Sword & Sorcery – What’s In A Name?
Sword & Sorcery has become a term of derision since the 1980s. There are good reasons for this but much of that derision is out of ignorance. The barbarian baby has been thrown out with […]
SOMETHING FISHY: AQUAMAN MOVIE REVIEW (SPOILERS)
Steve is not a big fan of the movie Aquaman. In fact, he’s not even a little fan of Aquaman; he thinks the movie s(t)inks!
Noticias Literatura 23-8
Two new speculative fiction books have been released in Spanish: La canción de Bêlit, an exploration of a lost period in the history of Robert E, Howard’s Conan the Barbarian; and Transcrepuscular, which considers a possible evolutionary symbiosis between humanity and nature, exposing our ethnocenrtic view of the world.
Noticias literatura 24-8
The first issue of a new Spanish language fantasy magazine, Iron and Bones, has been released, and Cixin Liu, author of the 2015 Hugo Award winning novel The Three Body Problem, will appear in Barcelona.
REVIEW: JULY/AUGUST MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION (F&SF)
Steve reviews the current F&SF. It’s still a great magazine! Get it now while it’s still on the stands!
MOORCOCK vs. ULTRON: Two Reviews
Two new reviews by Steve: the new Michael Moorcock book and The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Are they worth it? You bet they are!
Scide Splitters: In Space No One Can Hear You Laugh by Mike Resnick
Scide Splitters reviews a story collection by one of science fiction and fantasy’s most prolific authors of short form humorous fiction.
ROBERT E. HOWARD and the Many Faces of CONAN
Conan, from Weird Tales to remakes – with a dash or two of Frazetta thrown in for verisimilitude.
PAPERBACKS: ACE Doubles, “D-Series,” the “Good Old Stuff”
Ahh nostalgia. For a book series? Certainly, so long as its the tete-beche wonder of the Ace Double. Two books in one! Steve waxes eloquent on a reading experience that is sadly largely forgotten.
The Artful Collector: A Savvy Collector Comes up with Art Hierarchy #10!
Jane Frank had one last thing to add to her Art Hierarchies: Familiarity.
SWORD & SORCERY & J. R. R. TOLKIEN
In September 1937 an English Don named John Ronald Reuel Tolkien published a children’s book called The Hobbit. Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan, had been dead for fifteen months. In 1950 Gnome Press […]
PUSADIAN REWRITE: L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP 1
Two things happened in 1950. One: L. Sprague de Camp read his first Conan story. And two: L. Sprague de Camp would try to direct Sword & Sorcery down another track altogether. Those two don’t […]
NORVELL W. PAGE: WAN TENGRI – PRESTER JOHN
While Fritz Leiber was creating a boisterous style of Sword & Sorcery based upon E. R. Eddison and James Branch Cabell, Norvell W. Page wrote two novels that seem on the surface to be closer […]
FRITZ LEIBER: SWORD & SORCERY GROWS UP
In 1939 Farnsworth Wright began a move away from Sword & Sorcery. With Robert E. Howard dead, he no longer championed the dark fantasy tale, publishing Henry Kuttner’s Elak as the last. This meant that […]
BLUE PENCILS AND BLOODY SWORDS: EDITORS OF S&S
It’s easy to discuss authors for their contributions are evident. You just have to read the stories. The great editors are harder to corral, for the editor’s job is one of selection, guidance, subjective acts […]
The James Allison Stories: Dreaming of the Past
Robert E. Howard produced several series: Solomon Kane, Kull of Valusia, Bran Mak Morn, and finally Conan the Cimmerian, all existing more or less in the same world at different times. In “Kings of the […]
The Top Ten Roleplaying Games of All Time
Pull the blinds and turn off the phone; it’s time to head to the Game Room and lock in on some hardcore meta-gaming action. In the Game Room we will explore the world of gaming […]
The History of Fantasy, Part II: Barbarians and Elves and Jesus Figures and D20s
The nineteenth century closes with two books that will be imitated constantly for the next hundred years or so: Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. To a […]
Judging A Book By Its Cover (Art)
The old axiom about not judging a book by its cover notwithstanding, I am going to judge the merits of various book covers that wrapped editions of heroic fiction. This is not a scholarly article, […]
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