting for names, in case anyone gets stuck. Also, a fantastic source for early Arthurian myth.

The Petrykiv Couple

This one has informed the story I’m writing now (The Bear, which will be offered as a free serial when I’m done writing it… hopefully I’ll finish this year). This is a Bronze Age burial of a man and a woman in the Ukraine, near the town of Petrykiv. There is speculation that the woman elected to be buried with the man, possibly taking poison in order to join him in death. That’s not the part that caught my attention. What caught my attention, and thus my imagination, was the description of the burial:

It is a unique burial, a man and a woman lying there, hugging each other tight. Both faces were gazing at each other, their foreheads were touching. The woman was lying on her back, with her right arm she was tenderly hugging the man, her wrist lying on his right shoulder.

It’s such a sweet image, and it’s been in my head since I read about the discovery in 2018. Imagine being so in love with someone that you are buried together with them, forever in an embrace. Of course, such a burial requires an epic love story. I hope to deliver that. Of course, there are also demons and epic battles involved, because it’s me. But the kind of love between two people that would result in such a burial is the centre of this one.

For folks looking for inspiration for their fiction, particularly fantasy, I cannot recommend the academic fields of prehistoric anthropology and archaeology enough. So, I didn’t make a career out of my degree… Or, at least, not yet. If ever I manage to get to a point where my writing supports my life, then I can safely say that, at long last, I am using my degree. Not, you know, in the way I imagined when I graduated, but I wouldn’t be wasting my degree.

Are there any things in the realm of prehistory anthropology and archaeology that caught your eye and had you imagining stories to go with them? I’d love to hear about it!

When S.M. Carrière isn’t brutally killing your favorite characters, she spends her time teaching martial arts, live streaming video games, and cuddling her cat. In other words, she spends her time teaching others to kill, streaming her digital kills, and a cuddling furry murderer. Her most recent titles include Daughters of Britain, Skylark and Human. Her serial The New Haven Incident is free and goes up every Friday on her blog.