Feed aggregator

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}

Chapter 2

 

Imperium Capital

 

Dean Eratosthenes worked with the engineers to open a series of trade schools. Not everyone needed to go to the university to learn a trade, many of the hands-on jobs needed just that, hands-on training. What they set up was essentially a trade university—engineers, machinists, carpenters, plumbers, electricians,  and so on. Many worked off of an apprentice system which the natives were intimately familiar with.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

Doctor Sue Carter recieved detailed files from Doctor Cassie O'Connell and her 3D printed organ and limb project. She was keen to implement such a practice in the Imperium.

They had some long-term cases in wards and hospicies in the city. There was also an institution for people with disabilities. Many elders were retired in homes across the kingdom. They tended to families and the hearth but would go hungry if the farm lacked food. Fortunately, that practice was ending in all but a few of the most isolated farms.

The doctor would love to help those people and more. There were so many that needed help, and like any good doctor, she was frustrated by her lack of tools in some cases. They had some cases where they had to sadly watch someone die and just comfort them in their end time.

She had made great strides with her students to improve things in the kingdom, but she was always aware that there was so much more that could be accomplished. Hopefully, Doctor O'Connell could arranage the time for a visit.

She had recently become aware of an institute for dead, dumb, and blind people in the capital and in several of the duchies. They were hovels, living off of whatever charity was thrown their way. She had started to change that for the better, giving the folks there a new lease on life. Just instituting better care practices, teaching brail and sign language, and basic medicine had made a large impact.

She was not sure about curing all of the blind folks; however, an exam had weeded those with a degnerative disease out from those who had cataracts or just very poor vision. The optotrician had performed a series of cataract surgeries for nearly a mens, what the natives called a month. Just that had gone a long way to clean out some of the folks in the properties.

The truly blind folks had to wait until they could find a means to surgically correct their eyes. She was still leery about attempting replacing an entire eye. Hooking up the optical nerves was scary.

They had also gotten to work on deaf people. Sadly so many deaf people had not been taught how to communicate by sign language. They had learned some rote activities but were considered stupid. She lacked corrective measures beyond the very basic and rudementary. That was changing though.

The time with the institutes had made her reconsider mandatory eye, nutrition, and hearing exams for children. Many children had poor grades and dropped out of school because of one of those three things. Getting to them early helped to change their lives for the better.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

Diedra was overseeing the preparations for the upcoming Harvest Festival when word came in about the attack. She called the cabinet in and they listened to the radio as Ginger described the strike.

"Hopefully, this will serve as a lesson to them?" Winston, the treasurer, asked.

"Only if there were any survivors,"  Ciara, the dominus of textiles stated.

"And if they can get home safely. This happened off the coast of the Nuevo Imperium,"  Eugene frowned as he studied a map. "Ginger, any ideas on if any survived?"

"One small lifeboat got away. I don't know how many people were on it," the pilot reported.

"Okay," Eugene said with a nod. "So, they'll either flag down another of their ships or a merchant or fishing vessel."

"If they flag down one of the latter two, all money is off on the safety of the crew," Sergeant Waters, their gaijin expert in military matters, growled. They turned to him. "Remember the crap that pirates pulled off the coast of Africa? Small boat raiding or capturing ships at sea?"

Eugene, Charlie, Sue, Mary, and Max winced. The natives looked confused.

"Warlords off the coast of Africa sent small boats to attack shipping that was coming out of the Persian Gulf region," Mary explained. "They had small fast boats with weapons. They would run up to a bigger ship, many of which didn't mount a watch, then get on board and take the crew hostage. Sometimes they tortured and killed the crew. They would then sell the cargo and ship back to the proper owners."

The natives grimaced.

"The navy got involved. Many navies actually," Ginger stated. "They did like we did or sent in commandos to rescue ships. The pirates are still a threat, but they are not pulling off many raids anymore, at least before we left that is."

Eugene nodded. "So, the crew of any ship that they encounter might be in danger and there is no way to warn them."

"Sorry," Ginger stated.

"Not your fault, Ginger, you did the right thing. We can't have it all our way," Eugene stated. He made a slight puttering sound. "Any other issues?"

"No. Well, yeah, I'm about out of munitions," Ginger reported. "I had four missiles, and it took all four to hit."

"Darn."

"The good news is that they don't have many of those ships," Ginger stated. "But I could use a replenishment."

Eugene looked to Max. He grunted and spread his fingers in a flicking motion. "We'll work on that," Eugene said slowly as he looked back to the radio. "How are you on fuel and parts?"

"Okay. When do we have another PBY coming?"

"Two more and two more DC-3s and then I'm done building them and the Douglas for the time being. I'm switching everything to the Hercules project," Max growled.

There was a long silence. "Hercules?"

"Yeah, we're going for that instead of a bomber. That platform has more flexibility, and the Bootstrap folks have the plans already," Max stated. Eugene nodded.

"Damn good idea!" Ginger stated. "Good range, lots of stuff we can do with that bird. Awesome. When do we get them?"

"We need the plans first. I just got a lot of stuff to sort out from them, and we're going to build the infrastructure too. Plus as many common parts with the other birds as we can."

"Good," Ginger said. "I can't wait to get my hands on the controls," she said. There was a slapping sound and then rubbing. Eugene snorted. Those that knew her knew that the pilot was eagerly rubbing her hands together in glee.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

LitStack Spots Here are a few other titles that we’re definitely adding to our TBR…

The post Spotlight on “Bridging the Rivers of Difference” Catherine Meeks appeared first on LitStack.

Paint me like one of your French girls, Jack.

Not this again.

I’m more of a Rubens type…

I am trying to delete this entire thread with my mind.

I was trying to touch my toes, but well, it’s a LOT of work.

It’s mid-May, and I’ve been in something of a hardboiled mood lately. So with Summer looming, here’s a Black (Gat) in the Hand. More Pulp is coming, like a gumshoe with a gasper and a rod.

I am fortunate to be part of a star-studded roster of writers who provide intros to Pulp reprints from Steeger Books. More and more classic, and forgotten, Pulp is continually being brought back to print – and electronically as well. I just finished my tenth intro, and that will roll out with number eleven, later this year.

Below you can find links to all nine of the intros that have been printed so far. Plus a bonus one that didn’t quite make it. If you like what I had to say, you might be interested in checking out the books themselves. You’ll likely recognize at least a couple of the names below. But I cannot praise the Max Latin stories by Norbert Davis, enough. I have the audiobook, and that’s my bedtime listening multiple times a week, all year long. Love those stories.

FAST ONE (Paul Cain)

Lead Party has all of Paul Cain’s short stories, as well as his lone novel, Fast One. Mine is one of five essays in this deluxe hardback. And I got to write about Fast One!

Raymond Chandler referred to it as “some kind of high point in the hardboiled manner.” I think this is a nearly flawless book, and it rivals The Maltese Falcon as my favorite Hardboiled novel. If you haven’t read it, you’re missing out on one of the best works in the genre.

PETER KANE (Hugh B. Cave)

My first intro for Steeger covered the six Peter Kane stories. Kane worked for Boston’s Beacon Agency. He was big, and the closest he got to sober was dry drunk. Other ‘hard-drinking’ Pis are pikers compared to him.

Cave was a master of Weird Menace, but only one of the stories ventured down that path. Maybe a little odd here or there, but Cave knew how to write ‘straight’ hardboiled, and I think Kane was hist best example.

MAX LATIN (Norbert Davis)

I’ve said many times, if there was a Norbert B. Davis fan club, I’d probably be the President of it. And his Dime Detective stories about a shady PI who operates out of a restaurant booth, are in my Top Five mystery series’. John D. MacDonald’s last paid work was a cranky intro to these stories. I was thrilled to write a new one – ‘replacing’ my favorite writer from any genre.

These stories have humor, but fall short of screwball comedy. And the cast of characters make these very re-readable. HIGHLY recommended.

BEN SHALEY (Norbert Davis)

This is the first collection of Black Mask stories from Davis – including his Ben Shaley tales. These are mostly ‘straight’ stories, with only glimpses of the humor that Davis was known for.

There were only two Shaley stories, which is a shame. Davis definitely could have had an ongoing series in Black Mask with him. Raymond Chandler said that “Red Goose” impressed him more than any other tale he read when he decided to become a hardboiled writer.

MR MADDOX VOL 3 (T.T. Flynn)

I jumped in late for this series. Mr. Maddox is a bookie, making the rounds of the thoroughbred racing circuit each year. He regularly runs across a murder, and bad guys push him into going up against them. He essentially functions like your typical private eye. It’s neat to get an inside look at the horse-racing world of the forties.

These are long stories – legitimately novella length. They are not quick reads like most of the short stories I do intros for. But by using a horse track bookie, they stand out from the more common PI/cop/reporter tales.

CONTINENTAL OP – VOL 1 (Dashiell Hammett) CONTINENTAL OP – VOL 2 (Dashiell Hammett) CONTINENTAL OP – VOL 3 (Dashiell Hammett)

Steeger is reprinting every Continental Op story from Hammett. The short, fat, honorable – and unnamed – private eye for the Continental Detective Agency, showcases the best of Hammett. And Red Harvest (which will be covered in Volume 4) is right up there alongside Fast One for hardboiled action.

CASS BLUE – VOL 2 (John Lawrence)

In between his Dime Detective series’ Sam Beckett, and the Marquis of Broadway, the prolific thirties Pulpster wrote about tough guy Cass Blue. Though there was something of an Agatha Christie ‘country manor’ vibe to several of the stories. It was a bit of a change up for Dime Detective readers.

MIKE & TRIXIE (T.T. Flynn)

So, I missed the deadline for the first Mike & Trixie book from Steeger (there have been three so far). I ended up with a homeless intro, so I posted it here at Black Gate. Click on over. You can be one of the very few people on the planet to have read it.

Though that applies to quite a few things I’ve written.

It’s gonna be another Summer of Pulp, and I’m hoping to have a Frederick Nebel surprise in the Fall. Next up, maybe I’ll dig a little deeper into Rex Sackler. I wrote a post after having only read one story. I like him even more after finishing off Volume 1 from Steeger.

We’re a hundred-ish years into Pulp, and I still enjoy reading it. So do a lot of folks I know. Look at the links below, and check out an essay or two written by myself, and some friends. The Pulp world lies at your feet.

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2025 (12)

Will Murray on Dash(iell Hammet) and (Lester) Dent
Shelfie – Dashiell Hammett
Windy City Pulp & Paper Fest – 2025
Will Murray on Who was N.V. Romero?
Conan – The Phoenix in the Sword in Weird Tales
More of Robert E. Howard’s Kirby O’Donnell
More Weird Menace from Robert E. Howard – Conrad and Kirowan
Hardboiled Gaming- LA Noire
Western Noir: Hell on Wheels
T.T. Flynn’s Mr Maddox
Dashiell Hammettt’s The Scorched Face (my intro)
Will Murray on Raymond Chandler’s Other Lost Stories?

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2024 Series (11)

Will Murray on Other Lost Raymond Chandler Stories?
Will Murray on Dashiell Hammett’s Elusive Glass Key
Ya Gotta Ask – Reprise
Rex Stout’s “The Mother of Invention”
Dime Detective, August, 1941
John D. MacDonald’s “Ring Around the Readhead”
Harboiled Manila – Raoul Whitfield’s Jo Gar
7 Upcoming A (Black) Gat in the Hand Attractions
Paul Cain’s Fast One (my intro)
Dashiell Hammett – The Girl with the Silver Eyes (my intro)
Richard Demming’s Manville Moon
More Thrilling Adventures from REH

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2023 Series (15)

Back Down those Mean Streets in 2023
Will Murray on Hammett Didn’t Write “The Diamond Wager”
Dashiell Hammett – ZigZags of Treachery (my intro)
Ten Pulp Things I Think I Think
Evan Lewis on Cleve Adams
T,T, Flynn’s Mike & Trixie (The ‘Lost Intro’)
John Bullard on REH’s Rough and Ready Clowns of the West – Part I (Breckenridge Elkins)
John Bullard on REH’s Rough and Ready Clowns of the West – Part II
William Patrick Murray on Supernatural Westerns, and Crossing Genres
Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘Getting Away With Murder (And ‘A Black (Gat)’ turns 100!)
James Reasoner on Robert E. Howard’s Trail Towns of the old West
Frank Schildiner on Solomon Kane
Paul Bishop on The Fists of Robert E. Howard
John Lawrence’s Cass Blue
Dave Hardy on REH’s El Borak

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2022 Series (16)
Asimov – Sci Fi Meets the Police Procedural
The Adventures of Christopher London
Weird Menace from Robert E. Howard
Spicy Adventures from Robert E. Howard
Thrilling Adventures from Robert E. Howard
Norbert Davis’ “The Gin Monkey”
Tracer Bullet
Shovel’s Painful Predicament
Back Porch Pulp #1
Wally Conger on ‘The Hollywood Troubleshooter Saga’
Arsenic and Old Lace
David Dodge
Glen Cook’s Garrett, PI
John Leslie’s Key West Private Eye
Back Porch Pulp #2
Norbert Davis’ Max Latin

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2021 Series (7 )

The Forgotten Black Masker – Norbert Davis
Appaloosa
A (Black) Gat in the Hand is Back!
Black Mask – March, 1932
Three Gun Terry Mack & Carroll John Daly
Bounty Hunters & Bail Bondsmen
Norbert Davis in Black Mask – Volume 1

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2020 Series (21)
Hardboiled May on TCM
Some Hardboiled streaming options
Johnny O’Clock (Dick Powell)
Hardboiled June on TCM
Bullets or Ballots (Humphrey Bogart)
Phililp Marlowe – Private Eye (Powers Boothe)
Cool and Lam
All Through the Night (Bogart)
Dick Powell as Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
Hardboiled July on TCM
YTJD – The Emily Braddock Matter (John Lund)
Richard Diamond – The Betty Moran Case (Dick Powell)
Bold Venture (Bogart & Bacall)
Hardboiled August on TCM
Norbert Davis – ‘Have one on the House’
with Steven H Silver: C.M. Kornbluth’s Pulp
Norbert Davis – ‘Don’t You Cry for Me’
Talking About Philip Marlowe
Steven H Silver Asks you to Name This Movie
Cajun Hardboiled – Dave Robicheaux
More Cool & Lam from Hard Case Crime

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2019 Series (15)
Back Deck Pulp Returns
A (Black) Gat in the Hand Returns
Will Murray on Doc Savage
Hugh B. Cave’s Peter Kane
Paul Bishop on Lance Spearman
A Man Called Spade
Hard Boiled Holmes
Duane Spurlock on T.T. Flynn
Andrew Salmon on Montreal Noir
Frank Schildiner on The Bad Guys of Pulp
Steve Scott on John D. MacDonald’s ‘Park Falkner’
William Patrick Murray on The Spider
John D. MacDonald & Mickey Spillane
Norbert Davis goes West(ern)
Bill Crider on The Brass Cupcake

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2018 Series (32)
George Harmon Coxe
Raoul Whitfield
Some Hard Boiled Anthologies
Frederick Nebel’s Donahue
Thomas Walsh
Black Mask – January, 1935
Norbert Davis’ Ben Shaley
D.L. Champion’s Rex Sackler
Dime Detective – August, 1939
Back Deck Pulp #1
W.T. Ballard’s Bill Lennox
Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Phantom Crook (Ed Jenkins)
Day Keene
Black Mask – October, 1933
Back Deck Pulp #2
Black Mask – Spring, 2017
Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘The Shrieking Skeleton’
Frank Schildiner’s ‘Max Allen Collins & The Hard Boiled Hero’
A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Campbell Gault
A (Black) Gat in the Hand: More Cool & Lam From Hard Case Crime
MORE Cool & Lam!!!!
Thomas Parker’s ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’
Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Hardboiled Film Noir’ (Part One)
Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Hardboiled Film Noir’ (Part Two)
William Patrick Maynard’s ‘The Yellow Peril’
Andrew P Salmon’s ‘Frederick C. Davis’
Rory Gallagher’s ‘Continental Op’
Back Deck Pulp #3
Back Deck Pulp #4
Back Deck Pulp #5
Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw on Writing
Back Deck Pulp #6
The Black Mask Dinner

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.

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Hay House LLC
Release Date: June 9, 2026
ASIN: B0FQG3SPC1
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Tressport Magic series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Struggling against a tide of anti-magic sentiment amidst the city’s rapid industrialization, the shop is slated to close in six short months unless Josie can save it. Luckily, she’s no stranger to impossible odd—she’s applying to study magic at the local university, something women are typically excluded from—even as the shop’s prickly apothecarist, Aufidius Reid, seems determined to dislike her.

Reid finds her unbearably insistent. She finds him infuriatingly uptight—nothing like the sensitive scholar Josie has been exchanging anonymous letters with as they study together for entrance to a graduate magic program. A scholar who just so happens to be Reid himself, unbeknownst to either of them.

Letter by letter, they fall in love. But at work, Josie and Reid clash constantly about the direction of the business. As pressure rises, they discover the threat to the shop is more dangerous than they could have ever imagined, and working together to save it might be their only chance at true purpose, and at each other.”

Series Info/Source: This is the 1st book in the Tressport Magic series. I got this on ebook for review through NetGalley.

Thoughts: This is the first book in the Tressport Magic series. I really love how much detail and thought the author puts into developing the magic system here. However, this is incredibly slow for the first 50% of the book, to the point where I almost set it aside. Luckily, the pace really picks up mid-book, and I ended up being very happy I stuck with the story and finished it.

The story switches POV between Josie and Reid. Our main heroine, Josie, practices the more structured form of magic (which is frowned on for women) and is determined to go to the magical university to advance her studies. However, she needs a job over the summer while she waits to find out if she’s been admitted. She ends up with a job at an apothecary to make ends meet. Reid is also trying to get into the same magical university but is stuck helping to run a nearly bankrupt apothecary shop while he waits for his admission response. Josie is a disruption to Reid’s summer that he was neither prepared for nor wanted.

This is set in a sort of generic Victorian city, but a city where magic is real. There are a couple types of magic, a more intuitive magic and a more structured magic.

Between each chapter, there are letters between Josie and a man that she met via correspondence. These alternate with intervals between chapters in which we read letters between Reid and a woman he met via correspondence. This was a unique way to format the book and enables us to get to know Josie’s and Reid’s internal thoughts much more quickly. Unfortunately, this is part of why the book was so slow. Some of these letters feel very drawn out, and it slows the story down. As you might guess, this gives the story a similar feel to Rebecca Ross’s “Letters of Enchantment” series. This book would have felt a lot more unique if I hadn’t already read “Letters of Enchantment,” which uses a similar mechanic of secret letters.

After the first half, I ended up enjoying this book and finished it very quickly. It took me four days to read the first 50% and one day to finish the rest. There are a lot of themes here I like; a woman pursuing research studies in the face of adversity, a tight family, and a sort of enemies to lovers relationship that grows from daily work and understanding. I liked the magic in here and found this to be an interesting world as well.

My Summary (4/5): Overall the first half of this book was painfully slow, but the second half made up for that. I enjoyed the magic system and world-building here. I also liked the idea of getting to know our characters’ inner thoughts through letters, but the way this was done was so similar to Ross’s “Letter of Enchantment” series that it felt copied. Reid and Josie were fun characters to read about and I look forward to spending more time with both them and this intriguing magical world in the next book in this series. I would recommend this to readers who enjoy a sort of magical alternate history Victorian setting, like a scholarly theme to their stories, and enjoy a good enemies to lovers sort of romance.

 Sitrep:

So, dad's out of the hospital and recovering nicely. I'm better from this flu crud, and I'm starting to get into Trial by Fire.

I sent PRI 4 off to Rea Wednesday and she got it back to me Friday. I got it sorted and off to Goodlifeguide and here we are.

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}

Chapter 1

Imperium Capital

 

Work around the capital screeched to a halt with the arrival of the Bootstrap Colony shuttle. They first got warning of the craft’s arrival as it was coming down. Several of the Memes came with it as escort.

The craft did a series of S turns to burn off its excess speed and then came into land at the main runway which had been cleared of all air traffic.

Eugene and Deidra had hastily cleared their schedules to meet the visitors.

They met Jacklynn Smith and her copilot as a truck with a staircase was wheeled up to the still steaming craft. Jacklynn shook hands with each of them. “Sorry, a lot has happened since we last visited.”

“Ah. So, where is Mister Chambers?” Deidra asked politely.

“Ah. Yes. About him, that’s why we had a delay …”

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

Deidra was still quiet as she settled in with Eugene late that evening. The newcomers had been given guest quarters and were the talk of the city. Everyone wanted to meet them. They had agreed to a radio interview in the morning and a tour of one of the aircraft factories with Max.

She was still struggling with the idea of Mitch Chambers and his … what did she even call it?

How would she react if something like that happened to Eugene? She cuddled to him, spooning into him until it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended.

“It’s okay,” he finally said when she squeezed him again.

He rolled over and then looked in her eyes, stroking her face in the dark.

“I …”

He smiled a wan smile. “He isn’t dead.”

“But … if that ever happened to you …,” she was near tears.

“Or you? We’d make the best of it one day at a time. And we’d still love each other irregardless,” he said.

She smiled and kissed him. That turned into something more, and they made love gently, as much a renewal of their love as solace in each other’s arms for another couple’s misery.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

“You have done some impressive things here. I mean, really,” Jacklynn said with a shake of her head. “That production run is impressive.”

“It is,” Eugene said with a nod.

“We’ve got what, Cessnas, the shuttle, C-130s, and the tanker at the moment?” Jacklynn asked. “Oh, and the helicopters and a couple of other birds. But you started with just a couple of computers and a CNC machine? Damn impressive.”

Eugene nodded but he had something else cooking in his mind. The arrival of the shuttle had finally poked a thought to the surface of his mind. He’d grabbed it and was ready to act on it.

He had finally realized what he’d been thinking about earlier when Deidra had mentioned Mitch Chambers.

“Speaking of your C-130s,” Eugene said with a slight lilt of inquiry in his tone of voice.

“Yes?” Jacklynn asked. They were eating lunch in the great room. She was a guest next to him.

“Do you think we can trade for a couple?”

She snorted. “How would we get them here? They aren’t space worthy,” she reminded him.

“Oh. Damn,” he said with a grimace. “I forgot that.”

“The amount of energy to transport a bird is insane,” Jacklynn said with a shake of her head.

“Besides, we’d need parts …,” Eugene sighed in defeat. “Never mind."

“Manuals … Training … mechanics …” Jacklynn said thoughtfully and then stopped. She shrugged after a moment. “Besides, the Memes won’t allow warcraft to be transported.”

“Oh. So, I guess that is out,” Eugene stated.

“But, I bet we could trade you the plans,” the pilot said thoughtfully.

Eugene was about to say something. Instead he blinked and slowly closed his mouth.

Jacklynn smirked a little at his expression.

“You think we can work that sort of a deal out?”

“Sure. I love your PBY design. We could use it on our colony. And you’ve got a few things we could use too,” she said. “Like that medicine your pharmacology people identified that could lead to faster healing drugs and that other one that fights cancer and aging.”

Eugene nodded slowly. “Think you could throw in a run of ICs for a half a dozen birds?”

“For, oh, a full shipment of what I said, and most of the stuff on my shopping list, sure,” she said with a shrug.

He blinked. After a moment, he stuck his hand out. She took it and shook it and then laughed. “Sorry, I’m a bit sticky,” she admitted.

He chuckled and wiped his hands on a cloth napkin. “I don’t mind. I’ve got kids; I’m used to it actually.”

She smiled.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

The Chronicles of Amber and The Second Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny (Gollancz SF Masterworks editions, April 14 and August 18, 2022). Covers uncredited

There are few authors whose works bring me greater joy than Roger Zelazny.

Zelazny was a master of craft and style who could present in a terse style that seamlessly evolves into evocative prose without any awkwardness or jarring transitions. His strengths as a writer were myriad: incredible storytelling, plot development, vivid descriptions, character development, and boundless imagination in the creation of strange worlds — sometimes a shade different from our own; other times wholly alien.

In The Chronicles of Amber, Zelazny exhibits all his strengths as a writer. It’s almost frustrating to read him, because he seems to perform his craft so effortlessly.

[Click the images for master craft versions.]

Roger Zelazny

Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber is an absolute classic that I am about to revisit. I recently reread his novel Jack of Shadows, which is another fantastic work. But the Amber stories were perhaps his finest achievement.

Zelazny’s style of prose is something I really appreciate. It fluctuates from economical and concise, to poetic, to stream-of-consciousness — and it never jars the reader. It’s so smooth. I admire his work quite a bit.

I am a part of the evil which exists to oppose other evils. I destroy Melkins when I find them, and on that Great Day of which prophets speak but in which they do not truly believe, on that day when the world is completely cleansed of evil, then I, too, will go down into darkness, swallowing curses. Perhaps even sooner than that, I now judge. But whatever… Until that time, I shall not wash my hands nor let them hang useless.

—Roger Zelazny, The Chronicles of Amber, Book 2: The Guns of Avalon

Jack of Shadows (Signet, May 1985). Cover by Vicente Segrelles

There’s much more to Zelazny than the world of Amber, of course.

Jack of Shadows is a novel that I can read again and again. It’s a perfect fusion of science fiction and fantasy, conceived by a true master of genre fiction. It could make a great film in the right hands.

Jack of Shadows (Signet, May 1989). Cover by Richard Hescox

Shadowjack, Master Thief of Hell!

Who are his foes? All who would despise him or love the Lord of Smage of the Jackass Ears, the Colonel Who Never Died, the Borshin, and Quazer, winner of the Hellgames and abductor of the voluptuous Evene. One by one, Shadowjack would seek them out and have his revenge, building his power as he goes. And once his vengeance is obtained, he would come to terms with all others who are against him, he would unite the World of High Dudgeon, destroy the Land of Filth, and bring peace to the Shadowguard. But to accomplish all, Jack of Shadows must find Kolwynia, the Key That Was Lost…

A Night in Lonesome October (AvoNova paperback reprint, September 1994). Cover by James Warhola

A Night in Lonesome October is an absolute masterpiece. His final “solo” novel, this story is told from the first-person viewpoint of Jack’s watchdog, Snuff. Without giving away too many spoilers, Jack is loosely based on the infamous Jack the Ripper, and Snuff functions not quite like a pet, but a familiar spirit, one of several familiars (a bat, a cat, an owl, a rat, etc.) in the story, each with their own agendas, each with an eccentric master of great notoriety.

Zelazny’s prose often slows me down, as I pause to reread passages that are so well-wrought. Allow me to set this scene: Snuff is trying to remove a dead (murdered) body that was deposited on Jack’s property. He’s doing it not because Jack is the killer, but because he’s concerned about how it will look. Night after night he drags the body closer to a local river…

James Warhola’s cover for A Night in Lonesome October

First time out yesterday I got him farther through the muck, but he was still in it when I left him. I was tired. Jack was sequestered with his objects. The police were about, searching the area. The vicar was out, too, offering exhortations to the searchers. Night came on, and later I made my way back to the muck, chasing off a few vermin and beginning the long haul once again.

I’d worked on and off for over an hour, allowing myself several panting breaks, when I realized I was no longer alone. He was bigger than me even, and he moved with a silence I envied, some piece of the night cut loose and drifting against lesser blacknesses.

He seemed to know the moment I became aware of him, and he moved toward me with a long, effortless stride, one of the largest dogs I’d ever seen outside of Ireland.

Correction. As he came on I realized he wasn’t really a dog. It was a great gray wolf that was bearing down on me. I quickly reviewed my knowledge of the submissive postures these guys are into as I backed away from the corpse.

Quoting for emphasis:

He was bigger than me even, and he moved with a silence I envied, some piece of the night cut loose and drifting against lesser blacknesses.

That was a line I read again and again. True genius.

Jeffrey P. Talanian’s last article for Black Gate was a look at the The Enduring Legacy of Jack Kirby. Jeffrey is the creator and publisher of the Hyperborea sword-and-sorcery and weird science-fantasy RPG from North Wind Adventures. He was the co-author, with E. Gary Gygax, of the Castle Zagyg releases, including several Yggsburgh city supplements, Castle Zagyg: The East Mark Gazetteer, and Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. Read Gabe Gybing’s interview with Jeffrey here, and follow his latest projects on Facebook and at www.hyperborea.tv.

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

Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir

Mogsy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Genre: Horror

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Nightfire (May 26, 2026)

Length: 160 pages

Author Information: Website

After enjoying The Night Guest, I was pretty curious to see what Hildur Knútsdóttir would do next, especially since her style seems tailor-made for weird little psychological horror novellas. Unfortunately, Dead Weight ended up being a bit of a letdown. First off, I don’t think it was marketed correctly. While it’s pubbed by a horror imprint, I agree with a lot of other reviewers who felt this didn’t feel like horror. For me, it was barely even a thriller. Maybe a low-key suspense story would be more accurate? And yet, the tension hardly builds. Instead, the book mostly drifted along in a kind of muted haze before arriving at a strangely underwhelming ending.

The story follows Unnur, a lonely and emotionally detached woman living a quiet, isolated life in Reykjavík, when a black cat suddenly begins showing up in her apartment uninvited. Trying to do the responsible thing, she tracks down the cat’s owner, a young woman named Ásta, who arrives looking visibly flustered and more than a little unsettled when she comes to collect her pet. It quickly becomes clear that Ásta is dealing with serious problems of her own, though Unnur initially wants no part in getting involved. Still, the cat, Io, keeps returning to her apartment, almost as if it has chosen Unnur for itself. Before long, the situation becomes even harder to ignore when Io unexpectedly gives birth to a kitten in Unnur’s bed.

Distraught over moving the mother and newborn, Ásta convinces Unnur to let Io stay temporarily so that the kitten can be raised in a safe and stable environment. Ásta admits that her own home doesn’t have that kind of security right now, though she promises to stop by regularly to help care for the cats. Reluctantly, Unnur agrees, and what begins as an awkward arrangement slowly develops into an uneasy friendship between the two women. As they spend more time together, the story begins exploring their personal lives, their loneliness, their unhealthy relationships, and the things they’ve quietly convinced themselves to tolerate. Beneath the surface, a growing unhappiness hangs over both women, tied up in the emotional weight of the choices they keep making.

To be fair, the setup itself isn’t bad at all. I did find myself drawn to the atmosphere and to Unnur’s character at first. While Knútsdóttir’s writing style is admittedly a little rigid and aloof, I can’t help but wonder if some of the original prose’s texture and nuance might have been lost in translation. Regardless, it works surprisingly well for a story built around people navigating emotional scars or dealing with hardship. There’s a quiet strangeness to the novella that kept me reading, especially in the opening chapters, where just enough intrigue is established to hold your attention and carry you forward.

But the further I got, the more I found myself wanting from the story, which became a problem when the book never really delivered what I hoped it would. Despite delving quite intimately into both Unnur and Ásta’s lives, Dead Weight never quite develops the momentum or depth required to make their relationship feel fully realized, which made the ensuring crux of the novella feel less significant than it should have. I didn’t feel much urgency or escalation, even when darker elements started unfolding. Everything felt oddly distant and rote. Quite honestly, the cats ended up being the most compelling part of the whole book. Between Io and her kitten, there were genuinely more cute moments than tense ones (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I guess).

The biggest issue for me, though, was the lack of payoff. The novella spends its entire runtime hinting at something more, but when it finally arrives, it barely feels like a climax at all. To be fair, I might just be used to reading more intense horror and thriller, thus making this feel way more subtle and tame. Even so, I had expected more impact to justify all the buildup. I don’t think the short length was the issue either, because the ending itself feels abrupt in a way that doesn’t make the book feel complete. It just kind of stops, and I was left wondering, beyond the obvious metaphor of ridding yourself of life’s burdensome liabilities, what was the point?

Still, I can’t say I disliked Dead Weight. A bite-sized novella, it’s an easy enough read and it worked perfectly well as a palate cleanser for me between heavier books. Although it was mildly frustrating because I wanted more, it still works as a decent diversion for an afternoon.

Romantic Suspense

Olivia Cruz lives with the demons of her kidnapping three years earlier Save Your Breath (Morgan Dane Book 6). In an effort to exorcise those demons and get on with her life she agrees to talk with her friend, true crime podcaster Zoe March. But when she shows up for the meeting, Zoe is nowhere to be found. She has vanished off the face of the earth. 

Police are called but it quickly becomes obvious that Olivia and her boyfriend Lincoln are the only ones who really care about Zoe. 

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The Olivia Cruz series has been a long time coming. Melinda Leigh has focused on Bree Taggert for the last few years but now that series is winding down and there is some clean air to explore Olivia’s story. This story is great, it offers the familiar characters we know and love while introducing a few new characters who no doubt will come forward in the next few books. It is solid romantic suspense done well.

Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle, issue 1 (Dark Horse, October 2001). Cover by Humberto Ramos

From Dark Horse Comics and DC comes Superman Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle, written by Chuck Dixon with interior art by Carlos Meglia. Cover art on the original issue covers was by Humberto Ramos.

This is a 3-issue comic arc that riffs off the original Tarzan story by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The mutiny aboard The Fuwalda takes place as usual, which is the start of Edgar Rice Burrough’s 1912/1914 serial/novel Tarzan of the Apes.

[Click the images for Superman-sized versions.]

Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle, issue 2 (Dark Horse, November 2001). Cover by Humberto Ramos

John Clayton and his pregnant wife, Alice, are about to be marooned on the coast of Africa when a flaming meteor sweeps over and crashes right where the crew was set to land. The crew takes that as a bad omen and instead returns to Cape Town to drop off the Claytons. Thus, the infant who would have become Tarzan is raised by his living parents in civilized Britain instead of by Kala and the Apes in the jungle.

Before that twist is completed, though, we find that the meteor which crashed was actually the ship carrying the infant Kal-El from Krypton to Earth. Kala ends up adopting “Superman” instead of Tarzan and he is named Argo-zan (fire-skin). That must have been quite an experience for the apes, though we don’t get to see any of Argo-zan’s earliest years.

Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle, issue 3 (Dark Horse, May 2002). Cover by Humberto Ramos

By the way, this appears to be the earliest incarnation of Kal-El where he is not so superpowered and can’t fly, but he is still far stronger than any human and cannot be physically injured.

Some spoilers ahead: The last 2 issues of the comic suggest that “fate” cannot be escaped because circumstances conspire to bring the man who would have been Tarzan and Jane Porter back to Africa, and they are accompanied by none other than Lois Lane.

La of Opar is set up as the bad guy and she’s discovered some Kryptonite that she hopes to use to control Argo-Zan. You gotta figure how that works out, and at the end, fate brings everyone back to the places where they should have been in the first place.

Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle collected edition (Dark Horse, September 30, 2002)

Here are my thoughts: It’s a cool idea and generally well done. Chuck Dixon does a smooth job with the story itself and the art facilitates the story.

My criticisms are twofold. 1. There’s a lot more story here than could adequately be told in 3 comic book issues. It’s a rich tale and because of word and length limits we only get parts of it.

I understand why but I’d still have liked more story, such as Argo-zan’s childhood and his interactions with the African wildlife, and John Clayton’s early growth as well. We see that John is “unsatisfied” with his civilized life and knows something is missing, but there were many scenes I’d have enjoyed getting a look at. (I’ll just tell them to myself in my head.)

Interior art for Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle by Carlos Meglia

My second criticism concerns the art. Let it be known that I have no artistic abilities myself and both Meglia and Ramos are immensely more talented than I am. I admire their skills, but I didn’t personally like many of the human images presented here, although I liked a lot of the jungle backgrounds.

The characters, though, are hugely exaggerated, particularly their faces. Superman looks like he has acromegaly on the covers, and some of the interiors are close to caricatures. (See the interior illustrations I include here.)

This may have been done on purpose as a style choice, but I mostly didn’t love that choice. I did like the pool reflection on issue #1’s cover. Your appreciation may differ and that’s perfectly fine.

Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was a a review of The Iron Tower Trilogy by Dennis L. McKiernan. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.

Other Titles by Andy Weir Here are a few other books by Andy Weir that…

The post Desperate Characters Find Ways To Survive “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir appeared first on LitStack.

Welcome to Stacking the Shelves, hosted by Reading Reality.

This is my haul of books that I got for review over the last 5 months! Click on the book image to go to Goodreads to learn more about them.  Hope you all got some great books and that you have a great week (or many months) of reading ahead of you! Review Books:

Audible now has a listing for the L’Heure du Loup, Volume 1, the unabridged audiobook of the French translation of The Wolf’s Hour, just recently published in two volumes by Monsieur Toussaint Louverture. The French audiobook is narrated by Hadrien Rouchard. It will be available on May 29, 2026, and can be pre-ordered from Audible now.

L’Heure du Loup Volume 1 audiobook from Audible

Version 1.0.0

So: it’s become a thing for me that Ray Nayler, with I believe only two novels, a novella and a short story to date, has become a must-read author. Both novels, The Mountain in the Sea and Where the Axe is Buried, have both been in my best of the year lists when they were…

Enter now until 5/24/26 to win a signed copy of Twelve Months!

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Enter between 6:00 PM (ET) on May 4, 2026 and 11:59 PM (ET) on May 24, 2026. Open to US residents, 18 and older. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

See Official Rules for full details.

The official Tor account on Instagram did the Millennial vs Gen Z Marketing trend for This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me this week, and I was helpless before it.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tor Books (@torbooks)

For the happily offline among us, the meme format is simple: the Millennial Team gives you the earnest, back-cover-copy voice that tries hard. The Gen Z Social peeps release the group-chat vibe check pitch that hooks you in under 3 seconds.

It’s not a dig at either generation, just an acknowledgment that the same content can reach different audiences if captioned accordingly.

I guess I have more in common with Steve than previously assumed, because I immediately had to do it to the other books. It’s Friday, House Andrews are heading to their event, I have access to Canva, and no one stopped me in time.

As your resident Millennial, I have no illusions about my ability to be cool on command. When I try to write promo copy, it’s immediately Cheugystan, and I realise the moment that third sentence starts that I’m a lost cause. I offer my Gen Z voice with humility and the complete expectation that the youths of the Horde will roast me accordingly.

Text in captions for accessibility.

The Inheritance, Breach Wars volume 1:

“single mom solos interdimensional OSHA violation” VS “A gripping sci-fi from #1 New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews – perfect for fans of Stargate! Adaline has bills, kids, and a government job that keeps sending her into alien death labyrinths for humanity’s survival. This time, the job goes very wrong.”

The Innkeeper Chronicles:

Millennial “Dina Demille runs a quiet Texas inn for intergalactic visitors. The house is sentient, the neighbor’s a werewolf and everyone who threatens her guests will discover that hospitality can be extremely well armed. A cozy sci-fi from #1 New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews.” VS Gen Z’s “b&b & intergalactic drama. early check-in available for philosophical space chickens”

Iron and Magic (Iron Covenant 1)

“warlord villain gets wife-guy’d by an eldritch farm queen” OR “A dark, explosive fantasy set in the world of Kate Daniels. Hugh d’Ambray, freshly-discarded warlord, must protect his Iron Dogs by forging an alliance with Elara Harper, the mysterious White Warlock. They need each other, they do not trust each other, and marriage may be the least dangerous part.”

Hidden Legacy:

“In a world ruled by magical dynasties, the Baylor family runs a private investigator firm with a dangerous case load, powerful enemies, and billionaire Prime allies entirely too used to getting their own way.” OR “houston’s magical nepo babies discover warehouse girlies bite back”

Which version would have made you pick up the book?

The post Millennial PR vs Gen Z Socials first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Paul W. Fairman

If Paul W. Fairman’s name is known, it is likely as an editor or the ghostwriter who wrote several of the juvenile novels published under Lester del Rey’s name when the latter author suffered from writers block. However, he had his own career as an author and Marvin W. Hunt commented, his “novels deserve the attention of science fiction enthusiasts not only because his books display the requisite technological prescience of good science-fiction, but especially because they are well written.”

Fairman was born on August 22, 1909 in St. Louis, Missouri.

Fairman began publishing in the February 1947 issue of Mammoth Detective with the story “Late Rain,” and in 1950 he published his first science fiction story, “No Teeth for the Tiger” in the February issue of Amazing Stories. Between 1951 and 1953, he occasionally used the housename Ivar Jorgensen, and in 1954, the film Target Earth was based on Fairman’s story “Deadly City,” which appeared under that pseudonym.  He also used the pseudonyms Robert Eggert Lee and the housename E.K. Jarvis, which was also used by Robert Moore Williams.

Amazing Stories, February 1950
Cover by Robert Gibson Jones

In 1952, James L. Quinn hired Fairman to help him create rivals to the magazines Fate and Other Worlds. The results were the nonfiction magazine Strange, which looked at the bizarre and mysterious in the world, and If, which published science fiction. Fairman became the editor of both magazines. His knowledge of the field, however, was limited and neither magazine had an auspicious start, with Strange being cancelled after only four issues. If tended to look back to an older form of science fiction, ignoring what was being done by the newer magazines in the field. After the fourth issue, Fairman was fired and Quinn began editing If.

Fairman landed on his feet at Ziff-Davis, where he worked as an Associate Editor of Fantastic Adventures. Although he briefly left Ziff-Davis in 1954, he returned the following year and when Howard Brown left the company in 1956, Fairman became editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic. He also oversaw the launch of the magazine Dream World, which had been started by Browne. He also launched Amazing Stories Science Fiction Novels, which lasted a single issue and published the novelization of the film 20 Million Miles to Earth, by Henry Slesar. It lasted a single issue.

Despite the magazines he edited, Fairman was more interested in writing than editing and he began to let his assistant handle more and more of the editorial work. At the end of 1958, he stepped down as editor of Amazing and Fantastic to edit Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and his assistant, Cele Goldsmith, took over the job of editor of the two speculative fiction magazines.

In addition to the previously mentioned adaptation of “Deadly City” into Target Earth, Fairman’s story “The Cosmic Frame” was adapted into the 1957 film Invasion of the Saucer Men and a decade later as the television movie Attack of the Eye Creatures. He also had stories adapted for The Twilight Zone and General Electric Theatre.

Fairman died in October, 1977 in Newark, New Jersey.

Steven H Silver is a twenty-two 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.

In reply to Jørgen.

Too much going on? He literally only has one paying job and that’s to watch over her…

Daybreak 2250 AD, originally published as Star Man’s Son, one half of Ace Double D-69 (Ace Books, 1954). Cover artist unknown

I started intentionally looking for science fiction to read in elementary school. Our city library had one big room full of fiction for young readers, from preschool through high school, so I found books that were meant for readers older than I was — but I enjoyed reading them, even if I didn’t understand everything that happened to their protagonists. The top two science fiction writers, for me and I think for a lot of other people, were Robert Heinlein and Andre Norton.

Norton had written half a dozen novels, mostly historical, before she ventured into science fiction in 1952 with Star Man’s Son. But it seems to have been successful; she wrote a new fiction novels nearly every year for some time after that, and I went on reading the library copies at least up through Catseye in 1961.

[Click the images for giant cat versions.]

Ace Double D-69: Beyond Earth’s Gates by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner) and C.L. Moore,
and Daybreak 2250 A.D. by Andre Norton (Ace, 1954). Covers by Harry Barton, unknown

Star Man’s Son was a cleverly chosen title. It clearly signaled that this was science fiction. But it wasn’t, as the words seem to promise, a story about travel between the stars. Its Star Men were the elite of a hidden community high in the mountains, called the Eyrie, whose mission was to go out into the largely depopulated lands around them and look for the ruins of cities, both to find treasures such as colored pencils and to try to recover the lost knowledge of their builders.

Star Man’s Son is one of the founding works of the post-nuclear-war genre, published only seven years after Hiroshima, but envisioning a world devastated by nuclear weapons: massively depopulated, with many areas left lethally radioactive, and with parts of the land geologically transformed.

Gamma World by Gary “Jake” Jaquet and James M. Ward (TSR, 1978). Cover by David C. Sutherland III

As a by-product of the radioactivity, there are mutant forms of various species, including human beings. In fact this setting could be a prototype for the early roleplaying game Gamma World.

Norton’s hero, Fors, is one of these mutants, and that’s the starting point for her story’s conflict. Fors’s father was a Star Man, and a very successful one. But Fors’s mother came from a different culture, the Plains People, who lead a nomadic existence in the deserted lands outside the Eyrie; and Fors himself has mutant traits, both visible — white hair — and invisible — night vision and preternaturally keen ears.

Dust jacket for Star Mans Son 2250 A.D. (Harcourt, Brace & Company, August 1952). Cover by Nicolas Mordvinoff

Orphaned by his father’s death on an expedition into the wilderness, Fors wants to succeed him as a Star Man, but is repeatedly rejected, out of a prejudice against mutants. At 17, after his sixth and final rejection, Fors rebels, stealing his father’s gear (but not his father’s star, which he hasn’t earned) and venturing out into the wild lands on his own, looking for a fabled lost city of the ancient world that would prove his worth.

Norton doesn’t link any locations to familiar geographic names, but her readers would naturally have assumed that her story took place in North America. From her descriptions, the Eyrie could be in the Rocky Mountains, perhaps in Colorado; the plains might be Kansas or Nebraska; and the city that Fors eventually finds might be any major Midwestern city, though I’ve long assumed that it was Chicago, and apparently other readers commonly do the same. (This isn’t like Pangborn’s postapocalyptic setting, with little kingdoms bearing easily parsed names such as Bershar, Penn, or Vairmant.)

Dust jacket for Star Mans Son 2250 A.D. (Staples Press, 1953). Cover by R. Dulford

The combination of ruined structures and depopulation is curiously similar to Tolkien’s realm of Arnor, which would appear a few years later in The Fellowship of the Ring; Tolkien rejected any suggestion that the One Ring was an allegory for the atomic bomb, but both stories seem to reflect the idea of a fallen higher civilization, analogous to Rome, and perhaps the idea that the industrial West could also fall was made more credible by the destructiveness of the World Wars.

Another parallel to what Tolkien would publish is the existence of an inherently hostile race, the Beast Things. Like Tolkien’s orcs, they have a roughly human form, but one that’s hideous to human eyes; in this case, they have faces and clawed hands that make them resemble gigantic rats.

Daybreak 2250 A.D. (Ace Books, 1961). Artist unknown

The Beast Things seem to lead entirely collectivized tribal existences and to be naturally cruel and hostile to human beings.

And in Star Man’s Son, where they previously were a minor threat, dangerous mostly to solitary explorers, they have emerged to more organized hostility, attacking various human groups in vast hordes (where those hordes came from is no clearer than it was for the “goblins” in The Hobbit; such enemy races tend to have a nightmarish fecundity).

Their origins are obscure, but they’re clearly mutants, and help explain where the common hostility to mutants came from.

The 1977 cover refresh from Ace Books. Cover artist also unknown

Fors’s own venture acquires a companion from a different culture still, with its own traditional heritage from the more civilized past: Arskane, whom Fors pulls out of a pit trap and treats with an antibiotic salve (and in return, Arskane introduces him to coffee, which Fors doesn’t like at all!).

From Norton’s description, it’s clear that Arskane is Black, and it’s curious that where Heinlein found it necessary to hint cryptically at Rod Walker’s ethnicity in Tunnel in the Sky, published only a few years later in 1955 (his publisher was worried about sales in the South),

Fawcett Crest paperback edition, which returned to the
original title (Fawcett Crest, August 1978). Cover by Ken Barr

Norton didn’t have any trouble showing Fors and Arskane teaming up and even coming to regard each other as brothers. (Or might Heinlein have been unnecessarily worried?) Arskane’s account of his people’s origins to Fors makes them descendants of aviators, and perhaps Norton was thinking of the Tuskegee Airmen and expecting her readers to do likewise. And in parallel, Norton mentions a legend that the Eyrie was originally a base for an intended venture into space, which is why its elite explorers are called Star Men.

Fors is also accompanied by another mutant: Lura, descended from domestic cats, but grown larger and apparently empathic through the effects of radiation. (The image of the symbiotic goes back a long way before Honor Harrington.)

The first ten Honor Harrington novels by David Weber, plus two novels in the Honorverse series (Baen Books, 1993-2016). Covers by David Mattingly, Laurence Schwinger, and Gary Ruddell

Lura is described as having a coat coloration similar to Siamese cats. She accompanies Fors through most of his journeys and is only temporarily parted from him during one major crisis. Aelurophilia seems to be a common trait among science fiction writers and readers, and Norton does a persuasive job of appealing to it.

All of this shows that the novel’s recurring theme is mutation: The Beast Things, Lura, Fors himself, and a variety of exotic life forms such as a race of diminutive lizards that tend farms and wield poisonous weapons are all mutants. And the novel’s continued point is that “mutant” as such is not a moral category: Mutation can be either good or bad, depending on what the mutant does.

The Darkness and Dawn omnibus, containing the novels No Night Without Stars (1975) and Daybreak 2250 A.D. (Baen Books, March 2003). Cover by Bob Eggleton

At the novel’s climax, we have the mutant Fors playing a vital role in a stratagem aimed to have all the human forces unite against an army of the mutant Beast Things — and then confronting a threatened outbreak of war between the different formerly allied human forces. Norton seems to be making a point similar to St. Paul’s statement that “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free” — or, in this case, mutant or nonmutant.

Indeed, her characters raise the question of whether it’s good to preserve the unchanged likeness of the ancient humanity that destroyed its own civilization in a vast war.

Star Man’s Son title page, with illustration by Nicolas Mordvinoff

In a review of this novel, quoted in the copy I read, the Denver Post called it “a good adventure story which is a thoughtful book as well,” and I think that’s a fair summary. Like Heinlein, Norton assumed that her readers would be interested in serious themes and able to make sense of them; and that was part of what made her a leading author of “juvenile” science fiction.

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.

One week from today, I’ll be doing the second quarterly virtual book recommendations event with the Ashland Public Library in Massachusetts of this year. If you followed last year’s recommendations, both fantasy and science fiction books were covered. This year, I’m focusing on fantasy books and author Elizabeth Bear is covering science fiction recommendations. (She just did her second recommendation event last night, which made me want to start a couple of books on my shelves I still need to […]

The post May 2026 Virtual Fantasy Book Recommendations first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.