Blog Archives

Extra-solar colonies, time traveling cops, and man-eating sasquatches haunt this week’s new releases. Age of Gods (Descendants of the Fall #3) – Aaron Hodges Pursued by the inhuman Tangata, Lukys flees on foot through the wilderness. He and his companions make for the ocean, a stolen ship their only hope—but even that may prove fleeting. […]

These days the standard approach to analyzing of E.C. Tubb’s classic sci-fi series of adventure novels involves a heavy grounding in the classic sci-fi tabletop RPG, Traveller. Alas, younger me had not read the source material, and so my imagination lacked the fertile compost of this series in which a game of Traveller might have […]

Nearly 60 years after Arthur Wake’s rebellion encountered the vanguard of the Ynzu’s extermination fleet, humanity finds itself in the third decade of an alien siege. Mass-produced combat frames and far-flung extra-solar colonies have kept the wave of crystalline Yuzu reapers from sweeping humanity into the dustbin of history. But desperate times call for desperate […]

I’ve been a Manly Wade Wellman fan ever since listening to a Baen Podcast where David Drake discussed the life and works of his friend–and dropped the little-known bombshell that John the Balladeer stories were included in the ebook version of Mountain Magic. Ever since then, reading Manly Wade Wellman has seemed like being a […]

How to defeat a Demon King? Who is the Cahena? How do you rebuild a civilization in a magical world, or in a post-nuclear wasteland? The answers lay in this week’s new releases. Cahena: A Dream of the Past – Manly Wade Wellman The brave and beautiful warrior queen known as the Cahena was believed […]

The 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 […]

Combat 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 […]

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. […]

Vengeful 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 […]

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 […]

Magical 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 […]