Dark Muse News: JANGAR! Beastlord of Muu – #1 and 2
Dark Muse News has been a fan of Rogues in the House podcast and their books (i.e., A Book of Blades Vol I and Vol II); one of those rogues is Logan D. Whitney. This June and July, he released the initial entries of an expected six chronicling his lone jungle warrior: Jangar! These are fantastic, compact adventures that somehow balance immediate crazy challenges (i.e., save a princess from a sacrificial ritual, and survive gladiator combat viewed by cannibalistic harpies) with the more chronic concerns (seeking vengeance for the slaughter of family members, and overcoming the decline of civilization).
Beyond being inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs and R.E. Howard, the author specifically tips his hat to Lin Carter’s “Things of Lemuria,” Cozzy (Gung Ho Geeks reviewer), and Steve Dilks’ “Guthar.”Logan D. Whitney explains his character in the introduction:
Jangar himself is an obvious take on the child-raised-by-wild-animals genre that includes Mowgli from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and Ki-Gor from the pulp magazine Jungle Stories. Even the name Jangar is a very slight variation on Robert Moore Williams’ “Jongor”, an Australian dinosaur-riding jungle man from the pages of Fantastic Adventures. The following story is actually inspired by the very first Tarzan novel that I read, Tarzan and the Lost Empire.
Prior being introduced to him, Jangar was raised with sabretooth tigers. He grows into a beast master; well, the series title actually calls him “Beastlord of Muu”, so move over Dar and your black panther, Jangar usurps you (referencing the classic 1982 S&S movie Beast Master). Jangar has a feline sister-in-law named “Shassa” who seeks vengeance for the slaughtering of their parents. And Muu is the milieu they live in, or the continent they live on. With jungles and growing over ruined civilizations, it is ripe with mystic history and weird biology. There are abundant hybrids here, from bird-men and ape-men, and alien-mind-brain things.
Beyond the pulpy inspirations, JANGAR! Slaves of the Mind Mage and JANGAR! Citadel of the Winged Queen evoke vibes of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek (with contacting, negotiating, and combating alien entities as in “Return to Tomorrow” from Star Trek, 1968) and mythical melee as per Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion harpies from Jason and the Argonauts (1963).
In the JANGAR! Beastlord of Muu series, the wonder of old-school adventure cinema collides with the untamed imagination of modern pulp fantasy. Key takeaway: Jangar! is genuine fun, readily digestible, and ripe with character-heavy pulp goodness.
Read this to learn more about the first two installments, read excerpts, learn where the series is going, and get answers from the author in a short Q&A session.
Tarzan-sized thrills, sword-and-sorcery fury, and monsters worthy of the silver screen — welcome to the world of Jangar!
Book Blurbs & Jangar’s Journey
#1 JANGAR! – SLAVES OF THE MIND MAGE
Before the dawn of known civilization, upon the primeval continent of Muu, JANGAR seeks vengeance for the slaying of his adoptive family, but finds cosmic horror instead. Fleeing the gnashing teeth of a living god and its tribe of devoted ape-men, priestess YALA in tow, the jungle-born wildman discovers eldritch secrets brooding in the darkest corners of his forest home. Might and mind must do battle beneath the crumbling dome of an extraterrestrial temple, where the fate of an ancient Earth sways in the balance. But for JANGAR, feral warrior of a lost world, survival is not an option. It is a way of life. Experience a pulse-pounding homage to the golden age of pulp! If you crave the epic adventure of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and the lurid, sorcerous worlds of Lin Carter’s Thongor, look no further than the lost world of JANGAR!
#2 JANGAR! – CITADEL OF THE WINGED QUEEN
Before the dawn of known civilization, upon the primeval continent of Muu, JANGAR seeks vengeance for the slaying of his adoptive family, but finds himself a captive instead. While tracking his sabertooth sister, SHASSA, through the trackless jungle on the trail of mighty GOR-GOM, the beast man who’d slain his family, JANGAR is ambushed from above and swept away to an arena of horror. Blood-feuds must be settled and set aside if anyone is to survive the machinations of the WINGED QUEEN! But for JANGAR, feral warrior of a lost world, survival is not an option. It is a way of life.
#3: JANGAR! Crimes of the Serpentmancer – In progress
#4-#6: The SIXTH release will be included in an omnibus edition available in classic MASS MARKET PAPERBACK!
Excerpts showcasing Antagonists
Ur-Men described as ape-men, are introduced performing a ritual in a jungle
Broad-shouldered half-men pranced wildly about a central fire to the drummer’s hideous beat. Others brandished crude instruments of murder in the thick jungle air, hooting and howling with savage lust. There were women, too, and children, all entranced by the throbbing sound. Near the fire, there gesticulated the black shadow of a dread witch-man, strange song slipping from drooling, fanged lips. In one hand, he waved a gnarled stick crowned in a shriveled human head. In the other, he clutched a horn….
Tyrannosaurus God, “Thok”
The reptilian giant stood on two legs, thick as boles, its three-toed feet hideously clawed. Atop a stout neck, the monstrous head was little more than a set of colossal jaws. Beady eyes roved the cheering mass, alive with ophidian intellect. Into the darkness stretched its bulk, tapering to a point at the end of a swishing tail. Strangest of all, however, were the pair of vestigial arms sprouting from the creature’s heaving chest.
Zaarthaax, a child of Qarn
Gone was the mighty idol of human perfection. In its place drifted silently a misshapen travesty of flesh. Nowhere did Yala find the finely molded frame she saw before. In its stead was a weak, half-born frame floating limply above a raised dais. Frail limbs hung lank from a vaguely human shape, useless and weak. Atop the pliant trunk squatted an unseemly, bloated cranium wrapped in pulsating veins. Whatever features its face bore were partially hidden by the obscene mass of brain space.
Bird-men
The creature before him was neither bird nor man, but some unseemly amalgamation of each. Gracile limbs sprouted from a well-muscled trunk, but the comparison to humankind ended there. Its legs were spindly and scaled, ending in the hooked talons of a harpy. Broad, feathered wings unfurled from the abomination’s naked back. It leered at Jangar with black, beady eyes set deep within the sockets of a bald, ungainly head. The misshapen cranium bobbed uncannily atop a thin, sinuous neck. Where a man’s mouth might have been, a snout tapered instead into a cruelly curved beak.
Queen Sumiia
She was slender, yet alluringly ample. Long, fiery hair ran down the length of her back, swishing just below a shapely rear. Her breasts heaved beneath a thin, white garment. Then, as the woman stretched out thin arms to silence her subjects, Jangar realized it was no garment at all, but downy feathers covering her entire human-like body. There was no beak like the others, but soft, curving lips and dark, sensuous eyes. Neither did her legs taper to predatory talons. Still, an expanse of colorfully feathered wings spread from between her naked shoulders.
Pit Dweller (a titanic Sarlacc-pit/Dune-sandworm amalgam)
The earth began to churn, transforming the central arena into a viscous whirlpool of sodden sand. Thick, coiled loops of pinkish, elastic flesh writhed just beneath the roil. A slick coat of translucent slime shimmered across the cords of unseemly, pliant flesh. The dead men were swept into the eddy with a hideous sucking sound. A sickening, satisfied burble issued forth from the drain. A long, breathless space passed where all was terribly silent. Then, as a sudden geyser, a font of blood and bone ejected forth from the pit. The entire flock erupted in a wild cheer, flinging themselves from the seats… From the frothing sand squirmed a visage of primordial nightmare. A great fleshy trunk twisted upward like wriggling innards. At the bole’s blunted end were no eyes, nor recognizable features of any sort save a gaping, tooth-filled maw. From what steaming mire this half-formed abomination might have crawled, neither combatant could guess.
Pulpy-Vibe Excerpts
Brutal Melee
Jangar jumped aside on spring-trap legs. Then, tracking the keening blade through empty space, he latched onto the swordsman’s forearm with an iron grip.
The Jackal yelped in surprise. He tried to tug away his sword arm, but found Jangar’s grasp unshakable.
Then, with both hands, Jangar snapped Rohzam’s arm like a dry branch.
The desert-dweller screamed, equal parts shock and pain. The bone in his sword arm was broken cleanly in twain. The sword he’d held so confidently fell silent to the sand.
Jungle Code
All death had a purpose, a place in the jungle’s natural order. Slaying for sport, for lust, was an aberration.
Poignant Despair
I descend from a pure line of noble royalty, long-lived and nigh ageless. My people, however, breed as do any other living thing. With each subsequent brood, a new deformity is revealed. With each generation, a new horror.
Feline Warfare
The axe swung a deadly arc, but the warrior could not strike fast enough. With the swipe of her paw, she separated the weapon from his hand, rending jagged wounds across his arm.
The human hardly had time to scream as Shassa sank her teeth into the meat of his naked shoulder. Her flanks impulsively shuddered at the pleasurable sensation of her fangs sheathing deep into the trunk of her prey. The taste of a successful kill flooded her senses, drenching her tongue. She relished the scent of it filling her nostrils.
Had this been a hunt, she’d have dragged the limp corpse to some hideaway tree and taken her time to feast.
As it were, there was no time…
Q&A with L.D. Whitney
How has your archeology expertise informed your fiction? Presumably it has for Savage or Honor Among Rogues?
I really try to lean into my experience in archaeology, as well as history and geography, when writing adventures in a grounded reality. I think it’s important to give each setting and story a sense of reality. At its heart, I believe adventure should inspire readers to go out, see the world, experience new things, and have adventures of their own. Dropping in tantalizing cultural and historical tidbits is not just a way of using my education, but to hopefully inspire readers to dig a little further. Savage, hopefully to be released in November, took a lot research about Tibetan culture and geography, as well as Victorian espionage. Of course, it is an H. Rider Haggard-style adventure through and through, so I don’t want to get bogged down in details. Hopefully there is just enough in there for good flavor.
Should we expect tomb-raiding… I mean excavation… of ruins by Jangar?
Jangar! is the one place I put basically zero research. Jangar and his world are full-blown products of my most unbridled imagination, more often paying homage to the authors, stories, and characters that influenced me. That said, the fourth Jangar story is both, “Hoard of the Cyclops King,” is both a treasure hunt adventure and an homage to Ray Harryhausen films like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. I think its going to be a good capstone to the paperback of the first four novelettes.
Is 6 volumes a set thing, or just a prediction for a volume? What can we expect out of Jangar’s journey into book form?
I had originally imagined a run of six Jangar! stories in a single paperback, but as the scope of each story grew to roughly 10k words, I realized that the mass market paperback version would end up pretty unwieldy. I am a faithful devotee of back-pocket-sized reading material, and I want to keep it that way. So the first paperback release will include 4 complete novelettes, plus a map and some interior art. The silver lining, though, is that it lets me expand the last two stories into full-length novellas that will release in paperback and eBook simultaneously.
About L.D. Whitney
Logan D. Whitney is an author, archaeologist, and educator. He dwells in the High Desert with his wife, daughter, and two dogs. He is the author of Honor Among Rogues, A Crooked Mile, and JANGAR! Beastlord of Muu.
❖ instagram.com/cliffhangerpress
S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at Blackgate.com, regularly reviewing books, interviewing authors on ‘Beauty & Art in Weird-Fantasy Fiction’, and running Dark Muse News. He has taken lead roles organizing the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium (2021-2023) and the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group; he even interned for Tales from the Magician’s Skull magazine and is an Assistant Editor for Battleborn magazine. As for crafting stories, he has contributed eight entries across Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series, and has an entry in Weirdbook Annual #3: Zombies. He independently publishes novels under the banner Dyscrasia Fiction®; short stories of these have appeared in Whetstone and Swords & Sorcery online magazine, Rogues In the House Podcast’s A Book of Blades (Vol. I and Vol. II), DMR’s Terra Incognita, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Savage Realms Magazine, and Michael Stackpole’s S&S Chain Story 2 Project.