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.
