Search Results for: dorgo mad shadows

IMHO: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF SWORD & SORCERY AND HEROIC FANTASY

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The Evolving and Cloned Barbarian Conan, King Kull, Cormac, Bran Mak Morn — names that conjure magic, characters often imitated, but never duplicated. These creations of Robert E. Howard (circa 1930) started the Sword and Sorcery boom of the 1960s and early 1970s. Then there are the barbarian warriors inspired by Howard — “Clonans,” as one writer recently referred to these sword-slinging, muscle-bound characters. A fair observation, but in some cases, not so true. I prefer to think of these…

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DEMONS ARE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND: Call of the Cambion (The Cambion Journals — Book Two) by Andrew P. Weston

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Augustus Thorne is a Cambion — a human/demon hybrid. Cursed with a hunger he can barely control, it’s been a struggle to retain his humanity. All he’s ever wanted to do is enjoy what everyone else takes for granted. To lead a normal life. Fall in love. Start a family. Alas, such things are denied him because of what he is. Fated to feed off humans, he has channeled his self-loathing into a quest for revenge. For over two hundred…

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Demons are Forever: Review of A Hybrid’s Tale. The Cambion Journals: Book One by Andrew P. Weston

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“Cambion: the half-human offspring of the union between a human male and a Succubus, or a human female and an Incubus.”  A Hybrid’s Tale is the latest offering by Andrew P. Weston. It’s a short, fast-paced novel set in the realm of “demondim,” and is the first book in his new series, The Cambion Journals. It’s “billed” as Occult Horror, but it’s much more than that. Weston skillfully blends and cross-breeds genres: supernatural horror and science fiction, fantasy and mythology,…

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Blood Quantum: Fresh Zombie, Native-American Inspired Mayhem

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 Blood Quantum was originally released at the 2019 Cannes Film Market. It is now available online, i.e. via Amazon Prime rental and AMC streaming services. It is one of the best and most original zombie flicks I’ve seen in years. Character-driven, with plenty of human drama, it is filled with action, blood and violence, and one horrendous scene I’ve never seen in any movie about the living dead. Great script and direction, the film is set on the Red…

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IMHO: A SECOND LOOK — The Silistra Quartet by Janet E. Morris

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Janet Morris is a prolific author and has published a library’s worth of fantastic novels, enough to keep a reader busy for years. She has written everything from science fiction and heroic fantasy, to historical fiction and modern-day thrillers, many of them in collaboration with her husband, Chris Morris. Among her many novels are Outpassage, The 40-Minute War, The Kerrion Empire Saga, The Beyond Sanctuary Trilogy, and The Sacred Band. In addition, Janet and Chris were among the original writers…

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Panic at the Inferno: MYSTICS IN HELL, published by Perseid Press

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“It’s just because I have picked a little about mystics that I have no use for mystagogues. Real mystics don’t hide mysteries, they reveal them. They set a thing up in broad daylight, and when you’ve seen it it’s still a mystery. But the mystagogues hide a thing in darkness and secrecy, and when you find it, it’s a platitude.” ― G. K. Chesterton After a few unforeseen delays, Mystics in Hell has finally arrived. This is the latest edition…

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Three Things That Scared Me When I Was A Kid

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I’ve written a few articles for Black Gate about the films and novels of my childhood that inspired me to write fiction, and today I’m once again taking a walk down Memory Lane to visit the old Nostalgia Nook. First, let me say it’s a safe bet that we all grew up with dinosaurs, aliens, mythological creatures, and certainly the film genres of horror, fantasy science fiction, and monster films. I think it’s safe to say that most of us…

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Hercules: Hero and Victim, Part 2

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Today I’m going to finish up my 2-part article on Hercules (Part 1 covered his origin, his “twelve labors”, and his growing wisdom). Once again, I will quote from Bulfinch’s Mythology (a series including The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes), by Thomas Bulfinch; God, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece, by W.H.D. Rouse; and Mythology, by Edith Hamilton. For this second part, I’ve also sourced Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book IX. As I mentioned in the…

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Hercules: Hero and Victim, Part 1

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One of the greatest and probably the most famous hero in Greek mythology is Heracles, whom the Romans called Hercules, the name I first heard, thanks to certain films, when I was a kid. Some scholars call him by his original Greek name, others by the Roman version. Forgive me if I bounce back and forth between the two. A while back, I decided to revisit three films which had a great impact on me when I was a kid,…

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Tales of Attluma by David C. Smith: A Review and Oron Series Tour Guide

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David C. Smith was the 2019 Guest of Honor at Howard Days 2019 for good reason, having written the acclaimed Robert E. Howard: A Literary Biography in 2018 to complement his decades of writing Sword & Sorcery (he has 26 novels written or co-written, including the Red Sonja series with Richard L. Tierney, the Oron and The Fall of the First World series, and more). He crafts his own flavor of adventure-horror with his Tales of Attluma (teased earlier at  Black Gate), heavily influenced by Robert E. Howard…

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