Joshua Reynolds's Blog, page 78

New BEST OF HAMMER AND BOLTER Review

The good folks at Falcata Times have reviewed volume 2 of The Best of Hammer & Bolter, a massive tome in which I am lucky enough to have four–four!–stories. 

From the review:

Whilst I don’t receive this absolutely mega magazine this title really does make me wish that I did as each story not only left a deep impression upon me but also gave me something pretty unique with each turn of the page.

Basically, they liked it. I encourage you to head over to the Falcata Times site and read the full review. I also encourage you to grab your own copy, from Black Library.

The Ameriquetzlan Ambassador

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m less a fan of Steampunk in and of itself than I am of the aesthetic. I’m also partial to the historical implications of early industrialization, early cultural contact, etc. Basically, I’m a fan of alternate histories, the wilder and woollier, the better. Which brings us to the Ameriquetzlan Ambassador, and his strange world. 

Ulrich Popoca is the junior ambassador from the court of Hueyi Tlatoani Ahuitzotl V, Lord of the Horizons, Scion of the Sun, emperor of the Ameriquetzlan Empire and its Expanses  to the court of Victoria Gloriana Regina, queen of Greater Britain, Alba and Eire. The son of an Ameriquetzlan nobleman and a woman from Vinland, Popoca has a fascination for European culture that serves him in good stead as he attempts to navigate the Byzantine political web that is the Court of St. James.  He’s also something of an amateur sleuth, prone to sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong.

This tendency towards ratiocination has brought him to the dubious attentions of the shadowy cabal known as the Diogenes Club. The club is believed by some to be the true power behind the British throne, and that it is only by its machinations that the island nation has not been devoured by the predatory empires that wage war across the Channel. The club’s attentions are personified in the form of the flamboyant and utterly ruthless Countess (in-exile) Francesca Felluci, late of Venice, currently of the Savoy. If Popoca is Sherlock Holmes (or, better yet, Lord Peter Wimsey), then Felluci is James Bond, if Bond was a lady, and less of an asshole.

Together, Popoca and the Countess investigate those crimes which perplex and baffle the police, and which inevitably have some political ramification. The Countess has also had a number of solo adventures, battling the agents of the Basarab of the Greater Wallachian Union, Cathar separatists, and Spider-King of France.

The stories are more pulpy than a good alternate history should be, ideally. As with the Mr. Brass stories, I basically took a bunch of elements I thought were neat and jammed them into a narrative blender without any real regard for the historical or cultural implications.

Its a world where the Age of Exploration and the Reconquista turned out very differently. Its a world where a Mongol-controlled China sold the secret of gunpowder to the Aztecs, who several centuries later rode the modern descendants of the dinosaurs into battle against the Spanish, when the latter battled England, the Basques and Ethiopia during the Andalusian War of 1875.

Fifteen years later, the Martians invaded. Nobody likes to talk about it.

Dracula (or his descendant) is at war with the Ottomans, the Russ and the United Germanies, and has been since the Second October Crusade of 1880. The Mughals are still going strong, as are the Hussites, the Cathars and the Knights of Malta.

Ethiopia is a major world power, as is Malaysia. The Berbers and the Tuaregs are significant political factions in geopolitical affairs, as are the Teutonic Knights and the Vinlanders. France is still under the thumb of the Valois and the Free Italian States exiled the Pope to Wallachia a decade ago.

Also, there are vampires, werewolves and assorted nightmarish entities and Nikola Tesla rules a floating Electric Duchy.  There are manticores in the Royal Zoo and the Fellowship of Herne hunts criminals through the English countryside for sport.

See what I mean? It’s an interesting, confusing little world, that makes for some exciting stories, even if it’s as confusing as all heck. Hopefully I’ll get to go back to it someday soon, schedule and markets permitting.

Popoca and the Countess have had (separately and together) ten appearances to date, not counting reprints. In no particular order, chronological or otherwise:

“The Strange Affair of the Artisan’s Heart” 

Popoca is an Ameriquetzlan diplomat abroad in the world’s capitol, London. He is summoned to the scene of a crime, where he meets an old friend and finds a murdered man.

2009 Robots Beyond (Permuted Press)
2009 Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine episode 53

“The Strange Affair of the Martian Engine”

Countess (in-exile) Felluci battles mercenaries and monsters in order to prevent an alien device from falling into the hands of the Basarab of Wallachia.

2010 Cossmass Infinities Podcast episode 1

“The Strange Affair of the Skull at the Window”

Popoca and the Countess are back, this time they are on the trail of a thief that has stolen a rare moth from the London Zoo…a rare, four foot moth. Sword fights, dirigibles, and electric velocipedes ensue.

2010 Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine episode 67

“The Strange Affair of the Phantom Vinlander”

Popoca and his fellow diplomats attempt to prevent the murder of Queen Victoria during a holiday celebration aboard the royal aether-yacht. 

2009 Free Advent Day Story

“The Moorish Sign”

Popoca and the Countess investigate a locked room murder mystery.

2011 Bards and Sages Quarterly January issue

“The Strange Affair of the Sundered Man”

Popoca returns, this time to investigate a baffling case involving a person still alive, despite being–quite literally–half the man he used to be.

2011 Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine episode 109

“The Adventure of the Beastly Concubines”

Popoca and the Countess attempt to unravel a murderous conspiracy as a Wallachian diplomat seeks sanctuary in the Ameriquetzlan embassy. 

2011 Peculiar Adventures issue 2 (Pro Se Productions)

“The Strange Affair of the Viennese Mathematician”

The Countess races the deadly war-dirigibles of Wallachia and the Basarab’s lycanthropic agents to retrieve a valuable informant from Vienna. 

2011 Beast Within 2: Predator & Prey (Graveside Tales)

“The Matryoshka Affair”

Popoca and the Countess attempt to solve another locked room murder, with explosive results.

2012 Free Download

“The Adventure of the Albigensian Agent”

The Countess fights clockwork Cathars and feline French agents in order to escort an English spy to safety

2013 Psychopunk (Artifice Comics)

Weirder Tales?

Reblogged from occultdetective.com:

Debuting in August

featuring stories written by

William Meikle, Joshua M. Reynolds, Greg Mitchell,

Tracy DeVore, Bob Freeman, and more...

STRANGE TRAILS TOC and Cover Revealed

James Palmer, editor of Mechanoid Press, has revealed the cover as well as the table of contents for the forthcoming weird western anthology, Strange Trails. To take a look at the latter, as well as James Burns’ fantastic cover, head over to James Palmer’s site. 

My contribution, “Mr. Brass and the Master of Serpents”, sees the American Automaton join forces with US Marshal Bass Reeves and the South Carolina mystic, Harley Warren, in an attempt to stymie the sinister machinations of the eponymous Master of Serpents, Juan Romero.

I’m quite excited about this one, if I’m being honest. Writing it, I got to indulge my love of lucha libre films, Lovecraftiana, and steampunk. For something similar, check out “Mr. Brass and the Seven Plagues of the Devil”, which is an homage to the Shaw Brothers, Hammer Studios and Sax Rohmer, and is soon to be reprinted in Psychopunk, from Artifice Comics.

LOVECRAFT EZINE MEGAPACK Now Available

Mike Davis, editor of the Lovecraft eZine, has announced that the 2012 Megapack, containing issues 10-20, is now available for purchase. Included in the line-up of some of the best Lovecraftian fiction of last year are two stories by me, “Eliza” and “The Gotterdammerung Gavotte”. 

“Eliza”, which originally appeared in issue 10, follows the last Whateley on a quest to escape her captors and a city under siege by implacable cosmic horrors. And in “The Gotterdammerung Gavotte”, the Royal Occultist Charles St. Cyprian and his assistant, Ebe Gallowglass, join forces with five other occult detectives–including Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence–to confront the horrors of the Great Old Ones!

To grab your copy of the Megapack, just visit the Lovecraft eZine. And while you’re there, why not grab a t-shirt? I’m wearing mine right now.

Christmas in July Giveaway

From July 15th through July 19th, you can pick up Kindle copies of The PulpWork Christmas Special 2011 and the PulpWork Christmas Special 2012 at no charge on Amazon. The specials contain stories by Joel Jenkins, Russ Anderson, Derrick Ferguson, and, of course, me. Download ‘em for free for the next few days!

USE ENOUGH GUN Now Available

Use Enough Gun, Emby Press’ follow-up to the hugely popular anthologies, Leather, Denim & Silver and The Trigger Reflex, is now available (at least in Kindle format). From the blurb:

A lonely wind blows over an unmarked grave… A hunter died here, alone, chewed up and still holding a broken blade. No one will ever come here to pay their respects, nor to silently mouth the words ‘thank you’. But the monster paid the price for the hunter’s death, and for that night at least, it sure as hell did not feed upon the innocent. 

Behold Use Enough Gun, a collection of monster-hunting tales that explore what happens when hunters don’t make it home, when they become the very thing that they are sworn to hunt, or when they lose loved ones they are sworn to protect. Bloody and stark with pain, Use Enough Gun is about what happens when the hunt goes wrong. 

Third in the popular Legends of the Monster Hunter series, Use Enough Gun explores some of the darkest tales yet.

As with the previous two volumes, there’s a new Royal Occultist story to be had. In this case, it’s “In the Dark and Quiet”, in which Charles St. Cyprian and Ebe Gallowglass confront a monstrous not-a-ghost beneath the Bank of England.

And if you enjoy “In the Dark and Quiet”, why not check out the rest of the series, as well as the Royal Occultist Facebook and Bandcamp pages, and perhaps even participate in this poll?

Les Compagnons De L’Ombre 12 Now Available

French publisher Riviere Blanche has just released volume 12 of Les Compagnons De L’Ombre, which’d be the French translation of Black Coat Press’ Tales of the Shadowmen to us monolingual savages. Volume 12 contains two stories by me (albeit in French), “La Pierre de Charlemagne” (originally “The Carolingian Stone”) and “Nestor Burma au Far West” (originally “Nestor Burma Goes West”). 

Here’s the cover:

 

And the blurb:

Les Compagnons de l’Ombre sont les héros et vilains de la culture populaire qui ont bercé notre adolescence.

Rocambole rencontre le Capitaine Nemo, Nestor Burma se retrouve en péril au Far West, le Nyctalope combat les Monstres de l’Espace, Bulldog Drummond fait équipe avec Harry Dickson, Lord Peter déjoue les intrigues d’Istanbul, le Saint embobine les Habits Noirs, Charlie Chan croise le fer avec Madame Atomos et le Louvre tremble à nouveau lors du retour de Belphégor!

Au cours de ces nouvelles, pastiches, parodies et hommages littéraires, plusieurs auteurs français, américains et anglais font partager au lecteur leurs rêves d’enfants quand, eux aussi, s’amusaient à inventer de nouvelles aventures pour leur héros préférés.

My contributions appeared, respectively in Tales of the Shadowmen Volumes 8 and 9–”The Carolingian Stone” sees the Super-Detective, Jim Anthony team up with the French sleuth Chantecoq in order to thwart the deadly schemes of the devilish Belphegor, and “Nestor Burma Goes West” finds the eponymous private eye hunting down the now-retired Super-Detective on behalf of a mysterious employer. You can grab a copy of the book from the publisher, if you’re interested.

Two New Royal Occultist Stories Coming Soon

I’m pleased to announce that two more stories set in the Royal Occultist universe–”The Maida Vale Mummy” and “Hochmuller’s Hound”–are set to appear later this year from Artifice Comics and Emby Press, respectively. 

“The Maida Vale Mummy”, in which St. Cyprian and Gallowglass confront some decidedly risible Roman remains in a Maida Vale wine-cellar in 1920, will appear in Bento Box 11 from Artifice Comics. For more on Bento Box 11, the other contributors, and Artifice Comics, check out their site.

“Hochmuller’s Hound”, in which Royal Occultist Thomas Carnacki and his assistant, Charles St. Cyprian battle the monstrous Hound of Mons in 1914, will appear in Monster Hunter: Blood Trails from Emby Press. For more on the anthology, or Emby Press, check out their site.

Excerpts from both stories are forthcoming at the Royal Occultist site. While you’re waiting, why not check out said site, the Royal Occultist Facebook and Bandcamp pages, and participate in this poll?

BEST OF HAMMER & BOLTER: VOLUME 2 Now Available for Preorder

Best of Hammer & Bolter:Volume 2 is now available for preorder from Black Library. This massive tome collects most of the stories from the last batch of issues of the late, lamented Hammer & Bolter magazine, including quite a few by me. 

From the blurb:

Hammer and Bolter is Black Library’s digital magazine, bringing you the best in Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 short fiction every month. Now, for the first time in print, the editors are proud to present the best stories from the second year of issues, with contributions from Black Library veterans like Graham McNeill, Nick Kyme and Rob Sanders, through to some rising stars and a host of new talent. Featuring stories from across the Warhammer World and the grim darkness of the far future, The Best of Hammer and Bolter: Volume Two is an essential collection of sci-fi and fantasy shorts from the dark vaults of the Black Library.

My contributions include the four Knights of Manann short stories, a Zavant story, and a Time of Legends story featuring Neferata, so if you were waiting for those to be in print, well, here you go. And if you’d like to see more of any of the characters featured in those stories, please feel free to let Black Library know.

Best of Hammer & Bolter:Volume 2 is available for preorder now, and it should be in stores later this month or next.