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sThe Cirsova Fall 2020 Special has arrived, just in time for Halloween, with a new bundle of strange yet thrilling adventures, daring suspense, and even a horror story or two. To editor P. Alexander’s immense credit, each one of the fifteen tales is worthy of a week’s discussion covering both the stylistic and thematic choices. More […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 31 October, 2020
Saturday , 31, October 2020 Uncategorized 1 CommentCombat mecha, relic hunting assassins, and mysterious thieves lead this week’s new releases. Cold Hearted (Yancy Lazarus #2) – James Hunter A deadly Russian necromancer has just escaped his prison. His first day out could be Yancy Lazarus’s last. Yancy Lazarus just wants to be left alone. He wants to play his blues music, smoke […]
Sensor Sweep: Castle Amber, Fanzines, Frank Belknap Long, Elak of Atlantis
Monday , 26, October 2020 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentLovecraft & Games (Fictiontalk): If you are a fan of horror you’ve heard of HP Lovecraft at some point. His works of fiction from “Shadow out of Time” to “The Call of Cthulhu” have influenced many science fiction and horror writers alike. Videogames are no exception. If you’re a die-hard Lovecraft fan or just looking […]
It is almost Halloween which puts me in the mood for reading some macabre/weird/horror fiction. I bogged down this week reading Richard Laymon’s The Traveling Vampire Show. Time for some short fiction. My favorite macabre/weird/horror collections include Carl Jacobi’s Revelations in Black, Joseph Payne Brennan’s Nine Horrors and a Dream, and E. F. Benson’s Night […]
As the air chills and the leaves turn, and the lengthening shadows of Halloween creep across the fields, it is time again for the newest issue of Cirsova. Leading off the 2020 Fall Special is Mark Mellon’s “Melkart the Castaway”, a tale of wine-dark seas and of the men whom legend would turn into gods. […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 24 October, 2020
Saturday , 24, October 2020 Uncategorized Leave a commentVengeful mummies, computerized magi, and nightmare men kick off this week’s new releases. Awaken Online: Inferno (Awaken Online: Tarot #3) – Travis Bagwell A crippling wound. A war looming on the horizon. A demon king to kill. Finn and his companions barely escaped their encounter with Bilel. But not without a cost – including the […]
Sensor Sweep: World of Warcraft, Jeff Jones, Cirsova, Tim Powers
Monday , 19, October 2020 Sensor Sweep 4 CommentsHorror (Dark Herald): The reason is simple enough, before the Enlightenment, people believed in the supernatural. It wasn’t a matter of ignorance, it was a matter of everyday life. If you believed in the Bible, you believed in the supernatural. It was filled with the stuff. Games (Walker’s Retreat): Around the end of 2013, a […]
Dashiell Hammett’s character, the Continental Op was one of the first hard-boiled detectives in the pulp magazines and one of the greatest. He appeared in 28 stories (mainly of them novelettes and novellas) and two novels. All but one story was in Black Mask magazine from 1923 through 1930. I find the Continental Op stories […]
Can you say, “Refuge in Audacity”? Not that I expected anything less from J. Manfred Weichsel, especially when he’s expanding “Alter-Ego” from his short story collection, Going Native. And in some ways, that makes reviewing this difficult. See, I’m so far away from the audience for this that it’s not that I don’t appreciate the schlocky Skinnemax […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 17 October, 2020
Saturday , 17, October 2020 Uncategorized 1 CommentMagical schools, interstellar feuds, paranormal fixers, and superheroine team-ups shine in this week’s new releases. Badger Company (The Torashad Wars #1) – Eric T. Knight and Dylan Knight Only the insane or the truly desperate sign up to fight in the Torashad War… For Badger Company, a motley group of misfit mercenaries, there simply aren’t […]
Lovecraft (At the Villa Rose): What interests me most is Lovecraft’s literary doctrine, this definitive refusal of realism rooted in a no less definitive refusal of reality. Lovecraft, Houellebecq says, found both the modern world and life in general to be boring and repellent, and antithetic to artistic creation. Hence the radically abstract character of […]
October 8th was the 100th year birthday of science fiction writer Frank Herbert. Of course, he is best remembered for Dune. His first story was in Doc Savage in 1946. His next story was in Startling Stories in 1952. Thereafter he had stories mostly in Astounding Science Fiction/Analog with appearances in Galaxy, Amazing Stories, Fantastic […]