Bottalk Reviews

eBook by Shaun Hamill Cover once again by E. M. Gist  From Titan Books and Heroic Signatures Spoilers! Spoilers!  A prequel to Robert E. Howard's The Tower of the Elephant. Kordava, the capital city of Zingara. Barkeep, Mugido is watching a young Conan who is wearing trousers and a shirt. A bored, cash-strapped Conan is observing the ships floating in the harbour. Zingaran sailor, first mate, Flavio de Palma the Bold from the Fortune’s Dawn enters the watering hole, he offers the barbarian youth a fresh ale, employment and adventure. Sailing ships and the sea are still a mystery to Conan. Flavio is seeking mercenaries to safeguard a valuable cargo that needs to go to Aquilonia (one day Conan will sits upon the throne of Aquilonia). Apparently, the Shirkri River is squirming with pirates Flavio and Conan find the Fortune’s Dawn, a carrack with three masts.  It is Conan's very first time on a ship. Conan meets the crew: Lookout: Marco of the wooden leg Helmsman: Anen of the gold

eBook by Brian D. Anderson  Cover once again by E. M. Gist  From Titan Books and Heroic Signatures Spoilers! Spoilers!  Mekahumet, a vermin less city south of the Shemite border, ruled by Boa constrictors and cats.  To pay off his debts, Arnold Schwarzenegger... oops, I mean Conan is now working for the Magistrate Lanitar. Conan is in Jabari Ishman's tavern and is offered poisoned beer. Pregnant pause. This gives birth to a bar brawl. Conan, as per his contract, dispatches every single guild assassin and thief inside the dive... in just minutes. He finds another mug of ale, this time untainted and downs it. The pleased Magistrate gives our Cimmerian another assignment. A super sexy noblewoman guides a concupiscent Conan to a small but superb armoury where he finds wealthy merchant Barathis Akken. The sword of Asgardian warrior Sven Orthan Half-Blood with its nice Northmen runes catches Conan's eye. Yulivaria, a dark sorceress, has kidnaped Barathis Akken's noble wife Gadran

eBook by John C. Hocking Dedicated to Roy Thomas (Conan comic book writer and editor) Cover once again by E. M. Gist  From Titan Books and Heroic Signatures Spoilers! Spoilers!  A sequel to CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS! Yes, the fan favourite Conan pastiche from 1995. With their Little Shop of Horrors adventure with the wizard, Ethram-Fal now in the rear view mirror, the emerald lotus addicted long legged sorceress Lady Zelandra of Akkharia desires to return home, to do so Conan and friends have to cross the River Styx from Stygia to Shem. Seeking a boat, our heroes arrive at the village of Quenah, but it's a ghost town. They sleep in an abandoned tavern, thinking of searching the docks the next day. Two living corpses appear! One steals the sorceress's last stash of eldritch drug (the crushed seeds of a deadly, addictive lotus plant that enhances her magical powers and that she is tapering off over time to be free of it) while the other zombie is just a distraction brandishing

eBook by Stephen Graham Jones Cover by E. M. Gist  From Titan Books and Heroic Signatures Spoilers! Spoilers!  Herdsman Jen Ro's French kissing cow rouses our blood caked Cimmerian from his slumber. Conan remembers being part of Shen-ga's raiding party, something must have turned sour on the battlefield because he realizes that he is now lost in the mountains. Conan collapses back to sleep in cowpats.  Conan finally awakens surrounded by cattle, and with Jen Ro's water, he washes the blood of battle from his body and loincloth. Jen Ro, a black lotus addict, cuts a steak from his narcotized cow's flank and miraculously heals the new wound with a mixture of glowing purple moss and black lotus. Jen Ro starts cooking the meat, but the starving Cimmerian can't wait and consumes it rare. Conan asks for more, Jen Ro goes to another drugged cow and brings more meat and wine.  Jen Ro mentions Trinnecerl, a village where he usually sells his purple glowing horned bovines. But

eBook by Steven L. Shrewsbury Cover by Gary Gianni (that Raven helmet is pretty fly! Brân means Raven) Illustrations by Patrick Zircher  From Titan Books and Heroic Signatures Spoilers! Spoilers!  The past... We are witnessing the last great battle of Bran Mak Morn. Picts and Romans are fighting. Bran Mak Morn, of the blood of Brule the Spear-slayer (the friend of King Kull of Valusia who reigned thousands of years ago before Atlantis sank) kills a Decurion (a Roman cavalry officer). Alaric and Bran's son Gallam are also there. Old Scottish priest Father Rogan stirs Dr. Elijah Blackthorn from his vision/reading. Dr. B, a psychometric archaeologist with the Miskatonic Institute of Technology awakens in an ancient Scottish Episcopal church, the Rosslyn Chapel. Dr. B spots Purple sashes of Advent (violet is the colour of royalty) anticipating the arrival of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. Dr. B has a special talent, artifacts talk to him, he only has to touch them and their secrets

eBook by Violet Castro Cover by Jenny Frison Illustrations by Patrick Zircher  From Titan Books and Heroic Signatures Spoilers! Spoilers!  A storm is battering Bêlit's ship the Tigress, crewmates are flying overboard. First mate Seneka, an expert tracker, is trying to protect Bêlit from the storm, They've been together for five years. The Tigress stops moving suddenly, they have hit land, an island. Hassan starts assessing the damage. Bêlit hits the beach, removes her boots and devours a fallen blood fruit from a nearby tree.  Hassan needs to work on the mast and to cut down trees to repair the Tigress's belly. Seneka, Mithras and Zeke will gather fruit, coconuts and make a fire. Nora will fish. They eat under the clouds that are obscuring the stars and preventing them from knowing their position. They start exploring the island in teams. Zeke and Mithras into the jungle. Nora and Homer to the left. Horus and Ajani to the right. The teen Mithras returns to tell Bêlit that N

Thanks to Titan Books for giving us this opportunity to interview Simon! 1) How did the current trade paperback re-publications of your TF work come about? 1A) I'd always harboured the idea of getting my US TF run back in print in collected editions, but it wasn't really until 1997/1998 (when I attended two Botcons) that I realized that there may still be a market out there. Even so, it was another couple of years until the time seemed to be right. There was a lot of retro interest in all things 80s, TF included, and a new Gen 1 style toy line in the offing, so armed with enough potential sales information I felt confident enough to pitch the idea to Titan (without getting laughed out of the room). 2) I help run a chain of four comic book stores in America, and I just wanted to tell you that there is a great market here for collections of your U.K. stories. If these are on the horizon for the Titan collections, I think they would sell as many, if not more, than the recent Ameri

eBook by Scott Oden Cover once again by E. M. Gist  From Titan Books and Heroic Signatures Oden? The dude who wrote the introduction to "Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures" AND THE IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND CONAN UNCONQUERED Deluxe Edition exclusive 9000-word ebook set during the events of Black Colossus using the Yaralet fragment? Yes, the one and the same. Spoilers! Spoilers!  A sequel to Robert E. Howard's The Devil in Iron. While awaiting his new city lord from Aghrapur, the reticent new regent of Khawarizm, old Ghaznavi is enjoying expensive wine from Kyros in his study. Karash Khan, the shapeshifting leader of The Nine (The dude has 8 Sicari "brothers". Get it?) appears. The former counsellor of Turan desires to avenge his fallen lord, Jehungir Agha (killed by Conan in Devil in Iron on Xapur, an island on the Vilayet Sea).  To get his payback, Ghaznavi promises to turn over The temple of Erlik to the Sicari, a splinter cult of Erlik. Our Cimmerian comman

eBook by Jonathan Maberry Cover by Guillem H. Pongiluppi Illustrations by Patrick Zircher From Titan Books and Heroic Signatures Spoilers! Spoilers! Very loosely based on the real life of Thiess of Kaltenbrun aka the Livonian werewolf. Swedish Livonia, near the Baltic Sea, 1598 AD, about a couple of years after the events of "The Return of Sir Richard Grenville". Solomon stumbles upon a strange massacre: a farming community decimated by Kurt Grieg, a Nachzehrer from Austria and his gang of brigands. Will Kane file a grievance with the state of New York or will he unleash a world of hurt on the demonic Kurt? Will the villagers be avenged? Will our heroes get to the chopper on time? You'll have to download the ebook to find out. It's a well-researched narrative that lifts the veil on the secrets of the benandanti werewolves of Italy. We discover that these "Good Walkers" are actually benevolent Catholic lycanthropes that serve God. Each born with a caul, a mas