Brazen imagination. If there’s a succinct summing-up of this issue of Cirsova Magazine, it’s those two words. There are some outrageously imaginative pulp stories in this issue.  

Commenters talking about mainstream popular culture bemoan the lack of fresh original stories. Retreads of retreads, based on reboots of sequels. As others have said, “originality lies in the Independents!”   So here are Cirsova’s very original stories.

Vran the Chaos-Warped (Book 1 of 3) by D.M. Ritzlin

The first story and the first excerpt of a new novel. Vran is a swordsman, who has vowed to kill an evil wizard, Foad Misjak. In an opening, Howard-like sequence, Vran enters the mansion of the wizard, intent on killing him. He knows he has to kill the wizard before he can utter magical incantations against the big warrior.

Vran is called “the Chaos-Warped” because of a magical accident he suffered as a younger man. His body now has a magical energy which causes magic to affect him and his surroundings in unpredictable ways.

Vran finds the sorcerer, but Foad manages to utter a single incantation. However his magic does not have the desired effect of killing Vran. Instead Vran is cast into the strangest adventure he could ever imagine, on another world.

This first instalment gives us the building blocks of the story. We get to know Vran. Though he is a warrior, is also an intelligent, perceptive man. The sword is not his only stratagem. As a result of Foad’s incantation, Vran has to find a way to survive in an incredibly harsh world. So we are on a journey with our hero. And the unpredictable effects of magic on Vran give this story an edge. I am keen to find out what happens next time someone uses magic on him.   

Orphan of the Shadowy Moon (Part 2 of 4) by Michael Tierney

The second part of Michael Tierney’s epic Sword and Planet saga kicks off with Strazis, the strange golden boy, adopted son of the Worldlord, stranded on an island in the middle of an ocean. The teen has reverted to a Tarzan-like existence, hunting game with a pack of wolf-like Wavana. In so doing he discovers strange powers within himself and starts his physical development into being a man.

Memories of the fall of Kallikantari City, which he escaped, trouble his dreams. Then while hunting, he discovers a strange obsidian city, which appears to be deserted. On a second visit he is captured by a madman, has an adventure and discovers several secrets about his world and his own origins. All of this happens in a few short pages and then the adventure goes into high gear.

Back in Issandra, Eagal Ir Radin, Worldlord and Stratzis’ adopted father, is mourning his dead children, murdered by the strange Black Assassins who have been making war on his realm. He believes Strazis to be among the dead.  

Michael Tierney is a master at this kind of story. Much happens quickly and the colourful, breathless action pulls the reader along. The story is entirely concerned with engaging with the characters and it is through their actions we learn about Strazis’ strange world. There are no exposition dumps, the story develops organically and quickly. Each new development of Strazis’ adventure reveals deadly dangers, strange secrets of dead civilisations, deeds of noble heroism. Strazis learns along with the reader, which makes him an admirable engaging protagonist. Michael Tierney is a master of tone and intent and the sense of foreboding that lies over this whole episode makes me want to read the next. Thrilling and heroic.

Death and Renewal by Jim Breyfogle

This Mongoose and Meerkat story starts off with a solitary Mangos irritated with their current assignment. They are working for the Bursa of Alomar again and The Hand is once again their controller. I have to say that The Hand is a secondary character who is beginning to grow on me, he really is a cynical manipulative shit. Our duo have a tricky assignment, they must silence a bodyguard/gladiator who the Bursa lost to the Prince of Alomar while playing cards. Their problem is that they are forbidden to kill him.

So cue some cunning trickery from Kat and some sword work from Mangos. There’s a little bit of fun at a fashion show when they separately execute a pincer movement that is somehow supposed to lead them to their goal. This tale is a cleverly told fable, with more than a nod to Aesop. I couldn’t work out the ending beforehand but when I got to the conclusion it was tricky and satisfying. And still trying to avoid spoilers here, in this story we see new and different sides to our duo.

What Price the Stars by Jeff Stoner

Jorgen Pangloss, a strange man with a secret history, is offering the secret of faster than light travel for sale. An eclectic group of prospective buyers assemble. Two Russians, one man, one woman, who will bid on behalf of their respective corporations, and a Chinese oligarch, ruler of a global corporation. The other two are a billionaire exo-habitat developer and one of Earth’s foremost scientists.

To prove his faster than light engine, Pangloss takes them on a trip across the galaxy to New Earth, a colony founded by slow-sleep spacecraft. Pangloss shows them a moon orbiting New Earth where the FTL engines are built.

Pangloss lands them at a foundry, a vast alien complex where incomprehensible machines harness strange energies. The complex is run by an exiled Earth religious sect. Fantastic buildings, strange revelations, yet the mystery grows deeper. Pangloss didn’t create the engines, he only found the alien complex long ago. And he may now be more than human. Pangloss drops his ultimate challenge. Only one of the party may have the engine, it’s a competition, which may be won by any means. The humans now bring their own lusts and ambitions to this strange adventure.

This is pulp on a grand scale. It respects no boundaries, crossing from SF to strange new myths with diabolical pacts and the theft of souls mixed into a journey which will irrevocably change its protagonists. Ambitious in every way, “What Price the Stars” is a shocker of a story with some very unsettling ideas and strange themes. I haven’t read anything this inventive or original in a long while. A wildly extravagant story that never loses sight of the spirit of pulp adventures. I am now going to read some more Jeff Stoner, this stuff is good.     

Dead Planet Drifter by J.D. Cowan

Ronan Renfield is a Galactic Enforcer tasked with destroying a death-worshiping cannibal cult. An exploding space-shuttle precipitates him into a field on the planet of his birth. Some effect of the explosion is causing him to hear the voice of a girl he may (or may not) have known in childhood.

Struggling clear of the wreck, Renfield is captured by two cultists. They tie him and throw him in a horse-drawn cart. It’s now one powerful enforcer against an unknown number of cannibal cultists.

We are firmly in adventure territory here, as Ronan fights for his life against the death cult. A strange tension grows in the story, as the mysterious female voice continues to talk inside his head. He realises that she is aiding him, leading him to his target. So the story becomes partly Sword, Blaster and Planet and partly a noir-ish tale of one man’s intrepid bid to destroy evil. Old-school adventure pulp, but like Jeff Stoner’s “Stars” it also plays fast and loose with thematic boundaries. SF, demonic evil, and the aforementioned noir-ish atmosphere are all combined into a single adventure. It’s an entertaining story with a fast-moving, violent, muscular narrative.    

People of the Stone God by Howard Thompson

Stone God is an alt-history story, written as a memoir by one Captain Anchor Brown. I am going to take a few reviewer’s liberties in order to explain the story. I am sure that if I get any of this wrong, there will be readers out there who will correct me. Notionally this is a story set in the real-politik cold war between two empires, the Artorian and the Valgurnian.

As I understood it, the empires are thinly disguised alternative versions of the British and Austro-Hungarian empires. The tone and descriptive context is late Victorian, with a light dusting of steampunk. Captain Brown is one of those intrepid adventurers that Britain used to produce in great number. An upright fellow with an interesting past.

Brown’s government commands him to undertake a secret mission, with potential military and political consequences. He is tasked with returning a strange stone half-sphere to the people of Hargur, a vassal state that the Valgurnians rule with harsh cruelty. The Hargurs believe that the stone will enable them to bring their Stone Gods to life and use them against their oppressors. Brown is sceptical of this claim but accepts the mission.

Brown gets to the Hargurs but then things get very hairy indeed. Valgurnians turn up and everything gets thrown in the pot. Cataclysms abound.

I loved this story. Mr. Thompson is a superb writer. His ability to draw an original engaging character in Captain Brown is wonderful. Brown’s journey has the air of a Victorian travelogue while remaining palatable to modern readers. The descriptive passages are a pleasure to read and we get a real sense of a journey through an alt-Europe, in a succinct and informative style. This story invokes the ghost of Rider Haggard and some of the romantic courage of The Prisoner of Zenda. Exciting and colourful, a really fun read.

The Last Khazar by The Rev. Joe Kelly

Aaron Frydman is a Polish Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto, under Nazi occupation. He is a mystery to his family and to himself. Though he is from a cultured wealthy family, he is compulsively drawn to violence, usually in the form of illegal bloody bare-knuckle boxing matches. He has strange dreams of being a Khazar warlord in the late medieval period. A Nazi officer harasses his father in front of Aaron.

That night Aaron dreams that the Nazi appears as his Khazar-self’s opponent, a Saxon mercenary leader who vows to crush Aaron’s Khazar people. The next day Aaron meets the Nazi, who says he had the same dream and recognised Aaron in it. He tells Aaron that in their next dream their two tribes will meet and he will kill Aaron and slaughter his tribe.

This is an intriguing story, it starts with a mystery and develops some Clark Ashton Smith occultism, including the trans-substantiation of souls through time. There is enough historical fact to give some bite to the story and provide a structure for the clash that must come. Another original story in a collection of originals.

Melkart and the Crocodile God by Mark Mellon

The setup of this story is glorious. Melkart, a Greek merchant and adventurer, takes a caravan of trade-goods into the exotic country of Kush. The journey from Pharaonic Egypt south into little-known Kush is described in colourful detail. The journey itself has its adventures but finally Melkart and his guide reach Meroe, the capital city of Kush.

An earthquake brings up a sarcophagus from the depths of the river. From it emerges a giant crocodile demon. With the use of black magic, it enslaves everyone in the city, including Melkart.

This story has a beguiling narrative tone that caught my interest from the very start. Melkart is a trickster-adventurer who may be too cocky for his own good. But his adventure is a great deal of fun for the reader.

My Name is John Carter (Part 12) by James Hutchings

The epic poem of the life of John Carter of Mars continues. In the final stanzas of this episode, John Carter cannot resist the lure of battle. Mounted on a thoat he attacks a score of armoured guardsman. Though he kills many he is struck down. Badly wounded, he falls unconscious. Only the next issue of Cirsova Magazine will tell us what happens.

Cirsova Magazine always publishes great stories. This issue really sets the standard for grand-scale pulp stories. For any reader looking for an introduction to Cirsova I would recommend this issue. Happy reading.