contents
Hunter’s Moon
In Dark Wild Hills
The Beacon House
The Forest of Fear
Green With Envy
Descent
This collection is the fifth in the Bearshirt series about Arthan the Bear Man, a were-bear who meets monsters and evil with a sword when he isn’t using his claws and jaws. This volume is set in Arthan’s youth when he is only seventeen and recently on his own, having left the Mountain where bears train. “Hunter’s Moon” starts us off with an encounter with a werewolf that surprises the young man.”In Dark Wild Hills” has Arthan stumble upon a strange underground race that worships something terrible. “The Beacon House” is the title story with a lighthouse leagues from the sea. What purpose can it serve? “The Forest of Fear” has Arthan discover a were-bear younger than himself. They must survive the were-hunters and something worse in the woods. “Green With Envy” features a young girl and an army lurking in the trees. And finally, “Descent” is a novella about a race of scientists with an evil plan for all humanity. This collection should satisfy any Sword & Sorcery fan’s love of action and monsters.
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From the Introduction:
For those in the know, the Arthan the bear man series (also known as The Bearshirt Series) is four novels long and counting. So why a collection of short stories? I suppose I could have used these different ideas within novels but I wanted to write about Arthan’s early years. In the novel series, he is already a man in his thirties (which for a were-bear is old enough!) What was his life like before the armies of bees and war with the werewolves?
There were a couple of other considerations. The first is the book called The Jungle Tales of Tarzan (1919) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. That collection of stories was singularly responsible for my entire career as a writer. If I hadn’t encountered it, with its wonderful Neal Adams cover back in mid-1970s, I don’t think I would have been a writer. And quite possibly a reader either. It was the gateway and it was a story collection. So why not? Why shouldn’t Arthan have one, too?
Certainly The Jungle Tales of Tarzan inspired me as a young reader but I don’t think these stories borrow from old Edgar Rice Burroughs much except for a love of adventure. I’ve talked about this before: Arthan was originally conceived as Conan meets Beorn from The Hobbit, but it has grown into its own thing pretty fast. The world of the weres has its own culture and Sword & Sorcery fun. As this story shows. I hope you enjoy it. — GW
Still available! Free download of “Green With Envy”, one of the stories from this book:
Sword & Sorcery from RAGE machine Books
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