Fantasy Books

 

Nine Goblinsby T. Kingfisher
What is it about:When a party of goblin warriors find themselves trapped behind enemy lines, it'll take more than whining (and a bemused Elven veterinarian) to get them home again.
Nine Goblins is a novella of low...very low...fantasy.
What did I think of it:This such a fun read!It's silly, funny, and touching all in one.
The story switches viewpoints between the goblins and Sings-to-Trees, an Elven veterinarian. I loved the goblins and their view of the world, but I will confess I loved Sings-to-Trees even more. He's on the receiving end of a lot of trouble, still he keeps going and stays helpful.The goblins get themselves in hot water as well, but they're tough and resourceful in a unique goblin way.
All in all this was a delight to read, and as promised when I read it last year: I got my trotters on the hardcover for this first of many rereads!
Why should you read it:It's a super fun Fantasy read!

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Cozy Fantasy
Length: 422 pages
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: February 3, 2026
ASIN: B0G3JRZX3B
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the MEOW series
Source: Borrowed ebook from Kindle Unlimited
Rating: 4/5 stars

“The winter solstice is coming, and with it, a reckoning.

Sable thought being the Shopkeeper meant serving coffee, shelving books, and managing a talking cat’s attitude. She’s made peace with the magic, even embraced her role as guardian to Indigo, the world’s most curious baby bookdragon. But as the solstice draws near, a magical teacher arrives at the shop’s door—someone from the Cat’s past who might hold the key to his freedom.

The Fates begin whispering to Sable through golden auras. Old bargains, made long before her time, surface with dangerous demands. And somewhere in the chaos of rearranging shelves, interrogating a cryptic teacher, and managing interdimensional customers, Sable has to figure out how to tell her mother she won’t be home for the holidays.

The secrets she’s uncovered can’t be ignored. And the Cat—mysterious, maddening, and more vulnerable than he’d ever admit—might be the key to everything, if only Sable can get him to trust her.

Coffee can only solve so many problems. But friendship, courage, and one very determined Shopkeeper might just be enough.”

Series Info/Source: This is the 2nd book in the MEOW series. I borrowed this on ebook from Kindle Unlimited.

Thoughts: I really enjoyed this second book in the MEOW series. The story moves a bit slow for me, but I am enjoying the characters and the concept of the MEOW. I like that the background story makes more progress here and I love learning more about Cat’s history.

Sable is continuing her contract as Shopkeeper for the Magical Emporium of Wares (MEOW). Every day is a new adventure as she helps Cat to serve different interdimensional visitors. As Solstice approaches, Sable is determined to make the holiday special for everyone at MEOW. Little does she know she might have magic of her own she needs to manage and learn.

I am not a huge fan of “day in life” type of reads, and this has a lot of that in it, those type of stories just move a bit too slowly for me. However, that being said, there are enough elements in here that I really enjoy that I am liking this series quite a bit. I love Sable and her constant positivity and willingness to confront each day like a new and amazing adventure. I love Cat with his tentative hopefulness and the baby Bookdragon full of insatiable curiosity. I am also really enjoying the unfolding of Cat’s past and the hints that Sable’s birth family is not exactly what she thinks they are.

I enjoy that we get little odd stories from day to day as well. The beings that show up at MEOW are varied and intriguing. I also enjoy the expansion and discovery of Sable’s own magic. This is a cozy, creative, and intriguing read.

The only thing I don’t enjoy is that the days can feel a bit repetitive despite the changing customers, and the story moves a bit too slow for my liking. However, that is a personal preference and I have always preferred my stories fairly fast-paced.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I am really enjoying this series. I love the characters, the unique premise, and how some of the mysteries behind Cat’s past and Sable’s magic are unfolding. I am still struggling some with the slower pace to this and the very “day in the life” feel. If you are looking for a cozy, creative, magical, and deliberately paced read, I would definitely recommend. I look forward to reading each book in this series, even though there are points during reading the book where I wish things would progress a bit quicker.

Warlocks and Warriors, edited by L. Sprague De Camp
(Berkley Medallion, January 1971). Cover by Jim Steranko

Warlocks and Warriors (1970) was edited by L. Sprague De Camp, who did quite a few anthologies around this time while also busy editing and rewriting Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales. It’s certainly a good collection, and quite varied, though not all these fit the heroic fantasy label associated with the collection. Certainly, not all are Sword & Sorcery (S&S). The cover is by the great Jim Steranko.

The anthology contains:

An intro by de Camp
“Turutal” by Ray Capella
“The Gods of Niom Parma” by Lin Carter
“The Hills of the Dead” by Robert E. Howard (a Solomon Kane tale)
“Thunder in the Dawn” by Henry Kuttner (Elak of Atlantis)
“Thieves’ House” by Fritz Leiber (Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser)
“Black God’s Kiss” by C. L. Moore (Jirel of Joiry)
“Chu-Bu and Sheemish” by Lord Dunsany
“The Master of the Crabs” by Clark Ashton Smith (Zothique)
“The Valley of the Spiders” by H. G. Wells
“The Bells of Shoredan” by Roger Zelazny (Dilvish)

The Ray Capella story, “Tutural,” is set in Robert Howard’s Hyborian Age but is not about Conan or a “Clonan.” One might consider it fan work but it’s quite well written. Capella’s full name was Raul Garcia-Capella (1933 – 2010), and you’ll sometimes see his work under just Raul Capella.

Solomon Kane: The Hills of the Dead by Robert E. Howard (Bantam Books, March 1979). Cover by Bob Larkin

The Howard contribution, “The Hills of the Dead,” is one of his Solomon Kane stories. The Solomon Kane tales were written before REH started working on Conan and they feature a very different kind of hero. I like them a lot.

Moore’s “Black God’s Kiss” is a Jirel of Joiry tale and my favorite piece here. Henry Kuttner was married to C. L. Moore. His tale here is his longest piece about Elak, which is well worth reading. Fritz Leiber seemed to be in just about every anthology that appeared around this time with his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tales. This is another one. Wells’ story here is fantasy rather than SF and quite fun.

Warlocks and Warriors, edited by Douglas Hill (Mayflower, 1971). Cover by Josh Kirby

A second, very different book with the title Warlocks and Warriors appeared in 1971. It was edited by Douglas Hill (1935 – 2007) and published by Mayflower books in London. It has a very simplistic cover, artist unknown, although the reflection in the knife is kind of cool. Hill apparently wrote a number of books of his own, though I haven’t read any.

After Hill’s short introduction we have the following stories:

“The Sleeping Sorceress” by Michael Moorcock (an Elric tale)
“The Curse of the Monolith” by Lin Carter and L. Sprague De Camp (Conan)
The Ogyr of the Snows” by Martin Hillman
“The Wages Lost by Winning” by John Brunner (The Traveler in Black)
“The Wreck of the Kissing Bitch” by Keith Roberts (The Ice Schooner)
“The Unholy Grail” by Fritz Leiber (The Gray Mouser)

I’d read “The Sleeping Sorceress” before. This is an early Elric and Moonglum story by Moorcock and is quite good. I’d also read “The Curse of the Monolith,” which is a Conan pastiche by Carter and De Camp. Not quite Howard’s Conan but it was an OK tale.

I also had previously read “The Unholy Grail” by Leiber. This tale recounts the earliest adventure of the Gray Mouser, of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser fame. Not my favorite of the series, probably because I like the Fafhrd character better than the Mouser character.

The Traveler in Black by John Brunner (Ace Books, January 1971). Cover by Diane and Leo Dillon

What were new to me were the tales by Hillman, Brunner, and Roberts, and all three were quite good. Brunner, I know, of course. I’ve read a lot of his SF. This is a story of the “Traveler in Black,” definitely fantasy though not Sword & Sorcery. The Traveler is a kind of mixed angel/devil character with the power to grant people’s desires. I’d not previously read these tales. It was beautifully written but meandered until it got to the main plot.

Martin Hillman’s “The Ogyr of the Snows” is definitely S&S, and a well written piece. The hero is Conanesque but wins the day mostly by wit. According to the introduction, this tale was extracted from a “novel in progress” by Hillman, but it turns out Hillman was Douglas Hill’s pseudonym. I looked through a list of Hill’s books but am not sure which one this piece may have come from.

The Ice Schooner (Berkley Books, May 1987) and The Sleeping Sorceress (Lancer Books, September 1972), both by Michael Moorcock. Cover art: unknown, and Charles Moll

The greatest treasure in this collection is “The Wreck of the Kissing Bitch” by Keith Roberts. This tale is set in the world created by Moorcock for The Ice Schooner. The world was already beautifully conceived and Roberts does a fine job playing in the same universe. My favorite tale in the collection, concluding with a tense and exciting chase scene of sailing ships across the great ice seas.

I’ll be talking a lot about Moorcock down the line but above is a little tease in a picture of two of his books mentioned in this post (The Ice Schooner – cover artist unknown: The Sleeping Sorceress – cover by Charles Moll).

Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was a review of Swordsmen and Supermen, edited by Donald M. Grant. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.

Book Review: The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer

Buy a copy here - U.S | U.K.

Book links: Goodreads

BLURB: Follow the Rites...
Nothing less than the survival of humanity is at stake.

From Marcus Kliewer, a new “titan of the macabre and unsettling” (Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author), comes a supernatural horror about a young woman who accepts a caretaking job from Craigslist, only to discover the position has consequences far greater—and more dangerous—than she ever could have imagined.

EXCITING OPPORTUNITY:
Caretaker urgently needed. Three days of work. Competitive pay. Serious applicants ONLY.

Macy Mullins can’t say why the job posting grabbed her attention—it had the pull of a fisherman’s lure, barbed hook and all—vaguely ominous. But after an endless string of failed job interviews, she's not exactly in the position to be picky. She has rent to pay, groceries to buy, and a younger sister to provide for.

Besides, it’s only three days’ work…

Three days, cooped up in a stranger’s house, surrounded by Oregon Coast wilderness.

What starts as a peculiar side gig soon becomes a waking nightmare. An incomprehensible evil may dwell on this property—and Macy Mullins might just be the only thing standing between it, and the rest of humanity.

Follow the Rites...

Follow the Rites...

Follow the Rites...
AUTHOR: Marcus Kliewer is a writer and stop-motion animator. His debut novel We Used to Live Here began life as a serialized short story on Reddit, where it won the Scariest Story of 2021 award on the NoSleep forum. Film rights were snapped up by Netflix, and it was acquired by Simon & Schuster for publication even before it had been extended into a full-length novel. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.
Follow him on Instagram @marcus_kliewer for exclusive book updates / writing things / stop motion animation & a lot of pet videos.
Publisher: Atria Books  (April 21, 2026), Bantam (April 23, 2026)Page Count: 320 pagesFormats: hardcover, ebook, audio
REVIEW: I thought this was really clever.
It's one of those that does the jump scares well, and provides a compulsive story that gets more and more intense and heads to a bang of a finale. Before anything else though, be warned, it contains a protagonist who suffers from depression and has tendencies of suicidal ideation.
Macy has had a bad life so far, and there seems to be nothing bright lined up. She is unemployed, responsible for her younger sister after the unexpected death of their father, and everything she does only takes a turn for the worse. Until she finds a three day gig to take care of a huge mansion and follow strange rites to the T. The pay and bonus are unbelievable, so despite her sister's insistence to stay away, she accepts it.
The more I think about it, the more I think I like it. I want to say so much about this, but that will spoil it. It delivers well on the combination of horror with mental health. The main character can be annoying and seems to get more and more incompetent as the book progresses, which kind of is the point. It's a horrifyingly good metaphor for how downward spirals can be, when every action seems pointless and the only consistent feeling is that of being a failure.

After all, what is the more terrifying than your own mind working against you?

Alien Clay (Orbit, September 17, 2024). Cover design by Yuko Shimizu

Mushrooms in the cellar. Brood parasites. Puppet masters. Body snatchers. The Borg.

Resistance is futile.

But what, exactly, are we resisting?

Possession by alien entities into some kind of hive mind may have been inspired by studies of the social behaviors of ants; indeed, aliens are often depicted as bugs that threaten to unseat humankind’s self-awarded seat at the top of the evolutionary pyramid.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Allied Artists Pictures, February 5, 1956)

The invasion of body snatchers held particular appeal during the Red Scare of the 1950s and the supposed threat of sleeping Communist cells dedicated to destroying the American Way of Life (which was its own variety of hive mind) and instituting mindless collectivism (a fear to this day stoked by right wingers). The 1956 film about the pod people, based on the Jack Finney novel, is a classic depiction of insidious conformity and the inability of the individual to withstand it.

A trope that Adrian Tchaikovsky subverts in Alien Clay.

The first person narrator is Professor Arton Daghdev (whose last name is frequently mispronounced, something I expect the author as a fellow descendant of Polish ancestry also experiences). Daghdev is a dissident biologist challenging an academic orthodoxy demanded by the fascist Earth government termed the Mandate. For the “crime” of questioning whether humanity is the evolutionary pinnacle, Daghdev is sentenced to the exoplanet Kiln, a penal colony charged with investigating what appears to be the archeological remnants of an alien civilization.

For a scientist, such a punishment might seem to have an upside. There are two problem, though. The first is that any findings must adhere, any evidence to the contrary, to Mandate authorized dogma. More significantly, harsh environmental conditions on Kiln render any on site excursions extremely hazardous. Which is why they are using prison labor. Of which there is always a plentiful supply from a home planet bent on crushing those who don’t toe the autocratic line.

There was a time where I might have had trouble with this premise. Why would an authoritarian regime commit resources, even expendable resources, on a scientific mission for which conclusions are preordained with unclear benefits? But these days, with health policies determined by unsupported dictates and political correctness, it seems perfectly appropriate.

Alien Clay (Tor UK, March 28, 2024). Cover uncredited

Of course, once a revolutionary, always a revolutionary, except maybe when you question not only your own commitment and sufferance to the cause, but also who among you is likely to sell you and your comrades out. Or that your comrades might think you are the one doing the selling out.

So there is an attempted insurrection, one that is quickly smashed thanks to a betrayal. For his participation, Daghdev is removed from relatively safe bureaucratic chores conducted within the safety of the camp compound and assigned to Excursions, teams sent out to explore the alien ruins exposed to the highly infectious Kiln atmosphere. While they are issued some protective gear, they are prisoners, so expense is spared. Infection is expected.  A saving grace is periodic three-day decontamination to forestall contagion. A process that sometimes is withheld as punishment.

Should an Excursion team not return to camp within minimal “safety levels” and suffer long-term exposure to Kiln’s strangely recombinant biologics, as happens to Daghdev’s team, no rescue mission sent out. Excursions are also Expendables.

In another type of story, the infected rise to absorb the rest of humanity. Here is where Tchaikovsky flips the script. Infection leads not  to madness, but evolutionary jumpstart. Where the hive mind isn’t the embodiment of totalitarianism, but its enemy.

The alien clay here is actually human, on a planet named after an oven that transmutes clay into hardened finished material. A transmutation that has a ways to go before it can be considered finished.

David Soyka is one of the founding bloggers at Black Gate. He’s written over 200 articles for us since 2008. See them all here.

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No teaser from my current read today, but pictures of my newest arrival, just because it's pretty.
Slaying the Vampire Conquerorby Carissa Broadbent



Have you read it?What did you think of it?

Book links:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Publisher: Length: Formats:

Carrion Saints opens after the end of the world. The great cities are gone, only small towns, quiet hills, and monsters remain.

Crow is an immortal saint who looks like a monster and sometimes acts like one. She has wings, red eyes, and the weary patience of someone who has watched empires rise, fall, and rebrand. She arrives in a small village with a local monster problem. The monster, known as the Woman in the Hills, lives under a large magnolia tree and eats hunters. This arrangement has been going on for some time. The villagers are not thrilled, exactly, but they’ve adjusted. Crow has already fought so called Great Adversaries and so she accepts to slay the monster. The confrontation doesn’t go as planned.

Magnolia is a chatty severed head attached to a tree. She finds the one crack in Crow and pries it open. The dynamic between them works incredibly well. Magnolia chatters, taunts, philosophizes while Crow mostly endures. Sometimes she pushes back, but sometimes she can’t. She also wants to do the least harm possible, but the story keeps forcing her into situations where harm is unavoidable. 

I like Hiyodori’s writing, but sometimes I wish she condensed things more. There are long stretches of conversation between Crow and Magnolia that are conceptually interesting but start to circle the same ideas of power, choice, mortality, and what it means to be a saint. The philosophical back-and-forth feels overextended. 

The worldbuilding is intriguing but not fully explored. We hear about the other Great Adversaries, the long decline of the world, the strange ecology of monsters and saints. It’s compelling in outline, but much of it stays offstage. This keeps the story focused, which is good. It also makes the setting feel a touch abstract.

That said, the book makes two near-omnipotent beings arguing on a hill feel tense. Their conflict is about who understands the other’s weaknesses first. I’ll add that Magnolia is a great antagonist because she’s not frothing with rage. She’s amused. Curious. Almost affectionate in a warped way. Crow’s quiet fury and Magnolia’s gleeful prodding create a steady, uncomfortable tension. 

Emotionally, the book feels heavy. It’s about grief that never quite fades. About living so long that loss becomes sediment. If the book has a weakness, it’s that its pace can feel flat in the middle. The stakes are clear, but the story sometimes pauses to explain things rather than letting events reveal them. 

Overall, Carrion Saints is a strong Dark Fantasy that keeps things personal and intriguing throughout. It’s also my second book by Hiyodori and I’m becoming a fan.

Eric LaRocca is one of the cutting-edge voices of horror today (mid 2020s), known for uncompromising stories that defy boundaries of any kind. When I was provided the opportunity to review his novel Wretch after his publicist reached out to me, it was an easy yes, please. This was my first opportunity to read his…

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I LOVE the movie, Eddie and the Cruisers. I’ve seen the flick, about a short-lived Jersey bar band, at least a dozen times. And it’s got a terrific soundtrack by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown band. I like Cafferty more than I do the much more famous Bruce Springsteen, who he kinda sounds like. To each their own.

Eddie and the Cruisers was the #110 box office film of 1983. With a budget of $5 million, its domestic gross was $4.7. It was Embassy Pictures’ first ever try at distribution, and they pulled it from theaters after only three weeks. Needless to say (though I’m saying it anyways…) there was no international release. Pretty damn poor choice by producer Martin Davidson, who admitted he selected them – knowing they had zero experience – because they offered the most money.

Then it ran on HBO in 1984 and became a cult classic. I was part of that happening. On the Dark Side had charted at #64 when the movie came out. The HBO success prompted a re-release and it hit #7 on the Billboard 100 – and #1 on the mainstream charts. For a movie that nobody saw in the theaters, for the next three+ decades, EVERYBODY knew Eddie and the Cruisers. It was only in the past ten-ish years that I have started running across folks who have never heard of it. Truly a cult classic.

It’s adapted from P.F. Kluge’s novel of the same name. Kluge also wrote Dog Day Afternoon, which became a smash hit movie in 1975 (it made about 25 times its budget at the box office). A few weeks ago, I finally decided to read the book. I finished it in two days – and I worked on both days.

This was my first Kluge. There’s a lot more to this book than there is in the movie. Keep in mind I love that flick, so I’m not disparaging it. But they massively changed the tone of the novel. There’s a very different vibe. And I get why: it wouldn’t become a hit movie, ‘as written.’ Unless I specify otherwise, I’m talking about the novel from here on in.

The book is told from Frank ‘Wordman’ Ridgeway’s point of view: Tom Berenger’s character in the movie. He and the other characters are far more developed, which is essential to the story.

First off: this is much darker than the film. There’s murder. There’s a world-weary cynicism to Frank which reminds me a little of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. As in the movie, time shifts between the present and the past. And that’s thematically at the center of Frank’s narration. That summer on the Jersey shore, was a moment. There was a road of fame and accomplishment and…a life, ahead, for each of them. But a flaming car crash (no bridge involved in the book) detoured all of the Cruisers to back roads and other paths. Not shiny (a little Firefly for you, as I’m immersed in that ongoing story), Hallmark ones, either.

Frank walked away from music and became a high school literature teacher. Words and music. Eddie was the music, and to borrow from Don McLean, Eddie’s car wreck was the day the music died. Frank had only his words, now. Silent, bereft of their place. You can guess how receptive high schoolers were to his words, day after day. Year after year.

But as you move through the book, chapter-by-chapter, Kluge – somewhat subtly – shows that they are living lives with an echo of what could have been. Not of quiet desperation (well, Sal maybe). Beyond the ‘words and music’ scene which is repeated in the movie (and it’s brief, on screen and on the page), the book leads us in Frank’s wake as he moves through the shadows that part of his life, which he had left completely behind, are casting on him now. The echoes become louder, rising to a violent crescendo.

The differences from the movie are big enough that I don’t want to drop a bunch of spoilers. I already mentioned there’s a murder. And instead of Seasons in Hell and the lost master tape, it’s a search for secret recording sessions that only Wendell was at with Eddie. There’s an actual funeral for Eddie; his body doesn’t go missing after the accident.

As Frank digs deeper into the mystery of what happened at the mysterious Lakehurst sessions, he traces the paths which each Cruiser (it’s ‘Eddie and the Farway Cruisers in the book) went down after the band broke up after the funeral. All of their lives changed completely. Wendell didn’t take a fatal overdose while the band is still together. I think his fate is actually harder in the book. As Eddie (unrelatedly) says in the sequel movie, he got away by dying.

And it’s Frank reflecting on his own life, while he reconnects with the band members, which gives this book its depth, its weight. It’s gravitas. It’s not a wistful ‘what might have been.’ It’s more about the lesser lives that resulted for each of them, because Eddie was the heart of the body that was Eddie and the Cruisers. And when he died, that life as Cruisers died.

A little of it comes through in the movie. Fragments of the scene with Sal after his oldies band show, when he talks about how mad he gets at Eddie. There’s another layer to that. And Sal wanted to continue the band, with a look-alike. He’s done with all of them when they say ‘No’ and he’s forced to go down the ‘Holiday Inn Lounge’ oldies approach instead. That makes Frank visiting him again a dubious move, and as I keep saying, there’s more to it.

Or the walk with Kenny where he talks about Wendell’s drug overdose. Kenny is a womanizing party goer in the book. He becomes a married minister. When Frank visits him, and is told “It wasn’t all good stuff,” that’s just a few seconds on screen. But it furthers the mystery in the book. And again, there’s a lot involved with that.

These are just tidbits in the movie, but they’re part of the theme that weaves throughout the novel and holds it together. Kluge really was a good writer.

If you’re looking for happy stories, you’re in the wrong book. Frank doesn’t ‘find’ himself. Eddie doesn’t live happily ever after. People die (though not Wendell). The vibe is more like Hemingway than it is the movie.

Martin Davidson optioned the book, wrote, and directed the original movie. He wanted nothing to do with the proposed sequel. The second movie has zilch to do with Kluge and the original novel, other than Eddie Wilson was a Jersey rocker. Eddie and the Cruisers is a gourmet meal. The sequel is greasy fast food. Even the soundtrack is just okay, and I’m a big John Cafferty fan. I only watched Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives, once. Even writing this essay, I have no inclination to revisit it.

You know I’m a Pulp guy. I bristle when I see critics of the time dismiss it as garbage: not ‘literature,’ said with nose stuck up in the air. You’ve run across that dismissive attitude for some genre things you like. Fantasy fans had to put up with it before it became mainstream. I see it today with pretentious twits who like to say “Andor is Star Wars for intelligent people,” like being slow-paced and dull makes it better than the action-packed Mandalorian. I’d rather re-read Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, than watch an episode of Andor. That’s fine if you like it – but I have no use for people who think it’s on some higher plane than the rest of Star Wars. They’re the same type who looked down on Hammett, Louis L’Amour, and comic books.

So, acknowledging that I dislike those distinctions which use ‘a classification to look down on another one,’ the novel is more literature, than ‘just’ fiction. The fact that it brings to mind The Great Gatsby (which is mentioned more than once) and Hemingway, is indicative of that. It doesn’t make it superior to the movie. But it absolutely adds depth that got dropped in the film. It’s a fuller experience of the characters.

If you remember the “I like the caesura” scene, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that things are a bit high-browed, at least thematically. Frank is the book. Sal is the movie.

This is really a mystery novel, as the Lakehurst sessions become the central plot point. Many elements were transferred to the movie, but the tone is different. Be warned: it turns pretty dark at the end. And the movie tacked on the happy ending, which I like. But reading Eddie and the Cruisers is a different experience from watching it.

The fact that I tore through this read in two days tells you that I liked it. A lot. I prefer the movie because I’ve been a fan for decades, and it’s not as depressing. And I listen to the soundtrack on its own.

But Kluge is a good writer. The book moves along, and I was pulled into the story the longer it went on. Knowing what happens in the movie, I was curious where the Lakehurst sessions element was going. We definitely find out.

The premise that maybe Eddie’s not really dead comes along fairly late in the book. As I read this, I saw the actors from the film. But many of the scenes were different. So I saw them, but I wasn’t just replaying parts of the movie in my mind as I went on. The film changes what you’re reading a fair amount. And Ellen Barkin is actually an obnoxious young guy Rolling Stone reporter in the book. Kruge drops in a lot of the Garden State; not just where they lived and played. I imagine that Jersey-ites familiar with places from the sixties and seventies saw a lot they recognized. Lifestyle, and locations.

For me, Eddie’s “Monument to nothing” speech at the junkyard castle is one of the great scenes of the movie, and it presages what is coming. It’s based on a real place called the Palace of Depression, which was bulldozed in 1983. Those lines embody Eddie’s emotions and musical aspirations, and they fit the movie perfectly.

His speech is different in the book. His working title for his secret project is Palace of Depression – like the guy who fused a bunch of stuff together to try and make something useful. Even though it all came to nothing. But Eddie changes the title to Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman’s poetry. And that has a strand throughout the novel.

It wouldn’t have fit the movie at all. But because Kluge is a good writer, it helps tie together the novel. So, two different meanings from the same thing, but both work. And for me, typifies that I love the movie and also really like the book, on their own merits.

Maybe I’ll do a movie-centric post and dig into it from that side. Go watch it. Read the book. Absolutely listen to the music. Follow-up with Eddie and the Cruisers II, if you’re so inclined. Though I believe you’re okay leaving out the sequel and just doing an Eddie Wilson trilogy (book, movie I, soundtrack).

As for the possibility of a third film, Pare is 67. Make of that what you will. He said a few years ago, the rights are in a very murky state, apparently owned by someone in France. Sounds like somebody would have to do some work to sort them out, then acquire them. After II, I hope they don’t even try a III.

But you know what?

Eddie lives!

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, and 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 Fox and the Devil

FORMAT/INFO: The Fox and the Devil was published on March 10th, 2026. It is 368 pages long and available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Five years ago, Anneke's father Dr. Van Helsing was murdered by a mysterious woman. Anneke has been on the hunt ever since, using her skills as a detective to consult on unusual cases across Europe. And after five years, Anneke finally has a lead on her father's killer. Along with a crew of other unusual detectives, Anneke will need to figure out the method to the killer's madness so they can stop her once and for all. But when the killer makes the unusual move of leaving behind a letter for Anneke, the two find themselves drawn into a relationship that is far more than cat and mouse.

The Fox and the Devil is an engrossing supernatural murder mystery across Europe. I really liked watching the early 20th century methods of detective work, and watching our crew start to put together a profile of the killer. I like watching smart people do their thing, and in this, The Fox and the Devil succeeds. The growing shift towards treating the case as supernatural also happens well. Our characters are coming from a point of view of vampires and other such creatures are purely myth; but after a few incidents, they take the evidence that they have and realize that their killer may be something other than human.

Unfortunately, The Fox and the Devil also tries to be a dark love story and in that aspect, it fails. We are told from nearly page one that Anneke has an intense obsession with the killer that goes beyond a desire for revenge. It's very hard for me to get into relationships where I'm just told "these two people have a history and chemistry, go with it." As a result, the dark romance between Anneke and the killer Diavola just didn't land for me. I like watching the build up of a relationship, and short of that, I want to actually see some tension and chemistry. I didn't get that in this story.

On the whole, The Fox and the Devil works well as a supernatural tale, as a group of detectives slowly piece together that their killer is something inhuman. I enjoyed the globetrotting adventure and the mystery tale itself, even if I didn't love the central relationship.

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Paranormal Mystery
Length: 4 hours and 57 minutes
Publisher: Sittin’ On A Goldmine Productions LLC
Release Date: October 18, 2023
ASIN: B0CL5F5CK9
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd book in the Mitzy Moon series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Mitzy Moon is eager to test her expanding abilities. She’d love to look into the hit-and-run that struck down her favorite veterinarian while everyone was at the Yuletide Extravaganza. But before she can suss out a single tip, the advances of a charming green-eyed stranger offer a dangerous distraction…

Desperate to put her investigation back on track, she goes undercover at the high school and lands on the wrong side of the law by lunch. And her “get out of jail free” card comes with the help of her meddling Grams, an interfering feline, and her alchemically inclined attorney.

But when a curse puts her powers on the fritz, she may not be able to save everyone…

Can Mitzy juggle dating and sleuthing, or will a hex knock off more than her halo?”

Series Info/Source: This is the 3rd book in the Mitzy Moon series. I listened to this on an audiobook from Audble.com.

Thoughts: This is the third book in the Mitzy Moon series, and I think it was the best one in the series so far. That being said this is pretty typical paranormal mystery and Mitzy can still come off as very immature, although she is starting to grow a bit as a character.

While everyone in town is at the Yuletide Extravaganza, the town veterinarian is severely injured in what appears to be a hit and run. Mitzy is on the case, even though it involves going undercover at the local high school. When a charming new man comes to town, everyone is warning Mitzy against spending time with him, but Mitzy think he seems genuine enough. Can Mitzy balance dating, sleuthing, and maybe even start doing some good with her newfound fortune?

This was again a pretty straight-forward story with a decent mystery. I still don’t love Mitzy as a character but I do enjoy the cat she’s inherited and some of the other quirky folks in the story. To be fair, Mitzy is starting to grow on me a bit. She is starting to mature some and consider what she can do with this money she has inherited to help out the town. We also start to learn a bit more about Mitzy’s odd powers in this book as well.

In the end, this is a cute, light-hearted paranormal mystery. At points, it is a bit simple and immature for me, but it is also a good diversion while I am driving. I go into the office for work once a month, and it is about a 3hr drive in, these are perfect to finish on a trip there and back. I don’t have a lot of other opportunities to listen to audiobooks right now, so it is nice to have a series with some shorter books in it like this.

I don’t really have a lot to say about this series. If you are looking for a light-hearted paranormal mystery read with a younger, less mature heroine, this might work for you. The audiobooks are well narrated and easy to listen to. They are pretty easy and breezy, so if you miss a bit of the story while driving it’s not a huge deal.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I liked this and thought it was better than the previous two books in the series. While the heroine, Mitzy, isn’t my favorite she is starting to grow on me and I do enjoy the quirky town and side characters in the story. I mainly picked this up as a three book pack because these are shorter audiobooks that I can listen to on my monthly trip down to the office. I went ahead and picked up the next three in the series because I was able to get a good deal on them from audible and it’s nice to have a light-hearted, shorter audiobook that is fun and easy to listen to. Would I recommend this series? It’s definitely not the best humorous paranormal mystery series out there, but it’s not bad if you are looking for something with shorter installments.

Siren Queen (Tor.com, May 2022). Cover design by Julianna Lee

Nghi Vo isn’t your typical award-winning writer of speculative fiction. Don’t take my word for it. Flip threw her oeuvre and select a story around at random: your bound to wind up reading something that will leave you spellbound. That’s exactly what happened to me when I first read Siren Queen over a year ago and most recently with the short story “Stitched To Skin Like Family Is” (which can be read for free on Uncanny Magazine‘s website).

Her rise has been steady, some might even say as subtle as the plots and characters that have attracted readers to Vo over the years. I had the privilege of interviewing the author about her career, craft, and so much more.

First things first, where did your journey as a writer start?

My journey as a writer basically started when I was a kid and my teacher showed me my very first dictionary. It was like one of those old, enormous blocks of paper and she told me that every word in English was in there and everyone that came out used words from that dictionary. I was tiny and thought, “that’s all a book is, I just need to get the words in the right order and that is all the material I need.”

It’s not entirely right but it’s kind of right. It was the discovery that words are very modular and the joy of writing was the fact that there was no buy in, no equipment. Its literally just pen, paper, and the words that you have.

It was a very cheap craft to get into! That was part of it. I wish I could give you something more romantic but that’s where it started.

You have writing credits that go back to 2005. I believe you have short stories that came out back then. What was the process like going from a writer trying to get short stories published to an author with their first book deal?

It was less of a journey and sort of like stumbling through the world and falling flat on my face a few times. I actually don’t have any training in writing. When I was in school, I was in school for for media studies and political science. I briefly flirted with law school then realized I would have to spend my whole life surrounded by lawyers and maybe I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t have the endurance for that!

I got out of college and was working tech support. The thing about tech support is there’s a lot of free time and I went back to the fact that you don’t need money to write a story. You know I had my ancient laptop and I saw a call for submissions and I’m like, “I can do this, I have time, I can write 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 words. So, I started writing and submitting, honestly because it was fun, because I thought it was interesting.

If you look at my bibliography, you’ll notice at the time it wasn’t consistent at all. It wasn’t like I was trying to do a certain number of stories a year. I was just trying to write between keeping my job, making sure my family’s taken care of, hanging out with my friends, all the stuff you’re doing in the early aughts.

Then I saw a call for submissions from Angry Robot Publishers. This would have been about 2016 or so. It was a contest for a novel and it was unagented. So I wrote Siren Queen, they passed on it but sent me this lovely rejection which said, “Usually we’d give you critique here but you mostly know what you’re doing.” I’m like, “that’s not true,” but I started doing the agent rounds, sending it off to agents to see where it would go.

While I was submitting to agents Tor.com, who is my current publisher who I owe a lot to, they put out a submissions call for unagented novellas. I said, “I don’t have an agent, I can probably write 20,000 words.” And so in about six weeks I wrote The Empress of Salt and Fortune, I sent it to them, and then I didn’t think about it very much. I was trying to pay a lot of rent at that time, made a lot of bad housing decisions (laughs). Made some bad romantics decisions (more laughter) too.

The first five books in The Singing Hills Cycle, all published by Tor.com: The Empress of Salt and Fortune (2020), When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (2020), Into the Riverlands (2022), Mammoths at the Gates (2023), and The Brides of High Hill (2024)

Then what happened was within the same week I got two offers of interest from agents and then I got this email from Rouxi Chen who is my editor at Tor.com and it was this long letter. I was like wow, this is the nicest rejections letter I’ve ever gotten! She was saying how passionate she was about it, how much she likes it, and then that she wants to acquire it!

It was a lot of falling on my face, I was doing a lot of writing. I was in tech support, I did freelance writing for a while. It was writing but not fiction. I was more or less writing what people paid me to write, things like cockroach care guides and articles about why you can’t ride bears. That was a real thing I wrote!

It was really funny because when I look back on it, I was really quite bad at all of this. My agent and I have been together for about seven years now. She finally told me a few years on, “did you know that your submission letter was deeply mediocre!” That’s the word she used and she still signed me, so there’s hope for all of us.

I’m flabbergasted because Siren Queen is the first story of yours I read. The thing I really love about it is how, though it’s set in a modern setting, it feels ethereal and magical. It feels enchanting. It’s one of those books where, when I got to the end, I just wanted more!

Thank you so much for telling me that. If you like I can tell you why that book was written.

Please!

What happened was suddenly I realized that the whole system of studios from the time period giving their stars new names and new pasts sounded like fairies kidnapping people, like changelings. I kind of got on this thing when my friend was trying to convince me to have dinner. She’s telling me “Nghi, what do you want to eat” and I keep saying, “there’s so many more parallels! You don’t understand!”

My friends have always been patient when I suddenly have an idea. I have a lot of good ideas and that was just the one that happened to be a novel. I’ve always loved Golden Age Hollywood. Have you heard of The Animaniacs?

Yes.

Have you heard of Slappy Squirrel?

Yes.

That was one of the places Siren Queen comes from!

Wow! Well, if you look at bookshelves right now, a lot of people, myself included, would say we are in a Golden Age. I feel part of that is because, if you go back 20 years ago, the kind of people getting signed and the types of books that came out weren’t anywhere near as diverse. Now the field is so much bigger, so much richer. How does it feel to be able to write and sell stories featuring leads from wherever you want them to be and still get recognized? How does it feel to appeal to readers without needing to navigate the kind of mazes writers back in the day had to?

It feels a lot of different ways. It feels wonderful to have my stories be things that are wanted. It feels wonderful to reach out to people who are in situations a great deal like I was when I grew up. At the same time there is this sort of ocean of grief underneath it because we’ve had a century of modern publishing in the US and you think about how many voices we lost who had amazing stories we will never get to hear. Sometimes that’s very heavy and feels like this responsibility that we have to live up to the people who came before us. It is both true and not true.

We’re working in a business and we’re trying to make a living. But at the same time, we are making art and art has a great deal of responsibility to those that came before us or, one thing I spend a lot of time thinking about, those that should have come before us but weren’t allowed to. For me as a writer its stories all the way down. As I do this job I keep running into readers who have stories, readers who are going to be writers and storytellers, and all I can think is how bright the future is because we’re talking about it, we can see these stories form. At the same time while there is this weight of grief there’s also this sense of hope that we are going into a future where we have more stories than we have ever had before.

The Chosen and The Beautiful (Tor.com, June 1, 2021). Cover by Greg Ruth

How has the reaction to your success been like? Have you ever had anyone come across as feeling threatened by your work?

Well, my first published novel was The Chosen and The Beautiful which is a sort of take on The Great Gatsby featuring a Jordan Baker who is Asian American, queer, and made of magic. One of the first things anyone told me about it is they called it a joyless cash grab! My first reaction was “No this is an extremely joyful cash grab!” And it is, I’m in this to make money. This is how I pay my rent.

This is the thing. I was asked recently if I felt threatened by AI as an artist. I’m like, look, the minute I start writing I’m throwing myself against every writer that came before. Because I start typing, because I put pen to paper, because I have the nerve to sell my stuff, I have always been putting myself against competition. So, I don’t see why it’s any different.

In terms of being intimidated, they should be! How about that?

Well said! Now, I wanted to ask a bit about your background. Has it had any impact on your work and if so how?

Vietnamese is one of the many things I am. I have given up on the idea of having any sort of unified selfhood when it comes to identity. I am Asian-American, I am Vietnamese-Chinese, I am queer… it’s a long list of things. It is something that as an adult I’ve had to corral and accept. While there is the hope of some sort of unified picture, I don’t know if that is a thing that is possible. It is important to me to offer both respect and acknowledgement of the various things that I am and to enjoy the privilege that I do have of being open about it.

The Saint (Paramount Pictures, April 4, 1997)

Way back in the 60s or 70s, there was a spy series called The Saint, there was a Val Kilmer movie about it, it was a huge series. I didn’t realize for a longtime that the author was half Asian. It was not in any of the biographies or anything like that. The idea that I have the intense privilege of being openly who I am, that it is my picture on the books, that there is no question about what pseudonym I have to use… every part of me that I can show I will because so many people before me haven’t been able to do so.

It’s a little dicey sometimes. This is my favorite Margaret Cho quote. Someone once asked her something like, “Aren’t you worried your Asian parents are ashamed of what you’re doing?” Her response was, “Man, I kind of assumed every parent would be ashamed of what I’m doing.” It’s a fine line to walk.

Let’s go back to your books. One thing I love about your bibliography is it is full of short stories, novellas, novels, novelettes, entire series… when you initially get an idea how do you decide if its going to be a short story or something longer?

These days I ask my agent (laughs). Historically what I do is ask myself how much time do I want to spend with an idea, how much work is going to go into expressing it? Sometimes it’s a matter of how much is covered in the story to do it justice. Sometimes it’s a matter of ‘wow, that’s a really cool idea that will only last 2,000 words before someone starts asking questions that I cannot answer.’

There’s a certain reality to how much ground you can cover in a short story compared to a novel. This isn’t to say you can’t cover thousands of years in a short story or have novels that take place in a novel. But it depends on what I want to do with it, what I think is fun. Like Siren Queen which was a huge amount of fun to write. I know you said it’s short but I write short because I get bored quickly. But it was good to spend more time with Luli (main character of Siren Queen). There was “Stitched to Skin like Family Is” is which is about a woman that sort of magically communicates with clothes and that one has historical serial killers in it.

Uncanny Magazine, March-April 2024, containing “Stitched to Skin like Family Is” That was published by Uncanny Magazine!

Yeh.

It won a Hugo right?

It won something (laughs). I don’t know.

My next question is about craft. What would you say were the big milestones going from a short story writer sending out those manuscripts to getting your first deal. Were there any moments where you realized ‘I can do this’?

Every day is a new surprise, it really is. The big milestones never show up or hit the way you think it will. The Empress of Salt and Fortune came out during the pandemic. The shutdowns happened and my book came out. I didn’t know what was happening and no one else knew either. No parties, no getting to see my book in the store for some time. But the first fan letter was very cool. (The milestones) just keep coming. One of my books is going to be published in Vietnamese sometime in the next couple of years and that gave me so many moments because that means so many of my relatives can read my book if they want to. That’s if they want to, they don’t have to, it’s okay.

I think this job… and I’ve had quit a few jobs, there’s so much weirdness and so much joy in it that the milestones definitely sneak up on you. They aren’t things that you can really work for. I also realized I published like 10 books in the last five years and my brain might not work well anymore! Sometimes I’m like, this is a thing happening to me again! I may not be the right person to ask.

For me, it seems like the milestones sneak up on me. They’re special and I’ll know immediately that they’re special, but I can’t always predict them

I will say this: some of it was the fact that they don’t really stop me from putting what I want in my acknowledgements. So recently, when I was typing up my acknowledgements, I was telling them about the fact that my agent stopped me from putting a half-man half-stove hybrid in one of the books that is coming out soon. She stopped me from that and I got to talk about that and it was weirdly special.

It was in The Scarlet Ball, which will be out later this year, and the best story I can tell about it is I was writing it very fast, there’s this character that is a duke, and he’s like half-human half-stove. I was trying to make a point about overconsumption and the predatory nature of nobility and the industrialization of England. I thought I was being smart and then one day my agent calls me and says, “Nghi, why the fuck is the duke a stove!” She made me stop and upon further reflection that was the right call to make.

You started sending out manuscripts while in tech support. Any advice to anyone trying to balance working a regular job with their dream of getting their writing published?

That is a very hard question and in some ways it’s a deeply unfair question. Not that its unfair to ask but in the answers I can give. I am sitting where I am because I am profoundly lucky. I had a tech support job that essentially allowed me to make money while making money. I was healthy, most of my school was subsidized through scholarships, I’m mentally healthy, I didn’t have kids to support, I’ve been very lucky with the relationships that I’ve had largely. A lot of it is luck. What I can tell people who are trying to do something similar is if you see an advantage, seize it. If you have a connection, use that connection. If you have someone willing to put you up while you work on your novel, take advantage of that.

I like my job a great deal. It is not always easy, it is not always fair. It is very, very important to remember that it is a job. You can love this job and this job will not love you back. I’m saying this as someone who is surrounded by professionals who care deeply about stories, who I’m genuinely willing to say care about me as a person, but if you go into this job trying to give it everything you are you are going to lose. And when you lose it can be very dark and dramatic. You are the most important person in this equation and that is the thing you can never forget as someone trying to be a working artist.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Tor.com, March 24, 2020). Cover by Alyssa Winans

Powerfully said! Reminds me of a lot of great authors who despite being super talented, never enjoyed the success they deserved. Charles R. Saunders is a good example. He died penniless, uncelebrated, and while the industry has since recognized his work that doesn’t really do much for him now.

It can be brutally unfair. There’s nothing more important than yourself as an artist and yourself as a person. You must take care of yourself. That’s what I’ve been trying to say for a while, because I’ve been talking to other people about this. We are not a life support system for stories; our stories are a life support system for us. That’s the way it has to go.

My next question kind of ties into self-care. Do you ever deal with writer’s block or anything like it?

This isn’t to brag but I will say that when I was freelance writing I was like the McDonalds of freelancing! I was doing tiny descriptions of vacuum cleaner parts, I was turning over about 6,000 words a day. That is what it took to get my bills paid. I do know what its like to stare at a page and not know what comes next. But you start putting things on the page anyway.

Here’s the thing I’ve learned about writer’s block: what you think of as writer’s block is a lot of the time that is burnout. A lot of the time that’s people pushing themselves too hard or there’s that little voice in there head that says there’s a time limit on how its going to go. That freezes them up, your not going to go anywhere, and that sucks.

When it comes to writer’s block, I know I keep coming back to it but this is how I pay my rent. I can’t afford it! But I will say this, if you don’t know what comes next a lot of the times the problem isn’t what you’re writing that minute. Go back and try just temporarily removing the last 500 words you wrote. Start from there again. That is one thing that has been helping me when I feel like I don’t know what comes next and gets you things like men that are half-man, half-stove.

Be careful thinking that it is a creative issue when it is just the fact that you have nothing in the tank.

The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo, forthcoming from Tor Books on October 6, 2026 You have novel coming out in May, right? Can you tell us a bit about that book and any other projects we can look forward to?

Yeh so we have actually announced that in May we have coming out A Long and Speaking Silence which is the seventh book in The Singing Hills Cycle series. It is hard to say ‘well this one is very important’ when they’re all important stories to me, I wrote them. But I love this one. This is Cleric Chee, our storytelling cleric, with their friend Almost Brilliant the talking bird. This is them at the earliest point in their journey when they are learning to be a storytelling cleric and are quite bad at it. It’s a story about food, veneration, parties, good stuff and bad stuff….I think its hilarious but not everyone is going to agree with me.

And this October we’re going into The Scarlet Ball, which is the story that no longer has a half-man half-stove, once again I was forced to take that out! But it’s the story of a half-French half-Vietnamese courtesan who comes to the united states on the run who gets a deal from a very rich white woman that is one of the New York 400 in 1890. This woman is missing a grand daughter. If my main character Judith is willing to put on a white girls face and go dance with demons, she can go and marry a storm. I’m looking forward to that one, it was not an easy book to write and I can’t wait for people to see it. Its gory, messed up, I like to think it is kind of sexy and just tons of fun.

A Long and Speaking Silence, volume 7 in The Singing Hills Cycle, forthcoming from Tor.com on May 5, 2026 It sounds a ton of fun but I want to go back to the A Long and Speaking Silence you mentioned. That is the seventh book in its series. Most series don’t last that long. What sustained it? What is it you love most about that setting.

I’m going to tell you how The Singing Hill Cycle Series came about. When I wrote The Empress of Salt and Fortune, I had no idea it was going to be a series. My editor at the time, Rouxi, she comes to me when we are going to pub and she says, can this be a series? Here’s the thing, as a freelancer, you don’t say yes to a project when you’re 100% sure you can do it. You say yes at 90%, at 80%. If you are kind of hungry and have rent that needs to get paid you say yes at 60%. So what I said was yes,  this can be a series!

Literally I’m on the phone with her and saying, “Yes it can be a series, each book will be standalone, and they’ll all be stories about stories”. It kind of snuck up on me because this is something I did because I wanted to be a novelist… I wanted this job. I was kind of coming up with it on the fly. Part of it is I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. I didn’t think that I was going to fall in love with these characters or the world. I got lucky when I made the main character Chih who is kind, who mostly wants to hear and tell stories and I love them. That’s my favorite thing about them, how the love came and how unexpected it was.

Love segues nicely into my last question. Our readers at Black Gate magazine love speculative fiction as I’m sure you do. But I’ve got to ask: why do you choose to write speculative works as opposed to any other genre?

The answer is: if I can have a dragon, a mechanical horse, talking birds, entire worlds, demons who love cities, girls who wear other girls’ faces why the hell wouldn’t I? This is the most fun you can have while writing so why wouldn’t I?

The McPherson Tape (Axiom Films, 1989)

Hold onto your butts — a new watch-a-thon starts today!

Who likes alien abduction flicks? I’ll soon fix that.

The McPherson Tape — 1989 – Tubi

The youngest of a trio of brothers has acquired a new video camera, and makes his directorial debut at a birthday party for his young niece in a remote Montana farmhouse. As the family jovially bickers and gets ready for cake, the lights suddenly go out, and the three men head out to the woodshed to check out the fuse box. Outside they witness a red light in the sky and, following its trajectory, stumble upon what looks like a landed spacecraft complete with little aliens mooching around. They rush back to the farm, arm themselves, and settle in for an evening of glimpsed faces at windows, strange noises, and family breakdowns.

Coming in at a brief 66 minutes, and made for little more than $6K, this is director Dean Alioto’s first run at a story that he would return to a decade later with a new name and bigger budget (Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County, which I’ll be watching later).

Allegedly, this film was considered a classic ‘hoax’ film, although I very much doubt anyone was really taken in by the children in alien costumes and the mostly improvised dialogue of the family members. However, as a found footage flick, it ticks all the boxes; lack of focus when really needed, underlit, all the detailed clarity of a bowl of squid ink ravioli in a coal mine.

It’s all rather shouty and tedious, but I have to admire it for getting made for next to nothing, and inspiring a slew of dodgy knock-offs, most of which I’ll be reviewing.

4/10

Alien Invasion (Creatures of the Dark, August 16, 2019) Alien Invasion (AKA After the Lethargy) — 2019 – Prime

Intrepid journalist Sara Hamilton has a slight obsession with an incident that happened in Tetis County somewhere in the Rockies. Much like Roswell, a ship allegedly crashed and a bunch of little fellas were found strewn around the wreckage. However, one went missing. Through lengthy bouts of exposition sandwiched between bursts of grimy characters running from pixels, we learn that a remote military barracks was being used for experiments, primarily by the nefarious Dr. Marshall and his wife, in an attempt to create alien hybrids. Hamilton goes to the site to investigate, and assorted ghastliness ensues.

This is a Spanish production and first film for Marc Carreté, who I suspect did not have a lot of Euros to play with. Though grateful for the title change, this is hardly an invasion, more of an X-Files episode where running and screaming take the place of bickering and sleuthing.

Andrea Guasch does a good job as Sara, put through the wringer to ever increasing degrees, although there are a couple of actors who play it a little more over-the-top than required. The film is billed as a horror comedy, but aside from one character who spends most of the film hilariously mumbling like Gabby Johnson from Blazing Saddles, there’s very to laugh at, especially since the central premise is women being kidnapped, raped, and forced to give birth to hybrid abominations. A real rib-tickler.

Not great, but not terrible either.

4/10

Hangar 10 (Newscope Films, October 22, 2014) Hangar 10 — 2014 – YouTube

Never let it be said that I ignore the follower(s) of these projects, for here is a suggestion from fellow Canuck and purveyor of weird shit, Mark, who thought I should check this one out as it almost meets the criteria. Good enough for me.

Three UK metal detector nerds, Gus, Sally, and Jake, head out to Suffolk to look for treasure, although Jake is only tagging along because he a) fancies Sally, and b) is interested in the Rendlesham Incident, a decades-old UFO event in the same area.

After a good deal of traipsing around in a very orderly forest, punctuated by occasional spurts of bickering, things finally kick off when the trio witness some spooky lights in the clouds, and everything goes to pot deep inside a military installation. Extraterrestrial shenanigans ensue.

This is a found footage film, so it already had an uphill battle when it came to keeping me engaged, and although it is a lot better than many of the other genre films I’ve hate-watched, it still suffers from underexposed/unfocused scenes, and ‘spontaneous’ dialogue. Hangar 10 managed to bring me back under its folds though with some beautifully realized effects shots, and some interesting scenes in the spooky base, which were unfortunately relegated to the last 25 mins or so.

Worth a look if you like this sort of thing, but left me craving a film that might have used a tripod.

6/10

The Recall (Minds Eye Entertainment, June 2, 2017) The Recall — 2017 – Prime

No, not a film about something going wrong on a Volkswagen, rather this is a jolly romp that threads its way through several genres before settling on a good old fashioned ‘kick the alien butt’ flick.

A group of five friends head to a luxury cabin in the woods for a spot of rumpy pumpy and other youthful distractions. During the trip there, they are aware of strange atmospheric disturbances (not that they pay any attention), and one of them, Brenden (Breaking Bad‘s R.J. Mitte), upsets a local hunter at a gas station (played by Wesley Snipes, having the time of his life). They finally reach the cabin, then find another ghastly shack in the forest with photos of the hunter in his former life as an astronaut. So far, so Wrong Turn.

Then the story turns into a home invasion as presumably the hunter is attacking them, but it turns out to be malevolent aliens hellbent on abducting and possessing the chums.

Once all the threads are tied together, we can settle down for a bit of bish bash bosh as the surviving teens fight back against their aggressors, and the film concludes with big ideas and some X-Men shenanigans.

As bonkers as this all sounds, I had a fun time with this one, helped by a decent cast and solid effects. Sure, it’s all over the place, but at least its not boring, and that’s all I can ask for these days.

Check it out!

7/10

Scary Movie 4 (Dimension Films, April 14, 2006) Scary Movie 4 — 2006 – Tubi

A bit of a swerve for the next film in my wildly ignored project, but work deadlines have been kicking my butt and preventing movie watching, and it does at least have a War of the Worlds section, so I’m sticking with it.

The Scary Movie franchise has not aged well, not that I ever really liked it to begin with, but the dated pop-culture references and tired direction really makes this one a slog. I really don’t understand why this is so bad. David Zucker, one third of ZAZ who brought us one of the top three comedies of all time (Airplane!), and the sublime daftness of Police Squad! is the solo director on this, although the ‘A’ in ZAZ, Jim Abrahams, co-wrote it.

Yes, I get the notion that these films are meant to lampoon whatever was popular in the few years preceding it (in this case, War of the Worlds, The Village, The Grudge, Saw, and Tom Cruise couch jumping), and that’s not the issue. It’s the approach to the set-ups and landings that kill it. In Airplane!, I’m trying to think of a moment when someone breaks the fourth wall, perhaps there was one moment when someone looks to camera (please illuminate me in the comments), but otherwise it is played straight as an arrow.

In Scary Movie 4, characters look to camera all the time, as if to tell us, “Hey, isn’t this funny and weird?”, and then the gag is repeated to the point where even a dead horse would resurrect itself and walk off.

It is possible that I chortled twice — I definitely recall making a noise- – but I can’t remember what at. If these films are your bag, all power to you, I don’t want to poo-poo your enjoyment, but I’d be happy to never watch one of these again.

2/10

Previous Murky Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

My Top Thirty Films
The Star Warses
Just When You Thought It Was Safe
Tech Tok
The Weyland-Yutaniverse
Foreign Bodies
Mummy Issues
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Monster Mayhem
It’s All Rather Hit-or-Mythos
You Can’t Handle the Tooth
Tubi Dive
What Possessed You?

See all of Neil Baker’s Black Gate film reviews here. 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.

Deadly Gold Rush is murder, mayhem, and the Carolina gold rush. LitStack is excited to…

The post Deceptive Appearances in “Deadly Gold Rush” | All That Glitters is Not Gold appeared first on LitStack.

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

Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher

Mogsy’s Rating (Overall): 4.5 of 5 stars

Genre: Horror

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Macmillan Audio (March 24, 2026)

Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins

Author Information: Website

Narrator: Mary Robinette Kowal

T. Kingfisher is at it again, and this is exactly what I’m talking about! I am all in on the creepy setting, the brave and quietly capable heroine, and a horror premise that makes me squirm in grossed out discomfort. The author just has this unmatched talent for taking esoteric subjects or slightly odd interests and spinning them into highly engaging stories that keep me up at night, and listening to this one in audio was even more immersive.

Set at the tail end of the 19th century, the story follows Sonia Wilson, a struggling artist whose career prospects have dried up after a string of personal and professional setbacks. After the death of her father, she decides to leave her dead-end teaching job to return to her first love: scientific illustration. However, the only job she’s able to land is with a surly, reclusive entomologist named Dr. Halder, who needs a new illustrator to finish a book based on his research after his previous artist departed under unknown circumstances. This is how Sonia finds herself at his sprawling rural estate deep in the North Carolinian woods, where the only other residents besides the doctor are his housekeeper, groundskeeper, and a young maid.

It doesn’t take long for Sonia to sense that something isn’t quite right about her new situation. The discovery of an old sketchbook in her quarters reveals that Dr. Halder’s former artist was none other than his own wife, who vanished mysteriously about a year earlier. No one will speak openly about what happened, and the same reticence surrounds the local rumors of “blood thieves” who were said to have terrorized the townsfolk at the time. Sonia tries to keep her head down and focus on her work, even as Halder’s assignments force her to illustrate increasingly unsettling specimens tied to his research. But the deeper she throws herself in the work, the harder it becomes to ignore the strange happenings around her. Is her imagination running wild after too many hours reading up on the grotesque details of parasitic insects and their invasive life cycles? Or is there something truly unnatural stirring in the forest?

What really sold me about Wolf Worm was Sonia. A scientific illustrator protagonist hit a very specific soft spot for me, as I was genuinely interested in pursuing that field myself once upon a time, back before the digital age kind of ruined my plans. Kingfisher captures the tactile, observational nature of the work so well, and also portrays Sonia as a true artist: the way she sketches out the faces of the people she meets for the first time in her head, or the way she matches the names of watercolor paints to the hues she sees in the environment around her. Fans of the author will also recognize Sonia as a classic Kingfisher lead. She’s practical, a little anxious, but also stubbornly competent. Her wry personality allows her to take things in stride, helpful when her job frequently brings her up close and personal with all kinds of creepy crawlies.

Speaking of which, the tone of the novel falls in horror-mystery territory, though the setting does a lot of heavy lifting with its isolation, and then of course, there are the insects! Flesh eating parasites, maggots, you name it. Lots of messy, wriggly, burrowing things! Intimate, horrifying details of how insects live, eat, and reproduce. It’s all here, described in an uncomfortable level of detail, and reading this in spring right when it’s warming up and real-world insects are starting to emerge, it felt even more effective. So, if you have a bug phobia, you have been warned.

Finally, there’s a supernatural thread woven through the mystery that I absolutely loved. I won’t spoil it, but Kingfisher plays with a very familiar gothic creature myth and it filters through a strangely scientific, biological lens. It’s one of those clever reveals that makes you stop and think, ooooh I like that. It’s familiar territory but tackled from a highly unexpected and unconventional angle, and I think it works well with the story’s themes of bodies, hosts, and hunger.

All told, this is easily one of the best books by T. Kingfisher, and now one of my personal favorites. Much praise also goes to Mary Robinette Kowal’s whose narration in the audiobook brought Sonia’s curious and lively personality to life, and made the people and environment feel real around her. Wolf Worm is a smart, character-first horror novel that will make you squirm, and readers who wouldn’t mind a bit of weird science with their Southern Gothic tales will get a cool bonus. In other words, It’s exactly my kind of book.

You may know Richard for writing SF (Altered Carbon, Thin Air) or perhaps his A Land Fit For Heroes series involving Ringil the elf (The Steel Remains, etc). In his new book, his first fiction novel for eight years – Thin Air was published in 2016 – he takes up that idea of ‘A Land…

 

Sea of Charms (Spellshop #3)by Sarah Beth Durst
What is it about:Marin is a supply runner with her own boat that she sails from island to island, delivering whatever anyone will pay her to deliver: letters, flour, even the occasional enchanted lemur. It’s a lonely life, but it’s hers, and she wouldn’t trade the freedom of the sea for anything. Her only companion is a sea serpent, Perri, whom she saved from a fisherfolk’s net.
One day, she sails to Alyssium and discovers the city is on fire. There’s been a revolution, and the empire has fallen. Marin, with Perri, begins transporting refugees, finding them new homes where they can start over. One such refugee is Dax, a composer who refuses to leave behind his instruments, no matter how much she tries to emphasize the gravity of the situation. Intrigued by his stubbornness, his passion for stories, and his charming smile, Marin discovers perhaps she isn’t saving him ― maybe it’s the other way around.
What did I think of it:I absolutely love The Spellshop and The Enchanted Greenhouse so I was super happy to receive an ARC of Sea of Charms.
The book felt initially slow. I get why it started where it started, but as it overlaps time- and event-wise with The Enchanted Greenhouse it felt like a rehash at times and that's what took the speed out of it for me personally. But luckily after a few chapters the story moved away from the previous book and took on speed. 
I especially enjoyed Ree, the sentient plant, and Perri, the sea serpent. I love how Durst manages to give the plants in this series their own personality.I didn't totally get into the relationship between Marin and Dax. Marin seemed unreasonably obsessed with Dax from the start even while telling herself they can never be together, while Dax is a cinnamon roll where someone forgot to add the cinnamon. 
I didn't mind much though. The adventures of the four of them were more than fun and enjoyable enough to keep me entertained. I loved seeing even more of the world these books are set in, and to discover more of what happened in the aftermath of the revolution. There's exciting action, lots of humorous situations, and more. There were a few delightful cameos from characters from the other books along the way as well.
All in all a fun and entertaining addition to the series. I will most definitely get my trotters on the hard cover once it releases.
Why should you read it:It's a very enjoyable Cozy Fantasy

Expected publication July 28, 2026

Arthur Leo Zagat

Last week, I mentioned Arthur Leo Zagat, who was born in New York on February 15, 1896. He collaborated with Nat Schachner on their first eleven short stories, before they both launched solo careers. Like Schachner, Zagat attended City College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. After college, he served in World War I and studied at Bordeaux University before returning home to earn a law degree from Fordham University. He went on to found the Writers Workshop at New York University. In 1922, he married a woman Ruth Knopf and they had one daughter, Hermine.

Like Schachner, Zagat also practiced law until he decided he could make a living writing full time. In 1941, he was elected to the national executive committee of the Authors League’s pulp writers’ section.

1930 saw the start of his career as an author with the publication of “The Tower of Evil,” which he co-wrote with Nat Schachner. The two men collaborated on eleven stories published in 1931 before both turning to their solo careers as authors. Of the two, Zagat would prove to be the more  prolific, although he wrote in a wide range of genres, with his science fiction forming only a small part of his output.

 

Wonder Stories Quarterly, Summer 1930. Cover by Frank R. Paul

Zagat’s first solo genre story was “The Great Dome of Mystery,” which appeared in the April 1932 issue of Astounding Stories. He branched out to various other pulp magazines, such as Dime Mystery Magazine. He wrote stories about “Doc Turner” that appeared in The Spider, the “Red Finger” series that was published in Operator #5, and under the pseudonym Morgan LaFay for Spicy Mystery Stories, although John Clute has described the LaFay stories as “excruciating.” He also wrote under the pseudonym Grendon Alzee. After 1936, most of his SF genre work appeared in Argosy.

Zagat wrote the six story “Tomorrow” series for Argosy beginning in 1939 with “Tomorrow,” which was set in a near future post-holocaust world. The final two stories in the series, “Sunrise Tomorrow” and “The Long Road to Tomorrow,” were serialized in the magazine.

He also published the novel Seven Out of Time in 1939. Originally serialized in Argosy, it would achieve publication by Fantasy Press in 1949, the same year Zagat died. It tells the story of seven figures from throughout history and brings them to a far future period in which emotions have been lost in order to learn what emotions are and why they are important.

Graham Stone has written that while Zagat helped build many of the tropes of interstellar space travel, such as established shipping lines, his stories had a repetitive feel to them, which may be why he didn’t achieve the reputations of E.E. Smith or Edmond Hamilton. Zagat wrote more than 500 short stories for the pulps, although only about 20 percent of them could be considered within the sf genre.

During World War II, he returned to service, working in the Office of War Information, which served as a form of communications and information between the battlefront and civilian communities through newspapers, radio broadcasts, films, and photographs. Following the war, he remained involved with the military, organizing writers’ workshops for hospitalized veterans.

Zagat suffered a heart attack at his home in the Bronx on April 3, 1949. He is buried Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Steven H Silver is a twenty-one-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.