Bitter Steel: Tales and Poems of Epic Fantasy

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Whetstone amateur magazine of pulp sword and sorcery

Whetstone is a free magazine of sword and sorcery that published eight issues between 2020 and 2023 It is not on amazon so here is a link to the site

The stories of heroes are born, but they never die. They become legends. They become mythic.

“Bitter Steel” is a collection of new myths and new fantasy adventures in the style of Robert E. Howard’s classic fictional heroes, Kull, Conan, and Kane.

Skallagrim – In the Vales Of Pagarna

Skallagrim - In the Vales Of Pagarna
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“And those monsters saw not a young man with a sword but a scarred and screaming horror with the rising red doom of the sun at his back and a hellishly shrieking, flashing, living sword in his hands.”

Skallagrim wakes in the middle of a fight for his life with only the vaguest idea of who he is. Facing an angry mob of murderous cutthroats, he watches helplessly while the love of his life is abducted before his eyes. Finally, with a crushing sense of despair, he realizes he’s going to die without even knowing her name.

But he doesn’t die.

To find the girl and take his revenge upon the fiend who took her, Skallagrim, wounded and exhausted, must endure a journey like no other. He’ll face madmen, ghouls, tentacled horrors, and witches, both foul and fair, as he races toward a final showdown that will have readers on the edge of their seats.

An awe-inspiring tale of adventure, triumph, and tragedy, set in a brutal, unforgiving wilderness and packed with heart-stopping action, Skallagrim – In The Vales Of Pagarna marks the first installment of an outstanding new series.

“Stephen R. Babb ranks along with names like Stephen Lawhead or Jeffrey Overstreet. Excellence from beginning to end!” Grandfather Rock – WCWP New York.

“Filled with bloody action, fantastic settings, pithy dialogue, and unforgettable characters, Skallagrim is a bold success from beginning to end.” Bradley J. Birzer – Author of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth

“Babb describes the horrors of Skallagrim’s nightmarish encounters vividly, every parry and thrust, every horrifying contact with monstrous flesh, every misstep into putrid slime. The dangers and unpleasantness of this barbarian landscape are made viscerally real, pulling the reader deeper and deeper into the tale.” Bert Saraco – The Phantom Tollbooth

 

Lords of Dyscrasia (Dyscrasia Fiction Book 1)

Lords of Dyscrasia (Dyscrasia Fiction Book 1)
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Blackgate Magazine raves: “Lindberg is the real deal, a gifted writer with a strong command of language, and a soaring talent that stretches beyond the verbal: he illustrates his novel with his own wild and weird and excellent drawings. If you like action-packed dark fantasy with bizarre settings, an original premise and clever twist, then add this one to your Must Read List.” – Joe Bonadonna, Black Gate contributor and Author, 2015

Foreword Reviews: 5/5 Stars “…highly recommended, though not for the faint of heart…Outside of the works of Poe and Lovecraft, there are few, if any, novels comparable to this one. It has a bardic tone, as if it was a tale told over many nights. Beowulf comes to mind both for its epic quality and bloody action….the pace is nearly breathless…””…makes the majority of current popular fantasy fiction read like recipes…” Janine Stinson 2011

Lords of Dyscrasia explores the choices humans and their gods make as a disease corrupts their souls, shared blood and creative energies. Historically, dyscrasia referred to any imbalance of the four medicinal humors professed by the ancient Greeks to sustain life. Lords of Dyscrasia presents them as spiritual muses for artisans, sources of magical power, and contagions of a deadly disease.

Back cover: Dyscrasia plagues the insectan elders of the Underworld. Desperate to save them from extinction, the golem Doctor Grave infuses the soul of his dying Queen into the blood of a human artisan, Lord Ante Lysis. Her soul passes through Ante’s blood into his offspring, thus the Lysis bloodline carries the diseased Queen’s soul as the Doctor perfects the necromancy needed to resurrect her. But the last descendant of Ante is determined quench the Queen’s soul, and journeys to the Underworld to do so…

Conan: Sword of Skelos

Conan: Sword of Skelos
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With the beautiful and fierce Isparana at his side, Conan must cross a brutal and deadly desert in order to deliver their precious cargo-a magical amulet known as the Eye of Erlik. But rather than collecting untold riches for their rare treasure, they are betrayed by a ruthless tyrant and his evil mage.

Conan has faced many mortal dangers, perils of magic and perils of steel. But when the treacherous prestidigitator unleashes the bloodthirsty Sword of Skelos, a weapon of both magic and steel-a sword that can fight on its own-Conan faces one of his most dire challenges.

How will Conan survive this battle, when there is no foe to slay?

The Avenger: Roaring Heart of the Crucible

The greatest crime-fighter of the 40’s returns in a third thrilling collection of original action-packed tales of adventure, intrigue, and revenge.
Life was bliss for millionaire adventurer Richard Henry Benson until that fateful day crime and greed took away his wife and young daughter…and turned him into something more than human.

Driven by loss, compelled by grief, he becomes a chilled impersonal force of justice, more machine than man, dedicated to the destruction of evildoers everywhere. A figure of ice and steel, more pitiless than both, Benson has been forged into an avatar of vengeance, possessed of superhuman genius supernormal power. His frozen face and pale eyes, like a polar dawn, only hint at the terrible force the underworld heedlessly invoked upon itself the day they created…The Avenger!

The Avenger: Justice Inc.

The Avenger: Justice Inc.
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The Cagliostro Chronicles

The Cagliostro Chronicles
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There Will be Dragons (Council Wars)

There Will be Dragons (Council Wars)
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Now with all new content by John Ringo!

Paradise Lost

In the future there is no want, no war, no disease nor ill-timed death. The world is a paradise—and then, in a moment, it ends. The council that controls the Net falls out and goes to war. Everywhere people who have never known a moment of want or pain are left wondering how to survive.

But scattered across the face of the earth are communities which have returned to the natural life of soil and small farm. In the village of Raven’s Mill, Edmund Talbot, master smith and unassuming historian, finds that all the problems of the world are falling in his lap. Refugees are flooding in, bandits are roaming the woods, and his former lover and his only daughter struggle through the Fallen landscape. Enemies, new and old, gather like jackals around a wounded lion.

But what the jackals do not know is that while old he may be, this lion is far from death. And hidden in the past is a mystery that has waited until this time to be revealed. You cross Edmund Talbot at your peril, for a smith is not all he once was. . . .

Into the Looking Glass

Into the Looking Glass
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WORST TWO OUT OF THREE

When a 60 kiloton nuclear explosion destroys the University of Central Florida, terrorism is the first suspect. But terrorists don’t generally leave doorways to another world in their wake. Or, rather, a generator of doorways to multiple other worlds.

With time of the essence, the Secretary of Defense scrounges up the nearest physicist with a high level security clearance. With doctorates in everything from nuclear physics to electrical engineering, William Weaver, PhD, is the egghead’s egghead. On the other hand, with skills in everything from mountain biking to screaming electric guitar, he’s also fast enough and tough enough to survive when the alien gates start disgorging ”demons.”

As a snap decision, he appears to be the perfect choice, smart, tough and capable. Now if he could only patch things up with his girlfriend, get his boss off his back and get his cellphone bill paid. Oh, yeah, and figure out why the heck these gates keep opening. Okay, so sometimes he’s got priority issues.

As the gates spread and evil aliens spread with them, it is up to Weaver and SEAL Command Master Chief Miller to find a way to stop the proliferation and close the hostile gates. The problem being that the only way they can see to save the earth is destroy it. Then there’s not going to be any more girlfriends or cellphones or bosses . . .

Hmmm…

Okay, two out of three of those are bad. They’re really, really bad. Bad on toast. Bad like the Pacific is watery. Every day a Monday, bad.

One and a half at the very least. Worst two out of three.

Gotta prioritize. Guess Weaver and Miller are just gonna have to save the world.