Review: "Stone Cold Bastards" by Jake Bible

How could I pass up a book called “Stone Cold Bastards” ($15.95, Bell Bridge Books) with a hero that’s a cigar-chomping gargoyle, umm, I mean grotesque, charged with saving humanity from a demon invasion?

I couldn’t, of course. So that’s why the latest from Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Jake Bible leapfrogged to the top of my to-read list.

The situation is dire. The Gates of Hell have opened, and most of the humans in the world are husks, walking around possessed by the demons that escaped. Think “The Walking Dead,” only the zombies are far more malevolent.

Humanity’s last hope may lie in a small sanctuary that was transplanted to the Appalachian mountains years ago. Inside lives a ragtag group of gargoyles and grotesques who woke at the same time demons began spilling into the world. They were imbued by their creators, the Stonecutters, with one goal, protect the wards within their sanctuary from harm. So far, the Gs, as they call themselves to avoid confusion, have held strong, but Hell is coming.

Review: "Miranda and Caliban" by Jacqueline Carey

Jacqueline Carey fills in some of the gaps of Shakespeare with her latest novel, “Miranda and Caliban ($25.99, Tor), based, of course, on “The Tempest.”

Carey imagines what life might have been like on Prospero’s island during the years of his exile, before the events of Shakespeare’s famous play.

We find Prospero and Miranda living fairly happily, at least Miranda thinks, in an old castle on the island, their everyday needs tended by elementals that the magician has bent to his will. Then Caliban enters their lives.

Prospero suspects he is the son of the witch Sycorax, and holds the key to unlocking the spirit Ariel from the tree where he is imprisoned. He captures the wild boy for the information, but Miranda convinces her father to give her a chance to tame and civilize him rather than using magic to take the information by force. It is the beginning of a friendship that will change the way that we see Caliban.

Review: "Arm of the Sphinx" by Josiah Bancroft

It’s a rough life, but former school teacher Thomas Senlin is finding that piracy suits him somewhat in Josiah Bancroft’s “Arm of the Sphinx” ($14.99, self-published), the follow-up to “Senlin Ascends.”

Senlin, under the name of Capt. Tom Mudd, and his small crew navigate the skies around the Tower of Babel, finding ever more creative ways to rob his quarry and escape what passes for the long arm of the law in the Tower. Still, he searches for a way to find his lost wife, even as her ghost haunts his steps.

He’s learned that she’s in the Ringdom of Pelphia, a tightly-guarded aristocratic port where his ship, the Stone Cloud, was almost shot down the last time he tried to dock. To make matters worse, his crew is running out of places where they’re welcome, and Tom is running out of ideas.

Desperation leads them to the top of the Tower, to a being that many think is a myth – the Sphinx. Edith, now known as Mister Winters aboard the Stone Cloud, knows well that he exists. He created the fantastic mechanical arm that replaced her lost one. She also knows well what making a deal with the creature costs, but Senlin and his crew may have no other choice.