The Chain Story 2 – Sword and Sorcery – Episodes 9-13

The Chain Story 2 – Sword and Sorcery – Episodes 9-13

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

  • A standalone tale
  • Readable in any order
  • Free to read
  • Interconnected via a theme involving a Crown

Stories will be released every few weeks, so check the Chain Story website. We have guides to Episodes 1-3 and Episodes 4-8, and this post introduces Episodes 9-13!

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Just When You Thought It Was Safe, Part 1

Just When You Thought It Was Safe, Part 1

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Empire of the Sharks (SyFy, 2017)

We’re back!

The film choices are limited to Prime and Tubi, because I’ve cut back on streaming services, but rest assured, there’s still a lot of rubbish to come. Yes, I’m returning to shark movies, because there are still around 17,000 I haven’t watched yet.

Empire of the Sharks (2017) – Tubi

SyFy and The Asylum, two things that go together like toothpaste and orange juice, or assault and battery. Here they combine to bring us the spiritual successor to Waterworld we never knew we dreaded. In a dystopian, flooded future, humanity ekes out a damp existence on floating towns beset by warlords and theatrical ne’er-do-wells. Warlord Ian Fein (John Savage) has taken a bunch of ladies from one such town to use as labor, and then as food for his collection of remote-controlled sharks.

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Tor Doubles #33: Mike Resnick’s Bwana and Bully!

Tor Doubles #33: Mike Resnick’s Bwana and Bully!

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Cover for Bwana and Bully!

As we move into the final month of reviews, there is a significant change in the format of the Tor Doubles. The series began with the proto-Tor Double of Keith Laumer’s The House in November and The Other Sky, but every volume since then has contained stories by two different authors.  However, three of the four final published volumes are single author books. This week looks at a volume with two stories by Mike Resnick, next week will be two stories by Damon Knight, and in three weeks, the final published volume contained two stories by Fritz Leiber. This volume was originally published in June 1991, which sharp eyed readers will note skips a month from last week’s volume. That is because Tor Doubles #33 and 34 were published in reverse numerical order, with this one published after the next one.

Bwana was an originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in January 1990. Between 1988 and 1996, Resnick wrote ten connected stories about the utopian planetoid Kirinyaga, eight of which earned him Hugo nominations, including two winners. Describing the entire series as a “Fable of Utopia,” each story followed a similar pattern.

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A Storm of Another Kind: Mother of Storms by John Barnes

A Storm of Another Kind: Mother of Storms by John Barnes

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Mother of Storms (Tor Books, July 1994). Cover by Bob Eggleton

One of science fiction’s subgenres is that novel that emulates the style of bestsellers — bestsellers as they were before the fantastic genres became a big part of the cultural mainstream. Michael Crichton, for one, specialized in this type of writing, from The Andromeda Strain to Jurassic Park; but other writers take it up from time to time: Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in Lucifer’s Hammer, David Brin in Earth, and much more recently Andy Weir in The Martian and Harry Turtledove in Supervolcano.

Some markers are common in this sort of book: reduced use of expository passages, a more demotic prose style, a near future setting that’s easy to imagine, multiple viewpoints and a large cast of characters — and despite this, a much reduced presence of characters who have a detached, scientific view of the world. John Barnes’s Mother of Storms is a classic example of that kind of science fiction.

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The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo, Part II

The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo, Part II

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I Am a Barbarian by Edgar Rice Burrough (Ace Books, September 1975). Cover by Boris Vallejo

The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo , which I discussed in my post last week, contains three more paintings that became paperback covers that I own and well remember, although none of these are Sword & Planet covers.

First up we have I Am a Barbarian by Edgar Rice Burroughs, from Ace Books. If you discount his westerns, this is one of only two historical novels ERB wrote, the other being The Outlaw of Torn. Torn is my favorite of ERB’s standalone novels but Barbarian also ranks up there.

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Once Again, Writers…

Once Again, Writers…

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A white sign with the word “No” sticks up above a crowd.
Image by Niek Verlaan from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

Not too long ago, I broke my long absence from video-format social media, which is just a very wordy way of saying I’m back on TikTok. I had abandoned it in the middle of the year when life slammed into me pretty hard and I needed some time and space for grieving (I lost my beautiful cat rather suddenly and unexpectedly). It wasn’t a deliberate decision, I just couldn’t handle much at all, so a lot of things just got abandoned while I worked through my stuff.

Two or so weeks ago, I returned, and ho boy, the tea is tea-ing. There’s so much drama on BookTok, specifically. There are currently three major dramas going on at present that I’m aware of, one of which really got under my skin, but I’m not touching it at present. I’m too annoyed, and I’m not even the audience that was directly insulted. Instead, I want to address writers very specifically on reviews, reviewers and review spaces.

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What I’ve Been Listening To: November (II), 2025

What I’ve Been Listening To: November (II), 2025

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I already did a What I’ve Been Listening To column first week of the month. But more and more, audiobooks are an ongoing part of my day. Having traded in a lifetime of on-and-off running, for daily walks, I’m getting some quality listening time in that way as well.

The TBL (To Be Listened to) list is growing beyond manageable proportions. But I continue to mix in some ‘new things’ with my re-listens. I am quite happy listening to some things over and over again: like the Dirk Gently BBC radio plays, John Maddox Roberts’ SPQR books, and Lee Goldberg’s Eve Ronin.

I mentioned last month that I’m revisiting Robert B. Parker’s Cole & Hitch, read wonderfully by Titus Welliver (Bosch). The next one up just became available through my library app, so I’ll be back to those soon.

DICTATOR (Robert Harris)

In my Listening column  earlier this month, I talked about Imperium, the first book in Robert Harris’ trilogy about the Roman statesman, Cicero. I went on and listened to Conspirator, and then Dictator (all available on audio from my library app).

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New Treasures: Mistress of Bees by Bernie Mojzes

New Treasures: Mistress of Bees by Bernie Mojzes

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Mistress of Bees (Dragonwell Publishing, September 23, 2025)

Judge not a book by its cover, lest ye be judged. Possibly F. Nietzsche said this. More likely, he didn’t. But he should have, and in particular, he should have said it about the highly entertaining Mistress of Bees, from Dragonwell Publishing, and authored by Bernie Mojzes. I mention this because, based on the cover art, I didn’t know what to expect, but I am pleased to report that what’s hiding inside is exactly what a good many Black Gate readers are looking for.

Mistress of Bees features a successful blend of socially relevant High Fantasy and streetwise Sword & Sorcery, all nicely leavened with a sly sense of humor. Revolution with a Les Mis flair waits in the wings, and when it comes – as it does more than once – the ruling aristocracy gives way to plucky, upstart attempts at democracy, cheered on (always) by our hero, Maris Goselin.

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Tech Tok, Part 3

Tech Tok, Part 3

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Bravestorm (Blast, 2017)

Well here we are again.

For this new watch-a-thon, I’m returning to sci-fi, and in particular the elements that I love about sci-fi — forget about story and thoughtful metaphors for the human condition, I just want spaceships and robots and hardware. Bring it on!

Bravestorm (2017) – Tubi

It’s always fun when a visual effects artist gets to make their own movie (see: Godzilla Minus One) and Junya Okabe obviously managed to get his jollies off by shoving everything including the kitchen sink into this giant Rock ’em Sock ’em showdown in Tokyo. The story flies by at ludicrous speed, and along the way claims back everything Hollywood has stolen from Japan, including The Terminator, Pacific Rim, etc.

All you need to know is a bunch of young people go back in time to stop an alien invasion from wiping out the world in 2050, by getting a scientist to build a giant robot to battle the aliens’ giant robot, and then they go back again to recruit the scientist’s boxer brother to pilot the mech. If that sounds as silly as a sausage in a silk stocking then buckle up, baby, because that’s the most sensible part of this whole thing.

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Tor Doubles #32: Harlan Ellison’s Run for the Stars and Jack Dann and Jack Haldeman II’s Echoes of Thunder

Tor Doubles #32: Harlan Ellison’s Run for the Stars and Jack Dann and Jack Haldeman II’s Echoes of Thunder

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Cover for Run for the Stars and Echoes of Thunder by Barclay Shaw

Tor Double number #32 was originally published in April 1991 and includes Echoes of Thunder, an original story, in this form, for the Tor Double line, which, as with the Popkes story a couple volumes earlier, has not been reprinted in this form. This is Dann and Haldeman’s only appearance in the series. It also includes Harlan Ellison’s only appearance in the series.

Run for the Stars was originally published in Science Fiction Adventures in June 1957. Ellison has noted this as the author’s preferred edition of the story.

Benno Tallant is a drug addict on war torn Deald’s World. While ransacking the corpse of a grocer for money with which to buy drugs, he is taken prisoner by three men who need his assistance in their attempt to keep Earth safe from invasion of the alien Kyban, whose fleet is preparing to destroy the human outpost on Deald’s World.

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