Monday, November 12, 2007

Hail to The Cimmerian

Blogs are a funny business. There's millions of them all over the Web, each an expression of their author's particular interests. Given their sheer number, it's amazing that any of them even get discovered, let alone read. While I can't speak for everyone, I feel confident speculating that the best a typical blogger can hope is for someone to stumble across their site during a misguided Google search, and dwell for 30 seconds or a minute before moving on. Comments are hoped for but never expected. Yet blog authors slog on, unsung, mostly writing for an audience of one.

But recently (and miraculously) one of the Web's most respected fantasy blog sites, The Cimmerian, picked up on The Silver Key and wrote a very flattering review. You can read the post here.

Thanks to author Leo Grin for his very kind words, and as I briefly mentioned in a recent post about Robert E. Howard, please go check out The Cimmerian. The insight of its authors are amazing and, despite its name, it covers an impressive breadth of material, much more than just Howard and his works. For example, a recent post by Steve Tompkins, "An Irish Bard at King Hrothgar's Court", starts out with a preview of the new Beowulf film, but then launches into an erudite study of the history of the Beowulf poem and its recent translation by Seamus Heaney. It's the kind of high-quality article you'd expect to read in a literary journal, frankly. (Yes, that is a sucking up sound you're hearing, but frankly, it's true. They do great work over there).

In conclusion, I started The Silver Key as a sounding board for my own thoughts, but it's nice to know that someone out there is reading. And thanks again to The Cimmerian for the acknowledgement.

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