DEPTHS OF SAVAGERY
Steven L. Shrewsbury
DDP Price: $4.99 USD
eBook 132 Pages (April 2003)
Double Dragon eBooks
ISBN: 1-55404-051-5

PULP LIVES! Anyone who fecklessly doubts, the dread naysayer who calls it dead, need only look at the tremendous resurgence of pulp fiction everywhere we look and listen - on the street, on the radio, in the movie theaters and now online across the dark and spook-ridden world of the Internet.

Pulp never died. There is something eternal and of verity, in its blushing and brash dialogue, its gushing prose and enthralling narrative. Pulp fiction is a rumbling 440 cc engine, the pulse-pounding heart of the prose-athlete; pulp fiction is the bawdy hue of the essence of our life understood as drama. Pulp fiction is the horrid bath-mirror reflection of the generous portraiture of modern fiction and art.

Seldom does a fiction writer, these days, pulp or regular, care enough about history to devour it in his off hours. In a world of postmodern fiction and devil-may-care pop-culture, when a fiction writer does appear that can differentiate Harald Hardradaa from Charlemagne, the ancient history of Britain, or the pre-history of central Asia, and describe in gushing prose the action of the death-dealing axe toward the unfortunate (and probably deserving soul) beneath it, Steven Shrewsbury’s DEPTHS OF SAVAGERY is a fearsome change of pace. Shrewsbury not only cares about historical adventure, he demands that you live it.

From the creator of the albino hero-detective Dack Shannon, comes DEPTHS OF SAVAGERY, barbaric and aggressive adventure fiction interwoven with fascinating historical research and poetical insights into the baser nature of Man; it is odd angles of history brought to life, larger than life. Ancient Celtic wars, the social mores of Viking societies interspersed with gut-wrenching and historically-accurate battle scenes, modern-day punk heroes and aboriginal tribesmen are evoked in this winsome 13 short story collection by the American author also known for his evocative horror fiction.

One of the most original characters in this exploration into moments of adventurous historical barbarism is the Amerindian psychometric archaeologist Elijah Blackthorn, who narrates in the short story “Paradigm Vault.,” ‘The other conclusion I have drawn from this is that if ghosts or spirits can infect places or homes…perhaps they can leave an imprint on objects as well.” He is an academic that can fare as well in the wilds of Cathay as on the mean streets of Chicago or Canton.

Fancy a read through DEPTHS OF SAVAGERY; it is a trek through the darker events of mankind’s dark past. The bone-chilling presence of the remoter ages described, aptly muscular with myth-powers and brought to a virile life, will only make the savageness of the human condition more real, and all the more entertaining for the reader.

Copyright 2003 by Jonah Lissner

Jonah Lissner is Author of the THE VIRO SAGA and other pulp adventure tales and Editor of Lissner’s Adventure Fiction Online. He can be reached at joe3919@hotmail.com

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