Blog Archives
sWith laughter and mockery closing off wish-fulfillment fantasies set in the familiar world around light novel readers, light novel fantasists escaped into other worlds, taking their everyday Japanese characters with them. These in another world fantasies, sometimes called portal fantasies in English but better known as isekai in Japanese, soon became the dominant genre of light novels, enjoying popularity […]
Light novels have been a frequent topic in pulp fantasy, combining the evolution of the pulp magazine with Japanese pop culture to various degrees of success. In the 1970s, Japanese publishers combined pulp magazines with anime-inspired illustrations aimed at teens and young adults. Since then, the market for these short, pulpy and fannish novels (about […]
Irma wishes to be the perfect girl: chaste, feminine, and generous. But when a giant monster stomps through her hometown, her plans crumbled right along with the stores and apartments. In the chaos of acrid smoke and panicked civilians, the private military company Shadow Heart snatched her friend out of the crowd and took her […]
At a time where many are trying to claim the mantle of what Dangerous Visions should have been, J. Manfred Weichsel’s Going Native brings a pulpy horror to six speculative fiction tales that stray perilously close to the live wires of impolite society without resorting to preaching or morality tales. These tales originally appeared in Cirsova, Fierce Tales: Savage Lands, Weird Mask, […]
It is always a joy to discover something new. One has been men’s adventure paperbacks. A discussion group of said books on social media has been stimulating. I have found my reading interest wandering away from the fantastic to yarns of hard men in hard situations. Years ago, I had read novels by Jon Cleary […]
I grew up reading a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs. If you are age fifty or more, chances are you did too. When you are thirteen, Edgar Rice Burroughs is the man. A trip to the local Waldenbooks or B. Dalton Bookseller in the 1970s up through the middle 1980s would generally have a shelf […]
Ryan ran afoul of an overzealous church in his fantasy world. But after losing his head, the church’s goddess, as an apology. brings Ryan back as the heart, soul, and guiding mind of a dungeon. Aided by the celestial fairy Erin, he now builds and maintains the premier dungeon for would-be adventurers, complete with devious […]
With all the films, remakes, comics, and an earworm of a musical theme, the franchise leads to larger-than-life expectations for Ernest Tidyman’s 1971 novel Shaft, the novel which started it all. If not a superhero, then certainly an icon. Instead, John Shaft is presented as a street-weary Army vet, a detective working for unsavory characters […]
Short Reviews – The Dead-Star Rover, by Robert Abernathy
Friday , 29, March 2019 Book Review 5 CommentsThe Dead-Star Rover, by Robert Abernathy, appeared in the Winter 1949 issue of Planet Stories. It can (and should) be read here at Archive.org. It’s been rare that I’ve been as excited about a story as I have been for The Dead-Star Rover. But I’m back to reading Planet Stories, again, and I did not […]
When Games Workshop hurled Warhammer Fantasy millennia into the future, into the Age of Sigmar, the controversial decision closed the book on one of the most beloved heroic fantasy series in recent memory. Dwarven Slayer Gotrek Gurnisson’s search for a heroic death on the battlefield ended in cataclysm—without his death or the epic song promised […]
My last trip to a used bookstore contained a surprise. While going through the general fiction section, I came across a copy of Gustav Hasford’s The Short-Timers, first paperback edition. I belong to a men’s adventure paperback group on social media and this book has been mentioned as not a an easy one to find. […]
A few weeks back, I mentioned that I had the anthology, Skull Full of Spurs on the way. It was the last of the weird western anthologies for me to read. I read it in a week which is a good speed with my schedule these days. Details: Published by Dark Highway Press in 2000. […]