Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 52
October 15, 2020
Three New Stories of The Day the Saucers Came…
Well, I told you that there would be more new release announcements in the near future and here is the next one. And this time, it’s even a triple new release announcement for the next three stories in my The Day the Saucers Came… series.
For those of you who don’t know, the premise of the series is that there was a B-movie style alien invasion on June 9, 1956, a.k.a. “The Day the Saucers Came…”. The stories are eye witness accounts by survivors of that invasion and – it is implied – members of the resistance. In most of the stories, an alien invasion is not the worst or most notable thing that happened to the respective narrator on that day.
There are six The Day the Saucers Came… stories altogether. Acacia Crescent is the story of ten-year-old Kenny for whom June 9th, 1956, already was the worst day of his life before the saucers showed up. Lovers’ Lane is the story of sixteen-year-old Betty who first loses her virginity to the boy she believes loves her and then her boyfriend to the flying saucers. Double Feature is the story of seventeen-year-old Judy, who is in the cinema watching a science fiction double feature, when what happens on screen suddenly becomes reality.
The first of three new tales is the story of Rosemary Wilson, a housewife and mother of three who finally decides to leave her abusive husband, when the flying saucers show up.
Azalea Avenue
[image error]1956: On the surface, Rosemary Wilson is a happily married wife and mother, enjoying a perfect life in the quiet suburb of Shady Groves. But the house on Azalea Avenue harbours a dark secret, for Rosemary’s husband Don is an abusive drunk, who vents his frustrations on Rosemary and their three children.
After nine years of abuse, Rosemary finally decides to leave Don. But her plans of escape are interrupted, first by Don coming home early from a weekend hunting trip and then by the appearance of a flying saucer from outer space in the sky above Shady Groves…
This is a novelette of 10400 words or approx. 38 pages in the The Day the Saucers Came… series, but may be read as a standalone.
Content warning for domestic violence.
More information.
Length: 10400 words
List price: 2.99 USD, EUR or 1.99 GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, Vivlio, 24symbols and XinXii.
The next of the new tales is the story of Bernie Stetson, a burglar who experiences a double surprise. First, the house he’s robbing turns out to be not as deserted as he thought. And then a flying saucer shows up as well.
Bernie’s story was a July Short Story Challenge story BTW, inspired by this piece of art by Simon Stålenhag.
Appletree Court
[image error]1956: Bernie Stetson is a burglar, robbing suburban homes while their owners are not at home.
Bernie’s latest raid takes him to the subdivision of Shady Groves. But things quickly go wrong. First, the house Bernie is robbing turns out to be not as deserted as he thought. And then, a flying saucer from outer space appears in the sky above Shady Groves…
This is a short story of 3600 words or approx. 14 print pages in the The Day the Saucers Came… series, but may be read as a standalone.
More information.
Length: 3600 words
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, Vivlio, 24symbols and XinXii.
The last of the three new The Day the Saucers Came… stories is another July Challenge story. The idea behind this story was “The couple from the painting American Gothic meet aliens.”
Willowbrook Farm
[image error]1956: The elderly farmer couple Bob and Mary Graham are crushed by debt and about to lose the family farm to a greedy developer.
But on the day they are supposed to be evicted, a flying saucer from outer space appears in the sky above Willowbrook Farm…
This is a short story of 2700 words or approx. 10 print pages in the The Day the Saucers Came… series, but may be read as a standalone.
More information.
Length: 2700 words
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, Vivlio, 24symbols and XinXii.
All The Day the Saucers Came… stories can be read as standalones, but the characters appear in each others’ stories. Acacia Crescent, Azalea Avenue and Appletree Court all happen in the same place, the evocatively named suburb Shady Groves. Lovers’ Lane and Double Feature not only happen in the same small town, the two narrators are also classmates. And in the end, all the characters from the different stories meet up at the same diner.
If you want to read the entire The Day the Saucers Came… series, the cheapest way to do so is via this handy bundle at DriveThruFiction. And in case you noticed that there are some character apearing in the diner scene at the end whose stories have not yet been told, keep watching the skies this space.
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New Podcast Story Available at Simultaneous Times: “Patient X-5”
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Well, I told you that there would be more new release announcements in the near future and here is one for the audio fiction fans among you. Because the latest episode of the Simultaneous Times podcast includes my story “Patient X-5” as well as “Trial in Majority” by Andy Dibble. Simultaneous Times is a fiction podcast produced by Space Cowboy Books, a science fiction bookstore in Joshua Tree, California.
“Patient X-5” is another story to result from the July Short Story Challenge and the first of my stories ever to make it to audio. The story is narrated by Jean-Paul Garnier and Zara Kand with music by Phog Masheen. It’s a great production that really brings the story to life. I particularly like the sound effects for the movements and voice of Patient X-5, “Whirr” to their friends.
You can listen to the episode on podomatic or Apple iTunes or the various other apps where podcasts may be found.
You can also listen right here:
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October 14, 2020
My Hugo Finalist Pin Arrived
My Hugo finalist pin finally arrived this weekend, together with a nice postcard:
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Hugo finalist pin and postcard
The pin now lives on my summer jacket – sadly just as it’s getting too cold to wear it – together with the Galactic Journey finalist pin from last year, a 100 years of WWI poppy pin I bought in the UK a few years ago and a badger pin I got at a meeting for operators of co-generation units (the badger is the logo of the company).
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Two hugo finalist pins, a poppy and a badger
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October 4, 2020
First Monday Free Fiction: The Terror of the Bayou
[image error]Welcome to the October 2020 edition of First Monday Free Fiction. To recap, inspired by Kristine Kathryn Rusch who posts a free short story every week on her blog, I’ll post a free story on every first Monday of the month. It will remain free to read on this blog for one month, then I’ll take it down and post another story.
October is traditionally the month for horror fiction, so this month’s free story is a horror story. Now I haven’t written a lot of straight horror stories, cause for some reason, whenever I try to write horror, it comes out as humor. That probably has something to do with the fact that I haven’t really been scared by a horror movie since I was a teenager either.
This month’s story is called “The Terror of the Bayou” and may be found in the collection Southern Monsters. The title says it all, really – it’s a story about a swamp monster that lives in the Louisiana bayous and snatches a bride on her wedding day and the man who goes after them. It was inspired by my love for the US Gulf Coast, where I lived for almost a year as a child.
So prepare to accompany Remy Theriault, as he faces…
The Terror of the Bayou
Remy Theriault had never really believed in the swamp monster.
True, there had been stories. Stories going back two hundred years, passed on from father to son, from mother to daughter. Stories of the thing that stalked the bayous of Vermilion Parish. Stories of glowing red eyes staring out from the undergrowth. Tales of roots and twigs and pond scum suddenly coming alive to form a crude mockery of the human form. Stories of a thing with razor sharp teeth chasing the unwary through the bayou.
And then there were all those tales of people who had ventured out into the bayou — hunters, traders, runaways and escaped slaves — and never come back. And whispers that they had fallen prey to the thing that stalked Bayou Cramoisi, the Crimson Bayou. Whispers that the Terror had got them. For that was what the locals called the monster. La Terreur. The Terror.
Remy didn’t believe any of it, of course. Growing up Cajun in Acadiana didn’t mean that you automatically had to believe every tall tale told by some old man sitting in a rocking chair on his porch and every superstition whispered by some old woman stirring a pot of gumbo in the cosy comfort of her kitchen.
For Remy was smart, a man of the world, a man of poise and education. He’d been to college, after all. He’d left behind the bayou and the little shack in the village of Leleux where he’d grown up. He’d gotten a scholarship for Tulane, worked hard, studied hard, became a lawyer in New Orleans. He was a man of the world now, yes, he was. And men of the world did not believe in tall tales and superstitions and stories of swamp monsters.
As it was, Remy barely even heard the old stories anymore now that he lived in the big city. And so he mentally slotted them into the same category as the voodoo shops with their windows full of love spells and pincushion dolls made in China or the tours of supposedly haunted houses, haunted by the ghosts of people who’d never lived and certainly never died there, or the fake vampires that roamed the French Quarter by night.
It was all just a bit of quaint folklore for the benefit of the tourists who came to New Orleans, their head full of the stories told by Anne Rice or Charlaine Harris, thinking that it was all real, thinking that just because the city was old, older than most any other on the American continent, it had to be haunted by ghosts and infested with vampires and swamp monsters as well.
Remy politely ignored it all. The city needed the tourists, after all, and many a family in his old home in Acadiana made its living ferrying tourists through the bayous, taking them hunting or fishing or gator spotting. And if the tourists wanted myths and legends and stories, then who was Remy to say anything against that? Money made the world go round, after all, in Cajun country as much as everywhere. But that Remy tolerated the old stories didn’t necessarily mean that he believed in any of them.
Though these days, Remy didn’t come home much anyway. Weddings, funerals, maybe Christmas and Thanksgiving, that was it.
It was the former that had brought Remy back to Vermilion Parish this time around. His cousin Alex was getting married to Belle St. Croix this weekend. Or rather, Alex was supposed to get married to Belle St. Croix, for the wedding had to be called off at the last minute, because the bride had gone missing.
By all accounts, Belle had just vanished into thin air. One moment she was in her parents’ house, getting dressed for the wedding, the next she was gone — poof, just like that — and all that was left were a few drops of blood, a scrap of white lace from her wedding dress and an open window overlooking the Crimson Bayou.
To Remy, it was completely obvious what had happened. Belle, probably experiencing the usual wedding jitters, had taken a good long look at Alex — who, though he was Remy’s cousin and an all around nice guy and gifted car mechanic, had never been the sharpest knife in the drawer — and saw the future life she would lead as the wife of a car mechanic barely scraping by in the Louisiana bayous. And then, in a moment of unusual clarity — for Belle was nothing if not Alex’s intellectual equal — she’d done a runner. Probably tore her dress and hurt herself climbing out of the window, which would account for the blood and the scrap of lace.
So there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for what had happened to Belle. She was probably halfway to New Orleans or Atlanta or Houston or Galveston by now, and more power to her.
But Belle’s parents and Alex and the whole town really, they just didn’t want to accept the truth. The truth that Belle was gone and that she wouldn’t be coming back, if she had even half a brain — which, knowing Belle, was debatable. And so, rather than face the facts, the people started talking of the Terror and how it had snatched Belle like it had snatched so many others before.
It was all bullshit of course. Superstitious nonsense, cooked up by people unwilling to face the hard truth. People like Alex, looking so sad and lost in his borrowed tuxedo that had gone out of style in approximately 1988.
But though he didn’t believe in the Terror, Remy had nonetheless volunteered to go looking for Belle. Dumb as a sack of rocks or not, Alex was family and family looked out for each other. It was simply a matter of duty.
And so here he was, still in his dress shirt, though he’d ditched the bow tie and jacket and swapped his tuxedo pants for jeans, his dress shoes for sturdy workboots, wading through the swamp in search of Belle St. Croix, a search that he knew fully well was futile.
When no trace of Belle was found — as Remy knew there wouldn’t be — the people of Leleux would eventually give up looking for her and chalk up Belle as another victim of the Terror. There’d probably be a nice memorial service and a headstone with her name and the date of her disappearance on it in the cemetery. And soon no one would remember or care that the headstone marked an empty grave, a grave in which nothing but a scrap of bloody lace lay buried.
As far as anybody in Leleux was concerned, Belle St. Croix would be dead, just one more victim of the Terror. Which probably suited Belle just fine. Disappearing without a trace was always easier, when there was no one looking for you.
Hmm, perhaps Belle had even deliberately planted the blood and the scrap of lace to lead the town chasing down the wrong path. Though in that case, she had to be a lot smarter than Remy gave her credit for.
He should’ve done the same, Remy thought, as he sank knee-deep into brackish water, soaking his jeans and his boots. Should’ve done a runner and planted a few scraps of clothing and a few droplets of blood to make it look like the Terror had taken him. That way, he could be sitting on the balcony of his apartment in New Orleans now, a Sazerac in one hand and a good crime novel in the other, overlooking the French Quarter. Not wading through some stinking bayou, chasing ghosts and phantoms and runaway brides.
A twig cracked behind him, followed by the distinctive slurping of water. Remy froze. Someone or rather something was here with him, watching his every move from the dense undergrowth. Not the Terror. Remy wasn’t stupid, after all. He knew that there was no such thing as monsters. But there were plenty of creatures in the bayou, snakes, alligators, snap turtles and even the occasional Louisiana black bear, that were just as deadly and — unlike the Terror — actually real.
Remy raised his shotgun, aiming it at nothing in particular. True, he might not believe that a monster had taken Belle St. Croix, but he’d be damned if he went into the bayou without a gun and a knife. Only an idiot would go into alligator infested waters unarmed.
There were more cracking twigs, more rustling leaves, more slurping water behind him. Slowly, Remy turned around, hand on the trigger of his shotgun.
Behind him, there was nothing, nothing at all. Just dense undergrowth, a bit denser than it should have been considering Remy had just come that way mere seconds before.
Then, all of a sudden, the undergrowth moved, branches swaying and shaking, leaves quivering, water rippling. Almost as if something was trying to break through, something big and deadly.
Remy took a step backwards and then another, keeping his shotgun trained on the undergrowth.
And still the leaves rustled, the foliage trembled and brackish bayou water bubbled up against Remy’s legs. But nothing broke through. Nothing but a bird that fluttered out of the undergrowth and up into the sky with a panicked chirp.
Remy allowed himself to relax a little. Scared by a bird, right. Here he was, mocking his old neighbours for being terrified of mythical monsters, when he himself was scared half to death by a bird.
The undergrowth shook again, leaves rustling and quivering. Probably the bird’s mate, abandoning the nest to follow her beloved. Hell, maybe there even was a whole colony of birds nesting in there.
Remy waited, shotgun still raised, but no further birds emerged from the undergrowth. But the twigs still crackled, the leaves still rustled, the brackish water still burbled like mad.
And then he saw it. A pair of glowing red eyes peering out of the undergrowth, watching his every move.
Remy froze. Fuck, it was the Louisiana black bear. Had to be. On the other hand, did bears have red eyes? But then, what else could it be?
Yeah right, the Terror. Except that Remy did not believe in those stories, no siree, he didn’t.
The undergrowth rustled again. Remy raised his shotgun and braced himself for a close encounter with the Louisiana black bear.
But no bear emerged from the undergrowth nor an alligator, raccoon, possum nor any other critter that inhabited the bayous. Instead, the undergrowth itself was shaking and heaving. Pond scum burbled and leaves, twigs and roots reformed themselves before his very eyes. And gradually, what had only been a patch of dense undergrowth mere seconds before, became something else.
Roots and reeds twisted themselves into two legs, branches, leaves and vines formed a torso and two arms with spindly fingers made from twigs. A head grew upon its shoulders, assembling itself from twigs and leaves, with glowing red eyes and Spanish moss for hair. A mouth opened, studded with rows of razor sharp teeth, and the thing let out a roar that was part the burble of the bayou, part the shriek of a bird and part the growl of the Louisiana black bear. Then, the thing launched itself at Remy, mouth wide open, razor sharp teeth bared.
Remy fired, right into the thing’s wide open mouth. The impact threw the thing back and sent twigs and leaves and bits of Spanish moss flying in all directions. But the thing kept on coming, pond scum foaming at its mouth.
Remy stumbled backwards and fired again. And again. And again. He fired until his pump action shotgun was empty. And still the thing kept on coming.
Remy didn’t have time to reload, for the Terror — might as well call that — was almost upon him. So he used the barrel of his shotgun as a club, slamming it again and again into the Terror’s body. It was a lot like beating on bushes to scare up birds, like he’d often done as a boy.
But the Terror was no bird. And if shots didn’t stop it, then clubbing it with an empty shotgun sure as hell wouldn’t.
The shotgun landed in the water and then the Terror was upon him, twig fingers clawing at his body, vines twisting themselves around his arms, legs and throat. Breathing was already hard and the thing seemed to be determined to drag him under and drown him in the bayou.
Remy struggled, but the grip of the thing holding him was too strong. He could not get free. He’d die here, mourned as yet another victim of the Terror. And this time, the townsfolk would even be right.
His hand brushed against the hilt of his knife, a hunting knife his grandpa had given Remy for his tenth birthday. His fingers curled around the hilt and he began hacking at the vines and twigs that held him.
The Terror screamed in pain and rage, sap spurting from its wounds. Encouraged by the creature’s reaction, Remy continued hacking at it. He was a Theriault, after all, and a Theriault never went down without a fight.
Then suddenly, the battle was joined, as someone else attacked the Terror from behind, slashing and hacking at it with a determination to match Remy’s.
But this new combatant’s weapon wasn’t a knife. It was a shoe, a white stiletto-heeled shoe of the sort that brides wore on their wedding day.
He’d found Belle St. Croix. Or rather, Belle had found him.
Together, Remy and Belle kept hacking and slashing at the Terror, until the creature disintegrated into its components and became trees and shrubs and undergrowth once more.
Remy and Belle looked at each other, both panting with exhaustion. Belle’s wedding gown was in tatters, her body covered in scratches. Bits of twigs and leaves were tangled in her blonde curls.
Remy didn’t look much better. His jeans were torn and his dress shirt had been reduced to a rag, the once white fabric stained green and brown with pond scum and mud.
“You… you’re Alex’s cousin, aren’t you?” Belle stammered, “The one who’s a lawyer in New Orleans.”
Remy nodded and held out his hand, well aware how absurd it all was. “Remy Theriault at your service, Mademoiselle.”
Belle took his hand. Her faux fingernails had broken off and tattered lace gloves clung to her fingers like cobwebs.
The formal introductions were interrupted by a sound behind them. Cracking twigs, rustling leaves and burbling, slurping water.
Belle and Remy spun around as one, just in time to see glowing red eyes watching them from the undergrowth. Vines snaked, pond scum bubbled, leaves and twigs moved to reassemble themselves into a crude, vaguely human form.
“Fuck,” Remy exclaimed, before he remembered that there was a lady present. Besides, given the circumstances, he doubted that Belle would mind. “How many of these damned things are there anyway?”
“I… I think we’d better leave now,” Belle stammered, her face turning pale under her smeared make-up, “Before we find out.”
Remy nodded. “Great idea.”
And so they ran, hand in hand, splashing through the brackish water as fast as they could. When the bayou became too deep for Belle, Remy swooped her up in his arms and carried her the rest of the way, until they reached higher, drier ground.
In the distance, they could make out Remy’s pick-up, a spot of bright red among the greys and greens and browns of the bayou. They sprinted the rest of the way, Remy in workboots and Belle on bare feet.
As soon as they’d scrambled into the car, Remy gunned the engine.
“Look,” Belle cried in the passenger seat beside him.
Remy turned and saw the Terror emerging from the undergrowth. It had grown since their last encounter and was the size of a cypress tree now. And judging by its howl and its wide open mouth, it was angry.
Remy stepped down hard onto the accelerator. The pick-up sped away, splashing water and mud as it went.
Behind them, the Terror howled, drowning out the roar of the engine.
***
And so Remy Theriault brought back Belle St. Croix, the stolen bride. The entire village had turned out to celebrate the hero who had conquered the Terror and rescued the maiden — well, sort of — and Alex, glad to have his bride back, assured Remy of his undying gratitude.
Since everything was ready — the church, the priest, the band, the buffet and now the bride and groom as well — the wedding could take place after all. And since Remy had rescued the bride, he even got to serve as Alex’s best man. Someone even found a new shirt for him to wear with his tuxedo.
Belle was a radiant bride and grandma’s old wedding dress fit her almost perfectly. The vows went off without a hitch — well, another hitch — and then it was time for the party to begin.
Remy ate a lot, drank a lot and danced a lot with every single bridesmaid. And with one of them, a redhead named Marie who’d been friends with Belle at school and was now studying law at Tulane, Remy danced more than once.
Finally, when the clock was nearing midnight, Remy took a break from dancing and found himself standing at the buffet, his plate loaded down with gumbo and jambalaya and cornbread and crawfish pie.
“You did good today, boy,” a voice beside him said, “Ain’t many men who’ve fought the Terror and lived to tell the tale.”
Remy turned around and found himself standing next to his grandpa. “I just did what everyone would’ve done,” he said, “And besides, I got lucky. Real lucky.”
Grandpa chuckled. “Modesty’s always a good trait for a men to have.” He helped himself to some red beans and rice. “By the way, I see you’ve been dancing with Marie Delacroix.” Grandpa nodded. “She’s a nice girl and smart. And she caught the bouquet.”
Remy could see where that particular conversation was heading, so he quickly changed the subject. “About the Terror… have you seen it before?”
Grandpa nodded. “Aye, I have, back when I was a young lad like you. I was out fishing in the bayou, when I saw it. Glowing red eyes in the undergrowth, shrubs forming themselves into something. Never waited around to see what, but paddled away as fast as my arms could carry me.”
“Smart choice,” Remy said, “And besides, it’s damn ugly anyway.” He hesitated. “I never believed it was real, you know?”
“I know. You weren’t shy about telling us either. What was it you called it? Superstitious nonsense and old wives’ tales.”
“About that…” Remy shifted from one foot to another. “Well, I’m sorry.”
“No need for that, boy. No man believes in the Terror until he sees it with his own eyes. Still, you’ve got quite a tale to tell your big city friends in New Orleans.”
Remy shook his head. “Actually, I’d rather not. I know what happened and I know I saw. But when I go blabbering about swamp monsters in New Orleans, I’ll get laughed out of the bar association.”
Grandpa regarded him thoughtfully. “Probably for the best,” he finally said, “There’s some truths big city folks just cannot take. And now get yourself back on the dancefloor, my boy, cause that nice Marie Delacroix is standing there all alone and unattended.”
The End
***
That’s it for this month’s edition of First Monday Free Fiction. Check back next month, when a new story will be posted.
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A new Sword and Sorcery Story, a new Helen Shepherd Mystery and the Pegasus Pulp Sampler
I’ve been busy lately, editing and proofreading stories, designing covers, formatting e-books and generally working through the backlog of unpublished stories resulting from the July Short Story Challenge(s). So there will be more new release announcements in the near future.
To begin with, I want to announce the first two stories from the 2020 July Short Story Challenge to be published. These are also the two longest stories to come out of the 2020 July Short Story Challenge, since both have crossed the novelette mark.
The first of these two stories is a sword and sorcery tale, though it’s not a Thurvok story, because it just didn’t fit into the Thurvok series. Because the story requires the protagonist to be a king. And Thurvok is happy being a wandering adventurer and has zero interest in being a king and Meldom, much as I like him, should never be put in charge of anything. So I came up with a new character called Kurval, a barbarian from beyond the sea who became King of Azakoria and has problems getting the people to accept him.
But King’s Justice also wouldn’t have fit tonally into the Thurvok series, because the Thurvok stories sit on the lighter end of the sword and sorcery spectrum, in spite of plenty of monsters, skeletons and resurrected corpses, and are closer to Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser (though there are plenty of dark Leiber stories as well) than to Conan and Jirel of Joiry. “King’s Justice” is more Robert E. Howard, particularly the Kull stories and The Hour of the Dragon/Conan the Conqueror. Though the ending is happier than what Howard or Moore would have written.
Initially, King’s Justice was supposed to be a standalone, but since I like Kurval and I can tell stories with him that I cannot tell with Thurvok and his friends, you’ll see him again eventually. I’m publishing the Kurval stories under the Richard Blakemore byline, because Richard already has an established name as a sword and sorcery writer.
So follow Kurval, as he prepared to mete out…
King’s Justice
[image error]In the year of the forked serpent, Kurval came from beyond the sea, slew King Orkol and became King of Azakoria.
But Kurval’s reign is not an easy one. The people of Azakoria despise him as an uncouth barbarian, the nobles plot against him and assassination attempts are a frequent occurrence.
One day, a hooded assassin tries to stab Kurval during an audience. Kurval is shocked, when the assassin is revealed to be a young woman, Nelaira, daughter of a minor noble. But why would a girl of nineteen throw away her life on a futile assassination attempt?
As Kurval investigates Nelaira’s motives, he finds that he does not want to hang her. But he is king now and a king has to do his duty. Or does he?
This is a romantic novelette of 9000 words or approx. 30 print pages in the Kurval sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.
More information.
Length: 9000 words.
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, Vivlio, 24symbols and XinXii.
***
The second new story I have to announce is the latest Helen Shepherd Mystery. Even though A Grave Case is already the fourteenth Helen Shepherd Mystery I have written, it is the first to be written during the July Short Story Challenge.
The inspiration for this story was a news report about thefts and robberies on cemeteries. It’s not even the first crime story I have written that is set on a cemetery and features someone robbing elderly widows. Loot is another, though it’s much more lighthearted. Though the robber gets his comeuppance in both cases.
So follow Detective Inspector Helen Shepherd and her team, as they solve…
A Grave Case
[image error]When the elderly widow Maureen Pettigrew is found bludgeoned to death on the grave of her late husband, the case seems clear. Maureen is the latest victim of the cemetery mugger who has been terrorising Kensal Green cemetery for several weeks now.
However, the only suspect – a young man in jeans and a battered leather jacket – is a phantom no one except the cemetery caretaker has ever seen.
Can Detective Inspector Helen Shepherd and her team find the young man in the leather jacket? And does he even exist?
This is a novelette of 7700 words or approx. 26 print pages in the Helen Shepherd Mysteries series, but may be read as a standalone.
More information.
Length: 7700 words
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, Vivlio, 24symbols and XinXii.
***
The final release I have to announce is not so new anymore. It’s The Pegasus Pulp Sampler, a collection which offers stories, usually the first one, from all my series. I initially intended for the sampler to be a Worldcon exclusive, but since it was doing well, I left it up. However, since the Sampler was only supposed to be available for a limited time, I never announced it here and then just forgot.
Still, if you want to try my various series (all of them), this is the cheapest and easiest way to do it.
The Pegasus Pulp Sampler
[image error]Get an overview of the works of Hugo finalist Cora Buhlert and her one-woman small press Pegasus Pulp Publishing.
Space opera, military science fiction, alien invasions, hostile planets, sword and sorcery, pulp thrillers, men’s adventure, murder mysteries, cozy fantasy, historical romance – we have all that and more.
Meet Anjali and Mikhail, soldiers on opposite sides of an intergalactic war, who fall in love across enemy lines. Follow along with the rebellion against the Fifth Human Empire. Explore what happened on June 9th, 1956, the day the saucers came. Follow the people on the planet Iago Prime as they try to maintain old world traditions in their new home. Watch Alfred and Bertha, an ordinary married couple, as they live their marvellous twenty-first century life. Follow Detective Inspector Helen Shepherd of the London Metropolitan Police and her team, as they solve crimes. Watch Two-Fisted Todd Donavan, international troubleshooter, as he travels the world in the 1960s to solve other people’s problems. Meet Richard Blakemore, hardworking pulp author by day and the masked crimefighter known only as the Silencer by night, as he fights crime and corruption in Depression era New York City. Follow Thurvok the sellsword and his friends, as they seek treasures, fight monsters and help those in need. Visit Hallowind Cove, the permanently fog-shrouded seaside town, where strange things keep happening.
Enjoy twelve novellas, novelettes and short stories in five genres.
Contains the following stories:
Evacuation Order
Baptism of Fire
Mercy Mission
Acacia Crescent
Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime
The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg
The Cork and the Bottle
The Crawling Death
Countdown to Death
The Valley of the Man Vultures
The Revenant of Wrecker’s Dock
The Kiss of the Executioner’s Blade
List price: 2.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, Vivlio, 24symbols and XinXii.
***
As I said above, there are more new release coming. Next up, are not one, not two, but three new stories in the The Day the Saucers Came… series.
Also upcoming are new stories in the In Love and War series, more Thurvok stories and some spooky short fiction.
Send to Kindle
September 29, 2020
Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for September 2020
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 (as well as the occasional Big 5 book) newly published this month, though some August 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, Asian fantasy, fairytales, sword and sorcery, paranormal mysteries, paranormal romance, fantasy romance, science fiction romance, science fantasy, space opera, military science fiction, young adult science fiction, young adult fantasy, weird western, horror, non-fiction, literary criticism, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, sirens, monsters, necromancers, barbarian kings, star kingdoms, space mages, space marines, space pirates, xenoarchaeologists, haunted drive-ins, crime-busting witches 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:
The Jonbar Point: Essays from SF Horizons by Brian Aldiss:
The Jonbar Point collects, for the first time, two major essays on science fiction which Brian Aldiss published in the two issues of his and Harry Harrison’s critical journal SF Horizons. Christopher Priest contributes a new introduction.
“Judgement at Jonbar” (1964) is a lengthy analysis on several levels of Jack Williamson’s pulp-era classic The Legion of Time, which gave SF the term “jonbar point” – where alternative timelines diverge. This essay is described in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as “one of the most penetrating studies yet written about a pulp-sf novel”.
“British Science Fiction Now: Studies of Three Writers” (1965) examines the work of the contemporary authors Lan Wright, Donald Malcolm and J.G. Ballard – treating the first two somewhat cruelly (though very entertainingly) and the third with measured admiration. This, based on his early work to 1965, was the first substantial critical study of the later very famous J.G. Ballard.
Brian Aldiss himself, one of the most distinguished SF authors of the twentieth century, should need no introduction. The Jonbar Point: Essays from SF Horizons is published by permission of The Estate of Brian Aldiss.
King’s Justice by Richard Blakemore and Cora Buhlert:
In the year of the forked serpent, Kurval came from beyond the sea, slew King Orkol and became King of Azakoria.
But Kurval’s reign is not an easy one. The people of Azakoria despise him as an uncouth barbarian, the nobles plot against him and assassination attempts are a frequent occurrence.
One day, a hooded assassin tries to stab Kurval during an audience. Kurval is shocked, when the assassin is revealed to be a young woman, Nelaira, daughter of a minor noble. But why would a girl of nineteen throw away her life on a futile assassination attempt?
As Kurval investigates Nelaira’s motives, he finds that he does not want to hang her. But he is king now and a king has to do his duty. Or does he?
This is a romantic novelette of 9000 words or approx. 30 print pages in the Kurval sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.
He digs through the past to unearth his future. But will rocketing into the expanse blast him into deadly trouble?
Xenoarchaeologist Mark Fortune just needs one big find to be set for life. Roaming the post-apocalyptic galaxy in search of riches, the pragmatic loner believes he’s finally made the breakthrough of his career when he activates an ancient portal. But when he’s catapulted onto an unknown planet, he’s followed by a revenge-driven skybiker out for his blood.
For the sake of survival, Mark and the motorhead form an uneasy alliance until they can escape the strange and unforgiving world. But the only path back home pits them against a ruthless warlord in a flying space fortress armed with pre-holocaust tech and a horde of killer robots…
Can Mark tear down a dictator before his newest discovery is otherworldly death?
Fortune’s Fool is the first book in the edgy Fortune Chronicles science fiction adventure series. If you like throwback futurism, gritty action, and expansive worlds, then you’ll love Jeff Boyd’s interstellar doorway.
Layers of Force by Lindsay Buroker:
The exciting conclusion to the Star Kingdom series!
Even though Professor Casmir Dabrowski has been fighting for months to help the kingdom and humanity as a whole, few people in positions of power have appreciated his unorthodox methods. Now he’s a captive of the king and being taken back to his home world without his friends or the crushers he relies upon to protect him. The king believes Casmir is responsible for the prince’s death and plans to have him publicly executed.
But bigger troubles are brewing for the Star Kingdom, and Casmir may once again be needed to find a creative solution to save his people—and reshape the entire future of the Twelve Systems.
First, he’s got to escape and survive. No easy feat for a man stripped of his allies and marked as a rebel and a traitor.
Order now to find out what happens in this final installment of the series.
Acceptable Losses by Rachel Ford:
Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price.
The Union is engaged in a bitter war on multiple fronts. Old enmities are resurfacing daily, threatening further cracks in the already fragile planetary alliance. But there are some who are willing to pay the price, whatever it is, to keep the Union intact.
When the Black Flag is ambushed en route to a rendezvous, privateers Katherine Ellis and Captain Magdalene Landon find themselves fighting a losing battle against a superior force. And when they need them most, the Union is nowhere to be found.
But there’s more afoot than overtaxed lines and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. To the admiralty, a handful of privateers is a small price to pay for victory.
As Katherine and Magdalene discover that their plight might not be a product of happenstance after all, they determine to live long enough to get answers. Because losing the Black Flag might be acceptable to the brass, but they’re not willing to die as pawns.
Join Us, or Die and Join Anyway
I hate necromancers. They’re sneaky, and underhanded, and…damned effective. My father’s ghost is going to be reshaped into an assassin sent to kill my mother unless I dance for Necrotis, an unliving goddess and ruler of the Maker’s Wrath.
A storm rages across the void, with winds upwards of two thousand kilometers a second in some places, the Catalyst known as Sanctuary. The Unseen Fleets lurk somewhere within, and emerge to harvest miners working the asteroids and moons flung out of the storm. Necrotis wants me to fly inside, find a city that predates the Great Cycle, and find a way inside when no one ever has before.
No pressure, right?
If I didn’t need enough incentive here’s some more. My mother promised the Confederate Pantheon that I’d fly into the storm to find answers while they marshal their forces for war. No one asked me, or my crew. I wish I could give them the middle finger, and take the Remora and run, but if I do?
Well… I have a feeling the whole galaxy is going to burn. I need to save my father. I need to find out what’s hiding in that storm, and then turn it on the people trying to use me. I’ll get answers all right, but not the ones they want.
Before the Void Wraith. Before the Eradication.
Captain Dryker is a washed up vet mining on the fringes of the Kupier belt. He loads rocks into the Folly’s railgun, and fires them back to his corporate overlords on Earth. Boring, just the way he likes it. Until one day it isn’t.
An alien signal bursts from Pluto, which as it turns out is neither a planet, nor a planetoid body. It is an ancient defense satellite that has activated because it detected the return of the Vuka Spectra. The Void Wraith.
Dryker is the closest ship on the scene, but not the only one vying for the prize. Hostile aliens have somehow emerged from our sun using something called a Helios Gate. The savage Tigris have come not just for the satellite, but to conquer Earth.
Dryker’s only hope is finding something, anything, within the installation to counter the alien’s superior technology and save mankind.
The prequel to the Void Wraith Saga. Learn how it all began…
Reach of the Colossus by Nicole Grotepas:
If the old power was bad, this new one? Absolute evil.
Holly Drake and her crew can hardly guess what the new shadow forces will do. Trying to stay a step ahead of them hardly seems like the answer. But what choice do they have? Bargaining for information from the corrupt underworld, facing down new foes, and pulling side-heists to fund their larger goals is chaotic at best. But, well, it’s the least they can do.
Legend of the Black Rose by A.W. Hart:
A GRITTY, VIOLENT ADVENTURE FOLLOWING ONE WOMAN’S SEARCH FOR VENGEANCE.
Catalina Cristiana Rivera’s aristocratic life is shattered by a heinous raid on her father’s prominent West Texas rancho.
But at the convent in Santo Tomas redemption and the violent secrets of her past confront Lina with an even more dire challenge. A challenge that gives rise to the legend…and dark vengeance of the Black Rose.
With her razor-sharp urumi whip-sword and the help of a deputy U.S. Marshal, Lina’s alter ego carves a new legacy in the annals of Western adventure.
With high adventure, fast action, and an underlying sense of comradery and duty, The Black Rose joins a pantheon of masked heroes blazing her way across the early 20th century desert landscape.
Ghostly Camping by Lily Harper Hart:
Harper Harlow’s romantic life is perfect, her wedding is in the works, and now she’s decided to enhance her business standing by attending a haunted campground opening. If she enjoys herself, publicly endorses it and the owner, then she’ll open up a brave new world.
Unfortunately for Harper, old ghosts die hard and a fresh murder taints what is supposed to be a quiet weekend.
Harper’s happy foursome – her fiancé Jared Monroe, her best friend Zander Pritchett, and his fiancé Shawn Donovan are all along for the ride – turns into a nightmare when the group must pretend to solve a fake murder while actively hunting clues regarding a real murder. On top of that, Harper and Zander don’t have as much fun “roughing it” as they thought they would … well, despite the s’mores.
Four urbanites go into the woods. Will any of them come out alive? It’s going to take everyone working together to solve an old mystery and ease the fresh hell that has emerged.
Get ready for adventure, because it’s going to be one heckuva trip, and there’s a big wedding right around the corner for those who survive.
Interrupting Starlight by Kyndra Hatch:
The human composed a song in his heart, a pull he couldn’t ignore, a draw that demanded further exploration—
When he answered a distress call, L’Den hadn’t expected to find one of the Invaders waiting for him. The tug he feels on his soul is even more surprising, drawing him closer to the woman, in spite of her humanity. Both his second-in-command and A’rch, his companion mogha, seem fine with leaving her behind and letting the desert deal with the problem, but he’s not so sure.
Tessa has spent the last two years hoping for a way off the harsh desert planet where her research vessel crashed, watching her friends die one-by-one, and befriending a strange creature of the sand. But when a rescue ship does arrive, she realizes she might have been better off lost. The Korthans, savage aliens bent on the destruction of humankind, aren’t happy to find her. And yet, despite her fear, she can’t deny the pull she feels towards one of them.
Korthans only have one chance to find a true mate, but chasing after the human could risk the safety of the colony he’s sworn to protect. Even though the call of a mating bond demands a higher loyalty, L’Den never expected to have to choose.
Believe in witches, for sometimes you need magic to ward off the evil in darkness.
It was my junior year at Hawthorne University when Mira dealt me a reversed Lovers card. That meant trouble in paradise. I thought nothing of it until Alondra introduced me to a new witch from outside our coven—Enora. Enora’s precisely the sort of witch you’d call wicked. Even worse, she used to be in love with my boyfriend.
I just wanted a normal year. But as our leader fought illness, I fought with my friends trying to hold the Hawthorne coven together. I felt abandoned. And my loneliness dropped me into trances where I wandered the dark forest alone. These altered states were created by my magic, but I learned that they were spurred on by something far more sinister.
Where did this evil come from? The wicked witch? The old devil? I had to find out because it threatened the people I love.
Rosa, also known as Red Riding Hood, is done with wolves and woods.
Hou Yi the Archer is tired, and knows she’s past her prime.
They would both rather just be retired, but that’s not what the world has ready for them.
When deadly sunbirds begin to ravage the countryside, threatening everything they’ve both grown to love, the two must join forces. Now blessed and burdened with the hindsight of middle age, they begin a quest that’s a reckoning of sacrifices made and mistakes mourned, of choices and family and the quest for immortality.
Guardian of the Sky Realms by Gerry Huntman:
Maree Webster?an “almost-emo” from the western suburbs of Sydney?hates school, has few friends, and is obsessed with angels and fallen angel stories. Life is boring until she decides to steal a famous painting from a small art gallery that has been haunting her dreams: swirling reds, greys and oranges of barely discernible winged figures. There, she meets a stranger who claims to know her and stumbles into a world where cities float in the sky, and daemons roam the barren, magma-spewing crags of the land far below. And all is not well?Maree is turning into something she loves but at the same time, fears. Most fearful of all is the prospect of losing her identity?what makes her Maree, and more importantly, what makes her human. Guardian of the Sky Realms takes the reader on a journey through exotic fantasy lands, as well as across the globe, from Sydney to Paris, from the Himalayas to Manhattan. At its heart, it is a novel about transformation.
Assassins of Brush and Blade by J.C. Kang:
When a shipment of magic Dragon Art commissioned by the Emperor goes missing, it’s up to the Black Lotus Clan to track it down and punish the thieves.
Assassins of Brush and Blade originally appeared in the Complete Tales of the Floating World. It can be read as a prequel to Thorn of the Night Blossoms.
Dark World: Oblivion by A.R. Kingston
You can run, but you can never escape from who you are.
Alex thought moving to East Ashland was going to give them a clean start, be a palace where they can be accepted for who they are, but she was wrong. Upon moving back to his sleepy hometown of Fall Harbor, Jay’s past catches up to him, and he becomes the gossip of the entire town. At the same time, unexplainable headaches begin to plague Alex and she exhibits powers far beyond those of a pure-blood mage in their world. And, if things were not bad enough, an extremist group lurks in the dim alleyways at night, waiting for their chance to strike. With everything accumulating into a perfect storm, can Jay and Alex survive, or will there be no place left for them to run?
Winner of the Bram Stoker Award and Locus Awards, finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, and named one of io9.com’s “Top 10 Debut Science Fiction Novels That Took the World By Storm.” With a new afterword by Maryse Meijer, author of Heartbreaker and Rag. “Black. Pure black and the sense of pulsation, especially when you look at it too closely, the sense of something not living but alive.” When a strange hole materializes in a storage room, would-be poet Nicholas and his feral lover Nakota allow their curiosity to lead them into the depths of terror. “Wouldn’t it be wild to go down there?” says Nakota. Nicholas says, “We’re not.” But no one is in control, and their experiments lead to obsession, violence, and a very final transformation for everyone who gets too close to the Funhole.
Midnight Horror Show by Ben Lathrop:
It’s end of October 1985 and the crumbling river town of Dubois, Iowa is shocked by the gruesome murder of one of the pillars of the community. Detective David Carlson has no motive, no evidence, and only one lead: the macabre local legend of “Boris Orlof,” a late night horror movie host who burned to death during a stage performance at the drive-in on Halloween night twenty years ago and the teenage loner obsessed with keeping his memory alive.
The body count is rising and the darkness that hangs over the town grows by the hour. Time is running out as Carlson desperately chases shadows into a nightmare world of living horrors.
On Halloween the drive-in re-opens at midnight for a show no one will ever forget.
Proudly brought to you by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from The Darkest Depths.
Cut to the Crone by Amanda M. Lee:
Scout Randall needs answers on a past she can’t remember … and when an associate introduces her to an individual who claims to have known her family way back when, she believes those answers might finally be accessible. That falls by the wayside, though, when a tanned vampire lands in her backyard in the middle of the night … and he has a magical teenager in tow.
Sami Winters is all mouth and determination … and she’s looking for her parents. Scout wants to help, but handling a teenager like Sami isn’t as easy as it looks on the surface. By the time her wayward parents catch up with her – including a mother who is rumored to be the most powerful mage in the world – Scout finds herself knee-deep in a new adventure.
It seems female shifters in the area are going missing and rogue vampires from areas unknown are on the prowl. Sami Winters is a hybrid, part-wolf and part-mage, and she’s a coveted ally in what’s being described as a coming war. Scout has no choice but to join with the newcomers to figure out what’s going on.
Vampires and werewolves working together is unheard of, right? Maybe not. If the signs are right, it seems a new enemy is brewing, and Scout is going to need help taking down an entire army of paranormal foes.
At the end of the day, she just wants to know who she is and where she came from. The answers might be closer than she ever imagined.
When Kenzie and her friends find themselves trapped on a strange planet, they must risk everything to save themselves and Earth in this thrilling final book in the addictive Sanctuary trilogy!
Fall down seven times, get up eight.
These are the words Kenzie has always lived by. The problem is, she’s fallen down too many times to count.
Kenzie and her friends have already escaped two vicious alien attacks—not to mention the corporate bounty hunters sent to capture them. They’re haunted by the friends they’ve lost and the hard choices they’ve had to make in this war they never asked for.
And now, thanks to superpowers she received from the very aliens she’s fighting, Kenzie has stranded everyone on a strange planet with no way off. She just wanted a safe place from the monstrous creatures terrorizing her world, but this new planet has dangers of its own, and Kenzie will have to uncover its secrets if she has any hope of ever making it home again.
Sacrifice is nothing new for Kenzie. She’ll do anything—anything—to destroy the aliens that killed both of her parents. But how can Kenzie save Earth if she can’t even save the people she loves?
My Song’s Curse by Poppy Minnix:
Ultimate control has its downside, especially when it comes to romance. But will it be enough to keep them together?
As a siren Lula Aglaope can bend anyone to her will with the smallest whisper, but she’d give up her power for one meaningful, honest conversation.
She wants a normal life, like the open, true connections the humans seem to pull off with such little effort.
When she meets Alexiares, God of Warding off Wars, all thoughts of normalcy fly out the window. The beautiful demigod cannot be controlled! He’s frustrating, irresistible…and utterly off-limits.
Alex has watched Olympus slowly fall apart. The old gods continue their archaic control of the Universe, denying the progress of humans and other deities. But Alex has plans to repair the damage, and Lula is a major player.
She just doesn’t know it yet.
Falling for her is the worst idea. And just when things move in the right direction, danger arises that no one expects, plunging the sirens into the deadly Olympian spotlight.
With Lula’s sisters missing, and a pile of broken laws surrounding them, will Alex and Lula change the Universe for the better or destroy it?
GIDEON THORN IS BACK IN ANOTHER DARK AND MYSTERIOUS HARROWING ADVENTURE!
An unidentified monster wrecks a paddle steam on the Mississippi River, killing all but one crewman. Newspaper reports of the incident and others draw Thorn to Natchez to confront the beast. Gideon Thorn investigates while negotiating the pitfalls of race and politics in post-Reconstruction-era Mississippi.
Thorn seeks to verify, identify and eliminate the aquatic predator, while thinking about Dinah Pilcher’s recovery. Meanwhile, Natchez natives struggle within the Mississippi’s rigid white supremacist “closed society,” ex-slaves are seeking equality, while racist whites refuse to acknowledge losing the Civil War.
Ghost Nemesis by Andy Peloquin:
Never go scope-to-scope with a Silverguard sniper.
Nolan’s enemies had learned that lesson the hard way, and he had the kill count to prove it.
But when his old Warbeast Teammates drag him into a surgical strike on a former soldier-turned-gunrunner, he’ll find the true limits of his skills tested when facing off against a sharpshooter a match for his cunning, ruthlessness, and elite martial training.
Life and death hangs in a split-second decision, the tiniest twitch of a trigger finger.
If Nolan fails to be faster, better, and smarter, he might find himself locked in a battle he won’t walk away from.
I Want the Stars by Tom Purdom:
THEY WANTED THE STARS…
Eight hundred years from now, Earth is a paradise. Humanity has faced its greatest challenges…and won. Every wish is fulfilled. Every need is met. But is that enough? Jenorden wants more, wandering the galaxy with his friends as he seeks the answer. He knows his life is missing something. But what? And when aliens from another galaxy appear, offering to answer any question and reveal any secret, are their motives sinister…or sincere?
How can 30 crew members just vanish into thin air?
One last month in paradise before an 8,000-year journey. That’s what the Company had promised before whisking Alina Andra and her entire crew of 500 to tropical Tilulipu, where it had built a luxurious resort just for the occasion.
Only the rooms of the entire executive team now stand empty, and Alina’s crewmates turn to her to make sense of their predicament. So why have a handful of her more dubious colleagues decided that the mass disappearance is part of an outlandish plot? And why have they named Alina as a co-conspirator?
Now thrust into a less glamorous spotlight, Alina heads a search for the truth. But while the answer she discovers may explain the missing crew members, it may also put Earth’s first crewed extrasolar mission in jeopardy.
Slow Pint Glass is a huge collection of Bob Shaw’s other fan and fan-adjacent writing not already included in The Enchanted Duplicator (1954 with Walt Willis; much reprinted; TAFF ebook May 2015), The Serious Scientific Talks (TAFF ebook November 2019) and The Full Glass Bushel (TAFF ebook June 2020).
Cover art by Jim Barker, a July 2020 reworking of his memorial piece for Bob Shaw first published in Tyne Capsule (March 2015; TAFF ebook September 2019).
The collection, compiled by Rob Jackson and David Langford, contains 167,000 words of fine fanwriting – more than The Serious Scientific Talks and The Full Glass Bushel put together – ranging from the early 1950s to the 1990s. First published as an Ansible Editions ebook for the TAFF site on 30 August 2020.
The ambush came out of nowhere.
Our fleet was decimated.
We were flung deep into uncharted space on the far side of the nebula.
Then the signal came—a mysterious distress call from an unknown planet.
I’m Space Marine Corporal Jeremiah Helgerson and my job is simple. Find the source of the distress call and save whoever is still alive. Get in, get out. Easy work for a space marine. But no matter how well trained you are, missions never go as planned, and this one was a disaster from the start.
Now we’re stranded, and they’re hunting us.
Those nightmares.
Ferocious, unstoppable.
And so very hungry.
Send to Kindle
September 28, 2020
Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for September 2020
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 August 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 cozy mysteries, small town mysteries, animal mysteries, historical mysteries, Regency mysteries, Jazz Age mysteries, 1930s mysteries, hardboiled mysteries, humorous mysteries, paranormal mysteries, science fiction mysteries, police procedurals, crime thrillers, spy thrillers, action thrillers, police officers, amateur sleuths, private investigators, spies, journalists, sports agents, archaeologists, crime-busting witches, crime-busting socialites, crime-busting bakers, crime-busting cats, crime-busting ghosts, vampires, werewolves, Bigfoot, murdered Santas 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:
The Cat’s Sure in the Rye by B.K. Baxter:
Bodies are piling up, and I’m in charge of figuring out why.
I can’t help it! There are innocent people being accused.
And don’t get me started on the heat and humidity in Beulah.
The thick cloud of death is only surpassed by the constant hot flashes induced by the weather.
I could keep going. I should actually.
After almost being killed by a history-obsessed realtor that wanted my inherited house for herself, I’m ready to get out of Dodge.
Unfortunately, this new situation is a bit more personal in nature.
A guy that disappeared a decade ago was discovered dead in this new case. Where has he been for the last ten years?
And one of my friends just happens to have the murder weapon. You can’t make these things up. Not even in the pages of a good mystery novel.
Speaking of books, my new book club is at the center of my thoughts as the judgmental kitty and I traverse this new mystery.
The members of the club are fan-girling over the town’s new resident, but the man is up to no good! I can feel it.
With all this craziness, it isn’t easy being a sleuth right now, but Chonks will help me navigate the twists and turns of this gritty mystery, as long as we’re home in time for his dinner.
That is a must.
Old Sins Never Die by Daniela Bernett:
While in the Lake District, journalist Emmeline Kirby and jewel thief/insurance investigator Gregory Longdon overhear a man attempting to hire international assassin Hugh Carstairs, a MI5 agent who went rogue. They race back to London to warn Philip Acheson of the Foreign Office and Superintendent Oliver Burnell. But it’s a devil of problem to prevent a vicious killing, if the target is a mystery.
More trouble brews as Emmeline pursues a story about shipping magnate Noel Rallis, who is on trial for murder. Rallis is desperate to keep the negative publicity from exposing his illicit schemes, especially something sinister called Poseidon. Lord Desmond Starrett, whose dark past made him easy prey for blackmail, is getting cold feet about their dubious partnership. Hovering in the shadows of this ugly secret world is a Russian mole buried inside MI5. Scorned prima ballerina Anastasia Tarasova makes the fatal mistake of threatening to reveal all she knows. The hunt for the answers takes Emmeline and Gregory up to Scotland, where they learn that the truth has lethal consequences.
When the elderly widow Maureen Pettigrew is found bludgeoned to death on the grave of her late husband, the case seems clear. Maureen is the latest victim of the cemetery mugger who has been terrorising Kensal Green cemetery for several weeks now.
However, the only suspect – a young man in jeans and a battered leather jacket – is a phantom no one except the cemetery caretaker has ever seen.
Can Detective Inspector Helen Shepherd and her team find the young man in the leather jacket? And does he even exist?
This is a novelette of 7700 words or approx. 26 print pages in the Helen Shepherd Mysteries series, but may be read as a standalone.
A Lonely Little Death by Beth Byers:
Georgette Dorothy Aaron is a busy woman. She’s gone from being a lonely old maid to the matriarch of an growing family. Her writing career has expanded and for some reason the women in her life turn to her for advice. She’s not sure she’s qualified to help, but she does what she can.
Only a series of letters reveal that she’s become important to someone else. Someone she doesn’t know. And they’re asking for help–before it’s too late.
Now, she’s racing to piece together clues and find her pen pal before it’s too late.
A Masked Murderer by Beth Byers
All Hallows 1926
Violet and Jack have been invited to a masquerade by someone who doesn’t name himself and gives no details other than all the guests are coming under the same circumstances.
They know something is afoot, so they aren’t even surprised when there’s been a murder. What surprises them is the invitation to all those in attendance to solve the crime.
On Borrowed Time by Adam Croft:
Each morning, the first train of the day leaves Oakham station and thunders through a tunnel under the village of Manton. But today the driver sees something that changes his life: A dead body hangs in the tunnel’s exit.
DI Caroline Hills knows this isn’t a suicide. It’s murder. And when a second apparent suicide appears in Rutland, Caroline uncovers a shocking link: the victims knew each other.
As Rutland Police fight to catch the killer, a group of friends is left with an even more shocking realisation. One of them is the murderer. And one of them will be the next to die.
The $3 Million Turnover by Richard Curtis:
In the cutthroat, glamorous world of professional sports, one man works behind the scenes to fix his superstar clients’ biggest problems: agent Dave Bolt.
Officially, Dave Bolt is a sports agent, representing professional athletes in basketball, football, baseball, hockey—you name it. Unofficially, he is a kind of undercover operator, a troubleshooter for a number of pro sports organizations.
Bolt’s walk on the dark side starts with one phone call concerning the hottest basketball prospect in the country. It ends with a hairline fracture of his cheekbone, temporary blindness, a scrotum full of someone’s knee, and the loss of the most promising marital prospect since his divorce. Oh, and a commission of staggering proportions.
God Save the Spy by John Ellsworth:
The story of a spy escaping from the Soviet Union in 1962. It continues even today.
Moscow learns KGB officer Nikolai Semenov is spying for the British in London. He is kidnapped and flown to Moscow, where a bullet awaits unless the British can get him out. Moscow is notoriously difficult to exfiltrate: the airport is crawling with KGB, no waterways to speak of, shipping and rails hopelessly monitored by KGB, leaving automobiles the only way out. Only MI6’s secret Operation TINKER might save him. Nikolai grabs his daughter and runs into the night, fiercely determined to make the rendezvous.
It is the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and President Kennedy desperately needs the war plans that only Nikolai has seen. He awaits Nikolai’s call, which will come once he reaches freedom. It is October 22, 1962, the day the Russian and US navies will collide at Cuba’s outer waters. Can Nikolai escape with his daughter and the intel Kennedy must have?
The Mystery of the Missing Heiress by Riana Everly:
It is the summer of 1811 and Fitzwilliam Darcy is consumed with worry. His sister and her new companion were expected at Pemberley three weeks ago, but they seem to have vanished into the air. Is Georgiana safe? Is she even still alive? And is Mrs. Younge a victim in some nefarious plan or is she behind the disappearance?
Darcy’s friend Ecclesford tells him of a smart young investigator who might be able to help… and at the same time he might help Ecclesford with a romantic problem of his own.
In this prequel variation to Pride and Prejudice, private investigator Alexander Lyons makes his debut and sets his remarkable intellect to work to help Ecclesford win his bride and to solve the mystery of the missing heiress!
This is a novella of about 19000 words.
P.I. Dev Haskell is minding his own business, looking out the window, when a pink Mercedes convertible pulls to the curb. His old flame, Barbie Dahl, a surgically enhanced Barbie Doll look alike, gets out of the car. Barbie Dahl, the same woman who dumped Dev on a trip to Las Vegas. Now, she’s back in town and needs Dev’s help. Apparently her extensive Barbie collection is missing, along with Arnold Wazinski, AKA Ken Carson, Barbie Doll’s significant other…
Fortunately, Dev comes up with a plan. But then Barbie gets involved and decides ‘Ken’ is going to pay, BIG TIME!
Another hilariously delightful Dev Haskell tale.
Sit back, enjoy, and realize things in life could be worse… A lot worse!
Ghostly Camping by Lily Harper Hart:
Harper Harlow’s romantic life is perfect, her wedding is in the works, and now she’s decided to enhance her business standing by attending a haunted campground opening. If she enjoys herself, publicly endorses it and the owner, then she’ll open up a brave new world.
Unfortunately for Harper, old ghosts die hard and a fresh murder taints what is supposed to be a quiet weekend.
Harper’s happy foursome – her fiancé Jared Monroe, her best friend Zander Pritchett, and his fiancé Shawn Donovan are all along for the ride – turns into a nightmare when the group must pretend to solve a fake murder while actively hunting clues regarding a real murder. On top of that, Harper and Zander don’t have as much fun “roughing it” as they thought they would … well, despite the s’mores.
Four urbanites go into the woods. Will any of them come out alive? It’s going to take everyone working together to solve an old mystery and ease the fresh hell that has emerged.
Get ready for adventure, because it’s going to be one heckuva trip, and there’s a big wedding right around the corner for those who survive.
Foreign Interference by Ethan Jones:
Played like a pawn…
Fresh off an operation that sent shockwaves across Europe, CIS covert operative Carrie O’Connor is dispatched down under. Her assignment is to identify the meddling of a foreign power in Australia’s internal affairs that could wreak havoc on their democracy.
Working with untested partners with dubious motives, Carrie discovers the extent of the political interference reaches higher than anyone had expected. With her efforts thwarted at every step by shadowy figures, she’s uncertain who she can trust and has to question even her closest allies.
Tested as never before, Carrie must infiltrate the powerful network pulling the strings. She’s taken on the CIA, terrorists, and her own past, but she has never come across something as powerful as this… What will she need to do to stop this deadly interference from spreading beyond the continent and across the globe?
Cut to the Crone by Amanda M. Lee:
Scout Randall needs answers on a past she can’t remember … and when an associate introduces her to an individual who claims to have known her family way back when, she believes those answers might finally be accessible. That falls by the wayside, though, when a tanned vampire lands in her backyard in the middle of the night … and he has a magical teenager in tow.
Sami Winters is all mouth and determination … and she’s looking for her parents. Scout wants to help, but handling a teenager like Sami isn’t as easy as it looks on the surface. By the time her wayward parents catch up with her – including a mother who is rumored to be the most powerful mage in the world – Scout finds herself knee-deep in a new adventure.
It seems female shifters in the area are going missing and rogue vampires from areas unknown are on the prowl. Sami Winters is a hybrid, part-wolf and part-mage, and she’s a coveted ally in what’s being described as a coming war. Scout has no choice but to join with the newcomers to figure out what’s going on.
Vampires and werewolves working together is unheard of, right? Maybe not. If the signs are right, it seems a new enemy is brewing, and Scout is going to need help taking down an entire army of paranormal foes.
At the end of the day, she just wants to know who she is and where she came from. The answers might be closer than she ever imagined.
Mayhem and Mistletoe by Amanda M. Lee:
Avery Shaw has the world at her fingertips … and a pile of dead Santas near the railroad tracks. Interestingly, she’s more focused on the Santas than her personal life, but only because she’s been warned that a proposal is imminent from her live-in love Eliot Kane and she needs to look somewhere else – anywhere else will do – rather than accept what he’s trying to offer.
Avery never pictured herself married but it appears it might be happening … no matter how she tries to dodge and weave. The Santas make an enticing distraction, so Avery throws herself in with gusto.
Tracking the Santas isn’t easy because Macomb County Sheriff Jake Farrell doesn’t want the names released. He lets one slip, though, and that leads Avery on an adventure … all the way down to a halfway house in Detroit.
It’s a big world and some crimes are worse than others. The only common thread Avery can find when chasing this story is a drug ring, and when she pulls that particular thread, everything comes toppling down.
The drug world is dark and seamy and Avery is going to need her guile and wits to survive this one. Even if she comes out on the other side – and that’s a big if – then there’s a proposal waiting.
It’s finally time for Avery Shaw to grow up … at least a little bit. Come along for the ride, because the big moment is finally here. There might even be a murder to solve along the way.
The Last Review by Lucas Pogrzebny
TRUTH BECAME FICTION.
FICTION BECAME… DEATH.
Back in his native Buenos Aires, Polo Levington, a.k.a. “Levin”, a young freelance writer with a hidden phobia and an addiction to coffee, is tasked by an old employer with one last job—writing an article about The Last Farewell, a movie about to wrap shooting. The assignment is simple: he has to go to the studio and write about what he sees. Sounds easy enough, so he reluctantly agrees…
But what starts with typical behind-the-scenes drama—with two aging stars returning to the spotlight after a fatal tragedy decades prior—quickly spirals out of control when an actor is stabbed while the camera rolls…
Soon, between the props, make-up, and deceptions, death follows—and with it, a chilling descent into madness and an unsolved murder of a famous actress many years ago. Under the masks that the cast and crew all seem to wear, something dark lurks, bending the worlds of fiction and reality before Levin’s very eyes.
A crafty killer, capable of masking murder as fiction; a mysterious honey-eyed actress eager to solve the riddle as bodies pile up; a world-weary homicide detective, one case away from promotion.
And among them all is Polo Levington, seeking the truth—even if it brings him dangerously close to the trauma that has marked him for life.
All the while, Levin must ask himself: Is it ever too late to face your fears?
How can 30 crew members just vanish into thin air?
One last month in paradise before an 8,000-year journey. That’s what the Company had promised before whisking Alina Andra and her entire crew of 500 to tropical Tilulipu, where it had built a luxurious resort just for the occasion.
Only the rooms of the entire executive team now stand empty, and Alina’s crewmates turn to her to make sense of their predicament. So why have a handful of her more dubious colleagues decided that the mass disappearance is part of an outlandish plot? And why have they named Alina as a co-conspirator?
Now thrust into a less glamorous spotlight, Alina heads a search for the truth. But while the answer she discovers may explain the missing crew members, it may also put Earth’s first crewed extrasolar mission in jeopardy.
Emma Frost is tied up in a murder mystery that seems out of this world.
When a young girl disappears one night from the park, then turns up again the next morning in a different place on the island, people start to talk about her.
Was she drunk and just doesn’t remember what happened?
Did she go home with a guy and won’t admit it?
What happened to her, and why is she insisting that she doesn’t know?
Emma Frost is fighting for Victor’s best friend, Skye.
Emma is trying to get her back from the people who took her in the night, but having no luck when a guy falls into her arms in the street and dies a few minutes later.
The autopsy shows he has frozen to death, but it doesn’t seem possible. When a young boy from Victor’s school turns up frozen as well, and things start to get cold around her own house, Emma begins to fear for her loved ones’ lives.
Once again, Willow Rose has written a story so compelling that it leaves the reader in almost unbearable suspense until the surprise ending is revealed.
Puff Love is John Sladek’s final novel, completed just before his early death in 2000. A mystery story with the traditional elements of a discovered corpse, a crowd of suspects and a reluctant sleuth with an unusual sidekick, Puff Love has all the qualities associated with John Sladek’s best work: a gentle parodic wit, inventive ideas and a wholly original way of looking at modern life.
Murder at Tregowyn Manor by G.G. Vandagriff:
Winter of 1935 finds Oxford archaeologist, Sonny Nichols, under arrest for the theft of a priceless Roman relic from a dig in Cornwall. Catherine Tregowyn and her sleuthing partners Harry and Dot go to his aid. Almost immediately an anonymous telegram threatens Catherine’s life. Dot’s cousin has involved himself in something deadly.
Undeterred, they motor down to the dig in Cornwall which is on Catherine’s estranged father’s estate. Shortly after their arrival, someone viciously attacks Catherine, nearly killing her. The next morning, one of the archaeologists is missing, and more artifacts have been stolen. The attacker is clearly desperate. Is this only simple greed or are there other factors at work here?
When murder intervenes, Catherine, Harry, and Dot must dig deeper. Is the murderer the charismatic student who has forsaken his aristocratic birthright? Or the misanthropic and penniless professor who seeks to advance his career? Could it be the charming and glib young Irish peer who loves Greek dancing or the ruthless student who needs to reverse his family’s fortunes?
When the truth finally comes out it is on a scale none of them could possibly have imagined…
Folk Tales and Fudge Brownies by A.R. Winters:
When popular Bigfoot skeptic Kevin McNight is murdered, Jean Williams refuses to believe Detective Wheeler’s explanation that the killer was just a bear – she believes there was a human involved, and she’s determined to find justice for Kevin.
With the local Bigfoot festival just days away, there many who stand to benefit from Kevin’s death – from the well-known Sasquatch believer Roy Turner, to the event organizers who profit from the festival each year, to the Bigfoot “researchers” who despised Kevin.
In between working at her aunt’s bakery café, Jean finds time to slip into the woods and the festival campground in her quest to uncover the truth. But will her hunt lead her straight into a bear’s den – or worse, into the hands of a killer?
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September 22, 2020
Retro Review: “Blue and Silver Brocade” by Dorothy Quick
This cover is not for “Blue and Silver Brocade”, but for the fairly lackluster novel “The Elder Gods” by Don A. Stuart a.k.a. John W. Campbell himself
I’m taking a bit of a break from Jirel of Joiry, because in my experience, those stories are best, when not read directly one after another. And so I decided to take a look at another underrated woman author of the golden age, Dorothy Quick.
Comrade-in-arms Steve J. Wright recently came across the gothic horror story “Blue and Silver Brocade” by Dorothy Quick in the October 1939 issue of Unknown. The premise sounded interesting, so I decided to review it myself. The story may be read online here. This review will also be crossposted to Retro Reviews.
Warning: Spoilers beyond this point!
In true gothic fashion, “Blue and Silver Brocade” starts on a cold night in a spooky mansion on the Scottish moors. The narrator, a young woman named Alice, cannot sleep, because she’s cold. Alice would love to have another blanket, but she is loath to wake her Aunt Annabel, owner of the mansion, or the servants.
So Alice searches her room for something that will keep her warm. In a closet, she finds several boxes and looks through them in search of a blanket. In the last box, finally, she finds a patchwork quilt and decides that this will do just fine to keep her warm for the night.
The quilt is quite unusual. For starters, the patches are quite large and made from vastly different materials – velvet, silk, brocade, wool, ancient linen, some kind of parchment that might also be human skin – whereas quilt patches are normally made of the same material, usually cotton, because otherwise the quilt won’t properly fit together (ask me how I know). What is more, the edges of the squares are embroidered and the embroidery seems to spell out words in what looks like runes.
One square made from blue brocade with silver embroidery and tiny crowns particularly fascinates Alice, because the material is so beautiful. And so she falls asleep with her hand resting on the blue and silver brocade square. This turns out to be a big mistake.
Alice suddenly finds herself in an unfamiliar room and equally unfamiliar body, wearing a gown made from the same silver and blue brocade as the quilt square. It quickly becomes clear that Alice is now inhabiting the body of a young woman named Jeanne in seventeenth century France. Alice can see and feel everything Jeanne experiences, but she cannot influence events nor does she know anything about what’s going on apart from what she directly witnesses.
Jeanne is quickly joined by a beautiful woman named Francoise with whom she is about to embark on some kind of dangerous venture, which will put Francoise ahead of her rival, a mysterious woman only known as “the lady”. Jeanne is apparently an attendant of this mysterious lady and wears the lady’s silver and blue brocade livery, though her loyalty is to Francoise. Jeanne and Francoise both put on black hooded cloaks and leave through a secret passage. Outside the passage, they are met by Jeanne’s lover Raoul.
A carriage takes Jeanne, Francoise and Raoul to a shabby house, where a rat-faced, toothless woman awaits them. Alice knows that Jeanne is terrified, though she has no idea of what.
Inside the shabby house, Jeanne and Raoul are taken to a ritual chamber where other cloaked and hooded figures are already waiting. Alice finally realises that she is about to witness a black mass.
Francoise is lying naked on the altar, while the ritual goes on around her. Raoul supplies some helpful dialogue explaining that Francoise – though already beautiful like a Greek statue – is attending the black mass in search of even more beauty, because she wishes to regain the affection of the king – Louis XIV of France – who has transferred his attention from Francoise to the mysterious lady.
We are now treated to a graphic description of the black mass, complete with a blood sacrifice that is initially implied to be a baby, but thankfully turns out to be only a black rooster whose blood is splattered all over the naked Francoise.
Before the black mass can reach its climax and more blood sacrifices can be made, the cultists are interrupted by a patrol of the king’s men who break down the door on the orders of the mysterious lady. The satanic priest commits suicide, Raoul throws his cloak over Francoise’s head and tells her to play dead.
Then the guards break down the door. The guard captain recognises Raoul and is clearly surprised to see him attending a black mass (I can’t even blame him, since I would be surprised to see any acquaintance of mine attending a black mass, particularly one with blood-splattering sacrifices). Raoul claims that it was just curiosity which brought him there. However, the guard captain informs Raoul that he has to arrest everybody present, including Raoul.
Raoul asks if the captain if he could at least let Jeanne go and sweeps aside her black cloak to reveal the silver and blue brocade livery of the lady. The captain, however, insists that he has to arrest everybody – king’s orders and the lady’s will – and that there will be no exceptions for anybody, not even an attendant of the lady.
So Raoul, Jeanne and the rest of the cultists are arrested. Jeanne is glad that at least Francoise will be able to escape, since the guard captain thought she was dead, because her naked body was covered in (chicken) blood, and left her behind.
The captain grants Raoul and Jeanne a few minutes alone in a cell. Raoul says that this is good-bye for both of them. For the lady will be furious that Francoise escaped the trap she set for her and will have everybody who was arrested at the black mass tortured. However, of all the cultists, only Jeanne and Raoul know Francoise’s name. Raoul also casually drops Francoise’s full name, so Alice is able to use her knowledge of history to piece everything together. Francoise is Madame de Montespan, mistress of Louis XIV. The “lady” is her successor, Madame Scarron a.k.a. the Marquise of Maintenon. So Francoise’s attempts to regain the king’s favour by satanic means were ultimately futile.
Raoul now asks Jeanne if she is strong enough to withstand torture. Jeanne says that she hopes she will be strong enough, but she is afraid. However, Jeanne also declares that she would rather die than betray Francoise. So she begs Raoul to kill her. Raoul kisses Jeanne and strangles her. We get another quite graphic description of Jeanne being throttled to death, while a desperate Alice wonders what will happen to her, when Jeanne dies.
However, Alice does not die. Instead, she wakes up screaming, while her Aunt Annabel and Annabel’s maid Hester stand over her bed. Both Annabel and Hester are horrified to see that Alice has found the quilt. Hester says that the quilt should have been burned long ago, while Aunt Annabel finally tells Alice the story of the quilt.
The quilt, it turns out, was made by an old witch who collected scraps of fabric with terrible histories connected to them. She pieced the scraps together with her magic, so that if someone falls asleep with their hand touching one of the squares, they will relive whatever terrible memory has been encoded in the square.
The quilt ended up with an ancestor of Aunt Annabel’s late husband who put it in a guestroom and then waited for his guests to tell him about their nightmares. But then, one guest went mad and another died and the quilt was packed away. Aunt Annabel’s husband showed her the quilt and Annabel slept with it for two nights, until she could not stand it anymore. However, she could never bring herself to destroy the quilt either.
Aunt Annabel wants to destroy the quilt now, but Alice won’t let her. She wants to try sleeping under it again and she also has just the square picked out that she wants to try, the one which looks like parchment or human skin…
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A painting of the historical Madame de Montespan by an unknown artist
“Blue and Silver Brocade” is a highly effective and – by the standards of the time – remarkably graphic story of gothic horror. It’s yet another example of the “tale within a tale” stories that were popular during the golden age and that particularly Dorothy Quick was clearly fond of. But unlike other “tale within a tale” stories, here we don’t have people sitting around a fireplace or dinner table telling a spooky story. Instead, there is a unique delivery vehicle, a haunted patchwork quilt that transports those who sleep under it into other eras and lives.
I have to admit that I love the idea of a haunted patchwork quilt that contains spooky stories and not just because I have been known to make quilts myself (not haunted, though). And making a real world replica of Dorothy Quick’s fictional quilt – hopefully not haunted – sounds like a great craft project. Maybe an idea for a future Worldcon.
However, the haunted quilt is simply a great premise for a series of interconnected stories, though keeping the quilt in a box in a room where guests can stumble upon it unaware of the danger does strike me as very negligent. And indeed, Dorothy Quick wrote two more stories about the haunted patchwork quilt, which I will eventually review, if only because I love the premise.
While the framing story offers a standard gothic spooky mansion on the moors set-up, the dream story takes us into a completely different genre, namely that of historical fiction. Francoise de Montespan and her romantic rival, Francoise, Marquise de Maintenon a.k.a. “the lady” (probably because Luis XIV going for two women with such similar names would have been very confusing for readers) are both actual historical figures, though Jeanne and Raoul are fictional. There even is a portrait of Madame de Montespan wearing a dress of golden brocade like the one she wears in the story.
Madame de Montespan really was rumoured to have been involved in black masses where a rogue priest named Étienne Guiborg pouring blood over her naked body. She was also rumoured to have been a client of Catherine Monvoisin a.k.a. La Voisin (implied to be the rat-faced woman mentioned in the story), poisoner, abortionist and sorceress to the French aristocracy, who implicated Madame de Montespan after her arrest. Historical fiction generally is not kind to Madame de Montespan and tends to portray her as a villainess of the worst kind, even though we cannot be sure how many of the terrible stories told about her are really true and how many are the result of people arrested in connection with Catherine Monvoisin during the so-called affaire des poisons in 1677 (the story is implied to be set during this time) giving false confessions under torture. Interestingly, both history and fiction are much kinder to the Marquise de Maintenon who is generally considered to have been a good influence on Louis XIV, to have treated his legitimate wife well (unlike Madame de Montespan) and who founded a school for impoverished aristocratic girls.
So it’s interesting that Dorothy Quick turns Francoise de Montespan into a semi-sympathetic character who commands loyalty unto death from Raoul and Jeanne, though it’s never clear just why these two would be willing to die for her, while Madame de Maintenon is portrayed as the villainess of the story.
[image error]The tragic adventures of the doomed lovers Jeanne and Raoul in seventeenth century France reminded me very much of the Angélique series by Serge and Anne Golon, which my teenaged self devoured with great glee. Not just because of the setting – seventeenth century France during the reign of Louis XIV – but also because of the quite graphic violence and bloody happenings. And trust me, the Angélique series has a lot of that and is full of torture, executions, murders, sexual violence, pirates, harems, the inquisition, etc… Madame de Montespan actually does appear as a supporting character in some of the Angelique novels (as does Louis XIV), once again engaged in black masses, poisonings and other mischief. Though the first Angelique novel, Angélique, the Marquise of the Angels, did not appear until 1957, eighteen years after “Blue and Silver Brocade” was published, so it can’t possibly have inspired this story.
Which begets the question, what did inspire this story? For while there are a lot of historical sagas full of romance and quite graphic violence with female protagonists, the examples that come to mind – the Angelique novels, the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett, the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor – all postdate “Blue and Silver Brocade”. And the historical fiction of the era, works by writers like Raphael Sabatini, Georgette Heyer, Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, Margaret Mitchell, Hervey Allen, etc… is quite different from the historical scenes in “Blue and Silver Brocade”. The rivalry between Madame de Montespan and the Marquise de Maintenon and the affaire des poisons has been frequently chronicled, often in a quite sensational manner, so Dorothy Quick may well have come across the story. The graphic violence may have been inspired by the Theatre du Grand-Guignol, but the blood-drenched horror plays presented at that famous Paris theatre were usually not historical. So was Dorothy Quick the first to merge romantic historical drama with graphic violence? This is certainly a mystery to be explored further.
Steve J. Wright was quite shocked at how graphic the violence in “Blue and Silver Brocade” was. And indeed, the story is remarkably graphic by 1930s standards. We not only get a graphic description of a blood-drenched black mass and an equally graphic description of a woman being strangled to death from the POV of the victim, we also have nudity and several passionate and thrilling kisses, including one kiss which happens as Jeanne is strangled to death (which hints at erotic asphyxiation). By 1930s standards, this is strong stuff.
What makes this even more remarkable is that “Blue and Silver Brocade” was not published in the fairly liberal Weird Tales, where graphic violence, satanic rituals, passionate kisses and hints of sex all showed up more or less frequently, but in John W. Campbell’s much more prudish Unknown, which was focussed more on proto-urban fantasy, humorous fantasy and Arabian Nights type adventures than on gothic horror. I’m not surprised that Dorothy Quick chose to submit this story to Unknown. After all, Campbell paid better and much more promptly than Weird Tales, which was notoriously slow to pay, particularly under Farnsworth Wright. However, I’m surprised that Campbell bought it, because “Blue and Silver Brocade” is so very much not a John W. Campbell type story and would seem much more at home in Weird Tales or even the likes of Spicy Mystery or Spicy Adventure.
“Blue and Silver Brocade” is also a depressing story, because the actions of the characters in the historical flashback are ultimately futile. Jeanne dies by the hand of Raoul, it is strongly implied that Raoul will be executed for his part in the conspiracy (and for killing Jeanne) and Francoise does not regain the affections of the King, but will be banished from court. It’s very much a downer ending, which also heightens the impact of the graphic violence.
“Blue and Silver Brocade” passes the Bechdel test with flying colours, something which is exceedingly rare for golden age SFF stories. What’s even more remarkable is that except for Raoul, all named characters are female. The other Dorothy Quick story I reviewed for the Retro Reviews project also passed the Bechdel test, which shows that Quick centered women characters and their experiences in her fiction.
Next to Fritz Leiber’s justly beloved Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories, Dorothy Quick’s Patchwork Quilt series is certainly one of the most interesting and unusual works to appear in Unknown. Dorothy Quick is vastly underrated and I for one will be very interested to read the other two stories in this series.
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September 20, 2020
Notes on the Virtual Bloody Scotland Festival and the Differences Between SFF and Crime Fiction Cons
Bloody Scotland is a crime fiction festival that normally takes place in Stirling, Scotland. But like pretty much every other con or literary festival this year, Bloody Scotland has gone virtual for obvious reasons.
Now Bloody Scotland is somewhat more accessible to me than most US science fiction conventions, though it still requires flying and a train ride. Nonetheless, I’ve never gone, mostly because I only learned about the festival’s existence in 2018 and in 2019, my con travel budget was eaten up by Worldcon.
However, cons and literary festivals going virtual allows me to attend events I might never otherwise have attended. And indeed, The AV-Club hosts a roundtable, in which Katie Rife, Annie Zaleski and Shannon Miller discuss how the fact that so many events had to go virtual due to the pandemic has allowed disabled and marginalised fans as well as fans living in locations far away to attend events they could never attend before.
Crime fiction and mystery are my other main genres next to SFF (though I read and write all of them), so I decided to check out the virtual Bloody Scotland. Except for some writing masterclasses, all events were free to watch for everybody.
The panels were done in Zoom as with most virtual cons and the streaming was done via Vimeo. There was a chat function next to the streaming panels, allowing viewers to ask questions and chat amongst themselves. However, the Discord chats which have become such an important element of virtual SFF conventions were completely absent. There were no kaffeeklatsches and no virtual dealers room either, though there was a link to Waterstone’s online store where you could buy the books of the participating authors. Bloody Scotland does have an award, the MacIlvanny Prize and Scottish Crime Debut of the Year Prize, both of which were handed out in a virtual ceremony, which I missed. There is normally also quite a lot of non-panel programming such as music performances (some of which they managed to transfer online), theatre plays (they showed a recording of last year’s) as well as a football match featuring a team of crime fiction writers (cancelled obviously) and a procession by torchlight through the city of Stirling, which obviously didn’t take place either this year. I’ve seen pictures of the torch procession BTW. It looks like a mob of angry crime fiction writers with torches and pitchforks about to burn down Dr. Frankenstein’s castle.
Part of the reason for the lack of Discord chats, kaffeeklatsches and a dealers room may be that crime fiction festivals seem to be more focussed on listening to well-known writers speak and read than on interacting with fellow members. And indeed, there were fewer themed panels and a lot more of “See these cool authors talking about their writing and life”. It reminds more of literary festivals than SFF cons. Crime fiction cons also seem to be geared towards writers – the various British ones are often called “crime writing festivals”, hence the masterclasses. It’s simply a different con culture.
I also have to admit that my experience with crime fiction festivals is limited to some German festivals in my region, mainly Prime Time Crime Time in Bremen (which was cancelled this year) and the Ostfriesische Krimitage in Leer (which is biannual and would have skipped 2020 anyway), both of which take place over a longer period of time, but only have one or two events per day and in different locations scattered around the respective city. It’s yet another different literary festival culture.
The first Bloody Scotland panel I watched on Friday evening was moderated by Craig Robertson and featured a stellar line-up of Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Chris Brookmyre, Doug Johnstone, Stuart Neville and Luca Veste, all of whom are not only great crime fiction and thriller authors, but also members of a band called the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. They mostly appear at crime fiction and literary festivals, but even played at the Glastonbury Festival. The panel consisted of the band members reminiscing about the gigs they played and how they miss live performances. There were a lot of fun anecdotes, such as Val McDermid recounting how she and her fellow band members walked through Aberdeen after appearing at the local crime festival Granite Noir, only to suddenly have a fellow who was peeing against the wall recognise her and tell her how much he loved her books – all while peeing. They also showed some clips of the band performing. They do mostly covers of songs related to crime and murder and they’re pretty good.
This is a panel I probably wouldn’t have attended at a physical con. But as it had just started, when I opened the Bloody Scotland website, I tuned in and wound up enjoying it a whole lot. That’s one of the big advantages of virtual festivals. Because the barrier to attendance is so low (you can just switch off the stream or go to a different one, if the panel isn’t to your taste), you end up watching panels you probably wouldn’t have watched at a physical con and come across things you didn’t know you’d enjoy.
The next panel I watched was a double interview with Ann Cleeves and Peter May. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the name of the moderator, though it wasn’t the moderator listed in the program – the gender was wrong. There were nice insights into the writing process. For example, Ann Cleeves is a discovery writer (or “pantser”, though I don’t like that term) and doesn’t know what will happen before hand. Peter May is more of a plotter. Ann Cleeves also revealed that her most famous character Vera Stanhope was an accidental creation introduced to get Ann Cleeves out of a corner into which she had written herself. And the only reason there is a Vera Stanhope series at all is because a young editor who decided that traditional mystery series were over and that she definitely wouldn’t buy a mystery series from Ann Cleeves married a journalist and moved to Australia. Sadly, the last quarter hour of the panel was marred by sound issues and weird echoes (in the chat, people called them ghost voices), so that it sometimes became difficult to understand the panelists.
Between the panels, there were brief author readings and so I caught two readings by Helen Sedgwick and Russ Thomas. I think the readings interspersed between the panels are a great idea for a single track festival like Bloody Scotland.
The next panel I watched was a panel on high concept thrillers featuring Steve Cavanagh, Adrian McKinty and Simon Mayo. The moderator was Catriona Reynolds. The beginning of the panel was again marred by sound issues, but they were fairly quickly fixed. Again, there were many interesting insights into the writing process of the authors. Simon Mayo, who’s apparently a radio personality in the UK, explained how he came to writing a contemporary thriller after writing a YA series and a historical mystery. Steve Cavanagh doesn’t have a mental picture of his character Eddie Flynn, which was a big surprise for me, because I always see my characters in my head and no exactly what they look like. His characters don’t talk to him either. Interestingly, Adrian McKinty and Steve Cavanagh are also discovery writers. So much for “discovery writing doesn’t work with crime novels and mysteries”.
Steve Cavanagh also explained that he sets many/most of his thrillers in the US, even though he’s from Northern Ireland, because he fell in love with crime fiction via American writers and because some stories simply require a certain setting. Here the book in question was a legal thriller and Cavanagh felt that it simply wouldn’t work with the British legal system. Adrian McKinty, who’s from Northern Ireland as well, also said that his Sean Duffy crime novels set in Northern Ireland just didn’t sell, because readers associate crime fiction set in Northern Ireland (or indeed any fiction set in Northern Ireland) with the so-called “troubles” and don’t want to read it. And of course Adrian McKinty’s breakout novel, The Chain, is also set in the US. Indeed, this is a huge dilemma for many authors from beyond the US/UK – and even from some regions in those countries. There is a pressure to write “authentic” stories set in your home region/country, whereby “authentic” means conforming to whatever stereotypes the US/UK audience has about the country/region in question. And indeed, Adrian McKinty said that most books get Belfast in the 1980s wrong, but fit all the clichés people have in their heads. At the same time, novels set in lesser known locales often don’t sell very well. And crime fiction is actually more open to varied settings than many other genres, especially with the regional crime fiction trend and influx of translated crime fiction.
Eventually, the panel turned to the writers discussing their favourite Jack Reacher novels. I was certainly taking notes, because I want to try the Jack Reacher series, but there are so many of them. I’m not going to read the one set in Hamburg, though, because I’m pretty sure that it’s going to get things wrong. And of course, Lee Child is another British thriller writer who found success with a series set (mostly) in America, featuring a very American character. This is almost an inversion from early 20th century when American (and German and French, etc…) mystery writers all had to pretend to be British and writer British set mysteries. In the US, this trend towards faux British mysteries ended with the rise of the hardboiled crime novel (one of whose most famous practitioners, Raymond Chandler, was a Brit living and writing in the US). In Germany, it held on well into the postwar era, until the regional crime fiction movement of the 1980s swept away the faux British mysteries.
The next panel I watched was entitled Ian Rankin and Lawrence Block in coversation, which was exactly what it said on the tin. Topics discussed included how to deal with aging series characters (the Inspector Rebus, Matt Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr series have all been going on for a long time) and with aging in general, and why both authors continue setting their novels in Edinburgh/New York, even though they live elsewhere by now. Ian Rankin also talked about how much he likes contributing short stories to themed anthologies and Lawrence Block talked about his decision to self-publish his later books. Both authors shared their memories of Evan Hunter a.k.a. Ed McBain and Ian Rankin shared some memories of Iain Banks as well.
On Sunday afternoon, I caught part of what was billed as “The Neverending Panel”, which was a rolling Zoom conversation featuring several authors. When one author dropped out, another came in. The bits I caught featured Scottish crime fiction authors Alan Parks, Theresa Talbot, Jackie Baldwin, Alex Green, Ben McPherson and Abir Mukherjee talking about research and their favourite murder methods (in their books), including murder by harp string, by trampoline and by elephant. The authors were charming and obviously had a lot of fun. Abir Mukherjee shared an anecdote about wearing a kilt to a wedding in South Africa, where they had a glass dancefloor. Theresa Talbot shared some anecdotes from running a writing workshop in a prison, including a story about someone who supposedly shagged a fish. I also learned that the last Magdalene Laundry in Glasgow closed in 1958.
The final panel I watched was a conversation between Val McDermid and Lee Child. They both discussed how much they missed in person festivals and conventions, not just for the interaction with readers and fans, but also for the chance to hang out with other writers and talk shop. They both also said that they find the interaction at cons and festivals inspiring, which is also very much my experience. After an in-person con, particularly a big one like Worldcon, I’m exhausted for maybe two weeks and then everything has settled and I’m bursting with ideas.
Lee Child also talked about handing over the Jack Reacher series to his younger brother, while Val McDermid expects to keep writing until she drops dead. There was a bit of a debate whether women keep writing until the end, while male writers retire earlier. Lee Child at any rate couldn’t come up with any example of a male author who kept writing right up to the end, though there are a few in SFF, e.g. Ray Bradbury. Though Lee Child’s wife is currently reading The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis – not that he could remember the title or the name of the author, but we supplied it in the chat.
Val McDermid and Lee Child also discussed their experiences about having their works adapted to TV or movies. Val McDermid was mostly happy with the Wire in the Blood TV series, Lee Child was much less happy with the Jack Reacher movies starring Tom Cruise (who was “egregriously wrong” for the role according to Val McDermid), though he did like Tom Cruise as a person.
So what’s the takeaway from the virtual Bloody Scotland? Well, I got to listen to lots of interesting writers talking about their life, their work and their writing process. But otherwise, the experience was more passive than the various virtual SFF cons, because the Discord chats were missing, though I did participate in the Vimeo chat function a little. Another thing I noticed is that the panels were almost entirely authors as well as the occasional forensic expert or literary agents runnning an online pitch session, whereas the panels at Worldcons have plenty of fans, scientists, academics, etc… as well as writers. Bloody Scotland also had several all-male panels and a lot of all-white panels (though there were several authors of colour, e.g. Abir Mukherjee, Attica Locke, Oyinkan Braithwaite, etc…), which is much rarer at SFF cons these days.
The main difference between SFF cons and crime fiction festivals like Bloody Scotland seems to be that at crime fiction festivals, the barrier between pros and fans is much more pronounced than at SFF cons, at least the fan-run ones (commercials media cons like San Diego Comic Con are something else altogether). Because at Worldcon and other fan-run SFF cons, the idea is that everybody is a fan first and a writer, podcaster, editor, scientist, academic, astronaut, etc… second. I suspect that the reason for this difference might be that SFF cons developed as fan gatherings, whereas crime fiction festivals grew out of literary festivals. And in fact, the Bloody Scotland panels frequently felt like all crime writer version of the “Blue Sofa” interviews from the Leipzig and Franfurt book fairs, which I’ve always eagerly consumed when there still were book fairs, since the Leipzig book fair was pretty much the first thing cancelled because of the pandemic.
So in short, it’s a different con culture, but I nonetheless had a lot of fun. And if Bloody Scotland hadn’t gone virtual, I likely would never have attended the event.
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September 17, 2020
Retro Review: “The Werewolf’s Howl” by Brooke Byrne
[image error]I’m continuing my quest to review stories by obscure women authors of the golden age with “The Werewolf’s Howl” by Brooke Byrne, a gothic horror short story which appeared in the December 1934 issue of Weird Tales. I came across the story, while reviewing “Black God’s Shadow” by C.L. Moore. The story may be read online here. This review will also be crossposted to Retro Reviews.
Warning: Spoilers beyond this point!
The story starts in full gothic manner with young Doctor Gradnov walking through a dark and sinister forest on a cold night, making his way to the equally sinister Castle Martheim, which is located on a cliff overlooking a nameless river. It’s obvious that this errand will not end well.
The reason that has brought Doctor Gradnov to Castle Martheim is that the last Baron Martheim lies dying. Doctor Gradnov is troubled by this, because the Baron is not just a patient, he was also a friend with whom the Doctor played chess and talked about vintage wines.
Doctor Gradnov finds the Baron near death and clearly terrified of something. However, the Baron refuses a sedative – though not the brandy the Doctor gives him – and insists that he has to share his secret with the Doctor.
And so, the Baron tells his story. Some forty years before, the Baron – we now learn that his first name is Konrad – went to university and would hold forth about his grand theories about the nature of existence in the local coffeehouses, where he also fell for a waitress named Hilda. However, he had a rival for Hilda’s affections, an older student named Ivan. Hilda preferred the young Baron, whereas Ivan was left stewing with jealousy.
One night, Ivan confronts Konrad in a tavern near closing time. The Baron knows that Ivan hates him and so he is very surprised that Ivan sits down to share a drink with him. Once the innkeeper has withdrawn, Ivan leans close to Konrad and asks if he still denies the existence of the soul. Konrad answer in the affirmative and declares that no, he has no returned to superstition. Next, Ivan asks if Konrad believes that one can sell one’s soul. Konrad declares that this is nonsense. I guess we can all see where this is going by now.
Ivan now tells Konrad that he has sold his soul in exchange for great wisdom and the secrets of the old ones. Ivan also offers to show Konrad ghosts, werewolves and the undead. Konrad still doesn’t believe Ivan, but agrees to go with him, when Ivan taunts him that he is just scared.
Ivan takes Konrad to a ruined castle in the deep dark woods. There, Ivan opens his bag, pulls out all sorts of ritual implements, which he had wisely brought along, and sets them up. He also has an old pistol and a blessed silver bullet marked with a cross, which is the only thing that can slay a werewolf. Ivan hands the pistol to Konrad and tells him to load it. He also tells Konrad that if he fires the bullet at a werewolf and misses, his soul shall forever be forfeit to the undead.
Then Ivan begins his ritual, which generates a lot of smoke. Outside the ruin, the wolves are howling. One appears inside the castle and attacks Konrad. Konrad fires, misses and gets bitten.
The next morning, Konrad flees the university town. He travels the world, looking for a cure, but finds none. For forty years, the Baron has lived in fear of the werewolves who will take his soul once he dies. And now that he is about to die, he is utterly terrified.
Doctor Gradnov tries to calm down the old Baron and tells him that he is safe and that there is no such thing as werewolves. The Baron claims that he can already hear them howling, that he know Ivan is waiting for him. However, Doctor Gradnov and the Baron’s lone servant Hans can’t hear anything.
The Baron finally expires, his face a twisted mask of horror, and now the young Doctor finally does hear something. Outside the castle, a wolf is howling. Three times the wolf howls, a long bitter howl of inhuman despair. Hans, the servant, and even the otherwise atheistic Doctor Gradnov both pray.
[image error]This is a typical example of the filler stories often found in Weird Tales. There are no real surprises here and it’s clear from the beginning where the story is going. Not to mention that the title is a spoiler, which was a common problem during the pulp era. Like many other filler stories, “The Werewolf’s Howl” is also an example of a “tale within a tale” story. I have reviewed a couple of other stories of this type, including two from Weird Tales.
However, “The Werewolf’s Howl” is nicely written and dripping with gothic atmosphere. It’s set in the vaguely German, vaguely Slavic never-neverland of gothic fiction, where every dark forest is full of vampires and every castle is home to a vampire and a couple of ghosts.
Unsurprisingly, there is no German or formerly German town called Martheim nor is there a castle by that name. The university town where much of the tale within a tale takes place is never named. It might be Heidelberg, it might be Leipzig (I can’t be the only one who got distinct Faust vibes from this story about university students hanging out in wine bars and coffeehouses and making deals with dark powers), it might be Göttingen, it might be completely fictional.
The mix of German and Slavic names is also typical for this sort of story. And so the Baron and his servant and the Baron’s university paramour have solidly German names, while the young Doctor and the villainous Ivan both have Slavic names. Now you do find plenty of people with Slavic names particularly in the eastern parts of the former German Empire and universities have always attracted students from abroad anyway. Nonetheless, the coexistence of German and Slavic names in gothic fiction is a strange convention, especially since you never find German and French names existing side by side in this sort of story, even though this common in the areas along the French-German border.
Hilda, the waitress, with whom both Ivan and the Baron are infatuated, vanishes from the story once the rivalry between Konrad and Ivan has been established. I hope she found herself a nice solid student who did not dabble with dark powers.
The depiction of the werewolf legend in this story is certainly interesting, especially regarding the details which differ from the most common modern version of the legend. For example, I was surprised to see silver bullets mentioned as the sole weapon that can slay a werewolf, since I always assumed that this particular detail was invented (along with a big chunk of the modern werewolf legend) by Curt Siodmak for The Wolf Man, a film which did not come out until 1941, more than six years after “The Werewolf’s Howl” appeared in Weird Tales.
Meanwhile, the fact that the Baron is doomed to become a werewolf after death reminds me of the legend of Lambert Sprengepiel, a German Imperial cavalry officer and guerrilla leader fighting the Swedish occupation during the Thirty Years War. Sprengepiel really did exist and lived on an estate just outside the town of Vechta, where he built a grain mill that still exists today and is still operational.
However, no one would remember a 17th century cavalry officer if not for a local legend which claims that Sprengepiel made a deal with the devil, allowing him and his men to turn into bushes at will to confuse and ambush the Swedish forces. However, in return Sprengepiel was cursed to turn into a hellhound with glowing red eyes after death and roam the moors around Vechta (more on the Sprengepiel legend may be found on the website of the Museum im Zeughaus in Vechta). There even is a statue of Sprengepiel in Vechta – in hellhound form. Little children love riding on him.
I’ve been fascinated by the story of Lambert Sprengepiel, ever since I stumbled across him while teaching at the University of Vechta. He even shows up as a supporting character in one of my stories.
Was Brooke Byrne familiar with the legend of Lambert Sprengepiel? It’s not completely impossible, since the story has appeared in collections of local myths and legends several times, including Elisabeth Reinke‘s collection of myths and legends from the Oldenburger Land, which was published in 1922. However, it’s not all that likely either, since the Sprengepiel story is an intensely local legend, little known outside the immediate area where it’s set. And there might well be similar legends elsewhere.
[image error]So who was Brooke Byrne, author of “The Werewolf’s Howl”? Unfortunately, Brooke Byrne is one of those golden age authors who are a complete enigma. According to ISFDB, she had this one story as well as a poem named “Sic Transit Gloria” published in Weird Tales in 1933/34 and then never appeared again under that name in the SFF genre anywhere. Did she find greener pastures elsewhere in the pulps? It’s impossible to say, because unfortunately Brooke Byrne shares a name with an Instagram influencer who makes videos reviewing eyelash extensions as well as a class action lawyer, a softball player and a dozen other people, none of whom are the person who sold a story and a poem to Weird Tales in the 1930s. There is a Brooke Byrne who penned Mending Books Is Fun, a non-fiction book about bookbinding and book repair, in 1957. Is this the same woman as the Weird Tales author? Goodreads seems to think so, but we all know that Goodreads is not exactly reliable.
Interestingly, there is also a young writer from San Diego named Brooke Byrne whose story “Wolves at Twilight” was selected for an anthology of fiction by middle grade students. This Brooke Byrne is very obviously not the same person, but I still found it fascinating that two writers called Brooke Byrne would both write werewolf stories eighty-six years apart.
Considering how obscure Brooke Byrne is, I was surprised that “The Werewolf’s Howl” has been reprinted in a 1994 horror anthology called 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories, edited by Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Martin H. Greenberg and Robert Weinberg. This anthology was part of a series of anthologies that the bookseller Barnes & Noble published in the 1990s. Those anthologies drew heavily from the pulps, particularly Weird Tales. Considering that Stefan R. Dziemianowicz and Robert Weinberg are both Weird Tales specialists, this isn’t surprising.
A neat if predictable gothic horror story that is very typical of the bread and butter fiction published in Weird Tales.
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