Tuesday, February 14, 2017

The Angels of Our Better Beasts - review by S. E.

Angels of Our Better BeastsAngels of Our Better Beasts by Jerome Stueart
S.E. rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Angels of Our Better Beasts is fantastic, evocative fiction that will make you laugh while you think.

Jerome Stueart’s The Angels of Our Better Beasts invites you to role-play as humans, lemmings, werewolves, & vampires, in a splendid 15 tale collection. With each entry you’ll find new perspectives on what it means to be a human (angel or beast). Most are weird, fantasy and sci-fi, and the relationship span the gamut from lemming-to-researcher, to husband-to husband, and wife-to-husband, etc. The variety is great, but Stueart’s keen sense of humanity, and the role art plays in our relationships, is the key strength. Few times have weird fiction actually evoked real emotions. Fittingly there is a bonus too, since the author provides his own illustrations throughout.

The best way to convey the voice/tone is with excerpts. For selected tales, I include those below. My favorites were (1) a bold, pseudo-2nd person story in a sci-fi setting in which an artist strives to save humanity “You Will Draw This Life Out To Its End” and (2) a haunting futuristic setting in which one must choose between leaving home (a place) or leaving family; the theme of impermanence is truly evocative ( “For a Look at New Worlds”). Lastly, I’ll call out an example of the creative milieus by highlighting the names of wine from one story that, if drank, will literally evoke memories such as The First Time We Made Love at My Apartment in Yokoshima, Absence of Tourists During the Rain at Inokashira Koen, and The Moon Over Tokyo Through Fall Leaves (from “The Moon Over Tokyo Through Fall Leaves”).


Excerpts
“If animals talk, then they can’t just be eaten as food anymore. They aren’t any more a part of the food chain than humans are. If everything talks, where do you draw the line on feeling for them as individuals?” -Lemmings in the Third Year

“I remember my wife and kid left me. I’d find myself standing in the music section just scanning the tapes, asking myself which song would save me from all this pain. I’d bring home the Charlie Daniels Band, Alabama, Dolly. Sometime the names would blur and I’d look up and find out I’d been there an hour, trying to find something to soothe the ache….Mostly I just see them using carts as walkers, slowly moving down the aisles, overwhelmed by all the possibilities they have to make that need disappear. Yeah, I guess, in a way, a lot of people came to Walmart to pray.” - Heartbreak, Gospel, Shotgun, Fiddler, Werewolf, Chorus: Bluegrass

“We cause emotions without product directive, emotions without prescription. People read our writing and feel something, and they don’t know what to do with that emotion. In the city, all those pretty pieces of writing you see—most of them done by us when we absolutely have to earn money—have a directive: but this tooth cream, explore this underground chasm, invest in this high-rolling casino. So if we make you feel sad or happy, you can find resolution in a purchase. But literature, on the other hand, doesn’t let you off the hook that easy, and that’s why there was a time when we were blamed for a lot of murders and mayhem that went on.” - Why the Poets Were Banned from the City

“Young painters might be asking if there is a place for art in politics, if you are sullying your reputation,” a renowned art magazine says to you in an interview being recorded for later broadcast. “What do you say to them about the nature of true art and its neutral place outside the quagmire of human rivalry?” -You Will Draw This Life Out To Its End

“Many walked up, and with a hundred fingers they carved swaths of themselves across the sand, ruining the beautiful design. The destruction of such beauty was supposed to bring home the price of violence, the pledge for peace. Today, though, it felt as if those fingers had pushed into her heart.” -For a Look at New Worlds


Table of Contents
[*Published before in print or award recipient, ranging from 2005 through 2015]

* “Sam McGee Argues with His Box of Authentic Ashes” (Beast = Sam McGee)
* “Lemmings in the Third Year” (Beast = lemmings or man)
“Heartbreak, Gospel, Shotgun, Fiddler, Werewolf, Chorus: Bluegrass” (Beast = man or werewolf)
* “Old Lions” (Beast = man or lion)
* “The Moon Over Tokyo Through Fall Leaves” (Beast = man and the past)
* “How Magnificent is the Universal Donor” (Beast = Vampires)
* “Bondsmen” (Beast = 007 agents?)
* “Et Tu Bruté” (Beast = Ape)
* Why the Poets Were Banned from the City (Beast = man or art)
“You Will Draw This Life Out To Its End” (Beast = man or art)
* “For a Look at New Worlds” (Beast = memories/holograms)
* “Brazos” (Beast = God)
“Awake, Gryphon!” (Beast = man and gryphon)
* “Bear With Me” (Beast = man or bear)
* “The Song of Sasquatch” (Beast is either Nature or man)

View all my reviews

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Dorgo’s Dozen Questions: Getting Grilled by Joe Bonadonna



Thanks to Joe Bonadonna for the opportunity to be grilled by Dorgo’s Dozen questions. Phew, this will be intense! One cannot lie to a detective as keen as Dorgo, especially when his dowsing rod can sense minor indiscretions — I just hope he can differentiate between fantasy and reality. So please read on, as I attempt to pass the interrogation.

Click on the link and learn about lots of hellish things, from the meaning of Dyscrasia and all things-beautiful-in-horror.  


Saturday, January 28, 2017

Mad Shadows II, review by SE

Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent (Mad Shadows, #2)Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent by Joe Bonadonna
S.E rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mad Shadows is “Cozy Gothic Noir,” highly recommended for occult mystery readers.
“I use a very unique dowsing rod that can, among other things, detect the ectoplasmic residue of any supernatural or demonic entity, and sense the vestiges of vile sorcery used in the commission of a crime. My name is Dorgo Mikawber. Folks call me the Dowser.”

As before, Joe Bonadonna entertains in splendid fashion. His Dorgo character is a supernatural detective with a righteous side, and who wields a dowsing rod to probe/locate weird things. This is what you get by mashing up “Who Dunnit? Mystery” with “Lovecraftian Mythos” and “Leiber’s Adventures in Lankhmar.” Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent extends his adventures, world, and background, being a sequel to Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser). Again Dorgo has allies; friends include constables, Mazo Captain of the Purple Hand and Sergeant Evad Thims, and the halfing/hybrids Muthologians like the physician satyr Praxus and gambler cyclops Vorengi. Favorite locales like the Hoof and Horn Club in the city of Valdar are revisited.

But there is more, much more!: MSII goes beyond being a second, great collection of tales:
(1) MSII’s chapter episodes are longer (novellas) and have a common story arc.
(2) We learn more about Dorgo, partly through a relationship with Valuta Jefoor, a regal lady with a passion for ghouls.
(3) Erika Szabo’s “Map of “Continent Aerlothia / World of Tanyime” broadens our vision (the map is not needed to enjoy the story, but is well drawn and many of the locales in the map are not mentioned in the stories, which fans may interpret as there is even more to Dorgo yet to come.

Erika Szabo’s Map of continent Aerlothia / World of Tanyime

Readers could just as easily enjoy reading this in reverse order, so pick either to get started. Whereas the first book is a collection of separate tales, Dorgo tackles three related mysteries in this volume. One could easily argue that

Contents:
Part I The Girl Who Loved Ghouls
Part II The Book of Echoes
Part III The Order of the Serpent

Chapters I and III are new to the world, but Chapter II, Book of Echoes was my first Dowser/Joe Bonadonna experience published in an earlier form within Azieran Adventures Presents Artifacts and Relics: Extreme Sorcery. According to the author (via Facebook conversation) the first scene and finale were somewhat influenced by the 1950s film version of Mickey Spillane's "Kiss Me, Deadly." I enjoyed this so much that I purchased Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser immediately.

In MSII, Book of Echoes has been revamped to extended Dorgo’s relationship with the lady Valuta as well as the bullying Khodos brothers. The cross-over to the Azieran series is maintained. There are also extended descriptions of Valdar’s workings, such as the Wheel, a device to enable people to drop off babies to an orphanage. This had eerie overtones of the author’s MS1 dedication to: “Mary Ellen Pettenon and the other 91 children and 3 nuns who became angles too soon in the Our Lady of Angels School Fire, December 1, 1958.” I learned on Facebook that Bonadonna is a long time Chicagoan, who was in the same school system and if his birthday was a few months different, he would have been in the building. In the book, we learn early on that Dorgo is an orphan, and many of the plots/character-motivations are based on family ties.

Still need more!: As Dorgo develops, I long for more insight into his past. We know that he is a veteran of the Wandering Swords, a band of mercenaries. And we know that the dowsing rod was given to him by a “grateful Yongarloo shaman” after Dorgo rescued his daughter from a gang of slavers. “How he got it, where he got, he never said and I never asked,” says our protagonist. It seems the longer he has the rod, the more he build a symbiotic relationship with it. I would welcome any more Dorgo, but would enjoy some revelation of the past in future volumes.

Official Synopsis: Dorgo the Dowser lives in a world where life is cheap and souls are always up for sale. Armed with a unique dowsing rod that can detect the residue of any supernatural presence or demonic entity, he can sense the vestiges of vile sorcery used in the commission of crimes. His adventures pit him against inter-dimensional creatures, friendly ghouls, raging cyclopes, psychopathic satyrs, and monstrous insects . . . not to forget a criminal underworld of duplicitous women and dangerous men. This time around, Dorgo falls in love with a witch known as the Girl Who Loves Ghouls, battles creatures from another dimension, and meets one very special werecat named Crystal. It’s also the first time he hears about an ancient death cult known as the Order of the Serpent. Then, after a young woman is murdered and a deadly, dangerous book of arcane lore is stolen from her, Dorgo comes closer to learning more about this secret Order. But first he must battle both humans and demons in order to find and destroy “The Book of Echoes.” Finally, Dorgo squares off against a horde of fiends born of dark sorcery when he tries to help a young girl who became trapped inside a powerful spell while attempting to destroy someone calling himself Ophidious Garloo. Racing against time, Dorgo the Dowser uses every trick he knows to uncover the secret identity and learn the True Name of Ophidious Garloo -- the Undying Warlock who may very well be the leader of the Order of the Serpent.

More magic, murder, mystery and mayhem in this sequel to Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser. MAD SHADOWS II -- DORGO THE DOWSER AND THE ORDER OF THE SERPENT. . . Heroic Fantasy with a film noir edge. Available in paperback and Kindle editions from Amazon, Smashwords, CreateSpace, and other online booksellers.

View all my reviews

Thursday, January 19, 2017

New Treasures: Lords of Dyscrasia by S.E. Lindberg


This was in part inspired by meeting John O'Neill at the World Fantasy Convention. That was a great time, especially when Black Gate received a WFC 2016 award! 

To clarify, the artwork (50+ illustrations and cover) for Lords of Dyscrasia were done by me, by for the sequel Spawn of Dysrcasia  I commissioned Ken Kelly.

Expect more Dyscrasia Fiction in 2017 as a bridging novel emerges, with cover art by Daniel Landerman. Daimones focuses on Helen's growth from an orphan into one of Lord Lysis's acolytes.




Sunday, January 15, 2017

Skelos Delivers Weird Fiction & Dark Fantasy - Fiction, Essays, Art, and Reviews

Skelos (The Journal of Weird Fiction and Dark Fantasy 1)Skelos by Mark Finn
S.E. rating: 5 of 5 stars

Skelos was an ambitious 2016 Kickstarter project. Successfully funded, it aims to be an outlet for literary essays, short stories, poem, novelettes, and reviews for Dark Fiction/Weird Fantasy. As a backer, I am very pleased. Somehow, it delivered all this in its first issue and a low price. Just ~12USD for the print version. In short, it is a highly recommend periodical to subscribe.

This reviews their first issue (Summer 2016 edition, Kickstarter funding seems to guarantee at least four issues). I thought I was well versed in Sword & Sorcery and Pulp/Weird Fiction but still learned more by Robert E. Howard and Arthur Machen. I discovered new authors too. In a collection so broad, not all the contents will please everyone…the menu is just too big. The quality is good, and anyone interested in dark fantasy will be pleased. There are lot of nice touches here, including cover art by Gustav Dore’, tons of interior art, and photographs of REH's drafts. There is no common theme, but this issue leans toward 'Vikings & Plagues.' My specific comments per contribution are detailed below.

Skelos is edited by Mark Finn, author of the World Fantasy Award-nominated Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard; Chris Gruber, editor of Robert E. Howard's Boxing Stories from the University of Nebraska Press; and Jeffrey Shanks, co-editor of the Bram Stoker Award-nominated The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales: The Evolution of Modern Fantasy and Horror. They are leading Skelos Press.

Short Fiction:
‘The Dead Unicorn’ –Scott Cupp (It is depressing as its title suggests)
‘Hungry –Charles Gramlich’ (A groaner sci-fi; it may be the only contribution that infused some sort of comedy, except for the single-frame cartoon ‘By Crom’. Also, it is one of the few to have a modern milieu)
‘The Night Maere’ –Scott Hannan (Classic horror in which your sickness may take a life of its own!)
‘The Nameless Tribe Drafts’ –Robert E. Howard (Included to complement an essay; very nice touch)
‘The Yellow Death’ –David Hardy (A plague doctor experiences lots of death)
‘The Burning Messenger’ –Matt Sullivan (Two Viking-esque tribes are pitted against one another…or something more cosmically evil; this started out with too many trope’s to promise much, but turned into a wonderfully dark tale)
‘Dangerous Pearl’ –Ethan Nahté (An average pirate/Lovecraftian adventure with a satisfying denouement)

Novelettes:
‘The Drowned Dead Shape’ –Keith Taylor (This is an engaging zombie-Viking tale; it was so good, I stopped reading Skelos, tracked down Taylor’s Servant of the Jackal God: The Tales of Kamose, Archpriest of Anubis…devoured that….then came back to Skelos)
‘One Less Hand for the Shaping of Things’ –Jason Ray Carney (A Fairy Tale /Weird Romance; this had its moments; the title seemed misrepresentative; I didn’t think I liked it until I reached the ending and realized I was more attached to the characters than I realized)

Poetry:
(I enjoyed having the poetry interspersed; they are short and digestible, and their presence reinforces the literary history/approach to weird fiction.)

Diary of a Sorceress –Ashley Dioses
Midnight in the Ebon Rose Bower –K. A. Opperman
The Writer –Jason Hardy
The Casualty of the Somme –Frank Coffman
Totem –Pat Calhoun
Surtur –Kenneth Bykerk

Essays:
‘Nameless Tribes: Robert E. Howard’s Anthropological World-Building in “Men of the Shadows”’ –Jeffrey Shank (This details REH’s evolution of his Hyborian Age, with his Drafts complementing the essay; I didn't know REH factored in the infamous continent Lemuria and California into his world)

‘From the Cosmos to the Test-Tube: Lovecraft, Machen, and the Sublime’ – Karen Joan Kohoutek (Loved this, in part because I am fascinated in how serious Weird Fiction writers [i.e. Edgar Allen Poe, RE Howard, Poe, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft] took their craft serious and often philosophized on the “Art’ in Horror. I missed Arthur Machen’s Hieroglyphics book in my hobbyist studies and will be getting that).

‘A Sword-Edge Beauty as Keen as Blades: C.Moore and the Gender Dynamics of Sword and Sorcery’ –Nicole Emmelhainz (this had potential, but could have been even more provocative, the premise being that the Sword & Sorcery genre….often stereotyped correctly as misogynistic… has some feministic qualities; strangely, the essay focuses on C.L. Moore’s female Jirel of Joiry story in The Black God’s Kiss but somehow glosses over that C. stood for “Catherine”…yes a woman writer who had to use a pseudonym to get published, or work with her husband writer Henry Kuttner who could use expose his first name. I’m not sure how the author’s gender was left out of this essay; perhaps it was done on purpose, otherwise it would not be surprising that a woman may decide to represent other woman as strong. The only indication that a reader may know Catherine’s gender is by reading the endnote reference.)

Special Features:
'Skull Session I' –Editorial by Mark Finn (This sets the stage for Skelos’s approach to provided deep and broad based weird fiction)

'Grettir and the Draugr' –An illustrated tale by Samuel Dillon and Jeffrey Shanks (Wow, they squeezed in a mini-graphic novel; the artwork by Dillon outshined the story here, which was okay.)

'By Crom!' –Rachel Kahn (A single frame cartoon)

Reviews too!
How better to reinforce Weird Fiction’s longevity than to review contemporary works? There are ~8 books reviewed depth. Despite the review’s average rating, I was unaware of Swords Against Cthulhu’s publication and will likely track this one down.




View all my reviews

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent



I really enjoyed Joe Bonadonna's Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser (review) which appeals to dark fantasy and weird fiction fans; Dorgo really is a superb blend of mystery and adventure. It is my pleasure to help announce his recently released sequel Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent available now! Shown below is a treat, since cover artists Erika Szabo also created a map of Aerlothia and we have it here!


Synopsis: Dorgo the Dowser lives in a world where life is cheap and souls are always up for sale. Armed with a unique dowsing rod that can detect the residue of any supernatural presence or demonic entity, he can sense the vestiges of vile sorcery used in the commission of crimes. His adventures pit him against inter-dimensional creatures, friendly ghouls, raging cyclopes, psychopathic satyrs, and monstrous insects . . . not to forget a criminal underworld of duplicitous women and dangerous men.  This time around, Dorgo falls in love with a witch known as the Girl Who Loves Ghouls, battles creatures from another dimension, and meets one very special werecat named Crystal. It’s also the first time he hears about an ancient death cult known as the Order of the Serpent. Then, after a young woman is murdered and a deadly, dangerous book of arcane lore is stolen from her, Dorgo comes closer to learning more about this secret Order. But first he must battle both humans and demons in order to find and destroy “The Book of Echoes.”  Finally, Dorgo squares off against a horde of fiends born of dark sorcery when he tries to help a young girl who became trapped inside a powerful spell while attempting to destroy someone calling himself Ophidious Garloo.  Racing against time, Dorgo the Dowser uses every trick he knows to uncover the secret identity and learn the True Name of Ophidious Garloo -- the Undying Warlock who may very well be the leader of the Order of the Serpent.

More magic, murder, mystery and mayhem in this sequel to Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser. MAD SHADOWS II -- DORGO THE DOWSER AND THE ORDER OF THE SERPENT. . . Heroic Fantasy with a film noir edge. Available in paperback and Kindle editions from Amazon, Smashwords, CreateSpace, and other online booksellers.
Map of AERLOTHIA by cover-artist Erika M. Szabo
JOE BONADONNA : Joe Bonadonna is the author of the heroic fantasy Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser, published by iUniverse; the space opera Three Against The Stars, published by Airship 27 Productions; and the sword & sorcery adventure, Waters of Darkness, in collaboration with David C. Smith, published by Damnation Books/Caliburn Press. His latest novel, Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent has just been published by the author. He also has stories appearing in such anthologies and shared-universes as: Azieran: Artifacts and Relics, published by Heathen Oracle; GRIOTS 2: Sisters of the Spear, published by MVmedia; Heroika:Dragon Eaters; Poets in Hell; Doctors in Hell, and the forthcoming Pirates in Hell — all published by Perseid Press; and Sinbad: The New Voyages, Volume 4, published by Airship 27 Productions. His next novel, The MechMen of Canis-9, is scheduled to be published by Airship 27. He will have stories appearing soon in the shared-world anthologies Sha’Daa, in collaboration with Shebat Legion; and The Lost Empire of Sol, in collaboration with David C. Smith. In addition to his fiction, Joe has written a number of articles and book reviews for Black Gate online magazine, including the stories Queen of Toads, and The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum (from Mad Shadows 1), both of which can be read for free on Black Gate’s website.

You can find Joe on Facebook and Google+ , otherwise visit Joe’s Amazon Author’s page (link)  / or check out his blog, at: www.dorgoland.blogspot.com.