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December – 2018 – castaliahouse.com

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Fiction (Pulp Rev): A couple of weeks ago over dinner, Troy Tang and I discussed some of the fundamental problems facing PulpRev. PulpRev makes for a fine umbrella term for writers to rally around, but every writer has different ideas about the direction of their own writing. This makes it hard for people to define […]

This is the final day of the Alt-Hero: Q campaign, so if you’re interested in getting on board, this is your last chance to do so.  Remember to turn off NoScript if you’re placing an order! Thanks very much to all 1582 backers of the three components of the campaign; this has proven to be a […]

The United States of America got into the empire business in the wake of the Spanish-American War in 1898. Cuba achieved independence after a few years, but the U.S. decided to keep Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Hawaii was scooped up at this time also. The Spanish had a ramshackle empire in the late […]

If you’ve read my review of NISIOISIN’s Bakemonogatari Part 01, you’ll know that I am not a fan of the story “Mayoi Snail.” Not only do I find it a slow story hobbled by Koyomi’s need to be clever and the long wait for Hitagi to return with the solution to Mayoi’s mystery, I have long grown […]

A war between elder gods, a mysterious deep space signal, intrigue between space miners, and a full cast audio drama from one of today’s bestselling authors feature in this week’s roundup of the newest releases in science fiction. Advance (Animus #4) – Joshua Anderle and Michael Anderle   You don’t become the best of the best by staying alive. In […]

We are rapidly approaching your last chance to take part in the epic, history-making crowdfunding campaign that is Alt-Hero: Q! The campaign is fully funded, the request for arbitration has been fired off, the opt-out backers’ request for arbitration is in the works, as are the waiver backers’ individual requests, and the AH:Q team is hard at work […]

Slaves of the Crystal Brain, by Rog Phillips (as William Carter Sawtelle), was featured in the May 1950 issue of Amazing Stories. It can be read here at Archive.org. Slaves of the Crystal Brain has probably been the best pulp story I’ve read in a while. Sure, there was some okay stuff in the issue […]

The action picks up right where The Lords of Creation left off.  Once again John C. Wright delivers a family drama and political thriller wrapped up in a far-future where the advanced tech borders on magic and the threats around the galactic corner are far worse than the threats from within the family tree. Perhaps […]

Writing (Black Gate): The hardboiled school was born in the page of Black Mask Magazine under the editorship of George W. Sutton, with Carroll John Daly’s “Three Gun Terry” (which I wrote about here…) and “Kings of the Open Palm,” and Dashiell Hammett’s “Arson Plus,” appearing in 1923. In 1924, Sutton resigned and circulation editor Phil Cody […]

As part of our ongoing move to better serve the readers of Castalia House’s books, we are in the process of making our entire ebook catalog available from the Arkhaven store in both EPUB and Kindle formats. While it will take until the end of February to remove all of our books from Kindle Select, […]

One of my favorite genres is alternate history. I think the first alternate history piece of fiction I ever read was L. Sprague de Camp’s Lest Darkness Fall and his The Wheels of If shortly after. I enjoy essays on alternate history. A very interesting one on web years ago had Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, commander […]

All war is murder for profit. Some people are just more open about it. Wardogs Incorporated is one of the largest and most professional mercenary corporations operating in the Kantillon subsector. If you need a bodyguard, an assassination team, or an armored cavalry regiment complete with air support, Wardogs Inc. can provide it for you…for […]