Author Archives: Keith West

Hot Lead, Cold Iron: The Best of Two Genres

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Hot-Lead-Cold-Iron_cvr_frnt1-e1397613333382Hot Lead, Cold Iron: A Mick Oberon Job
Ari Marmell
Titan Books
Trade Paper $14.95
Ebook $9.99

I really like a good gangster story, especially a Depression era gangster story. If it’s set in Chicago, well, that’s a plus. And while tales set in the realm of faery aren’t among those I actively seek out, I’m willing to give one a try. Especially when the author is Ari Marmell.

And when Marmell combines both of those genres, I’m in. I would like to thank Tom Green of Titan Books for the review copy. I would also like to apologize for letting this one slip through the cracks and not reviewing it sooner.

Marmell first introduced the character of Mick Oberon in the short story “The Purloined Ledger”, included in his collection Strange New Words (reviewed here).

Oberon (yes, he’s related to that Oberon) is a private detective in Chicago.  Capone went to prison a year before.  Now the power structure among the mob is trying to restabilize.

Oberon is asked by a mobster to do a favor for his boss’s wife.  At first he turns down the job, but then he discovers his landlord and friend needs cash to keep the building.  So Mick reluctantly agrees to take the job. Continue reading →

Robert E. Howard’s Swords of the North Available for Preorder

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Swords-smThe Robert E. Howard Foundation announced last week that their next book, Swords of the North, is available for preorder.  I’ve ordered my copy.  Is that not a great cover?  The book ships in December, so it would make an excellent Christmas gift for the REH fan in your life, even if that fan is yourself.  Maybe especially if that fan is yourself.

Here’s what the announcement, lifted from the REH Foundation page:

There is a clear self-consistency among all of Howard’s tales which will readily demonstrate that underlying it all is a coherent vision of a fictional history of the world and mankind, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s term a “secondary” world, internally consistent, full of strangeness and wonder, “free from the domination of observed fact,” yet quite credible, a world rooted in the familiar if populated with the unfamiliar, a world that combines the ordinary with the extraordinary. Just as Tolkien’s “Arda” is our Earth, so too is Howard’s world.

-from Rusty Burke’s introduction

The REH Foundation Press is proud to present Swords of the North, a collection of Robert E. Howard’s Celtic/Viking adventure stories. The book checks in at 540 pages, and will be printed in hardback with dust jacket, in a limited first-print quantity of 200 copies, each individually numbered. Cover art by Aaron Miller and introduction by Rusty Burke. This volume marks the first publication of the fragment that begins with, “Between berserk battle rages,” which features Cormac Mac Art’s partner, Wulfhere Skull-splitter. It also collects for the first time in one volume all of the James Allison stories and fragments, both incomplete drafts of “The Temple of Abomination,” and other rarities. The book is expected to ship in December 2014. Pre-order yours today.

Prices

Swords of the North is $45 for REHF Members, $50 for non-members (all prices in US dollars) plus shipping. (How to become a member? Look here.)

Shipping prices and additional details (such as the contents) can be found at the REH Foundation website.

I Look at The Spawn of Cthulhu

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Lovecraft Spawn Cthulhu frontMy latest post on the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series at Black Gate is up.  It’s over The Spawn of Chthulu, edited by Lin Carter.  Here’s the link to it.

This a collection of stories centered around Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness”.  All of the stories that follow have some connection to Lovecraft’s tale.  I take a look at all of them.  If you’re into Lovecraft, check it out.

Here, Kid, Your First Sample is Free: A Review of Shattered Shields

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Layout 1Shattered Shields
Jennifer Brozak and Bryan Thomas Schmidt, ed.
Baen Books
Trade paper, $15.00
ebook $8.99 Kindle Nook Baen

In case you’re wondering why I titled this post the way I did, it’s because this book is a perfect gateway drug into heroic fantasy.  All of the stories are well written and fast-moving, and with the exception of a couple that simply weren’t to my taste, I enjoyed every single one of them.  I’d like to thank Baen Books for the review copy.

There are seventeen stories here, so I’m not going to give a summary of each one.  I’m gong to focus on the ones that stood out to me.  Those of you who’ve read my reviews for a while know how my tastes stack up against yours, so even if we don’t always like the same things, you’ll get a good idea of what to expect from Shattered Shields.  Continue reading →

When October Goes

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Layout 1Now that Halloween is over, I’m going to shift gears a bit.  Time to return to more sword and sorcery here at Adventures Fantastic.  Or at least solid adventure fantasy.  I’ve already started reading Shattered Shields, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt, which hits shelves on Tuesday.  I don’t know if I’ll have the review up by the release date, but I’ll do my best.

Pyr and Solaris have both sent me copies of some cool titles since the first of the summer that I never got a chance to work into the schedule.  I really want to go back and pick read some of them.  They’re mostly fantasy, but there’s some science fiction mixed in.  Also, Night Shade has sent me some titles, and one of the first I’ll read is Stories of the Raksura, vol.1, by Martha Wells.  I’ll probably start that one by the end of the week.

Speaking of science fiction, there are some titles sitting around I want to read.  Some of them will be popping up at Futures Past and Present as I work them in.  I’ll also be reading some mystery/noir titles and reviewing them at Gumshoes, Gats, and Gams.

Plus there are some titles from various other publishers I want to read.  I’ll be mixing them in at random.  I’m going to try to strike a balance between titles that someone has sent me and stuff I just want to read for fun.  So you never know what’s going to pop up next.

The Shapes of Midnight by Joseph Payne Brennan

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Shapes of MidnightThe Shapes of Midnight
Joseph Payne Brennan
Berkley, 1980
mass market paperback, $2.25, 176 p.
Introduction by Stephen King

Joseph Payne Brennan has sadly become one of the more neglected writers of fantasy and horror from the second half of the 20th Century.  Fortunately there are were copies of his work available at reasonable prices.  Which is why a couple of weeks ago, after I’d read about half the stories in this book, I bought them.  By reasonable prices, I mean in the $10-25 dollar range for used hardcovers.  (Brennan created an occult detective named Lucius Leffing; I managed to snag a signed collection of some of those stories.)

When I did a search on Advanced Book Exchange for The Shapes of Midnight, the cheapest copy I found (there were only 4 of them at the time) was nearly $60.  Ouch.  Continue reading →

The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard: “The Children of the Night”

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Howard HorrorThe Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Del Rey
trade paper $18.00
ebook Kindle $11.59 Nook $13.99

I read this story for the first time recently in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy collection The Spawn of Cthulhu.  (The subject of my next BAF post for Black Gate.)  Just from the title, I could have sworn I’d read it before, but I think I would have remembered this one.

“The Children of the Night” was first published in Weird Tales in the April-May issue of 1931.  It’s an interesting little story in that it ties two of Howard’s series characters in with H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Continue reading →

A Journey Through The October Country

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October Country 1The October Country
Ray Bradbury
Illustrations by Joe Mugnaini
mass market paperback 307 p., $7.99
ebook Kindle $7.21 Nook $10.99

I first read this collection in the early ’80s, around 1980 or 1981, I think.  Some of the stories have stayed with me (“The Small Assassin”, “The Scythe”), while some I’d completely forgotten (“Touched with Fire”, “The Cistern”).

Most of the stories were recycled from Dark Carnival, with a few being left out and a few being added.  I’d hoped to have time to read the ones left out and discuss the differences in the two collections, but that will have to wait for a later post.  For those unaware, Dark Carnival, from Arkham House, was Bradbury’s first collection.  Original copies are hard to come by and will cost you a pretty penny.  The author’s definitive edition from a decade or so ago isn’t cheap either.

Fortunately there isn’t that much difference in the contents, and the casual reader can enjoy the stories as they appear in this volume.  There will be spoilers on some of them. Continue reading →

A Look at Weird Tales 362

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weird-tales-issue-362-front-coverBefore I start the review, I’d like to thank Doug Draa for the review copy and apologize for taking so long to get the review posted.  The review  copy is a PDF file, and I’d intended to read it while traveling over the summer.  For some reason, my ereader (a first generation device) wouldn’t open the file.  Anyway, since I hate reading for fun on a backlit screen (which I do enough of for work), it was a while before I managed to read it.  So thanks and apologies, Doug.  I promise to do better in the future.

There are a total of seventeen pieces of fiction, five poems, a tribute to Parke Godwin by Marvin Kaye,an interview with Joyce Carol Oates, and a look at how one of the illustrations was developed by Jeff Wong.

Overall, I found this issue to be a strong one, though not without a few stories which weren’t to my taste.  The theme for this issue is The Undead.  And no, not all of the themed stories are about zombies.  Just some of them, which is good because I’m not a big zombie fan.  But overall I found this issue to be a great read for Halloween. Continue reading →