Hello and welcome to what will eventually become the year of the Rusty Hobbyhorse in mid February. While we are now in 2026 it is still the year of the Distressed Snakeskin Belt for a little longer. However, weary travelers, I bring you news of some import before the celestial cladder turns once more. To wit, to help you through the cold darkness of winter there are two new releases coming your way in which to feast this eyes and feed you imagination.

The first comes to you my friends at Harvey Duckman’s holdfast, where they hide form the frost trolls and ice giants of winter in the fjord’s, waiting for the suns return while swapping tale and drinking mead before they can venture once more across the whale road…

Yes , Harvey Duckman is back with a deliciously dark collection of stories from our wonderful Dark Ages Pagan Mythos basket. Dark and violent, embracing the elements, feeling the earth beneath your bleeding fingertips, riding the storm, bracing the shield and drawing back the bow strings…

Our Harvey writers have let the Ban Sidhe howl, the Dark Fey play… they have danced with the devil, let the spirits rise… crossed the seas with nowt but belief and stubborn determination… raised their tankards and let the mead flow…

In the darkest of times, we have let the old powers return and have had fun in the driving rain amidst the rumble of thunder. Looking for original, wonderfully imaginative stories from a bunch of fantastic writers?

Featuring stories from Mary F Carr, Liam Nicholl, Laura Liptrot, Anna Atkinson-Dunn, Keith Errington and Nimue Brown, John Holmes-Carrington, Kate Baucherel, Steven C. Davis, Mark Hayes, Ben Sawyer, Christine King, Allison Kotzigova, Hunter Ricci, James Waite and M Stern.

It is available for preorder on kindle, and will be out in paperback and hardback from the 23rd of January

But that is not all, Steampowered Books also have a new release in January. This one written by their own Mark Hayes, who as your reading this blog you may have heard of…

This is my latest anthology of short stories and a couple of poems (One apologies for the poems…)

Esqwith’s Passing Place is a bar that sits on the edge of many realities and is part of none.
It is a place people stumble into some times and tell stories.
These are some of those stories.

Stories of auguries cast in kitchens by Victorian arcanists. The last survivor of an end of the world. The sister of Medusa, in a charity shop in Cheem. A herder of books who was once someone else. The final proof of god on a world of endless sunlight. Men in Dark Tweed and strange things in the Thames. The divine Sibel in a goth club in Streatham. The infatuating Miss Maybe, Quizzels and how to Quiddle them. As well as other tales of nothing, hungry things and a tale that no man knows.      

It is also available for preorder on kindle, and will be out on the 16th of January in all formats

and here is a video…