In this interview, we talk Cirsova deepest lore, going back to even before we found Jeffro, plus music, and dunking on bad SFF covers!
This was a lot of fun. Check it out!
Don’t forget to check our Mongoose and Meerkat on Kickstarter! Time is almost up for pre-orders!
Not John Daker recently posted some of his current fan theories about Cirsova’s ongoing Mongoose and Meerkat series.
He’s definitely right that there are a lot of hints that have been dropped from the very first story we ran back in 2017 and over the course of the dozen stories we’ve published so far, and he’s on the right track! [Unfortunately, Jim Breyfogle has confirmed that Deathwater does not take place in the same universe as Mongoose and Meerkat; it was included as a bonus for people who had already read all of the original magazine stories in Cirsova.]
Major clues about who Kat really is and what’s going on with her are dropped in Death and Renewal, which is out now in our latest issue. One major thing to remember is that despite being an adventuring duo akin to Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser, Mongoose and Meerkat’s adventures are principally from Mangos’s perspective: Kat is the mystery box of series. Mangos’s hesitance to puzzle it out for himself are likely as not from a fear that he might lose what he has in his reliable adventuring partner who has helped him earn a reputation as a reliable sell-sword. He could always just ask her: but what would that cost him? Would he lose her forever if he knew the truth?
Mongoose and Meerkat’s adventures are entering their final arc with the story in this issue, as well as the stories in our fall and winter issues, Fight of the Sandfishers and Thunder in the North, where most, if not all, secrets will be revealed!
You can get caught up on the first two years of Kat and Mangos’s adventures together by backing our latest Kickstarter for Tales of the Mongoose and Meerkat Volume 2: The Heat of the Chase. All backers will receive digital copies of Volume 1: Pursuit Without Asking.
[Also, keep an eye out for Not John Daker’s Sister Winter, which will be the cover story for our winter issue!]
There is a genre out there of kickass gun-toting Catholic Priests who fight both worldly and supernatural enemies of the Church. I’m honestly not that well-versed in the genre, but I’m aware of it because a number of our friends have either dipped their toes into the genre or made names for themselves with some of their series. Doug Ernst’s Soulfinder comic series aside, this is actually the first book in this subgenre of adventure fiction I’ve read, and I’ve got to say: it was a lot of fun!
An older hard-drinking Irish(?) priest, Fr. James Keenan, and his younger [and swole] protege, Fr. Akono Nwosu, have been having problems with break-ins recently. They come to find that a witch has put a bounty out on church paraphernalia, ranging from brochures and missals to the ultimate prize: the sanctified Body of Christ. Everyone from urchins and minor delinquents to hardcore gangbangers are going after churches all over the city for these items which will be used in unspeakable blasphemous rites.
The side of Good, however, has plenty of back-up, including a tough-as-nails outlaw biker gang and the Russian mob! Things turn into an all-out war as Keenan and Nwosu and their allies bring the fight to the witch and her acolytes who are planning a massive human sacrifice to unleash a demon into the world.
There’s a LOT going on in this book. It’s very action-driven, and a little dense; it crams of lot of stuff into a relatively short span of time within the novel itself. While this isn’t a bad thing, the amount of action is almost overwhelming, and I found myself wanting a bit more space for the characters to breathe. There are a lot of point of view characters on all sides of the conflict in this story, but they’re all very distinct and give a complete view of all the action without anyone ever blending together or feeling under-developed or seeming extraneous to the story. The only downside is that there are SO many characters in the short span of the books events that I would’ve liked to have spent more time with some of them and gotten to know them better. Also, there are a lot of good horror elements and potential for mystery, yet while the horror delivers, I think that the compressed events of the timeline necessitated sacrificing rising tension for the sake of pacing.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that this book is BRUTAL. A lot of gore, a lot of body horror, and a lot of good people dying pretty nasty deaths. So, I’d say it’s not for the faint of heart.
Another interesting element is the near-future cyberpunk dystopian setting. In some places, it’s almost blink-and-you’ll miss it. In other places, the sci-tech elements are critical to the story. For the most part, though, it’s a nice excuse for the Priests and their comrades to have some serious ordnance.
All-in-all, Body and Blood is an excellent debut novel from Michael Gallagher. It’s a high-octane thriller with an explicitly Christian bent. Maybe I should check out more of those “Priests with guns fighting demons and witches” books? If those are your thing, you should absolutely check this one out.
Michael Gallagher sent us an ARC of Body and Blood. His cyber-noir thriller The Nighthawk will be appearing in the Winter issue of Cirsova Magazine.
We were on the Wordcraft Podcast last night with Kat Rocha and J. Ishiro, plus a drop-in appearance of Fiannawolf. It was a lot of fun: check it out!
Jim Breyfogle was on a surprise Superversive stream with Ben Wheeler! You won’t want to miss either of these shows. [Ben turns his fan off after the first couple minutes, please bear with it!]
The Summer issue of Cirsova is out now! That means the Fall issue of Cirsova will soon be upon us!
Advertising rates can be found here: https://cirsova.wordpress.com/cirsova-magazine/advertising/
We’re accepting all ads except for back cover [which has already been sold]
We’re still hoping to do submissions during the first week of August, but I just got hit with about $4k in plumbing expenses. The good news: I’ve got the money. The better news: Cirsova is already front-loaded with 75K words of fiction for 2023 by special arrangement. The bad news: Unless we get a major cash injection soon, we’ll probably be just looking at around 100k words and 2 issues next year, or kick back Open Submissions/go invite-only.
The two fastest ways for us to get the cash we need in time to buy things in August:
Jim Breyfogle was on Geek Gab last saturday, talking Mongoose and Meerkat deepest lore!
Check it out, and be sure to back The Heat of the Chase!
We’re two days late because the price drop didn’t process within the 72 hour window, but you can now buy the Summer 2022 issue of Cirsova on Amazon for $14.99. You can still get it from Lulu (on nice paper) for $14.99, or $34.99 in linen-wrapped hardcover. But I know a lot of people just like to buy stuff from Amazon [I’m kind of one of them], so rock on with it!
Or, well, it’s supposed to be…
The eBook is available from Amazon.
Amazon STILL hasn’t dropped the price down to where we told them to, so hold off on buying it from them.
Instead, if you want a softcover, or even a hardcover, you can get it from Lulu [on nicer paper] right now and save 15% with promo code WELCOME15.
Vran, the Chaos-Warped (Book 1)
By D.M. RITZLIN
Vran the Chaos-Warped has sworn that the wizard Foad Misjak must die for his debaucheries! Vran’s strange nature due to a sorcerous accident, however, twists with unpredictable results all magic around him… and strands both on another world!
Orphan of the Shadowy Moons (Part 2)
By MICHAEL TIERNEY
The Black Assassins have slaughtered all the children of the Worldlord except Strazis, the strange golden child he adopted as his heir! Strazis’s escape strands him on a mysterious isle as the Worldlord goes to war to secure the fragile empire!
Death and Renewal
By JIM BREYFOGLE
The Prince of Alomar has won a slave from the Bursa… Kat and Mangos must ensure the slave’s silence at all cost, but on one condition: they cannot kill him!
What Price the Stars
By JEFF STONER
Jørgen Pangloss offers the promise of the unthinkable: faster-than-light travel! To what lengths will potential investors go to win Jørgen monopoly… and its fetters!?
Dead Planet Drifter
By J.D. COWAN
Galactic Enforcer Ronan Renfield finds himself prisoner of a death-worshiping cult! Can the whispers from his past aid him in his battle against the cannibals?!
The Last Khazar
By REV. JOE KELLY
Two men, one a Polish Jew, the other a Prussian Nazi, are bound by dreams and bound by destiny to confront one another, both in the present and in the past!
Melkart and the Crocodile God
By MARK MELLON
An evil and sorcerous monster plagues the land of Kush! Can Melkart stop the crocodile-headed man-beast Sosostris from enslaving the people of Meroë!?
My Name is John Carter (Part 12)
By JAMES HUTCHINGS
Reviews
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