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sSensor Sweep: Space 1889, Robert Bloch in Star Trek, Lovecraftian Movies
Monday , 29, May 2023 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentStar Trek (The Companion): If you make Kirk a sea captain and turn the snow-caked planet of Exo III into the Antarctic then the hunt for a lost expedition feared dead, but in fact, transformed by their findings subterranean city of a long-forgotten alien race, then it’s basically a sequel to H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains […]
The rotating reading of genres is never ending. If I read a western, it is generally about the U.S. Army on the frontier. I will deviate to read about ranchers or gunfighters if by favorites like Gordon D. Shirreffs or T. V. Olsen. On the other hand I will read a western by an unknown […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 27 May 2023
Saturday , 27, May 2023 Uncategorized 1 CommentEvery week, the Castalia House Blog spotlights some of the many new releases in independent, pulp, and web novel-influenced science fiction and fantasy. Dragon Lands (The Shadow’s Dragon #2) – Dustin Porta and D. K. Holmberg Treylen never thought he’d be hunting his own people. Least of all, family. In the mines of Wetherdin, a […]
Sensor Sweep: BasedCon, Battle Knives, Gardner Fox, Manly Wade Wellman
Monday , 22, May 2023 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentConventions (PC Gamer): Carmack heads the list of “guests” at the upcoming event that bill itself as a sci-fi convention for people “tired of woke propaganda.” Id Software co-founder and former Oculus VR CTO John Carmack is facing criticism for his recent announcement that he will be attending BasedCon, a sci-fi and fantasy convention for […]
To my surprise, Rough Edges Press announced a new Sgt. Hawk book by Patrick Clay. I was very happy when the series was reprinted last year and the lost 5th novel was published. Sgt. Hawk and the Lost Temple is a brand new novel. The novel starts with Sgt. Hawk and Cpl. Conlon pulled off […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 20 May 2023
Saturday , 20, May 2023 Uncategorized Leave a commentEvery week, the Castalia House Blog spotlights some of the many new releases in independent, pulp, and web novel-influenced science fiction and fantasy. Combat Frame Ƶ XSeed (Combat Frame XSeed: S #3) – Brian Niemeier The Epic Mech Saga’s World-Rending Conclusion Betrayed by their makers … … their sole hope is vengeance. Humanity reels from the […]
SUPERVERSIVE: Spider-Man: No Way Home makes me angry
Tuesday , 16, May 2023 Uncategorized 2 CommentsThe title says it all. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” was not a movie I saw on release. I saw it at home, months later. And in truth, it made me mad. It made me mad not because it was bad. It made me mad because it was really, really good. It was exactly as good […]
Sensor Sweep: Blood Meridian, Roger Zelazny, Outlander, Modesty Blaise
Monday , 15, May 2023 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentD&D (Gronardia): In the interests of narrowing the scope of potential candidates for this list, I established a few rules for myself. First and most importantly, I would only select from monsters unique to Dungeons & Dragons. That means, mythological or folkloric monsters, like minotaurs or goblins, were excluded from consideration, even in cases where D&D’s version of […]
XLZABK001 by Jon Zaremba is a brand new collection of stories in different genres. Jon has a description of himself at the end of this book: “I retired as a musician with dozens of albums in my catalog, most of which were self-released. The majority of this collection’s contents was crafted as text interpretations of […]
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 13 May 2023
Saturday , 13, May 2023 Uncategorized Leave a commentEvery week, the Castalia House Blog spotlights some of the many new releases in independent, pulp, and web novel-influenced science fiction and fantasy. Ashes (The Ascendant Wars #3) – Rhett C. Bruno and M. B. Vance Humanity’s fate is in their hands… The Lucians have faltered in their fight against the cruel Ascendant overlord, Cef. […]
Years ago, reading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, this passage on the Vandals excited my imagination: “The Vandals, who in twenty years had penetrated from the Elbe to Mount Atlas, were united under the command of their warlike king; and he reigned with equal authority over the Alani, who had passed within […]
Sensor Sweep: Free Comic Book Day, White Dwarf, Chuck Dixon, James Bond
Monday , 8, May 2023 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsConan (Essential Malady): From this alone we can establish that both the publisher and the author are embarrassed by (or dislike) the source material. It is not clear who wrote the Afterword so I will assume this is a shared opinion. It would have been more honest to put this in the Foreword so a […]