Mark Finn and Chris Gruber, ed.
cover art by Jim and Ruth Keegan
Monkeyhaus Publishing
available from Lulu (use above link), $20, 278 p.
Ever since I interviewed Mark Finn back in February (posted here and here) and he told me about this book, I've had high expectations for it. It did not meet my expectations.
This book exceeded my expectations, and in spades.
All the contributors are either current or former member of the Robert E. Howard United Press Association. The anthology is a fund raiser, and I'll talk more about that at the end of the review.
The book contains stories and fiction, along with an introduction by Rusty Burke. Several professional writers are included, but not all of the names will be familiar. My understanding is that some of the contents are the first published fiction of some of the contributors. I can only ask: What took you people so long? There's not a dog in the book, and the quality of many of the stories surpasses a lot of what's in professional short fiction markets these days. Howard wrote in a variety of genres, so not all of the entries are fantasy, although most are.
I'll not discuss the poetry, since some of the pieces are only a few lines. I don't want my commentary to be longer than what I'm commenting on. I restrict myself to saying the following people have one or more poems in the book: Barbara Barrett (3), Frank Coffman (2), Danny Street, Amy Kerr, and Don Herron.
The backbone of the anthology is the fiction, and that's what I want to discuss here.
