Saturday, 17 August 2024

Book Review: Bohun - The Complete Savage Adventures by Steve Dilks - PART SIX

 

Part Six of my review of:
 
BOHUN: THE COMPLETE SAVAGE ADVENTURES
 
By Steve Dilks
 
Carnelian Press, 2024. 219 pages
 
Cover artwork Adam Benet Shaw
 
Interior artwork Kurt Brugel
 
Red Trail of Vengeance is the final story in this collection taken from the pages of Savage Realms Monthly (Issue 28, May 2024). And true to form this additional segment of Bohun’s saga is filled with all the action and colour you would expect.

Never gifted with having much luck, when our intrepid hero arrives at the ruins of an abandoned castle expecting to find shelter for the night, he finds instead a well-armed band of ruthless bandits waiting for him, who demand his horse and what gold he carries. Unwilling to hand over either, and knowing they will kill him regardless, a fight ensues. Outnumbered, though, Bohun is quickly overwhelmed. Badly wounded, he is stripped of his armour and left to die. But death doesn’t come so easily to men such as Bohun, whose Damzullahan ancestors were endowed with an almost preternatural endurance. Which for the bandits means one day he will recover from his wounds and seek them out to exact his revenge… Another colourful tale with plenty of twists and turns and vividly described action, which culminates in an ancient city ruled by bandits.

 

Friday, 16 August 2024

Book Review: Bohun - The Complete Savage Adventures by Steve Dilks - PART FIVE

 

Part Five of my review of:
 
BOHUN: THE COMPLETE SAVAGE ADVENTURES
 
By Steve Dilks
 
Carnelian Press, 2024. 219 pages
 
Cover artwork Adam Benet Shaw
 
Interior artwork Kurt Brugel
 
Black Sunset in the Valley of Death is the second story in this book first published in Savage Realms Monthly (Issue 10, 2022), a digest-sized magazine that has again and again proven itself to be one of the best sources for fresh, new and original sword and sorcery in recent years. Black Sunset in the Valley of Death is no exception. Opening with Bohun in the most perilous position we have seen him in so far (tied to a sacrificial altar with the officiating priest about to deliver the coup de grĂ¢ce with a copper dagger) this story rapidly moves on to Bohun’s desperate escape across the wastes of a searingly hot desert, before reaching the welcoming shade of a jungle where he stumbles across a delicate pre-human race in a secluded valley whose ancestors once created the most advanced civilisation the world had seen, only for it to be corrupted from within and destroyed. The aftermaths of this corruption, though, have not died but linger on. And despite enjoying the time he spends with these strange people, and the peace and quietude of where they live, Bohun finally realises for the sake of them all he must go on and face this festering horror and destroy it. In doing so he comes up against the most formidable supernatural menace he has yet had to fight in a grotesque, dark and bloody climax. 
 

 

Thursday, 15 August 2024

Book Review: Bohun - The Complete Savage Adventures by Steve Dilks - PART FOUR

 

I was going to leave the next story till tomorrow, but it is so short I decided to go ahead and add it to today's reviews of Bohun - The Complete Savage Adventures by Steve Dilks:

Part Four of my review of
 
BOHUN: THE COMPLETE SAVAGE ADVENTURES
 
By Steve Dilks
 
Carnelian Press, 2024. 219 pages
 
Cover artwork Adam Benet Shaw
 
Interior artwork Kurt Brugel

Intrigue in Aviene previously appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly no 48 in 2022, and is really just a short episode in Bohun’s progress through the so-called civilised cities. Still a hired soldier, he is suffering now from having spent too much time in battle. “His nights were filled only with dreams of death and blood. He knew nothing now but the madness of battle. The life he once knew, the dreams he once had were but ashes in his memory.”

Thus it is that he sets out to an inn to meet a young revolutionary who wishes to bribe him to assassinate Acilius, a local magistrate. “‘In the name of the people and in the cause of revolution – he must die!’” the young man insists.  But before they part they are interrupted by three ruffians who deliberately pick a fight with Bohun, which results in him being arrested and taken to be sold as a slave. Despite the dire circumstances into which he has sunk Bohun is not so easily subdued – nor for long.

Though short, this story has some neat twists, helped along by Bohun’s innate ability to see past any lies he is told.

Book Review: Bohun - The Complete Savage Adventures by Steve Dilks - PART THREE

I continue my detailed review of Bohun - The Complete Savage Adventures by Steve Dilks:

The third tale, By Darkness Enthroned, was first published in Schlock! Webzine issues 24 and 25 earlier this year.  

 After already ratcheting up the eeriness in these Bohun stories Steve Dilks goes for the dark sorceries of two contesting sides in this tale with an absolute vengeance. 

Still recovering after the events in The Horror from the Stars, our Damzullahan warrior enlists in a mercenary army, perhaps longing for what he sees as the cleaner, more straightforward life of soldiering. Little does he realise occult forces have already been stirred into action by those opposing the army he has joined and that he too will soon be drawn into the machinations of another insidiously supernatural force. This longer tale is viewed from the perspectives of both sides, in which even some of those we would instinctively see as the villains have their doubts and pricks of conscience. In this it reminds me of the kind of tale Karl Edward Wagner was a master at creating in his Kane stories – and By Darkness Enthroned is no less redolent of his colourful and vivid language.