Book Reviews
Welcome! On this page you will see a collection of book reviews that include Weird Western, Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, and Christian/Catholic fiction. If you would like me to consider reviewing your book, please contact me at Patrick@PatrickDorn.com.
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This anthology of fourteen original pulp sci-fi, horror, and thrillers hearkens back to the nostalgic post-war days of movies featuring water heater robots with blinking plastic eyes, fog-shrouded Universal backlots where comedians flee classic monsters, lumbering mutants and aliens in rubber suits wreaking havoc on suburbia, mad scientists with dastardly plans turning dials and tapping gauges, and junior G-Men patrolling their neighborhood for commie spy rings.
Maybe you saw them at a matinee in the local theatre, but by the 60s and 70s, these were standard Saturday afternoon fare on black and white TVs across America.
Author DC Larson has created a wide variety of short stories reminiscent of those chillers, produced in a more innocent time when evil never won, when the army deployed to blast invading UFOs and giant amoebas with tentacles, and when a kid reporter or scientist with a little know-how and a lot of gumption could save the day.
By the time these second feature potboilers and serials, with cheap production values and no-name stars were dumped onto the content-starved airwaves, the heyday of Hollywood horror and sci-fi were on the wane.
Larson captures that spirit of slapdash production values and naive film making in literary form. It's as if he remembered those glory days of cheesy, youthful imagination, and invented original, yet familiar tales along the same lines.
Some of the plots and characters, like the B-movies and TV shows that inspired them, are not fully developed. But the spirit and mood of the stories, and the deliciously pulpy vocabulary, more than make up for any low-budget plotting. It actually works, because the reader envisions B-list actors in the roles, and it all seems to fit together for a rousing good read. These stories are more about recalling those halcyon days, rather than continuing them.
It might be easy to disregard these tales, just as the movies and TV shows that inspired them have been neglected, but DC Larson's stories provide an important bridge between the more literary pulps of the 30s and 40s and the grindhouse films and paperbacks of the 70s.
CLICK HERE to purchase an e-book copy of "Ballad of the Riegelsberg Werewolf and other fantastic accounts," by DC Larson.
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David B. Riley's annual periodical does more to keep Sci-Fi Weird Westerns alive than anything else I know. The 14th installment is packed cover to cover with imaginative short stories about little green men with ray guns, a female Pinkerton agent with a steam-powered helicopter who hunts train robbers, and more. There's even some steam-powered flesh golem action thrown in for good measure.
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Clark Casey's Dead Indian Wars is the sequel to Dawn in Damnation. It's probably best, but not essential, to read the first book first, as many of the characters in this book carry over from the original.
Casey has created a strange and fascinating paranormal world with his purgatorial town of Damnation. The residents are all dead, exhibiting wounds and effects of disease, but can walk, talk, eat and "poke" the prostitute. If they are killed again, their soul leaves the doubly dead body behind and goes, presumably to Hell.
Most of the residents hang out in the two saloon, drinking, gambling, and occasionally killing someone, usually a newcomer. There's also a resident vampire, a pack of werewolves who mostly keep to themselves, and an ever-growing village of dead Indians who have a tomahawk to grind for the way they were treated in life.
The first installment consisted of numerous vignettes, introducing characters, offering a series of interesting events and complications, but no real protagonist or story arc emerged. Everything just sort of happened. Sometimes it was a big deal, sometimes not so much. As long as a slew of new and vividly drawn characters shuffled into town, I was happy.
In Dawn in Damnation, there are a few new characters, but the body count is smaller--until the climactic battle when the Indians, who vastly outnumber the citizens, attack. There's a second saloon, a second vampire, a second potential newspaperman, a corrupt mountebank who decides Damnation needs a power-hungry mayor, a couple more women, a miner, a farmer, and an unkillable Indian brave. That's a lot of doubling down on what's been done before, and not many new additions to the roster.
Meanwhile, several of the favorite characters who survived the first book are sidelined for most of this installment.
Casey has a real talent for creating vivid characters, none of which are politically correct, but seem authentic to the period. His strength is in building an ensemble, even at the expense of straightforward storytelling. The gory parts and action sequences are exciting.
Some kind of deity randomly and capriciously messes with the citizens of Damnation. No rain, then continuous rain. Then continuous sunshine with no dark. Food, then no food. Arbitrary interventions. The hint of possible redemption. The possibility of multiple towns like Damnation existing somewhere. The chance that the living child might foretell some kind of disaster, yet no one can ever be sure of anything.
But mostly, without a clear protagonist to root for or goal other than to endure, the second installment is more of the same, and there's a diminishing return. Without a solid structure, tedium begins to set in. The various trials and tribulations may or may not have any real significance, and true to the purgatorial world, we get the feeling it could go on forever. The tide of the climactic battle is turned by a deus ex machina that could and should have been foreshadowed.
If there is going to be a Damnation series, the rules of the world should be clearly defined; a hero with a goal and a chance of achieving it must emerge. The numerous subplots need to converge...and soon. A reader of westerns, especially weird westerns, will only endure so much existential uncertainty before moving on to something with a definitive beginning, middle, and end, and someone to win the day.
Dead Indian Wars is available in both print and digital form. CLICK HERE for more information.
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Would you like to get the latest updates on my fiction and playwriting projects?
I’m currently developing a series of short stories in the Weird Western genre. The tales will take place around 1780, during the California Mission period, and involve cryptozoological (creature of the week) storylines.My hero is Otto Eisenschaf, a Hessian mercenary who lost his left hand and part of his arm in the first battle of the American Revolutionary War. Rescued from a colonial POW camp by a Jesuit priest, Otto is spirited away to Alta California, and fitted with an iron prosthetic that is full of gears and gadgets and accessories.
Decently and Quietly Dead, by Matthew Baugh
This Weird Western, 104-page graphic novel stars the uncouth, illiterate, ill-mannered, xenophobic Billy the Kid in one of his bizarre adventures after faking his death. Henry McCarty/William Bonney is recruited by a six-armed, dapper gentleman who is a kind of ringmaster/mastermind of a circus sideshow. Turns out the “oddities,” which include a lizard man, a dog-faced boy, a tiny person, a wild man and a tattooed lady, need the gunslinger to help them retrieve the fabled “golem’s heart” from Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
Back in the days before comic books became collectibles and graphic novels evolved into their own literary genre, DC Comics put out a slew of western and weird western comic books.
The Incorruptible, by Don D’Ammassa
Book Review: 'Ballad of the Riegelsberg Werewolf and other fantastic accounts," by DC Larson
July 04, 2019
Maybe you saw them at a matinee in the local theatre, but by the 60s and 70s, these were standard Saturday afternoon fare on black and white TVs across America.
Author DC Larson has created a wide variety of short stories reminiscent of those chillers, produced in a more innocent time when evil never won, when the army deployed to blast invading UFOs and giant amoebas with tentacles, and when a kid reporter or scientist with a little know-how and a lot of gumption could save the day.
By the time these second feature potboilers and serials, with cheap production values and no-name stars were dumped onto the content-starved airwaves, the heyday of Hollywood horror and sci-fi were on the wane.
Larson captures that spirit of slapdash production values and naive film making in literary form. It's as if he remembered those glory days of cheesy, youthful imagination, and invented original, yet familiar tales along the same lines.
Some of the plots and characters, like the B-movies and TV shows that inspired them, are not fully developed. But the spirit and mood of the stories, and the deliciously pulpy vocabulary, more than make up for any low-budget plotting. It actually works, because the reader envisions B-list actors in the roles, and it all seems to fit together for a rousing good read. These stories are more about recalling those halcyon days, rather than continuing them.
It might be easy to disregard these tales, just as the movies and TV shows that inspired them have been neglected, but DC Larson's stories provide an important bridge between the more literary pulps of the 30s and 40s and the grindhouse films and paperbacks of the 70s.
CLICK HERE to purchase an e-book copy of "Ballad of the Riegelsberg Werewolf and other fantastic accounts," by DC Larson.
Book Review: Science Fiction Trails #14
May 07, 2019
David B. Riley's annual periodical does more to keep Sci-Fi Weird Westerns alive than anything else I know. The 14th installment is packed cover to cover with imaginative short stories about little green men with ray guns, a female Pinkerton agent with a steam-powered helicopter who hunts train robbers, and more. There's even some steam-powered flesh golem action thrown in for good measure.
If you liked The Adventures of Brisco County Jr or Legend (Richard Dean Anderson 1995), or if you thought Cowboys and Aliens wasn't quite weird enough, this collection's for you. Even though the paperback version boasts high-quality paper, a full-color cover, and looks nice enough to display on a coffee table, Science Fiction Trails is still available at pulp prices (both paperback and e-book).
Rated PG, which makes it even more "retro" fun.
CLICK HERE to purchase, or for more information.
Book Review: "Fallen Angel," David B. Riley
April 04, 2019
David B. Riley, author of seven novels and at least 100 short stories, writes primarily Weird Westerns and Sci-Fi. “Fallen Angel” has elements of both.
Two beautiful and super-powered fallen angels take sides during the Civil War, then get involved when ray-gun wielding little green men from Mars invade the earth. Though both supposedly reside in hell under the authority of a strangely milquetoast Nick Mephistopheles, Mabel and her sister Kevin make the most of their frequent sojourns among humans.
Mabel, the “good” one, is a proto-feminist who obsesses over clothes and luxury hotels, speaks all languages including horse, prints counterfeit money, and enjoys playing poker. Her “bad” sister Kevin is an exhibitionist and nymphomaniac who enjoys cooking up and serving fallen Confederate soldiers to Union troops, encouraging cannibalism at every opportunity. She even cooks up a few Martians, telling the gullible soldiers it’s alligator meat, but later sides with the Martians, intending to wipe out human life on earth.
The mortals in “Fallen Angel” have less agency and so are less interesting. Treasury Agent Miles O’Malley is a kind of love interest for Mabel, but it’s not clear what she sees in him. He seems to be lazy, shirks his duty when he can, and thinks about food more than supernatural sex. The sex and violence, and there’s plenty, is addressed in a matter-of-fact, straight forward style that distances the reader from its exploitational potential.
There’s an unashamed dominatrix, a by-the-book bureaucratic Treasury officer, and a cigar-loving U.S. Grant. Paul the horse is a lot of fun, and a child-snatching vampire makes a brief cameo. The Martians are similar to those found in Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks,” without the bubble helmets.
The plotting in “Fallen Angel” is a bit loose, and the antagonists aren’t particularly distinguishable. Scenes just sort of amble on until it’s time for the next one, and there’s a fair amount of repetition. The dialogue sounds almost simplistic, but it grows on you.
Thankfully, there’s enough off-the-wall weirdness to make “Fallen Angel” good, pulpy fun.
==========Two beautiful and super-powered fallen angels take sides during the Civil War, then get involved when ray-gun wielding little green men from Mars invade the earth. Though both supposedly reside in hell under the authority of a strangely milquetoast Nick Mephistopheles, Mabel and her sister Kevin make the most of their frequent sojourns among humans.
Mabel, the “good” one, is a proto-feminist who obsesses over clothes and luxury hotels, speaks all languages including horse, prints counterfeit money, and enjoys playing poker. Her “bad” sister Kevin is an exhibitionist and nymphomaniac who enjoys cooking up and serving fallen Confederate soldiers to Union troops, encouraging cannibalism at every opportunity. She even cooks up a few Martians, telling the gullible soldiers it’s alligator meat, but later sides with the Martians, intending to wipe out human life on earth.
The mortals in “Fallen Angel” have less agency and so are less interesting. Treasury Agent Miles O’Malley is a kind of love interest for Mabel, but it’s not clear what she sees in him. He seems to be lazy, shirks his duty when he can, and thinks about food more than supernatural sex. The sex and violence, and there’s plenty, is addressed in a matter-of-fact, straight forward style that distances the reader from its exploitational potential.
There’s an unashamed dominatrix, a by-the-book bureaucratic Treasury officer, and a cigar-loving U.S. Grant. Paul the horse is a lot of fun, and a child-snatching vampire makes a brief cameo. The Martians are similar to those found in Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks,” without the bubble helmets.
The plotting in “Fallen Angel” is a bit loose, and the antagonists aren’t particularly distinguishable. Scenes just sort of amble on until it’s time for the next one, and there’s a fair amount of repetition. The dialogue sounds almost simplistic, but it grows on you.
Thankfully, there’s enough off-the-wall weirdness to make “Fallen Angel” good, pulpy fun.
Book Review: Dead Indian Wars, Clark Casey
Clark Casey's Dead Indian Wars is the sequel to Dawn in Damnation. It's probably best, but not essential, to read the first book first, as many of the characters in this book carry over from the original.
Casey has created a strange and fascinating paranormal world with his purgatorial town of Damnation. The residents are all dead, exhibiting wounds and effects of disease, but can walk, talk, eat and "poke" the prostitute. If they are killed again, their soul leaves the doubly dead body behind and goes, presumably to Hell.
Most of the residents hang out in the two saloon, drinking, gambling, and occasionally killing someone, usually a newcomer. There's also a resident vampire, a pack of werewolves who mostly keep to themselves, and an ever-growing village of dead Indians who have a tomahawk to grind for the way they were treated in life.
The first installment consisted of numerous vignettes, introducing characters, offering a series of interesting events and complications, but no real protagonist or story arc emerged. Everything just sort of happened. Sometimes it was a big deal, sometimes not so much. As long as a slew of new and vividly drawn characters shuffled into town, I was happy.
In Dawn in Damnation, there are a few new characters, but the body count is smaller--until the climactic battle when the Indians, who vastly outnumber the citizens, attack. There's a second saloon, a second vampire, a second potential newspaperman, a corrupt mountebank who decides Damnation needs a power-hungry mayor, a couple more women, a miner, a farmer, and an unkillable Indian brave. That's a lot of doubling down on what's been done before, and not many new additions to the roster.
Meanwhile, several of the favorite characters who survived the first book are sidelined for most of this installment.
Casey has a real talent for creating vivid characters, none of which are politically correct, but seem authentic to the period. His strength is in building an ensemble, even at the expense of straightforward storytelling. The gory parts and action sequences are exciting.
Some kind of deity randomly and capriciously messes with the citizens of Damnation. No rain, then continuous rain. Then continuous sunshine with no dark. Food, then no food. Arbitrary interventions. The hint of possible redemption. The possibility of multiple towns like Damnation existing somewhere. The chance that the living child might foretell some kind of disaster, yet no one can ever be sure of anything.
But mostly, without a clear protagonist to root for or goal other than to endure, the second installment is more of the same, and there's a diminishing return. Without a solid structure, tedium begins to set in. The various trials and tribulations may or may not have any real significance, and true to the purgatorial world, we get the feeling it could go on forever. The tide of the climactic battle is turned by a deus ex machina that could and should have been foreshadowed.
If there is going to be a Damnation series, the rules of the world should be clearly defined; a hero with a goal and a chance of achieving it must emerge. The numerous subplots need to converge...and soon. A reader of westerns, especially weird westerns, will only endure so much existential uncertainty before moving on to something with a definitive beginning, middle, and end, and someone to win the day.
Dead Indian Wars is available in both print and digital form. CLICK HERE for more information.
Clark Casey’s ‘Dawn in Damnation’ is a Weird Western worthy of Steinbeck
“Welcome to Damnation…where every living soul is dead as a doornail. Except one.”
Clark Casey’s Dawn in Damnation is a vignette-style Weird Western that is reminiscent of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row or Tortilla Flat, except it has werewolves, a vampire, and…notorious pistolero John Wesley Hardin!
Except for one potentially game-changing irregularity, the denizens of the purgatorial afterlife “ghost town” of Damnation are dead and well on their way to Hell…maybe.
Probably.
Though sporting the gaping wounds of their violent original causes of death, these feisty room-temperature folk walk and talk, gamble incessantly, eat a lot of pork, and drink buckets of whiskey. Their dead-alive corporeal bodies can be “killed” permanently (usually in shootouts and sudden homicidal outbursts) and fed to the pigs, resulting in the aforesaid pork surplus.
Where their souls go from there is anybody’s guess, and most of these reprobates expect to burn in Hell for their deeds. But when a drowned woman arrives with an inexplicably alive-and-well baby in utero, several of the saloon rats suspect a higher and benevolent power at work and begin to wonder at the possibility of redemption.
Characters come and go, and we get to know most of them before they’re violently helped along into terminal eternity. Then there’s a core group of hangers-on whom we get to know a whole lot better. All of their stories are interesting and varied. Some of the stories are stand-alone, and others establish vibrant characters who will take supporting roles later on.
There are several ongoing character-based storylines, most of which are resolved, but no clear protagonist as in traditional westerns. It’s enough just to get to know the barflies, especially a laughing gunman, a frustrated and half-starved gentleman vampire, a boyish gambler cursed with uncanny luck at cards, and more. Each of these characters is fully realized and unique, regardless of how long they are able to dodge second death.
I get the feeling Casey could just keep writing stories in this vein (pun intended) so long as he can keep cooking up interesting characters. In fact, a sequel is planned to release in May, 2018.
The world building has potential but doesn’t feel fully thought-through. Exactly what are the “rules” of the world? No one is sure, and there are several obvious contradictions and inconsistencies. But if you like colorful characters, and don’t need a “cut and dried” plot, Dawn in Damnation is a lot of fun. I laughed out loud throughout at the wry sense of humor and surprising revelations.
The language is salty, the violence sudden and brutal, and the gore is copious.
So fry up a mess of bacon, pour yourself a shot, and dig into Dawn of Damnation. It’s a not-quite-hell of a good read.
Kindle e-book version is currently only 99 cents!
Review: ‘Mystery of the Stuntman’s Ghost,’ an action-packed 1930’s Hollywood western
With the classic intrigue of the suspense thrillers of the 1930s and the rollicking action of the early Hollywood oaters, Darryle Purcelle’s The Hollywood Cowboy series has all the excitement and mystery of a Republic Pictures serial.
Curly Woods, intrepid Hollywood studio PR man, stumbles into conspiracies involving Fifth Column agents and hooded saboteurs, while also rubbing elbows with many luminaries from the Golden Age of Tinseltown.
Mystery of the Stuntman’s Ghost brings our hero to California’s legendary Lone Pines and Alabama Hills location, during the shooting of a Hopalong Cassidy western. It seems a mysterious phantom has been setting lethal booby traps for Curly’s stuntwoman girlfriend, and the studio fixer means to protect her…only to discover the hard way that he has now become targeted for elimination.
There’s a lot of name-dropping for fans of the era, with William (Hoppy) Boyd and George (Gabby) Hayes playing supporting roles. There’s a bar fight, a shootout, chases on horseback, a villainous conspiracy, and charming innuendo galore.
Though the short story has about as much “weird supernatural” content as an episode of Scooby Doo, it’s a wonderfully fun, pulpy mash-up of western moviemaking and pre-noir suspense thrillers. where white hats, horses, determined heroes, adoring girlfriends, four-door DeSotos, and Nazi saboteurs co-exist.
Legendary cave man abducts a girl, and three unlikely heroes come to the rescue
The Ugliest Man in Albuquerque
When the legendary Hairy Man abducts a teenage girl from her Quinceañera, a Dominican priest, a German muleskinner, and a lovesick young tailor mount a rescue mission. Their pursuit takes the unlikely heroes into the steep and treacherous Sandia Mountains above Albuquerque.
This is a Weird Western short story from The Inquisitor series, detailing the fantastic, supernatural, and strange exploits of a brawling Irish priest sworn to defend and protect the Faith and the faithful in New Mexico, 1824-1851.
Rated PG for action, mild innuendo, and obscured nudity. Approximately 8,100 words or 42 pages.
CLICK HERE to pre-order (launches Dec. 1).
READ FREE on Kindle Unlimited.
‘Gold Faever’: Leprechaun vs. feisty nun at the Pot O’ Gold Saloon
Dandy Danny Sheehan is raking in a fortune, thanks to his Pot o’ Gold Saloon in the remote California Gold Rush town of Downieville. But when feisty Sister Bedelia steps through his batwing doors to take up a collection for an orphanage, it will take more than the Luck of the Irish to keep the wily Leprechaun from losing his greatest treasure.
This is a light-hearted Weird Western short story with a Catholic twist. Approximately 5,200 words, or 30 pages. Rated “G”.
Only 99 cents! Or, READ FREE on Kindle Unlimited.
CLICK HERE to order your copy today!
Book Review: All-Star Western Vol. 1 (graphic novel)
Jonah Hex, DC Comics’ most popular bounty hunter is back with a vengeance in All-Star Western #1, (2011) by Justin Gray, illustrated by Jimmy Palmiotti Moritat, with additional material by Phil Winsldae and Jordi Bernet.
In a genius bit of mash-up, Hex leaves his preferred open country for the sprawling 19th century Gotham City, where he takes on a criminal conspiracy, an underground child-stealing ring, and more. Despite his monstrously disfigured face, there’s nothing supernatural about Jonah Hex. The truly “weird western” part of the story kicks in when he and temporary partner Dr. Arkham (prior to building his infamous asylum) stumble upon an underground cavern that has an ancient race of subterranean humans and a gigantic bat. Right. Jonah Hex discovered the Bat Cave and subsequently meets the wealthy Wayne family who lives in a mansion directly above.
The story is action-packed, and though Hex pretends to be cold-hearted, he’s a relentless defender and avenger on behalf of the innocent. Arkham is a bit of a weenie, which annoys the loner Hex no end and to fun dramatic effect.
The volume also includes short adventures of El Diablo (fighting zombies) and also The Barbary Ghost (taking revenge on a Chinese criminal overlord).
The stories are excellent and fast-paced, and the illustrations are outstanding. Fans of the original Jonah Hex comics will enjoy these, though the blood factor has been ramped up considerably.
‘Chupacabrón: A Weird Tale of the California Missions’ is now available for pre-order, launching Sept. 22!
Chupacabrón
A Weird Tale of the California Missions
A warrior monk with a mechanical hand hunts a shape-shifting, blood-sucking creature that has been slaughtering goats at San Antonio de Padua Mission.
This is part of the Weird Tales of the California Missions series, featuring the exploits of Teutonic Knight Otto Eisenschaf, “peculiar intercessor” for Father JunÃpero Serra, from 1778 to 1783.
CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER from Amazon-Kindle. Only 99 cents! Your copy will automatically download on Sept. 22.
READ FREE on Kindle Unlimited, on Sept. 22 or after.
This is a Weird Western short story with a Catholic twist. Approximately 8,200 words. Rated “PG” for action.
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I just finished my first draft of a new Weird Western story!
Today I finished the first draft of a short story that takes place in my “Inquisitor” universe. Dominican priest Aidan McGrath joins forces with a youthful tailor and a homely muleteer to climb the formidable Sandia Mountains and rescue a Quinceañera from her abductor, the legendary Hairy Man. The story, which is set in 1833 New Mexico, has action, humor, and a mythic monster–with a Catholic twist.
I’m going to let the story rest for a few days, do my first round of revising and editing, then share it with my critique group and my editor. Next comes formatting, organizing pre-launch marketing, and finally publishing the story on Amazon-Kindle. All this will take place within the next month or two.
I’ll let you know when I’m ready to launch this fun, exciting story.
* * *
IN OTHER NEWS, I plan to upgrade this blog to “business class” in the next day or so. Then I can add a form that will allow you to subscribe to the Patrick Dorn Author Newsletter, which will come out monthly or thereabouts, with updates on all my various writing projects.
The Night Nurse: western horror short story now available on Amazon-Kindle
Now available for pre-order on Amazon-Kindle…
Read for FREE on Kindle Unlimited!
When the mysterious Night Nurse at a hospice for dying miners selects Sister Angela as her successor, the young nun must walk the fine line between faith and fear to discover the truth about the Night Nurse’s dreadful Gift. This is a Western Horror short story with a Catholic twist.
ORDER NOW for only 99 cents and The Night Nurse will automatically download to your Kindle app or device.
Approximately 7,500 words. NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN.
Book Review: Ghost Towns
Ghost Towns is an anthology of short stories by classic and contemporary western writers. Not all the stories are Weird Western stories, with elements of the fantastic or supernatural, but all feature abandoned and decrepit towns or villages from the Old West, and the beings, alive or dead, that haunt them.
There are fifteen stories in all, and several are sure to strike your fancy. Boom towns gone bust, abandoned oases of civilization returning to the elements, eerie landscapes. It’s all here. The stories deal with revenge from beyond the grave, righting ancient wrongs, the hunting habits of unnatural creatures and beasts, or people taking refuge in aabandoned, isolated, or dangerous places.
Editors Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis offer a foreword that discusses the enduring appeal of ghost towns. Traditional westerns have typically steered clear of the supernatural, but the farther we roam from the Old West, the more the stories of a bygone era forge a kinship with fantasy.
I flew through the 352 pages of this book and enjoyed it whether it was daytime or night time. If you have a hankering for stories about literal or metaphorical ghosts and the deserted towns they haunt, check out Ghost Towns.
Western Horror short story: ‘Thin Skinned’
Read FREE on Kindle Unlimited
Thin Skinned: a short story of a woman’s revenge in the West
By Patrick Dorn
on April 27, 2016
In the barren, unforgiving desert outside Las Cruces, New Mexico, a sadistic Irish immigrant exacts gruesome revenge on the English lord who wronged her family. This is a western horror short story, approximately 2,250 words. NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN.
Fiction Update: Weird Western series in the works
I’m currently developing a series of short stories in the Weird Western genre. The tales will take place around 1780, during the California Mission period, and involve cryptozoological (creature of the week) storylines.
Otto serves under Father President JunÃpero Serra in various capacities, especially investigating strange occurrences in the New World.
My current project, Chupacabron, involves a wily shapeshifting creature that sucks the blood from goats during the full moon at St. Anthony Padua mission.
The stories will have gobs of action and humor. As soon as one is fit for print, I’ll make it available for free on this website, in exchange for subscribing to my newsletter. Or, if you subscribe beforehand, I’ll send you a copy when it’s ready.
The idea for a German mercenary with an iron hand came from a real life character, Gottfried “Götz” von Berlichingen, who fought in the 1500s, nearly 300 years before my stories begin. His prosthetic is pictured here.
Review: American Vampire, Vol. 1 (Graphic Novel)
American Vampireis currently a 6-volume series of graphic novels with distinctly American storylines.
Volume 1 also happens to mark Stephen King’s graphic novel debut (2011). The volume goes back and forth between two mostly unrelated stories–one set in the 1880s (written by King) and one set in the 1920s (written by Scott Snyder). They are unified by the violent and garish artwork of Rafael Albuquerque.
King relates the story of America’s original vampire, Skinner Sweet, an outlaw whose anti-social behavior only increases once he gets his fangs and Nosferatu-length talons. Though sidelined a couple of times, you just can’t keep a bad vampire down, especially a daywalker who is powered by the sun and weakens only on moonless nights.
Snyder’s contribution follows a would-be actress during the decline of silent films and the rise of talkies who is betrayed by a movie idol. She too is a daywalker, Skinner’s creation.
Both stories are entirely preoccupied with the uber-vamps taking bloody revenge on the vampires that done them wrong. They are also tied together by a single journalist narrator, who was a young man in the first story, and in his twilight years in the second.
King’s preface alleges a desire to get away from sparkly, romantic, brooding vampires, and reclaim them as predators. But this is a bit disingenuous because the writers have introduced their own innovations with this new breed of vampire.
I guess I’m used to vampires who are comfortable with the “long game,” rather than going on malevolent rampages. The corrupt European vampires are aristocratic, elitist, consumed with material power and success. The American version is brash, vicious and brutal.
American Vampire, Vol. 1 is thoroughly entertaining, with memorable characters and pages (about 200) of delicious dismemberment and blood-sucking horror.
CLICK HERE to purchase a copy of American Vampire, Vol. 1.
REVIEW: Six-Guns Straight From Hell
Six-Guns Straight From Hell
Tales of Horror and Dark Fantasy From the Weird Weird West, edited by David B. Riley and Laura Givens (Science Fiction Trails Publishing, 2010). This is yet another, very welcome addition to a series of weird west short story anthologies. Overall, the writing and editing isn’t quite as strong as Showdown at Midnight, but there’s a nice variety of weirdness.
Chin Song Ping and the Fifty-Three Thieves, by Laura Givens
A clever, lazy, but resourceful Chinese immigrant outwits a sorcerer and wins the treasure in this amusing weird western take on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
Clay Allison and the Haunted Dead, by Bill D. Allen & Sherri Dean
A mercenary gunfighter kills a murderer who won’t stay dead until his bruja wife can exorcise a demon. (Sharply penned, surprising twists and developments, and loaded with thrills and chills. Excellent protagonist.)
Decently and Quietly Dead, by Matthew Baugh
An outlaw and a sheriff work together to stop a cult led by a hanged, self-healing preacher with a god complex. (Outstanding action and weirdness.)
Trouble Huntin’, by Bill Craig
A hunter on the trail of a werewolf finds the people in a frontier saloon less than helpful. (Abrupt shift in point of view and tone mars the big plot twist.)
On the Road to Bodie, by Lyn McConchie
A poor Mexican girl is harassed and pressured into a forced marriage by a local ranch hand until she receives supernatural assistance by a legendary and kindly ancestor. (Deftly written, emotionally engaging, offers a small supernatural thrill.)
Spook, by John Howard
A contingent of Buffalo Soldiers confronts a town of serial killers.(Excellent sense of danger and empowerment.)
Bleeding the Bank Dry, by David Boop
Would-be bank robbers convince an old vampire to help them rob a bank, by turning one of them into a bloodsucker. (Inventive, fun, a bit cynical.)
A Specter in the Light, by David Lee Summers
In New Mexico, a couple of science professors use Nicolas Tesla’s electricity generator to illuminate a mine, revealing more than anyone expected. (Very well researched and plausible, with a couple of chills.)
As Ye Sow, by Renee James
Riding rough through Kansas, Civil War terrorists meet their match in an elderly former slave woman. (Sadistic bad guys, and their comeuppance reads like a classic supernatural revenge comic.)
Night Bird, by Dorn Hornbostel
A reluctant temporary sheriff locks up an attractive, shapeshifting witch who can’t be restrained, except by the limits of her own spells. (Haunting in more ways than one. A lovely, sad story.)
Smile, by Kit Volker
A Civil War battlefield photographer struggles with her portrait business until she taking pictures at night in a haunted cannery.(More about a liberated woman finding empowerment than the weird west, but still interesting.)
Ghost Dancers, by Sam Kepfield
Alternative history in which an Irish journalist records the successful Ghost Dance campaign to unite the Indian tribes against the genocidal white men. (A bit preachy and politicized, but an excellent premise.)
Justice, by Nicole Givens Kurtz
A homicidal prostitute takes refuge from a posse in a Navajo hogan. But is she safer inside with the ancient Indian woman, or outside with the lynch mob? (Unreliable narrator causes over-the-top emotion, and there’s too much reliance on coincidence, but well-intended.)
The Man from Turkey Creek Canyon, by Lee Clark Zumpe
A confused gunfighter makes a deal with the devil to kill some Apaches but doubts his mission. (Mischievous and more than a little confusing, with bookending scenes that aren’t quite weird west.)
The Last Defenders, by Carol Hightshoe
Written in present tense, which I skipped as a matter of principle.
Long Night in Little China, by Joel Jenkins
A Lone Crow, Indian bounty hunter adventure set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, in which he rescues a mysterious woman from pursuing Tong gangsters and a supernatural beast. (Excellent action, lots of magical mystery, a touch of romance, with a forehead-slappingly obvious way to defeat the monster.)
The Enterprising Necromancer, by Henrik Ramsager
An entrepreneur with the power to reanimate the dead fends off disgruntled customers, resists giving refunds, and otherwise tries to keep his shop open despite his serious “illness.” (Rambling, unfocused series of vignettes. More of a character sketch, but still interesting.)
Snake Oil, by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
A traveling salesman with an airship sells a strange brew that affects the townspeople adversely, and it’s up to a little boy to save the day. (Steampunk and zombies. Exciting and action-packed.)
The Murders Over In Weirdunkal, by James Patrick Cobb
A sheriff is in over his head when townsfolk are murdered by something that leaves strange puncture wounds on the bodies.(Starts off as a delightful comedy of western incompetence, throws in a possessed Saguaro cactus for weirdness, changes tense several times in the narrative, and ends badly.)
Grumpy Gaines, Texas Ranger, by David B. Riley
A curmudgeonly Ranger dispenses Texas-style justice to a vampire, then runs afoul of a coven of alchemists. Good thing he has a loyal Alaskan sled dog. (Whimsical, loads of fun, healthy dose of weirdness, but way too short a story.)
REVIEW: Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities, Vol.1
Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities, Vol. 1.
This Weird Western, 104-page graphic novel stars the uncouth, illiterate, ill-mannered, xenophobic Billy the Kid in one of his bizarre adventures after faking his death. Henry McCarty/William Bonney is recruited by a six-armed, dapper gentleman who is a kind of ringmaster/mastermind of a circus sideshow. Turns out the “oddities,” which include a lizard man, a dog-faced boy, a tiny person, a wild man and a tattooed lady, need the gunslinger to help them retrieve the fabled “golem’s heart” from Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
And it just gets weirder from there.
Frankenstein has been using the golem’s heart to continue his bizarre experiments with mutated human beings, creating legions of icky, gooey, misshapen and mostly-mindless monstrosities. The Kid needs to overcome some of his own personal demons involving child abuse, learn to trust the carnies, and wipe out Frankenstein’s unending horde of nightmarish creations.
Billy the Kid is an entirely unsympathetic protagonist and Frankenstein’s living hallucinations are way beyond bizarre, sort of like Dr. Seuss having a really bad LSD trip. The story by Eric Powell and outlandish illustrations by Kyle Hotz push the envelope pretty hard, but the story turns out to be entertaining and emotionally satisfying, despite the reader never really siding with the hero.
CLICK HERE to purchase a copy of Billy The Kid’s Old Timey Oddities, Vol. 1.
REVIEW: ‘Jonah Hex: Welcome to Paradise’
Back in the days before comic books became collectibles and graphic novels evolved into their own literary genre, DC Comics put out a slew of western and weird western comic books.
The most popular character was Jonah Hex, a ruthless bounty hunter with uncanny tracking skills and a quick draw who is relentlessly hounded by a vengeful “man from Virginia with an eagle-tipped cane.”
Jonah Hex: Welcome to Paradise is a collection of early Jonah Hex stories from the DC comics. In addition to thrilling chases, shoot-outs and a familiar hodgepodge of western settings and character types, the collection offers a flashback origin story explaining how Jonah Hex unfairly became a pariah, and unjustly accused of betraying the Confederacy. It does not describe how he got that face, which is highly symbolic of his own inner struggle between good and evil, wanting to fit in but being unfit for society. In fact, every good person he befriends in these stories either dies, betrays or shuns him. He walks the line between hero and villain.
There are no supernatural or paranormal elements–Hex is just a man, not a demon or someone who dealt with the devil. The horror is more psychological, and while there is plenty of mayhem, it’s all gore-free.
There are nine classic tales in this collection, all from the 1970s, including All-Star Western #10, Weird Western Tales #14, 17, 22, 26, 29 and 30, and Jonah Hex #2 and 4. The stories were written by John Albano and Michael Fleischer, with art by Tony Dezuniga, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and others.
REVIEW: ‘Showdown at Midnight’ is an entertaining anthology of ‘classic’ contemporary Weird West Tales
SHOWDOWN AT MIDNIGHT
edited by David B. Riley (Science Fiction Trails 2011)
This anthology of original Weird West Tales falls comfortably within the parameters of western horror/supernatural fiction. It’s refreshing that these stories exhibit a great deal of creativity and variety without feeling the need to “push the envelope” and go genre-bending. As with any anthology, some stories will appeal to you more than others, but they all push the right buttons.
The Incorruptible, by Don D’Ammassa
Two cowboys find a ritually dismembered corpse, fight a Choctaw hunting party and encounter a lethal skinwalker. (Outstanding, as the “good guy” doesn’t realize what he’s done until it’s too late.)
Ghost of a Chance, by Bill Craig
A bounty hunter from hell tracks an escaped demon to a saloon. (Good showdown, with a vampire thrown in for good measure.)
The Shadow Walkers, by Joel Jenkins
Two gunfighters stumble over a mining camp massacre outside San Francisco and track the nearly-invulnerable Shadow Walkers who did it. (Very good “buddy” rapport, with interesting wraith-like foes.)
Lycanthropy Unbound, Sam Kepfield
A professor investigates a werewolf attack using the scientific method, seeking a cure. (Well-researched and plausible, with plenty of action.)
Low Noon, Henrik Ramsager
A gunfighter makes an unwise wager with a necromancer and tries to shoot it out with an undead adversary. (Scarier than you’d think.)
The Great Ghost Train Robbery, by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
Body-hopping ghosts rob a train, and it’s up to Annie Oakley to defeat them. (Fun adventure, well written, with the added twist of a sharpshooter who mustn’t shoot the innocent bodies of the possessed .)
Samurai Blade, by John M. Whalen
The ghost of a murdered samurai seeks vengeance on those who brought him dishonor, and a “spirit lawman” assists. (Interesting characters, and cameo appearance by Dodge City lawman Bill Tilghman.)
Wolves of the Comancheria, by Carol Hightshoe
Inadequately developed but intriguing origin story about a girl who becomes a Spirit Avenger, and the pack of wolves who help her hunt down those who have betrayed the Comanche people.
The Banshee Mine, by M.H. Bonham
A prospector is lured into a haunted mine and encounters flesh-eating, humanoid Tommyknockers. (Scary as all get-out.)
A Promise Made, by Jennifer Brozek
Classic ghostly hitchhiker tale with a Wendigo thrown in for good measure. (A bit confusing because two souls share the protagonist’s body and he spends a lot of time talking to “himself.”)
Belfry’s in your Bats!, by Aaron B. Larson
Thrilling adventure featuring a strange leaning man, swarms of gigantic vampire bats, an assassination attempt on President Grant at Carlsbad Caverns, and a vagabond who receives welcome assistance from a well-known but unnamed Secret Service agent. (A rip-roaring, wild, wild western “yarn,” filled with jargon and colloquialisms.)
Night Thunder, by David B. Riley
Tall tale about a happy-go-lucky saddle tramp and his horse who face off against a ghost horse that is terrorizing a small Nevada town. (A little cavalier with its violence and amoral attitude, but entertaining.)
CLICK HERE to purchase SHOWDOWN AT MIDNIGHT.
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==========Book Review: Ghost Towns
Book Review: Ghost Towns
Ghost Towns is an anthology of short stories by classic and contemporary western writers. Not all the stories are Weird Western stories, with elements of the fantastic or supernatural, but all feature abandoned and decrepit towns or villages from the Old West, and the beings, alive or dead, that haunt them.
There are fifteen stories in all, and several are sure to strike your fancy. Boom towns gone bust, abandoned oases of civilization returning to the elements, eerie landscapes. It’s all here. The stories deal with revenge from beyond the grave, righting ancient wrongs, the hunting habits of unnatural creatures and beasts, or people taking refuge in aabandoned, isolated, or dangerous places.
Editors Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis offer a foreword that discusses the enduring appeal of ghost towns. Traditional westerns have typically steered clear of the supernatural, but the farther we roam from the Old West, the more the stories of a bygone era forge a kinship with fantasy.
I flew through the 352 pages of this book and enjoyed it whether it was daytime or night time. If you have a hankering for stories about literal or metaphorical ghosts and the deserted towns they haunt, check out Ghost Towns.
Book Review: Blood Rain (Shadow Detective #3) by William Massa
"Kid, it's time for you to grow up."
Truer words were never spoken, and impulsive, somewhat inexperienced supernatural bad guy hunter Mike Raven rises to the challenge in Blood Rain, the pulse-pounding third installment of William Massa's Shadow Detective series.
Raven is forced to take responsibility for the consequences of his foolhardy but well-meant actions. To save her life, he transformed the girl he secretly loves into a soulless, slathering vampire. Now he's got to either save her or stop her with his blessed gun before he can get busy hunting down the demon that killed his parents and made his life a living hell.
Standing in his way is a vampire/demon hybrid with plans to overrun the Cursed City with blood-sucking minions. Meanwhile, Raven's wheelchair-bound mentor plots a dangerous course for revenge of his own.
Naturally, all hell breaks loose. Blood Rain is loaded with imaginative settings, top-notch fight sequences, and compelling characters.
As with all of William Massa's books (especially the Occult Assassin series), the action and thrills are non-stop, the plotting is tight with plenty of twists and turns, and the characters are particularly memorable. Best of all, in this third book, the character of Mike Raven achieves hard-won "agency." Sure, he takes risks and forges dangerous alliances, but now he weighs the potential consequences and even manages to come up with a brilliant plan of his own.
In the Occult Assassin series, Massa's protagonist is already a master operative who must repurpose his deadly skills to defeat supernatural opponents. The Shadow Detective series allows the protagonist to enjoy an actual character arc, brought about by the mayhem and horror of his various adventures. It's fun to watch a badass urban fantasy hero grow up, right before our eyes.
When Mike Raven finally confronts the Big Bad, he'll be ready, and so will we.
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Unicorn Western
By Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant
–I made the mistake of ordering just the first book in the nine-part saga. Sure, I only paid 99 cents for it, but now I want to read the whole story arc, and that’s going to be $9.99 for the complete set. Still, I wanted to be sure I’d like it, and to quote Walt Longmire, “Boy howdy,” did I.
Combining elements of fantasy, post-apocalyptic and western genres, Unicorn Western tells the tale of a disgraced lawman, exiled from The Realm, and forced to survive in the Sands, where magic is sparse. Marshal Clint’s partner is a wise-cracking unicorn, whose magic provides invisibility and quick healing, among other things.
Each installment is inspired/modeled after a classic western. The first episode is High Noon, all the way. Clint is about to hang up his seven-shooters and marry and marry a lovely pacifist woman, when he learns that a dreaded outlaw and his gang are on their way back to the town of Solace, to wreak revenge. They are accompanied by a lawman-gone-bad who has a unicorn of his own, radiating dark magic. Naturally, Clint seeks assistance from the townsfolk. Guess how that works out?
I’m looking forward to the other eight installments. I’m a huge fan of westerns and urban fantasy–not so much high fantasy. But since I have made it one of my missions in life to become an expert on weird west, western horror and western fantasy, Unicorn Western is top of my list of non-graphic novel, contemporary indie author offerings.
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American Vampire is currently a 6-volume series of graphic novels with distinctly American storylines.
Volume 1 also happens to mark Stephen King’s graphic novel debut (2011). The volume goes back and forth between two mostly unrelated stories–one set in the 1880s (written by King) and one set in the 1920s (written by Scott Snyder). They are unified by the violent and garish artwork of Rafael Albuquerque.
King relates the story of America’s original vampire, Skinner Sweet, an outlaw whose anti-social behavior only increases once he gets his fangs and Nosferatu-length talons. Though sidelined a couple of times, you just can’t keep a bad vampire down, especially a daywalker who is powered by the sun and weakens only on moonless nights.
Snyder’s contribution follows a would-be actress during the decline of silent films and the rise of talkies who is betrayed by a movie idol. She too is a daywalker, Skinner’s creation.
Both stories are entirely preoccupied with the uber-vamps taking bloody revenge on the vampires that done them wrong. They are also tied together by a single journalist narrator, who was a young man in the first story, and in his twilight years in the second.
King’s preface alleges a desire to get away from sparkly, romantic, brooding vampires, and reclaim them as predators. But this is a bit disingenuous because the writers have introduced their own innovations with this new breed of vampire.
I guess I’m used to vampires who are comfortable with the “long game,” rather than going on malevolent rampages. The corrupt European vampires are aristocratic, elitist, consumed with material power and success. The American version is brash, vicious and brutal.
American Vampire, Vol. 1 is thoroughly entertaining, with memorable characters and pages (about 200) of delicious dismemberment and blood-sucking horror.
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Hell Night
By Matt Kincade–Vampire hunter makes a detour, takes a bite out of zombie territory.
Matt Kincade, whose debut novel The Devil’s Mouth introduced a rockabilly-lovin’, desert-dwelling vampire hunter, takes a sharp left turn into The Walking Dead territory with his second novel in the Alex Rains series, Hell Night.
After a brief encounter with a vampire thug in Las Vegas, Alex packs up his vintage .45 and his preternaturally sharp katana sword and steers his convertible to a nearly-forgotten Nevada mining town with a stagnant economy and a cursed past.
Soon after making acquaintance with a handful of townsfolk at the antique gas station and quaint 1950s-era diner, a horde of zombies arrives to make his stay a bit more interesting.
These aren’t your average zombies, though. They are controlled by a maniacal necromancer with plans to bring about a zombie apocalypse. Guided by the necromancer, the walkers act strategically, making them all the more dangerous.
One by one Alex’s allies fall as they move from one siege location to another, fighting an all or nothing battle against thousands of undead and their puppet string-pulling master. There’s even the obligatory classic showdown in a preserved Wild West street.
Personally, I prefer vampire stories to zombie tales, and was hoping to see Kincade flesh out the awesome bloodsucking subculture he created in the first book, along with some of the other hunters. But even in zombie territory, Kincade writes action scenes with slick pacing and gruesome detail. He creates interesting characters—even the short-lived ones. As with the first book, his world building is exceptional.
Too often, though, Alex takes a back seat to the other characters—so much so, that he is in a supporting role for much of the story. His vampire assassin skills come in handy, and he does go into an amazing berserker mode that I hadn’t seen before, but Hell Night is more about everyday citizens taking back their town from a crazed and powerful zealot.
For me, the Alex Rains series is too new to be branching out into zombieland, faerie and other supernatural subgenres. This is a fun read, and especially recommended for fans of undead cannibals.
But I’m still hankering for some good old-fashioned, Kincade-style vampire bloodletting.
Matt Kincade, whose debut novel The Devil’s Mouth introduced a rockabilly-lovin’, desert-dwelling vampire hunter, takes a sharp left turn into The Walking Dead territory with his second novel in the Alex Rains series, Hell Night.
After a brief encounter with a vampire thug in Las Vegas, Alex packs up his vintage .45 and his preternaturally sharp katana sword and steers his convertible to a nearly-forgotten Nevada mining town with a stagnant economy and a cursed past.
Soon after making acquaintance with a handful of townsfolk at the antique gas station and quaint 1950s-era diner, a horde of zombies arrives to make his stay a bit more interesting.
These aren’t your average zombies, though. They are controlled by a maniacal necromancer with plans to bring about a zombie apocalypse. Guided by the necromancer, the walkers act strategically, making them all the more dangerous.
One by one Alex’s allies fall as they move from one siege location to another, fighting an all or nothing battle against thousands of undead and their puppet string-pulling master. There’s even the obligatory classic showdown in a preserved Wild West street.
Personally, I prefer vampire stories to zombie tales, and was hoping to see Kincade flesh out the awesome bloodsucking subculture he created in the first book, along with some of the other hunters. But even in zombie territory, Kincade writes action scenes with slick pacing and gruesome detail. He creates interesting characters—even the short-lived ones. As with the first book, his world building is exceptional.
Too often, though, Alex takes a back seat to the other characters—so much so, that he is in a supporting role for much of the story. His vampire assassin skills come in handy, and he does go into an amazing berserker mode that I hadn’t seen before, but Hell Night is more about everyday citizens taking back their town from a crazed and powerful zealot.
For me, the Alex Rains series is too new to be branching out into zombieland, faerie and other supernatural subgenres. This is a fun read, and especially recommended for fans of undead cannibals.
But I’m still hankering for some good old-fashioned, Kincade-style vampire bloodletting.
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Urban Allies
Ten Brand New Collaborative Stories
edited by Joseph Nassise
Urban Fantasy is a kind of catch-all action genre, which encompasses stories that may have elements of horror, supernatural, detective, fantasy, military, sci-fi, and other kinds of stories.
It’s HUGELY popular right now, and I’m a big fan.
So I was delighted to be offered a review copy of URBAN ALLIES: Ten Brand New Collaborative Stories, featuring new works by well-known urban fantasy authors. In this anthology, edited by urban and military horror writer Joseph Nassise, each story is penned by TWO wordsmiths, featuring a team-up of their most popular protagonists.
The author pairs include: Charlaine Harris and Christopher Golden; Carrie Vaughn and Diana Rowland; Jonathan Maberry and Larry Correia; Kelley Armstrong and Seanan McGuire; Joseph Nassise and Sam Witt; Steven Savile and Craig Schaefer; David Wellington and Weston Ochse; Stephen Blackmoore and Jeff Somers; C.E. Murphy and Kat Richardson; Jay Wells and Caitlin Kittredge.
URBAN ALLIES is a smorgasbord of lightweight but exciting stories, featuring contemporary variations on werewolves, vampires, zombies, fallen angels, malevolent ghosts, fairies, wizards, shamans, witches, demonic entities, and even a few humans to help balance the scales. They all involve identifying and defeating evil, or a rescue of some sort.
It’s fascinating to see how many variations of “magical worlds” the authors have imagined, though many involve “enhanced” heroes in an otherwise mundane world that has been invaded by dark forces. Others feature operatives from super-secret agencies who protect the oblivious from other-worldly threats.
It’s enough to like ONE of the authors to make reading the whole anthology worthwhile because you could easily discover a handful of other writers to add to your “must read” list.
In most of the stories, the variations on well-established “types” display enormous creativity and ingenuity. The protagonists, regardless of their “enhancement,” still feel mostly human, and the stories are often character driven.
Sometimes a monster can actually become a superhero.
In one story, a zombie coroner and a chatty werewolf spend a lot of time sniffing each other before tracking down a machete murderer, then return to their useless male sidekicks. In another, a wizard and a vampire work together to escape a fairy dungeon.
One of my favorites involved a Frankenstein/fallen angel creature and a supremely skilled and fearless knife-fighting soldier mowing down black pajama clad ISIL cannon fodder targets before getting to the big bad. It was video game carnage ecstasy, and the characters worked well together.
In another of my favorites, a modern Templar Knight and a backwoods supernatural sheriff infiltrate a demon-possessed pig slaughterhouse, likewise blasting away at a limitless horde of pop-up targets before snatching the inevitable “brass ring” and saving the day. That one was so gloriously messy with goo and other unmentionable “icks,” I felt like taking a shower after I finished reading.
I did, however, have a few problems with some of the stories. Most of them alternate point of view scenes between the two protagonists. Sometimes half a story might be in first person and the other half in third person. There’s one written in present tense, and I just skipped it entirely because that particular POV is so off-putting.
Another problem is that when the two heroes are too much alike, it’s hard to tell which is which. A haunted house story with a pair of interchangeable statuesque, aura-reading psychics, communicating with equally identical ghostly witch sisters, was just plain confusing.
One last complaint is that the Kindle version is RIDICULOUSLY OVERPRICED, at $10.99, or roughly a buck a story. For a digital file of short stories. This is the result of traditional publishers (HarperCollins Publishers) trying to stick their greedy noses into the indie-driven e-book market.
There are plenty of Urban Fantasy anthologies available, even entire collections of full-length books (not just short stories) through BookBub and Amazon’s Kindle Store for $.99, or even FREE.
I’m glad I read URBAN ALLIES, and I’m going to look up half a dozen of the represented authors, but if I hadn’t received a review copy, I would NEVER have paid $10.99 (only $.55 less than the paperback version!) for the Kindle file.
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Matt Kincade's The Devil's Mouth is a cut above other vampire hunter stories
There’s a new vampire hunter in town, and he is…awesome!
The Devil’s Mouth, the first book in the Alex Rains Vampire Hunter series, is already a major contender in the action/horror/supernatural genre.
Based primarily in the deserts and dusty towns of the Arizona and New Mexico desert, The Devil’s Mouth introduces Alex Rains, a skilled, ruthless—and surprisingly vulnerable—rockabilly vampire hunter.
Matt Kincade’s breakout novel doesn’t just kick butt in the action scenes—all writers in this genre had better know their way around describing exciting murder and mayhem—the story goes DEEP and BROAD in creating a believable world where society’s outcasts and outlaws have formed a community to defend the world from equally established criminal organizations of fanged, undead predators.
Against his better judgment, Alex breaks reconnaissance cover on a mid-level vampire to save Carmen, a young woman who’s gotten in over her head searching for a missing sister.
As Carmen recuperates from near undeath, the good old boy Alex, who treats women with respect and “aw shucks” humor, takes down vampires and their human collaborators without mercy or remorse. Soon Carmen is recruited into the motley vampire hunter club, and together they work their way up the food chain of blood-guzzling thugs, middle managers and bosses to the big daddy vampire of the region, Don Carlos, a former Conquistador and keeper of the “old ways.”
The Devil’s Mouth has several qualities that raise it a cut above most genre writing. The second act, which can sag in the hands of less capable writers, goes deeper into the characters of Alex, Carmen, Jen (a freelance nurse who patches Alex and Carmen up after their near-death extermination sprees), and even a couple of the vampire henchmen. There are several twists that come as a complete shock and surprise, in part because Alex and Carmen’s character arcs are so well developed. Then their fortunes become drastically more complicated.
Carmen’s personality and motivation are so compelling, and so much of the novel is from her point of view, I forgot that Alex is the true protagonist of the series. It’s as much her story as his.
The culture of both the vampire and the vampire hunter worlds is fully developed, unfolding gradually, logically, yet unpredictably. Human trafficking and the exploitation of illegal immigrants from Mexico take on even more horrific proportions.
Best of all, Kincade has put real thought into the “rules” of vampirism for his world, including the hierarchy of leadership and the checks and balances required to maintain a secret, disposable “food” supply. Kincade’s vampires are smart, fast, strong, hyper-sensitive, and driven by a powerful thirst for blood, but there’s no shape-shifting or sparkling. They do, however, have an incendiary allergic reaction to sunlight.
Kincade even shows WHY hunters insist on shooting bullets at vampires, knowing that it’s essentially futile. Alex blows out their knees and elbows, slowing the vampires down so he can decapitate them before the crippling wounds can heal.
The desert setting, including a barren landscape, an underground bunker from the Cold War, rundown themed motels along Route 66, and even a scene in Albuquerque’s underbelly, add to the book’s “otherness.” A funeral scene where the hunters gather to say goodbye to one of their own is particularly moving. Kincade’s battleground is vast, hostile, and unforgiving, and almost exotic compared to most urban fantasy/paranormal horror.
Ultimately, the success of the Alex Rains Vampire Hunter series is going to depend on readers’ ability to identify with the lead. Kincade has created a compelling, interesting, complicated hero for the series, but it’s his attention to detail in the other areas that had me wanting to come back for more.
The Devil’s Mouth gave me an insatiable thirst for the next installment in the Alex Rains Vampire Hunter series.
Visit Matt Kincade’s blog at www.matthewkincade.wordpress.com.
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Colorado Gold
By Douglas Hirt
–Agatha Christie meets the Wild West in this western novel of intrigue, mystery…and murder.
While Douglas Hirt has written all across the western genre, his niche seems to be settings involving rivers of the frontier and wild west, and life around riverboats and keel boats.
A Pinkerton man goes undercover to investigate a theft and finds himself in the unbearable heat, humidity, and mosquitoes of Yuma, Arizona territory.
The story has an extended first act, covering nearly half the book, taking its time to introduce a variety of colorful western characters. There are several nefarious conspiracies at work, and the detective’s actual case becomes almost an afterthought.
Most of the actual action is saved for the third act, which can be frustrating if you are expecting a shoot ’em up-style western.
The most interesting action/discovery in the book feels coincidental and tangential to the main plot.
While the various mysteries are carefully plotted, and the characters are vibrant, it’s never clear what the primary action of the novel is about. The Pinkerton man is working on several puzzles at once but isn’t personally involved in the outcome.
The details about riverboat travel on the Colorado River felt authentic enough, but the story itself, like the boat, runs aground and hits snags a few times too often.
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Book Review: McKendree, by Douglas Hirt
McKendree
by Douglas Hirt
–Prolific western author Douglas Hirt brings a wholesome angle to a classic revenge story. Frontiersman Josiah McKendree runs afoul of a neighboring trapper and suffers a horrific loss. He now must put aside the plow, pick up his long rifle, and seek revenge with determination and regret. By the end, though, it becomes more about rescue than exacting judgment.
There’s plenty of action in this yarn, but it’s not exploitation-style violence. After nearly dying in his first attempt to seek retribution, McKendree has an extended secondary plot involving river pirates that doesn’t directly relate to the central story but provides a fascinating glimpse of frontier life on a river. It’s more of an extended side-story, but it reveals much about McKendree’s character, and the positive effect a moral man can have in a wicked world.
There’s more redemption than revenge in this PG-13 tale. Hirt doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of a lawless land, but he doesn’t wallow in it, either. The characters are carefully drawn and memorable. The audio version is masterfully narrated by Dusty Nelson.
CLICK HERE to purchase a copy of McKendree.
by Douglas Hirt
–Prolific western author Douglas Hirt brings a wholesome angle to a classic revenge story. Frontiersman Josiah McKendree runs afoul of a neighboring trapper and suffers a horrific loss. He now must put aside the plow, pick up his long rifle, and seek revenge with determination and regret. By the end, though, it becomes more about rescue than exacting judgment.
There’s plenty of action in this yarn, but it’s not exploitation-style violence. After nearly dying in his first attempt to seek retribution, McKendree has an extended secondary plot involving river pirates that doesn’t directly relate to the central story but provides a fascinating glimpse of frontier life on a river. It’s more of an extended side-story, but it reveals much about McKendree’s character, and the positive effect a moral man can have in a wicked world.
There’s more redemption than revenge in this PG-13 tale. Hirt doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of a lawless land, but he doesn’t wallow in it, either. The characters are carefully drawn and memorable. The audio version is masterfully narrated by Dusty Nelson.
CLICK HERE to purchase a copy of McKendree.
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Soul Catcher (Shadow Detective Book #2)
William Massa had a sure-fire hit series with his Occult Assassin books. Now he’s added another hero to the urban fantasy genre with the Shadow Detective series.
The protagonist Raven may be armed with a blessed semi-automatic named Hellfire, protected from spiritual attack by a magic ring, and has his own “spidey-sense” for malevolent spirits thanks to being marked by the demon who killed his parents, but his lack of knowledge, self-discipline, and maturity are bound to get him deep into trouble. Even his wise mentor can’t keep him out of stepping into it.
Raven is a fascinating protagonist. He’s impulsive, driven by self-interest, and at times, hard to like. Even though he’s the only one who can help, he’ll leave a tormented ghost to suffer because he thinks she deserves it. He’ll abandon a miserable victim in preference of someone he personally cares about.
He’s the last one in the room to figure out what’s going on and is repeatedly tricked by demons and bad guys alike, falling into one ambush after another, barely escaping.
His “victories” often are the result of the sacrifice or efforts of others, and when he does act, it’s a pyrrhic victory at best, or he unleashes something even worse than what he just vanquished.
How is this guy still alive?
In this second installment of the series, Raven gets involved with a team of ghostbusters. A recently executed occultist causes a fire that burns the prison He takes command of a ghost army. When a psychic becomes host to the multiple entities, the evil spirits are released into the cursed city to seek revenge and cause all kinds of mayhem.
The supernatural elements of this story are outstanding, and the action sequences did a real number on my blood pressure, they were so exciting. Raven had better get his act together soon, or we’re all in for a rough time.
This is a fun read with lots of emotional and physical action. I can’t wait for book #3.
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Book Review: Occult Assassin #4 Soul Jacker combines modern terror and biblical ramifications
William Massa's Soul Jacker is the fourth and best yet in the Occult Assassin series. Operative Mark Talon's opening action sequence is worthy of a James Bond movie, with a helicopter vs motorcycle chase, explosions, and more.
For most of the story, Talon is bearing minimal arms. It's not firepower that gets him through this adventure, but the self-control and resourcefulness that comes from training, situational awareness and commitment to doing the right thing, whatever the cost. Admirable.
The supernatural evil he battles is classic horror, taking something from real life and expanding it into a larger, terrifying context.
Set primarily in the tenement slums of Paris where Muslim immigrants live in squalor, a rash of bizarre terrorist attacks is traced back to a charismatic leader and a demonic, mind-controlling entity worthy of HP Lovecraft.
While eliciting necessary but uncomfortable sympathy for the plight of Muslims who either refuse or are unable to assimilate into western culture, he gives an occult face to the kind of extreme madness that leads desperate people to horrific actions.
While I don't always agree with "the devil made me do it" defense--we are, after all, accountable for our actions--this book is the best novel I've seen yet that exemplifies Ephesians 6:12 from the Bible: "For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens."
Powerful stuff, and thought-provoking, as well as thrilling action and copious but never egregious gore. Finally, I appreciate that the seeds of an ongoing story arc are planted without ending on a cliffhanger.
I can't wait for the next installment.
==========
Joanna Penn is an extraordinarily productive entrepreneur, indie-author, blogger, podcaster, public speaker and more. Her effervescent personality manages to be both endearing and encouraging to other writers. Just the kind of person you'd love to have over for tea.
Then there's the "dark side" of her character. Under the name J.F. Penn, she writes religious thrillers, and has also produced the "London Psychic" trilogy.
Desecration is the first book in the London Psychic trilogy, and it's amazing. When Penn's not plucking the reader's heart strings like a mandolin, she's grossing us out with medical/surgical gore, white-knuckling suspense, and intense psychological stress.
In other words, Desecration is a great read!
Detective Sergeant Jamie Brooke has the most heart-wrenching of all possible back-stories. A single mom working a high stress job at all hours, she attempts to solve a brutal murder case while her beloved teenaged daughter, who suffers from a horrifically debilitating disease, gasps out her last painful breaths in a hospice.
Jamie's unlikely and occasional ally is a gifted/cursed psychometrist (psychically picks up images from the past when touching objects) who has been traumatized by a childhood filled with verbal, physical and religious abuse. He's the "London Psychic" of the subtitle, but his role takes a distant second place to Jamie's nightmarish ordeal.
The book has elements of a police procedural, and Jamie is well aware when she is breaking protocol. It's just that things become so personal and so out of hand so quickly, she must make extreme choices, and can't wait for the bureaucracy to catch up. She's really out on a limb for most of the book, though her partner does provide helpful backup and vital information.
Ultimately, this is a personal quest for Jamie as she faces not just the worst thing imaginable, but also unspeakable, unimaginable horrors related to corpse-stealing, human experimentation, the ongoing legacy of Nazi Dr. Mengele's atrocities, conspiracies, human sacrifice and more.
If you become squeamish around murky jars of mutated fetal specimens, watch out. It gets much, much worse. I couldn't pull away. J.F. Penn puts the "gross" in "engrossing."
Only by facing her darkest fears and deepest pain can Jamie hope to prevail against the perversion of human dignity, the obscenity of death and the nonchalant insanity of evil. We're rooting for her all the way, and she metes out justice with broad strokes.
The character of the damaged psychic will no doubt be developed more fully in subsequent books.
This is Jamie's story, through and through. And a thrilling story it is, too.
So I was sitting in Taco Bell munching on a double decker taco, sipping a wild-cherry Pepsi and reading Joshua Unruh and Brett Grimes’s Werewolves of Mass Destruction on my Kindle, when suddenly I had an epiphany.
It happened right about the time our hero Ajax Stewart took on a squadron of super-enhanced zombies that were equipped with jetpacks and cannons. Out-gunned and out-numbered, Ajax had nothing to rely on except his superior physique, genius mind, indomitable character and a mysterious bag of tricks.
In that moment I was a kid again, and my inner child was having a party. Sure, I probably shouldn’t be eating and drinking that stuff at my age, and certainly not owning up to it. And for sure I shouldn’t be reading pulpy “trash” like Werewolves of Mass Destruction. I could just hear some adult from my past wailing “It will ROT your BRAIN!”
Too bad. I was having fun. I was happy. Once in awhile, indulging in junk food is good for the soul. It’s even possible to rationalize that at least SOME of the ingredients are healthy, even though they probably aren’t.
Except Werewolves of Mass Destruction isn’t junk. The short story is very, very well written. At around 56 pages and priced at 99 cents (less than the cost of a Hershey bar), it’s action-packed, amazingly inventive action/fantasy with a retro vibe (think Doc Savage mashed up with a grown-up Tom Swift).
The authors actually did some homework. Not just to bring a nearly-forgotten pulp genre up to 21st century standards, but in the world-building and the selection of character names. The story is loaded with Easter eggs.
Ajax Stewart rescues perky/plucky blogger Verity Sooth from a fireball-manifesting archdruid and his minions, disrupting their wicker man ceremony. (Incidentally, Burning Man was going on in the Nevada desert at the time of reading, so I’m not the only one with an “over-active imagination”. So there.)
The manly hero immediately tangles with an ax-wielding ogre, and before you can say “Thule Reich,” the duo are tracking down the infamous Nazi mad scientist/wizard Baron Totenkopf.
Cue super-enhanced zombies and jetpacks. The werewolves come later, and are kind of a let down, compared to the mad Baron, who inexplicably doesn’t crave “One Million Dollars,” or even world domination. He’s a maniac nihilist who plans to liquidate humanity altogether.
Yeah, he’s got to be stopped at all costs, and you can bank on Ajax Stewart being the only guy in the world who’s up for the task. With a little assist of course from Verity Sooth, who besides being plucky and perky, is also scrappy.
I’ve heard there’s a trend in fiction, especially blog-based fiction, of serializing stories into a meta-narrative. End a chapter on a cliff-hanger. Change settings and adversaries frequently. And make the action non-stop.
Werewolves of Mass Destruction isn’t a serial, but it could be, except that the transitions between scenes are nearly seamless. If this puppy is ever fleshed out into a full-length novel, that’s how it will be done. In its present form the story is lean, nimble and thrilling adventure/fantasy fiction.
I prefer my delicious, comforting, inexpensive junk food in small portions (no one wants a stomach ache, after all), and Werewolves of Mass Destruction fit the bill perfectly.
==========
I’ve had the pleasure of reading (and reviewing) each of these titles separately. How cool to see a collection of the first three novels, plus one of my favorite Occult Assassin short stories, in a single e-book boxed set.Each new title in William Massa’s Occult Assassin series expands its supernatural universe in new and exciting ways, without compromising the thrilling action sequences. Former Special Ops soldier Mark Talon uses his “particular set of skills” to terminate those who seek to bring Darkness into the world through occult means. Early on, that means taking out murderous human acolytes, disciples, occultists and fanatics.More and more, though, Talon is forced to face actual supernatural menaces head on. When a 9mm round won’t stop the baddie, a demon-slayer blade, blessed Crucifix or even an electro-magnetic ghost-scrambling pulse rifle become the weapons of choice.“Damnation Code” has a strange, malicious entity that uses a cult and computer code to create a monstrous techno-human hybrid. It almost has a science fiction feel, but is firmly rooted in supernatural/military/horror.
In “Apocalypse Soldier,” Talon faces maniac bikers and encounters demon possession and is faced with a difficult decision about whether or not to kill an innocent person before the demon within gets loose.
With “Spirit Breaker,” Talon goes high-tech ghost hunting to stop a bunch of crazed, skateboarding Occupy-type fanatics, their psychic “ectoplasm battery charging” leader, and a malevolent ghost that refuses to be evicted from an abandoned shopping mall.
The short story “Ice Shadows” involves reconnaissance and elimination of the rock band disciples of a nordic demigod. Each of these stories brings action and adventure to different environments and tactical settings, adding variety.
The body count of anonymous evil-doers is high, as it should be in this genre. Massa is ingenious at creating large numbers of faceless bad guys as cannon fodder, and distinguishing a couple of “bosses” who get special treatment. You could call these books a supernatural/horror version of The Destroyer or The Executioner series.
All this mayhem takes an emotional toll on Talon, especially when he loses people he has come to care about. Not to mention the shock of discovering a whole new realm of villainy than what he is used to battling. But he is resilient and determined to press on in an escalating battle against the forces of darkness.
In each book, Talon gains an ally with a specialty. Most of them could return in future adventures, and it would be awesome to see a team-based effort at some point.
There’s actually some character development worked in and around the nearly non-stop action. Talon develops a sense of humor. More significantly, Casca, the brains and bankroll behind the Occult Assassin operation, is now emerging as a combatant. Talon realizes that his friend, mentor and sponsor might someday cross the line to the dark side and become a target.
All this is to say that William Massa’s Occult Assassin series is evolving and expanding, becoming more complex. Talon’s inner resources and growing arsenal are tested each time to the breaking point, leaving the reader to wonder what’s going to happen next, without resorting to cliffhanger endings.
The anticipation of a new release in the series is “cliffhanger” enough.
Then there's the "dark side" of her character. Under the name J.F. Penn, she writes religious thrillers, and has also produced the "London Psychic" trilogy.
Desecration is the first book in the London Psychic trilogy, and it's amazing. When Penn's not plucking the reader's heart strings like a mandolin, she's grossing us out with medical/surgical gore, white-knuckling suspense, and intense psychological stress.
In other words, Desecration is a great read!
Detective Sergeant Jamie Brooke has the most heart-wrenching of all possible back-stories. A single mom working a high stress job at all hours, she attempts to solve a brutal murder case while her beloved teenaged daughter, who suffers from a horrifically debilitating disease, gasps out her last painful breaths in a hospice.
Jamie's unlikely and occasional ally is a gifted/cursed psychometrist (psychically picks up images from the past when touching objects) who has been traumatized by a childhood filled with verbal, physical and religious abuse. He's the "London Psychic" of the subtitle, but his role takes a distant second place to Jamie's nightmarish ordeal.
The book has elements of a police procedural, and Jamie is well aware when she is breaking protocol. It's just that things become so personal and so out of hand so quickly, she must make extreme choices, and can't wait for the bureaucracy to catch up. She's really out on a limb for most of the book, though her partner does provide helpful backup and vital information.
Ultimately, this is a personal quest for Jamie as she faces not just the worst thing imaginable, but also unspeakable, unimaginable horrors related to corpse-stealing, human experimentation, the ongoing legacy of Nazi Dr. Mengele's atrocities, conspiracies, human sacrifice and more.
If you become squeamish around murky jars of mutated fetal specimens, watch out. It gets much, much worse. I couldn't pull away. J.F. Penn puts the "gross" in "engrossing."
Only by facing her darkest fears and deepest pain can Jamie hope to prevail against the perversion of human dignity, the obscenity of death and the nonchalant insanity of evil. We're rooting for her all the way, and she metes out justice with broad strokes.
The character of the damaged psychic will no doubt be developed more fully in subsequent books.
This is Jamie's story, through and through. And a thrilling story it is, too.
==========
Book Review: Werewolves of Mass Destruction
SEPTEMBER 13, 2015So I was sitting in Taco Bell munching on a double decker taco, sipping a wild-cherry Pepsi and reading Joshua Unruh and Brett Grimes’s Werewolves of Mass Destruction on my Kindle, when suddenly I had an epiphany.
It happened right about the time our hero Ajax Stewart took on a squadron of super-enhanced zombies that were equipped with jetpacks and cannons. Out-gunned and out-numbered, Ajax had nothing to rely on except his superior physique, genius mind, indomitable character and a mysterious bag of tricks.
In that moment I was a kid again, and my inner child was having a party. Sure, I probably shouldn’t be eating and drinking that stuff at my age, and certainly not owning up to it. And for sure I shouldn’t be reading pulpy “trash” like Werewolves of Mass Destruction. I could just hear some adult from my past wailing “It will ROT your BRAIN!”
Too bad. I was having fun. I was happy. Once in awhile, indulging in junk food is good for the soul. It’s even possible to rationalize that at least SOME of the ingredients are healthy, even though they probably aren’t.
Except Werewolves of Mass Destruction isn’t junk. The short story is very, very well written. At around 56 pages and priced at 99 cents (less than the cost of a Hershey bar), it’s action-packed, amazingly inventive action/fantasy with a retro vibe (think Doc Savage mashed up with a grown-up Tom Swift).
The authors actually did some homework. Not just to bring a nearly-forgotten pulp genre up to 21st century standards, but in the world-building and the selection of character names. The story is loaded with Easter eggs.
Ajax Stewart rescues perky/plucky blogger Verity Sooth from a fireball-manifesting archdruid and his minions, disrupting their wicker man ceremony. (Incidentally, Burning Man was going on in the Nevada desert at the time of reading, so I’m not the only one with an “over-active imagination”. So there.)
The manly hero immediately tangles with an ax-wielding ogre, and before you can say “Thule Reich,” the duo are tracking down the infamous Nazi mad scientist/wizard Baron Totenkopf.
Cue super-enhanced zombies and jetpacks. The werewolves come later, and are kind of a let down, compared to the mad Baron, who inexplicably doesn’t crave “One Million Dollars,” or even world domination. He’s a maniac nihilist who plans to liquidate humanity altogether.
Yeah, he’s got to be stopped at all costs, and you can bank on Ajax Stewart being the only guy in the world who’s up for the task. With a little assist of course from Verity Sooth, who besides being plucky and perky, is also scrappy.
I’ve heard there’s a trend in fiction, especially blog-based fiction, of serializing stories into a meta-narrative. End a chapter on a cliff-hanger. Change settings and adversaries frequently. And make the action non-stop.
Werewolves of Mass Destruction isn’t a serial, but it could be, except that the transitions between scenes are nearly seamless. If this puppy is ever fleshed out into a full-length novel, that’s how it will be done. In its present form the story is lean, nimble and thrilling adventure/fantasy fiction.
I prefer my delicious, comforting, inexpensive junk food in small portions (no one wants a stomach ache, after all), and Werewolves of Mass Destruction fit the bill perfectly.
==========
Book Review: ‘Occult Assassin’ series now available as a Kindle e-book 'boxed' set
With “Spirit Breaker,” Talon goes high-tech ghost hunting to stop a bunch of crazed, skateboarding Occupy-type fanatics, their psychic “ectoplasm battery charging” leader, and a malevolent ghost that refuses to be evicted from an abandoned shopping mall.
The short story “Ice Shadows” involves reconnaissance and elimination of the rock band disciples of a nordic demigod. Each of these stories brings action and adventure to different environments and tactical settings, adding variety.
The body count of anonymous evil-doers is high, as it should be in this genre. Massa is ingenious at creating large numbers of faceless bad guys as cannon fodder, and distinguishing a couple of “bosses” who get special treatment. You could call these books a supernatural/horror version of The Destroyer or The Executioner series.
All this mayhem takes an emotional toll on Talon, especially when he loses people he has come to care about. Not to mention the shock of discovering a whole new realm of villainy than what he is used to battling. But he is resilient and determined to press on in an escalating battle against the forces of darkness.
In each book, Talon gains an ally with a specialty. Most of them could return in future adventures, and it would be awesome to see a team-based effort at some point.
There’s actually some character development worked in and around the nearly non-stop action. Talon develops a sense of humor. More significantly, Casca, the brains and bankroll behind the Occult Assassin operation, is now emerging as a combatant. Talon realizes that his friend, mentor and sponsor might someday cross the line to the dark side and become a target.
All this is to say that William Massa’s Occult Assassin series is evolving and expanding, becoming more complex. Talon’s inner resources and growing arsenal are tested each time to the breaking point, leaving the reader to wonder what’s going to happen next, without resorting to cliffhanger endings.
The anticipation of a new release in the series is “cliffhanger” enough.
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