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Hi Benedict!
I was so looking for another epic 12 book series. But since you have worked out how the story will tie it all together, I am grateful for it. I will looking forward to it been put together in the next few books coming out before the Olympic Games 2032 in Brisbane, Australia

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…

Oh, that's always fun. There's a redcap named Bonecrusher who is always in a bad mood, but it's probably Ash's friends Callen and Cuan, who are twins and while not unhinged, they are not entirely hinged either.

Thank you for the update and I think that I “sort of” understand although not completely as your post had to, by necessity, avoid spoilers! I pretty pleased that you now have the whole series mapped out, at least in your head and will (probably?) be better prepared for the rest of the series and hence keep to the annual timeline!

Thanks again & good luck when you start writing again, I assuming there was nothing nasty in the Book#4 edits to be worried about…?

Thank you so much for ur work boss u are the best. Silly question, can i be in ur book as character

 

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.

Her name is Ella John. We checked with her to make sure she was ok with us sharing that! She said it was fine and she's looking forward to reading the book. :) You can find her portfolio:

Ella John | Natural Model Management, LLC

She is lovely.

They will likely discuss Sherlock* at some point. They talk about the Herondale necklace a lot because It's the thing Magnus enchanted to strengthen Livvy and Ty's bond and Ty always wears it.

However, do they discuss that Kit basically provided the pendant to Magnus for the purpose and that Ty was supposed to have written him a thank you letter? Well, they have agreed not to discuss anything about "their past" at the beginning of the book, so they kind of talk around it. They may think about it, though.

*Kit didn't send Ty a Sherlock book as an Xmas present but I figured this was about the Sherlock book Kit left for Ty in QUAAD.

Race For the Galaxy, Revised 2nd Edition, by Tom Lehmann (Rio Grande Games, 2007)

As I mentioned in my review of Terraforming Mars, Race for the Galaxy is one of my long-time favorite games. Its play models the expansion of up to four interstellar civilizations, each from one of five possible starting points: Old Earth, Epsilon Eridani, Alpha Centauri, New Sparta, and Earth’s Lost Colony. Development is represented abstractly, with nothing that represents physical variables, population, or any other real quantity; the idea is to come up with the right combinations of capabilities.

This is a card game, not a board game. There’s no predefined space for play to happen in. Rather, each player creates their own space by the play of their cards into a “tableau.”

When any player’s tableau gets up to twelve cards, the game ends and players’ scores are determined. Scores are represented by the only other game components: victory point counters. Players can acquire victory points in the course of play, but the decisive scores are determined at the end, based on what’s in each player’s tableau.

The rules are a bit complex, but I was able to summarize them in a few minutes. And the game comes with helpful large cards that have “round summary” on one side and “card summary” on the other, one for each player.

Race for the Galaxy Card Summary

Race for the Galaxy has an ingenious design where cards serve multiple functions. Played face up onto a tableau, they can represent either worlds added to one’s galactic civilization, or technological or social advances achieved by it (“developments”). Discarded face down, they represent a price that must be paid to put a world or a development into play.

Played face down onto a world card, they represent its economic output (one of novelty goods, rare elements, genes, or alien technology), which can later be discarded to gain victory points and/or more cards in the player’s hand.

Since each turn ends with reducing hands to no more than ten cards, players have to economize carefully in putting worlds or developments into play: Cards with lower payoffs may be better discarded to pay for activating cards with higher payoffs.

Race for the Galaxy Round Summary

A lot of the play of a hand is thinking about what combinations of cards will give the most useful results, based on the goods worlds can produce and the powers that worlds or developments may provide. For example, a tableau with worlds that produce rare elements invites playing cards that allow trading in rare elements, or that make it cheaper to add a rare element world to a tableau, or that score victory points at the end for having rare element worlds in the tableau — and so a player can develop a kind of theme where those specific cards have high value.

There’s a higher-level strategic choice behind all of this: There are two ways to add worlds to a tableau. The economic route involves spending cards from a hand: “buying” the world, or symbolically, colonizing it. The military route doesn’t require such an expenditure. Instead, the military power ratings for all the worlds in the tableau are added up and compared with the stated military power to conquer a world.

So players choose to act either as builders or as conquerors (the proverbial “guns or butter”). I have to confess both to a philosophical bias toward the economic route, and to finding the combinatorics it’s based on more interesting; when I introduced a friend to the game recently, I intentionally chose to play a military world and follow a military strategy, as an informal handicap — which seems to have worked, as he beat me handily in that first game!

The thing that’s largely missing in Race for the Galaxy is player interaction. There’s not much players can do either to help each other or to hurt each other! (My wife doesn’t much enjoy it as a game because of that design feature; she prefers more social games — for example, the elaborate trading in Settlers of Catan.) Play is, literally, a race: Who can build or conquer faster?

Race for the Galaxy and two expansions: The Gathering Storm and Rebel vs Imperium

Watching other players has mostly indirect effects. First, there are five actions that can be taken in a turn: Explore (adding new cards to a hand), Develop (playing developments onto a tableau), Settle (playing worlds onto a tableau), Consume (exchanging goods for victory points and/or additional cards), and Produce (having one or more worlds add new goods). But they don’t all happen in a turn! Each player selects one action that will benefit them.

So it’s sometimes possible to say, “Fred’s low on cards, he needs to explore, so I don’t have to select Explore.” Second, if another player is getting close to having a dozen cards in their tableau, that’s a signal to go for quick payoffs in play, and disregard long-term tactics that probably won’t be completed. I’m not sure yet how much of a difference that makes, as I hadn’t paid close attention to it in my previous experience with the game.

The absence of direct rivalry aside, Race for the Galaxy seems to have enough complexities so that it’s not for everybody; it feels as if it’s roughly at the level of, say, Terraforming Mars (though play is much faster — my friend and I got through two rounds in less time than one round of Terraforming Mars took us).

This may be partly a reflection of the inherent challenges of economic/technological development games. But it’s a genre that I like a lot, and Race for the Galaxy strikes me as an excellent example of it.

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.

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Chapter 5

 

Antigua

 

General Lyon scanned the latest training report and nodded to himself. So far so good. Getting quality material for the Cadre was tough. He had so many commitments going on. It was odd that Tau was the one sector he didn’t have troops in. He had SpecOps, but no Cadre. There hadn’t been a call for them during the Confederation War, though he’d anticipated a call during the occupation phase. Fortunately, that hadn’t occurred, and instead, he’d sent the bulk of the Cadre off to Sigma.

This Confederation civil war was an issue though. As much as the powers that be would love to let the Taurens sort out their own house, they couldn’t. The rebels were holding hostages in the form of their own non-Tauren citizens as well as thousands of Federation personnel.

Given their track record in treating the non-Taurens over the centuries as well as what reportedly happened to the Pele refugees; things didn’t bode well for the hostages.

Well, he had agreed to scrounge up some SpecOps forces for the possible invasion force. Getting Marine and Army Recon squads had been simple. They were on leave but a squad of each would be ready whenever they needed to move out.

He even had a SEAL team ready to go. They had recently graduated from the training course on Agnosta and had been earmarked to go to Sigma sector. He had backstopped them for the moment.

The Cadre would be the icing on the cake. He didn’t have any Cadre officers … Cadre were natural operators not officers. But he did have one squad that had come together. They still had some rough edges, but if the training report was accurate, they might be available to deploy during the window.

He made a soft puttering sound and then blinked when his inbox pinged.

“Is that who I think it is?” he asked Mars, his AI partner.

“Jack is relaying Admiral Thornby’s schedule.”

“Ah.” He nodded. He scanned it briefly. It looks like they were not going to have dinner that evening after all. Pity.

“I guess I’ll take a rain check. Any progress on the investigation on the McClintock assault?” he asked.

“No, sir. The trail has gone cold.”

“Darn,” he said. That was to be expected. The team were professionals. The running hypothesis was that they had come from either ET or Bek. They’d done a very good job playing ghosts. Most likely they had disappeared like smoke into the population.

Well, now that they were forewarned, the Cadre population was forearmed. The AI were on alert and doing check-ins with each family member as well as prospective Cadre members. Hopefully, there would not be a repeat of the assault.

“I wish we had more intel damn it. At least Baggy is okay.”

“Yes, sir. The family is on alert and housed on the base. They are chafing at the restrictions, however.”

“Well, perhaps we can ease up if we know the mercenaries are no longer here or no longer targeting them.”

“Unfortunately, there is no information indicating that, sir,” Mars reminded him.

“Yeah,” the general sighed.

<<(O)>>

Bagheera grimaced as he ran the scenario. He had been gaming and staying awake on adrenaline, youth, excitement, a desire to win, and energy drinks. Probably too much of the last, he was getting button punchy and twitchy. Fatigue was setting in.

He had one last thing to try out though, a trick he’d thought of. He was supposed to deliver his report in the morning.

The scenario was basic, get from point A to B along roads. Obviously, the easiest path was a straight line. He understood why they didn’t want to go by air, that just made you a target for everyone in the surrounding area.

He was finding out that the motorcycle thing was almost as bad.

He rubbed his hands and flexed his fingers as the AI populated the map with opposing forces. Once it was done, the ready button flashed.

He inhaled, held his breath for a second and then exhaled as he centered himself. He then hit the enter key.

The map was randomly generated as was the opposing force. Normally he’d have a unit with him but this was a lone wolf map since it was a basic test.

“Time to mix it up,” he growled as he committed the map to memory. His years of experience gave him ideas on where ambush teams would be set up. Based on what he was seeing, there were too many to avoid.

The straight line course had the most since it was along an elevated highway. But taking a roundabout path meant he would get hit as forces moved to block him. He’d be under siege.

Take the quick path to certain destruction or the death of a thousand cuts?

A timer appeared. He grimaced and he felt his ears go flat. “Frack.”

He triggered the transformation sequence and then got moving. “Let’s dance,” he growled as he felt the base rumble in his chair and then the sounds pick up in intensity.

<<(O)>>

You asked for it, and you were absolutely right, so here it is.

Like any self-respecting fandom, we, the readers of Ilona Andrews’ books, have picked up our own shorthand and running jokes along the way.

This is a quick reference for new readers and a refresher for anyone who needs it.

Us on Horde parade. Art by Sophia @blossombythesea

Ilona Andrews, IA, House Andrews, HA – these all refer to our authors, Ilona and Gordon, who co-author all our favorite adventures and are the reason we are here. The “House” part of HA comes from the Hidden Legacy series, in which powerful magic families call themselves Houses.

BDH – acronym that stands for Book Devouring Horde. That’s us! The readers and fandom of Ilona Andrews’ books: beloved, spoiled, and very enthusiastic. We named ourselves this far back in the mists of time (around 2013, as far as I can tell), inspired by the Hope Crushing Horde alien species from the Innkeeper Chronicles.

There is no official membership, no tiers, no badges. You don’t have to be BDH to enjoy the books, but you might end up here anyway. One of us! One of us!

W*it, P*tience, D*lay – the Horde’s least favorite four-letter words, usually censored. As our name suggests, we like to devour books. Unfortunately, books have a habit of not being released every other week. So waiting, patience and sometimes delays it is, but we are not happy about it.

Ripper Cushions – is a reference to a Horde-favourite moment in volume 4 of the Innkeeper Chronicles series, and our way to say “repercussions”. Also a much-sought-after design item, because the Ilona Andrews merch store had Ripper Cushions cushions at one point!

Chalant – we try to be a stiff-upper-lip kind of Horde, but when we’re too emotionally compromised, our chalant persona comes out. It’s a reference to this Horde scene (that’s right, we go on adventures sometimes!). “We cannot be nonchalant! We are very chalant!” When it gets the better of us, we erm….have been known to do things.

Steve – a fictional fandom figure. The BDH contains multitudes, but Steve only has the one tude. Chaos. He is our stand-in troublemaker, and we love and accept him despite his tendency to set things on fire. First appeared in this classic BDH moment Ilona wrote for us.

Fluffy – we are the best fandom ever. This is known. When our intensity dials up to 11, however, we are gently encouraged to be more fluffy. I won’t make a roster of our achievements to date because I don’t want to give anyone ideas, but suffice to say House Andrews do not negotiate with terrorists, and directly contacting people involved in the publishing process to mention fish-sleeping arrangements is a no-no. Plus, being fluffy gets us snippets and treats! The word itself is a reference to an old British comedy sketch.

Ferrets – the unofficial mascot of the BDH, usually brought up in “Have ferrets. Will infiltrate” type of contexts. They come from a memorable heist scene in White Hot (Hidden Legacy 2). House Andrews write many amaing animal characters, but these tiny ninjas have stolen our hearts.

Barsa barsa barsa – one of the alien species in Sweep of the Heart (Innkeeper 5) communicates by only repeating the word “barsa”. The Horde found this very easy to identify with, as we have been known to adopt the same communication pattern ourselves daily at times (Sequel sequel sequel, When when when, Klaus Klaus Klaus). It’s now something of a war cry.

Metal Rose – wherever there are readers, there are ships (a romantic pairing of characters). Of course, the BDH has many, but our oldest and most referenced one is the Metal Rose. Based on a scene in Magic Burns, Kate Daniels 2, this ship involves Julie Olsen, a magical street orphan, and Derek, the protagonist’s werewolf sidekick. How their story grew, who they became, and why this ship still sails in our hearts years later is yours to discover.

The post A Fandom Glossary first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Days after I made my previous post, the rehab hospital extended my son’s stay, to the 20th of February. We were … not overjoyed, but aware that Physio is necessary for the foreseeable future. When we’d been given the discharge date of 29th January, we were told that this was immutable, that there were OHIP rules, etc. etc. That they couldn’t extend. He wasn’t walking at that point—and still isn’t—and that meant we would need to figure out how to get him into the house. (Our house is an old semi-detached that was built at the turn of the century—the last one. 1900s. It has a tiny, city lawn. This means that we can’t build a ramp from the sidewalk … Continue reading →

Other LitStack Spots – Titles by Maria Semple LitStack has spotted some other titles by…

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A Long and Speaking Silence(The Singing Hills Cycle #7)by Nghi Vo
Every story begins somewhere.

On the banks of the Ya-lé River, the town of Luntien gathers to celebrate the start of the rainy season, but the celebration is marred by the arrival of refugees from the sea. Everyone has a story about the foreigners newly in their midst—lazy, violent, unwanted—while the refugees themselves grieve the loss of the home they loved.
Cleric Chih, very recently still Novice Chih, is also a stranger in Luntien. A moment of carelessness and bad luck leaves them waiting tables as they struggle to establish themself as a real cleric. A cleric’s job is to listen and record, but the stories emerging in Luntien are ugly and violent, as hard to predict as the river itself. With their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant by their side, Chih must help the refugees while also unraveling a mystery that may have roots in their own faraway home in the abbey of Singing Hills.
In the seventh entry of the award-winning Singing Hills series, we meet Chih and Almost Brilliant just beginning their journey together as Chih assumes their place on the road and in the world.
The novellas of the Singing Hills series are standalone stories linked by the Cleric Chih, and may be read in any order.
Expected publication May 5, 2026

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

Weavingshaw by Heba Al-Wasity

Mogsy’s Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Series: Book 1 of Weavingshaw

Publisher: Del Rey (February 24, 2026)

Length: 464 pages

Author Information: Website

A lot of other reviewers enjoyed this book, so I’m just going to say this right now: Hi, it’s me, I’m probably the problem! Weavingshaw has a lot of things going for it, at least on a craft level, including a full-on gothic fantasy aesthetic and a tension-laden romance. Unfortunately though, it didn’t fully click for me.

The story follows Leena, a young woman who can see the dead. Ever since her mother died and her father was imprisoned, she and her younger brother Rami have been living as refugees, adrift in a country that treats them as outsiders. For years, they have been trying to survive while she is forced to hide her abilities for fear of being institutionalized or exploited. But when Rami falls gravely ill, Leena has no choice but to seek out help, and the only treatment that can save him is far beyond anything she can realistically afford. Out of options, she turns to the one person everyone warns her to avoid.

Enter Silas, the Saint of Silence, an enigmatic trader in favors and information. The name of his game is leverage, or any knowledge he can use as currency to keep people in his debt. In exchange for the medicine to save her brother’s life, she offers up her secret, the only thing of value that she has. As she’d hoped, it catches the attention of St. Silas, but the bargain comes with strings attached. She’s bound to his service and tasked with finding the ghost of Percival Avon, a figure connected to both the decaying estate of Weavingshaw and St. Silas’s past. From there, Leena and the Saint fall into a tense, uneasy partnership, working together to untangle a mystery buried deep in the past, drawing closer as hidden agendas and outside threats start closing in.

All the classic gothic fantasy and romance ingredients are here, and the setup itself is very much my thing. That said, I found myself appreciating the individual pieces more than the whole. From a world-building standpoint, the lore and supernatural elements are intriguing, but the details are pretty surface level, such as the ghostly mechanics and the stratified society. Ideas are seemingly conjured up whenever the plot needs them, then sidelined again when something else is required. Even though I could sense a larger mythology in play, much of it feels backloaded instead of immersive.

Character-wise, Leena and St. Silas are familiar archetypes, but in a good way. I liked how their motivations were simple, but made sense in the context of their circumstances, i.e. Leena is driven by loyalty to her family vs. Silas being propelled by the secrets in his past and his need to see his long-running plans through. Ironically, the romance was where their relationship felt the weakest. It’s meant to be slow burning, which is fine, but the dynamic also felt overly guarded and stiff as a result. More spark and less posturing would have been better.

Structurally, the pacing can drift with subplots weaving in and out. I confess I put this book down many times because of the meandering, with a storyline that sometimes felt as if it was playing for time in a holding pattern rather than moving towards its destination. However, I always picked it up again, so there is that. The setting really is outstanding, and I enjoyed the fantastically broody vibes. Still, there is a fine line between atmosphere and narrative drag, and I won’t lie, this one frequently came close to crossing it. The open ending was a bit annoying too. As cliffhangers go, it’s far from the worst, but I didn’t love how abruptly it cut off.

In the end, Weavingshaw is a debut with some clear talent behind it, and I completely understand why it’s finding an audience. This just happens to be one where my personal tastes didn’t quite align with the execution. If broody gothic fantasy with haunted settings and a slow-building romance is your thing, there’s a good chance this will work much better for you.

Swordsmen and Supermen (Centaur Press, February 1972). Cover by Virgil Finlay

Swordsmen and Supermen 1972, subtitled “Swashbuckling Fantastic Anthology.” From Centaur Press, edited by Donald M. Grant. Cover from Virgil Finlay. This was linked to Centaur Press’s Time-Lost series of books but I’m not sure it quite fit that or the “swashbuckling” subtitle. It’s a strange mishmash of material, including three old reprints and two new stories (from ’72).

It starts off with a Robert E. Howard story, but it’s one of his humorous westerns featuring Breckinridge Elkins called “Meet Cap’n Kidd.” It’s a funny tale but not really the type of fantasy one associates with Swordsmen.

The Red Gods by Jean D’Esme, translated from the French by Moreby Acklom (E. P. Dutton, 1924). Cover artist unknown

Then we have “The Death of a Hero” by Jean D’Esme, which does have some sword and axe battles, but it’s an excerpted piece of a novel called The Red Gods and I’m not sure how well it stood on its own.

Third is “Wings of Y’vrn” by Darrel Crombie, featuring a shapeshifter main character. Donald Grant was apparently very high on Crombie at this time, and the prose is well done. Crombie was a pseudonym for Joseph Fraser Darby, a Canadian who had worked as a journalist. Apparently this is the only known story by Crombie. I liked it pretty well.

Grey Maiden: The Story of a Sword Through the Ages by Arthur D.
Howden Smith (Centaur Press, October 1974). Cover by David Ireland

“The Slave of Marathon” is next, by well-known writer Arthur D. Howden Smith (1887 – 1945). This is one of Smith’s Gray Maiden stories (Gray Maiden being a sword) and is my favorite story in the book.

Finally, we end with “How Sargoth Lay Siege to Zarwemm” by Lin Carter. This is a very brief piece, only a few pages, by Carter, and while well-written, is not really a story at all but more of a vignette about an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was on Avon Fantasy Reader, edited by Donald A. Wollheim. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.