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September – 2019 – castaliahouse.com

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Weapons (Ammoland): On the Internet, and in print, many people claim that pistols lack efficacy in defending against bear attacks. Here is an example that occurred on freerepublic.com: “Actually, there are legions of people who have been badly mauled after using a handgun on a bear. Even some of the vaunted magnums.” OK, give us a […]

             The concept of imaging past lives, reincarnation, wandering egos has been an idea going back over a century in fiction.                 H. Rider Haggard had the idea of past loves in She (1886). He returned with variations of the idea in The […]

The Invasion of the Highborn. The mysterious enemy has come, and Tyler Barron and his allies prepare for the final battle, the desperate struggle to save the Rim. Barron’s spacers are ready to fight, as always, but this time they know little of the enemy, and they face technology far beyond their own. They will […]

In this week’s fantasy new releases, two litRPG heavy hitters team up, Orson Scott Card plays with micropowers, and a classic of wuxia makes its English language premiere. Bibliomancer (Completionist Chronicles: Wolfman Warlock #1) – James Hunter and Dakota Krout The vaunted power of the Mage’s College. Unbounded freedom among the Wolfmen. The best of […]

[Part 1] …there is another diabolical piece to this puzzle, one the Prosecution had failed to fit to its proper place before.   The Carbon Wars   They began a long time ago, long after the dinosaurs were gone, sometime late in the Autumn of Life. We can’t say just when. The ancient forests were […]

Abraham Lopez’s Going Gone stretches two definitions at the same time.  The cover names this an anthology, but the dozen short stories it contains all hinge on the death of a respected Middle-Eastern diplomat.  A modern day Franz Ferdinand, Saiid’s death proves to be the first domino in a series of calamities that bring the world […]

I take a moment here to procrastinate from my incredible amount of work to pen something I’ve had in the back of my mind for a long time. I watched this video by Scamboli Reviews where he took a look at the movie “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas”. I haven’t seen it, but have […]

Comic Books (Crom the Barbarian): Who is Crom the Barbarian? Crom the Barbarian was created in 1950 by Gardner F Fox and John Giunta. The Barbarian, Crom, is a small speed bump in comic book history. Gardner F. Fox and John Giunta take direct inspiration from the Robert E. Howard, Conan pulps. They pen out their version […]

I am a sucker for stories with a setting of Atlantis. I discovered Atlantis at a young age reading the entries to the first volume to the Golden Book Encyclopedia. That volume had wonderful illustrations and the scene of spired towers sinking into the sea made an impression on me. If you want some lost […]

This week’s science fiction new releases features ancient wormholes, aviation counterfactuals, galactic civil wars, and the last remnant of Christianity in the galaxy. Clone World (Undying Mercenaries #12) – B. V. Larson James McGill is called upon for a sabotage mission, one that only a man of his unique talents can handle. Unfortunately, he performs […]

The sheer diversity of output possible in the brave new world of self-publishing serves as both blessing and curse.  The crumbling walls allowing authors to skate around the gatekeepers also makes it a lot harder to find the needles of quality buried deep inside the literary haystack.  Which probably explains why you’re here – hopefully the staff at […]

Comic Books (Paint Monk): Nothing could be as close to garbage as the fare served up by the creative team on Age of Conan: Belit, so it was with some trepidation that I purchased the first issue of Age of Conan: Valeria, hoping that Marvel’s next outing might be worth reading. It wasn’t. Just like Tini Howard […]