StevenShrewsbury.com - The official web site of author Steven L. Shrewsbury

Now Available:

In 59 AD, as the Celt horde on Anglesey succumbs to Roman aggression, war goddess Fey grants Lucan Mac Aliester his wish—life. Lucan soon discovers that it is not his Druidic people the bargain elevates, but himself.

20 tales of action, suspense, intrigue and terror set in the Majestic Universe by the author of Nocturnal Vacations and Depths of Savagery. "His dark and primal passion explodes in vicious tales. Likened to the timeless author Robert E. Howard's barbarism, Steven L. Shrewsbury is the reincarnated Howard." -Peggy Jo Shumate aka Brutal Dreamer, Eternal Night Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror

"Depths of Savagery is a collection of 13 tales of barbaric heroic fantasy. Through tales involving ancient Celts, Vikings, other-worldly Crusaders, and Confederate Guerillas, the human animal is dissected to the bone..." Click for more info.

Nocturnal Vacations, by Steven L. Shrewsbury. "Dack Shannon, albino agent from secret intelligence cabal Majestic Services, is exiled to a remote locale and dispenses ruthless justice as he sees fit..."

DeathGrip: Legacy of Terror, spanning the globe with tales of ancient horror. "PREORDER NOW! 18 mind-blowing stories by an international cast of authors revolving around the theme of ancient horrors! Shipping October 2003!"

"Herman Melville said it best when he proclaimed that every path eventually leads to the sea. For it is the sea that holds our most sacred and terrifying fears, yet it also holds a glorious mysticism over us as a race, an attraction so strong that most of us flock to beaches, river banks, creeks, and lakes at every opportunity to stare out into the vast blueness and wonder: what's out there?"

"Grimoire de Solace is a dark fantasy anthology by 15 writers, with illustrations by 15 artists. A vast array of stories covers many settings and themes, with elements of horror, romance, mystery, action, and everything in between. A must for readers of the fantasy genre."

"In the world of The Blackest Death things are never what they seem and a trip down a lonely stretch of highway, through the shadow-rooms of a darkened house at the edge of the woods, or through the inhuman imagination might just bring you face to face with your worst possible nightmare come true..."

More...

Bulletproof Soul
by Steven L. Shrewsbury
ISBN 0-9747680-0-6
257 pages at 18.00 paperback
Black Death Books
http://www.khpindustries.com/

One look at the mysterious cover of Steven L. Shrewsbury's BULLETPROOF SOUL and you immediately know that you're in for a different kind of reading experience. Shrouded in black, the cover features a pair of red glowing eyes floating near the top, a large and powerful looking gun being held in this shadowy person's left hand and the cross of a rosary bead hanging from this same person's right. What does it mean? How does a gun, a religious symbol and a pair of demonic looking eyes fit together? What am I in for?

The fun part about reading BULLETPROOF SOUL is finding out the answers to all of those questions. That's right, folks-Majestic Services Agent Dack Shannon, that tall and lethal albino, is back with twenty more action-packed short stories filled with savage justice sprung from the mind of author Steven L. Shrewsbury. For those of you who aren't familiar with Shrewsbury's unique story-telling style and hard-hitting fiction, do yourself a favor-get introduced to it.

Dack Shannon is an amazing character who has been exploding across both the printed page and the electronic page for several years now in numerous magazines and e-zines. This is Steven's second anthology featuring his flawed and tragic albino Majestic Agent, a man who knows exactly what he has become but is always searching for the truth of his creation. Reviews of the first Dack Shannon book, NOCTURNAL VACATIONS, and another of Shrewsbury's collections, DEPTHS OF SAVAGERY, appeared in this e-zine at various points in 2003. I urged you to read those books then and I urge you to read this new book now.

Crammed full with twenty tales that combine all of the elements of science fiction and horror, mystery and vengeance, action and death-dealing justice, BULLETPROOF SOUL erupts from the very first page and keeps those pages turning. Now, I must admit, I'm a little bit biased in this review-I've been reading Shrewsbury's work for nearly four years now and have been loving every minute of it. Shrewsbury's fiction is often historical in nature, brutal and barbaric in the telling and as exciting as it gets. With Dack Shannon, though, Shrewsbury's signature character, he steps on all of the proverbial rules and allows himself to have a bunch of fun. You might be reading one of the stories in BULLETPROOF SOUL and ask yourself, "Wait a minute, is this horror or science fiction?" Yet another story might prove to be a mystery while also scaring the pants off of you and leading you down a roller-coaster ride of emotion and jackhammer action. These are all a part of Shrewsbury's unique style. As a reader, you never know what he's going to throw at you next. What starts out as one thing may end up as an entirely different animal. There's no clear path, there's no true way.there's only Shrewsbury's gifted mind and his ability to tell great stories.

In the story, "Damnation Angels," Dack learns the true cause that unleashed the AIDS pandemic across the world. In, "Hellraisers," one felonious punk learns how truly dangerous it is to play with fire. In, "Neck-Tie Party," one overconfident Congressman learns that it isn't healthy to cross the black-ops agents of Majestic Services. In, "Issue From The Rotten Womb," a mother and son duo learn that it isn't smart to be running drugs on old Route #66. In, "Murder Hole," Dack and fellow Majestic Agent Thor Alexander get an icy surprise while on a fishing trip in Minnesota. In, "Under The Neon Dragon," Dack discovers the reasons why so many people seem to enter a particular restaurant but never seem to leave. And in, "Ressurection," the last tale in this collection, Dack comes to terms with the person he has become and finds the right reasons to carry on with his work.

These are just a small portion of the power-packed tales you'll find in BULLETPROOF SOUL. Shrewsbury continues to dazzle me with his tales of Dack Shannon, a brutal man with a sense of what's right, of what justice is all about, of exactly what it takes to rid the world of the filth and the slime that walk through every city's streets. He has his flaws, he has weaknesses, but a good old fashioned bulletproof fedora and overcoat sees him through.

Pick up this book today, available at Black Death Books (http://www.khpindustries.com/), and treat yourself to a dose of lethal justice, meted out as only Dack Shannon can. The last page of BULLETPROOF SOUL promises more Dack in an upcoming work titled STRONGER THAN DEATH. For Shrewsbury fans like me, the waiting is the hardest part.

--Reviewed by Shawn P. Madison

Home