THE REMBRANDT STRATEGEM

 

THE REMBRANDT STRATAGEM

From the Case Files of Bishop Kincaid

Kellie Austin

Atomic Press

278 ps

 

When readers ask us our definition of “pulp,” we give this answer. Any fast paced, action adventure story, regardless of genres, having exotic locales, a larger than life hero and a truly heartless dastardly villain. That pretty sums it all up. Which is why we are over the top impressed with writer Kellie Austin’s first pulp novel; it has every single one of these elements.   

Whereas they are all mixed together in a crazy goulash that definitely requires an index to know who’s who as the book opens. Of course Bishop Kincaid is our protagonist with a past, though we aren’t exactly quite sure what he is? A vampire? A god? An elemental force? Whatever the answer, one weird trait with him is the fact that different people “see” him as different personas. Within the first early chapters, it is quite clear we are not in our world but a totally different earth known as “the green.” Here all manner of beasts and myths exist. Include a mysterious entity from Kincaid’s past seeking to destroy him via a giant worm, torturing his former allies and in the end transforming his true love, Dani, into a blood sucker.  There are also airships galore, if all that wasn’t enough and a rocket car called the Blue Racer driven by an intelligent Neanderthal.  

Honestly, if after all that, you aren’t the least bit curious, there’s nothing more we can say. “The Rembrandt Stratagem” is pulp fiction unchained. It’s a no-holds-barred romp guarentteed to delight most fans and mostly annoy the others. How’s that for an original pitch? Bravo, Kellie Austin, you have us cheering.

 

 

IRON STAR

 

IRON STAR

By Loren D. Estleman

Forge Books

238 pgs

 

Rising western film star, Buck Jones, has convinced Boston financier Joseph Kennedy to bankroll a movie he wishes to produce and star in. The story Jones wants to tell is the last outlaw manhunt led by the legendary U.S. Marshal Irons St. John and his posse after the notorious Buckner Gang. To get the events accurate, he seeks out one of the last surviving members of that posse, retired Pinkerton agent, Emmet Rawlings; a solitary old man with only his memories to sustain him.  

That’s the basic plot of Loren D. Estleman’s latest western novel and the story goes back and forth from the early 20^th Century advent of wondrous technology ala cars and movies to the last days of the so-called wild west. As always, Estleman waste no time in stripping away the veneer of myth and sinks his teeth into the fat and gristle of what the post-Civil War west really was; a hellish stage on which thousands of Americans moved, fought, lived and died. 

What we truly marvel at in this book is the writer’s keen sense of language. It is brutally authentic and at the same time gut-punching poetry. With each phrase, we’re catapulted back in a verbal time machine giving us a small glimpse into that world buried beneath decades of myth spinning. “Iron Star” is a delight and another gift from a master storyteller. Don’t let it slip by you.

UNION

 

UNION

By Van Allen Plexico

White Rocket Books

264 pgs

 

The earth has been invaded by a confederation of alien warmongers. They maintain control of the remnants of humanity via an army of robots called Kratons. Then one day a human slave worker named Jack Gael discovers a silver belt buried deep in the ground. Upon wrapping it around his waist, he is instantly encased in an impenetrable force field. A field he can mentally command to do his bidding. That includes destroying Kratons and anything else thrown at him. Within days, Gael becomes a hero in the alien sponsored arena combats and his called the Gladiator. Could he possibly be the hero mankind has waited to for to lead a revolt to ultimately freedom?

With “Union” writer Van Allen Plexico has whipped a truly fast paced, action-adventure science fiction tale that owes it roots to the comics of the sixties, seventies and eighties. Here are echoes of Marvel’s Iron Man and Valiant Comic’s X-O Man of War; never mind Dell’s Magnus Robot Fighter. All of which the author unashamedly declares his personal inspiration for this grandiose tale. Regardless, Plexico’s inspiration takes on its own life, its own approach to the genre of superbeings versus aliens. This from his keen sense of characterization from Gael to Jack Smith, the manipulative immortal travels through itself multiple times in order to orchestrate Gael’s final cataclysmic confrontation between humans and their alien overlords. Plexico is a master at bringing his characters, no matter how fantastic, to life and we readers quickly found ourselves rooting them on.

Having won lots of writing awards in the past, this reviewer confidently predicts “Union” may be the latest to deliver him another.