I discovered Django Wexler totally by surprise, while looking on Goodreads something similar to Joe Abercrombie, who is one of my favorite let’s say newer fantasy writers. Django Wexler released this five book serial called The Shadow Campaigns and this is third opus in that series. This is complicated fantasy with many characters involving only humans, so there are no dwarves, no elves, no dragons, monsters and similar themes. I learned to love that approach when I read Martin’s Songs of Ice and Fire which are ninety percent human based fantasy.
Well, The Price Of Valour deals with war. After the events in first two books which I must not write in detail not to spoil potential reading to you, war broke out in Kingdom of Vordanai. Winter Ihernglass is now first woman Colonel in Vordanai army leading the battalion formed of ex prostitutes, thieves and abused orphaned women who fight valiantly in Army of the East commanded by General Janus Bet Vhalnich. Meanwhile, evile Penitent Damned, who are like dark magic commandos installed a coup in Vordan so the army must come back to save the queen Raesinia and not to let kingdom fall into darkness, at the same time fighting with enemies surrounding them. This is in short told story of this third part of the series and I enjoyed every second of this 500plus pages behemoth. I am now going to part four and will let you know what I think. Of all three read until now, this one is the best.
I found this anthology when I was an avid reader of anything Graham Masterson wrote, being one of my favorite horror authors. So, I got to read this one, and check out his short story, also Dan Simmons being my favorite I wanted to read his share of this anthology, together with Ray Bradbury and couple of other names that I know and a bunch of horror authors didn’t have a honor to read yet. But, this 500 plus pages monster is not what I thought it would be. Besides three above mentioned authors rest of the stories are not on the level. On the contrary, most are under. As is with any anthology, some stories are better, some not, but this one lacks great stories. Based mostly in body horror, sexual related horror stories and also psychological serial killers, this anthology is for those who still do not know what they want with their horror. Give me Lovecraft related horror stories and novels every day. This one is to avoid. Better spend time reading something better. I will soon tell you what if you read this webzine.
Gary Bushell is famous British writer, journalist, columnist, comedian and what not. Well, he once worked for a magazine which was legendary in punk and ska scene during the eighties so he decided to tell his best stories and anecdotes in couple of books, thematically divided into metal, hard rock, punk, ska years. This one is about punk and ska years and it contains many interesting and great stories and what I love about and miss a lot in regular biographies, being anecdotes and stories from the road. I will mention only couple that I found most interesting to read in this book, that being Judge Dread, Bad Manners, Blondie, The Cockney Rejects, then boxing match organized by The Eurythmics because Garry wrote bad intro about them in Sounds and so on. I was also interesting about Lars Fredriksen’s of Rancid fame life of crime, juvenile home, stealing and taking drugs. This is bare truth, ugly and funny. Not something to remember forever, but decent book.
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