Celtic Adventures

Action packed thrill tales!

A new collection from DMR Books is available: Celtic Adventures. DMR Books had published Planetary Adventures, Prehistoric Adventures, and Viking Adventures. I and at least one other had suggested Celtic Adventures, can't let the Vikings have all the spotlight.

Contents:

Introduction, “Born Fighting” Deuce Richardson

The Druids (Poem) Kenneth Morris

The Devil's Dagger Farnham Bishop and Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur

People of the Dark Robert E. Howard

The Harping of Cravetheen Fiona MacLeod

A Claymore for the Clan Donald Barr Chidsey

The Horror in the Glen Clyde Irvine

Grana, Queen of Battle John Barnett

Feach Air Muir Gealach Buidhe Mar Or (Poem) Robert E. Howard

There is no better artist than Jim FitzPatrick for illustrating the cover for this book.

The Bishop and Brodeur story is a nice find. Originally appeared in Adventure magazine in 1918.

Robert E. Howard's “People of the Dark” has been a favorite since first reading it many years ago in the Zebra paperback Pigeons From Hell. Howard is firing on all cylinders with black haired Gaels making a raid on the blond Britons in pre-Roman Britain. First in Strange Tales 1932.

“Fiona MacLeod” was William Sharp. The story collection The Sin-Eater (1895) has stories about ancient Scotland and Ireland. I first learned about Fiona MacLeod from pulp writer Lloyd Arthur Eshbach.

I have a stack of paperbacks by Donald Barr Chidsey. He started out in the pulps and made the jump to mass-market paperbacks writing pirate, medieval historical, and many historical sailing novels. “A Claymore for the Clan” was in Adventure first in 1948.

Clyde Irvine was not a prolific writer for the pulp magazines. He was mostly in Jungle Stories. This story is from Weird Tales.

“Grana, Queen of Battle” is a historical about the famous Irish pirate. I alerted the editor to this novel from the pulp magazine Cavalier from 1913. H. P. Lovecraft might have read this one as this is from his pulp reading period and Cavalier was one of the magazines he read. Barnett was a prolific pulp magazine contributor from 1906-1916 when he died. There is a sequel, “Grana's Son” from All-Story Weekly from 1916.

You can order this book directly from DMR Books. Dave Ritzlin kept this book with stories set in Celtic lands. I joked there is enough material for Celtic heroes in other lands that could be called Celtic Adventurers. Make Celtic Adventures a success so a follow up volume can happen.