The Weird Tales of Silas Flint (The Flint Anthologies Book 1)

A Review By

“You used your powers to commit crimes against the laws of man, however, in addition to the laws of God. God will forgive you, but that does not excuse you from the consequences of your criminal activities in this world.”

 

After reviewing the first tale of Book 1 of The Weird Tales of Silas Flint, we were so impressed with this pulp fiction narrative that we decided to jump right into the second tale!

What it’s About:

As the title suggests, this time we find Flint dealing with a witch who claims repentance and seeks forgiveness for her transgressions against God and against the laws of man. And speaking of repentive thoughts, this now seems an ongoing theme in the Silas Flint tales. Witches are evil and corrupt, and yet even they were at one point just normal human beings and thus even they sometimes long for that lost sense of humanity. 

Zelda Fletcher was a woman who was seduced and corrupted by a master of evil sorcery, Francisco. But when she realized that Francisco was aiming at more nefarious deeds than just robbing the local stores by ways of witchcraft, she had enough and left him. Now Flint must decide how to apply the full power of the law to Zelda’s case, while also dealing with a possessed Francisco who is about to hit town with a vengeance!

Reviewer’s Take:

Once again Beckman manages to create the ‘classic’ pulp fiction vibes we fell in love with by reading Solomon Kane, yet creating something NEW. 

Concepts of Truth, Righteousness, Good vs Evil are all valued and taken quite seriously rather than scoffed at (see a lot of mainstream ‘reinterpretations’ of classic characters). The relationship between Flint and his associate, Navarro, breathes just enough lightheartedness into the story in a tasteful and balanced fashion.

The other pattern I noticed in both tale #1 and #2 is that unlike other similar franchises, where bystanders and townsfolk seem just an inconvenience for the hero to keep out of the way, here everybody is welcome to aid Flint in fighting evil. In fact, we see Flint himself oftentimes encourage every able body to pick up a weapon and stand against evil, rather than tell them to get lost. This is a very interesting choice and one that I can appreciate for different reasons.

Needless to say, friends if you haven’t picked up a copy of the Weird Tales yet I strongly suggest to do so, and follow us as we move on to tale #3: Evil Never Rests!

🦀