An enchanted blade. An evil old man. An ancient spirit behind a mask. The Weird West just gets weirder. Orville and Jimmy are a pair of hucksters, struggling to scrape together enough coin for a square meal. While Orville angles for the big score, Jimmy hopes to make an honest buck for a day's work. When an old man calling himself Marzby asks for help with a supernatural pest, Orville smells opportunity. Jimmy smells danger. In two shakes of a lamb's tail, Marzby imprisons Orville and only Jimmy can save him from a gruesome death. The price for Orville's life? Jimmy must retrieve an enchanted knife from inside Skull Hill and put it in Marzby's hands in three days time. With the blade in reach, Jimmy runs head on into more trouble: a shapeshifting opossum, a larger than average coyote and an ancient spirit determined to keep the blade where it is. Maybe the evil Marzby shouldn't have the blade, but without it, how is Jimmy going to rescue Orville? The Black Blade is a weird western novel in Jeff Chapman's Huckster Tales series, mixing horror, fantasy, and comedy in an Old West setting. Climb up in the wagon and follow Orville and Jimmy as they once again plunge over their heads into supernatural trouble.

Collects six short stories of fantasy and weirdness. Fans of Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Greek mythology, and biblical-inspired fantasy will find something interesting. "Blood and Beauty" tells the tragic love story of a satyr and a dryad. "Sutter's Well" records the weird encounter between two boys and a Lovecraftian monster in Appalachia. "Morphine and Chocolate" draws inspiration from the medieval poem Pearl as it follows a father's search for his missing daughter from one weird landscape to another. "The Facts in the Case of M. Hussman" takes inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe and records the horrific consequences of artificially extending life in a steampunk world. "Shafts to Hell" returns to the Old West and takes the reader inside the mind of an insane miner. "Good King David" combines the tales of Hamlet and Absalom in a Biblical fantasy world. Categories: weird fantasy, weird horror, Greek mythology, mythical creatures, steampunk. **