Dark Muse News: Sword & Sorcery Chain Story (#29-#32)

 Simulcast ob BLACK GATE

In August 2025, we hailed the emergence of a second Chain Story project championed by Michael A. Stackpole. This is a Sword & Sorcery-focused, contagious set of connected (“chained”) stories.

Each is:

• A standalone tale
• Readable in any order
• Free to read! (for at least three months from its posting date)
• Interconnected via a theme involving a Crown

We round up groups every several weeks, but check the Chain Story website for the latest. Here we highlight the latest set of five, Episodes 29-32.

#32 "Devourer of Crowns" by Jason M. Waltz and S.E. Lindberg

Lord Direk struggles to contain the shadow cursing his body when the meddling of unknown entities brings him into contact with the suspicious Doktor Grave. Their shared fascination with the jewels of Tarru-syn may offer Direk deliverance—or be his damnation. Can these strangers from different worlds dare to rely on each other long enough to defeat their common enemy? Will alchemy and will-power be enough to save them from being devoured by the treasures they seek?"

31 Why Crimson Cora Hates Wizards Luana Saitta

The Ionaian Basin is atwitter with the capture of its scourge, Crimson Cora! Is this the final hour for the dreaded pirate queen? Brought low by the ruthless commander Pallidus, she is left to die upon the shores of a desolate island. Now the tide is rising and demons from the depths hunger for flesh! How will she get outta this pickle, before she becomes a seaside lunch?

30 The Architect of Flesh Alina Lee

There are terrible things waiting in the Badlands.Rowan Grim returns. In this tale, she finds herself tracking down a workshop of an old enemy of her lost people, the demon known as the Architect of Flesh. What she finds there is more than she expected, and answers to questions she'd not thought to ask. There is more to what she has become than she assumes.

29 A Dangerous Place Michael Stackpole

Myrk is a mouse who spends most of his time trying not to be seen. However, a mission he sees as urgent causes him to leave The Academy and plunge headlong into a forest which, as all mice know, is a dangerous place for a mouse. And dangerous indeed it proves, as an act of kindness reveals him to one of the deadliest enemies a mouse could ever meet.

Previous Black Gate posts have chronicled groups of the growing chain:

• The Chain Story 2 – Sword and Sorcery – Episodes 1 – 3 (Aug 2025)
• The Chain Story 2 – Sword and Sorcery – Episodes 4 – 8  (Oct 2025)
• The Chain Story 2 – Sword and Sorcery – Episodes 9 – 13 (Nov 2025)
• The Chain Story 2 — Sword and Sorcery – Episodes 14 – 18 (Feb 2026)
• The Chain Story 2 — Sword and Sorcery — Episodes 19-23 (May 2026)
• The Chain Story 2 — Sword and Sorcery — Episodes 24-28 (May 2026)

Entry	Chain_Post_Date	Story (Link to Free version)	Author(s)	Abstract
32	August 19, 2026	Devourer of Crowns	Jason M. Waltz and S.E. Lindberg	Lord Direk struggles to contain the shadow cursing his body when the meddling of unknown entities brings him into contact with the suspicious Doktor Grave. Their shared fascination with the jewels of Tarru-syn may offer Direk deliverance—or be his damnation. Can these strangers from different worlds dare to rely on each other long enough to defeat their common enemy? Will alchemy and will-power be enough to save them from being devoured by the treasures they seek?
31	August 5, 2026	Why Crimson Cora Hates Wizards	Luana Saitta	The Ionaian Basin is atwitter with the capture of its scourge, Crimson Cora! Is this the final hour for the dreaded pirate queen? Brought low by the ruthless commander Pallidus, she is left to die upon the shores of a desolate island. Now the tide is rising and demons from the depths hunger for flesh! How will she get outta this pickle, before she becomes a seaside lunch?
30	July 22, 2026	The Architect of Flesh	Alina Lee	There are terrible things waiting in the Badlands.Rowan Grim returns. In this tale, she finds herself tracking down a workshop of an old enemy of her lost people, the demon known as the Architect of Flesh. What she finds there is more than she expected, and answers to questions she'd not thought to ask. There is more to what she has become than she assumes.
29	July 8, 2026	A Dangerous Place	Michael Stackpole	Myrk is a mouse who spends most of his time trying not to be seen. However, a mission he sees as urgent causes him to leave The Academy and plunge headlong into a forest which, as all mice know, is a dangerous place for a mouse. And dangerous indeed it proves, as an act of kindness reveals him to one of the deadliest enemies a mouse could ever meet.
28	June 24th, 2026	Damage And Alatra In The Tower of True Love	Bryan Young, Jason Fry, Luke Chmilenko	Damage and Alatra are opposites in every way. thrown together as a gladiator pair and bound by the interaction of their talents so that they can't be more than four paces apart. Together, they must navigate the perils of the Blood Crown and a dangerous world marked by brutality and sorcery. In the The Tower of True Love, they get a break from the gladiator pits and have been loaned out to protect a traveling caravan. In their travels, they stumble across a mysterious tower that could prove a vulnerability to their employ and are forced to investigate. They get far more than they bargained for when they discover the tower is cursed and they must complete a series of mystical tests to survive.
27	June 10, 2026	The Krells of Tancras Moor	Michael Stackpole	Enemies destroyed Black Morgan of Aldare’s life through deception and guile. They tricked him into shattering everything, everyone, he loved. Their only failure was in letting him live. And now he is stalking them, intent on putting an end to their evil.
26	May 27, 2026	The Evil Eye	James D. Mills	Gora Younger, the First Son of the Chieftain is exiled from his village in the Great Cave after vainly pursuing his betrothed, who left him to live beneath the sky. After years sealed away in the dark, Gora is summoned home to investigate a demonic presence that has taken the tribe’s best warriors and afflicted the Chieftain with a strange malady, slowly turning his flesh to stone. Diving into uncharted depths alongside a healer from a strange city, Gora must dispel a curse that has long shackled his people… and his soul.
25	May 27, 2026	PIGBORNE	Thomas Grayfson	Captain Malion is one of the last defenders of Genlina, an animal kingdom reduced to feral instinct by the sapphire of Tarru-Syn. As his mission into the Nexus Dimension unravels and his comrades are irrevocably transformed, he must decide what he is willing to sacrifice to reclaim his world. A grimdark animal fantasy in the spirit of Redwall, Pigborne is a brutal tale of loyalty and ruin.
24	May 13, 2026	Chain Story Project: Duel at High Moon	Alina Lee	Rowan Grim’s fearful hunger is sated, at least for a bit, so her only desire is for a hot meal, a warm bath, deep sleep and perhaps a dream. Galant’s Gultch looks like the town that can provide all that and even a little whiskey. But there are forces in the town which see her as something more than a weary traveler. They think she will sate a hunger they have. And, under the Scarlet Moon, the truth of the matter will be revealed.
23	March 25, 2026	A Feast For Pan	James D. Mills	IN THE WASTES, ALL ARE FODDER FOR PAN. In a return to the world of SOIL and Ashen Rider, Hromgir and Arvid of Clan Sparrow are on the run after a raid gone wrong. Braving the frozen wastes of the northern coast, they must reach the mountain pass to escape the Wystran riders close on their heels. Hiding from the riders, they take shelter in the depths of a strange cave, unearthing otherworldly horrors better left buried....
22	March 11, 2026	Abhartach’s Castle	Aaron Canton	A trio of student witches head off on a dangerous adventure to obtain a powerful artifact—aiming to retrieve it and keep it out of the hands of sinister forces. Unexpectedly they meet opposition in the form of a classmate they’d once all considered a friend, but who has become a most dangerous foe.
21	February 25, 2026	Into The Badlands	Alina Lee	Rowan Grim’s world is one which is long on places you don’t want to travel to, and few people return from. But what is out there draws her, and she willingly embraces the challenges which have devoured so many others.
20	February 9, 2026	The Hunt For Violet Shatterwing	Bryan Young	Now returned to Nightfall Forest, and in the company of the fox bard Ashley, Pip finds the hamlet of Riveroak ablaze. The mouse knight, his war cat, and companion race to quench the fires and hunt the leader of the crow cult, intent on putting an end to her evil.
19	January 28, 2026	Of Crowns & Consequences	Jason M. Waltz	Direk, wielder of the magickal sword Retribution, has been dispatched to destroy an old enemy at the behest of his King. In his pursuit he encounters a newly awakened power which challenges his knowledge of the world, and threatens to up end all he knows to be true.
18	January 19, 2026	The Sapphire and the Sorceress	Bryan Young	As with all good heroes, Pip does not shrink from danger and adventure. Still, there are times when it would be good to relax at home. But Pip is far from home, and is searching for a powerful sorceress who can help him on his way.
17	January 14, 2026	Terror Above Icehenge	Malcolm T. North	To reach her, however, he’ll have to venture through the Chaos Realm and, as every true hero knows if you undertake that journey lightly, it will end quickly. But Pip has no choice, and therein our adventure begins.
16	December 31, 2025	Demonfire: A Tale of Shintaro Oba	C. L. Werner	A forbidden ritual conducted in secret, bathed in blood and death enables a demon to grasp unimaginable power—the power to destroy all enemies and raise himself above all others.
15	December 24, 2025	In The Land of the Giants,	Bryan Young	A Samurai, whose duty calls for him to hunt down such a creature. A destiny he must pursue even as the world burns around him.
14	December 10, 2025	Blight	Katherine Monasterio	Forest Ranger Hazel Boncliff is a Green Speaker, a person with the magical ability to commune with plants. When the king summons Hazel and her assistant to the capital to heal the strange blight affecting his hunting grounds, she’s reluctant to help—least of all because he’s insisting his inexperienced secretary go along for the journey. But with a reward she can’t refuse and the blight’s effects more harrowing by the moment, she’ll take all the help she can get.
13	November 26, 2025	Ice Hawk’s Aerie,	Bryan Young	A chance meeting in the dark forest. A tale of woe and injustice. Pip Strongpaw, the last of the fabled Great Catriders, must once again wield the runed-sword Feathersbane, to end the chilling menace threatening to destroy the hamlet of Riveroak. A menace of sorcerous origins against which even the bravest of heroes may not prevail.
12	November 12, 2025	Blood for the River	Michael Stackpole	Chased into a swamp by homicidal cultists, Kellach and Serinna encounter a fire mage who saves their lives, and then leads them on an adventure that is sure to get them killed.
11	October 14, 2025	Of Nightmares & Jewels	Robert Greenberger	Something drew the mage onward, always toward the northwest, through restless evenings and dark dreams of ill portent. Yet when Jareth’s traveling companion, the swordswoman Talin, asks him why, he has no idea. And then they reached a tiny town at the edge of nowhere, wherein lurked an evil with roots sunk deep in times beyond remembering; an evil that has chosen their visit as a time to awaken.
10	October 14, 2025	The Cursed Cuff	Aaron Rosenberg	She came to them spinning a tale of woe. An army of undead lay siege to the Manor she called home. She had barely escaped and sough adventurers brave enough to free her people. But to do that Birr Blackjaw and his companions would have to wrest an ancient artifact from the hands of a cult leader who had his own army, and a hellish pet none could hope to defeat.
9	October 1, 2025	The Monastery Plot	Bryan Young	Shield Maiden and legendary sleuth Sister Agatha, accompanied by her faithful initiate, Brother Dominguez, sought to enjoy peace and quiet at  the Monastery of St. Maryam.Despite their desires, they soon find themselves investigating twin murders. Murders which become all that much more bizarre when the name Tarru-Syn turns up, and their search leads them into the very bowels of the earth, to face a foe from beyond their reality.
8	September 24, 2025	On Memories	Michael Stackpole	Dancillius Hrekt is fairly new to the world of Monster Fighting. All he wants to do is to make a good impression with his peers.  And all they want is for  him and his best friend to die.
7	September 10, 2025	The Village of Morvoss	Thomas Grayfson	In this new Kavion adventure, our tormented knight clings to the last threads of family and sanity as he navigates the mysterious Village of Morvoss. Haunted by fractured memories, he must confront the darkness around him—and within.
6	August 27, 2025	Fragment of a Sorcerous Crown	Joan Marie Verba	In this tale from the Chronicles of the Library of Sorcery, the sorcerers investigate a dangerous magical artifact of mysterious origin. Can the sorcerers uncover the truth?Sorcerer Serena is called to investigate an enormous, carnivorous plant. She finds that a mysterious magical artifact is behind the phenomenon. To find out where the artifact came from and what its properties might be, she consults the Library of Sorcery, where she uncovers the answers, but not on the Library shelves. Can the artifact be banished from the sorcerous regions before it becomes a more deathly threat?
5	August 13, 2025	Grave's Brood	S.E. Lindberg	Doktor Grave sends Brood to recover a crown from the Red Orchard, only for Brood to find it is the source of a bloody plague caused by Grave’s experiments. Facing vampiric plants and their loyal clan, Brood must confront his past and question whether he can trust Grave or escape the nightmare himself.
4	July 28, 2025	Shard of Song	Rigel Ailur	Two wizards search desperately for a way to stave off a vicious magical-musical attack before the dragons succumb.  A powerful relic ancient beyond memory calls to them, but do they dare use it?
3	July 16, 2025	Forest of the Fallen Colossus	Bryan Young	A dying robber hands Laila and Zaki a mysterious artifact in the middle of a fae-haunted wood. “Danger,” the robber manages before dying. Suddenly sister and brother find themselves safeguarding an unwanted gift—on the run for their lives in the Forest of the Fallen Colossus.
2	July 3, 2025	Death Grip	Michael Stackpole	The man hadn’t died easily.A smoking hole sat where his heart should have been. Terror twisted his features, and he clutched an emerald reeking of magick as if would somehow save him. Neryon and Magistrate-Martial Logan find themselves in a race to find the killer before he has a chance to harvest more victims. But, with the amount of power used on his first target, there was a big gulf between finding and stopping; and no guarantee he wouldn’t kill them, too.
1	July 3, 2025	Blade of the Storm Witch	Robert E. Vardeman	Her vengeance became elemental! The Conqueror-King's minion murdered her pirate husband.  The Lady Rennata was condemned to follow him into a watery grave—until wind and wave swept her to a magical blade that commands all of Nature.

 

 

 

S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at Blackgate.com, regularly reviewing books, interviewing authors on ‘Beauty & Art in Weird-Fantasy Fiction’, and running Dark Muse News. He has taken lead roles organizing the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium (2021-2023) and the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group; he even interned for Tales from the Magician’s Skull magazine and is an Assistant Editor for Battleborn magazine. As for crafting stories, he has contributed eight entries across Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series, and has an entry in Weirdbook Annual #3: Zombies. He independently publishes novels under the banner Dyscrasia Fiction®; short stories of these have appeared in Whetstone and Swords & Sorcery online magazine, Rogues In the House Podcast’s A Book of Blades (Vol. I and Vol. II), DMR’s Terra Incognita, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Savage Realms Magazine, and Michael Stackpole’s S&S Chain Story 2 Project.

Dark Muse News: Heart of Vengeance & Other Tales of Azatlán by Gregory Mele - Review

Simulcast on Black Gate [Oct 9th 2026]: Dark Muse News: Heart of Vengeance & Other Tales of Azatlán by Gregory Mele – Review

Heart of Vengeance & Other Tales of Azatlán by Gregory Mele (Obsidian & Bronze Ltd , Aug 2026, 280 pages). Cover Art by Mark Smylie.

 

Mele’s Meso-American Mysteries, Melee & Mayhem Awaits

Gregory Mele brings swordplay, sorcery, and the dark gods of a lost Meso-American world vividly to life in his Heart of Vengeance & Other Tales of Azatlán (Obsidian & Bronze Ltd.); it is a thrilling collection of occult mysteries, brutal battles, and weird adventures where the dead rarely stay dead. Dark Muse News jumped on it became public in August 2026 (available in several places; check out the author’s website). It has 14 stories, 4 original and 10 published previously in various magazines.  Their connection? All share characters, deities, and the land of Tehanuwak (map below).  Sprucing up the milieu are fourteen full-page illustrations by Luigi Castellani, Nicole Allen, Gary McCluskey, Justin Pfeil, and Mark Smylie. Logan Dustin Whitney (Sword and Sorcery author and Rogue in the House member) assisted on cover design. The esteemed S&S champion David C. Smith penned the Foreword, who admits to getting nightmares from Mele’s Sipan.

“May you have such dreams after reading these great stories.”  David C. Smith’s Foreword

The author’s martial arts background shines through! To emphasize how mesmerizing these battles are, we provide Excerpts below. Readers may take note of the careful details regarding spacing between combatants and timing of attacks. Greg Mele is more than a practitioner of the arts, but a historian of sorts, having written several books on historic weaponry (In the Service of Mars: Proceedings from the Western Martial Arts Workshop 1999-2009, Volume I and Volume 2, and Flowers of Battle, Volume III: Florius de Arte Luctandi (Complete Martial Works of Fiore Dei Liberi, a Master-At-Arms).

Expect more too! Having read Heart of Vengeance & Other Tales of Aztalan, I hunger for more (and fantasized about taking a vacation to Meso-America so I could reread this collection closer to suitable ambience). Thankfully, Mele expressed in his introduction, “there is enough material for almost two more volumes, all from the ‘Wanderings of Sarrumos-cycle.”

For now, read! This post showcases the book’s structure, includes tons of must-read excerpts, and samples of the interior illustrations.

Back Cover Summary

Tehanuwak, the Land of Obsidian and Bronze, is a sweeping vista of ancient city-states steaming jungles of the deep south and vast grasslands ruled by camelops-riding, bison and mammoth-hunting warrior nomads in unmapped north. But its heartlands are ruled by the Three Empires, each proud and ambitious, bu none more so than that of Azatlán, City of the White Hearth. Ruled by the Naakali, a race of foreign conquerors whose distant homeland was lost beneath the Great Ice, Azatlán’s legions push ever outward, seeking to bring more of the world beneath the yoke of the Living Sun.

Even in Azatlán, life is not easy. Tehanuwak is a beautiful, diverse land, but it is not a gentle place. These are the lands of feathered serpents and ancient ruins long reclaimed by jungle vines. War is everywhere, both within and without human civilization. The bones of fallen cities litter the land, decaying monuments to forgotten greatness. Monsters created by vengeful powers hunt those who wander alone. Far to the north, the Great Ice grinds south, strange creatures migrating southward out of its path, including beasts not entirely mortal. Demons dwell in the Dark Between the Stars, ever pressing against the barriers erected by the Sun and His sister the Moon long ago. Should they ever pierce it, they will descend on the mortal world like locusts upon a field. The gods defend Their creation, but They grow weary and hungry in Their eternal vigilance, and that hunger can only be satiated with mortal blood.

In this collection of sword & sorcery, dark fantasy, occult detectives and weird fiction readers are given a panorama of a lost Bronze Age world, inspired by the legends and civilizations of Mesoamerica, the American Southwest and the ancient Near-East. Readers of Robert E. Howard, David Gemmel, andMiles Cameron will find something to love.

Map by Eli Kurtz – Mythic Gazetteer

Heart of Vengeance & Other Tales of Azatlán Structure:

Section / Genre

• “Creation of the Fifth World” – 1x Story + Map / Myth
• #1 Tales from the Journals of Ométl Five-Rabbit – 3x Stories / Occult Detective
• #2 Tales of the Borderlands – 4x Stories / Sword & Sorcery 
• #3 Tales of the Underworld  – 6x Stories / Weird Sword & Sorcery
• Glossary

Opening Myth

“Creation of the Fifth World” is an original, yet-unpublished story. Being a solid myth, it lays the foundation for the collection. The deities presented pervade all the stories, with Xatanatchoa (the Mother-Father of Nightmares) taking a primary role in the first section and Xokolatl (Lord of Death) in the third. Some are ubiquitous, like Hatûm’s represented by the sun whose burning shield begins its descent.

“Xatanatchoa was both Male and Female, and ejaculating semen into Her many mouths, becoming pregnant. From this act, and from continuous mating with Her own offspring, She gave birth to all living things… But Xatanatchoa’s passions were not yet abated. She mated with Her own shadow, from which was born a misshapen race of night creatures who cannot abide the light of day. Mating again and again with the strongest, and most horrific of Her own offspring, the Fecund One continued to sire monstrosities, each more terrible than the last.” – “Creation of the Fifth World” excerpt.

Deities and their Manifestation & Key Appearances

• Xatanatchoa — primordial Mother-Father of Monstrous Life — focus of Section 1
• Kouranós — Time/Fate Destiny, “Written on the Brow”
• Hatûm — Sun/Courage Imperial religion, warriors, sacrifice
• Atâna — Moon/Wisdom Moon Court, women, warriors, “Feast of the Hidden Moon”
• Ktuunlós — Sea entity
• Nanuwatta — Night/Abyss Stars, darkness, cosmic boundary
• Xokolatl — Death — entire Section 3: Underworld Cycle

Mark Smylie artist

“Khalkeos, my employer, often likens my head’s thickness to a stone’s, but it proved a poor match for actual granite.” – Ométl character

Section #1: Tales from the Journals of Ométl Five-Rabbit

These are “occult detective” stories in a sword-and-sorcery world. These feature a duo with Khalkeos, a sorcerous inquisitor, and Ométl, his mixed-race warrior/bodyguard narrator, a skeptical, practical warrior who gets pushed into increasingly bizarre supernatural situations. Khalkeos and Ométl are hilarious together. Avoiding spoilers, watch out for their ‘crocodile dung’ predicaments. Anyway, Khalkeos investigates supernatural crimes, disappearances, hauntings, necromancy, and occult conspiracies, while Ométl provides the grounded warrior’s perspective and leads the way through the front lines of the crime scenes. The mysteries begin as seemingly mundane crimes or political problems before revealing the supernatural with gusto. The tone and adventure are reminiscent of Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser style.

• “Shadows of a Forgotten Queen” previously appeared in Tales from the Magician’s Skull #6 (2021)
• “Feast of the Hidden Moon” previously appeared in Crimson Quill Quarterly #7 (Sept 2025)
• “The Headhunter of Taltopék” previously appeared in Crimson Quill Quarterly #9 (Jan 2026)

“I think the man we dispatched was actually happier to be traveling with a headless corpse than continuing with us.” – Ométl character

Section #2: Tales of the Borderlands

This section shifts dramatically away from the detective format. Expect classic Sword & Sorcery survival in the vein of Robert E. Howard-style adventure. Protagonists are thrown into dangerous situations, encountering monsters, hostile peoples, supernatural forces, and then have to fight, escape, endure, or outwit crazy odds. These are journeys from the northern border of the Empire to the pearl beds of Kaketzewán and eventually the distant Sea Isles.  The “Salt Tears” is a unique take on pearl diving that will haunt readers.

• “Kai-Chilam’s Judgment” first time in this collection.
• “Salt Tears” previously appeared in Whetstone #5 (2022)
• “Bride-Price, Twice-Paid” previously appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #65 (2025)
• “The Colossi of Zakatla” previously appeared in Anvil: Iron Age Magazine #5 (2026)

Section #3: Tales of the Underworld

The section follows Siwakalpa, a tepatiani (“spirit-healer”), and Sipan, an aging priest of Xokolatl, Lord Death.  The Siwalkalpa tales echo the original Ométl tales with a mystery flare, but she is more erotic and employs sorcery instead of a weapon. The mysteries she solves all involve ghosts. Expect lots of phantasms here, tormenting the living or being hunted across realms. These stories lean more toward Clark Ashton Smith than R.E. Howard. Rather than simply asking, “How do I defeat this monster?” these stories tend to ask, “What does death even mean and what happens when the boundary between the living and dead breaks down?”

• “The Very Small People” previously appeared in Schlock! Magazine (October 2025)
• “Old Ghosts” previously appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #49 (2021)
• “Obsidian Butterfly” first time in this collection.
• “Written on the Brow” first time in this collection.
• “The Heart of Vengeance” first appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #44 (2020), and then in Die By the Sword, Volume 1, DMR Books (2023)
• “Servant of the Black Wind” first appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #39 (2019) and then in We Who Are About to Die: An Anthology of Sacrifice, Rogue Blades Press (2022)

A sampling of books regarding historic melee arts by Greg Mele (a.k.a. Gregory D. Mele)

Excerpts

Mele’s Mesoamerican Melee – the author’s practice and study of martial arts shines through

Blood, or its facsimile, gushed, drenching my face; my attacker stumbled back with an altogether inhuman hiss. Monstrous, bat-like wings flared outward, blocking the moonlight. Scrambling to my feet, I saw now what had mauled and hunted the young priestess, though I had no name for it beyond demon. Its face was both anthropoid and pantherine, but the eyes held a malignant intelligence that was clearly mannish, while the body was some blasphemy of man, reptile, beast and bat, made all the more horrible by a random mingling of hair and scales, and the massive, membranous wings it bore.

---

I would have to cripple it again and try to flee before it regained its feet. I immediately went after the sickle arm again, as it was the demon’s greatest weapon. Unfortunately, it was no longer dysfunctional, and the demon parried my blow on that thick, horny forearm, then slashed at me. I barely dodged, and cut at it again, this time at the softer-looking elbow; again it parried, and the claw hand raked my ribs. I gasped in pain and thrust it through the heart.

It seems it didn’t have one, as nothing happened, other than I was now inside its grasp with my sword constrained. Too close for the sickle arm to disembowel me, I was not too close for the arms to crush me, as the restored tongue writhed toward my throat.

---

As Kai-Ch’ilam spiraled forward, mouth opening wide, the diver flexed his strong legs, kicking out sinuous as an eel, stroking with one hand. Just as the great fish reached him, the youth glided beneath it, his skin scraping against the pebbly hide, the tail fin flicking, striking him painfully as he pushed free and turned, once more spread-eagled, almost motionless. With a great surge the monster folded on itself and drove towards him once more, mouth shut now, long, blunted snout driving faster through the water than before. Along the rail the men saw little but whorls of water and impressionistic shadows of man and shark dueling below.

… Driving his cloth-wrapped left arm into the open maw, he wedged it against one of the jaw hinges, as one might a wild dog or wolf, and drove his obsidian knife to the hilt in its greyish belly, ripping viciously upward, then drew the knife free and repeated the blow, up and in behind one set of gills. The sea-jaguar was no dog, however, and the jaws squeezed down with tremendous force, crushing bone, driving even more air from now burning lungs.

---

Club and axe met straight on, forehand blow to forehand blow, crescent blade hooking over carved wood, but Atsál lacked the strength to wrench the bigger man’s weapon free from his grasp. Pushing Chipota’s weapon arm with his left hand, he fouled the man’s knife thrust and broke free, chopping backhanded at his neck. The blow was hasty, the axe too short; he scored only a tear in the feather-cloak and a thin red line of blood on a broad shoulder.

Chipota’s backswing was better placed, the club’s heavy rootball head catching Atsál just above the hip, knocking him back, which, ironically saved him from the knife-thrust driving at his face. The young warrior remained standing, but his breath came in gasps, and he knew ribs were broken. Slipping farther back he drew his own knife with his left hand.

…With a howl, the other man hurled his knife. Atsál tried twisting aside, but his hip failed him. The knife struck as his leg buckled, sinking into his thigh. He crumpled, felt his back strike something hard, and realized he lay splayed against the base of the Long Face. Chipota bore down on him, war-club gripped in both hands. Atsál willed himself to rise, failed, and the club was striking down at his skull. Gripping his axe in both hands, left hand beneath the head, he parried between his hands, grunting in pain at the force of the standing man’s blow. A foot lashed out, stomping his belly, broken rib howling, driving the wind and the fight from him. Atsál looked up into those rage-maddened eyes, saw the club lifted on high, heard Chipota’s triumphant war-howl.

Mark Smylie artist

 

Confrontations with Death

A circle of beheaded corpses, all women, lay strewn across the floor, their blood pooling across the flags. Lord Sennedjem, hands, arms and chest spattered red, shrank against the vault’s far wall, his eyes staring wide in horror at the luminescent figure of a woman whose long, ornately dressed blue-black hair was crowned with a tall, gold diadem with a large heliotrope bloodstone at its center, surmounted by a fan of white owl-feathers. Her jade and turquoise jewels were the emblems of royalty and her costume, elegant yet scandalous, suggested an antiquity far greater than the memory of any living creature. At the nobleman’s feet lay the leaf-bladed sword…

…I had long since drawn my sword, and good thing, for the headless corpses were gaining their feet now, tottering, but becoming steadier by the moment. Still lying scattered about the vault, seven disembodied sets of eyes scanned the room, and finding their slayer, seemed to guide their headless bodies towards him. Reanimated hands flexed, opening and closing as if to test their newly gained strength. A faint, luminous cloud of mist enveloped the monstrously animated dead, directing those lifeless hands towards Lord Sennedjem

---

…blood, or its facsimile, gushed, drenching my face; my attacker stumbled back with an altogether inhuman hiss. Monstrous, bat-like wings flared outward, blocking the moonlight.

Scrambling to my feet, I saw now what had mauled and hunted the young priestess, though I had no name for it beyond demon. Its face was both anthropoid and pantherine, but the eyes held a malignant intelligence that was clearly mannish, while the body was some blasphemy of man, reptile, beast and bat, made all the more horrible by a random mingling of hair and scales, and the massive, membranous wings it bore.

---

I stared in horrified bewilderment as I took in the blood-splattered scene. The vault was octagonal; as large as the shrine above but made oppressive by the low ceiling and the horrible, blood-stained idol that dominated the far wall. Its subject was an aged and yet pregnant woman, what parts of Her were woman at all. Nearly skeletal limbs, claw-like hands and breasts hanging flaccid from endless birthing. About her swollen belly was a skirt of writhing snakes and a necklace made of human hearts, hands, and skulls. A cadaverous, crone’s face, was surmounted on either side, by two facing serpents, and a long, alligator’s tail curled around Her clawed feet: Xatanatchoa, the Dark Grandmother, Source of Life and Mother of Nightmares.

 

Greg Mele (link to author page) 

About the Author Gregory D. Mele has had a passion for sword & sorcery and historical fiction for most of his life. An early love of dinosaurs led him to dragons, and from dragons…well, the rest should be obvious. From Robin Hood to Conan, Elric to Aragorn, Captain Blood to King Arthur, if there were swords being swung, he was probably reading it.   While a student at the University of Illinois in the early 1990s, he discovered that there was a vast collection of surviving technical works on fighting with the sword, rapier, lance and axe. Sword in one hand, book in the other, he never looked back. Since the late 90s, his passion has been the reconstruction and preservation of armizare, a martial art developed over 600 years ago by the famed Italian master-at-arms Fiore dei Liberi. He has become an internationally known researcher and author on the subject, via his work with the Chicago Swordplay Guild, which he founded in 1999, and Freelance Academy Press, a publisher in the fields of martial arts, arms and armour, chivalry, historical arts and Greg lives with his very tolerant family in the Chicago suburbs.

 

Artists: Left to Right, Gary McCluskey; Justin Pfeil, Gary McCluskey

 

 

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S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at Blackgate.com, regularly reviewing books, interviewing authors on ‘Beauty & Art in Weird-Fantasy Fiction’, and running Dark Muse News. He has taken lead roles organizing the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium (2021-2023) and the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group; he even interned for Tales from the Magician’s Skull magazine and is an Assistant Editor for Battleborn magazine. As for crafting stories, he has contributed eight entries across Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series, and has an entry in Weirdbook Annual #3: Zombies. He independently publishes novels under the banner Dyscrasia Fiction®; short stories of these have appeared in Whetstone and Swords & Sorcery online magazine, Rogues In the House Podcast’s A Book of Blades (Vol. I and Vol. II), DMR’s Terra Incognita, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Savage Realms Magazine, and Michael Stackpole’s S&S Chain Story 2 Project.

 

Dark Muse News: An Introduction to Warhammer Quest – Darkwater

Simulcast on Black Gate: Dark Muse News: An Introduction to Warhammer Quest – Darkwater

Games Workshop's Warhammer Quest: Darkwater, Agents of the Order Azyr expansion, and White Dwarf Issues #520 and #527 (featuring expansion material)

Delving into the drowning Jade Abbey

This January, Dark Muse News began preparing for Warhammer Quest: Darkwater. Back then, I had just finished clicking the miniatures together (link to post). Finally, this post follows to cover an introductory foray into Warhammer Quests: Darkwater (2025) the latest cooperative dungeon crawler in Games Workshop's lineup.

The original was released in 1995, and the series had a resurgence with Silver Tower in 2016, then Shadows Over Hammerhal (2017), Blackstone Fortress (2018), Cursed City (2021): and Lost Relics (2022). Unlike the skirmish and mega-battles that Warhammer is known for, these Quest games are cooperative (i.e., all players are on the same team fighting together against the game board). They have pre-generated character cards with stats and asymmetrical/unique actions. Expect lots of dice rolling and flipping of map tiles during exploration phases to reveal the sprawling dungeon.

Immolating Ember - Narrated by Moose Matson on Youtube

"Immolating Ember" appeared in Savage Realms Monthly July 2025.

It was then narrated by Savage Realms Monthlys own Moose Matson (audible link):  
Savage Realms Monthly July 2025

And now, it is available as a free story on YouTube! See the embedded video or go to Youtube!



Like Moose's voice? Get the whole issue!  

Like the story too?  Then consider getting Grave's Daughters since "Immolating Ember" appears as Chapter VIII (frontispiece below from C. Aaron Kreader), and the other chapters fill in her rise to power and her fate after.

SAVAGE REALMS MONTHLY

To Sacrifice One Family for Another... A Review of Lindberg’s “Grave’s Daughters”

Author and Publisher James D. Mills dissects the heck out of Grave's Daughters on his Substack

Click here for the full review!

On the weird horror, James D. Mills writes:

This story is not for the faint of heart. At times, it got to me. Beyond my yearly romp with a Stephen King novel, I’m not much of a horror reader, but I’d argue that Grave’s Daughters packs some of the most effective horror that I’ve ever read.

I mentioned the themes of legacy, carrying on a bloodline of a dying race. Doktor Grave (I think) is the last Golem of his kind, and he miraculously creates his three daughters after centuries of failed attempts to procreate.

As time wears on, this responsibility of carrying on the artificial golem race gets passed onto the grown daughters, and it’s presented with a blatantly non-human worldview. The way the golems and other non-human entities discuss procreation is almost how I’d imagine bees discussing it in their hives if they could. It’s a necessity—and it’s not personal nor private.

With everything being so interconnected, we often get a view into how ant-human hybrids would function.

A story like this—by its very nature—treads a thin line. Lindberg is an expert at treading the line, and never crossing it, writing always with masterful tact. His horror disturbs and perplexes, but never repels the reader, instead inviting them to consider the strangeness of Dyscrasia’s world and see it through to its conclusion.

On Parenting and Childhood Themes, James D. Mills writes:

Doktor Grave states the central thesis of the book several times and it hits home throughout: “You must sacrifice one family to join another.”

This refers to several aspects of being both a child and a parent. On one end, Lindberg comments on the necessity of leaving behind one’s parents to become a parent yourself. As I transition into fatherhood myself, this one hits hard.

Another manifestation is that this responsibility of sacrifice gets passed on. Children are protected from the responsibility of sacrifice for a time, then adulthood and growing power thrust responsibility unto the child as they claim their adult independence.

Every action Grave takes is aimed at preserving his children. Every action he takes also brings him closer to agonizing death.

Videos of Gen Con 2026 Panels - Sword and Sorcery and Monster Panel

 Thanks to Sean CW Korsgaard, we have videos of the two panels 

This extends the posts from my Gen Con 2026 Coverage

• Gen Con 2026  - GCWS Highlights  

• Gen Con 2026 Sword & Sorcery and Grave's Daughters Launch

• Gen Con 2026 Family, Tornados, and More

• Gen Con 2026 Panels and Workshops

• Gen Con 2026 Selfies with Authors, Fans, Volunteers

• Videos of Gen Con 2026 Panels - Sword and Sorcery and Monster Panel << You are here

Sword & Sorcery | GenCon 2026 full panel

From Robert E. Howard to Howard Andrew Jones, explore the highs, lows, and two-fisted pulpy action of this fantasy subgenre, from Weird Tales to Battleborn magazine! Featuring: Richard Lee Byers, Tim Waggoner, Khaldoun Khelil, S.E. Lindberg, Sean CW Korsgaard

Monster as Protagonist | GenCon 2026 full panel

Sometimes, it’s the monster’s turn to be the star of the show. How do you write for when your protagonist is a bloodsucking fiend, an evil genius, or a shambling corpse? Featuring: Jordan Kurella, Rob Cameron, S.E. Lindberg, Sean CW Korsgaard

Gramlich reviews Grave's Daughters

Author Charles Gramlich reviews Graves' Daughters (on Goodreads)

And a longer version on his Sword and Planet League on Facebook 

Here's a snippet of his kind words:

Lindberg has built a universe that takes off from the Greek theory of “Humors,” the four liquids of Blood, Phlegm, Black Bile, and Yellow Bile. His concept is immensely imaginative and aesthetically pleasing. I don’t know how he maintains the same artistic voice throughout these stories because it must be difficult to achieve that level of concentration. The language is just beautiful. If I were to liken his creations to any other writers it would have to be Clark Ashton Smith or Jack Vance, although Lindberg’s work is more exotic than Vance. And I don’t say that lightly.

"Lindberg’s work is more exotic than Vance"

 

Dark Muse News: Mad Shadows Book Four: All The Colors of Darkness Review

As simulcast on Blackgate:Dark Muse News: Mad Shadows Book Four: All the Colors of Darkness by Joe Bonadonna

Mad Shadows 4: All of Colors of Darkness by Joe Bonadonna (305 pages, July 18, 2026). Book design by Ruth de Jauregui

Some mysteries leave no fingerprints or footprints — only shadows, strange colors, and the dead. As Dorgo the Dowser investigates necromancers, demons, and a zombie plague, he discovers that darkness comes in many shades.

Book 1: Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser blessed our bookshelves in 2011 (winning the 2017 Golden Book Readers’ Choice Award for Fantasy). The protagonist wields a dowsing rod to sense otherworldly signatures, but this is no Harry Potter wand trickery. Bonadonna's style is more in line with Michael Shea and Fritz Leiber, and his Mad Shadows tackles supernatural mysteries. In television terms, this would appeal to fans of The X-Files , Supernatural, or Grimm. The author has been a blogger and regular guest at Black Gate forever, and his love for cinema shines through his work. We at Black Gate have already tracked Dorgo's adventures across three volumes, so we provide a tour guide here to showcase the series.

Hark, Mad Shadows Book Four: All the Colors of Darkness(MS4) is released! Available now (link). In short, readers do not need to read the first three to enjoy it. Bonadonna continues his episodic "Crime and Sorcery" (a.k.a. " Gothic Noir") in splendid fashion. In Books, 1,2, and 4 all the chapters are stand-alone while amplifying the tales in their respective volumes (Book 3 is a standout epic novel). The subtitle "All the Colors of Darkness" evokes H. P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space" (1927 cosmic horror short story about a mysterious meteorite that crashes on a remote farm and slowly destroys all surrounding life and sanity). Indeed, there are meteorites of alchemical (demonic?) origin that are highlighted in MS4. There are three intertwining stories, and you'll experience thievery, necromancy, ectoplasmic portraiture, and vampiric zombies. Along with Drogo, he'll be helped with several hybrid creatures and cyclops. As usual, he is motivated to set things right (and make enough money to eat).

In addition to the tour guide, this Dark Muse News post provides excerpts from MS4 to lure in readers, and for the lore-seekers, we have links to our key Black Gate archive, including interviews of, and articles, from the author.

Back cover of Mad Shadows 4: All of Colors of Darkness, by Joe Bonadonna

Mad Shadows #4: All the Colors of Darkness Blurb

Two years following the Battle for Echo Gate, Dorgo returns home to Valdar, hoping to start a new life. But Life has other plans for him. After his near-death experience at the Well of Tears, having suffered the wounds, horrors and trauma of war, he is a changed man. As he struggles with a growing sense of melancholia, he finds himself caught up in the hunt for a necromancer using trained zombies to steal Dragon Eye diamonds, the rarest and most valuable jewels in the world. Then, after a portrait and landscape artist is found horribly murdered, Dorgo is called upon to find the shaman and destroy the demon he unleashed — a demon using polychromatic ectoplasm to murder all the painters in Valdar.

Finally, Dorgo and his companions embark upon a treasure hunt to locate three chests of meteoric crystals believed to possess magical properties. But things turn dark when they decide to help two grieving fathers in a distant barony called the Court of the Crimson King, where they encounter two new breeds of the Undead unlike anything they have ever known. Dorgo must come to grips with the fact that he’s no longer the man he used to be in order to save the baron’s people from a plague of ghastly death and unholy resurrection... and the mysterious crystals are the key to it all.

Gothic Noir that straddles Heroic Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery fiction, Mad Shadows Book Four: All the Colors of Darkness, is filled with action, adventure, human drama, romance and tragedy, and a cast of unforgettable characters.

His dowsing rod can sense what mortal eyes cannot: the residue of magic, the presence of demons, and intangible truths. For Dorgo the Dowser, every supernatural crime leaves a trail — and every trail leads somewhere darker.

Who is Dorgo? What is Gothic Noir?

New readers may be asking some general questions: Who is this Dorgo character anyway? What is dowsing? And what the heck genre is this? Joe Bonadonna captured the essence of his style and Dorgo character in a 2011 Black Gate post: Dorgo the Dowser and Me. You know an author is genuinely inspired when they are passionate about developing a character for over a decade. Let’s answer some of the general questions with excerpts from his post.

Dorgo the Dowser is “a sort of private eye set in the 14th century of my alternate world. It is pulp-fiction, old-school sword and sorcery with a film noir twist."

One of the reasons Dorgo is known as the Dowser is because he’s a sort of private investigator, searching for clues and answers like someone searching for water with a dowsing rod. The other reason for his epithet is that he actually uses a special kind of dowsing rod in his line of work. There are all kinds of dowsing tools, and each has its own special use or ‘power.’ I even think that dowsing rods may be the inspiration for what we call ‘magic wands.'

But Dorgo’s dowsing rod is not used as a magic wand, (re: Harry Potter), nor can it be used as an offensive weapon. What the Dowser’s Y-shaped yew branch allows him to do is investigate crimes where the use of magic has been involved. With it, he can detect the ectoplasmic residue of any supernatural presence or demonic entity and sense the vestiges of sorcerous power used in the commission of a crime.

While the tales of Dorgo the Dowser are definitely grounded in sword and sorcery, I like to call them gothic noir. They’re filled with dark, macabre humor — gallows humor. All my influences are in these stories: Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Willis O’Brien, and Ray Harryhausen. There’s even a touch of H.P. Lovecraft in my creation of the Nine Realms of Otherworlds that compose the Echoverse of alternate dimensions, one of which is the realm of demons and supernatural entities.

We grilled Joe Bonadonna in 2022 (or did we grill Dorgo?). Learn more about his writing style in: Making Weird Fiction Fun: Grilling Dorgo the Dowser!

EXCERPTS from Mad Shadows Book Four: All the Colors of Darkness

Okay, so now you know a bit about Dorgo. Here's an offering of what to expect in his chronicles.

Fun, Weird Melee

Yozinda and I tried to kick the ladder over, but the gólemai had too strong a hold on it. The creature climbing the ladder was near to the top when Yozinda took hold of her battle axe. When the golem’s head rose high enough for it to peak over the edge of the loft, she swung her axe and beheaded the monster. The homunculus toppled from the ladder while its head crashed to the floor and broke apart like a shattered vase. But then a strange thing occurred: the neck stump of the golem grew a new head. The six smaller homunculi turned and started toward me. Meanwhile, the golem that was climbing the ladder kept on climbing, Yozinda kept lopping off its head and the body kept on growing a new one.

Intense Negotiations

He removed the tarp from the easel, upon which a large painting had been propped: Khitan Lujeel’s thirteenth and final masterpiece: the Rainbow Demon, in all its kaleidoscopic and malevolent splendor. Set against a yellow background of dazzling sunlight, the creature stood inside a rainbow archway, tentacles raised and curled like a pair of cobras ready to strike. And there, at the top left-hand corner, scrawled Lujeel’s barely legible signature.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Positively terrifying.”

“After creating all those paintings of ghosts and ghouls and vampires, Khitan was afraid to paint what I wanted. Can you imagine that? It took a bit of coercion on my part to convince him to paint and to paint fast.” He tapped the hilt of his dagger. “Needless to say, the old paint-slinger finally conceded to my demands. He did a nice job, too.”

“And then you killed him.” I wondered which knife he had used to murder Khitan Lujeel, the one he carried or the one sitting on the desk back in my office.

“I had to. A pity, though. He was an excellent painter.”

“What happened to Sabian?”

“No one cares about him. He’s out of the picture, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

The paradox was... I knew he was lying, but he was also telling the truth. “What about Tulara? I thought you loved her. Yet you killed her father and then moved in on her.”

Using the Dowsing Rods

I gasped for air when the jolt from the dowsing rod shot through my veins like a bolt of lightning. Closing my eyes, I saw rivers of black blood, heard the horrified screams of the living, the agonized cries of the dying, and the moaning of the reanimated dead. A miasma of evil magic hung in the air like a tangible, deathly pall. I sensed something cold and reptilian, too, something that made me go numb all over, as if I had fallen under the spell of a vampire. The smell of rot and decay was nauseating, filling me with a sense of overwhelming darkness and despair. So overcome by it all, I forgot to breathe and felt myself starting to collapse.

Weird creatures abound

“Save us!” pleaded another, her white hair mangy and wispy. There were five of them: two women, two men and a young boy. They were almost as thin as skeletons. Although mottled with faint, orange blotches, their skin was white as ice and so translucent you could see their greenish veins. Their faces were somewhat stretched into a sort of serpentine snout, and their eyes blazed with pinkish light, staring at us without blinking. They had the smell of death and the grave about them, too. Splotches and sores on parts of their bodies showed the beginnings of rot and decay. Four of them wore clothes made of simple homespun but were all torn and dirty. The woman with long and stringy blonde hair wore an elegant, white burial gown. Unlike the others, her face looked a bit more human…

They shuffled toward us, moving slowly, some with great difficulty. These wights were filthy, reeking of rotting flesh, all covered in maggots and oozing, open sores. Their white and orange-mottled flesh hung in tatters, their fingers were curled into claws and their eyes were dull and filmy, without a glimmer of intelligence. Sharp but rotten teeth clicked and clacked in anticipation of eating living flesh. As with the revenants that had ambushed us in the clearing, there was a kind of serpentine cast about their faces, which were almost snout-like in appearance. They didn’t speak beyond their guttural moans and groans, either. But they did possess the same two fangs and sharp-pointed, tubular tongues of the Undead we had encountered earlier.

Afterword Notes (insights directly from Joe Bonadonna)

The music of my youth has often played a part in my writing. Thus, the “chapter titles” are taken from the songs: Black Juju, by Alice Cooper; Rainbow Demon, by Uriah Heep; and In the Court of the Crimson King, by King Crimson. Each song has been of great inspiration to me. If you’ve read this far, then you know that zombies played a huge role in two of the tales in this book. For Black Juju, I played with the traditional, Haitian type of zombie, which I call the rakhana, and I was inspired by such films as I Walked with a Zombie and White Zombie. While my short novel, In the Court of the Crimson King, is not an actual horror story featuring zombies and vampires, I did strive to do something a little bit different with them. Thus, I played upon a connection between zombies and vampires, a connection due to both being of the Undead…

I would also be truly remiss if I neglected to mention both the late director, George Romero, as well as The Walking Dead, as inspirations for what I hope I achieved here. I hope you’ve enjoyed what I tried to do this time around . . . something a bit different. Those of you who are familiar with my work know that I always plant a few “easter eggs” in my stories and pay homage to my musical, literary and cinematic inspirations. I do this through my use of character and place names, whether reworked or not, and by nicking a line of dialogue or verse, here and there. For me, it’s all part of the fun of storytelling.

I hope you enjoyed this final volume of Mad Shadows and the saga of Dorgo the Dowser. Thank you.

MAD SHADOW SERIES - Tour Guide

Book 1: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser (2011) - winner of the 2017 Golden Book Readers’ Choice Award for Fantasy

This establishes Dorgo’s career in Valdar as he takes on cases involving sentient shadows, vengeful vampires, malevolent puppets, and a criminal underworld where souls are always up for sale . William Patrick Maynard reviewed it on Black Gate in 2012: The Coming of Dorgo the Dowser.

The six stories in Mad Shadows offer a mixture of traditional sword & sorcery necromancers and demons as well as werewolves, vampires, witches, and bizarre half-human mutations that H. P. Lovecraft would happily embrace. Dorgo, in some ways, seems like a hybrid of Conan and Robert E. Howard’s Puritan adventurer, Solomon Kane. Like many great western heroes, Dorgo is the wanderer as eternal loner, destined never to make ties or put down roots. Feared for his otherness, he ultimately wins the respect of the survivors once he has rooted out the supernatural evil at work. Dorgo is a knight errant as much as Philip Marlowe and once his work is done, he moves on for the next outpost just over the horizon in need of his aid.

Book 2: Dorgo the Dowser and the Order of the Serpent (2017)

In this installment, Dorgo falls in love with a witch, battles hellish demons to destroy a dangerous artifact called the Book of Echoes , and directly confronts the leader of a dark cult known as the Order of the Serpent to save a young girl from sinister sorcery . Fletcher Vredenburgh reviewed it for Black Gate in 2017: Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent by Joe Bonadonna

Dorgo Mikawber was raised in an orphanage, served in the army, and now makes his living as a magical investigator and finder of lost people. Last time out Dorgo’s adventures took him all over the continent of Aerlothia on the world of Tanyime. This time around his wanderings are more limited, starting in the countryside just beyond his home city, Valdar.

MS II is a fix-up. It’s made up of three separate tales, each linked to the other, weaving a larger story of Dorgo’s fight against the mysterious Order of the Serpent and its leader, Ophidious Garłoo.

Also, we hosted an excerpt from the book: Black Gate Online Fiction: An Excerpt from Mad Shadows II — Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent

Book 3: The Heroes of Echo Gate (2021)

An epic gothic noir adventure that pulls Dorgo away from his usual city beats. He embarks on a perilous journey of self-discovery alongside an unforgettable cast of characters, handling grander threats while maintaining the series' signature dark grit. The Alchemist Sethelin Burg (Easter Egg call out) reviewed it for Black Gate in 2021: Fun, Fresh Fantasy: Mad Shadows: The Heroes of Echo Gate by Joe Bonadonna

As the cover implies, we have our beloved weird-fiction investigator & mercenary Dorgo (the guy front and center on the cover with the dowsing rod and sword) defending the titular portal with a band of friends (most of whom could have stared in a Ray Harryhausen movie. For the young readers take note that Harryhausen was the “Frank Frazetta” of cinema who gave life to the fantastical creatures before computer graphics were invented). There are three acts that follow the classic purposes: setup, rising tension, and an epic battle. The climax consumes a full third of the book and resonates with all the grandeur of defending Tolkien’s Helm’s Deep. The city of Soolaflan, on the island of Thavarar, is the fortress and it is situated around Echo Gate. Demons from across time want access to it. The portals across the world of Tanyime (and even across time and space) echo those from C. J. Cherryh’s Morgaine Cycle and even Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar Saga....

The first two books are episodic weird-mystery with Dorgo taking the spotlight. The adventures are more “Crime & Sorcery” than “Sword & Sorcery.” Dorgo is not an official constable or justice keeper, but he is a hired layman with investigative skills and a magical dowsing rod. Bonadonna brands his Dorgo tales “Gothic Noir” which is fitting. Despite the weirdness of Valdar city and the threatening necromancy that abounds, we know Dorgo will survive and resolve any case as surely as Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser did.

Heroes of Echo Gate is simply more epic than the first two. First, the structure abandons the episodic set of stories for one epic tale. Secondly, the point of view (although maintaining a focus on Dorgo) pans back to feature a party of 6-8 heroes. Also, at 318pages, it is larger than the first two (at 270 and 233 pages). With these changes, combined with the prevalence of non-human creatures and some engagement of royalty, Heroes of Echo Gate fits a high-fantasy mold.

Books 1-3

In 2021, Andrew Paul Weston reviewed all three books at a high level: Mad Shadows: Andrew Paul Weston reviews the series

Book 4: All the Colors of Darkness (2026)

You are here! The conclusion to the quartet has Dorgo hunting bizarre supernatural threats, including zombie diamond thieves, a mutant strain of vampires, and a demon that attacks with multi-colored ectoplasm.

Joe Bonadonna

Joe Bonadonna is the author of the heroic fantasies Mad Shadows — Book One: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser (winner of the 2017 Golden Book Readers’ Choice Award for Fantasy); Mad Shadows — Book Two: The Order of the Serpent; Mad Shadows — Book Three: The Heroes of Echo Gate; the space opera, and now Mad Shadows Book Four: All the Colors of Darkness. Three Against the Stars and its sequel, the sword and planet space adventure, The MechMen of Canis-9; and the sword & sorcery pirate novel, Waters of Darkness, in collaboration with David C. Smith. With co-writer Erika M Szabo, he penned Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin (winner of the 2017 Golden Books Judge’s Choice Award for Children’s Fantasy), and its sequel, The Power of the Sapphire Wand.

He also has stories appearing in: Azieran: Artifacts and Relics; Savage Realms Monthly (March 2022); Griots 2: Sisters of the Spear; Heroika I: Dragon Eaters; Poets in Hell; Doctors in Hell; Pirates in Hell; Lovers in Hell; Mystics in Hell; Liars in Hell; Sinbad: The New Voyages, Volume 4; Unbreakable Ink; Poetry for Peace; the shared-world anthology Sha’Daa: Toys, in collaboration with author Shebat Legion; and with David C. Smith for the shared-universe anthology, The Lost Empire of Sol.

In addition to his fiction, Joe has written numerous articles, book reviews and author interviews for Black Gate online magazine.

 

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Sethlein Burg - Alchemist in Mad Shadows 4

S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at Blackgate.com, regularly reviewing books, interviewing authors on ‘Beauty & Art in Weird-Fantasy Fiction’, and running Dark Muse News. He has taken lead roles organizing the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium (2021-2023) and the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group; he even interned for Tales from the Magician’s Skull magazine and is an Assistant Editor for Battleborn magazine. As for crafting stories, he has contributed eight entries across Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series, and has an entry in Weirdbook Annual #3: Zombies. He independently publishes novels under the banner Dyscrasia Fiction®; short stories of these have appeared in Whetstone and Swords & Sorcery online magazine, Rogues In the House Podcast’s A Book of Blades (Vol. I and Vol. II), DMR’s Terra Incognita, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Savage Realms Magazine, and Michael Stackpole’s S&S Chain Story 2 Project.