Black Gate

I don’t know much about George Bryan Polivka, to be honest. But I know he writes books I want to read.

I first discovered him while doing research for my most recent article on remaindered fantasy at Amazon.com. Two novels in his pirate-y Trophy Chase Trilogy were heavily discounted, so I figured that was worth a look. In the process, I discovered this standalone fantasy tale and decided to take a chance. It arrived this week.

“This is the story of the great battle between the pirates of the world and the band of merciless men who would purge us from the seas and make the name Hell’s Gatemen a source of terror to us all.”

Thus begins the tale told by Ham Drumbone, a pirate storyteller with a gift for dramatic detail. It is recalled by Smith Delaney as he awaits a gruesome death at the hands of ancient beasts called mermonkeys, who are eager to devour his bones. In the process of remembering, this simple pirate ponders, in his always earnest and often whimsical way, the mysteries of true hearts wronged, noble love gone awry, dark deeds done for the sake of gold, and the sacrifices made for love.

For Ham’s story is about Damrick Fellows, the great pirate hunter, who works his way ever closer to the great pirate king, Conch Imbry, only to find his focus blurred by his love for the pirate’s woman, Jenta Stillmithers. In the end, Delaney must come face-to-face with himself, with his choices, with the power of love, and with a God who promises him both a hell richly earned and a grace given where none is deserved. A swashbuckling fantasy story for all ages from Emmy Award-winning author George Bryan Polivka.

A little research reveals Polivka won his Emmy in 1986 for writing his documentary A Hard Road to Glory, on the racial prejudice faced by African American athletes. It also reveals he writes primarily Christian fantasy, which ought to make an interesting slant on a pirate novel.

I also ordered The Legend of the Firefish and The Battle for Vast Dominion, two novels in Trophy Chase Trilogy which are still available at discount prices on Amazon, which also feature pirates, epic sea battles, magic, and plenty of buckles that swash. Not sure which I’ll dip into first, but I’ll report back here as I learn more.

We see a lot of exciting, original fantasy every week here at the roof-top headquarters of Black Gate magazine. It’s good to see the genre is still filled with invention, and hot new writers throwing out new ideas like sparks off a forge.

But I’m not always in the mood for the new. Sometimes what I want is a fresh take on some of my old favorites. That’s why I enjoy Cthulhu fiction, for example, and William Patrick Maynard’s excellent Sax Rohmer articles and novels.

And that’s why I was very intrigued by Guy Adams’s Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr. Moreau, a potent literary mash-up that combines H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle. Guy Adams is the author of the Sherlock Holmes novel, The Breath of God, as well as The Case Notes of Sherlock Holmes and the horror novels The World House and Restoration. He’s also written several Torchwood novels, and a number of tie-ins to the TV series Life on Mars. Here’s the description:

Following the trail of several corpses seemingly killed by wild animals, Holmes and Watson stumble upon the experiments of Dr. Moreau. Through vivisection and crude genetic engineering, Moreau is creating animal hybrids, in an attempt to prove the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin.

In his laboratory, hidden among the opium dens of Rotherhithe, Moreau is building an army of “beast men.” Tired of having his work ignored — or reviled — by the British scientific community, Moreau is willing to make the world pay attention using his creatures as a force to gain control of the government.

Any book that combines hidden laboratories, genetic engineering, Sherlock Holmes, and a plot to take over the world gets my attention.

Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr. Moreau was released on August 7 by Titan Books. It is 290 pages in trade paperback, priced at $12.95, or just $7.99 for the Kindle version. You can read the first two chapters here.