Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 17

Non-Fiction Spotlight: Slaying the Dragon – A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons by Ben Riggs

After the Hugos is before the next Hugos, so I’m continuing my Non-Fiction Spotlight project, where I interview the authors/editors of SFF-related non-fiction books that come out in 2022 and are eligible for the 2023 Hugo Awards. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

For more recommendations for SFF-related non-fiction, also check out this Facebook group set up by the always excellent Farah Mendlesohn, who is a champion (and author) of SFF-related non-fiction.

RPGs are not just SFF-adjacent, especially the granddaddy of them all, Dungeons & Dragons, has deep roots in the genre via the famous Appendix N.

Therefore, I am pleased to welcome Ben Riggs, author of Slaying the Dragon – A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons, to my blog today:

Tell us about your book.

My book is the shocking and true story of the rise of Dungeons & Dragons and how it almost imploded in the 90s under the weight of terrible management decisions. If you’re interested in an representative sample, Dicebreaker excerpted the disastrous attempt of TSR to create a comic book company in the 90s.  https://www.dicebreaker.com/series/dungeons-and-dragons/feature/dnd-comic-books-failed-attempt-tsr-dc-comics

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I am a teacher/writer/podcaster/historian/mage.

I speak five languages, and I’ve taught in four countries on three continents.

I have tutored royalty, and visited students in jail.

Once, I lived next to a yakuza, and put a hole in his wall. It is not something I would recommend.

Another time, I went to a Christmas party thrown by expat Communists in Beijing. We sang “The Internationale,” and then “Silent Night.”

Once, law enforcement got me out of my bathtub.

Another time I took some 8th graders from Milwaukee to New York City. We were walking through the Gold Distict at closing time, and apparently the gold trade in New York has a lot of Hasidic Jewish proprietors. As they closed up their shops and headed home, one 8th grader said to me, “Wow. The Amish are really making a go of it here in New York!”

I still teach fulltime in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I have one wife, one son, and not enough time to write.

I will further add that everything above is Gospel truth. I am not one of those writers who makes things up for their bio.

What prompted you to write/edit this book?

The book chose me.

The book started out as an article for Geek & Sundry, and as I researched the article, I discovered more and more about TSR and D&D that I had no idea was the case. The failed attempt to start a comic company. The failure to pay its printer. The loans from their distributor. The shocking way bestselling authors were treated. These tales demanded I record them. I chased the story and 100,000 words later, there was a book!

Why should SFF fans in general and Hugo voters, in particular, read this book?

I have been told that even if one is not a D&D fan, the book is a great look into a geek company and the choices that can lead to its failure. Furthermore, the D&D community and SFF community are adjacent, and what happens in one often informs the other.

Do you have any cool facts or tidbits that you unearthed during your research, but that did not make it into the final book?

No, actually. I mercilessly crammed every scandal and frak-up into the text. I wanted to earn the subtitle, “The Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons.”

SFF-related non-fiction is somewhat sidelined by the big genre awards, since the Nebulas have no non-fiction category and the Best Related Work Hugo category has become something of a grab bag of anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. So why do you think SFF-related non-fiction is important?

Geek non-fiction, or geek history as I would peg my genre, is the story of our wheezy and wonderful tribe. Lord of the Rings is a staggering and monumental work. But in The Inklings, which covers Tolkien’s writing of his opus, we hear that when he rose to read a portion of the book, which was then in its tenth year of composition, one audience member yelled, “Oh God! Not another fucking elf!”

LotR is improved by the work of Tolkien critics and historians. I hope my work does the same for D&D.

Are there any other great SFF-related non-fiction works or indeed anything else (books, stories, essays, writers, magazines, films, TV shows, etc…) you’d like to recommend?

As mentioned above, I’d shout out to The Inklings by Philip and Carol Zaleski, Game Wizards and Art and Arcana: A Visual History of D&D by Jon Peterson et al. Also, History of the Hobbit by John Rateliff.

Where can people buy your book?

In North America, anywhere fine books are sold!

In the UK/Ireland/Australia, on Amazon ebooks.

In Poland, it will be in print in the next 18 months.

Where can people find you?

I’d point you to my blog (https://www.writerbenriggs.com/blog) and my Twitter @BenRiggs_

Thank you, Ben, for stopping and answering my questions. Do check out Slaying the Dragon – A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons, if you’re at all interested in the history and development of the RPG and the company behind it.

About Slaying the Dragon – A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons:

Role-playing game historian Ben Riggs unveils the secret history of TSR— the company that unleashed imaginations with Dungeons & Dragons, was driven into ruin by disastrous management decisions, and then saved by their bitterest rival.

Co-created by wargame enthusiasts Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the original Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game released by TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) in 1974 created a radical new medium: the role-playing game. For the next two decades, TSR rocketed to success, producing multiple editions of D&D, numerous settings for the game, magazines, video games, New York Times bestselling novels by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, and R. A. Salvatore, and even a TV show! But by 1997, a series of ruinous choices and failed projects brought TSR to the edge of doom—only to be saved by their fiercest competitor, Wizards of the Coast, the company behind the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering.

Unearthed from Ben Riggs’s own adventurous campaign of in-depth research, interviews with major players, and acquisitions of secret documents, Slaying the Dragon reveals the true story of the rise and fall of TSR. Go behind the scenes of their Lake Geneva headquarters where innovative artists and writers redefined the sword and sorcery genre, managers and executives sabotaged their own success by alienating their top talent, ignoring their customer fanbase, accruing a mountain of debt, and agreeing to deals which, by the end, made them into a publishing company unable to publish so much as a postcard.

As epic and fantastic as the adventures TSR published, Slaying the Dragon is the legendary tale of the rise and fall of the company that created the role-playing game world.

About Ben Riggs:

BEN RIGGS is a writer, teacher, and podcaster. He traveled the world teaching in his 20s. During his journeys, he tutored a princess, saw both the Sahara and Mt. Fuji at dawn, and discovered his wife and fellow traveler, Tara. He has settled down in his hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he teaches English and history, and he and Tara have a son, Simon. Ben’s RPG podcast, Plot Points, has been running for the last decade, and his work has appeared on NPR and Geek & Sundry. Slaying the Dragon is his first book.

***

Are you publishing a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2022 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

Fancast Spotlight: Dennis Frey Books

After the Hugos is before the Hugos, so here is another Fancast Spotlight for your consideration. For more about the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines and fancasts featured by clicking here.

Today’s Fancast Spotlight is something a little different, because the fancast in question is in German, though the interview is in English.

So I’m happy to welcome Dennis Frey of Dennis Frey Books to my blog today:

Tell us about your podcast or channel.

I do a lot of content on creative writing on Twitch – lessons, reading excerpts from the community and my own books, longer workshops, throwbacks to the first works of different artists… aaaand it’s all in German. Sorry.

If that’s fine with you, there is about 100 hours of writing content from the streams on my YouTube Channel.

Who are the people behind your podcast or channel?

That’s all me – which is why all the YouTube stuff is uncut. I just don’t have the time to do best offs.

Why did you decide to start your podcast or channel?

When Corona went in full swing I couldn’t go to book fairs anymore which was where I sold most books and made about 80% of my income. With that gone I had to get creative and started online readings which softened the blow a little bit but was a lot of fun. So I just kept going even after book fairs were back on the menu.

What format do you use for your podcast or channel and why did you choose this format?

I started with just reading my own works but quickly realized that I would hit a wall pretty soon, where I would be out of interesting things to read. As I had already been doing writing workshops in schools and at conventions I just took that to Twitch and it has been quite popular. Another popular format that I’m bringing back soon was “Cringe” where successful artists would show the very first steps they took and compare them to their latest – mostly to encourage newcomers, but also because it’s absolutely hilarious. The idea for that came when I found my horrible, horrible first try at writing from when i was eleven.

The fan categories at the Hugos were there at the very beginning, but they are also the categories which consistently get the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines, fancasts and other fan projects are important?

Could there be anything more amazing than getting so pulled in by a work of fiction that you are willing to sacrifice your own free time to create something related to that?

I can actually see that from different angles. As a writer I had people draw fan art and write fan fiction about my stories and the feeling is AMAZING. Those are experiences that keep me motivated years after those readers showed me their projects.

As a writing coach I keep telling people to start with fan fiction when they want to get into creative writing because it simply is the best way to get used to the process without having to start from scratch developing all characters and worldbuilding.

As someone who has been extremely invested in a lot of fandoms in my life I can just say that half the fun is meeting other fans, debating where the story is and might go, what made us fall in love with a character, or – let’s face it – shipping.

All those fan projects are what keeps the work alive for more than just one read or one viewing.

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online and fancasts have sprung up. What do you think the future of fan media looks like?

I suppose we will stay mostly online. When I think back to my early teenage years it was basically impossible to find other fans of that obscure anime you found somewhere. If you were into something else than Star Wars, Star Trek or (a little later) Lord of the Rings and not living in a major city you were pretty much out of luck. Now it doesn’t matter what show or book you love, just a few clicks away there is a fanbase you can connect with. People that can become “your crowd” – or at the very least people that have a shared interest.

That won’t go away, because it is such a luxury (that a lot of fans are not even aware of ^^)

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists you’d like to recommend?

There is one fan art channel on YouTube that became very close to my heart:

At “North of the Border” Adam creates amazing clay models of his favourite characters from films and gaming – and it is so relaxing to watch.
(https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM15YNy8g-CaJ15YZCbq0Iw)

Where can people find you?

On Twitch, for writing, gaming and a lot of talking: www.twitch.tv/dennisfreybooks

On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DennisFreyBooks

On Twitter, for education on autism, writing stuff and German humor (I promise it DOES exist!): www.twitter.com/dennis_the_frey

And on Instagram for my attempt to wrangle a platform that uses more than words to convey what i want to say: www.instagram.com/dennisfreybooks

Thanks for the interview! That was something completely different from what I usually get asked and it is surprisingly refreshing to be forced to actually think about the answers instead of just writing the same stuff for the hundredth time

Thank you, Dennis, for stopping by and answering my questions.

Do check out Dennis Frey Books, cause it’s a great fancast.

***

Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine/-site or fancast or a semiprozine and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

Two Links and a New Arrival

There will be more Fancast and Non-Fiction Spotlights in the next week, but for now I have a few things to share.

For starters, I have a new story out in the November issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine. My story is called “Legacy of Steel” and as the title of the magazine implies, it’s a sword and sorcery tale in the most literal sense of the word, because it’s a story about a magical sword and its reluctant wielder. There are two other stories in this issue, “The Sun in Shadow” by Sandra Unerman and “You Stand Before the Black Tower” by Nathaniel Webb.

In other news, German writer, translator and fan Maike Claußnitzer gave The Christmas Collection a really nice review. The review is in German, but I’m sure Google Translate can help you out. And if you want to read the book itself, which has all of my holiday stories in one handy collection, you can find all the buy links here.

Finally, I had a new arrival today, namely the Masters of the Universe Masterverse Skelegod. Skelegod, for those who don’t know, is what Skeletor calls himself, once he gets hold of the Sword of Power and gains godlike powers in Masters of the Universe Revelation. Something similar happens in season 3 of the CGI He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series – Skeletor gains godlike powers, grows ram horns and even wings and grows to giant size and wants to remake the universe in his image before he is thwarted. And looking back at the 1987 Masters of the Universe live action movie, Skeletor becomes a god in that one as well.

Considering how often Skeletor becomes a god (he does it in the comics as well), there of course have been several figures made of Skeletor as a god. There is at least one movie Skelegod version, there are Skelegod two figures, including an oversized one, for the CGI series and there is a figure of the Revelation Skelegod. There is no Origins Skelegod so far, but since Skeletor also grows to a massive size, when he gains godlike powers, scale doesn’t matter as much here.

I’ve been on the lookout for a Skelegod for a while now, but wasn’t sure which version to get. The regular sized CGI Skelegod is too small, oddly enough, and looks puny next to the Origins figures and the movie version is very expensive, so it was down to the Revelation Skelegod or the oversized CGI Skelegod with wings. But then I found the Revelation Skelegod for half-price and snapped him up. Today, he was delivered and he looks great.

So let’s have some pictures:

Skelegod with a halo of Christmas lights.

I also couldn’t resist letting Skelegod pose with my Hugo trophy:

“I, Skelegod, Lord of Destruction and Supreme Evil in the Universe, claim this Hugo Award by the purity of havoc.”

As for what happens when I introduce Skelegod to the rest of my Masters of the Universe figures, well, keep tuned for updates.

Fancast Spotlight: Fiction Fans Podcast

After the Hugos is before the Hugos, so here is another Fancast Spotlight for your consideration. For more about the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines and fancasts featured by clicking here.

Today’s featured fancast is the Fiction Fans Podcast, a podcast, which as the name implies, is about reading and discussing books.

Therefore, I’m happy to welcome Sara and Lilly of Fiction Fans to my blog today.

Artwork by @meattankarcana on Instagram

Who are the people behind your podcast or channel?

Sara (social media person and Keeper of the Calendar) and Lilly (editor extraordinaire).

Why did you decide to start your podcast or channel?

Lilly called me one afternoon in late 2020 to say we should start a podcast, because she wanted to read more books. I was utterly unconvinced–I like reading, but a book podcast sounded like a lot of work. Eventually she wore me down (our first planning document, which she sent over to me after that call, was called “You won’t escape my podcast idea”) and I’m actually really glad she did. It’s mostly an excuse to hang out for a couple of hours. The fact that we’re recording our conversation and putting it out there for the world to listen is almost incidental.

What format do you use for your podcast or channel and why did you choose this format?

We decided to do audio-only because it’s lower-key. Video editing is a lot more effort and also would require that we look at least semi-presentable when recording.

In terms of episode format, we always spend some time chatting about a good thing that’s happened recently and what we’re currently reading (not podcast-related) at the beginning of the episode, before we actually start discussing the book of the week. We like to have an initial section where we talk about non-spoiler themes or character motivations, before we dive in to a meatier full-on spoiler discussion of the book. We figured that if we were listening to a podcast about a book we hadn’t read, we would want a chance to stop listening before any major plot twists were spoiled for us. Be the podcast you want to listen to, right?

The fan categories at the Hugos were there at the very beginning, but they are also the categories which consistently gets the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines, fancasts and other fan projects are important?

Obviously we’re a bit biased, being an amateur podcast, but I think that fan projects are incredibly important. Fan projects allow so much more in-depth discussion and consideration of a work that is extremely important for any topic, but especially art. A great example of that is in our Terry Pratchett readthrough, an author we love, but whose books we occasionally lambast. Fans have a spectacular capacity to criticize what they love and that’s a crucial part of any discussion.

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online and fancasts have sprung up. What do you think the future of fan media looks like?

I think as technology and platforms become more accessible, we’ll continue to see a proliferation of fan media. It’s so much easier to start a project like a podcast these days than it was even ten years ago, and it’s a lot easier to promote a project as well with the various social media platforms available.

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists you’d like to recommend?

I want to particularly shout out SFF Addicts Podcast. The host, Adrian Gibson, is doing some really incredible work with his panel episodes. Interviewing guests on a podcast takes a lot of skill, and if I could interview or moderate half as well as he does, I’d be happy.

Where can people find you?

We can be found pretty on all the major podcast platforms (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Podcast Addict, etc).

On social media we’re usually @fictionfanspod and we can be found on Twitter (while it lasts, we’re probably most active there), Hive, Instagram, and TikTok.

Our Mastodon account is @fictionfanspod@mastodon.social

We also have a very chill discord to talk about books: https://discord.gg/dpNHTWVu6b and our website https://www.fictionfanspodcast.com/ where we post our episodes, author interviews, and the occasional written book review.

Thank you, Sara and Lilly, for stopping by and answering my questions.

Do check out Fiction Fans, cause it’s a great podcast.

***

Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine/-site or fancast or a semiprozine and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for November 2022

It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie and small press authors newly published this month, though some October books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. This month, we have urban fantasy, epic fantasy, YA fantasy, fantasy mystery, paranormal mystery, paranormal romance, science fiction romance, space opera, military science fiction, YA science fiction, dystopian fiction, LitRPG, horror, demons, dwarves, ghosts, exorcists, Norse gods, aliens, cyborgs, space marines, climate change, haunted roads, haunted prisons, magical schools, Pandora’s box, crime-busting witches, arsekicking grandmothers, veterinarians in space, and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a group blog run by Jessica Rydill and myself, which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

Pandora’s Demon by Odette C. Bell:

Oh dear. Ruby Whittle’s already down on her luck. Soon, she’ll descend much further into something far worse. When she inherits Pandora’s box and finds out Hell’s real – and coming for her – she needs help. And only one demon can save her.
Blake is the Sixth Son of Satan, a man just as arrogant as he is handsome. When he spies Ruby, the half-breed, he plans to kill her. But when Ruby contracts him with one of his father’s rings, she binds them. Blake must now protect her. Through Heaven, through Hell, and through one of the greatest plots the universe has ever seen.

A dark force is rising, and though Blake really doesn’t like it, Ruby is the only half-breed who can help him defeat it. To do that, she’ll make him discover the beating organ between the junction of his fourth and fifth ribs. And by the end of this demonic tale, she’ll rip his heart right out and lay it as his feet. For when a demon falls in love, things get sticky.
…
Pandora’s Demon follows a prince and a half-breed battling to save the universe. If you crave your contemporary fantasies with action, humor, romance, and fun, grab Pandora’s Demon Book One today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.
Pandora’s Demon is the 2nd Sons of Satan series. A witty, action-packed, light romance world where Satan’s sons must find love, but only after it sticks a ring on their finger. If you like your urban fantasies packed full of charming smiles, arrogant demons, and sprinkles of romance, dive in today.

The Master of Puppets by Molly J. Bragg:

Jakari, an alien assassin, receives orders taking her to a primitive alien world. She expects the mission to be like any other. Get in, eliminate the target and get out again. Instead, when she arrives, she finds out that one of the leaders of the fascist Char Oram is there, seeking to turn the inhabitants into mindless soldiers that could tip the war in favor of the Char.

Hayami Takahashi follows a strange woman down a dark street and all she wants is to make sure the woman didn’t wind up as the next victim of a kidnapping ring working the streets of Dallas. Instead, she finds herself in the middle of a civil war between two factions of shape shifting cyborg aliens.

After Jakari saves Hayami from becoming a test subject in a Char lab, the two of them are working together to stop a war that’s been raging for nine thousand years.

Smoke and Hellfire by Kristen Brand:

Keep calm and call an exorcist.

Most people don’t believe in the supernatural—at least until a ghost starts making the walls in their house bleed. That’s when they call Bea Romo Reyes. She’s my best friend and roommate, and she works as a freelance exorcist and paranormal consultant. Meeting her plunged me into a supernatural world both wonderful and terrifying, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

But there’s something Bea’s not telling me, and her secret might be more dangerous than the demons she’s hired to exorcise.

Smoke and Hellfire contains four episodic, novelette-length stories:

The Scent of Brimstone
When my friend dies mysteriously and her house stinks of brimstone, I know a demon is to blame. And when it threatens my friend’s family, I do the only thing I can think of: I call a professional exorcist.

An Unfair Bargain
Bea and I investigate a missing woman who wandered into the forest at night like she was possessed. But the truth of what happened is—if possible—even worse than demonic possession, and we might not make it out of the forest alive.

Drowning, Drowning
A ghost tour in St. Augustine accidentally raises a vengeful spirit who starts picking off the tour group one by one. Can Bea banish the ghost in time to save the young tour guides from a watery grave?

The Corporate Job
I always knew corporations were evil, but this one takes it a step further when they summon a demon to increase their profit margins. With a possessed CFO chained up in the basement and Bea’s exorcism failing, the demon reveals a sinister secret that could change everything.

Marines Never Die by Jonathan P. Brazee and J.N. Chaney:

The war continues…and the body count rises.

With humanity joining the alliance to fight the Naxli invaders, the war should be turning in their favor.

Unfortunately, the enemy must not have gotten that memo.

Across the galaxy, the Naxli strive for total domination. To create a stronger resistance, Gunny Pelletier is sent to work with the various races, but he and his team soon discover that reaching common ground and coordinating military action is far more difficult than they’d imagined.

But the Naxli aren’t pausing to give the allied races time to work out the kinks, which means it’s time for humanity to go at it alone once again. Bureaucracy must wait while Marines do what Marines do best.

Besides, humanity owes the Naxli a few paybacks, even if the rest of the allied races are not willing to join the mission.

Roadside Horrors by Cora Buhlert:

Roads are interstitial spaces, their only purpose to take you from one place to another.

In most cases, roads only connect two places in the real world. But occasionally, a road crosses the borderline into the unknown. That’s when things can come through, terrible things that lurk by the side of the road for the unwary traveller.

A car full of drunk teenagers on their way home from a festival encounter something terrible in the woods of Northwest Germany…

Nina delivers newspapers in the wee hours of the night and pays no attention to the pets that go missing in the neighbourhood… or the strange sounds echoing from the sewer grilles…

On a lonely country road in northern Spain, a truck driver encounters the ghosts of a terrible past…

So buckle up and get ready to meet the horrors that lurk by the side of the road. But be careful, because every encounter with them might be your last…

This is a collection of three tales of roadside horror of 9500 words altogether by Hugo winner Cora Buhlert.

Hammered by Lindsay Buroker:

Seattle native Matti Puletasi has the strength of a bear, the stamina of an ox, and a magical hammer inherited from her dwarven mother.

She’s happy renovating homes and occasionally thumping bad guys until she learns of a mysterious artifact hidden under the house she’s working on. Everybody from humans to orcs to werewolves wants it, and they’re willing to kill to get it. Things go from bad to worse when someone frames her for murder.

The only person interested in helping her is a haughty elf assassin from another realm. He’s handsome, powerful, and deadly, but he’s got an agenda of his own. She dare not trust him—or be attracted to him.

But if she can’t clear her name, the assassin will be the least of her worries.

Kill Spree by M.R. Forbes:

Ben used to dream about being famous. He didn’t expect to wind up infamous instead.

Now he’s stuck in the middle of the most grotesque contest in the galaxy, racing against time and some of the most dangerous and deranged psychopaths in the Spiral to rescue his crew from a bloody battle royale.

The clock is ticking. The leaderboard is reset. Millions are watching. There can be only one winner, and if he ever wants to see his best friend again…

It had better be him.

Digital Divinity by Rachel Ford:

A shadow hangs over Midgard. Malevolent forces stir in Asgard. Out of the chaos will rise… a grandmother?
Barbara Callaghan assumed she’d spend her retirement peacefully, playing bingo and babysitting her grandson. Not fighting giants and wrangling unruly gods.

But when she finds herself the victim of a digital scam, trapped as a barbarian brawler in a game world generated from old Earth mythologies, she knows she will either adapt or perish. And Barbara has never been a quitter.

To survive this harsh rendering of Midgard, Barbara must win the patronage of one of the Asgardian gods. With the help of her disloyal companion Carwyn, an elven NPC with more warrants out on him than coins in his purse, she seeks out Asgard.

She discovers a world in turmoil, with powerful gods at each other’s throats, rogue giants causing chaos at every turn, and dwarven craftsmen at war with one another.

A world that needs the practical, no-nonsense touch of a grandmother—and the occasional brute strength of a barbarian.

Eat, Drink and Be Witchy by Lily Harper Hart:

Life is going well for Hali Waverly. She owns her own tiki bar at one of St. Pete Beach’s premiere resorts and her life is settled for the first time in…well, a really long time. On top of that, a local private investigator she keeps crossing paths has decided it’s time to date, something that both thrills and terrifies her.

All of that changes when a body turns up on one of the resort’s balconies and the owner of the resort is passed out inside with no recollection of what happened. Police think Franklin Craven could’ve killed her. The only problem is the marks on her body could also be attributed to an animal…and maybe one of a supernatural variety.

Worried about his freedom, Franklin hires Gray to solve the case. That means Hali and Gray are going to be investigating together…again.
St. Pete is full of paranormals, but Gray and Hali are looking for one specific one, a murderer who has a clear goal, even if it’s one they can’t quite ascertain.

Sparks are about to fly, in more ways than one, and death is on the cocktail menu. Hali and Gray want a chance at a future. They have to get through the present to make it happen.

A Swift Kick to the Thorax by Mara Lynn Johnstone:

When space poachers release Earth animals on an alien world, threatening a fragile new alliance, they anger the wrong people. A veterinarian, an accountant, and a furious sign-language-fluent gorilla are coming for them.

Robin enjoys being one of the only humans around: an exotic outsider, strange and tall, with no shell and only two arms. Consulting for locals who want to keep Earth pets is a fine job. But when a swarm of rabbits invade town and humanity is blamed, everything unravels.

If Robin wants to save the alliance between two planets – and keep from getting sent home in disgrace – she has to prove that a powerful crime ring is behind the crisis. Luckily for her, she makes friends who are eager to help: from planetside, from the nearby space station, and recently escaped from the poacher’s ship.

Those poachers may be bug aliens with an excellent range of vision, but they won’t see this coming.

Lights, Camera, Witches by Amanda M. Lee:

Bay Winchester isn’t in the mood for trouble. It seems to continually find her, however, and this time it’s coming in the form of a television production crew.

Haunted Traditions has made a name for itself as the premiere reality television show catering to paranormal enthusiasts. Of course Hemlock Cove pops up on their radar. What they want most of all is an interview with Bay, the local newspaper owner and expert on all things Hemlock Cove, and a shot of magic happening in real time wouldn’t hurt either.

The woman in question is not having it.

When a body drops in an alley, it’s bad enough that the production crew is on site. What makes it worse is that the body is glowing … and there’s no hiding it. There’s no telling why it’s glowing either. It’s a mystery.

Bay and her husband Landon are convinced the body has something to do with a new meth gang that has taken over a chain of lake cabins on the outskirts of town. They just have to prove it.

Between dodging the television crew—who have taken up residence in The Overlook—and chasing a monster, the Winchesters have their hands full … and that’s not counting the family members who have decided they want to become television stars.

Bay is used to fighting evil. What she’s not used to is having to dodge potential exposure in the process.

The Winchesters are facing a battle. Now they just have to figure what side it’s coming from.

It’s a fight to the finish … and if the television crew catches them, it’s all over.

It’s lights, cameras, action in Hemlock Cove … and death may soon follow.

The Quarrygate Gambit by Marshall Ryan Maresca:

Mixing urban and high fantasy, the fourth Streets of Maradaine novel follows the crew of outlaws led by the Rynax brothers as they struggle to protect the city they love.

After having thwarted some of the forces responsible for ruining their lives, reformed thieves Asti and Verci Rynax and the rest of the Holver Alley Crew had mostly settled back into sedate lives as upright citizens of Maradaine. But when they are suddenly arrested in mysterious circumstances, they find themselves in Quarrygate Prison, which tests the limits of their cunning and skill. While Verci struggles to keep their friends alive and safe in the prison, Asti gets pulled into a mysterious scheme in the underbelly of the prison, teaming him up with some of the most dangerous people in Maradaine. The cracks in Asti’s tenuous sanity get torn open as he is thrown into a cat-and-mouse game with one of the city’s most infamous killers.

Meanwhile back in their neighborhood, Verci’s wife Raych is desperate to help him and Asti and get them home. When her attempts to go through proper channels fail, she accepts a ludicrous deal from the local crime boss: Verci and Asti’s freedom in exchange for her pulling off a daring, nigh-impossible heist that would challenge even seasoned thieves. Raych doesn’t know how a simple baker like her could hope to succeed at such a task, but she will use every trick and wild idea she has to help her family. None of the Rynaxes will rest until they are free from Quarrygate and together at home again, no matter the risk, no matter the cost.

Planetfall by Emily McCosh:

A rogue cyborg. A talking badger. A bounty job that goes incredibly wrong.

Aaron is perfectly content to chase bounties in his run-down little space ship, avoid human interaction at all cost, and lay low from the cyborg planet that created him. But when he and Bat—his half-robotic badger companion (who talks just a little too much)—chase their largest bounty ever, they run head-first into not only some dangerous criminals, but other cyborgs much stronger than them, and worst of all, a handful of humans who aren’t going anywhere.

Their job leads them first to Yayth, a backwater planet nearly as inhospitable as it is frigid. On a planet this abandoned, their target should be an easy find. Until a storm rolls in that freezes even the engines of starships. Aaron and Bat find themselves trapped not only with their bounty, but with some bystanders determined to get in the way, and something monstrous wanting to crack its way out of the ice.

Dream of Death City by P.J. Nwosu:

Chilling, dark fantasy with a heavy dose of Sherlock Holmes in this new series of twisty mysteries in fantasy worlds.

Pale moths haunt an icy frontier. Beneath the shadow of a drowned death god, a frozen body is unearthed from the snow.

Investigators arrive to a superstitious island to solve a brutal crime. Among them is a lowly slave desperate to prove her worth and a soldier with dark dreams. Neither are prepared for what they find.

Death City is a strange and violent frontier, and no one who survives comes back clean.
First though, Thora and Diem must survive.

Welcome to the Red Kingdom.

Severed Ties by Kris Ruhler:

A scientist filled with doubts. A four-year-old facing death. A momentous journey to save her.

For Belor, life in Cerulis City provides a myriad of comforts: endless food, a nice and warm home, and his dream job. He has life all planned out.

But when four-year-old Saya is about to be executed, Belor makes an irreversible decision that upheaves his entire life.
Soon, the pair find themselves on the run, fighting for survival. Saya is no ordinary four-year-old. She is a half-Aeterna, a race of beings banned from Cerulis City.

Will Belor be able to keep Saya alive?

Eldsprak Academy by Oskar Soderberg:

What do you get when you take a geomancer with a bone to pick, a secret aeromancer, and a healing hydromancer, and put them in a practice yard with a commoner ranger and a bunch of noble sons of Eldsprak Kingdom?

A group of individuals who all need to win The Academy Tournament for reasons of their own!

It’s up to Goslin to make them work together. If they’re to have any sort of chance at coming out on top, they’ll need to adapt and change. Can they start to pull in the same direction, or are they doomed to fall over each other in their eagerness to prove themselves on the field of battle?

How will they conquer The Tournament when one of their many opponents is Goslin’s own brother, the champion from last year’s tournament, and his hireling pyromancer who can send blasts of fire from the palm of his hand?

All the tyrannical gods may have been killed by The Heroes of old, but who cares about things like that when sword strikes sword and bursts of magic erupt in the streets of Fyrie, Eldsprak’s capital, where The Tournament is just starting?

Orphans of Canland by Daniel Vitale:

It’s 2088, and the dust has settled on America, decades after an environmental collapse. The eco-totalitarian organization, WORLD, has reconfigured society with the intention of restoring nature. Twelve-year-old eternal optimist Tristan Weekes lives in what he believes must be paradise: Canland, an agrarian California desert-greening project. However, Tristan’s life-defining medical condition, analgesia, prevents him from feeling physical pain, leaving his brain’s stress centers unresponsive to everything from ego-blows to heatwaves.

Well-intended, curious, and wielding a stunning vocabulary, Tristan loves to listen to the subversive theories spouted by his older brother, Dylan, a drug-addicted satellite hacker. He also wants to prove his independence to his mother, Helena, a powerful population control-extremist. Meanwhile, all around him, the survivors of the environmental collapse are just working toward a better tomorrow. But when a slew of violent acts befalls Canland, Tristan must confront certain truths about the community he loves-including his family’s secrets, his own involvement in the horrors enacted by WORLD, and the debts that are owed to the orphans of Canland.

In this work of literary fiction, set against the backdrop of a frighteningly plausible dystopia, Daniel Vitale explores the fate of our planet, the nature of family, and the duty of science, as Orphans of Canland asks: What does it mean to belong on Earth?

Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for November 2022

Welcome to the latest edition of “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of crime fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some October books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have hardboiled mysteries, cozy mysteries, holiday mysteries, historical mysteries, Victorian mysteries, Jazz Age mysteries, WWII mysteries, paranormal mysteries, fantasy mysteries, crime thrillers, legal thrillers, psychological thrillers, police officers, FBI agents, lawyers, private investigators, amateur sleuths, serial killers, gangsters, drug dealers, missing persons, crime-busting witches, crime-busting socialites, crime-busting butlers, crime-busting realtors, murderous movie sets, murderous cruises, creepy hotels, haunted prisons, murder and mayhem in London, Brighton, Paris, San Francisco, Chicago, Florida, Nevada and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Crime Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Indie Crime Scene, a group blog which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things crime fiction several times per week.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

Death Among Fitful Shadows by Blythe Baker:

Victoria Sedgewick’s acceptance of a private case for a wealthy lady leads her into deeper danger than she ever imagined. But it isn’t only her own life at peril…

When her infant son is drawn into the dangerous game, Victoria enlists the help of Branwell Keats. Together, the pair must risk everything to win at all costs.

 

 

Murder and Mistletoe by Beth Byers:

Holiday, Murder, Mayhem…what else could be expected when Vi and friends gather for Christmas?

The friends have gathered for a major holiday in the country. They’ve brought in those they love. Excessive gifts have been purchased and feasts have been planned.

Once again, a body is discovered. This time under the mistletoe. Will Vi, Jack, and the rest discover the murderer before St. Nick arrives? Or will the holidays be ruined?

 

Death’s Approach by Beth Byers:

It has been quite some time since Smith’s quarry has eluded him so fully. A woman was murdered in his home, he’s removed his family to Jack and Vi’s house, he’s pulled in all his friends to help, and he still can not find the engineer of his friend’s death.

Only, the noose has been tightening. The traps have been laid, and now Smith will have to win against one of the cleverest villains he’s had to track down. All while ensuring he doesn’t lose anyone else. Join Smith on his most fraught journey yet and discover the person who has thwarted him thus far.

The Father’s Secret by Stacy Claflin:

If you can’t trust family, who can you trust?

After a body is unearthed near Chris and Vanessa’s newly-acquired hotel, all eyes are on them. They may be the owners, but they’re also the newest residents. Everyone suspects them.

Not only that, but Chris is hiding multiple secrets from his new wife and rather than opening up her, he buries himself deeper in his troubles.

Meanwhile the oldest daughter is secretly dating one of the hotel staff — and only Chris knows how dangerous the boy is. By the time he finds out about their relationship, it might be too late to save his stepdaughter…

In Cases of Murder by Jan Edwards:

When the body of Laura Jarman is discovered crammed inside a steamer trunk and dumped on a Brighton railway station platform, her wealthy industrialist family is shouting for answers, but their reluctance to co-operate with the investigation arouses suspicion. Shortly after, a second body – Laura’s flatmate Kitty – is discovered in similar circumstances. What links Laura and Kitty to the private gentlemen’s parties held in a country house on the edge of sleepy Wyncombe village, and what is Laura’s family so desperate to conceal? Bunch Courtney and DCI William Wright find themselves racing along a convoluted trail through munitions factories and London clubs to a final shocking end.

Suspect Santa by Mike Faricy:

Private Investigator Dev Haskell gets a call from Tubby Gustafson. There’s a car waiting for Dev just outside his office. If he doesn’t want to take the ride, he’ll have to drive himself to the Emergency room. Dev decides whatever he was involved in can wait and is driven to Tubby’s mansion.

Turns out Tubby wants any and all information on east coat mobster Alex Chillcot who’s rumored to be moving into town. The more Dev uncovers, the worse Chillcot looks. Almost immediately the bodies begin to pile up.

In case that isn’t bad enough, Dev’s latest squeeze, Layla, works every year as a sexy elf at Santa’s Workshop. There’s only one problem, Santa turns out to be an obnoxious drunk who frightens children and tells them he won’t come to their house. Dev gets more involved than he planned.

Better get your copy now and see if Dev can save Christmas…

Thistlewood Manor: Murder at Hedgerow by Fiona Grace:

For centuries, Thistlewood Manor has stood as home to the Montagu family, a beacon to British aristocracy in rural England. But it’s 1928, and in this new age of women’s rights, Eliza Montagu, 27, a free spirit, has turned her back on her family to live an artist’s life in London.

But when an unexpected family crisis arrives, Eliza has no choice but to return home to the demands of her family, to help her father, and to meet the Lord they hope she’ll marry.

When a dead body appears in the midst of the reunion, Eliza quickly realizes that if she doesn’t solve the mystery, the crime may just be pinned on her, and dash her hopes for a life as a free woman.

A charming historical cozy mystery series that transports readers back in time, THISTLEWOOD MANOR is mystery at its finest: spellbinding, atmospheric and impossible to put down. A page-turner packed with shocking twists, turns and a mystery that’s hard to solve, it will leave you reading late into the night, all while you fall in love with its unforgettable heroine.

Eat, Drink and Be Witchy by Lily Harper Hart:

Life is going well for Hali Waverly. She owns her own tiki bar at one of St. Pete Beach’s premiere resorts and her life is settled for the first time in…well, a really long time. On top of that, a local private investigator she keeps crossing paths has decided it’s time to date, something that both thrills and terrifies her.

All of that changes when a body turns up on one of the resort’s balconies and the owner of the resort is passed out inside with no recollection of what happened. Police think Franklin Craven could’ve killed her. The only problem is the marks on her body could also be attributed to an animal…and maybe one of a supernatural variety.

Worried about his freedom, Franklin hires Gray to solve the case. That means Hali and Gray are going to be investigating together…again.
St. Pete is full of paranormals, but Gray and Hali are looking for one specific one, a murderer who has a clear goal, even if it’s one they can’t quite ascertain.

Sparks are about to fly, in more ways than one, and death is on the cocktail menu. Hali and Gray want a chance at a future. They have to get through the present to make it happen.

That Last Ghost Dance by L.C. Hayden:

Unraveling Secrets

Kuyuidokado, Nevada’s Paiute’s chief councilman, is murdered while performing the Ghost Dance, a dance created by the Native Americans to bring peace and restore their land to the way it used to be.

Nevada reporter Aimee Brent is granted an exclusive to investigate the crime and report to the world what Kuyuidokado was really like. Aimee is eager to travel to Nixon to investigate the murder. She needs to be away from her editor/fiancé with whom she has just broken up with.

Upon arriving at Nixon, Aimee finds that not everyone or everything is as should be. She stumbles upon secrets—secrets that could lead to her death. It’s up to Aimee to unravel them before more people fall victim to the grand scheme of That Last Ghost Dance.

Moving Day Malice by CeeCee James:

Stella O’Neil can hardly believe her luck…her favorite romance writer is moving to town and wants Stella to be her agent! Stella’s fantasy of becoming bff’s and getting to read advance copies is cut brutally short when Alicia BeeWater is murdered before she can even move in to her new home. Suspects abound in this all new edition to the Flamingo Realty series.

The police focus on Alicia’s stalker, who is the author’s #1 fan, Stella isn’t so sure. Then she covers some clues that send her down a different path… is it the truth or a trap?

Lights, Camera, Witches by Amanda M. Lee:

Bay Winchester isn’t in the mood for trouble. It seems to continually find her, however, and this time it’s coming in the form of a television production crew.

Haunted Traditions has made a name for itself as the premiere reality television show catering to paranormal enthusiasts. Of course Hemlock Cove pops up on their radar. What they want most of all is an interview with Bay, the local newspaper owner and expert on all things Hemlock Cove, and a shot of magic happening in real time wouldn’t hurt either.

The woman in question is not having it.

When a body drops in an alley, it’s bad enough that the production crew is on site. What makes it worse is that the body is glowing … and there’s no hiding it. There’s no telling why it’s glowing either. It’s a mystery.

Bay and her husband Landon are convinced the body has something to do with a new meth gang that has taken over a chain of lake cabins on the outskirts of town. They just have to prove it.

Between dodging the television crew—who have taken up residence in The Overlook—and chasing a monster, the Winchesters have their hands full … and that’s not counting the family members who have decided they want to become television stars.

Bay is used to fighting evil. What she’s not used to is having to dodge potential exposure in the process.

The Winchesters are facing a battle. Now they just have to figure what side it’s coming from.

It’s a fight to the finish … and if the television crew catches them, it’s all over.

It’s lights, cameras, action in Hemlock Cove … and death may soon follow.

Failing Justice by Peter O’Mahoney:

Fighting for justice in Chicago is a deadly game…

On Chicago’s South Side, the death of a five-year-old girl in a drive-by shooting captures the city’s attention. At the request of a desperate mother, defense attorney Tex Hunter agrees to defend the accused against a murder charge. With an entire city against them, Hunter struggles to find the truth about the incident.

To uncover the facts, to expose the truth, Hunter must battle against ruthless gangs, corrupt officers, and a culture of silence. Probing deep into the violent past of the disadvantaged neighborhood, Hunter uncovers information that will shock everyone.
If Hunter can’t expose the facts in court, an innocent man might be convicted… while the real killer stalks his every move.

Can Hunter reveal the truth in court? Or will silence continue to rule the streets?

The Quarrygate Gambit by Marshall Ryan Maresca:

Mixing urban and high fantasy, the fourth Streets of Maradaine novel follows the crew of outlaws led by the Rynax brothers as they struggle to protect the city they love.

After having thwarted some of the forces responsible for ruining their lives, reformed thieves Asti and Verci Rynax and the rest of the Holver Alley Crew had mostly settled back into sedate lives as upright citizens of Maradaine. But when they are suddenly arrested in mysterious circumstances, they find themselves in Quarrygate Prison, which tests the limits of their cunning and skill. While Verci struggles to keep their friends alive and safe in the prison, Asti gets pulled into a mysterious scheme in the underbelly of the prison, teaming him up with some of the most dangerous people in Maradaine. The cracks in Asti’s tenuous sanity get torn open as he is thrown into a cat-and-mouse game with one of the city’s most infamous killers.

Meanwhile back in their neighborhood, Verci’s wife Raych is desperate to help him and Asti and get them home. When her attempts to go through proper channels fail, she accepts a ludicrous deal from the local crime boss: Verci and Asti’s freedom in exchange for her pulling off a daring, nigh-impossible heist that would challenge even seasoned thieves. Raych doesn’t know how a simple baker like her could hope to succeed at such a task, but she will use every trick and wild idea she has to help her family. None of the Rynaxes will rest until they are free from Quarrygate and together at home again, no matter the risk, no matter the cost.

Dream of Death City by P.J. Nwosu:

Chilling, dark fantasy with a heavy dose of Sherlock Holmes in this new series of twisty mysteries in fantasy worlds.

Pale moths haunt an icy frontier. Beneath the shadow of a drowned death god, a frozen body is unearthed from the snow.

Investigators arrive to a superstitious island to solve a brutal crime. Among them is a lowly slave desperate to prove her worth and a soldier with dark dreams. Neither are prepared for what they find.

Death City is a strange and violent frontier, and no one who survives comes back clean.
First though, Thora and Diem must survive.

Welcome to the Red Kingdom.

All His by Blake Pierce:

Nicky Lyons, 28, a missing-persons specialist in in the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, is an expert at tracking down abductees and bringing them home. The connection is personal: after Nicky’s twin sister was abducted at 16, Nicky made stopping kidnappers her life’s work.

But when Nicky is assigned to a new task force in south Florida dedicated to finding the recently missing, she soon realizes she’s up against a serial killer more diabolical than she imagined. Her only hope at finding these girls is entering his mind and outwitting him at his own game.

Nicky and her new partner, both headstrong, don’t see eye to eye, and the case opens decade-old wounds related to her sister’s disappearance. Can Nicky keep her demons at bay in time to save the victims?

Nicky, haunted by the demons of her own missing sister, knows that time will be of the essence in bringing these girls home—if it is not already too late.

Say It Isn’t So by Willow Rose:

It is a dream come true for ten-year-old Becky when her parents take her and her younger sister on a cruise to the Bahamas.

But nothing is how it is supposed to be when her parents can’t stop fighting, and soon the trip turns out to be a true nightmare.

It becomes a puzzling mystery when she and her sister disappear as the ship is about to dock in Coco Cay.

How do you disappear on a cruise ship?

Why can’t they be found?

Could they have fallen overboard?

FBI profiler Eva Rae Thomas is flown in to assist on this bizarre but very time-sensitive case.

The parents both claim to know what happened to their children. Each of them blames the other for kidnapping them.

Who is telling the truth?

Meanwhile, the passengers are not allowed to leave the ship as the search continues, causing the tension to rise onboard. It becomes a race against time as a frustrated Eva Rae Thomas tries to find out what happened in the hours up until the disappearance of the two children.

When one of the children is found dead, she realizes this is more than a simple case of a parental dispute.

There’s a killer onboard.

Double Jeopardy by Sheldon Siegel:

He was just trying to help a friend.
After three tours in Afghanistan, homeless and hooked on painkillers, Lenny was working to pull his life together. He gave Annie the last of his oxy pills to ease the pain from her shoulder injury. But when she was found dead in her tent the next morning, Lenny wound up in jail accused of killing her with fentanyl.

After a year behind bars, Lenny was finally about to get his day in court. But the uncertainty of the coronavirus threatened to delay his justice further.

The evidence is compelling: a pill bottle with Lenny’s name, fingerprints, and DNA is found in the tent of the decedent, Annie Parker. There are six pills laced with fentanyl inside the bottle. Lenny insists he’s innocent. He claims he gave Annie three of his legitimate OxyContin pills that he got from the V.A. When Lenny’s public defender is called away to help a family member sick with COVID, Mike Daley steps in to take over his case. Contrary to Mike’s advice, Lenny rejects a continuance leaving Mike little time to prepare for trial.

With the City on the verge of closing down, Mike must fly solo at trial as he desperately searches for witnesses in the homeless encampments and the drug-infested hotels in the Tenderloin.

Murder in France by Lee Strauss:

Murder is so sang-froid!

When the Reed family—temporarily exiled to France—is once again safe, Ginger decides to turn the event into a much needed holiday. And the absolute cake is Ginger’s reunion with her American friend Haley Higgins, who is working in France on a practicum to become a lady doctor.

Ginger celebrates the happy reunion by throwing a party at their villa in Paris, but the joyous activities are halted when a body is discovered. Like old times, Ginger puts her detective skills to work while Haley provides her forensic knowledge. As party guests continue to become more suspicious and worthy suspects, Ginger’s own past is soon on trial.

Has a long-ago, war-time “error” resurfaced to steal more than Ginger’s joie de vivre?

Retro Review: “The Hanging of Alfred Wadham” by E.F. Benson

“The Hanging of Alfred Wadham” is a short story by E.F. Benson, which was first published in the December 1928 issue of the magazine Britannia and reprinted in the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales. The story may be found online here. This review will also be crossposted to Retro Science Fiction Reviews.

This story is another one which caught my eye via Hugh Rankin’s striking interior art under his Doak pseudonym (Doak was Rankin’s middle name). For some reason, Rankin did several drawings of hangings and executions under the Doak name, such as the interior art for “In a Dead Man’s Shoes”, which I reviewed recently. As before, Rankin also supplied to striking Art Deco cover art for this issue, illustrating the The Inn of Terror by Gaston LeRoux.

Though the standout story in this issue is not the cover story, but “The Shadow Kingdom” by Robert E. Howard, the story which introduced Kull of Atlantis as well as the Serpent Men to the world and is widely considered to be the first sword and sorcery story. I should probably do a Retro Review of that story eventually, especially since it’s also a very good story.

Many authors who published in the pulps are completely forgotten these days and we know little to nothing about them. I feared this might be the case with E.F. Benson, but on the contrary, Benson was actually a very well-known British writer from a family of well-known people. His father was the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of his brothers wrote the words to “Land of Hope and Glory”, another brother was also a writer as well as a priest and his sister was a writer and Egyptologist. To make matters even more impressive, E.F. Benson was a member of the Order of the British Empire. He was also gay and by necessity, given the time during which he lived, closeted.

Benson’s most famous work is the Mapp and Lucia series, a series of satirical novels about upper class people in a small town and their petty rivalries. I have to admit that I have never heard of those books, even though they spawned several sequels by other authors, two TV-adaptations, including one as late as 2014, and a lobster dish.

In addition to satirical novels about upper class people being jerks, Benson also wrote a lot of ghost stories and this is what brought him to the attention of H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote admiringly about Benson’s work in “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, and finally to Weird Tales.

But enough about the man. Let’s talk about the story.

Warning! Spoilers beyond this point!

Compared to the other 1929 Weird Tales story featuring a hanging and interior art by Hugh Rankin, “The Hanging of Alfred Wadham” starts off slow with the unnamed first person narrator discussing a séance he attended with one Father Denys Hanbury. The medium conveyed some messages from a recently deceased friend of the narrator and the narrator is certain that the séance proves something, though whether it is communication with the dead or telepathy he is not sure. Father Denys, true to his profession, believes communication with the dead and impossible or demonic, though he is remarkably open-minded with regard to telepathy.

The narrator then explains that the medium talked about something that she could not have gotten from his mind, because the narrator did not know about it, but which was later confirmed by the dead friend’s diary. Father Denys, however, still believes that communication with the dead is dangerous and shares a story of his own.

Such “take within a tale” framing devices were very common in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and pop up quite often in Weird Tales. What is notable about this one is that it’s not only dull – we only ever get vague details about séance and what the medium said – but also written in a very stilted style. The (male) narrator also spends two paragraphs describing the beautiful hands of Father Denys. Even if I didn’t know by this point that E.F. Benson was gay, that paragraph pretty much confirms it.

Once Father Denys of the beautiful hands starts his story, I hoped things were finally about to get good. Alas, Father Denys, who is a Catholic priest by the way, starts rambling on about the sacrament of confession, why it is important and why a priest may never ever repeat anything he heard in confession, even if remaining silent will have terrible consequences.

Next, we get an description of the crime allegedly committed by the titular Alfred Wadham. Alfred Wadham was the manservant of a “man of loose life” named Gerald Selfe. That “loose life” was the fact that Selfe was having an affair with a married woman. Someone found out about the affair and started blackmailing Selfe. Selfe went to the police, who investigated the case and quickly zeroed in on Alfred Wadham as a suspect.

The police have set a trap for Wadham, when Selfe is found with his throat slit one morning. Wadham is gone, but stains of human blood are found in his room. The police quickly apprehend him. Wadham proclaims his innocence of the murder, though he does admit to the blackmailing. Wadham declares that he realised that Selfe and the police were on to him and therefore fled. Alas, the judge and jury don’t believe him and so Wadham is sentenced to death for murder.

Wadham is Catholic and so he meets Father Denys, who just happens to be the prison chaplain. True to his profession, Father Denys urges Wadham to confess to the murder and repent, but Wadham keeps insisting that he didn’t do it. Since Wadham confesses plenty of other sins and crimes, Father Denys starts to believe him.

Father Denys is troubled by this case – not because an innocent man is about to be executed, but because he is not sure whether he should grant Wadham absolution for his other sins, since Wadham flat out refuses to confess to the murder.

Now it’s worth remembering that E.F. Benson’s father was an Anglican clergyman and Archbishop of Canterbury and that one of his brothers was an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism, became a Catholic priest and wrote religious texts, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised to see a theological argument in a story written by someone from such a background. However, as I’ve repeatedly said, I’m not religious, I dislike too much religion in my fiction and theological arguments literally make my eyes glaze over. And in this particular case, I had even less patience for theological arguments, because Alfred Wadham is about to be hanged for a crime he probably didn’t commit, so who cares whether a priest absolves him from his sins or not? Never mind that granting absolution for sins is part of Father Denys’ job.

On the night before the execution of Wadham, an former acquaintance named Horace Kennion visits Father Denys. Father Denys wants nothing to do with Kennion, because Kennion is a wicked man – more wicked than usual, because Father Denys reminds us that all humans are wicked and that “the life of us all is a tissue of misdeeds”. Father Denys’ hands must be very beautiful indeed for the narrator to willingly hang out with such a killjoy.

However, Kennion is very insistent to speak to Father Denys, because he needs to make a confession right now and his usual priest is not available. So Father Denys reluctantly hears his confession. Surprise: Kennion is the one who killed Gerald Selfe over a quarrel about a game of cards (though there was no mention of cards or a card table in the earlier description of the crime scene). After stabbing Selfe, Kennion went up to Wadham’s room (Selfe had rung for Wadham earlier, but Wadham had already left, so Kennion knew the room would be empty) to wash off the blood – that’s how the blood stains came to be found in Wadham’s room.

Father Denys of course immediately entreats Kennion to go to the police and confess, so Wadham can be saved. However, Kennion has no intention of going to the police. And when Father Denys threatens that he will call the police, Kennion just grins and points out that he can’t, because his faith forbids it. And besides, who would believe a priest who violated to sacrament of confession?

Father Denys now demands why Kennion felt the need to confess his sins at all and why to him specifically. Once again Kennion grins and tells Father Denys that he was very hurt when Father Denys broke off all contact with Kennion. And so he decided to get revenge by putting Father Denys in a terrible situation where there are no good choices. “I daresay I’ve got Sadie tastes, too, and they are being wonderfully indulged,” Kennion says.

Now the vibes that I get from this exchange is that Father Denys and Kennion were lovers and that there may well have been some kink involved. But then Father Denys broke off the relationship and Kennion wants revenge. It’s also notable that Kennion calls Father Denys by his first name, something which was extremely uncommon among upper class British men in the early twentieth century. Even Kennion’s disdain for the doomed Alfred Wadham and his claim that Wadham has it coming for his other crimes – “Blackmail is a disgusting offence” – fits in with this, because gay men were often the target of blackmailers, back when gay relationships were still illegal. In fact, I wonder whether Kennion and his victim Gerald Selfe did not have a relationship, too. After all, it is explicitly stated that Kennion went up to Selfe’s room.

These are not actually the characters from this story, but E.F. Benson (on the right) and his brothers Arthur Christopher Benson (on the left, wrote the lyrics to “Land of Hope and Glory”) and Robert Hugh Benson (the priest).

I have to admit that though he is a murderer (double murderer to be exact) and generally horrible person, Horace Kennion is the most interesting character in this story. The narrator is a cypher, the victim Gerald Selfe is merely a prop required to get the story going and Alfred Wadham is more moral dilemma than character. As for Father Denys, he is an insufferably sanctimonious prick.

Case in point: Father Denys spends a few paragraphs detailing the terrible torment and suffering he experiences – a suffering that is not even “a needful and salutary experience to burn his sins away”, but empty torment. Meanwhile, the actual victim here is not the moping priest with a crisis of conscience, but Alfred Wadham who is about to be executed for a crime he did not commit.

Though at least Father Denys does take some action rather than just sit around feeling sorry for himself. First, he goes to see the Cardinal, who basically tells him that he cannot violate the seal of confession. Then he goes to see the Home Secretary and tells him that Wadham is innocent, because the real murderer just confessed to him.

The Home Secretary is sympathetic, but tells Father Denys that he cannot pardon Wadham without more evidence. He also tells Father Denys to put the fear of God into the real murder to get him to confess and also gives the priest his phone number, just in case.

However, Father Denys doesn’t need the phone number, because instead of putting the heat on Kennion, he goes straight to the prison, tells Wadham that he believes in his innocence and finally grants him absolution for all his other sins. Then we learn that Wadham went without flinching to his death. There is also a brief one sentence description of the trapdoor opening and the rope jumping and creaking. But otherwise, the hanging that Hugh Rankin drew so evocatively happens mostly off page.

This is rather disappointing, particularly compared to the visceral description of a hanging in Harold Markham’s story “In a Dead Man’s Shoes”, published a few months before in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales. Of course, Markham was describing a public hanging in the eighteenth century rather than a prison hanging in the early twentieth century, but there are plenty of much more evocative descriptions of twentieth century prison hanging than the single sentence that Benson gives us.

But then, the story isn’t really about the hanging of Alfred Wadham at all, in spite of the title. It is about Father Denys and his moral dilemma. And now Father Denys finally comes to the point of his tale, namely why séances are bad and do not convey messages from the dead, but from some “evil and awful power impersonating them”.

After the execution, Father Denys goes home and Benson gives us more description of the weather than of the actual execution. However, mostly we get yet more musings from Father Denys. Even though he has just watched a man been hanged for a crime he did not commit, Father Denys feels serene and peaceful. After all, in Father Denys’ view, it doesn’t much matter that Alfred Wadham was hanged. After all, he had all his sins forgiven and still has his immortal soul and getting hanged for a crime he didn’t commit is just like martyrdom.

Meanwhile, Father Denys makes it clear that the most important thing to him is that he kept his precious vow and did not commit the worst crime a Catholic priest can commit. This was the moment where I went from, “What sanctimonious bore” to “What a fucking arsehole – I hope something awful happens to him.” Thankfully, something does.

Once he gets home, Father Denys lies down for a nap – after all, he has been up all night. He has a bad dream of Wadham screaming at him and begging him to save him. He wakes up to the sound of someone calling his name in Wadham’s voice. Yes, apparently Wadham has returned to haunt Father Denys and highly deserved it is, too. Honestly, Wadham, haunt the shit out of that jerk of a priest.

Father Denys now keeps hearing Wadham calling his name, he feels Wadham’s presence. he sees him on the street and once sees Wadham’s body swinging in the wind outside his window, which is the scene Hugh Rankin’s interior actually illustrates.

The haunting of Father Denys – which would be a much better title for this story, come to think of it – culminates when he sees Wadham – with the noose round his neck, face purple and eyes protruding – sitting in a pew at the front of the church, while Father Denys is preaching. However, Father Denys is still convinced that he made the right choice and concludes that the one sending the apparitions is the devil rather than one very pissed off ghost.

The story ends with the ghost of Alfred Wadham – or the devil pretending to be the ghost of Alfred Wadham – reappearing in front of the narrator’s and Father Denys’ eyes. We get some nice, if conventional description of a ghostly apparition such as the room growing chill and the lights turning dim and then we get a manifestation of Alfred Wadham’s hanged body, complete with swollen and purple face and lolling tongue. Alas, Father Denys wards off the evil spirit with his crucifix and appears radiant as he has never seen another human being before to the smitten narrator.

Finally, almost as an afterthought, almost as if Benson had forgotten that Father Denys couldn’t possibly tell this whole story to the narrator without breaking his vow, Father Denys reveals that Horace Kennion committed suicide that morning and that he left a full confession behind, which is why Father Denys is no longer bound by the seal of confession and can share his story with the narrator.

I have read a lot of stories from Weird Tales over the years, both for the Retro Reviews project or in general. But “The Hanging of Alfred Wadham” is definitely the worst Weird Tales story I have read to date.

This is a pity, because the seeds for a good story are all here. The scenario of a priest who hears about a crime during confession and struggles to find a way to expose the criminal or prevent the crime without violating the seal of confession is a well-worn one, but it can work, when done correctly. The fact that Alfred Wadham will be executed, if Father Denys can’t find a way to bring Kennion to justice adds a ticking clock to the proceedings. This scenario might have made for a neat thriller – and indeed there have been many thrillers with this exact premise. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1953 movie I Confess, which in turn is based on a French play from 1902, is probably the most famous example, but there are several others.

However, this isn’t the story that Benson told. Of course, the story of a priest haunted by the ghost of an executed man he could have saved by breaking the seal of confession, but didn’t, might have made for a compelling ghost story as well, but that’s not really the story Benson tells either. Or at least, he doesn’t tell it very well.

Instead, we get what appears to be a theological argument in the form of a short story. Which is probably my least favourite type of fiction, because as I said above, I’m not religious and theological debates make my eyes glaze over. Plus, I come from a majority Lutheran-Protestant area. And Lutherans, at least in Germany, have massive issues with the Catholic sacrament of confession, which they view as hypocrisy, because you can literally commit a murder and then be forgiven your sins, just because you confessed and said a few prayers. It all goes back to the sales of indulgences, which were one of the issues that caused Martin Luther to nail the ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenberg castle church.

Of course, it’s quite possible that Benson intended “The Hanging of Alfred Wadham” as a critique of the Catholic sacrament of confession and its inherent issues. After all, Benson’s father was Archbishop of Canterbury and therefore Anglican, even though one brother converted to Catholicism. And Father Denys is not a likeable character. However, if criticising the issues inherent in the sacrament of confession was Benson’s intention, he doesn’t do it very well either.

Because “The Hanging of Alfred Wadham” also has massive craft issues. The framing device and the unnamed narrator are completely unnecessary – just let Father Denys narrate the story and maybe end with him seeing Alfred Wadham’s executed corpse in the church pew. It would certainly have made for a stronger story.

The murder mystery is also sloppily executed (pun fully intended), because it seems the police ignored crucial clues such as the fact that Selfe and Kennion had played cards and that there was a card table set up, which would suggest that Selfe had a visitor on the night he was killed. The blood stains found in Wadham’s room also don’t add up. For starters, they’re explicitly described as human blood stains, though I have no idea if 1920s forensic science could tell the difference between human and animal blood from a few traces. Also, there are any number of ways the blood could have gotten into Wadham’s room such as Wadham accidentally cutting himself while shaving. This may sound nitpicky, but by 1928/29, the so-called Golden Age of Mystery was in full swing, most mysteries were so-called fair play mysteries and plenty of predominantly British authors knew how to plant clues and red herrings. So there is really no excuse for Benson’s sloppiness. Read some Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers, will you.

The writing style is also stilted, ponderous and dull throughout. “The Hanging of Alfred Wadham” is short, only nine pages, but it feels much longer. Benson also has the tendency to overfocus on Father Denys’ internal conflict and underdescribe the murder, the execution and the supernatural events, i.e. the sort of thing Weird Tales readers were probably far more interested in than in a theological argument and a priest’s mental torment.

Furthermore, the story also feels very old-fashioned, more like something that might have appeared in the nineteenth century alongside a Sherlock Holmes or Edgar Allan Poe story than something that appeared alongside Robert E. Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom”. Of course, Benson was not a young man, but already 61 when this story was published and so his style and sensibilities likely were more Victorian.

The one thing about this story that is interesting is the glimpse into closeted gay life in the early twentieth century. Because make no mistake, this is a very gay story. Father Denys, the narrator, murderer Horace Kennion and his victim Gerald Selfe are implied to be closeted gay man, while wrongful execution victim turned vengeful ghost Alfred Wadham was a blackmailer who blackmailed men about their indiscretions. And yes, Gerald Selfe’s sexual indiscretions are said to have been with a married woman, but I suspect Benson just added that tidbit to make the story more palatable in a world, where LGBTQ themes could only be hinted at.

The cover of this fairly recent edition of E.F. Benson’s collected ghost stories actually illustrates “The Hanging of Alfed Wadham”

Another thing that’s notable is that this is a fairly rare example of a pulp story that’s explicitly religious. Because contrary to what certain folks say, religion in general and Christianity in particular do not play a big role in pulp SFF and pulp fiction in general. Especially in pulp SFF, religion is either a scam or for aliens or it involves sacrificing nubile virgins to Cthulhu. Yes, there are exceptions such as Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane, but they are few and far between.

And come to think of it, Solomon Kane, Howard’s fanatical Puritan avenger and scourge of all that is evil, is a much more interesting and compelling portrait of an intensely religious person in moral distress, though in Kane’s case is moral dilemma is that he is a violent man who kills a lot of people, believing himself to be on a mission from God. Only that both Kane’s religious and moral  dilemma and his adventures are a lot more exciting and better written than “The Hanging of Alfred Wadham”. This is particularly interesting since three Solomon Kane stories, “Red Shadows”, “Skulls in the Stars” and “Rattle of Bones” had already been published by the time this story was published. So Weird Tales had already published much variations on the theme of “An intensely religious person is confronted by the supernatural and has their faith tested”.

In fact, if you come across explicitly religious SFF from the 1930s and 1940s, it usually hails from Britain and was published outside the pulp magazine ecosystem. C.S. Lewis is probably the best known example, though E.F. Benson also fits the bill. Now I make no secret of the fact that I intensely dislike C.S. Lewis’ fiction, but much as Lewis’ religious blathering annoys me, there is no doubt that Lewis could write. E.F. Benson, at least based on this example, couldn’t.

“The Hanging of Alfred Wadham” was my first exposure to E.F. Benson’s work, but based on this story, I certainly won’t go seeking out more of his work. In fact, I am baffled that Benson is famous enough to have a Wikipedia entry, plenty of reprints of his work and film and TV adaptations. Maybe his satirical small town tales are better or maybe this story is just a dud. It definitely is proof that even Weird Tales did publish duds on occasion, though they are still a lot more consistent than other pulp magazines.

If you want a Weird Tales story featuring an execution, read the much superior “In a Dead Man’s Shoes” by Harold Markham. If you want a story about an intensely religious person having their faith and personal morality tested by encounters with the supernatural, read Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane stories. If you want religious blathering but well written, read C.S. Lewis. If you want to read a great story from the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales, read “The Shadow Kingdom” by Robert E. Howard.

But don’t bother with “The Hanging of Alfred Wadham”, unless you are a fan of E.F. Benson’s or really like religious blathering and theological arguments in your fiction or are doing a study of early LGBTQ speculative fiction.

Non-Fiction Spotlight: A Haunted History of Invisible Women – True Stories of America’s Ghosts by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes

After the Hugos is before the next Hugos, so I’m continuing my Non-Fiction Spotlight project, where I interview the authors/editors of SFF-related non-fiction books that come out in 2022 and are eligible for the 2023 Hugo Awards. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

For more recommendations for SFF-related non-fiction, also check out this Facebook group set up by the always excellent Farah Mendlesohn, who is a champion (and author) of SFF-related non-fiction.

One of the greatest things about this project has been discovering the huge range of SFF-related non-fiction that is out there, which belies claims that there is not enough SFF-related non-fiction published in a year to fill a Hugo category. Over the course of this project I have featured books on cosplay, manga, videogames, movies and TV shows, cartoons, speculative fiction in translation, speculative fiction from Africa, interview and essay collections, biographies, etc… And today, I have a book about ghosts, hauntings and gender for you.

Therefore, I am pleased to welcome Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes, authors of A Haunted History of Invisible Women – True Stories of America’s Ghosts, to my blog today.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Leanna: I’ve been writing since I was a kid and didn’t consider pursuing it professionally until my first job out of college. I had gotten a BFA in theatre performance with a focus study in the Victorian Era. I worked in the professional regional theatre circuit for a few years before moving to New York City and ended up at a Broadway callback where all I could think about was the book that would end up becoming my debut Gothic, Gaslamp Fantasy series, Strangely Beautiful. I stopped auditioning and solely focused on my novel about a girl who sees, talks with, and helps ghosts. Spectral subjects have been part of my creative process since childhood. I got my NYC tour guide’s license my first years in New York as I knew I wanted to incorporate real history into my fiction and eventually write non-fiction. Being a tour guide is a great way to make history second-nature. I feel like A Haunted History of Invisible Women is the culmination of everything that’s ever been important to me.

Andrea: I’m a writer and a New York City tour guide. I founded my own walking tour company, Boroughs of the Dead, in 2013.

What prompted you to write/edit this book?

Leanna: I was giving a ghost tour when an editor familiar with my fiction suggested I write a non-fiction book about ghosts. I knew from that first moment that I wanted to bring my colleague into the process, as I was Andrea’s first hire at Boroughs of the Dead, and the way she built the company informs so much of how I give a ghost tour, so there was never a moment’s hesitation about involving her, and it’s been an incredible process of discovery. Our interests, combined with our editor Liz May’s interests, hit upon the importance of discussing the ways in which we talk about women, alive or dead.

Andrea: I’ve long had an interest in both women’s history and ghost stories, and this book was the perfect intersection of them both.

Why should SFF fans in general and Hugo voters in particular read this book?

Leanna: We do deep dives on trope; which are some of the building blocks of fiction analysis. We discuss the ways in which Gothic fiction and the long history of telling fictional ghost stories inform how we tell ghost stories about real people. We involve important literary figures in our process; whether it’s discussing how Poe was one of the first true crime writers to including a piece from the great poet, speculative and horror fiction author Linda D. Addison as our Afterword. Because we are both also genre fiction writers, talking about storytelling from the perspective of tour guides committed to real history is a shift in perspective I’m sure any genre writer can appreciate.

Andrea: Anyone with an interest in the ways the speculative and otherworldly collide with our lived realities will have an interest in this book.

Do you have any cool facts or tidbits that you unearthed during your research, but that did not make it into the final book?

Leanna: There’s a wonderful statue of Mary Becker Greene, “Ma” Greene, that I didn’t get a chance to photograph or present to the art department before the book came out. Mary was the first woman to obtain her Steamboat Pilot’s License in this country in 1892, opening doors for other women pilots to follow. Her chapter is one of my favorites in the book! Mary’s statue and plaque stand just across the bank from Cincinnati, in a Covington, KY park along the riverside, situated along the Ohio river she traveled and navigated so expertly.

Leanna Renee Hieber with the statue of steamboat pilot Ma Greene in Covington, KY

Andrea: We tried to put the best stuff in the book! But I did enjoy researching the story of the ghost of Melrose Hall in Brooklyn, as well as several ghost stories featuring women who lived in wild places such as caves, who still haunt those locales. These will (hopefully) go in volume 2!

SFF-related non-fiction is somewhat sidelined by the big genre awards, since the Nebulas have no non-fiction category and the Best Related Work Hugo category has become something of a grab bag of anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. So why do you think SFF-related non-fiction is important?

Leanna: It’s really all about discussion; one has to be able to analyze the elements of story regardless of genre. Non-fiction can truly deconstruct all the elements that go into fiction and so much of fiction needs to be researched via non-fiction. So much of my inspiration and underpinnings as a historical fantasy author has come from discussions of fantastical and supernatural history as explained in non-fiction works.

Andrea: I think it’s important because fiction writers are obviously inspired by real life and well – researched non-fiction on speculative topics is a treasure trove for information as well as a way to reflect deeply on these matters.

Are there any other great SFF-related non-fiction works or indeed anything else (books, stories, essays, writers, magazines, films, TV shows, etc…) you’d like to recommend?

Leanna: Tiya Miles’ Tales from the Haunted South was a particularly vital resource for our book, as was Colin Dickey’s Ghostland, and I think Leila Taylor’s Darkly is a profoundly important work. I’ve been really thrilled to be a part of Amanda Woomer’s great journal of The Feminine Macabre which seeks to lift up women’s voices in paranormal related fields.

Andrea: I’ve enjoyed the non-fiction books of Lisa Morton, who writes about ghosts, seances, and Halloween.

Where can people buy your book?

Anywhere fine books are sold! https://linktr.ee/ahauntedhistory

Where can people find you?

Across most social media and via

http://leannareneehieber.com

https://linktr.ee/leannareneehieber

https://boroughsofthedead.com/

https://andreajanes.com/

Thank you, Leanna and Andrea, for stopping and answering my questions. Do check out A Haunted History of Invisible Women – True Stories of America’s Ghosts, if you’re interested in true life ghost stories, gender and spooky fiction.

About A Haunted History of Invisible Women – True Stories of America’s Ghosts:

From the notorious Lizzie Borden to the innumerable, haunted rooms of Sarah Winchester’s mysterious mansion, this offbeat, insightful, first-ever book of its kind explores the history behind America’s female ghosts, the stereotypes, myths, and paranormal tales that swirl around them, what their stories reveal about us—and why they haunt us…

Sorrowful widows, vengeful jezebels, innocent maidens, wronged lovers, former slaves, even the occasional axe-murderess—America’s female ghosts differ widely in background, class, and circumstance. Yet one thing unites them: their ability to instill fascination and fear, long after their deaths. Here are the full stories behind some of the best-known among them, as well as the lesser-known—though no less powerful.

Tales whispered in darkness often divulge more about the teller than the subject. America’s most famous female ghosts, from from ‘Mrs. Spencer’ who haunted Joan Rivers’ New York apartment to Bridget Bishop, the first person executed during the Salem witchcraft trials, mirror each era’s fears and prejudices. Yet through urban legends and campfire stories, even ghosts like the nameless hard-working women lost in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire —achieve a measure of power and agency in death, in ways unavailable to them as living women.

Riveting for skeptics and believers alike, with humor, curiosity, and expertise, A Haunted History of Invisible Women offers a unique lens on the significant role these ghostly legends play both within the spook-seeking corners of our minds and in the consciousness of a nation.

About Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes:

Actress, playwright and author Leanna Renee Hieber is the award-winning, bestselling writer of gothic Victorian fantasy novels for adults and teens. Her novels such as the Strangely Beautiful saga, and the Eterna Files series have garnered numerous regional genre awards, including four Prism awards, and have been selected as “Indie Next” and national book club picks. She lives in New York City where she is a licensed ghost tour guide and has been featured in film and television shows like Boardwalk Empire. Follow her on Twitter@leannarenee, or visit www.leannareneehieber.com.

Andrea Janes is the Founder and owner of Boroughs of the Dead, New York City’s premier ghost tour company, which has been featured on NPR.org, The New York Times, Jezebel, TODAY, The Huffington Post, Gothamist,The Travel Channel, CondeNast Traveler, Mashable, among others. Andrea is also the author of the YA novel Glamour, and several short horror stories, and a fiction horror novel Boroughs of the Dead, the inspiration for her company. More at www.boroughsofthedead.com.

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Are you publishing a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2022 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

Fancast Spotlight: Tales from the Trunk

After the Hugos is before the Hugos, so here is another Fancast Spotlight for your consideration. For more about the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines and fancasts featured by clicking here.

Today’s featured fancast is Tales from the Trunk, a podcast where SFF writers talks about their trunk stories, i.e. stories that failed to sell. And trust me, we all have some of those.

So I’m very pleased to welcome Hilary B. Bisenieks of Tales from the Trunk to my blog today:

Tell us about your podcast or channel.

Tales from the Trunk is a podcast about the stories that we, as writers, have had to give up on for one reason or another. Every episode, an author comes on to read a story out of their trunk, or in the case of book tour episodes to read an excerpt from a new or forthcoming release, and chat about the writing life, the reasons that some stories just don’t make it, and why every word you write is its own victory. Episodes come out on the first and third Friday of every month.

Who are the people behind your podcast or channel?

Tales from the Trunk is hosted and produced by author Hilary B. Bisenieks (that’s me). I’m joined each episode by a guest author who works in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and beyond.

Why did you decide to start your podcast or channel?

Originally, I’d been thinking about a somewhat different show—one where authors would come on and read their juvenalia—but Sarah Gailey pointed out that, especially as someone not really known in the podcasting space, that would probably be a hard pitch for me. They did say, though, that if I had a show where I invited folks on to read stories out of their trunks, they’d be very interested in being a guest. That was probably mid-January of 2019, and by that March, I had the first three episodes of the show recorded, talking with Sarahs Gailey and Hollowell and my childhood friend, author R.K. Duncan. Ultimately, I decided to start this podcast, even after changing the format from what I’d initially envisioned, because it was the sort of show that I would have really liked to listen to back in the mid-to-late aughts, when I first became a Podcast Fan and thought that it would probably resonate with other folks.

What format do you use for your podcast or channel and why did you choose this format?

Trunkcast is an interview show, and ultimately it’s a cozy chat between friends. I’ve been listening to podcasts for more than 15 years at this point, and public radio interview shows like Fresh Air and The World Cafe for quite a while before that, which really influenced how I think about radio and radio-like things. I knew that the centerpiece of the show, in some ways, would be the reading, but also that the reading was a jumping-off point into the real meat of the show. I have a basic format: introduction, reading, conversation, and the “time machine,” that I’ve been using for all my main-line episodes since the show began, and when I started doing book tour episodes around the start of 2021, I came up with an abbreviated format for those shows that I’ve hewed to pretty closely, too, so I have an idea of the shape of each episode from the jump, but I never really plan on what we’ll talk about beyond that outline.

The fan categories at the Hugos were there at the very beginning, but they are also the categories which consistently gets the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines, fancasts and other fan projects are important?

I grew up in fandom, and some of my earliest memories are of being a child-in-tow at Worldcons. My dad has written for various fanzines since he was in his twenties and maintains subscriptions to a few of the remaining print zines to this day. All of this is to say that I can’t picture fandom without fan-works. The barrier to entry is so low, and the output is so vital to the field as a whole. I don’t think anything exemplifies how important fan-works are more than the fact that AO3 won a Hugo. For me, making a podcast is a way that I can contribute something to the massive conversation that is fandom and bring a lot of warmth, encouragement, and camaraderie to all the writers out there with us in the trenches of the submission grind.

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online and fancasts have sprung up. What do you think the future of fan media looks like?

I work in technology and have watched science fiction try and mostly fail to predict the future for decades, so I’m not even going to pretend to guess at what kind of new media fandom might move the conversation into. I will say, though, that video is probably going to occupy a larger role in fan media. We’re already seeing that a little bit with the first booktube channel being nominated for best fancast a few years back, and the only reason I can see for that to slow down is if the platforms that we rely on push further and further away from archival discoverability and more and more towards ephemeral content. I’ve been on TikTok since a couple months into the pandemic, and while I do see booktok content in my feed on the regular, that platform isn’t really conducive to sustained conversation or long-term discoverability of older content.

I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see a bit of a renaissance in print zines, or variations on the theme for people who don’t want to bother with printers and postage. We’re seeing this in the indie tabletop roleplaying space right now, with some creators offering printings of their games or making it easy for players to print out zines of the games themselves. There’s something very pleasing about a tactile artefact, and I would certainly love to see the fanzine space move back towards that even a little bit.

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists you’d like to recommend?

Almost all of my fancast faves are on some level of hiatus, but I can’t not give a shout-out to the excellent Be The Serpent. Likewise, We Make Books is a lovely show that I think deserves more attention. The Hugos tend to favor SFF to the detriment of the H, but for folks who like horror films, Rank and Vile is well worth your time. Finally, in the fancast space, A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast is one of my favorite shows around, and their current (as of this writing) series of companion episodes to season one of Andor provides a ton of additional material to chew on long after the end credits of the show have finished rolling.

For fan writing, Elsa Sjunneson, Sarah Gailey, and Jason Sanford are doing amazing work, and on the fan artist side, a lot of people are sleeping on the amazing work being done by Miri Baker, who created Fran Wilde’s Hugo dress this year and previously created a capelet for Amal El-Mohtar inspired by This is How You Lose the Time War that is just stunning.

Where can people find you?

For as long as it’s still standing, I’m easiest to find on Twitter at @HBBisenieks, and Tales from the Trunk is at @Trunkcast. Failing that, I can be found, utterly unhinged, on Tumblr, also as HBBisenieks (and as trunkcast, hinges still firmly intact). You can find links to all my work at hilarybisenieks.com, and you can listen to every episode of Tales from the Trunk at talesfromthetrunk.com or wherever fine podcasts are sold.

Thank you, Hilary, for stopping by and answering my questions.

Do check out Tales from the Trunk, cause it’s an excellent podcast.

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Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine/-site or fancast or a semiprozine and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

Retro Review: “In a Dead Man’s Shoes” by Harold Markham

“In a Dead Man’s Shoes” is a historical short story by Harold Markham, which was first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales. The story may be found online here. This review will also be crossposted to Retro Science Fiction Reviews.

I came across this story via the striking interior artwork (see below) of an eighteenth century hanging by prolific Weird Tales interior and cover artist Hugh Rankin under his pseudonym Doak (Doak was Rankin’s middle name), which intrigued me enough to read the story itself. Rankin also supplied the striking Art Deco cover, illustrating a Seabury Quinn Jules de Grandin story, for this issue of Weird Tales, by the way.

Harold Markham is one of the many pulp era authors about whom we know next to nothing. ISFDB lists only six stories by him, published between 1928 and 1936. Three of those stories were published in British horror anthologies, which leads me to believe that Markham may have been British. The remaining three appeared in Weird Tales.

The Fiction Mags Index lists a few non-fiction pieces by Markham that appeared in Boys’ Life and Boy’s Own Paper. Several of these non-fiction articles are about amateur theatre and indeed Harold Markham published a manual for staging amateur theatre productions in 1931. There also is a Harold Markham who ran a coconut plantation in the Solomon Islands from the 1930s into the 1960s and was a prolific letter writer and diarist, though it’s not clear whether he is the Harold Markham who wrote “In a Dead Man’s Shoes”.

Warning: There will be spoilers in the following.

“In a Dead Man’s Shoes” opens with a bang or rather the slamming of a gavel, as a judge sentences a young man named Jim O’Dale to death for highway robbery. O’Dale is remarkably sanguine about his fate. He readily admits that he is guilty and even boasts of a particularly daring heist, where he robbed a fellow highwayman who had previously robbed the actor David Garrick. David Garrick was a real person, by the way, a famous eighteenth century actor and director of the Drury Lane Theatre.

O’Dale only has three requests for the judge. He asks for a reasonably sober hangman to avoid a botched execution, that a certain lady be allowed to visit him in prison and that his old friend, the innkeeper Jacob Larkyn, come to see him hanged. After all, Larkyn paid for O’Dale’s lawyer, though the lawyer never stood a chance in the face of overwhelming evidence. “See ye again at Tyburn,” O’Dale calls out to Larkyn in what turns out to be a very ominous statement.

Larkyn has every intention to watch O’Dale’s execution, since he was the one who tipped off the authorities and led the Bow Street Runners to O’Dale’s hideout. As for why Larkyn sold out his old friend, it’s a classic case of “cherchez le femme”, since both O’Dale and Larkyn happen to be in love with the same woman, Barbara Challis. However, Barbara chose the handsome O’Dale over the unattractive Larkyn, so Larkyn decided to get his rival out of the way and then console the bereaved Barbara. He even paid for O’Dale’s lawyer, because he knew that the evidence against O’Dale was so overwhelming that even the best of lawyers could not save him.

Next, we get the execution of Jim O’Dale at Tyburn, described from Larkyn’s POV in grisly detail. We get plenty of description of the jeering, cheering crowd and of the handsome Jim O’Dale being driven to the gallows, dressed in fine new clothes. This is historically accurate, by the way, since condemned prisoners about the be hung in Tyburn would often wear particularly nice clothes to look their best during their execution.

Even on the way to his own hanging, Jim O’Dale is still charming and suave as ever. He doesn’t have a dying speech, though he does have a final request. He asks to speak to Jacob Larkyn and asks that his fine and very distinctive shoes with wrought gold buckles be given to Larkyn as a final gift. This is contrary to custom, since the hangman gets the clothes of the executed victims as a sort of bonus, though the resale value is questionable considering that people executed by hanging tend to lose control of their bowels and bladder. However, O’Dale tells the hangman that he can have all his other clothes, including a very fine velvet coat, as long as Larkyn gets the shoes “in memory of what he did for Jim O’Dale”.

What makes the shoe request even more strange is that earlier on the same page, it was explained that part of the reason Larkyn hates Jim O’Dale is that O’Dale is handsome and has dainty hands and feet, whereas Larkyn has the big paws and feet of a labourer. So given the difference in their shoe sizes, how will O’Dale’s shoes even fit Larkyn?

The hangman agrees to let Larkyn have the shoes and so the execution proper begins. Charming, handsome and debonair as Jim O’Dale was in life, his death is brutal and unpleasant and he struggles a lot, before the hangman tugs on his legs to break his neck, a scene illustrated by Hugh Rankin in the interior art.

The description of the hanging and of Jim O’Dale’s twitching, struggling body is not only quite graphic, it is also accurate compared to descriptions of actual short drop hangings. The only thing that is not entirely accurate is that O’Dale is the only person to be hanged that day, since in the eighteenth century multiple prisoners were usually hanged at once. In fact, the description of the hanging was so accurate that I wondered whether Harold Markham had ever witnessed an execution by hanging. This is not completely unlikely, since the last public hanging execution in the US took place in Kentucky in 1936, i.e. seven years after “In a Dead Man’s Shoes” was published. The UK no longer had public executions in the twentieth century, but Markham might still have witnessed a hanging in a professional capacity (journalist, lawyer, priest, prison warden) of some kind.

However, twentieth century hangings were long drop hangings, at least in the US and the UK and its former and current colonies. Short drop hangings such as the executions at Tyburn and the resulting violent death struggles were long a thing of the past by the early twentieth century, at least for official executions. Therefore, it’s also quite possible that Markham used lurid reports about executions at Tyburn from old broadsheets or the Newgate Calendar as the basis for the graphic description of the hanging of Jim O’Dale.

The hanging of Jim O’Dale is such an unpleasant sight that Larkyn feels a little ashamed for what he’s done, especially since he is obliged to wait and watch his rival swinging dead in the wind for an hour, until the body is cut down. We get another nice bit of period detail, as spectators try to snag a piece of a hangman’s rope, which was a popular good luck talisman during the era. The hangman also keeps his word and gives Larkyn the late Jim O’Dale’s shoes.

A drink at a nearby pub lifts Larkyn’s spirit and he even wonders that since parts of the hangman’s rope are considered good luck charms, whether O’Dale’s shoes will not bring him luck. So Larkyn decides to try on the nice new shoes and lo and behold, they even fit, though they are a little tight.

Now Larkyn goes to see Barbara Challis, hoping to console her in her grief over Jim O’Dale. Barbara, who did not attend the execution, has clearly been crying, but she’s also oddly triumphant, as she tells Larkyn that O’Dale asked her to make sure that Larkyn is rewarded for everything he did for them. Again, this sounds rather ominous, but Larkyn is too besotted by the pretty Barbara to notice.

Barbara hugs Larkyn and cries on his shoulder and reveals yet another last wish of Jim O’Dale. For O’Dale did not want Barbara to mourn him, but wanted her to move on. He specifically asked her to go to the Drury Lane Theatre on the night of his hanging to distract herself by watching celebrated actor David Garrett play Hamlet. And since a lady can hardly go to the theatre alone, Barbara asks Larkyn to accompany her. After all, it was Jim O’Dale’s last wish.

After the play, Barbara asks Larkyn to take her to the stage door to see the great David Garrett himself. There is a crowd at the stage door, but Larkyn pushed his way through to David Garrett himself and asks the actor to talk to Barbara. Though used to fan requests, Garrett is uncommonly interested in Larkyn and particularly in his shoes – the very distinctive shoes with the gold buckles that Jim O’Dale bequeathed to Larkyn as a final gift.

Turns out that the shoes really belong to David Garrett and were stolen, when Garrett fell victim to a highwayman, a highwayman who was subsequently robbed by Jim O’Dale. Larkyn tries to explain that he came by the shoes honestly, that Jim O’Dale gave them to him, but suddenly Barbara calls out that Larkyn has the shoes, because he was O’Dale’s fence and that they will find plenty of more stolen goods hidden in Larkyn’s closet.

Now Larkyn finally realises that he has been tricked, but it’s too late. He is arrested and taken to Newgate. The story ends with Larkyn having a vision of his own trial and hanging, while Barbara looks on in triumph.

“In a Dead Man’s Shoes” is a neat, atmospheric and well-constructed historical crime story. However, even though the story was published in Weird Tales, it is not even remotely supernatural. Larkyn does not fall victim to a vengeful ghost, but to the carefully plotted revenge of Jim O’Dale and Barbara.

This isn’t as unusual as you’d think, since Weird Tales did publish quite a few stories in the 1920s that were heavy on torture and physical brutality, but had no supernatural content. “The Copper Bowl” by George Fielding Eliot, published in the December 1928 issue of Weird Tales and reprinted several times since then, is probably the best known example. Even before either genre was fully codified, the lines between horror and thriller were fluid and so stories of non-supernatural horror like “The Copper Bowl” or “In a Dead Man’s Shoes” could find a home in Weird Tales.

“The Copper Bowl” hasn’t aged well, since it’s a yellow peril story and very racist. In fact, I’m stunned that the last reprint of that story was in 2017. Meanwhile, “In a Dead Man’s Shoes” has never been reprinted, even though it’s a well plotted revenge story and manages to be not grossly offensive.

Indeed, it is notable how well executed (pun fully intended) this story is. Markham never mentions an exact date beyond the reign of George III (which lasted a whopping sixty years), yet Markham weaves plenty of details into the story that evoke the second half of the eighteenth century. The story is also well researched. But then, there was quite a lot of good and well researched historical fiction to be found in the pulps, particularly in Adventure. Sadly, comparatively little of it has been reprinted.

Markham’s keen interest in theatre, which is evidenced by the fact that he wrote several articles and a whole book on staging amateur theatre productions, comes through in the story with regard to the David Garrick subplot. Though I wonder whether Garrick was better remembered in the 1920s, since this story was the first I’d heard of him, though I know I inadvertently visited his grave in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.

The revenge plot is well crafted, too, especially considering how short the story is (only seven pages). Many of the utterances of Jim O’Dale and Barbara seem friendly and pleasant on the surface, but take on an ominous double meaning upon rereading the story. Markham also drops in the clue that Jim O’Dale robbed the man who robbed David Garrick into the very first scene in the courtroom and thus sets up the pay-off.

A well-plotted historical crime tale that really deserves more attention than it got.