Here we have The Weird Worlds of Joel Jenkins, Vol. 2, the second in a series of three volumes. They collect several short stories by Joel Jenkins (and sometimes others). Some are standalone works; others are part of a series, some of which are or will be collected into other volumes. Some appeared elsewhere first; others appear for the first time here. I’ll get to the final volume at some point. For those stories that are part of a series collected elsewhere, I won’t go too far into.
Like the first, if you’re not familiar with Joel’s works, this is a good intro to them.
For this volume, we get the following:
“The Dust of Death” is an Eel and Adder story, about this strange pair who fight against the Nazis in pre-WWII New York. All their stories have been collected in Midnight Avengers, which I’ve reviewed.
We don’t get many historical fiction new pulp works, and “The Athena Palladium” is set during the Trojan War, using one of the secondary characters from the Iliad.
Another tale of assassin Monica Killingsworth, “The Mile High Killers” has been collected in Dead Blonde Walking, the first Killingsworth collection.
“On the Horns of El Diablo” is a zombie action-thriller starring a skateboarder and a convenience-store clerk that has since been expanded to a novel, Eyes of the Night.
With “Border Trade” by Morgan Abbot, he teams up his character Dr. Jane Agnes Depoulignac with a pair of CIA agents from Joel’s Gantlet Brothers series in a mission in Detroit. Sorry, I have no idea where else this character has appeared.
Joel’s werewolf, Jack Scarlet, stars in “The Plantation.” He appeared in other works, but I’m not familiar with them.
“Black Circle Storm” is a story about road racing in a future world, which also involves a sinister organization. I read this in Adventure Mystery Magazine #1, but here the main character of Michael Thunder has been renamed to Bucky Thunder.
“The Remnant Band” is a dark sword-and-sorcery work, a sequel to another. This is part of a larger series of stories in the City of Bathos series.
Lone Crow is Joel’s Native American occult detective set in the Old West mainly. “True Love” is set early in his life, and is when he obtains his signature gun, which will later be blessed. This tale would be reprinted in the first Lone Crow collection.
“Swords Against Savaht” is a story set on the Dire Planet, a planetary-romance series (think John Carter of Mars), this time staring the mad scientist Sar Savaht.
Temple Houston was a real person, the son of Sam Houston. He actually appears in a Lone Crow story. “Guns Against Temple” is a story that is later reprinted in the recent Guns Against Temple collection where he has to deal with somebody after him, helped by a corrupt sheriff.
“The Hidden Glen” is another fantasy tale set in Saffronyia, since collected in Swords of Saffronyia.
There you have it. It’s another great collection of varied stories from Joel Jenkins. I hope to get to the third volume soon. I wonder if we’ll ever see a fourth?
Jack Scarlet appears in one Lone Crow tale and in The Teeth of Necropolis, which is the second book in the Denbrook Supernatural series.
Originally, the Weird World books were meant to collect stories of characters that didn’t have enough stories to warrant their own volume. However, eventually I wrote enough stories that I was able to pull many of them into collections that were specific to those characters. I do have a handful of homeless stories that might be able to go into a Weird World #4 collection, but not a sufficient amount yet.
Thanks for the review!