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Conquer (The John Conquer Series Book 1)

Page 19

by Edward M. Erdelac


  Following the killing of the nefarious count and his vampiric wives, Van Helsing suffers from violent, recurring fantasies and commits himself to Jack Seward’s Purfleet Asylum for treatment. Upon his release and seeking a relaxing holiday, Van Helsing volunteers to transport the remains and earthly effects of Quincey P. Morris back to the Morris family ranch in Sorefoot, Texas.

  He finds Quincey’s brother Cole embroiled in escalating tensions with a neighboring outfit of Norwegian cattle ranchers led by the enigmatic Sig Skoll. When men and animals start turning horrible mutilated, Van Helsing suspects a preternatural culprit, but is a shapechanger really loose on the Texas plains, or are the delusions of his previously disordered mind returning?

  PRAISE FOR TEROVOLAS

  “Professor Abraham Van Helsing in the Wild West! What more could one ask for? [Erdelac] melds the stylistic concepts [of Dracula] perfectly with those of the classic western tales.” - The British Fantasy Society

  “Erdelac manages to recreate the style of Stoker without lacking originality as one might expect. By staying true to the tradition laid down by Dracula while simultaneously putting his own spin on the story, Erdelac breathes new life into an old tale. The action scenes are crisp, the characters well developed, the plot filled with surprises.” – Brett J. Talley, Stoker award winning author of That Which Should Not Be.

  COYOTE’S TRAIL (Comet Press)

  In 1886 a bloodied and battered Chiricahua Apache boy drags himself out of the Arizona desert, intent on revenge. He kidnaps a Mexican prostitute and with the help of a sadistic whiskey peddler, uses her as bait to lure the cavalrymen who massacred his family out from the safety of their fort, unaware that the woman is pursuing her own bizarre course of revenge.

  "With COYOTE'S TRAIL, Ed Erdelac has created a story as raw as the wound from a bullwhip. His blistering prose, combined with superb use of time, place, and character, gives COYOTE'S TRAIL the kind of life that springs off the page and into the reader's consciousness. That's a rare thing these days, and in the world of genre fiction, rarer still. This is a damn hard story about damn hard men, and told damn well." --C. Courtney Joyner, Author of SHOTGUN and NEMO RISING

  ANGLER IN DARKNESS

  This first collection of short fiction spans nearly a decade of fishing in the sunless depths of the imagination, some brought to light here for the first time. A frontiersman of bizarre pedigree is peculiarly suited to tracking down a group of creatures rampaging across the settlements of the Texas Hill Country….. A great white hunter is shaken to his core by a quarry he cannot conceive of…. A bullied inner city kid finds the power to strike back against his tormentors and finds he can’t stop using it…. Outraged plumbing plots its revenge…. Here Blackfoot Indians hunt the undead, the fate of nations is decided by colossal monsters, a salaryman learns the price of abandoning his own life, and even the Angel of Death tells his story.

  PRAISE FOR ANGLER IN DARKNESS

  “If you’re new to Erdelac’s work, Angler in Darkness is a fabulous introduction, a bizarre medley of the perverse, sinister, and strange. Erdelac weaves a refreshingly unabashed tapestry, his blunt naturalistic dialogue hitting as hard as the visceral thrills splashing across the pages. Most importantly, his work gives voice to diverse points-of-view, his protagonists arriving from walks of life often overlooked in genre fiction. Angler in Darkness is a provocative, compelling, and deliciously devilish anthology from one of the most talented voices in fantasy fiction, and a must read for aficionados of the unusual.” – Cemetery Dance

  “Erdelac’s first collection of 15 reprints and three previously unpublished stories runs the gamut of monster mayhem and historical weirdness, with plenty of gore to satisfy horror aficionados…. Erdelac has a gift for inspiring fascination with whatever era he chooses to write about, especially the Wild West, where he shines. This entertaining and varied collection, enhanced by the author’s story prefaces, will appeal to a wide variety of horror readers.” – Publisher’s Weekly

  "You'll find history not sanitized and prettied up for modern sensibilities; this is the raw stuff, the gritty stuff, with the ugliness and racism right there alongside the bravery and beauty.

  Sometimes, the tales focus on the small-scale, families or individuals, lonely journeys, confrontations with cruel mortality and truth. In others, the fates of nations are at stake. There's variety here, a display of ranges -- temporal, stylistic, genre -- and it all serves to reinforce my initial opinion. Whatever the era, Ed Erdelac does historical fiction RIGHT." - This Is Horror

  WITH SWORD AND PISTOL (Crossroads Press)

  Collects four fantasy adventure novellas.

  RED SAILS - In 1740 a British marine and a Dominican Blackfriar are captured on the high seas by a blood guzzling pirate captain and turned loose on a cannibal isle to be hunted down for sport under the full moon by his shapeshifting crew.

  NIGHT OF THE JIKININKI - In 1737 three disparate men, a casteless bandit, a sadistic samurai sword tester, and a mad, child killing monk band together to fight their way out of a feudal Japanese prison as it fills with the walking dead.

  SINBAD AND THE SWORD OF SOLOMON - In 796, Sinbad the Sailor and motley crew undertake a mission from the Caliph of Baghdad to retrieve a magic sword from a demon on an enchanted island.

  GULLY GODS - In 2005 a young South Houston gangster learns the horrific secret behind the power behind a seemingly unstoppable clique of Liberian ex-child soldiers taking over a South Chicago neighborhood.

  Hundreds of years removed. Thousands of miles apart. They all make their end WITH SWORD AND PISTOL.

 

 

 


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