Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 17 October, 2020
Saturday , 17, October 2020 Uncategorized 1 CommentMagical 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 any other choices. Not after the disaster at Fell’s Keep made them outcasts that no one would hire. Now the men and women of Badger Company are marching to join a war that has been raging for centuries.
Long ago, Go’ath, the demon lord, created the Rift, allowing demons to enter the world. But the god Eremus was waiting for him. Eremus had created the Blade, a massive sword unlike anything the world had ever seen, and pierced Go’ath with it before he could pass through. Eremus then went through the Rift in pursuit of Go’ath and never returned.
The Blade stopped Go’ath, but the Rift remains open. The Torashad War–so named for the mighty fortress Eremus’ followers, the Aegis Knights built on the demon side of the Rift–continues unceasing, an endless battle against a foe that never gives up.
The priests who prosecute the war pay in gold. They pay in redemption too. A stint in the Torashad War earns forgiveness for all crimes committed, both worldly and godly. And the gods know that Badger Company needs more forgiveness than most.
All they have to do is survive a war that leaves most of the soldiers who fight in it dead or driven mad.
Darkspace Renegade – G. J. Ogden
The interstellar bridges provide a lifeline for billions. To save humanity the Darkspace Renegades must tear them all down.
Unjustly kicked out of the Consortium Security Force, Hallam Knight has been reduced to working as a gunner, defending the precious Randenite fuel tankers from notorious extremists, the Darkspace Renegades.
Hell-bent on ending bridge travel for good, the Darkspace Renegades threaten to tear down the interstellar travel network that supports billions of lives, across a dozen worlds.
The Darkspace Renegades are outlaws and radicals. Or so Hallam thought.
When a violent encounter with an infamous mercenary group, the Blackfire Squadron, almost costs him his life, Hallam Knight finds himself at the mercy of the Darkspace Renegades and their mysterious and enigmatic leader.
Hallam Knight discovers that everything he thought he knew was a lie. Far from being the enemy, the Darkspace Renegades are humanity’s only hope – they just don’t know it yet.
The Consortium taught Hallam that no good deed goes unpunished. They’re about to find out that karma’s a bitch.
Earth Remembers (Earthrise #13) – Daniel Arenson
They walk among us. They look just like us. They plot our doom.
Some call them the scummers. Hybrids. Humans with alien DNA.
Years ago, they hatched in alien labs. They came to Earth as sleeper agents. Since then, they’ve been mingling with our society. They teach our children. They cook our food. They tend to our elders. All the while waiting. Biding their time. Hiding in plain sight.
And now they strike. With devastating force. With terrifying cruelty. They bring Earth to its knees.
But we will rise again. We are humans, brave and proud. And we will fight back!
Edge World (Undying Mercenaries Series #14) – B. V. Larson
A lonely planet circles a star on the very border of Province 921. Critical resources produced there are claimed by both the Mogwa and the Skay. War between the Galactic giants becomes more likely every day.
James McGill and Legion Varus are deployed to protect Edge World, a planet that rotates at a walking pace. Each day is as long as a year back on Earth. The sun-side of the world is baked with endless sunshine, the night-side is freezing and full of strange creatures. Living in an inhabitable zone on the edge of their world, a shadow-line between night and day, nomadic peoples roam the planet. It is these inhabitants Earth’s forces must protect.
Three fleets converge: the Mogwa, the Skay, and Earth’s growing armada. Peace talks are held, but then McGill opens his big mouth, and things go badly… Read More
Lovecraft (At the Villa Rose): What interests me most is Lovecraft’s literary doctrine, this definitive refusal of realism rooted in a no less definitive refusal of reality. Lovecraft, Houellebecq says, found both the modern world and life in general to be boring and repellent, and antithetic to artistic creation. Hence the radically abstract character of his work.
T.V. (Book and Film Globe): Any book, film, or program with Lovecraft in its 
title raises certain questions. Good and authoritative books, articles, and movies exist. But there is so much misinformation, ignorant commentary, character assassination, and blatant misappropriation—so much garbage—that one looks uncertainly at new works, wondering on which side of the divide they will land. Lovecraft was a complex man and a challenging writer about whom many have made and continue to make galling and ghastly mistakes, and those who purport to analyze and explain Lovecraft, or works about or inspired by Lovecraft, are often the worst offenders. Read More
October 8th was the 100th year birthday of science fiction writer Frank Herbert. Of course, he is best remembered for Dune.
His first story was in Doc Savage in 1946. His next story was in Startling Stories in 1952. Thereafter he had stories mostly in Astounding Science Fiction/Analog with appearances in Galaxy, Amazing Stories, Fantastic Stories, Fantastic Universe, If. He was not prolific in comparison to some but has a respectable number of stories and novels in the science fiction magazines. “Dune World” in Analog (Dec. 1963, Jan., Feb. 1964) was his second novel. That would be combined with “Prophet of Dune” (Analog Jan.-May 1965) to become Dune.
Dune has been called the greatest science fiction novel. That is a hard call to make. It is near the top if not the greatest. There are different interpretations on its importance – ecology, political intrigue, religion. I will make the case it is a damn good sword-and-planet novel. Read More
The tumult of recent events have fostered a desire to read more classic American historical fiction. To remember the stories we once told about ourselves instead of those others tell us we must be, at a time when all sides tell us to be anything other than what we are. To learn once more of such things as the tragedy of brother against brother in the clash of the Blue and the Gray in Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels. Or why the name of Benedict Arnold still brings tempers to a boil. For that, once must first understand the heights from which America’s most notorious traitor fell.
Once proclaimed “the greatest historical novel written about America,” Kenneth Roberts’ 1933 novel, Rabble in Arms, today often gets dismissed as an Arnold apology, set in the heady months of Arnold’s successes before his imminent betrayal. The second of the Arundel trilogy, Rabble in Arms picks up where Arundel ends, with the shambles of the failed Quebec campaign of the Revolutionary War. General Arnold must somehow rally the undersupplied, demoralized men and incompetent politically-appointed officers into a force capable of stopping British General Burgoyne’s impeding invasion of New York. Arnold and Burgoyne will eventually cross swords twice at a battlefield that rings throughout American history:
Saratoga.
But many smaller, personal stories are the warp and woof to the grand tapestry of history. Our eyes for these is Maine sea captain Peter Merrill, a recent volunteer to the Patriot cause, in no small part to the harassment his family receives for his brother Nathaniel’s perceived Loyalist sympathies. Peter is assigned to General Arnold, who soon uses the Arundel youth for his expertise on land and at sea in the fight for Lake Champlain. Through Merrill, we learn of the deprivations suffered by American soldiers through arduous marches with little food and even less relief from disease and flies. The events of the armies and ad hoc navies serve as a backdrop for more personal events affecting Peter. For Nathaniel has been seduced by a British spy, a real Milady de Winter, who is trying to set brother against brother and is willing to use the affections of her own niece to do so. Will Peter survive to see Arundel once more with his bond with his brother intact?
I’ll be honest. The full review of Rabble in Arms is taking time. Not because of any difficulty or deficiency to the prose, but because I find myself slowing down to savor every page. It also helps to have access to secondary materials such as the Townsends YouTube channel to unlock period custom, dress, and menu. For, like it’s contemporaries in the Argosy historical pulps, Rabble in Arms assumes the reader has a familiarity with the time period and needs no explanation of what a flip or a bateau might be. A refreshing change, to be sure, compared to the constant exposition that is common today. Unlike the pulps, though, Roberts takes a more leisurely pace through battle and feat of endurance that paradoxically heightens the stakes more than stomping on the Argosy gas. And all through this tapestry of historical events and personal story, of shot and spray and intrigue, Peter drops little pearls of wisdom hard earned that a young reader would do well to heed.
It might not be pulp, weird, or science fiction, but sometimes the past is the greatest adventure of all. I hope you will join me soon for the full review.
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 10 October, 2020
Saturday , 10, October 2020 Uncategorized Leave a commentSpace truckers, murderhobos, Hell invaders, and the Dragon Spooker fill this week’s new releases..
The Godblade – J. Christopher Tarpley
The warrior-smith Rænon, after witnessing the return of Brakur the Insane God, has returned to his homeland in Aelbrond. Now he must seek the tomb of the dead god Farick for the remains he needs to pyre-forge The Godblade, the only sword that can kill Brakur and stand against the nefarious cult of Arhai. Will the armies sworn to the cult sweep through the lands of Arginor or can Rænon bring the forces of Aelbrond together to stop them? Will cold steel prevail over sorcery and the dark gods?
Find out in The Godblade.
The Minoan Manifest (Harvey Bennett Thrillers #10) – Nick Thacker
10,000 years ago, Antarctica was not the frozen continent we know. And 6,000 years ago, they were visited by the Minoan civilization. What they found there was incredible: they weren’t alone.
When a Russian exploratory and science team discovers something miraculous on the coast of Antarctica, they race to tell their government about the strange findings. Instead of rejoicing, they are silenced.
Halfway across the world, Dr. Sarah Lindgren is tapped to help a US-based committee determine the answer to a puzzling anomaly. She engages the help of her boyfriend, Gareth Red, and his group, the Civilian Special Operations. It seems something is happening on the world’s southernmost continent, and the committee needs boots on the ground to find out what it is.
But before they leave, the CSO group finds out something else:
They aren’t the only group on the hunt.
Join Harvey “Ben” Bennett, Juliette Richardson, Dr. Sarah Lindgren, and Gareth Red as they embark on yet another world-spanning adventure.
No Fail (Dark Operator #3) – Doc Spears, Jason Anspach, and Nick Cole
Failure is a Hateful Word
For Dark Ops Sergeant Kel Turner, it’s unthinkable. Until now. Kill teams are accustomed to achieving the impossible, and Kill Team Three has done the impossible more than any other. Tasked with mission after mission, against a never-ending list of enemies, Kel and Three brace themselves to rise to the occasion yet again.
Kel lived under no doubts about his kill team’s ability to win against any odds, until an enemy thought long defeated reappears. From a dingy city locked in the center of a cold war to a nightmarish alien landscape, the one constant that defines their latest missions is that a kill team is always alone.
Living in the black world of covert operations, there are secrets, then there are secrets. The first might lead to his death. The second might lead to failure.
For this Dark Operator, in a galaxy filled with potentials, death is preferable to failure.
Operation Reaper (Murphy’s War #2) – Steve G. Johnson
The assault on hell has commenced!
When your enemy’s vampires are powered by the Devil himself, how can you win? By carrying the war to the Devil’s home ground, and Mick Murphy and his Hellbusters are about to become a giant pain in the Devil’s rear areas.
Company C went down fighting…then they woke up in Hell. Now they’re raising plenty of it behind Enemy lines, ambushing ogres and raiding demon camps for supplies. You can kill ‘em, but you can’t put ‘em down for good.
With Patton building forces at the upper edge of the Infernal Theater of Operations, and Mick’s boys halfway to the bottom, the two forces need to link up before they’re destroyed piecemeal. Happily, the walking dead of Lucifer’s legions aren’t up against panicked mortals this time, but the running, shooting, booby-trapping, and bayonetting dead!
Although Hell may not be creative, though, they’ve got an awful lot of assets. Like the Reaper, a towering, ghostly stalker whose scythe cuts down the Americans like wheat—then raises them back up like vampires!
What’s a GI supposed to do—lay down and die? Not in this man’s, Elf’s, Dwarf’s and Troll’s Army! And, after Spain, Poland, and the Alps, the Reaper’s just one more impossible they have to do…if they can. Read More
Cinema (Shuker in Movie Land): Tonight [26 September 2019], I finally got around to watching another one from my ever-expanding collection of crypto/monster B-movies on DVD. Directed by Sean Cain and first released in 2015, this one was Terror Birds. As its title suggests, Terror Birds is all about reclusive zillionaire Harvey Sullivan (played by an unrecognisable Greg ‘BJ and the Bear’ Evigan!) who follows up native reports of greatly-feared ‘death birds’ said to inhabit a couple of tiny uninhabited Caribbean islands and discovers to his amazement a single last-surviving pair of Titanis-like terror birds (aka phorusrhacids) but of enormous size (more Kelenken than Titanis), officially believed to have become extinct at least 2.5 million years ago.
Fiction (Dean Wesley Smith): Not so much for his writing, but for Kuttner’s ability to write a lot of stories. And his partnership and marriage to C.L. Moore. Henry Kuttner died in 1958 at the very young age of 43, so I never had the pleasure of meeting him. Or C.L. Moore for that matter, mostly because she stopped writing and left the field in 1963. But she was maybe the most important of the early women writers in science fiction.
Comic Books (Heavy Metal): The comics industry is a mess, and it’s messy at the top, which doesn’t make sense. While Marvel and DC both have seen great — even wild — success in the movie business, they struggle to sell physical comic books. Gerry Conway entered the field in his teens in the ’60s, and became a prolific comics writer for both Marvel and DC. He’s the writer who killed Gwen Stacy and who created The Punisher. He knows comics better than just about anyone. Read More
Mark Voger’s Monster Mash is a look at “The Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze in America 1957-1972.” This is a hardback book from Two Morrow Publishing from 2015.
I got this book thinking it would be an overview of horror from 1957-1972. No, this covers monsters in popular culture in that period. The book has six “chapters” or rather section that are sub-divided into topics.
“The Genesis” is the beginning with Screen Gems “Shock!” package of 52 Universal horror films released to T.V. Schock Theater” in Philadelphia hosted by Zacherle really got things going. Voger devotes some time to the local weekend late night horror shows around the country. That is an interesting topic. Cleveland had Ghoulardi, Pittsburgh had Chilly Billy. There is an interview with Zacherle. Sections are devoted to James Warren, Forrest J. Ackerman, Famous Monsters.
Ghoulardi
The new releases chosen for this week’s review both underperformed enough that an honest review would be uncomfortably close to a roast. Since I am still halfway through the classic Revolutionary War novel Rabble in Arms, which I intend to review next week, here are a couple reviews of older SFF books from the Castalia House Blog vault.
In Ruins of the Galaxy, by J. N. Chaney and Christopher Hopper, an intergalactic peace summit between the Republic, the Jedi-like Luma, and the canine Jujari end with a bang when three explosions rip through the summit. Now Republic Marine Lt. Magnus and Luma peacekeeper Awen must escape the enraged homeworld of the Jujari, while trying to discover who in the Republic sabotaged the peace talks.
Another #StarWarsNotStarWars series, Ruins aims at a Clone Wars adventure feel, providing enough Jedi action for those who might think Galaxy’s Edge needed more of the Force. It combines military action with epic fantasy pacing. Like most recent military SF series, Ruins draws from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan for inspiration, however, the focus is on Lt. Magnus and Awen rather than his regiment or life in the service. A lot of time is spent on where the bullets are flying, but the action doesn’t move the plot forward with the same breakneck pace. As such, Ruins needs to be read back to back with its sequel, Galactic Breach, to get a complete story. When done so, the full scope of the failed peace talks comes into focus, giving meaning to the extended tactical action scenes.
As an impending asteroid collision threatens to wipe out humanity, “Grim” Jack Mitchell has won the lottery. Not the one for a place in the few shelters set aside for survivors, but for a chance to irreversibly upload his mind into Viridian Gate Online, an MMO designed to survive the cataclysm. Soon after he arrives in game, Grim Jack learns that the offer of eternal paradise in a game hid a dire prison. For the rich, corrupt, and ruthless in the real world have made deals with the programmers to allow them to rule over the millions of unsuspecting players. Worse still, Grim Jack has stolen the key to do so from a violent drug kingpin who is ready to turn Grim Jack’s ticket for survival into eternal torture.
In Viridian Gate Online: Cataclysm, James Hunter uses the threat of extinction and transhumanism as a backdrop to the battle inside the game’s servers. To save millions, design choices, favors, and compromises were made that directly influence the evolution of the in-game story. But it’s still a game, and subject to the familiar, almost cozy tropes of litRPGs and progression fantasies. Thrust into becoming VGO’s equivalent of World of Warcraft’s Thrall, Grim Jack, a former medic, must prevail over hostile players and the increasingly perilous quests the game throws at him if he is going to defeat the drug kingpin out to ruin him. Cataclysm may be a power fantasy, but Grim Jack and his companions are grounded compared to many of his peers, lacking the indulgences common to the genre. For instance, the flamboyances of 2018 harem fantasies are nowhere to be found. As for the rattle of virtual dice and the crunch of rules, Hunter minimizes the intrusion of video games elements without shying away from the reality of playing a game in an immersive environment. But for those what want the coziness of a Let’s Play video, the encounters are pretty crunchy and consistent with the rules laid out by the story. Those readers looking for an introduction to litRPGs will find none better.
Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 3 October, 2020
Saturday , 3, October 2020 Uncategorized 2 CommentsCyberpunk mercenaries, not-so immortal cultivators, and the crime mysteries of Ray Bradbury adorn this week’s new release list.
The Acheron – Rick Partlow
Sandi and Ash never set out to be heroes.
She joined the Fleet to please her mother, the Admiral. He signed up to escape the grinding poverty of the Housing Blocks.
And the unlikely friends envisioned boring, peacetime careers as shuttle pilots. The Tahni Imperium had other ideas…
Caught in the desperate fury of the Battle for Mars, the two young pilots wind up the last defense against an alien armada, but their war is just beginning. Recruited to fly the Fleet’s newest weapon in this new war, they take the fight deep into the heart of the Imperium and battle not just against the enemy but against incompetent leadership and ineffectual tactics.
Can the unconventional strategies of a pair of hotshot young pilots change the course of the war? And when the time comes that a choice has to be made between duty to command and loyalty to a friend, which of the two will be willing to make one last flight alone…
Dragontiarna: Crowns – Jonathan Moeller
The boldness of the Shield Knight has won a respite for the realm of Andomhaim, but the Heralds of Ruin still threaten to unleash catastrophe.
Ridmark Arban must prepare to face the Heptarchy and its legions of fanatic orcs, but the gathered forces of Andomhaim may not be enough to resist the iron fist of Warlord Agravhask.
Tyrcamber Rigamond leads the men of the Empire against the Fallen Order, but the necromancers have prepared a sinister trap for him.
One that might bring final victory for the Heralds of Ruin…
Killer, Come Back To Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury – Ray Bradbury
Celebrating Ray Bradbury’s centennial, a deluxe illustrated commemorative collection of his finest crime stories — tales as strange and wonderful as his signature fantasy.
Time travelers…dark carnivals…living automata…and detectives? Honoring the 100th birthday of Ray Bradbury, renowned author of Fahrenheit 451, this new, definitive collection of the master’s less well-known crime fiction, published in a high-grade premium collectible edition, features classic stories and rare gems, a number of which became episodes of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and THE RAY BRADBURY THEATER, including the tale Bradbury called “one of the best stories in any field that I have ever written.”
Is it murder to destroy a robot if it looks and speaks and thinks and feels like a human being? Can a ventriloquist be incriminated by the testimony of his own dummy? Can a time traveler prevent his younger self from killing the woman they both loved? And can the survivor of a pair of Siamese twins investigate his own brother’s murder? No other writer has ever rivaled the imagination and narrative gifts of Ray Bradbury, and the 20 unforgettable stories in this collection demonstrate this singular writer’s extraordinary range, influence and emotional power.
Legacy (Baldwin’s Legacy #6) – Nathan Hystad
New allies. New enemies. New life.
Admiral Thomas Baldwin has more to live for after the recent news. All eyes are on him as the biggest war in Concord Space history begins in earnest.
Captain Treena Starling is sent to stop High Elder Wylen’s allies from wreaking havoc on their already weakened partners.
Ven Ittix is torn between his people and the Concord, and is offered something he could never have imagined.
Lark Keen makes a decision that will affect the outcome of the Concord forever.
Legacy is the end of an era. But to many, it’s just the beginning… Read More
Sensor Sweep: Zork, Cloud Based Gaming, Flames of War, The Keep
Monday , 28, September 2020 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsGaming (Black Gate): Back in the day, I used to play a lot of computer 
games. And to be honest, I still spend a fair amount of time each week playing, though these days it’s pretty much limited to Lord of the Rings Online. I started out in the late 1970’s on the Apple II computers in our high school or at the houses of a few of my friends who were lucky enough to have a computer. I bought my first computer, a Commodore 64, when I went to college in 1981, and played a variety of games on it. I particularly remember Wizard of Wor, which was a port from the arcade game that I loved (my friends and I spent a lot of time, and quarters, in arcades during this period).
Authors (DMR Books): I first encountered David Drake’s name in the front 
of a used copy of Legion from the Shadows. Therein, Karl Edward Wagner thanked David for determining the timespan within which Robert E. Howard’s Bran Mak Morn yarns had to have taken place, according to clues in the texts. Since my inclinations tend to run in similar directions, Mr. Drake sounded like a cool guy to me.
Around fifteen years ago, there was an online magazine, Flashing Swords. One story that stayed with me was William King’s “Guardian of the Dawn.” The story stood above others in delivery. It featured Kormak, a member of an order that fights servants of darkness. “Guardian of the Dawn” was dark and moody with a strong supernatural element. I loved it.
William King has since written novels featuring Kormak. Stealer of Flesh is the first novel. The novel is a series of four novellas wherein Kormak tracks a demon released from imprisonment by a foolish nobleman. Kormak fails to stop the release of the demon in “The Demon Unleashed.” The climax is very well paced. Read More
“Because I believe in calling things what they are…And you should make a habit of it too. A group of people who can’t choose an insignia when they have a whole day to decide, who can’t even toss a coin to choose, are a spineless herd…
“And a herd like that is perfect cannon fodder.”
“We have changed our minds,” the watcher spoke directly to me. He didn’t look as repulsive and alien as they usually did–he looked normal, even kind. “Yes. We have changed our minds. We like you now..”
LitRPG fantasies, as a genre, tend to be romanticize the gamer as either a normal person with a hobby or an aloof outsider waiting for the right moment to shine. But what about the obsessive gamer, the type who eats and sleeps with their headsets on, who uses gaming to detach themselves from a reality too painful to bear? In Small Unit Tactics, these lost souls are so far removed from reality that another picks them up. Now, in an alien world one realm away from Hell, these gamers must fight for the gods in a crude parody of a PvP battleground. Alexander Romanov takes an unflinching examination of the types of people who become obsessive gamers, and finds them wanting.
Except in determination.
If that sounds nothing like the elaborate Diablo II and World of Warcraft LitRPG clones with their magic, combat skills, and stat sheets, it is but the first of many departures from the established formulas. First of all, and most important to many readers, Romanov avoids stat sheets by avoiding stats altogether. A character’s strength is determined solely by their muscles. Hope you’ve been lifting, because swords and armor are heavy. Any character growth, as a gamer would recognize it, is conveyed purely through words. Read More