The Flash Fire Mini-Reviews series continues this week with some new comic reviews from Decapitated Dan! Dan takes a look at a selection of horror titles from Antarctic Press.

“It’s Tom & Jerry meets 28 Days Later as the Littlest Zombie and the Littlest Vampire fight tooth and nail, hand-to-detachable-hand for scant sustenance! Their quarry, the Littlest Survivor, must pull out every trick in the Apocalypse Survivor’s Handbook to keep his two supernatural stalkers at each other’s throats and off his!”

There aren’t many tales where the undead are the good guys; say what you want about Twilight or True Blood, but those aren’t in the same league as an undead schoolteacher seeking vengeance for the dead family of his pupil.
Thus we have The Grave Doug Freshley, about a tutor – Doug Freshley – in the Wild West who witnesses the death of his friend and his friend’s wife, and manages to save their son – his student – from the family farmhouse as it goes up in flames. The crime has been perpetrated by the Delancey family – a band of thugs, each one worse than the last.

The Delanceys are trying to expand their stake the easy way – by stealing from the locals and killing them so there’s no one to dispute the claim.

One of the cool things about “new” media is a company’s ability to bridge the gap between paper and pencils with technology. Neverwinter Nights on Facebook is a social game you can play.

The first thing you do is roll stats. There’s no character class, but this min/maxer (That’s right.. Me…) rolled a few times until I got… Well… Some decent stats. The game didn’t work on Chrome so off to Firefox I go… That’s where I found out that punctuation doesn’t work in the character name field. I have an elf name I often use (Lazy, I know, I know…) but the apostrophe didn’t take.

“That house is not fit to live in. No one’s been able to live in it. It doesn’t want people.”

As Flames Rising is looking for ghost related posts for this year’s Halloween season, I found this to be an opportune time to dive into some ghost flicks. And while I’m the kind of mook who’s all about “saving the best for last”, I’m going completely opposite with this one. “The Changeling” was chosen as my first ghost story flick to review, and honestly, it’s the movie that I hold all ghost movies in terms of masterpiece quality.

The story centers around John, whose wife and daughter die in a tragic accident before his very eyes.

I’m a huge fan of The Wizard of Oz. I’m old enough to remember CBS playing it annually; therefore, I watched it annually. I’m eager to see new tales set in Oz (though I’m generally let down), so the chance to review this book promised a fresh look. The blurb on the back of this book promises an insane Alice (in Wonderland) and Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) being tracked by something fantastically evil while they search for a tornado . . . they can use to escape Earth. It was exactly the kind of American Gods read I was looking for, so the question becomes this: Did the book live up to my own hype for it?

I found that Schnarr’s writing is a relatively fresh style. He doesn’t often show his writing roots in his own words. Schnarr’s story contains an excellent mix of the surreal.

Back in 2009, when I was still able to keep up with the League of Reluctant Adults on a regular basis, I eagerly awaited the release of Tempest Rising, Nicole Peeler’s first novel.* Like other members of the League, Peeler is totally snarky, really smart, sexy verging on smutty, and a ton of fun to read in her online posts. So it was no great surprise when I loved Tempest Rising. The fourth book in the series, Eye of the Tempest, just came out last month, and I sifted through my TBR pile and caught up on books two through four this week. They’re fast reads, with qualities that verge on paranormal romance but plot and worldbuilding that, in my qualifications, keep them firmly in urban fantasy. Here’s the breakdown on each book, but the overarching verdict is: give them a chance! They’re funny, fast paced, and completely engaging.

Warhammer 40,000: SpaceMarine is a game that debuted for the PS3 (and other platforms). While I’m familiar with Games Workshop, I am new to to the Warhammer universe. I feel that’s important to keep in mind when you’re reading my review.

Part of the reason why I’ve never played Warhammer or read the fiction was because my impression was that I wasn’t really the target market for this setting. It has always felt very male-dominated and macho to me. Even though I felt that way, I always gave the property a healthy amount of respect. I consider the Warhammer SpaceMarine to be the original. Period.

“THE LIVING CORPSE rises from the grave in an all-new 6-issue mini-series! It’s hard enough to be The Living Corpse – the flies, the hunger for human brains, and the unending task of holding off the hordes of darkness from creeping into the world of the living… But when a Nosferatu suddenly moves into his graveyard, all hell breaks loose! And what will happen when The Living Corpse’s friend, Lilith, get’s caught in the middle? It’s a battle of the undead and only one will be left standing! (here’s a hint — the name of the book ain’t Nosferatu!)”

Well eyelids I enjoyed having you as a part of my head until I saw the first 2 two page spreads, and then they were blown off! I love the style of Ken and Buz and I think in this issue it shows so well that you won’t know who is doing what. A perfect complement to one another. The colors were awesome as always, but a special treat was how the panels were broken up. At times you get this frames placed on the pages that don’t zoom in on anything, yet the boo-tifully break up the page. Awesome stuff.

Let me first confess how much I love Savage Worlds. I’ve been a huge fan of the mechanics from my first game (the Tour of Darkness setting) where I learned how deadly tossing grenades back at my opponents could be. What I love about the system is how malleable it is. With a few tweaks, you can lay out a 1940s pulp setting or a star-flung sci-fi one. There have been numerous releases for the engine over the years, giving players and game masters a wealth of material to mine. This release isn’t “new” as much as it is dressed in its Sunday Best. I’m going to focus on the changes for the purposes of this review rather than detail the entire work.

The lavish artwork is generous throughout the book. Since the engine is designed for players to play damn near anything, the artwork is varied. There are multiple excellent action pieces and the character pieces have more hits than misses (I liked 34, 57, and 70 the best). Much of the artwork is borrowed from other Savage Worlds’ releases either as a direct or inspired work.

“World War II rages as two supernatural entities pursue collide in a conflict hinged on ideologies and the lives of men. The outcome will decide the end of the war itself! Beneath it all, the Nazi pursue a project called “LEGION,” centering on a young Romanian girl with powerful abilities.”

Have ever seen a movie where you wondered what it would look like as a comic book? The way that the art team came together to present I Am Legion did just that. This book looks amazing. The artwork is near perfect on ever single page.

Haunts have been one of the most intriguing and (from my side of the GM’s screen, anyway) entertaining additions to the panoply of challenges to throw at characters… and here they take another novel yet classical twist: the haunt that is associated with an item rather than a location.

The work opens with a pseudo-scholarly account, the sort of thing you might cast before the more intellectual kind of adventurer to send them haring off into the horrors you have prepared for them. This leads in to the promised collection of some 30 haunted objects, by way of a note on persistent haunts, which can be a bit puzzling. As haunts duplicate spell effects whatever they do has a duration which can be ‘instantaneous’ or it can last for a set period.

SHADOW FALL is the third book in the Shadowchasers series by Seressia Glass. You can read my review of SHADOW CHASE, the second book in the series, here at Flames Rising.

An exhibit at an Egyptian museum and a dark mystery is the focal point for Kira Solomon and the other characters in SHADOW FALL. The events that happen in this book dive into Kira’s murky background and the reactions of all those around her — which aren’t always positive.

“The highly acclaimed, repeat sellout series from writer KURTIS J. WIEBE and artist RILEY ROSSMO is a riveting tale of loss and horror. In the forgotten town of Green Wake, a string of grisly mutilations leads Morley Mack on the trail of a young woman named Ariel, who is the prime suspect. But when a stranger with startling connections to Ariel arrives under mysterious circumstances, Morley unravels a dark plot with a surprising link to his past.”

Have you read a comic book that visually made you want to spend your whole day examining each and every panel? Studying the line work, trying to figure out how the colors work together so well, looking for anything that could be hidden visually? I said it on each review I did for this series so far and I will not stop now, Riley Rossmo was born to draw this book. If I loved his work on Proof and Cowboy Ninja Viking than it’s official that I am head over heels for what he has done on this book because it is just pure simple perfection.

In his Foreword, lead author Mike Selinker tells a tale about a rather hot Thai curry, and thus gives an insight into how his mind works. You may or may not like your curry hot, but reading this book will give you an insight into how a whole bunch of successful game designers go about designing games that people will buy and play. If you want to turn inchoate ideas into workable – and saleable – board games, or just want to know a bit more about how your favourite games came to be, and about the underlying concepts that make good games, read on.

The book is made up of four sections, and a mastery of ALL of them is necessary to create a successful game.

NIGHT VEIL is the second book in the Indigo Court series by NYT best-selling author Yasmine Galenorn. It follows the story of Cicely Waters who found herself inexplicably drawn to Grieve, a Fae Prince, then torn from his side. This story is the second in the series and may not be as powerful if you haven’t read the first book, so please keep that in mind when you’re reading this review and you’re worried about spoilers. My review of NIGHT MYST was published during our Vampire Week, and we do have a NIGHT VEIL excerpt you can read at your leisure.

One of the reasons why I like this series, is because Galenorn presents the darker side of magic, vampires, Fae and other creatures. This is not the happy-go-lucky world where everyone winds up together.

“How would the world be changed if the mentally ill were allowed to determine reality? The Dead Cell explores the experiments of the recently graduated Monica McCoy, and her employment with the secret “Dream Research Program” at Breckenridge State Hospital. While being briefed on the basics, nothing can prepare her for the horrors she encounters upon reporting for duty. What ensues is a tale of madness, reality, and the supernatural chronicling one woman’s journey as she comes face to face with the horror of The Dead Cell.”

I have been treated to Simmons’ work before, but it was not in a horror title (lookup Wannabe‘s). I think overall that the book worked on a high level. However there were a few panels that personally I thought some angles were a little off. Did it distract me from enjoying the book though? No not at all. I think the way that really odd/psychological stuff was depicted came off great.

I have been a Sherlock Holmes fan for as long as I have been able to read. I have over a dozen books devoted to the Great Detective, and I have spent more than a year working on a series of essays examining the original stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So it’s no surprise that Flames Rising asked me if I wanted to review a (nearly) all-new anthology of “uncanny tales” featuring Sherlock Holmes. It’s even less of a surprise that I accepted.

In my collection of books, I own a couple of anthologies that take different directions for Sherlock Holmes – one of science-fiction stories, and one combining Sherlock Holmes and the Cthulhu Mythos – so in reading this, I tried to put aside my “slavish fanboy” hat and read them with an eye towards different takes on the Great Detective. In such anthologies, I personally look for two elements: fidelity to the core of the characters and elements of the Holmes canon, and novelty to present a new take or slant on familiar faces. How does this new anthology hold up?

“They thought it was over. They were wrong. Back on the hunt for the maniacal figure known as The Raven, private detective Jack Smith must face a nightmare from his past— but not all is as it seems. A new evil comes to town as he and his dumbstruck partner Alice, a young woman with secrets of her own, get tangled in a web of deception without realizing that the most dangerous truths are the ones they keep from each other. Meanwhile, The Raven paints the town red as the clock starts ticking for a final showdown in this debut issue of DROP DEAD DEAD DANGEROUS, a murder mystery manga by Chad Cabrera and Mike Banting set in the weird, weird west. Who will be left standing… and who will be left in pieces?”

Fans of the artwork found in Hellsing and Priest gather around because this book is right up your alley. This book had its moments where I didn’t quite see what was going on in the action scenes, but there might have been only 2 max. This book is drop dead GORE-Geous plain and simple.

As the Wiki sez, Steampunk “is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternative history, and speculative fiction that involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain—that incorporates elements of either science fiction or fantasy, and often features anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as Victorians may have envisioned them.”

Steampunk is wild and funky; it is innovative and adventurous; it offers us with a glimpse of a world that never was but could have been. These days there is no shortage of steampunk novels and stories; Anti-Ice by Stephen Baxter was my first real exposure to it, but one can go all the way back to 1967 and Queen Victoria’s Bomb by Ronald W. Clark to get your fix. And, yes, I know Agatha Heterodyne is part of a “gaslight fantasy”, but she’s too cute to omit.

This is a wild ride that seems to sneak into every corner of your brain. OK – I am a geek, and one who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, roughly contemporary with the character of James Halliday, who in the book created the most amazing and pervasive system that combines MMORPG with VR and social network and even e-learning… So I ‘get’ (or should that be ‘grok’ – or perhaps not, the one bit of pop culture that’s neglected is the written word) just about every reference, even most of the videogame ones, despite my only ever becoming competent at a single one… which, of course, turns up at the heart of the final challenge!