One of our new friends, Davide Mana of the Karavansara blog, just published a novella at Amazon. I’ve just finished reading it and I have to say that I’m quite impressed. As far as I can tell, it’s his first published story, and I hope it’s not his last.
It’s positively dripping with everything good about Sword and Sorcery and Pulp fiction. The plot is relatively straightforward, though the imagery of the Elder God is startling enough to shock new life into the tale right around the point where it starts to flag. The characters are interesting and well-drawn, though I do hope that the Aegyptian Princess stays an antihero and doesn’t get all goody-goody on us now that she’s had this run-in with death, horror, betrayal, and an absurdly honest Centurion. As a bonus (I’m a sucker for bonus tracks) the author has a brief afterword about his writing process.
While the story isn’t high literature, neither is the Sword and Sorcery and other types of genre fiction I occasionally (lately, frequently) rave about here. What it is, is well-done entertainment that hits all of its marks and still surprises a bit here and there. It’s well worth the price. Hopefully, I don’t have to wait too long for more of their adventures.
EDIT: Apparently, the author does have more published stories, but this is his first Sword and Sorcery work.
Way Too Fantasy 
Thank you for the review!
This is not actually my first published story – but is my first serious outing as an author/publisher in the English language, and it’s my first sword & sorcery.
And hopefully it will not be my last 🙂
Aculeo & Amunet are coming back (I can’t give you an ETA yet), and I’m working on the chemistry between them , as I feel it’s one of the strenghts of the characters. So no, Amunet won’t get all goody-goody, and we’ll find out why Aculeo has a name meaning “Stinger”.
And I agree – this is not great literature, but it was not written as such.
It was meant to be fun – it was for me, writing it, I hope it will be for my readers, reading it.