2023: The Year of Conan

Robert E. Howard’s Conan has been around since 1932. One hundred years later, the barbarian is even more relevant than he was during Howard’s lifetime. He’s enjoyed a tremendous revival in comics and books in 2023 and will continue to do so in 2024. I thought I’d take a moment to look back on all things Conan that have graced bookshelves in the past year.

On the tail end of 2022, Titan Books published the first novel in a new series of Conan books, Blood of the Serpent, written by S.M. Stirling. That story takes place shortly before the events of Robert E. Howard’s beloved Red Nails novella. It was a pretty good way to get the ball rolling and made me eager to see what the publisher had in store for future books. You can read the Audiobook Showcase I did on it over here.

Fast forward ten months or so to late October and we saw the re-release of the classic 1982 novelization of the Conan The Barbarian film which put Arnold Schwarzenegger on the map back in the day. The novel was penned by legendary pulp writers L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, two of the best Conan scribes of that era. You can find my Audiobook Showcase on it right here. Both of those Conan novels were published in print, eBook, and as audiobooks on Audible.

Perhaps what was the most exciting Conan-related event of 2023 was the new monthly comic book series from Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures. Kicking off on Free Comic Book Day back in May, this phenomenal Conan series is done in the spirit of the classic Marvel comic books from the ‘70s and ‘80s while injecting new blood into our favourite barbarian. Writer Jim Zub and artist Robert De La Torre delivered a spectacular first story arc and have whetted our appetites to see what they’re concocting for 2024. You can check out what the fuss is about over at Titan Comics’ Website.

For fans of the medium that got Conan his start, the short story format, we got you covered as well. Started this past September and ongoing until September 2024, The Heroic Legends Series features today’s best authors taking a crack at writing stories set in Robert E. Howard’s universe including Conan, Solomon Kane, Belit, Bran Mak Morn, and El Borak. Every month, a new short story is on sale exclusively on Kindle at a bargain price. So far, the four stories that saw the light of day in 2023 were all amazing. Visit Amazon to start reading now!

As you can see, Conan experienced a stellar rebirth in 2023 and it’s only the beginning! I’ll have more news on upcoming Conan projects for 2024 in my forthcoming Sword & Sorcery Roundup article around the third week of January, so be on the lookout for that. Until then, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year and a fantastic 2024 in great health and filled with Conan adventures of all kinds! 

Harbinger of D.O.O.M.’s Top 10 Albums of 2023

Another year is almost over. Once again, it’s been a terrific year for music and the race to make it to the Top Ten Albums of the Year List was closer than ever. As usual, it strictly contains LPs of albums released in 2023 in the genres and subgenres of Metal and Rock. I have not included any Synthwave, Pop, Classical, or Jazz releases on this list. So, without further ado, here are my ten favourite albums of 2023 with a link to my review for each one:

10. Grand Design - Rawk

9. Hail The Void – Memento Mori

8. Mos Eisley Spaceport - Further

7. Spectre – Lonesome Gambler (9-Track Edition)

6. Angelus Apatrida - Aftermath

5. Extreme - Six

4. Overkill - Scorched

3. H.e.a.t - Extra Force

2. Savage – Glory Riders

1. Metallica – 72 Seasons

And that’s all she wrote, folks! I hope my list will make you discover an album that you’d overlooked or not given a spin yet. I know a lot of you will roll your eyes at my choice of Metallica for the top spot, but it was Metallica’s year from top to bottom for me. I got back into the band in a major way after not giving a damn about them for twenty years. Their album 72 Seasons was the one I enjoyed the most since the Black Album all the way back in 1991. I had a blast attending the album launch in a packed theatre. The live broadcasts later in the summer of two shows from Texas once more in a packed theater for two nights are memories that I will cherish for a very long time. And to be able to own the two shows that they performed in my hometown of Montreal as MP3 albums—shows that I skipped going to due to them being at the Olympic Stadium where the acoustics are terrible—as part of their live recordings is the perfect way to immortalize the phenomenal No Repeat M72 Tour. I’ll see you again for one final blog post before the New Year. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! 

Audiobook Showcase: Aliens - Bishop

The Alien franchise has been one I’ve loved ever since I was a teenager. Ridley Scott’s original 1979 film remains my favourite and is firmly planted in my personal top ten best sci-fi films of all-time. In an alternate universe where David Fincher would’ve had his way with Alien³ (1992), it would most likely be my second fave, followed by James Cameron’s Aliens (1986). The third film left a big impression on me as it was the first Alien movie I experienced in theatres during its opening weekend. The Assembly Cut improves the film, adding an extra 30 minutes, but it’s still not the movie Fincher had envisioned. I’m not a big fan of military sci-fi, so in spite of it being a fun and wild ride, Aliens is the chapter of the saga I’ve seen the least in the original film trilogy. I didn’t care for Alien: Resurrection (1997) or Alien: Covenant (2017), but I enjoyed Prometheus (2012) quite a bit.

When it comes to Alien comics and books, I’ve read plenty of them, going back to the Dark Horse comics and Bantam books of the ‘90s and the more recent wave of Alien novels of the last decade or so. Of those recent books, the ones I’ve enjoyed the most are Alien: Out of the Shadows (Tim Lebbon), Alien: Sea of Sorrows (James A. Moore), Alien: River of Pain (Christopher Golden), Alien: The Cold Forge (Alex White), and Aliens: Infiltrator (Weston Ochse). I have to say that in the course of the past two years, though, I’ve lost faith in the book franchise after a series of disappointing novels (to me anyway) like Alien: Into Charybdis, Alien: Colony War, Alien: Inferno's Fall, and Aliens: Vasquez. Just as I was about to give up on the Aliens prose books, Aliens: Bishop was announced for early December from a sci-fi writer by the name of T. R. Napper who’d garnered a lot of praise for his debut novel and short story collection. That got my hopes up and I was really excited to listen/read what this new book had to offer. The audiobook is read by various narrators and has a runtime of ten hours and fifty-five minutes. Here is the official synopsis:

“A direct sequel to Aliens and Alien 3—Weyland-Yutani, the Colonial Marines, and Bishop’s creator all pursue the android for the deadly Xenomorph data contained in his brain. Written by T. R. Napper, author of the acclaimed 36 Streets, whose explosive work explores the artificial intelligence and what it is to be human.

Massively damaged in Aliens and Alien 3, the synthetic Bishop asked to be shut down forever. His creator, Michael Bishop, has other plans. He seeks the Xenomorph knowledge stored in the android’s mind and brings Bishop back to life—but for what reason? No longer an employee of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Michael tells his creation that he seeks to advance medical research for the benefit of humanity. Yet where does he get the resources needed to advance his work. With whom do his new allegiances lie?

Bishop is pursued by Colonial Marines Captain Marcel Apone, commander of the Il Conde and younger brother of Master Sergeant Alexander Apone, one of the casualties of the doomed mission to LV-426. Also on his trail are the “Dog Catchers,” commandos employed by Weyland-Yutani.

Who else might benefit from Bishop’s intimate knowledge of the deadliest creatures in the galaxy?”

Napper is a damn fine writer and his knowledge and passion for the franchise comes through clearly in his writing. My biggest gripe is that we didn’t get enough of Bishop. He’s supposed to be the central character of the book, isn’t he? What we got instead were the usual protagonists, the Colonial Marines, which I think has been overdone in Aliens books as of late. It also could’ve used more “black demons” as well—it is after all an Aliens novel! The first half of the book dragged a bit in places, but once it got going, it was captivating enough to keep me listening until the end. It was fun to see Michael Bishop, the creator, once more as we’d gotten a peek of him at the end of the third film and I always thought it would make for a great story to get inside his head for a bit. Here we do get to see how the man behind the machines thinks and what his objectives are in the grand scheme of things. Is he good or evil? How does Bishop, the synthetic, interact with his maker? It was interesting to witness their relationship on the page.

One of the pluses of getting the audiobook version as opposed to the print/eBook is the fact that it’s narrated by numerous narrators including Alex Boyles, Eunice Wong, Shiromi Arserio, Nancy Wu, Pun Bandhu, and Tim Campbell. Since the story unfolds mostly from different character viewpoints each getting turns at their own chapters, it keeps the narrative flowing at a good pace. For the most part, the narrators do a stellar job of portraying the characters.

In the end, Aliens: Bishop was a mixed bag for me. Although, I think Alien fans who enjoy Colonial Marines tales will most likely get a big kick out of this book. Being a fiction writer myself, I would’ve gone a completely different direction had I been tasked with writing a Bishop novel. For starters, there wouldn’t have been a single Marine to be seen, but that’s neither here nor there. The audiobook elevates the experience, in my opinion, and makes Aliens: Bishop a more compelling read/listen. If you’re an Aliens fan or simply a sci-fi fan, I think you’ll find something to like in T. R. Napper’s take on the Alien franchise.  

Rating: Three stars out of five

Get your copy on Audible 

Short Story Time: The Errand

Greetings to all wherever you are! It's the first Saturday of December, so it's time for a final FREE short story for 2023! This one is titled “The Errand” and it’s a tale about a man who goes through the woods of Bitternest to run an errand and will see the course of his life altered forever. It was first published in 2008 in the Darkened Horizons Vol. 4 anthology and later reprinted in my first collection, The Bitternest Chronicles, in 2010. You can download it as a PDF right here.

In case you missed them, you can download the previous entries in Short Story Time below. Enjoy and drop me a line to let me know what you think of those tales!

“Hershell’s Motel” is a strange tale about an unusual motel where, you guessed it, bizarre things happen.

“The Rattling Man” is a coming of age Halloween tale. Do you believe in the bogeyman? Do you believe in the Rattling Man? Find out who or what he is!

“Crimson Nightmares” is my take on the “Halloween” movie series. Written and initially published digitally back in 2011, this 106-page novella picks up 33 years after the events of the second "Halloween" film from 1981, the night when Michael Myers terrorized Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) and the residents of Haddonfield, Illinois. It follows little Lindsey Wallace, the little girl Laurie Strode babysat in the first “Halloween” (1978) film, who is all grown-up now and bears the scars of that terrible night to this day. She has moved to my fictitious town of Bitternest, Louisiana to get away from her past and has been leading a quiet life, that is until something inside Michael Myers snaps and he comes looking for her on Halloween. Add to that a killer clown with an agenda of his own and it’s a Halloween you won’t soon forget. It’ll be a showdown for the ages when Michael Myers comes to the eerie city of Bitternest.

“The Bypassed Mind”, a romantic suspense/fantasy story with some hypnosis thrown in for good measure that was directly inspired by the late, great Richard Matheson's novel Bid Time Return also adapted as the film "Somewhere in Time".

“Breaking and Entering”, the story of a man who enters people’s homes just for kicks, never stealing anything, just to see what goes on behind close doors. One day he’ll stumble upon something that will change his life forever…

“Scapegoat”, a tale about the Curse of the Cubs, the love of baseball, some time travel, and a whole lot of nostalgia. Even if you're not into baseball, this fantasy tale filled with mystery is sure to entertain you.

Last but not least, fans of Conan and Dungeons & Dragons can also download a PDF of the first two tales of the ongoing adventures of my Sword & Sorcery character AMOK right here.

December Brings the Final Bandcamp Friday of 2023!

It’s the final Bandcamp Friday of the year! For one last time in 2023, Bandcamp waives its revenue share and all the money goes directly to the artists and labels for a full 24 hours. It’s been another terrific year for independent and underground music. For the occasion, here are my Top Five picks of the month to help you find some great songs and albums for the snowy month of December.

First, something old getting a new release, the partial soundtrack to the 1984 horror flick Rocktober Blood, featuring the music of Sorcery. RidingEasy Records is the label behind it and it’s a 4-song EP that’s a total blast to listen to if you’re into classic rock, hard rock or heavy metal. You can pick it up right here.

Second, an album that came out completely unexpected, released on Thanksgiving Day: Mos Eisley Spaceport’s follow-up to their 2020 debut EP, a full-length album titled Further. This one is ten shades of awesome and a definite contender for those Top Albums of the Year lists. You can read my thoughts on this psychedelic, bluesy, proggy, desert rock masterpiece over here and you can pick up the “Name your price” LP right here.

Third, the mighty Ripple Music has pulled out all the stops for their phenomenal CCR Tribute album titled Burn on the Bayou. The star-studded double LP is set to be released next Friday, December 8^th and features Bone Church, Horseburner, La Chinga, Thunder Horse, War Cloud, and Great Electric Quest to name a few of the bands included. You can read what I think of it here and pre-order it here.

Fourth, also on December 8^th, fuzzy psychedelic Canuck trio AAWKS will release their follow-up to last year’s Heavy on the Cosmic, a 4-track EP titled Luna. It’s another trippy set of tunes that’s sure to please fans and newcomers alike. Read my thoughts on it here and pre-order it here.

Fifth and final, indie metal boutique label Dying Victims Productions will release Krautrock/prog rock quintet (formerly known as Vvlva) now named Ritvs’ newest LP, entirely sung in German, titled Der Tag naht. The album comes out on December 15^th and is a great throwback to classic ’70 prog rock. You can pre-order it here.

And that’s all she wrote! Dig into your wallet and show those hard-working bands and labels some love. Where would we be without music? As we bid goodbye to 2023 and are getting ready to greet 2024, spread some generosity around and get some cool tunes in the process. Tune back in throughout the month for some cool articles including my Top Ten Albums of the Year list.