Atomic Beasts and Where to Kill Them - Barbarians of the Storm - Book II (2022)

Dan and Fenrik's whacky hijinks continue as the search for a frozen scientist takes them into dangerous waters. But wait! Frank, Merith, and Killer from the previous book want their own subplot, and by God they're gonna get it! But wait! Erzulyn and a suit of sentient armor get to go on their own cosmic adventure! But wait! We also follow the exploits of villainous characters like Xulgog and the Nekroking! But wait! There's a talking sword too? Shit, I need a wiki to keep up with all these characters...

Whereas the previous adventure was heavily focused on Dan and Fenrik's journey, the second book in the 'Barbarians of the Storm' series, Atomic Beasts and Where to Kill Them, turns into the equivalent of what happens when your D&D players want to split the party and you end up with a slew of different adventure threads. Sometimes this kind of balancing act of wildly disparate plot threads can turn into a cumbersome slog, but author and noted Floridaman Rob Rimes is especially efficient in keeping the pace swift and all of the varying conflicts interesting.

And I mean, really, who the fuck doesn't want to read a sequence where a foul-mouthed koala bear goes on a Rambo-style murder spree against a bunch of slimy goblins?

However, I was somewhat surprised to find myself most drawn towards Erzulyn's plot thread and the journey through space and time she undergoes. While the author doesn't go overboard with it like a yawn-inducing doorstopper fantasy novel from the traditional publishing space, there is a significant amount of world-building added to Atomic Beasts... that was perhaps not as prevalent in the initial entry in the series. What I appreciate is that all of the additions to the setting, be they land, sea, or indeed otherworldly terrain, all feel like a natural extension of what was previously established in book one.

My review of Dan the Destructor mentioned the author's present tense writing style briefly, but I want to give you a snippet of the evocative prose you're getting when you crack open these books:

Frank, torn leather jacket flapping in the wind, cautiously walks towards the cavern, sword on his back, survival knife on his leg, sidearm on his hip, and sawed-off shotgun in his hand. The ground starts to elevate but the drake's tracks are still visible, as they lead up into the shallow cavern's mouth.

I don't often encounter this style of prose in the pulps I read, but damn, once you settle in to this series you couldn't imagine it being written any other way. Atomic Beasts... often comes across like a movie script to the most badass 1980's sci-fi/fantasy cinematic endeavor that never was. I'm sure if it was an actual film series, it would be cheaply made by Italian producers, filmed in the Spanish desert, have a cast of questionably dubbed Yugoslavian actors alongside a couple of random Americans in exile like Reb Brown and Cameron Mitchell.... and it would be fucking awesome.

I think my biggest gripe from the previous book in the series still exists here to a slightly larger extent. Atomic Beasts... feels incredibly episodic, which, yes, this goofy reviewer realizes this is part of an ongoing series and would be the author's intention. But it does mean that this individual entry has less opportunity to stand on its own with its own unique contribution to the series. The conclusion comes across like the ending to a weekly television serial with a number of characters in perilous situations. All I was really missing was the "SAME BAT TIME, SAME BAT CHANNEL!" narration. Again, this is not a major knock on the book or anything, just a caveat. While the 'Barbarians of the Storm' series definitely has pulp roots, this isn't like a Conan or... I dunno... a Mack Bolan - where one can drop in and out or read books out of order with little consequence. You buy book one, you're in this for the long haul, boyo.

Recommended.

The Long Moonlight - Nightvale Book 1 (2020)

"I hate gang wars. They're coarse and rough and irritating... and they get everywhere." That's probably what the audacious thief known as Xerdes was thinking as he moved from rooftop to rooftop across the city of Menuvia. Xerdes has recently found himself in the crosshairs of rival crime lords, the city guard, hired killers, and a fellow outlaw lass who possibly just walked out of a Whitesnake music video. And all Xerdes wants is one big score to live the good life for a while... but will his next score be his last?

You all know of RazörFist, right? He's that guy on YouTube who cosplays as Bret "Hitman" Hart and has all the catchphrases like "Fuck you, I was right!" and "That's about all. Peace out. Godspeed!" Mr. Fist has also become something of an author in recent years, starting with this absolute banger known as The Long Moonlight. Coming in at a svelte 125 pages, The Long Moonlight is a delectable crossover of fantasy and noir in pulp format that simply drips with atmosphere from beginning to end. Rife with the kind of grandiloquent wordplay you'd expect from the heyday of pulps, it's unabashedly purple, but that's not a bug of the genre, it's a feature.

If you've read any press or watched any of his streams on the subject of his book series, you may know the author is refreshingly open about his writing influences: there's just as much Fritz Lieber as there is Dashiell Hammett in tone, setting, and style. There's a shot of Robert E. Howard with how some of the action is handled, and then there's a chaser of Raymond Chandler with portions of snappy dialogue. In particular, the wiseass rejoinders that emanate from main character Xerdes from time to time has an echo of Marlowe (minus the ungodly chain smoking). There's also Mr. Fist's computer gaming influences that come to the fore - the Thief series being chief among them. I'm about as good at stealth games as Joe Biden is at balancing a budget or keeping his hands off of small children, so I've never even attempted to play Thief. My only experience with these games is watching others play them, but I can absolutely see how some of the gloomy stylings of the series made their way over to The Long Moonlight.

Something else I know RazörFist enjoys are the Death Wish movies. Without spoiling too much here, there's a certain point in the story where a vengeance angle begins to unfold, and while it's not exactly Bronson-esque in the way it's executed, the brutal results do bear some vague similarities to said revenge flicks. It's good to know that even the fictional city of Menuvia can experience its own Summer of Love!

Which brings me to perhaps my only quasi-complaint about The Long Moonlight. In the midst of Menuvia's fiery but mostly peaceful protests is Inspector Coggins, a side character who features in a few brief interludes when our main character is offstage. I actually found Coggins and his no-bullshit attitude to be a pretty based character (well... for a cop, at least) - to the point where I was slightly disappointed this character's side story of solving grisly crimes and ferreting out corruption in the city guard didn't have a tad bit more time dedicated to it. I see this as a positive complaint though, for it means I found myself invested in the author's world, lore, and characters and wanted to see even more of it.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out The Long Moonlight also features a few pieces of black and white art provided by the author himself that are peppered throughout the narrative. The art is just as evocative as the text and compliments it well, hitting the reader with a forlorn dungeon synth album cover vibe that I can get behind.

While I still heartily recommend neophytes go back and read the masters of pulp from yesteryear, there are more than enough worthy successors in this arena in the contemporary to read alongside them, and RazörFist's The Long Moonlight deserves a spot on your bookshelves if you're a pulp inclined reader. I look forward to delving into his follow-up Nightvale novella very soon.

The Wizard's Stone (2023)

Apprentice wizard Odo is tasked with transporting some precious cargo to a king's court in a faraway land. Odo's protector becomes Inoch, a brutish mercenary captain with grey morals, a crossbow, and an itchy trigger finger. Together, Odo, Inoch, and his band of ragtag mercenaries face down bandits, brigands, and foul creatures with low enough THAC0 scores to ruin anyone's day.

And here I thought you just don't get fantasy like this anymore. The Wizard's Stone is a tight novel at only about 290 pages which doesn't go in for the worst excesses of door-stopper fantasy books yet author Herman P. Hunter indulges in just enough of the deep, descriptive, and dare I say, flowery prose that pulp era stories were known for that the reader can still manage to get lost in its pages. It's as much a coming of age story as it is a road trip from Hell story set in an oftentimes dark and dangerous fantasy world. The only thing missing here was a mysterious dungeon synth soundtrack to accompany the novel.

The main thrust of this novel is the dynamic between Odo and Inoch, two characters who are nothing alike but are teamed together through circumstance and must quickly learn to rely on one another in order to survive the harsh journey they find themselves on. Initially, these seem like two characters who shouldn't co-exist together at all; one a naïve kid who knows little about how the world outside his cloistered upbringing really is and the other a no-nonsense killer who's entire credo is to acquire gold and live long enough to spend it. Inoch's band of mercenaries, while technically side characters, are just as intriguing as the mercenary captain and the author wisely spends a little bit of time developing and expanding their characters so that when shit starts to hit the fan, the reader actually cares about them being placed in potentially lethal peril. This was one of those novels where I was casting an imagined film version of the story in my head as I was reading and for some reason I kept picturing Inoch as Kurt Russell in Escape From New York... only as a D&D character.

Speaking of D&D, the author's own byline acknowledges the Dungeons and Dragons influence in his writing, and as an old-school D&D nerd myself, one thing I found endearing about the magic in The Wizard's Stone was when I could spot exactly which spell Odo was casting from the magic-user spell list in the old Player's Handbook through Hunter's own creative descriptions. There were more than a few times reading where I would say to myself "Oh, there's Odo casting a Magic Missile again." or "Holy crap, Odo knows Shocking Grasp?!" Fun times.

Mild spoilers ahead, so skip this paragraph if you're sensitive to that kind of thing... perhaps the only minor quibble I have with this novel are a few moments of obvious trope adherence. For instance, you kinda knew the end was near for one particular character when they started talking about their potential plans for life after the adventuring days were over like the cop in the movie that's two days from retirement. These moments aren't really enough to detract from my overall enjoyment of the novel, but your mileage may vary here.

If you're starved for some hard-hitting pulpy fantasy in an era of large publishing houses only putting out crap from the pronoun politics brigade that no one reads anyway, it's a safe bet you'll devour The Wizard's Stone in short order. I'm very much looking forward to seeing where this author goes next.

Dan the Destructor - Barbarians of the Storm - Book I (2022)

Dan - an unassuming pussy from the Kingdom of South Florida - is zapped through a portal to another world and must team up with barbarian badass Fenrik in order to save the world from an evil sorcerer and maybe, just maybe, find a means of getting himself back home.

Dan the Destructor is a book that does not fuck around. We get the briefest of set-ups and then it's immediately into the adventure. I admit to being slightly thrown off by the present-tense style author Rob Rimes opted for here, but that feeling only lasted a page or two. The present-tense prose actually works in the book's favor and helps the story maintain its no nonsense quick pace. What we are left with is the epitome of a page turner.

In recent years I've become a big fan of creators who can successfully combine a bit of fantasy with science-fiction and still make their story work, so something I immediately appreciated about the Barbarians of the Storm setting Rob Rimes has created is he has zero fear of genre-bending. Barbarians, magic, undead fiends... it all co-exists with big guns, time portals, and post-apocalyptic brio. I can also appreciate how inserting what are ostensibly a few contemporary Earth characters into the mix allows the occasional well-placed pop culture reference to slip into the dialogue, be it pro wrestling or Death Wish 3 (the superior brand of Death Wish, I might add). I was half-expecting a cameo from the Beastmaster or Yor at a few points during the story...

Humor is also prevalent throughout Dan the Destructor, but it never overstays its welcome. For every moment of near-slapstick, there's a brutal fight scene to temper the tone. I would be remiss to not mention an extra short story at the end of the book that serves as a backstory for a character introduced towards the end of the adventure. This story leans even heavier into the brutal side of the scale and certainly concludes things on a strangely satisfying bloodthirsty note.

Perhaps the only minor quibble I can find is this story definitely has a case of sequel-bait syndrome. Of course, it's literally advertised as book one in the title, so I can't complain too much, but Dan the Destructor is obviously the start of a greater narrative and won't exactly be good standalone reading. As I said, it's a minor quibble and if you're anything like me you'll already be ordering the rest of the series before you're even finished with Dan the Destructor.