“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun) Pulp Fest took place last week in Pittsburgh. It’s a really cool event, and the Hilton Doubletree is a nice site. Steeger Books rolls out its summer line at this event. And for the…
Neither Beg Nor Yield (Rogue Blades Entertainment, April 2024) I can’t say if Jason M. Waltz and his Rogue Blades Entertainment’s swansong is the largest collection of Sword & Sorcery ever published, but it’s damn close. It’s also the most metal. From this over-the-top, blood-splash cover featuring an axe headed toward the reader’s face to the powerful black & white line art that runs throughout. there’s a Savage Sword of Conan-meets-Heavy Metal vibe to the layout that tells you exactly…
So in our first series post, we had a LONG post on ACD’s 1923 essay – The Truth Behind Sherlock Holmes – for Collier’s The National Weekly. This week, it’s an earlier one he which wrote for The Strand. “The Adventure of the Dying Detective” ran in The Strand in December of 1913 (appearing the prior month over in America, in Collier’s). There wouldn’t be another Holmes story until September of 1917, with His Last Bow appearing in both The…
March-April 2024 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and the Winter 2024 Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Covers by Eli Bischof (for “Ganny Goes to War”), Eldar Zakirov (for “How Sere Kept Herself Together”) and Mondolithic Studios. There’s some great old-time serial adventure in this month’s print SF magazines. In the Asimov’s SF novella “How Sere Kept Herself Together,” Alexander Jablokov brings back his cynical detective Sere Glagolit (introduced in “How Sere Picked Up Her Laundry,”…
January-February 2024 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact and Asimov’s Science Fiction. Cover art by Julie Dillon, and Maurizio Manzieri (for “Burning Grannies”) It’s February 10th, and I’m a little concerned to see there’s no sign of the January/February issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Not on their website or Facebook Page, both of which still show the November-December issue, and not on Twitter/X or Amazon. I can’t even find a copy of the cover, which I…
There are a lot of ways to go about writing a Sherlock Holmes story. Some folks attempt to very carefully emulate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own style, and to turn out a tale that feels as if it might have been penned (or typed these days) by the creator of the great detective himself. No surprise that results vary. GREATLY. Hugh Ashton and Denis O. Smith are the best I’ve found in this regard. You can find stories ranging from…
Fantasy Annual III (Timescape/Pocket Books, May 1981). Cover by Lisa Falkenstern Today we’re jumping back four decades to Fantasy Annual III, the third volume of Terry Carr’s companion series to his legendary and long-running Best Science Fiction of the Year, which ran from 1972 to the year he died, 1987. Fantasy Annual, which underwent a name change (and a change in publisher) lasted only five volumes, 1978-1982. But it was lauded in its day, and I still miss it. Fantasy…
September-October 2023 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by Shutterstock, Tomislav Tikulin, and Marianne Plumridge There’s plenty of great stuff in this month’s print magazines, including a new Diving Universe novella by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, an homage to the 1958 classic The Blob by Eric Choi, a chilling story of the Dead Letter Office by David Erik Nelson, the gruesome secret of the alien Deviltree by…
July/August 2023 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by 123RF, Eldar Zakirov (for “Bridges”), and Mondolithic Studios The big news for the print SF magazines this month isn’t good. In March Amazon stopped selling Kindle subscriptions to Asimov’s SF and Analog, and current issues will only be available for purchase until September 4, 2023. After that, Amazon will only offer access to the magazines through their…
The only thing more dangerous than the dead are the living After all the praise, complaints and criticism finally subsided, I decided to watch the last two seasons of The Walking Dead, having taken a long break from the series for my own personal reasons. This is a follow-up to my 2-part article on 9 Seasons in Hell: The Walking Dead, from 2019, BC — Before Covid: 9 Seasons of Hell on Earth, Part One and 9 Seasons of Hell…