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The arrival of the electronic format of text and print on demand has allowed a flourishing of the small press. Niche genres that the Big 5 would not look at can be presented economically. Savage Realms April 2024 is if I am correct, the 28th issue of the magazine. I salute their hard work the […]

I have enjoyed reading future war/WW3 novels over the years – Ralph Peters, John Antal, Ian Slater, Tom Clancy, Harold Coyle come to mind. A new entry is Mongol Moon by Mark Sibley. The author bio states: “Mark Sibley is a corporate crisis manager and war gamer. He’s developed and facilitated over a hundred war […]

This is a guest post from Jared: Prisoner of the Horned Helmet is the first in a four-book series to tell the story of Gath of Baal a.k.a. the Death Dealer from Frank Frazetta’s famed paintings. James SIlke is listed as the author of the Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer series (not to be confused with […]

This is a guest post from Jared: Outlaws of the Marsh is one of four classic Chinese epics. The most famous of these four epics is probably Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. Numerous international video games are based on this novel about the tripartite civil war that ended the Han dynasty. A […]

Die By the Sword is the newest anthology from DMR Books. “From the hells beneath the hells comes a brand-new anthology of sword and sorcery adventure! DMR Books presents yet another tome of fantastic tales by some of the most exciting authors in the field today. These scribes of blood and thunder maintain the legacy […]

Urban fantasy is a more recent genre that I have not read much. Declan Finn’s Hell Spawn: Saint Tommy is the first in the series first published in 2018. Detective Thomas Nolan of the New York Police Department starts his day bringing in a purse snatcher on the way to work. He smells something really […]

This is is a guest post by Matthew Pungitore: Obsession in The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers; a Sentiment, or Review By Matthew Pungitore Introduction Benvenuti, signore e signori, my ladies and gentlemen! I am Matthew Pungitore, and in this article, I’ll be briefly discussing, con amore, my personal opinions on the theme of obsession […]

There used to be something called the paperback midlist. The midlist were books that were not best sellers but made some profit. Used to be publishers made money by making a little money on many titles. Not so much now. There were writers who wrote paperbacks who started out in the pulp magazines: Louis L’Amour, […]

This is a guest post from Matthew Pungitore: Introduction Ciao and bienvenue, meine Damen und Herren, ladies and gentlemen! I am Matthew Pungitore, arcane flâneur and xanthic-robed hermit, once again drawn back from the pessimum of today and looking towards the golden past—hence, the phrase “où sont les neiges d’antan?” from Villon—albeit, were I to […]

S. M. Stirling’s Conan: Blood of the Serpent is the first in a new period of Conan the Cimmerian pastiche novels. What is a pastiche you ask? A pastiche is an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period. L. Sprague de Camp began writing Conan pastiche stories in […]

Black Mask magazine is considered to be one of the most influential of pulp magazine along with Weird Tales, Astounding Stories/Science Fiction, and Argosy. All had a profound impact on popular fiction and culture. Black Mask was the magazine that changed crime-mystery-detective fiction from the locked room to the mean streets. Dashiell Hammett and Carroll […]

I wrote that William R. Forstchen’s One Second After was the scariest book I ever read. The Final Day is the third book in the series. This picks up six months after the events in One Year After end. John Matherson is delivered a message from the neighboring community from an army officer who claims […]