"The World-Devourer was bigger than the sky, ice-furred like a jagged mountain of glass." -- from "The Wolf in Winter"

Rage of the Behemoth is an excellent anthology about monsters and the people that stab them.

It is absolutely jammed with heroic fantasy stories. It's about 350 pages, but the book feels heavier than that. Editor Jason Waltz must have deep-fried it.

Every anthology by Rogue Blades Entertainment has a theme (here's their website). This one is all monsters. For your convenience, the 21 stories are sub-divided into the locales where the critters are found. My favorite is "Mysterious Jungles."

But I would not be too afraid of a monster from "Depthless Seas." Even a tiny capful is an amount of depth. But "depthless" means it has no depth. The monsters there are just sweaty.

On the other hand, the story "Black Water" has the same name as an absolutely terrifying Doobie Brothers song.

My favorite story in Rage of the Behemoth is Bill Ward's "The Wolf In Winter." It's about a fighter in a frozen wasteland whose enemy might not be real. The story gets into the hero's head, instead of merely talking about the size of his sword.

Nearly every story has an old-timey feel. They're brutal, bloody, and fun.

One thing every story in the heroic fantasy arena needs is a pro wrestling style quote-maker. Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock may have never watched pro wrestling, but they knew what they were doing anyway. The quote-makers set the action of the story into overdrive.

"Passion of the Stormlord" has this one:

"Wish her human, that we might revenge ourselves before we perish!"

"Blood on the Ice":

"A smart man does not cast aside a good blade."

"Runner of the Hidden Ways":

"How many skinless have I killed since the kingdom fell?"

"The Rotten Bones Rattle":

"Sniveling jackals! Fight me with honest steel, not poison and tricks!"

Rage of the Behemoth is crammed with heroic adventure. Pick it up at the same place you buy steak. If your meat provider does not also sell Rage of the Behemoth, that's their fault.