Chris A. Jackson

Weapon of Flesh: Accessible, Well-designed Dark Fantasy: The back-cover blurb is concise and has no spoilers, and captures the book well (copied/pasted below).

This book is saturated with oppression, violence, and murder but none of that is gratuitous. Like his assassin characters, author Chris A. Jackson balances several tight-rope acts: (a) have the protagonist, Lad, commit evil acts while being innocent at heart; (b) present the coming of age of three characters with burgeoning romance without being cheesy; (c) dole out humor (mostly through Lad's dialogue) while shedding blood; (d) present mature themes of identity and life-purpose with an easy-to-read style (suitable for YA or adult audiences).

Each chapter blends into the next with a carefully scripted, enjoyable plot with just the right amount of tension. All the main characters (Lad, Mya, Wiggin) grow while establishing strong character motivations. There are five more in the series and this is solid introduction. Before I jump into #2 Weapon of Blood, I will read Chris A. Jackson's Deathmask since I already have the paperback and I'm a sucker for necromancers.

Most (if not all) are illustrated by Noah Stacey:
Weapon of Flesh (Weapon of Flesh, #1) by Chris A. Jackson Weapon of Blood (Weapon of Flesh, #2) by Chris A. Jackson Weapon of Vengeance (Weapon of Flesh, #3) by Chris A. Jackson Weapon of Fear (Weapon of Flesh, #4) by Chris A. Jackson Weapon of Pain (Weapon of Flesh, #5) by Chris A. Jackson Weapon of Mercy (Weapon of Flesh, #6) by Chris A. Jackson

Weapon of Flesh Series
#1 Weapon of Flesh 2005
#2 Weapon of Blood 2013
#3 Weapon of Vengeance 2014
#4 Weapon of Fear 2015 *
#5 Weapon of Pain 2016 *
#6 Weapon of Mercy 2017 *
(* with Anne L. McMillen-Jackson)

Back Cover Blurb to Weapon of Flesh:
"Forged from flesh… and magic. Made to kill… but not to feel.

He was made for one purpose: To be the most efficient killer, the most lethal assassin the world had ever seen. But something has gone wrong with the plan.

The Master is gone… The weapon is free… And in a dangerous world, a weapon does what a weapon is made to do. Or does he?

Without even a name, the weapon chooses one: Lad. And so the weapon begins to become a person… All he has been told is that his destiny awaits him, so he seeks it out, though he knows not what that destiny is.

But the one who paid for the weapon to be forged awaits his prize…impatiently. The Grandfather of Assassins has invested nearly two decades and a fortune in his perfect weapon, and when it does not arrive on time, he begins to search. His hunters are seeking Lad, and Lad is seeking his destiny.

There is only one problem: No one thought a weapon of flesh would fall in love."… (más)

The Arkham Horror novella for "investigator" Silas Marsh teams up the alienated sea dog with Miskatonic University librarian Abigail Foreman. She's in the throes of a manic episode trained on apocalyptic oracles in a sixteenth-century tome. Marsh is of course kin to the Innsmouth Marshes (of Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth"), and the Deep Gate of the title unsurprisingly proves to be at Devil Reef off the Massachusetts coast.

Author Chris Jackson is an old hand at nautical storytelling and fantasy, but an admitted greenhorn when it comes to horror writing, and this experience base shows in the final product. While there are a few apt touches for purposes of horror and the yog-sothothery is all faithful enough, it's more a quest-and-challenge sort of story than a genuinely creepy one. It is a fast read, as the books in this series generally are, and it does go a little ways to fleshing out Silas as a black sheep of the hybrid Innsmouthers.

The full-color "documentary" pages at the back of the volume show as much variety as these have in any of the other books, including correspondence, news clippings, a medical report, a scientific abstract, and a page or two from the Prophesiae Profana. The correspondence, while designed with appropriate old fonts for manual cursive and typewriting, is all anachronistically set up with headers in e-mail format: "From: ... To: ... Subject: ..." above the body text. Also, the pages from the old tome are in English, although the story described them as being in Latin. Still, all this material does provide some entertaining supplementary perspectives on the main story, particularly the Arkham Advertiser story commending the "fine citizens" of the Marsh family.

The Silas Marsh promotional cards for Arkham Horror: The Card Game introduce this character to the game for the first time. I expect him to be fun to play, and I have already designed a deck for him to join with Ursula Downs in my first go at the latest campaign cycle The Forgotten Age.… (más)

A pirate romance set on the seas of Golarion, the Pathfinder RPG game world. The crew of the Stargazer (ST:NG, really?) is dedicated to sinking Chelaxian slave ships and freeing slaves, until they get word of a new Chelaxian secret weapon that's going to be used to destroy an entire Andoran coastal city. Espionage, swashbuckling and desperate adventure ensues as they try to infiltrate and stop the plot.
The crew is a motley collection of a cross section of all sorts of human, part human and monster types, humans, gnomes, halflings, half-orcs, merpeople, a naga, etc. Action packed with Pirates of the Caribbean type action adapted to Pathfinder rules. The crew is brave and un-killable and the monsters are nasty.… (más)