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January – 2022 – castaliahouse.com

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Conan (Venture Beat): Funcom has acquired control of Conan the Barbarian and other popular culture intellectual properties with its acquisition of Cabinet Group. The Oslo, Norway-based Funcom will merge the properties into its IP studio Heroic Signatures. In addition to Conan, it is acquiring IPs such as Mutant Year Zero and Solomon Kane. The purchase […]

Who likes to watch Shark Week on the Discovery Channel? A lot of people do. Maneaters: Killer Sharks in Men’s Adventure Magazines from New Texture is a recent offering in their fine line of books. Maneaters is an anthology of sixteen pieces culled from men’s adventure magazines from the 1950s to the 1970s. Some were […]

Ice, monsters, wood, iron, and blood. What else will we find in this week’s new releases? Be Of Good Cheer (Valens Heritage #3) – Jan Stryvant Having taken the Auction House in Bartertown, Mihalis must now keep it. Thankfully, five of his sisters who recently unlocked their ‘cubi aspects have come to help. As all […]

Independent science fiction has a distinct tradition of raiding established series’ toyboxes, stealing the toys, and re-envisioning the stories into new works and new stories. These tales are more than just mere reskinnings of the original works, with new names for old faces. Instead, they keep resonances with the original works while rearranging the elements […]

Comic Books (Post cards from the Age of Reason): At National Periodicals, Weisinger edited Superman- and Batman-related titles early in his career, and was the long term editor for Superman titles until 1970. Schwartz took over editorial duties on Batman in 1964, shifting the character back to the Dark Detective format. But the top titles […]

I have read a lot of World War 2 history. Recently, I have been researching the armies of the 1930s of Italy, France, Japan, and the Soviet Union. The reason: writer Robert E. Howard made a prediction of inevitable wars to H. P. Lovecraft in a letter from January 1932. I have seen predictions within […]

Divine serpents, space paladins, and cursed warrior strive in this week’s new releases. Accidental Thief – Jamie Davis and C. J. Davis Stuck in the Game, Can He Get Home? Hal can’t catch a break. What can he do to turn his luck around? Wandering through a flea market, a strange woman starts to talk […]

Last time, we explored the idea of science fiction as an uncomfortable marriage between speculation and setting. And while the speculative predictions and the mythology of “What if?” have taken precedence within the SFF community, with every flip phone, tablet, defibrillator, and credit card celebrated, the gadgets, knickknacks, and tchotchkes–these elements of setting–are remembered when […]

Fandom (Wasteland & Sky): Gernsback once again laid the groundwork for his own destruction, all because he misunderstood the people he was trying to connect with. But this is only the beginning. There is still much, much more to be done. The announcement of the SF: was made in the 1934 May issue of Wonder […]

The latest issue of Cirsova, Winter 2021 (Vol 2, No. 9) arrived recently and made up part of this week’s reading. Contents consist of three novelettes and seven stories. “For We are Many”: Zak travels across alternate universes eluding and destroying avatars of himself who are generally evil. He comes face to face with a […]

“If you don’t believe in your own vision, who else is supposed to?” Days after Perry Rhodan invited the world to join him in the new city of Terrania, the Chinese siege intensifies, even scoring a success by shooting down Rhodan’s only spaceship, the Stardust. In an attempt to get around the Arkonide shields, General […]

Dragons, zombies, and starships, oh my! Admiral’s Oath (Dakotan Confederacy #1) – Glynn Stewart Rear Admiral James Tecumseh barely survived his last mission against the Alliance of Free Stars with his reputation and life intact. Under a cloud of suspicion, he has been assigned to a quiet sector far from the front of the Terran […]