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December – 2022 – castaliahouse.com

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Best Served Cold (Morcster Chef #3) – Actus The disaster at Red Mount has been averted, but the link between the monster horde and the Howler guild is too strong to ignore. While Magus seeks to find concrete proof that can bring the guild down, the Happy Sunflowers set off to stay out of eyesight […]

I have read another seven stories in the Dark Forces anthology. By coincidence, two are Christmas stories. Joyce Carol Oates, “The Bingo Master,: A 39 year old spinster decides she is going to lose her virginity. She struck out at some downtown bars. She ends up at a bingo hall and decides to go slumming […]

D&D (Grognardia): An old mantra of this blog has long been that “roleplaying games were born in the megadungeon.” By this, I simply mean that most of the earliest examples of what we would today recognize as RPGs were played in the context of exploring an immense, subterranean locale filled with monsters, magic, and mysteries […]

Philipp Meyer’s The Son is a novel covering four generations in Texas from the 1830s to modern times. I had heard about the AMC T.V. series and my interest was piqued with the setting in the Texas oil boom. I have some interest in the Texas oil boom towns of the 1920s as it had […]

Cirsova #13: Winter 2022 – edited by P. Alexander On a cold night, Martin is confronted by a strange aetherial being calling itself Sister Winter! There are dangerous men looking for her, and she needs Martin’s help! The ashes in Alness still smoulder under Rhygir and his mercenaries… Mangos must go alone to the north […]

Dark Forces (Viking Press, 1980) is viewed as one of the greatest horror short fiction anthologies. Editor Kirby McCauley was able to bring together new and some of the still living Weird Tales writers for a very large book. I have read a few stories reprinted elsewhere back in the 1980s. I can remember seeing […]

New (Cirsova): The Cirsova Winter 2022 Issue is Out Now! Sister Winter By JOHN DAKER On a cold night, Martin is confronted by a strange aetherial being calling itself Sister Winter! There are dangerous men looking for her, and she needs Martin’s help! Lights By LOU NORMANN On an isolated stretch of highway in the […]

Last week, I looked at the The Manhunt Companion which I had picked up last year at Pulpfest. I picked up The Best of Manhunt at Mike Chomko’s table at Pulpfest this year the first day. The Best of Manhunt (Stark House, 2019) is in trade paperback format, 384 pages, edited by Jeff Vorzimmer. Introduction […]

Popular Culture (Isegoria): When Ray Bradbury passed away a decade ago, I remembered reading a borrowed copy of Fahrenheit 451 in one school day in eighth grade. I don’t know whether the teachers failed to notice, or they opted to show some discretion in ignoring my transgression that day. Cinema (Frontier Partisans): Synchronicity rides the Frontier Partisans […]

I enjoy reference books on classic fiction magazines. Whether indices or annotated guides, I love pouring over details and trends. I have annotated guides on Starling Stories and Fantastic Adventures. I have indexes on Weird Tales and Black Mask. My newest addition is The Manhunt Companion by Peter Engantino and Jeff Vorzimmer from Stark House. […]

When aliens and a technoplague speed up the breakdown of technological civilization, the U. S. Government sends its best and brightest warriors into the future via portal technology. Once there, these warriors are to rally what remains of humanity and reform the United States. Army Special Forces sergeant Benjamin Colt’s team never arrive at the […]

The Accidental Summoning – Kos Play Melvin Murphy is your average everyday teen… until he finds the System. Melvin has normal problems. High School. Tests. Trying to find a girlfriend (and failing… miserably). But one day he awakens with access to a System that governs all magic. In his attempt to summon a teacher to […]