2022 saw the end of the Series Showdown and the debut of Trash Fiction Championship. 57 novels were covered, not including short stories and magazines.
For book of the year we have a tie - David Sodergren's Dead Girl Blues and Derrick Ferguson's Dillon and the Legend of the Golden Bell.
Gatling is hired to test advanced weaponry for Maxim, and uses the opportunity to protect a Zuni tribe from Aztecs hired by a mining consortium. The action scenes start with tactical set ups, but the actual shooting is brief and confusing. Gatling is suitably gritty, murdering more mining executives than the Molly McGuires. A personal gripe, it ends with two of my personal least favorite western elements - a trial, and the US Army agreeing to treat the native tribes fairly. It's not that I don't want to see them being treated fairly, but it's kind of a Pollyanna ending given history.
Our inaugural champion Mike McQuay swaps titles, bringing the Book of Justice against challenger Jack Slade with Gatling.
John Maddox Roberts vanquishes Sigfridur Skaldaspillir and retains the European Title
The original Eric Brighteyes by H. Rider Haggard was published in 1891. This is more of remake than a sequel, and not much room to make this a series given that Brighteyes is born and dies in this Viking saga.
Brighteyes is banished for a couple years from Iceland and does Viking stuff around the British Isles. Swanhild the witch is obsessed with him, and her manipulations lead to both their downfalls. In true saga form, most of the story is in broad summary, with some battles being wrapped up in a sentence. The more "real time" the story the better, but things speed up again towards the end making the conclusion feel like an epilogue. As this is someone's life story, not much in the way of a plot, just Eric going from place to place.
I've seen this described as the story from Swanhild's perspective, and while I haven't read the original to compare, most of the story focuses on Eric. I half expected some revisionist version, like the way Grendel was from the perspective of the monster, but not so much.
The book stands on weird moral grounds. While Eric seems to have some modern ideals (no killing monks, sees dishonor in attacking the weak) he's still a psychopathic serial rapist slaver. This is historical fiction and these are Vikings, after all, and most of the book is written without judgment. This is olden times and this is a story of horrible people doing horrible things to each other. However, there are parts that imply that Eric is supposed to be a honorable hero, and the ending definitely makes Swanhild out to be a villain deserving of being dragged to Hel at the end.
The ending plays sadly tragic for Eric, but it's hard to feel any sympathy. Can't get too outraged that he was framed for that one rape he didn't do. Morals aside, some occasional good battle sequences and historical details, but I didn't dig the narrative structure.
Roald Dahl turns on Ed Wood Jr. as soon as the bell rings, only to be knocked out by a double drop kick from Lansdale and Etchison. The two go at it blow for blow, but Lansdale comes out on top.
Lansdale is declared number one. Followed by Etchison at ten, Dahl at twenty, and Wood at thirty. These are their numbers for the Reading Rumble! Thirty authors go in, but only one will stay to the end and be crowned the Cruiserweight Champion!
A Texas Gulf Coast detective looks for a missing boxing trainer. Standard hardboiled detective fare, though well above average. May be Lansdale's first fiction credit. His name is spelled Lonsdale in the table of contents.
A beekeeper feeds Royal Jelly to his underweight newborn. Goofier and less menacing than I remembered. Also one of those stories that introduces an element at the end that makes the beginning make no sense - "I've just had a sudden stroke of inspiration! I'll use that thing I've been obsessing over for the last couple of years!"
Collected in The Umbrella Man and Other Stories, available from Amazon
A woman makes a confession in a late night laundromat. Getting a handle on Etchison's short fiction - there's a mood and a concept, but little story and certainly no ending. This is the second short I've read which just ends with someone running out into the night.
A hitman and his model hookup have a post-coital chat.
Roald Dahl and Ed Wood, Jr. cheated Joe R. Lansdale and Dennis Etchison of a clean win for the Cruiserweight Title. Now it's each author for themselves in a four way grudge match.
Fairly standard murder case in El Paso. The Sherriff drove the White suspect out to the desert to hide from a KKK lynch mob - while notable in the amount and severity toward Black people, lynch mobs and the KKK's vigilantism were common across ethnicities at the time.
The suspect was convicted and promptly pardoned by Texas Governor "Ma" Ferguson - a power she was accused of abusing so much that unilateral pardon and clemency power was taken away from the Governor to this day. She also effectively diefunded the Texas Rangers (which is why Texas was a haven for the wave of 1930s criminals) and the DPS was created in response by the next Governor.
She was an open puppet for her husband, impeached former Governor "Pa" Ferguson, with the catchy slogan "Me for Ma, and I Ain't Got a Durned Thing Against Pa".
I complain about fantasy stories with too much exposition, and here I am complaining there's not enough. There are sorcerers, different planets and planes, and something about stealing hands, but I don't have the faintest of where, who, or what is going on here, clear over my head.
Some interesting history with Startling Detective Adventure, which was all my feeble imagination could handle. Starling Detective Adventures takes the fourth fall and retains the Tag Team Title!
A janitor rapes and kills a small child, leaving her body in a church's belfry. In response, a lynch mob takes it out on a random Black man, mutilates his body for several hours, and terrorizes the Black community of Little Rock.
A would-be saboteur is attacked by a vampire, causing his bomb to explode them both. His body torn asunder, the vampire tries to control a medical examiner to help him revive. Some new wrinkles to how vampires work, but unsatisfying.
Startling Detective pulls into the lead three to two.
First half is the author bragging that he got an exclusive interview in-between trials (and before Capone's prison sentence), second half is a standard bio, with a couple of lines of his "interview", such as it was.
A young woman inherits a spooky house, becomes obsessed with dancing around naked, and is found "dead with every sign of sexual assault".
Startling Detective makes the pin, the teams are tied two to two!
A child is abducted and found dead in Flint, Michigan, sparking a manhunt.
On Mars, beast men attack a prisoner transport and an evil ceremony to serve the Elder Gods is interrupted. Little hard to follow, could have been fun expanded more.
Third fall goes to Fantasy Tales, which pulls ahead two to one.
Startling Detective Adventures Vol 5 No 26, July 1930
A gas station owner and his mistress posing as his sister are killed by gator trappers.
In the latter days of World War I, a mutinous Cossack is bewitched by a mysterious woman.
Lean Wolves had its issues - too much exposition for the obvious, too little for the wtf twist, a rapist protagonist - but more going on than a robbery that would barely make the local paper. Second fall goes to Fantasy Tales, and we have a tied score.
A young woman and her subtextual predatory lesbian roommate leave the small town behind to broaden their horizons in London. She hooks up with the landlady's son who ends up being dead and the landlady's dead and that means everybody's dead, me, you, everyone died already.
This one's wild. Years after a rich man was murdered while his wife was locked in a closet, it's revealed that she had been keeping her young lover as a sex slave in the attic, slipping him food and publishing the pulp fiction he wrote by candlelight (I looked and couldn't find what he published). The lover killed the husband after the couple argued, then later faked amnesia and started a new life. The wife's multiple affairs eventually uncovered the plot, though neither were ever convicted. This was made into three films, including one with Neal Patrick Harris.
An absolute squash. One of the most intriguing true crime stories against... well let's just say this was Raven/Canyon on Villano IV all over again.
Fantasy Tales vs Startling Detective
Four Falls to a Finish
(4 out of 7 wins)
Good fun all around, but once again Dillon comes out ahead. Derrick Ferguson retains the Young Guns Title.
After Dillon and Eli rescue a kidnapped actor in the jungles of Burma, they come across a bandit settlement called Cheap Prayer. Dillon challenges the leader to a deadly concentration course for their freedom, and for the Bad Ass belt buckle. Fun short.
Available in the Dillon Annual Collection 2018, from Amazon
A host of a TV cryptozoology show joins a heavily armed cursed family for the Jersey Devil in the deeps of the Pine Barrens. After laying low for centuries, the Jersey Devil and its offspring have been made aggressive from toxic waste dumped in the woods. The devil attacks are ramped up, culminating in a slaughter at a punk music festival.
A fun creature feature but felt a bit in the middle of things. Not enough gore to be extreme horror, too many monster sex slaves to be light-hearted. Part horror and part action, but not fully in either camp.
Bloody Pile of Horror
Young Guns Title Match
Derrick Ferguson defends the Young Guns Title against Hunter Shea. Mercs vs Monster Hunters for the Championship Belt
Alien Nation had a great run, but this installment broke me. The last three in the series each have different authors, and we'll see it in the ring again.
Forgotten Realms takes advantage and seizes the gold
Set in the Dungeons and Dragons setting of the Underdark, a series of connecting underground caverns in cities, the Drow, or dark elves, are plotting against each other. Some males have escaped the matriarchal society, and it appears that their deity Lolth has withdrawn her favor, limiting their spellcasting ability.
The story culminates in an uprising by the lesser creatures of the Underdark - goblins, kobolds, that kind of stuff, led by an undead mind flayer lich. There are tons of spells and magic items and hand crossbows and this is probably the closest a D&D novel will come to my kind of thing.
I should have read this instead of listening to the audiobook, as I have a harder time keeping track of characters in spoken word. It didn't help me that every character was a drow magic user - someone has to be named Bardo the Bard for me to maybe keep track of who they are in these kinds of things.
Brought to you by DMR Books, a leader in new Sword and Sorcery.
Check out their website and buy their stuff on Amazon.
Web Terror Tales came as part of a shudder pulp revival mini-wave. The plots don't really follow the traditional, Scooby Doo plotting of weird menace. A little sadism, usually in the form of whipping, but tamer than the original shudder pulps. They have the feel of the text stories shoehorned into horror comics, but even more mediocre.
The Pain Tree by Aurelia Mulhare
The daughter of a Caribbean governor is obsessed with a hougan.
The Angel of Hell by Bursell Bradshaw
A journalist uncovers what a mad reclusive painter has been working on.
Mr. Borealis by Clement Duffy
An experimental cruise ship is hijacked by a supervillain. No ending, so they cut to an "it was a dream...or was it" cop out, repeating over a page of text.
Footlight Vengeance by Ramon Aguilera
A playwright gets revenge on his critics.
Prey on Me by Henry Cranford
A rich explorer is tormented by his cultist servants' savage rites on a secluded island. The
My Love, My Prisoner by Charles Patterson
A corpulent rich man suspects he's being poisoned by his child bride.
The Curse of the Borgias by Christine Crewell
A haunted painting commissioned by the Borgias. Some good imagery in places.
Repent at Leisure by Rip Kelly
A rich sadist finds a better way than divorce to get rid of her husbands.
Come Kiss the Lash by Justin Lamont
Catherine the Great was into whipping.
Murder: Scene One by Denham Kelsey
Cromwell tortures a court musician accused of sleeping with royalty.
Satan's Spawn by Pete Brown
An Indian monk is ordered by a mad hermit to torture a captive devil woman.
Glutton for Punishment by Ernestine Durrell
Tarzan-type actor turned gold digger plots to kill his rich wife. Good old fashioned twist in the tale for this one.
Sodergren brings the Giallo to Scotland. On her way to a date, stripper Willow has a woman fall dead into her arms in the streets. This starts her on a path uncovering a snuff film racket, leading her to obsession bordering on madness. Some great set pieces, great suspense, a few twists in the story, and of course, lots of blood.
As with his other books the set up starts as a tribute to a horror subgenre, but he takes it into different directions. This one gets brutal and it's stayed with me for a while.
A little girl is menaced by Gnelfs, which are Smurf-like children's character and not a porn category, which are manifesting in this reality due to Kabbalistic imagery and a sorcerer for hire. She and her mother are assisted by a mysterious priest who has a Wandering Jew thing going on. A take off on Satanic Panic warning films like Deception of a Generation, with a little bit of Poltergeist and the Exorcist mixed in.
Easily twice as long as it needed to be, with way too much exposition and rationalization, some delivered by the gnelfs themselves.
Frankenstein's Monster and his buddy, former OGRE agent James Judson, travel to Transylvania in their atomic powered submarine where they accidentally revive Count Dracula. Drac enthralls Judson, forces them back to England, and starts a plan to kidnap Van Helsing's descendant and place his brain in the Monster's body.
Most of the story was setup, and the rest felt like an outline. The Count was suitably repugnant, but just not much going on to fill it out.
Collected in volume one of The New Adventures of Frankenstein Collection
Glory hole vampire on Time Square. A down on his luck former vigilante magazine feature writer becomes obsessed with a peep show performer after getting a vampiric bj. His would be girlfriend gets sucked into a lesbian vampire relationship, and is helped by a journalist whose sister was killed by vampires.
One part eroticism to four parts sleazy nastiness, just the right ratio. Just enough to justify the obsessiveness without getting romantic. A fun ride as long as you don't worry about the vamps' master plan - unlike Lost Boys or Near Dark there's no romantic angle, and I don't know the endgame for turning every 42nd Street pervert.
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Horror meets Men's Adventure in this unique series. Criminologist and telekinetic Dr. Damien Harmon has revived Count Dracula, and keeps him under control through a sliver of wood embedded next to his heart. Aided by former cop Cameron Sanchez and Dracula's thrall Ktara, they fight crime.
Dr. Harmon's niece has a friend falsely accused of murder, and the group vow to clear his name, encountering an evil cult, an inhumanly strong hunchback, and a mob-connected necrophilic undertaker.
Fun enough when things get going, but Lory indulges in almost Rev. Fanthorpe padding, dragging out the most inconsequential actions and conversations for pages on end.
Vikings versus yetis. I've tried reading Meikle before, and his titles seem like they would be my jam, but something about the way he writes doesn't connect with the way I read and it just passes through me.
It's here! The Chamber of Horrors!
The match ends when one teams straps a member of the other team in the chair and turns on the juice.
Returning authors include: Shaun Hutson, David Sodergren, Jory Sherman, and Donald Glut
New authors: William Meikle, Sidney Williams, Ray Garton, and Web Terror Tales
Brought to you by Donnie Goodman's debut horror collection The Razorblades in my Head, free on Kindle until 10/5
Trash Fiction Championship presents BLOODY PILE OF HORROR!
Eight horror authors, two teams, one electric chair, in...THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS!
In a shocking move, Ramsay Thorne’s Renegade is disqualified for being a wrong’un.
We’ll see more from Charles Saunders, from the worlds of
Imaro and beyond.
Horn comes to a close, in defeat Ben Sloane is unmasked as
Stephen R. Cox, and unless his unavailable Mutant Hunter series surfaces,
brings him to retirement.
As Falcon limps to a close, Mark Ramsay is unmasked as John
Maddox Roberts and claims the European Championship.
Mathew Swain gets his happy ending, but there’s plenty more
to read from Mike McQuay, our first Intercontinental Champion.
With no exit strategy in sight, we have many more
installments of Vietnam Ground Zero by Eric Helm, our first United States
Champion.
And the winner of the Series Showdown finals and our first
World Champion, Robert Faulcon with Night Hunter.
And that concludes No Redeeming Value. Keep following for our next event.
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Young Imaro is an orphaned outsider who is bullied by the other children of the village for not being given the responsibility of raising his own calf. He's finally been given the task of caring for one, but only because it is sickly and sure to die. He runs away and meets a mysterious stranger able to calm wild lions with his music who teaches him a valuable lesson.
A fine enough story, but would have done better in a collection or worked into a novel, which may have been the intention. It feels especially strange in Dragon magazine sandwiched between instructions to make your own paper castle and a review of Steve Jackson Games' Battlesuit. I was expecting more action, or at least more fantastical. It works best if you're already familiar with the character - I don't see a lot of 80s nerds running out to grab Imaro after reading this.
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Draco Falcon and crew are hired to transport a royal
treasure and a betrothed princess through bandit territory. Some more
flashbacks to Falcon’s time in the Middle East. Well written but a lesser
effort - strictly small scale, low stakes.
Ends with an excerpt from the next installment Greek Fire,
which was never published, and something I’ve never seen before, a marketing
survey.
