The Weird Worlds of Joel Jenkins, Vol. 1, is the first in a series of three volumes. They collect several short stories by Joel Jenkins. Some are standalone works, others are part of a series, and some of which are or will be collected into other volumes. Some appeared elsewhere first, and others appear for the first time here.
I’ll get to the other two volumes at some point. For those stories that are part of a series collected elsewhere, I won’t go into them too far.
For this volume, we get the following:
“Another Night on the River” is a sequel to a story by the late Derrick Ferguson, though you don’t need to read one first. Like the original, it’s a romance story but one that includes some strange creatures who have an interest in humans, and not in a good way.
I’m not a fan of “splatterpunk” and don’t understand the appeal. “The Indoctrination of Cassie” is Joel’s first published story, and it’s in that genre.
Set in an alternate history version of Earth, “The Zeppelins of Sumatra” stars aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot/navigator Edgar Rice Burroughs attempting a circumnavigation flight. But in the Pacific, a storm throws them off course.
Approaching an island they think is Sumatra, they find a strange spire that has been turned into a giant magnet and is pulling them in. There they are attacked by trained orangutans and discover Adolf Hitler’s hidden base. He had been kicked out of Germany before he could take over. Now he is building up a secret army with a secret weapon he hopes to use. Can the two stop him?
I’m also a big fan of Bertrand Brinley’s The Mad Scientist Club series (which has four books, not two), and the Disney TV adaption that inspired “The Ghost of Firetrail.” This is a fun little story.
You may know Porter Rockwell from Joel’s Lone Crow series. But he happens to be a real person, who was the personal bodyguard of several Mormon leaders before passing away of old age. “The Destroying Angel” gives a fictionalized account of when Porter was blessed by the prophet until shortly after Joseph Smith’s murder.
“Carefully Down to Hell” is the first solo Monica Killingworth story, about an elite female assassin who was first seen going up against Derrick Ferguson’s Dillon and one of the Gantlet Brothers. It’s been since incorporated into the first Monica volume, and a review is coming.
“Skull Crusher” is a fantasy story set in an alternate world starring Strommand Greattix, which sadly ends on a cliffhanger. I don’t know if there is more to this character.
The Gantlet Brothers are a rock band whose members are also mercenaries. They’ve featured in several stories and novels, even running into Dillon. “Five Rounds in Vegas” is a solo story with one of the brothers.
“The Blood Vault” is the first story with vampire hunter Damon St. Cloud, who later appeared in the novel Devil Take the Hindmost, the first of a series of novels. Here he is looking for a missing girl, whom he hopes he can find before she’s been turned or killed.
With “Immortals of the Cannibal Coast,” the story is co-written by Martin Edward Stephenson and features one of his creations, Tarajel, a female pirate in a sword-&-sorcery world.
The “Iron Monsters of Death” is an Eel & Adder story, part of a series starring a former cat burglar/escape artist and former actor who fight criminals and the Nazis before WWII. See my posting on the collection Midnight Avengers for more.
“Lair of the White Apes” is part of Joel’s Dire Planet series of stories, which number several volumes. It’s a “sword and planet” series in the style of Burroughs, set on Mars of 10,000 years ago.
“The Great Goat Hunt” is part of Joel’s Saffronyia fantasy series, recently collected in Swords of Saffronyia.
So overall this is a good sampling of Joel’s works. There are standalone items you won’t get anywhere else, and if you want an introduction to some of his series, reading the stories here is a good way of doing so. I’ve posted on some of his series and will be doing further ones as well. I look forward to the next two volumes in this series.
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