Tag: Castalia House

You are not supposed to read this book. You are not supposed to think about reading this book. In fact, just plain thinking at all is unacceptable. You have been warned…


From hilarious to horrifying to dangerously insightful, a selection of stories that must not be told, for they slaughter the sacred cows of our age. Do you dare read them?


Stories by Nick Cole, John C. Wright, Sarah A. Hoyt, Brad R. Torgersen, Vox Day and more, with non-fiction articles by Tom Kratman and Larry Correia, with a foreword by Milo Yiannopoulos.

10 hours and 18 minutes. Narrated by Jon Mollison.

Excerpt from “The Amazon Gambit” by Vox Day from FORBIDDEN THOUGHTS.

Lieutenant Colonel Max Kruger stood at attention and saluted as General Markham, SUBCONCOM, debarked from the flyer with the ease of a man four decades younger and strode across the landing pad towards him.

“At ease, Colonel,” the general ordered. “Good to see you. Now, come with me, we’ve got a lot to discuss before the press conference.”

The general had four centims on him and was walking quickly, so Kruger had to lengthen his stride in order to keep up with the taller man.

“The Grkese signed the contract?”

“They did indeed,” the general confirmed. “And the Duke himself selected you as the contract CO, Max.”

“Honored,” Kruger murmured, as expected. And it was true, he did feel honored, although he wasn’t exactly surprised. Of the various officers in the Rhysalani Armed Forces qualified to command low-tech forces, he not only possessed the best record with regards to successfully completed contracts, but he had beaten Col. Thompson, his closest rival, rather soundly at the Duke’s Command Challenge last year. “I presume it will be 3rd Battalion?”

The 3rd Battalion of the Ducal Marines specialized in low-tech combat, particularly combat below TL10. Kruger had served with them on two previous deployments, both of which had taken place on Dom Sevru. The men of 3rd Battalion were trained to be able to fight with everything from swords and shields to plasma cannon and sub-atomic armor.

“No,” the general replied, to his surprise, as they entered the elevator that would bring them down to the heart of the airbase command center. “The Lord General suggested that this would be the ideal opportunity to show the subsector what the 11th Special Battalion can do. And the Duke concurred.”

Kruger couldn’t hide his astonishment. Or his dismay. He looked at his superior in disbelief, and while he saw everything from amusement to sympathy in the older man’s eyes, he detected no sign at all that his leg was being pulled.

“Dear God, you’re not joking!”

“Afraid not, Max. The Duke has spent a fortune training and equipping those women for the last five years, and he’s decided that it’s about time to see a return on that investment.”

Kruger didn’t trust himself to speak. The first five or six responses that sprang to mind would have earned him at least a reprimand, if not a court-martial. The next three, if uttered openly by an officer of the Armed Forces, technically amounted to lèse-nobilité and would theoretically merit a firing squad. So he said nothing.

The general grinned nonchalantly and raised an eyebrow. He knew damn well what Kruger was thinking. “He’s not wrong, Max. Their negotiators were so impressed that they paid triple our usual rate. Half up front.”

“They did? Why the hell would they do that?”

“Well, as I understand the sales pitch, our highly trained female soldiers have proven to be much better communicators than their male counterparts, and as a result they are considerably less inclined to needlessly break things and kill people. In this particular case, the estimated savings in infrastructure damage when taking and occupying the primary objective alone is expected to more than make up for the increased cost of the contract.”

“Assuming we can complete it. What’s the tech level again?”

“Seven.”

This time, Kruger couldn’t restrain an oath. The general raised an eyebrow, then slapped Kruger on his oak-leafed shoulders as they approached a door with a pair of Ducal Marines on either side.

“Try to keep it clean for the cameras, Max. If you don’t know what to say, just smile and declare that you’ve got every confidence in the troops. Do your best to sell it. God knows we’ve all had to tell a few humdingers in our day. Your record speaks for itself, so let it do the talking. Now, you’ve got an hour to review the contract and meet with the battalion’s officers before the press conference, so I suggest you hop to it.”

“Yessir,” Kruger said morosely. “Any chance I can get out of this, General?”

“None at all, Max. None at all.”

An excerpt from Martin van Creveld’s new novel, Hitler in Hell. Please note that on the advice of one of our Amazon-bestselling authors, we have removed the book from the Castalia House bookstore for the time being and entered it into the Kindle Select program. It is now available via Kindle Unlimited; if you purchased the book from our bookstore but did not download it, please email us and we will make sure you receive you receive your book. We apologize if this causes any confusion.


Revolution and Collapse

Over the next few years, during which I began my political activity, I had plenty of opportunities to analyze the causes of the collapse. In fact, addressing them in numerous public meetings large and small, I did so until I was blue in the face. Some of my conclusions simply continued thoughts that had been with me during the war and even before it had started. The rest were directly related to our defeat.

The Second Reich, as it was widely known, had been born under an auspicious star amidst the thunder of victorious battle. For that we had Bismarck to thank and, coming right after him, Chief of Staff Helmut von Moltke and Minister of War Albrecht von Roon. Nothing symbolized it as well as the Siegessäule, or Victory Column, in Berlin. Originally sixty-seven meters tall, it was wrapped entirely by captured enemy cannons. In 1939, as part of my plan to renovate the city and to turn it into Europe’s capital, I had its height increased by another seven and a half meters. I also moved it from its original site at the Königsplatz (now misnamed the Platz der Republik) near the Reichstag to the Grosser Stern. But back to the Reich. Over the first forty-three years of its existence it enjoyed immense prosperity and economic growth. Simple people, who always and everywhere form the great majority, were impressed by that prosperity as well as the evident military strength of the Reich, which was put on display on appropriate occasions.

Having done so, they attributed the sudden collapse of the structure solely to the war, which had brought so much misery to them. But this is absurd. In fact, all the collapse did was to expose weaknesses that had long existed. Chief among them were general suffrage which Germany got before England, misleadingly known as the “mother of democracies,” did. On its heels came elections and democracy. All three were non-German elements of government. Initially, they were foisted on us by the professors of 1848, who wanted nothing better than to ape the “ideals” of the French Revolution. Once established, they quickly turned into a morass of useless chatter and corruption.

Next came the failure to properly deal with the liberated provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. As a result, they never truly became an integral part of the Reich. To repeat, Wilhelm II’s foreign policy was essentially misdirected. To add insult to injury it was often weak and vacillating as well.

Finally, there was the tolerance long shown for those vile Marxist traitors, the Social Democrats. Starting long before the war and redoubling their efforts while it lasted, they did whatever they could to foment discontent and to incite the people against the army and the government. Their ability to do so was due to the government’s inability or unwillingness to rein in the press. Not that the non-socialist press was necessarily better. Only parts of it supported the government in its conduct of the war, and much of it did what it could to undermine them.

Though the war was over, the British blockade still continued. Only in the middle of 1919 was it finally lifted, enabling us to resume our imports and exports. But this happened only to a very limited extent. Partly because of carelessness in August 1914, partly because of enemy action, and partly because no new merchantmen were built during the war, we had lost almost our entire merchant navy.
Much of what we still possessed had to be given away gratis as reparations. In any case the enemy had used the war to steal our overseas markets from us. This caused production to come to a halt and unemployment to soar. The demobilization of the armies, which at the end of the war still numbered several million men, added to the problem. That’s to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands maimed and crippled men who had to be taken care of in one way or another.

Determined to avenge themselves on us, our enemies took large parts of Prussia and Silesia, which had been German for centuries, if not longer, away from the Reich. This caused hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens, who understandably were unwilling to live under Polish (mis)rule, to leave their homes to migrate to the west, where nothing had been done to receive them. Nor did the process of drawing the borders unfold peacefully. Throughout 1919, in many places, volunteer units known variously as Freikorps, or the Black Reichswehr, fought heroically, if ultimately unsuccessfully, to retain the lands in question.

All over Germany, wherever one looked, people shivered and hungered. It goes without saying that I detest that self-appointed artist and filthy pornographer, Georg Grosz. Luckily for him, he left the country in a hurry in 1933, or else I would have had him thrown into a concentration camp! Still I must concede that many of his sketches, which show starving workers, fat, evil-looking capitalists with heaps of money, and made-up prostitutes presented a true, if one-sided and perverted, picture of reality at the time. Much later, I learned that the origins of this misery had been explored in depth by the English economist John Maynard Keynes in his booklet The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919). He could hardly have done a better job.

Political conditions naturally reflected the economic situation. The new Social-Democratic government was unable to resist the Allied demands. So weak were the “statesmen” whom the so-called “Revolution” had brought to power that they signed the famous Kriegsschuld, war-guilt, article under which Germany assumed responsibility for the war. To be sure, history bristles with occasions when the defeated were not only despoiled but humiliated. However, the Kriegsschuld business was something new and unprecedented. Besides preparing the “legal” basis for extracting reparations, it hit straight at the nation’s soul, which, of course, was just what it had been meant to do.

Internally, the political situation was even worse. The Social Democrats, having successfully undermined public order, were unable to reimpose it. Everywhere workers, incited by their often Jewish leaders, spat on officers, tore the epaulets from their shoulders, and beat them up. So bad were conditions that many places were reduced to anarchy. That specifically included Bavaria and Munich, where I was stationed at the time and where the Jews set up a “Soviet Republic.” The stupidity of these people was truly amazing. During the few days the “Republic” lasted its foreign affairs commissar, Franz Lipp, whose record included several stays in mental hospitals, actually declared war on Switzerland. That was done, he explained, because the Swiss had refused to lend him sixty locomotives! At one point I myself, rifle in hand, had to chase away three scoundrels who had come to arrest me in my quarters.

In the end the Reichswehr, assisted by Freikorps units, re-took Munich and exacted a well-deserved vengeance. Eugene Leviné, the Jewish Communist who had led the uprising, was killed. Not so his uncouth right-hand man and fellow Jew, Erich Mühsam. He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. But he did not have to stay there for long; in 1924 an amnesty was granted, and he was released. After the Reichstagbrand on 28 February 1933, I had him arrested and sent to a concentration camp where the boys, seeking their revenge, saw to it that he would expire. Good! As these two gentlemen illustrate so nicely, behind each and every one of these problems stood the Jews.

Dr. Martin van Creveld is a military historian who is a major contributor to the literature of war. Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Dr. van Creveld is one of the world’s leading writers on military history and strategy, with a special interest in the future of war. He is fluent in Hebrew, German, Dutch, and English, and has authored more than twenty books, including the influential Technology and War: 2000 BC to the Present (1988), The Transformation of War (1991), and The Culture of War (2010). He is known for his development of the concept of “nontrinitarian” warfare and is deeply respected by military officers and professional strategists around the world. Castalia House is extremely pleased to be able to announce his first novel, HITLER IN HELL.

To no one’s surprise, including his own, Adolf Hitler finds himself in Hell after his self-inflicted death, only to discover that it is considerably different than he had ever imagined. And possibly the worst torment awaiting the notorious dog-lover in the afterlife is his post-mortem discovery that all dogs go to Heaven.

With nothing better to do to pass the time, Hitler reflects upon his life in light of the post-World War II world. He is boastful, unrepentant, and absolutely determined to tell his side of the story, set the record straight, and get even with his enemies—both his contemporaries and those who abused his legend since his demise. In Hell, Adolf Hitler is finally free to tell the true story of the Nazi Party, World War II, and the final solution that eventually came to be known as the Holocaust.

HITLER IN HELL is Martin van Creveld’s first novel.  394 pages. DRM-free. Available on Amazon and at Castalia House.

From the reviews:

• I started the book being able to keep some distance from it, to keep in mind that it was a novel, but in the end it sucked me in, in a can’t look away from the car wreck fashion. It captured the utterly banal, indeed pedantic nature of socialist evil in a stunning fashion that left me with the utterly distasteful feeling of having read something actually written by Hitler.
• This book by Martin van Creveld is a remarkable work. He manages to get inside the head of Adolph Hitler and present a picture of what his life and legacy must look like to the man considered by many to be the most evil in history…. Sometimes reading it you actually forget that it was not written by Hitler.
• As a historian van Creveld has perhaps no living equal so it is no surprise that he gets the details right. Van Creveld’s perspective is deep, thoughtful and surprisingly even-handed. His Hitler is still a madman, but he’s far more nuanced and subtle in his mania than we’re used to seeing.

Interestingly enough, Amazon.de is not listing the book, presumably due to the flaming swastika on the cover.

An excerpt from QUANTUM MORTIS: A Man Disrupted


Murder is the unlawful killing of a sentient corporeal being rated higher than 9 on the Takeno-Turing scale, with malice aforethought. Every murder perpetrated by radiation, genetic manipulation, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any revolution, assassination, murder, kidnapping, treason, espionage, sabotage; or perpetrated as part of a pattern or practice of assault or torture, is murder in the first degree and is strictly prohibited without the written consent of an appropriate authority. Any other murder is murder in the second degree.
—09 RCJ § 1111: Murder

“Chief Tower? Chief Graven Tower? Is that you?”

He could hear the incredulity in the detector’s voice as she addressed him and grinned to himself as he stood up from where he’d been attempting to examine some of the possible sight lines that Baby was displaying for him.

“None other.” He pretended not to know who it was. “Wait, I know that voice. Hildy, is that you?”

“None other. Now get your grubby mitts off my murder scene! I’m right over you.”

Tower craned his head upward. Sure enough, a black-and-white TPPD aerovar was descending slowly with its nose pointing north, having come from the opposite direction. “You got your zoom on if you can see my hands from up there.”

“Your augment sent me the uplink through Victor when I asked why there was a soldier boy crashing the scene.”

“So the kids are playing well together? Isn’t that nice. Get on down here and join the party. I think you’re going to like this one.”

“Not a jumper?”

“Not a jumper,” he confirmed. “Definitely not a jumper.”

“Well, where is the body? I don’t see a body. You didn’t do anything with my body, did you, Chief?”

Tower shook his head, and with some difficulty, managed to stifle the first three responses that sprang into his mind. Was she flirting with him? He was tempted to respond in kind, and he knew how unlikely it was that anyone downtown or at base was listening in, but regardless, they were being recorded and it was only two months since the last base-wide series of sexual harassment lectures.

He shuddered involuntarily. No woman, not even the lovely Detector Hildreth, was worth the interminable weeks of re-education that would follow an on-duty comment deemed improper by Bio Resources. The suspicious bureaucrats of BR were always on the alert, they liked nothing better than to get their hands on an officer, and they could always be relied upon to put the worst possible interpretation on even the most innocent remark.

“Not guilty, Detector.” He cursed himself for his cowardice and glanced into a window that was just clean enough to let him see his reflection. Thanks to the tac-jacket, he looked dangerous, maybe even dashing. Digging into his pocket, he found a breath-enhancement pill and popped it into his mouth. “Tower out.”

The signal clicked off. Tower swore it was an actual sound, but the techs told him he was over-imaginative. A moment later, the whine of the grav-plates on Detector Hildreth’s aerovar increased in pitch as she, or more likely, her augment parked it on the street, nose to nose with Tower’s own vehicle. Lacking the armor, the anti-personnel rockets, the Meteor air-to-air missiles, the 15mm gun ports under the stub-wing slots on either side, and the pair of Degroet Tactical M165-20 cannons in the nose, her black-and-white vehicle looked sleek and stylishly feminine in comparison with his more heavily armed, dark-grey machine.

“Well, Chief Tower, it seems we meet again. What brings MCID to this humble civilian crime scene?” Derin Hildreth, Hildy to her friends, colleagues, and one-time professional role-play team members, was a little shorter than Tower. She was pretty, slender, and athletic, and wore a thicker, sleeveless version of his tactical jacket. A standard department GHK slug-thrower rested in a brown leather holster that was slung low over her grey pants, and a yellow-triggered shocker that looked like a toy was attached to her belt on her right hip. Underneath the tactical vest she was wearing a white collared shirt. She had a small black satchel slung over one shoulder, and was using both hands to twist her medium-length blond hair back into a looped ponytail as she walked toward him.

“Would you believe an inter-subsector war looms on the horizon and solving this crime may help us stop it and save tens of millions of lives?”

“Not even a little bit,” she said with a grin. Then the amusement vanished from her face as she stared at the dark smear on the ground. “Oh, no. That’s from a military grade disintegrator. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it! Don’t tell me you guys have something that can pick up the discharge!”

Wow, she was quick. She was wrong, but she was quick.

“If we did, you know I can’t tell you.” Tower spread his hands. “And, just so you know, we usually refer to them as disruptors.”

She narrowed her eyes, which he couldn’t help notice were an attractively bright shade of green and glanced at his armored var. “Do you have it in there? Chief, if you have evidence that would help me ID the weapon, I would truly appreciate it. I really would.”

“She’s just shameless, isn’t she?” Baby practically hissed as Hildy patted his arm and started to slide past him. “What are you doing, Tower? Change the subject!”

She was right. He had to distract the detector and fast. Hildy was already making her way toward the driver-side door and he couldn’t remember if he’d locked it or not. Then she froze and cocked her head to one side. She was listening to her augment, he realized. Then she turned around to face him.

“Victor says there is a ninety-seven percent possibility that the vic was killed by a disintegrator given the chemical composition of the latent energy particles. Or rather, a disruptor, I should say.”

Tower tried to nod in a knowing manner, hoping that Hildy wouldn’t press him further about his nonexistent device.

Did you do that? he subvocalized, knowing that Baby could hear him.

“Yeah, I cycled it through the TPPD comm-int; her Victor has no idea where it came from. Those civilian intelligences are cretins.”


That’s my girl.

He glanced up and realized that Hildy had her hands on her hips and was asking him something.

“Did I smell anything when we got here? No, I didn’t, but I’ve seen that sort of thing before.” He indicated the crude body-shaped smear. “The Keleboshi had a few vehicle-mounted disruptors. They burned through too much energy to be relied upon in a firefight, and their power sources were too big to carry around without a gravsuit, but for a one-shot kill, a micro-disruptor is hard to beat if you can get close enough to your target.”

“You’re a combat vet?” She looked up at him with a speculative look on her face.

“I saw a bit of drama here and there. Among other things, I was with the security detail on Basattria.”

“Wow,” she said. Eleven years later, even civilians still remembered what went down at the consulate on that godforsaken planet. “Talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time! I didn’t know there were any survivors.”

“A few of us got out. Not enough.” He shrugged and firmly kept his thoughts away from the one individual in particular who hadn’t. “The point is, we know what the weapon was, probably, but we don’t know why or even who, yet. And Baby tells me that based on what the witness says he didn’t see, the killer may have been cloaked.”

“Cloaked? That doesn’t sound like a run-of-the-mill mugger. Neither does a disruptor.” She took him by surprise when she raised her eyebrows and grinned hopefully. “I thought I heard a ‘we’ in there, Chief Tower. Would MCID be willing to assist on this one instead of taking over the investigation?”

“Oh, for the love of Our Father, Tower, are you really going to hold her hand on this one?”


Shut up, Baby. We could be dealing with pros here, maybe even spec-ops. It’s legitimate, you know TPPD isn’t equipped to handle spooks or soldiers. Just make the request.

He shrugged and feigned indifference. “We’ll see about that. Let’s find out who our vic was first.”

An excerpt from John C. Wright’s latest, Moth & Cobweb Book 5.

Wilcolac spoke in a soft voice, but made each word heavy with emphasis. “We have gathered certain scattered fragments of lore from the one place whence elfin lords never sought to remove it. In the Night World, which is their own, they can find and quell all who might know or guess their secret weakness. We of the Twilight World all vow when we come of age unbreakable oaths, intertwined with runes and curses, never to rebel. But among men, aha! In the Daylit World, the King of Shadows would never suspect the humans retain in rituals and rhymes, in old toasts or old place names, the clues of hidden things the men themselves no longer know!”

Gilberec moved restlessly. Matthias yet again raised his hand, but now Wilcolac spoke. “Your friend, my dear young man of the cloth, seems to be bursting to say something you don’t want him to say. Let us hear it.”

Gilberec said, “We come in Arthur’s name. In whose name do you speak?”

Wilcolac said, “There are those among the Cobwebs who are dissatisfied with the sneers and jeers of elfin lords and the sly looks of their ladies. The elfin blood is pure, their lives are long, and their magic is by nature what we half-breeds can only learn by art or by the crafting of bad bargains with dreadful entities. Their overthrow would please us. Do you support their reign?”

Matthias said wearily, “No one is going to give you a straight answer, Gil, not anyone who knows you are a living lie detector. You are wasting time.”

Gilberec said to him, “I would rather know for sure that he will not be straight with us than to suppose he won’t, without giving him a chance.”

Wilcolac raised both eyebrows. “Giving me a chance…? Your cross-examination is allegedly for my benefit…? I am not willing to say who my principals are. They are not sure whom to trust. That is why they come through me: the Cobbler’s Club is a bit like Switzerland. I have to be careful. If I even appeared to take sides, I would be ruined.”

Gilberec said, “There could be a simpler reason why you know how to break an elfish spell than all this talk of scattered books and Eskimo wizards.”

“And what might that reason be?” asked Wilcolac, assuming an innocent stare.

“You are an Anarchist. Do you deny it?”

Wilcolac took a moment to trim his cigar with a silver knife. He lit it with a spark of flame that seemed to come from the thumb of his white kid-leather glove. “A strange accusation. Here in my club, from time to time, I deal with parties on the wrong side of the law. I hear rumors of a Supreme Council of Anarchists. The oath we all swore to the elfs for some reason does not bind them. They use their supernatural powers to ruin all the institutions the elfs have erected among men as reins and chains, as hoods and horseblinkers. The Anarchists are said to have eyes everywhere, fingers in every pie, to control railways, shipyards, banks, communication nodes, and computer networks. They are said to be behind all the dark deeds that prevent the elfs from enjoying in peace their utter victory over men. But I hear rumors saying the opposite, that the Anarchists are mere agitators or died in the Great War. Supposing they were real: why would I serve them? Anarchy is bad for business.”

“That is not a denial,” Gilberec said to Wilcolac. To Matthias he said, “Come on. Let’s go. This is pointless.”

Yumiko had been listening very intently, glad that no one was looking at her.

But just then she shivered and glanced down. The collie dog had finished his caviar snack and laid himself down at the foot of Gilberec’s chair, placing his furry head on the carpet between his paws so that his bright eyes were staring straight at her.

When Gil stood up, the dog growled and coughed and made a slight sniffing noise. Gilberec turned his head, saw her in her scanty, snug costume, but this time, instead of averting his eyes, he looked at her face. A thoughtful frown creased his brow.

Wilcolac said wryly to Matthias, “At this point in the good-cop, bad-cop routine, you, as the boy good-cop, are supposed to restrain your hotheaded friend to sit again, and this will make me eager to show my cards.”

Matthias smiled and scooped up some caviar on a cracker. “I wish we were that organized. The Swan Knight is no hothead. He is slow to anger, but once he is angry, he is slow to forgive. He feels about truth the way I feel about forgiveness. Guilt and fear and hate tie men to their sins with heavy chains and long so that when they die, their tormented spirits remain on earth, haunting the scenes of their crimes. Without forgiveness, how can they be set free to go onward to their reward? So I have no qualms about entering the house of a Necromancer. You have more need of my services than any!”

Wilcolac said sharply, “What does that mean?”

“I saw a Jack-o’-Lantern in an upper window when I entered this house and smelled the spoor of many hounds. You flay the flesh of men for the benefit of wolves and expose the flesh of women for the benefit of men. Do you think I do not know who you are? What you do here?”

Wilcolac squinted at the young novice, and a look of true hatred appeared, if only for a moment, in his eye. “I think an innocent soul like yours cannot imagine the vices I sell, not even in your most sordid nightmares, little boy.”

Matthias smiled, but his eyes were sad. “You forget. Saint Jean Baptiste is only two streets away. Your patrons come to our confessional booth. My master has heard confessed every detail of all the sins you encourage. But they have been washed away, removed entirely from the dreadful scroll no man can read. I am familiar with your works and your ways, and familiar with how to undo them. You are bold indeed to invite me into your house. Unlike my knightly friend, my weapons are spiritual and cannot be bound in their scabbards. No do my weapons know any truce, nor rest.”

Wilcolac’s fingers tightened on his walking stick, but he said nothing.

Join the Castalia Book Club

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Every month, we send out two or three emails announcing our new hardcovers, paperbacks, ebooks, and audiobooks. We also announce and give away books that are published by bestselling independent authors who have proven to be friends and allies of the Revolution in Literature.

And with almost every email, we include an offer to download a free ebook. Sometimes it is offered as a reward for buying the new release, sometimes it’s just our way of thanking you for your support of Castalia House.

This summer, we will be publishing books by Martin van Creveld, Rod Walker, John C. Wright, Jerry Pournelle, LawDog, Vox Day, Moira Greyland, Peter Grant and other Castalia House authors. We will also be giving away books by Nick Cole, Jason Anspach, and other excellent independent authors as well as books from our own catalog.

Yumiko Moth has discovered her name, but she still does not know who, or what, she is. What she has learned is that her mother is dead, her master has disowned her, and her beloved has vanished. And she also knows that the Day world is a very dangerous place for a Twilight girl, especially when the dark forces of Night are hunting her.

To discover the truth she seeks, she must infiltrate the enemy’s citadel. In New York City, that is The Cobbler’s Club, home to the world-famous Peach Cobbler Girls. But how can a girl who stalks the shadows hide herself in the bright lights of the stage? CITY OF CORPSES is the fifth book of MOTH & COBWEB, an astonishingly inventive series about magical worlds of Day, Night, and Twilight by John C. Wright.

John C. Wright is one of the living grandmasters of science fiction and the author of THE GOLDEN AGE, AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND, and IRON CHAMBER OF MEMORY, to name just three of his exceptional books. He has been nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards, and his novel SOMEWHITHER won the 2016 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel at Dragoncon.

CITY OF CORPSES is available from Amazon and from the Castalia House bookstore. Reviews of the first five books of the MOTH & COBWEB series:

1. Coming of age story written by of one of the greatest wordsmiths of our times. It is a story of a young man who doesn’t fit into society because he is morally upright for the decadence that infests modern society. The young man, who will being morally upright isn’t the most introspective fellow or overtly gifted with prudence, follows his path to squirehood and my what a road it is. 
2. Outstanding! I really don’t know how else to characterize it besides simply outstanding! I enjoyed Swan Knight’s Son, devoured it in fact, but this one transported me in a way I haven’t been since I was a boy and could read a new book every weekend. The setting is feels like all the best parts of Tolkien, with that same depth lent to it by its roots in classical and Christian lore. The story is, as always, deeply moving and wonderfully worded and paced. I am not being hyperbolic when I say that The Green Knight’s Squire is shaping up into one of those series a boy could read and find that it deeply shaped his life for years to come.
3. An excellent book, and worthy sequel to both Swan Knight’s Son and especially Feast of Elfs. Mr. Wright continues to amaze with his command of the Western canon and English language, to say nothing of his superlative storytelling. These are books I wish I’d had growing up, and find the wonder diminished not at all by reading them as an adult.
4. Another must-read from John C. Wright. I didn’t know where Wright was going with his “Moth and Cobweb” series, but now I think I have a clue: Perpendicular. As in, still connected but shooting off 90 degrees. With a new female protagonist, a new mystery, new discoveries and new challenges, Daughter of Danger has enough in common with books 1-3 to hook you in, and then goes on it’s own storyline. If you’re familiar with Wright’s style of writing, you’ll be pleased to know that he hasn’t lost a single bit of talent.
5. Wright again does an excellent job of incorporating the medieval understanding of the “elfs”, presenting their perspective as something alien to humanity: glorious and mighty, but also cold and cruel and haughty. The Christian symbolism he includes is strange to modern ears, but wrapping it in the spy-action story helps to draw the modern reader in to introduce him to a style and focus once more common in the best literature…. Overall, I enjoyed this book (and its predecessor) a great deal and indeed prefer this cycle to the first three books in the series. Wright keeps getting better!

We’re pleased to announce that The Ames Archives Book 2, Rocky Mountain Retribution, is now available in audiobook. Narrated by Bob Allen, it is 8 hours and 40 minutes long. Book 1, Brings the Lightning, is 7 hours and 56 minutes:

Walt woke from an exhausted stupor to find Isom shaking him relentlessly. “Lewis and Sandy are headin’ back, boss. They must have seen them coming.”

He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs from his brain as he sat up. “Thanks.”

They splashed water on their faces, then made sure the spare horses were still securely picketed. When Lewis and Sandy arrived, they formed a line inside the trees on the west side of the creek, their guns ready in their hands. Walt favored his Winchester rifle and Isom his shotgun, while the other two relied on revolvers.

“What did you see?” Walt asked.

Lewis handed him his spyglass. “Thanks for lettin’ us use that, boss. There’s four of them, drivin’ our seven hosses an’ a pack horse.”

“Four? Not five?”

“We only saw four, boss.”

“I hope the other one hasn’t turned off somewhere. You sure those horses are ours?”

“No doubt about it. I recognized at least four of ’em through that spyglass. I’ve ridden most of ’em before. Will’s hoss is still carryin’ his saddle.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

They tensed as the riders and horses appeared at the top of the gentle rise, heading down to the ford. Walt said softly, “Wait until they’re all in the water. Lewis, you and I will be on this side of the road. Isom, you and Sandy cross to the other side and cover them from there. Let me do the talking. If any of them show fight or try to run, shoot them down. Remember, they killed Will, so they don’t deserve any mercy.”

“Got it.” “Sure, boss.” “Yes, suh.” The replies came in ragged unison.

“All right. Let me make the first move.”

They waited, the tension ratcheting higher as the group drew nearer. Walt patted the shoulder of his horse as it moved restlessly under him. It wasn’t scout-trained, and he didn’t want it neighing or making any other noise that might warn the men.

He watched as the four riders drove the eight horses into the water, one of them on either side of the small herd and the other two behind it. He waited until they were in the middle of the stream, their mounts splashing and stumbling over the rocky bottom, all their riders’ attention fixed on controlling them and the horses they were driving, then said sharply, “Now!”

The four thieves jerked upright in alarm as they burst out of the trees, weapons leveled. “Nobody move!” Walt barked. “If you try anything, we’ll kill you. Get your hands up! Higher, damn you!”

“What the hell is this?” growled one of the strangers as he slowly, sullenly complied.

“You know darn well what this is. You stole those horses last night.”

“Huh?” The man strove to sound convincingly nonplussed. “We didn’t steal them—we bought ’em from a freight outfit outside Colorado City.”

“Suuuure you did. I daresay you’ve got a bill of sale for them, all nice an’ legal?”

“Well… not with me, I ain’t, but I got one back in Colorado City.”

“Like hell you have! That freight outfit is mine, and you stole those horses. You killed one of my men when you took ’em, too. Sandy, Lewis, fetch our horses out of the river, then, Lewis, you hold them clear of the ford. They’re leg-weary, so I doubt they’ll run off. Sandy, soon as they’re out of the way, get back here. Isom and I will cover these bastards.”

“Yo!” “Yes, sir!”

The two teamsters led the horses away from the ford, then Sandy hurried back. “What now, boss?”

“Cover them.” Walt raised his voice. “You four, ride slowly—real slowly—out of the water and line up here in front of me. Remember, you’re under our guns, and at this distance we can’t miss. Any tricks, and you’re gonna die real fast.”

He waited until they’d obeyed, then said, “All right, get your hands high again an’ keep them there. You lower your hands for any reason and we’ll shoot. Sandy, ride around behind them, keepin’ out of the line of fire. Take their handguns from their holsters and their long guns from their saddle boots. Put them on their pack horse for now.”

“Got it.”

It didn’t take him long to disarm them. He returned from the final trip to the pack horse asking, “What next, boss?”

Walt raised his voice. “One at a time, get off your horses, then hold your hands high again. Move real slow and easy.” He pointed with his rifle barrel. “You first. Move!”

The first thief dismounted very slowly and carefully, then raised his hands once more. Walt said, “Sandy, lead his horse clear of him. Take it to join the others with Lewis.”

“Yo!” The teamster gave the standard cavalry response as he moved forward.

The next two thieves dismounted just as carefully, and stood waiting as their horses were led away. The last man, still mounted, was growing more and more agitated. As Sandy led the third horse clear, he demanded, “What are you gonna do with us? Why take our hosses? You expectin’ us to walk wherever we’re goin’?”

Walt shook his head. “I’m going to tie your hands before I do anything else. It’ll be easier to do that with you on foot.”

“Like hell! You’re gonna kill us!” The man’s voice rose in a shrill, desperate cry as he whipped the hat off his head with his left hand and thrust his right into its crown. Instantly there came a deep, deafening boom as Isom fired one barrel of his shotgun. The man rocked back in his saddle as a hole appeared in the center of his shirt, which instantly turned a deep blood-red. He gurgled in agony, slumped forward, and toppled to the ground. As he did so, a small gun fell from his right hand. His horse jumped forward, startled.

The action was over almost before it started. The other three thieves stood rigid, their faces turning even paler than before, their hands still in the air. Walt and Isom covered them while Sandy rode after the horse, led it to Lewis, and handed him its reins.