The Ranger: Concho - A.W. Hart (Charles Gramlich)

Concho Ten-Wolves is half black, half Kickapoo, a former Army Ranger, and currently a Texas Ranger working out of Eagle Pass, Texas, in this thriller that launches a new action/adventure series from Wolfpack Publishing. Charles Gramlich is the top-notch author behind the A.W. Hart house-name on THE RANGER: CONCHO, which was just released today.

The opening section of this novel, in which Concho takes on a gang of neo-Nazis who have taken over a shopping mall in Eagle Pass and are holding hostages, is spectacular, with plenty of great action and several stand-up-and-cheer moments. What follows is even better, with Concho getting involved in a double murder case that takes on some personal ramifications before it’s done, along with some political maneuvering centered around the Kickapoo Tribal Police and Concho’s own superiors in the Rangers. It’s a twisty, satisfying plot that never skimps on the action.

Gramlich has gotten this series off to a great start. THE RANGER: CONCHO is intelligently written, packs plenty of punch, and has one of the most compelling and likable protagonists I’ve encountered in a while. The next book will out later this summer, and I’m already looking forward to it. Highly recommended.

The Scarred One - Tyler Boone (Charles Gramlich)

Trenton Banning arrives in the mining boomtown of Sun Falls, Wyoming, on the trail of the man he blames for the fire that killed his parents when he was a child and left Banning badly scarred. Banning is convinced that mining and hotel tycoon Jonathan Hunsinger is responsible for that blaze, and Hunsinger is now in Sun Falls engaged in building a hotel and operating a mine. However, Banning isn’t in town long before he discovers a couple of things: Hunsinger has a beautiful daughter, Elizabeth, and something sinister is going on in Sun Falls. In short order, the one friend Banning makes, a burly mountain man, is attacked and badly injured. Then Banning is framed for the murder of a saloon girl, and the local lawmen won’t be any help since they seem to want Banning dead just as much as everybody else in Sun Falls.

THE SCARRED ONE is the first full-length Western novel by Charles Gramlich, writing under the pseudonym Tyler Boone. It’s an excellent debut that features top-notch handling of the traditional Western elements while at the same time giving the reader plenty of well-developed characters and some unexpected plot twists. Trenton Banning is a fine protagonist, tough enough to handle himself when trouble crops up but not a superman. The budding attraction between him and Elizabeth Hunsinger is particularly well done, and the novel’s climax is a satisfying one.

Gramlich has done very good work over the years in the horror, fantasy, and science fiction genres, and THE SCARRED ONE proves that he’s equally capable of delivering an excellent Western novel. I recommend this one and look forward to many more.

(Note: As the awards chair for Western Fictioneers’ Peacemaker Awards, I receive a number of novels every year, many of which I’d like to read. I don’t have anything to do with the actual judging for the awards—my job is strictly keeping track of the entries and counting the votes at the end of the competition—but I’ve always felt like it wouldn’t be proper for me to review any of these books while the competition is still going on, just to avoid the appearance of any undue influence. So this year I’ve decided to go ahead and read and review the ones I want to, but I’ve scheduled the posts to run after the awards have been announced. That’s why you’re seeing this in June, rather than in January when I wrote it. Look for more Peacemaker reviews to come.)

Mage, Maze, Demon - Charles Allen Gramlich

The story “Mage, Maze, Demon” by Charles Allen Gramlich is the latest entry in the Veridical Dreams series, based on the dream journals of Kyle J. Knapp and developed by David Cranmer of Beat to a Pulp. It’s the tale of a barbarian named Bryle, whose help is enlisted by a sinister sorcerer (really, what other kind is there?) to recover a valuable artifact hidden in a maze and guarded by a demon as well as other mystical threats. Don’t think you know everything that’s going to happen once Bryle gets in that maze, though. Gramlich has a few nice plot twists up his sleeve.

As you’d expect from a veteran writer and long-time scholar of Robert E. Howard’s work, Gramlich spins a top-notch sword and sorcery yarn. The action races along and comes to a very satisfying conclusion. Bryle is an appealing protagonist, and I’m particularly fond of one of the non-human characters who becomes, in effect, Bryle’s sidekick, even with no dialogue. “Mage, Maze, Demon” is a very entertaining fantasy tale and gets a high recommendation from me.

The Machineries of Mars - Charles Allen Gramlich

THE MACHINERIES OF MARS, the new novella from Charles Gramlich, starts out very much like an Edgar Rice Burroughs yarn, with the protagonist (who has amnesia) waking up on a crippled flier descending toward a vast red Martian sea. The Burroughs influence is acknowledged by Gramlich in the dedication, but it quickly becomes obvious that this isn't a tale of Barsoom. No, this story is set in the far future, following the collapse of a great Terran empire.

Continuing in the classic pulp tradition, though, the hero quickly stumbles into a battle between two forces who are unknown to him, and although he doesn't know what the conflict is about, his moral code forces him to take sides when he sees a woman and child in deadly danger.

Turns out he chose correctly, but not everything is what it seems and Gramlich has some neat twists in the plot waiting for the unwary reader. I have to raise my hand on that count because a couple of them took me by surprise, which is something I always enjoy.

Gramlich has done an excellent job of world-building in this story, and I hope he returns to the setting in the future because it seems to have a lot more tales waiting to be told. The pace is fast, the action scenes very well done, and overall this is a top-notch example of sword-and-planet fiction. If you're a fan of the genre, you definitely need to check it out.

Harvest of War -- Charles Allen Gramlich

HARVEST OF WAR is a new e-book novelette by Charles Allen Gramlich, a tale of heroic fantasy with an unusual protagonist, an orc who is captured by humans after a bloody battle. But there are worse things in this world than orcs, as the humans learn to their regret.

This is a well-written, very fast-moving tale, and Gramlich does a great job not only with the action (and there's plenty of it), but also in making the reader care about Khales, the orc who winds up going against all his instincts. The prose manages to be both brutal and poetic, often at the same time, and there's even some unexpected humor.

I read this in one sitting, something that's very rare for me, even with shorter pieces. And right now you can download it for free on Amazon. Highly recommended.

Beat to a Pulp: A Rip Through Time - Chris F. Holm, Charles A. Gramlich, Garnett Elliott, Chad Eagleton

BEAT TO A PULP: A RIP THROUGH TIME is further proof, as if we needed it, that David Cranmer is an inexhaustible source of ideas these days. He came up with the characters and basic plot for this series of short stories, then turned them over to authors Chris F. Holm, Charles Gramlich, Garnett Elliott, and Chad Eagleton to write. The result is this highly entertaining compilation that actually works quite well as a novel.

The story finds Temporal Security agent Simon Rip and the beautiful and brilliant scientist Dr. Serena Ludwig chasing Dr. Robert Berlin through time. Berlin, it seems has stolen his new invention from The Company, the 23^rd Century international cartel that Rip, Ludwig, and Berlin all work for. From prehistoric times to Arthurian England to the Havana of Ernest Hemingway in the late 1940s, the chase proceeds in an action-packed adventure very reminiscent of those fondly remembered AGENT OF T.E.R.R.A. novels by "Larry Maddock" that many of us read back in the Sixties.

Ah, but then things begin to take some unexpected turns. All is not as it seems. The stakes are ramped up until A RIP THROUGH TIME becomes a rather mind-boggling cosmic epic that reaches to the very ends of space and time. After all that, it seems odd at first that the book concludes with what appears to be a Victorian-era horror story, but again, things take an unexpected twist and this story cleverly serves as both prequel and coda to the rest of the novel. Then Ron Scheer provides an excellent afterword that looks at time travel in books and movies and speculates on the science involved in traveling through time.

One thing that seems to be missing in a lot of current science fiction is a sense of fun.  A RIP THROUGH TIME has that sense of fun, in spades, and manages to be thought provoking as well. I'm sure there's more to come from the crew that put this together, and I'm looking forward to it. Highly recommended.

Midnight in Rosary by Charles Gramlich Now Available

Longtime friend, fellow Robert E. Howard fan, and all-around fine writer Charles Gramlich has a new book out, the collection MIDNIGHT IN ROSARY.  As Charles says:  "It's a collection of my short stories, mostly vampire and urban fantasy type tales, with some werewolves and a ghost thrown in."


Now, I haven't read this book yet, but I certainly will.  Knowing Charles, these aren't your typical vampire stories.  Also, a number of his earlier books are now available as e-books, including the Talera trilogy (sword-and-planet novels) and BITTER STEEL, his collection of heroic fantasy yarns.  If you haven't sampled Charles's work yet, you should definitely check out any or all of these volumes.

Howard Days Photo

This morning my friend Tom Johnson posted this photo on one of the Yahoo Groups we belong to.  It was taken in Cross Plains, Texas, at one of the annual Howard Days get-togethers.  The absence of the pavilion behind the house tells me the picture was taken sometime around 1996 or 1997.  Left to right in the photo are Charles Gramlich, Tom Johnson, Aaron Larson, and me.  Those were great times, but then, any visit to Howard Days is a lot of fun.

Killing Trail - Charles Gramlich

We recently bought a Kindle when Amazon dropped the price, and the first book I bought for it and read on it is Charles Gramlich’s Western collection, KILLING TRAIL. It was a great way to inaugurate my Kindle-reading experience.


KILLING TRAIL includes two novellas, “Killing Trail” and “Showdown at Wild Briar”; two short stories, “Powder Burn” and “Once Upon a Time with the Dead”, an excerpt from Gramlich’s unpublished first novel, a Western called THE BEAR PAW VALLEY, and a couple of essays, one about the Old West history to be found in the area where Gramlich grew up in Arkansas and the other about Louis L’Amour. All the fiction is outstanding.  These are well-written yarns with good characters and plenty of action. “Showdown at Wild Briar” is probably my favorite of the bunch, because the hero has to escape from a particularly deadly trap and then finds an even worse plot twist waiting for him. “Once Upon a Time with the Dead” is a flash fiction piece, very poetic and effective. These stories have really whetted my appetite for the first full-length Western novel that Charles is bound to write one of these days, sooner rather than later, I hope. For now, you can start off with this collection, which I give a high recommendation.


As for the Kindle itself, I enjoyed reading KILLING TRAIL on it. When such devices were first introduced, I didn’t think I’d like them, but since then I’ve heard enough people whose opinions I respect say that they liked reading books on the Kindle so I wasn’t really surprised. I don’t know how to do much with it yet, like change the type size or navigate through a book other than one page at a time, but I’m sure I’ll learn all the little tricks. It almost certainly won’t replace reading actual books for me, but for things that are more easily available on the Kindle – or only available on the Kindle – I think it’s great.

Write With Fire - Charles Allen Gramlich

I don't normally recommend a book I haven't even seen yet, let alone read, but I have no trouble doing so in this case. I've spent many hours talking writing with Charles at Cross Plains, during the Robert E. Howard Days get-togethers, and the conversations are always enjoyable and thought-provoking. I'm sure this new collection of his articles and essays on writing will be, too. My copy is already on order.

Whiskey, Guns, and Sin - Charles Gramlich

If you haven't already done so, head on over to David Cranmer's excellent BEAT TO A PULP and read Charles Gramlich's story "Whiskey, Guns, and Sin". It has some of the best action you'll ever read, and I love that title.