Sunday Castle Festival (2025 - 18): fantasy, science fiction and horror
The “Steelhearts Heroic Fantasy Anthology”, by
and , continues on Kirkstarter, so you can still get one of the offers or just contribute to the project…About The Legend of Sinardia, Book 1, I have to say that the last proofreading of the Spanish version will be done this next week… so… it’s really the final countdown.
If you don’t get the entire mail, click here to read it. Believe me, this mail is really long…
A) Fiction:
I) Fantasy:
(my own photo: Hercules fighting the Hydra, Author unknown, Louvre Museum).
, the Greatest Brothers in Substack, have continued their serial about Herakles, the Greek Hero, now on Ch 2: ““The Hydra is the foulest of beasts, one that we of Lérnē have been unable to push back and to keep from destroying our flocks.” The King informed Herakles in a dispirited voice, staring into the contents of his goblet with a great deal of sorrow in his eyes. “Many are the children of my people and those that live near to our fair city who have disappeared because of the Hydra.” has continued his great mythological epic, The Haunting of Guaritori Dolco, now on ch 37, Dilemma: “To achieve the right effect, that someone could only be a relative of Tartarus. And the only one the elder powers had on hand, not counting the body of an unreliable Telchine—was my son, my Iskios. I had only known him a short time, but I realized now that the length of time didn’t matter. Nor did the fact that we couldn’t fully understand each other. He was still my son—and the idea of him spending all eternity in captivity every bit as harsh as that of the prisoners he guarded was horrific. I could not allow it.” Well, a really difficult situation… 😱
We also can read ch 25 of
’s Death Whispers, the adventures of Dr. Pedro Sangre, “Bloody Passages, Bitter Remedies”: “Thin and wiry, he had a healthy tan from his life under the Caribbean sun. Light brown hair was drenched with rain and possibly sweat. His clothes were ragged and torn, littered with signs he had gotten too close to something with claws. I suspected it Lucas Argall, given the state of the boy’s arm. It had started to petrify into wood outward from a shallow claw mark just above his elbow”. Oooopsss… 😱
This week
has produced ch 17 of his epic story The Jarl’s Son, The Twin Parts, first part, explaining a rare type of Magic, “lucid dreaming”: “According to Renald, Marten displayed an ability he called ‘lucid dreaming,’ a rare magic of the mind that allowed him some control over his dreams. Most people who had this skill developed it over years, possibly even decades of difficult practice. Many sorcerers, arcanists, hypnotists, and mystics sought to gain some amount of leverage over their dreams, believing they may hold the keys to long hidden secrets or potent lost magics”. Interesting type of Magic indeed.
Things are getting really interesting in
‘s fantasy romance novella, One Hundred Refusals, now on ch 18, “A servant, a snake, a bird and a maid”: “A lovely young maid walked out the chamber, with a little black snake hiding in the pocket of her apron. She went to the Queen’s chamber, where the miserable Pearl stood in front of the mirror sobbing. She knew - king Olor waited by the chamber for the newlyweds, to make sure nobody escapes the wedding night. The guards didn’t stop the maid entering quietly; obviously the Queen had summoned her for some reason. Gema saw her twin sister crying desperately, while Cinnia tried to console her”.
The Battle against Soraina, the Dark Empress, approaches, in
’s serial, The Lives of Velnin. In ch 27, Surrounded, the Rebels are in a strait, waiting for (what seems…) the final Battle against Soraina… “one more ship joined us: a deserter from Soraina's fleet. Taking advantage of the darkness and his position in the front row of the blockade, Panaetius, the captain, had found the perfect moment to switch sides. Entering the meeting, he explained the situation: the small island in the middle of the entrance to the strait had been filled with troops from the Dark Empire, and on either side of it, the fleet of the Dark Empire had gathered, blocking our escape. Meanwhile, a detachment of ships had sailed around the western side of Soppressatas island, taking up position to block escape to the rear. Should we sail for it, he promised, the Soraina's fleet planned to smash us against them like a hammer hitting an anvil”.
This week we can also enjoy
‘s Obsidian and Flame new chapter, the 2nd of this new serial from her universe of the Morderigiau Chronicles, “Stygian”, where a lot of questions arise: “The weeklong visit wearied her more than she expected, for everyone wanted to know the royal family’s secrets. Were the rumours true? Was Prince Cynwal as easy-going as he appeared in his public appearances? Did her sister really love the prince? Did he love her? And what of Prince Panawr, who skulked in the background? He’d never even attended a solstice celebration. What was wrong with him? Why was he so cold?”
As you know, I am also reading Thrain, the fantasy serial by
. I’m now on part 5 when Thrain shows what kind of man he is: “Thrain began to cross the bridge. Upon the wall the trebuchets rattled and ratcheted as they launched great boulders down towards the bridge. Compared to the great rocks hurtling down, he was quite small. He was not worried. The erased Runecasters could have dealt with this barrage given some effort; he would barely notice”. has exceeded herself with her new story, Binding in Bergamot: “Over the years, Prudence learned to work with the teapot's magic rather than question it. Together, they brewed concoctions that eased childbirth, calmed troubled minds, and occasionally (though Prudence would never admit this to the vicar) helped young couples fall properly in love when their parents had arranged less suitable matches.”
We are receiving here, with a round of applause,
’s serial, Law and Order (no, not the TV series…, this is medieval fantasy for what I have understood). The first four chapters are under a paywall, so I have begun reading in the ch 5, Whispers beneath the canopy: “Light steps darted overhead. Ananke looked up. Three dryads peered down at them from the branches; two were cat-kin, tails twitching lazily. Their ears flicked toward the strangers. The third stepped from behind a trunk: a fox-kin, cloaked in deep red fur”.
I have also began reading The Last of Etela, by
, that begins in the end of the story… “The last tattered remnants of the Hodrir were on the run. Their great hero Kareva was dead—as were his sons, who had quickly raised the largest army Ikune had seen in a generation to go north and avenge their father’s murder. Six nights ago, they had crashed headlong into an even larger force, a massive, bristling, leaderless mob of northerners who threw themselves into the fray with a desperate fearlessness that the disciplined, organized Ikunir soldiers could not overcome. The Pohyor died in horribly, impossibly large numbers. And they took the entire army of Ikune with them”.
So, my contribution for this week is The water woman. No, they are not mermaids, but women that lived in the water of Rivers and Lakes, that traditionally appeared in several Spanish medieval (and even older) legends. They can live outside the water as humans but their secret cannot be revealed to the outside world…
B) Science fiction and horror:
This week
has humoured us with a horror short story, The End: “Some stupid scientist decided to muck about with antimatter and the world began to unravel like some badly knitted jumper”. So, yes, it’s actually The End…
No, ermm, thank God, no, not yet, at least… so we can read
‘s The Black Hole: “Richard’s son, a chubby blond kid, stopped playing and watched them. The men were shouting, “Allison? Allison?” like ghosts desperate for a response. Their voices spooked the chickens and the stray black cat that used to eat scraps Allison left out. But the kid? He wasn’t scared. Not yet.Then, silence fell. It was a dark, hostile calm. The kid looked around, expecting his father and the two men to reappear. It had grown darker… a murky darkness like that which gathers on one side of the sky before a storm, pressing down on the ground. The sun appeared smaller and dimmer, allowing the child to look at it. He sniffed the air. Smoke. Rain. Somewhere far off, he thought he heard a monster crying”.
‘s next chapter (5) of his Lost Numbers serial. I was going to comment on the image, but the chapter is so epic that would seem stupid: “Many times he lost consciousness, yet as soon as his trained mind awoke, he braved on. Eventually, the boy crawled out of the gory mess of sawed off armored Jaern limbs and, leaving a bloody trail behind him, limped inside the transport’s cockpit. His mental training commanded the body to look for a first aid station or a pilot’s survival pack. Indeed, there were two boxes underneath the pilot seats and in one, he found a regenerative medication Once more he fainted, his arm twisted and broken bones causing internal bleeding, he could risk using a Jaern-made medspray or suffer the pain”.
The Moon Sea Marauders ch 8 by
is now published… and what a chapter! “With the French crew defeated, we started moving amongst the wounded to render what aid we could, and it was at this point that the situation became markedly more strange than it had been before - a state which I had not assumed possibly prior to that! A first tally of the bodies revealed that we had faced only a double handful of Frenchmen, and while they had put up a fearsome noise in their assault, it was clearly not the entire crew of the Daphne. There were only two survivors, of which only one could speak, and even as I tried to staunch his wounds, Captain Devworth started questioning him in French about the rest of their crew, and, more importantly, the whereabouts of Lady Jessica”. ‘s sci-fi novelette, The Lightbreakers of Orpheus has also been updated with ch 18: “She heard the heavy steps, gunshots. She barricaded in her cabin but they broke in like it was nothing. Black mechanical suits, hands of steel grabbing her. No chance to escape. The Lightbreakers carried her through the storm, her eyes and mouth full of sand, shoved her into a casket, much like the cryo containers the Gravediggers used for transporting the corpses. But this one was filled with some kind of a gas, which put Anouk to sleep within seconds.” Uuuyyyy… ‘s story, Sugar and Spice and all things nice, is taking a quite sinister turn in ch 3: “Capreola ran for the pharmacy cart and brought a tray of folded papers, and each paper had a name, all twenty. Each girl took her medicine, two pills, or three, or five, sipped her juice, and swallowed. The medicine helped make them perfect, and they smiled in their perfection.”.
And that same kind of turn is taking Thaddeus Thomas’ ch 4 os his serial Warp and Woof: “Popov wore a false smile that unsettled more than it comforted. “We’re timing her words to her brainwaves, but you’re here because this is your chance to talk. Whether or not she reacts in any recognizable way, there is a good possibility she will hear you.”
Other link rounds you should check:
: The Most Savage of Days.: Running like the White Rabbit.: The Wandering Thoughts of Turtles.As always, you should also check the notes of Asteria Geisterblum, who recommends every Sunday interesting readings for all of us.
Today’s music is Dust in the Wind… medieval of course:
Have a great week and we will read each other again next Sunday!
Buy me a coffee. ☕️
Thanks for the mention!
Thank you like always for the mention!