Ossani the Healer - stories so far

In recent years I have created a number of recurring characters in my dark fantasy/swords and sorcery tales, almost all of which are set in the cities around the Azure Sea. Just to add to the complications, though, most of these characters interact with each other in various tales, either as major or minor participants. 

One such character is my secretive sorcerer, Ossani, who prefers to masquerade as being nothing more than an apothecary and healer. Indeed, his preferred name is Ossani the Healer. 

He first appeared as a minor character at the end of "The Storyteller of Koss", whose main character is Nadrain the Storteller. (Summer of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Volume 1)

He next appeared, alongside Welgar the Northerner, in "Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus".  (Welgar the Cursed)

After this he appears as a minor if influential character in "The Troupe".

The events in this story ultimately leads to his decision to leave his home city of Assabarr and head for the safe haven of Oriaska, hotly pursued by the Priestly Inquisition. The events involving this are detailed in my story "Ossani's Escape" which is scheduled to be published shortly in a magazine. 

Again, he appears in a minor role in "Ezmiyel the Beggar", which is yet to be published.

And again he is a minor character in "The Sorcerer's Casket", this time interacting with another recurring character of mine, Horbeck. 

The story "Emerging from Their Twilit Realms" has Ossani sharing space with Welgar again. (Welgar the Cursed).

Set a short while later, Ossani is yet again involved with Welgar in "From the Ashes", which is yet to be published.

Ossani is the main character in "The Moneylender of Oriaska" (Swords & Heroes Quarterly #2) in which we are introduced to his future apprentice, Arrenya, though she is not yet named. 

As you would expect from the title, "Ossani's Apprentice", Arrenya is the main character in the next tale, though Ossani does play a prominent role in its denouement. (Swords & Heroes Quarterly #2).  

"Masks of Deception", another unpublished story, sees Ossani as the main protagonist.  

The final tale, the twelth so far, is "The Narcolopsia", another as yet to be published tale. Here Ossani is once more reunited with Welgar and is possibly in his most perilous position yet. 

Here is a full list of Ossani stories: 

The Storyteller of Koss (Summer of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Volume 1)

Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus (Welgar the Cursed)

The Troupe

Ossani's Escape (due to be published 2025 - more details later)

Ezmiyel the Beggar 

The Sorcerer's Casket

Emerging from Their Twilit Realms (Welgar the Cursed)

From the Ashes 

The Moneylender of Oriaska (Swords & Heroes Quarterly #2)

Ossani's Apprentice (Swords & Heroes Quarterly #2)

Masks of Deception

The Narcolopsia

 

Ossani's Escape

Very pleased to receive an email tonight confirming that one of my sword and sorcery stories has just been accepted for publication in a well known magazine. The story's called "Ossani's Escape" and involves a recurring character who first appeared in "The Storyteller of Koss" (Summer of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Volume 1) and in "Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus" (Welgar the Cursed). 

I have written several more stories about this healer-cum-sorcerer whose eyesight is so weak he wears a special ocular of his own design which holds a variety of different lenses.

 

More details later.

 

 

 

The Farmhouse and A Bottle of Spirits to be reprinted by PS Publishing in New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural Omnibus

Interesting to see that the two volumes of New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural edited by David A. Sutton in the early 1970s are being reprinted in an omnibus volume. I don't understand why this is being described as "an anthology edited by Stephen Jones" but there you have it. 

 

The book contains two of my earliest horror stories, "The Farmhouse" and "A Bottle of Spirits". Not two of my best by any means but it's still nice to see them get a fresh airing. 

 

Alas, I was never approached to submit something for consideration in the "third" volume edited by Stephen Jones. Such is life.

 

"The Farmhouse" went on to be my first story published in the United States when it was reprinted in Stuart David Schiff's Whispers magazine and then in the hardcover anthology First World Fantasy Awards edited by Gahan Wilson for Doubleday.

 

Actually this is not the first time the two volumes of New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural have been reprinted. David Sutton did this in 2013, retitled Horror! Under the Tombstone, published by Shadow Publishing.

 

 

 

THE CHILDREN OF EVE BY JOHN CONNOLLY

 

The latest issue of Phantasmagoria magazine includes the following review I wrote of Jhn Connolly's latest Charlie Parker novel, The Children of Eve.

THE CHILDREN OF EVE

By John Connolly

Published by Hodder & Stoughton, 2025

This is the latest volume in the ongoing saga of Charlie Parker, whose private eye investigations all too often bring him into far too close a contact with dark forces. Nor is this any different.

It starts innocuously enough with Parker being asked to find avant garde artist Zetta Nadeau’s missing boyfriend, an ex-army veteran who has abruptly disappeared, presumably having gone into hiding after carrying out a mysterious job. As Parker’s investigation begins he discovers that, disturbingly, the boyfriend, Wyatt Riggins had been involved in something more sinister than his girlfriend suspected, the abduction from South America of a group of children, stolen from cartel boss, Blas Urrea, who wants them back. Complicating matters, the children appear to have been stolen on the orders of an American mob boss who had been working with Urrea till their relationship soured. Both sides are now using dangerous heavies either to find the children or hide them securely, resulting in a rising body count and some particularly sadistic murders, including hearts being cut out of bodies while their owners are still alive – that is till the hearts have been torn free and partially devoured.

It's a typically dark tale from John Connolly who is a master at creating unforgettable villains and intricately conceived stories, within which one atrocity will soon be topped by another. Charlie Parker, and his friends Louis and Angel, are often tested to the brink, never more so than in this tale, with its overtones of something even darker and more ominous lurking above and beyond the story itself, which will only reveal itself in some future volume.

Splendidly well written, this is yet another horrific page-turner (quite literally), and I cannot wait for the next.

 

ROBERT E. HOWARD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A TEXAS AUTHOR BY WILLARD M. OLIVER

The latest issue of Phantasmagoria magazine #27 includes my review of Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author by Willard M. Oliver. Below is a copy of this review: 

ROBERT E. HOWARD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A TEXAS AUTHOR

By Willard M. Oliver

Published by University of North Texas Press, 2025

This is a big book (579 pages), especially for a writer whose life ended after only thirty years. But when you look at the amazing literary legacy left behind by Robert E. Howard this is not too long a book at all. And Willard M. Oliver does full justice to all of Howard’s many stories, heroes, and the different genres in which he wrote, with chapters on Weird Tales, “On Werewolves and Horror Yarns, 1925”, “The Last Celt”, “Solomon Kane and Historical Fantasy, 1928”, “Steve Costigan and the Boxing Yarns, 1929”, “King Kull and the Birth of Swords and Sorcery, 1929”, “‘Lovecraft, One of the Greatest Writers of Our Time’, 1930”, “Bran Mak Morn and the Picts, 1930”, “Oriental Stories, The Magic Carpet, and Historical Fiction, 1931”, “The Cthulhu Mythos, 1931”, “Westerns both Strange and True, 1932”, “‘Hither Came Conan, the Cimmerian’, 1931”, “Steve Harrison and the Detective Yarns, 1933”, “Breckenridge Elkins and the Tall Tale Yarns, 1934”, “El Borak and the Adventure Yarns, 1934”, and so on and so forth.

Not only are we given detailed biographies of Howard’s parents, but also of his close friends and his only girlfriend, Novalyne Price, as well as those writers he became involved with, mainly through frequent correspondence, such as H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. Willard M. Oliver’s thoroughness is exemplary, and he is never boring, giving the reader a keen understanding of the times in which Howard lived and wrote, his constant problems with editors, the rejections, rewrites and struggles with payments, the latter being especially important to him as Howard was determined from the start to be a full time writer with no other employment to distract him if he could manage it.

I was fascinated with Howard’s continual rejections from many markets, including his main standby, Weird Tales. His determination to make his way as a writer despite numerous setbacks is inspirational, but I sense eventually this all took its toll, especially when he began to rely on the payments he received to help cover medical bills for his mother, which only became greater and more frequent as her terminal illness (tuberculosis) progressed towards its inevitable end.

As I read this book I became increasingly more impressed with what Howard managed to produce over those few active years as a writer and what he had to endure, both mentally and physically. I must admit, though, it’s a book whose final chapters I approached with growing trepidation, knowing how it would end: with him sat alone in his car with a loaded gun. With the failure of his friendship with Novalyne Price, who it is obvious he would have wanted eventually to marry had things gone differently and their relationship hadn’t finally soured, plus the toil of the necessity to look after his mother both physically and financially, all took it out of him, till the end had a dreadful inevitability about it, especially for someone given to periodic bouts of black depression.

Despite the tragic end to Howard’s life, this is an incredible book, utterly readable, insightful and impressively thorough, one of the best biographies of a writer I have ever read, and I recommend it unreservedly for anyone with an interest in the creator of Conan.