The Day of Might hath come!

 

Today has been decreed The Day of Might by the Skull, and the fine folks over at Tales from the Magician's Skull. It's a day to celebrate our most favorite of all fantasy subgenres, sword-and-sorcery. Learn more here.

I wish I could do more; alas fate has conspired against me as I'm on the road, working a conference far from home in Dallas, TX. Nevertheless, I'm glad to see this happening and hope this generates more interest in S&S. 

Grab your favorite title, hoist a tankard of ale, and Hail to the Skull!

S&S updates: Glass Hammer, Schuyler Hernstrom, and more

In full disclosure I'm not a big prog fan, unless you count the likes of RUSH, and perhaps a bit of Yes' back catalogue. I'm metal all the way. But I've had the pleasure of discovering the band Glass Hammer recently after hearing from one of the band members, bassist/lyricist/co-founder Steve Babb, who is a reader of this blog.

Glass Hammer was founded in 1992 and possess a deep catalog of material based on the likes of The Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, and sword-and-sorcery. In 2020 they released Dreaming City, an album inspired by Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone stories. Glass Hammer is now about to release  “Skallagrim – Into The Breach,” the second album of a proposed trilogy, on October 15th. As Babb explains:

“The project began as a nostalgic homage to the Sword & Sorcery genre, and to a lesser extent, the stories of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. It’s turned into much more, however, and my story of the Skallagrim, the thief with the screaming sword, has evolved into my first full-length fantasy novel which I plan to release next year.”

“Skallagrim is a thief who lost his memory and the girl he loves,” he goes on to say. “He’s up against dark magic and terrifying monsters to reclaim both, but finds an ally in a sentient, eldritch sword. Now his fate is bound to the sword as much as to the quest to find his love.”

Sounds pretty cool, I'll be digging into the album in the coming days. Check out the official video of "Anthem to Andorath" here on Youtube. After an atmospheric intro this one rips. And sounds great.

In some other news, my review of Schuyler Hernstrom's The Eye of Sounnu is up on the blog of DMR Books. Check it out here. I'm a fan of older sword-and-sorcery material and have not kept up as I should with newer authors and releases, and am slowly trying to rectify that. Hernstrom is a first-rate talent who gives me hope for the future of the subgenre and I can't recommend this book highly enough.

In more downbeat news, we recently lost author Robert Low (1949-21) back in June of this year. You can find a Facebook tribute here and a recent piece recalling his life and works over on Black Gate. I've heard many good things about his works over the years, in particular the Oathsworn series. Another author I have to seek out. 

I hope Low's spirit is sailing on a whale road of a different sort, and I thank him for his contributions to heroic fantasy and historical fiction.

Moorcock's Missed Elric Opportunity

My latest entry for DMR is up. Check out Moorcock's Missed Elric Opportunity here.

This one seems to be gaining a lot of traction on Facebook and elsewhere. Combine a classic fantasy property with an interested director in 1970s Hollywood, and season with reminiscence by the author himself culled from a recent podcast--wham.

For the record, I don't need to see my favorite books adapted into film--I'm perfectly happy if they remain on the printed page. But I can't help but wonder what a Ralph Bakshi adaptation might have looked like. A mess quite likely, but perhaps something glorious, or at least messily memorable. The point is, we'll never know. 

Maybe one day Elric will be adapted to the screen, but Moorcock had the opportunity 43-odd years ago, and there's been nothing of substance since. Just speculation and development hell.

The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E. Howard studies, vol. 12.1

I took a (small, calculated, $8) risk on the latest volume of The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E. Howard and Pulp Studies, purchasing it based on the table of contents and the fact that editors Jason Ray Carney and Nicole Emmelhainz-Carney are talented and invested in this venture.

I was not disappointed.

Some may not be happy with the direction taken by this semi-venerable journal, which has published 27 issues since its debut in 1990. Jason and Nicole have decided to branch out to the broader field of pulp studies, rather than a laser focus on Robert E. Howard. I think it was a great move. We need a journal that fosters discussion on other Howard-inspired or Howard-adjacent writers, such as Karl Edward Wagner. And we get that with the latest edition.

Vol. 12.1 includes seven pieces, ranging from editorial to interview, to scholarship to book review, and runs 113 pages.

First the news: I was thrilled to hear that Gary Hoppenstand, editor of the short-lived but highly regarded fanzine/semi-pro zine Midnight Sun, is under contract with McFarland to write a book analyzing Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane studies. McFarland is an independent publisher of academic nonfiction with a bent towards pop culture. I’ve got a couple of their books on my shelf, including J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, and the Birth of Modern Fantasy (which I reviewed for Skelos #1) and Michael Moorcock: Fiction, Fantasy, and the World’s Pain, by Mark Scroggins. The latter was an invaluable help to me in the writing of Flame and Crimson. I am very much looking forward to this new book on Kane, for which the scholarship is lacking. The preface will be written by the great David Drake.

This news was revealed in an interview conducted with Hoppenstand by Luke Dodd, one of the co-hosts of the Cromcast podcast. Dodd for the same issue contributed a publication history of Midnight Sun, about as thorough a treatment of that long defunct ‘zine that we can hope to get. Dodd used available resources form the likes of the ISFDB with additional information from Hoppenstand to fill in some of the blanks. Hoppenstand launched Midnight Sun as a teenager to help place some of Wagner’s Kane stories. Hoppenstand had written to KEW enthusiastically after reading Death Angel’s Shadow, starting a correspondence that led to Hoppenstand placing the likes of “Lynortis Reprise,” “In the Lair of Yslsl,” and “The Dark Muse,” among other stories, poems, and artwork. Wagner had experienced difficulty placing some of his Kane stories and Hoppenstand and Midnight Sun filled the void, later branching out and publishing other genre authors including David Drake and H.H. Hollis. Midnight Sun published its fifth and final issue in 1979, a victim of Hoppenstand's lack of funding.

Given the scarcity of material published on Karl Edward Wagner I was particularly happy to read Dodd’s pieces, but there are some other entries in TDM vol. 12.1 worth talking about.

I approached “REH N-grams: A Study of Cultural Trends Related to Robert E. Howard” by Williard M. Oliver with some trepidation; even for an REH and S&S nerd this one seemed rather esoteric and data-geeky. I have read the related “Statistics in the Hyborian Age: An Introduction to Stylometry” in Conan Meets the Academy and that one, while having some points of merit, left me a bit cold, mainly because it dwells too long on explaining what stylometry is and too little on its application to REH; Oliver’s piece however was on point. The author used a tool called the Google Books N-gram Viewer to analyze the recurrence of terms related to Howard and his creations and popular phrases. While the Viewer only includes books published up through the year 2000, the tool helped Oliver demonstrate a Howard presence in the 1930s, a slight but minor rise in the 1940s and 50s, then a significant increase from the late 60s through the 1980s. Which tracks rather nicely with the Arkham/Gnome, Lancer/Ace, publications, and the oft-told stories of how these latter books brought many readers into the fold. In short, it adds statistical rigor to conjecture.

Quinn Forskitt’s “Building a Universe: An Analysis of the Works, Lives, and Influences of the Lovecraft Circle” is an invited essay, a boiled down version of Forskitt’s master’s thesis. While this information is likely well-known to the die-hards, it’s great to see new scholars and scholarship in the field. Very readable and engaging work. I found “Adapting Lovecraft to Video Games: What is Lost, What is Gained,” to be less interesting, only because I’m not a video gamer, but I have to say this is highly original, and probably a must-read for players of Hidetaka Miyazaki’s Bloodborne. The author also has a strong grasp of what makes Lovecraft’s stories unique, and hard to adapt in a visual medium.

Rusty Burke has a review of the new REH biography by Todd Vick, Renegades and Rogues. While Burke invites the work, defends the need for further REH biography, and so welcomes it on his shelf, he does declare it only half successful in its stated purpose: It answers the question of who Robert E. Howard was, but not why he was important, Burke concludes. In full disclosure I have not read Renegades and Rogues.

All in all, I enjoyed the heck out of this issue of TDM. And I’m greatly looking forward to Hoppenstand’s book.

Sword-and-sorcery news and happenings

Some news, happenings and noteworthy occurrences heard on the sword-and-sorcery trail.

DMR Books to publish Viking Adventures in August. Just take my money. Although I've read a fair bit of Viking historicals and Viking flavored fantasy, I'm not familiar with these tales which makes it all the better. In particular I'm looking forward to reading "The Trader and the Vikings." With works like The Broken Sword and Hrolf Kraki's Saga, Poul Anderson does the Northern Thing as well as any author past or present. And damn, that cover (see right). Speaking of DMR you can now pick up Flame and Crimson at that fine publisher.

If you like Conan the Barbarian (1982), this 2 1/2 hour+ video by The Critical Drinker (how fun is that name?) and guest Andre Einherjar is worth the watch. This is an incredibly in-depth, informed, interesting, and just plain fun and compelling listen, with lots of interesting asides on Milius, Dino DeLaurentiis, the riddle of steel, the train wreck that was Conan the Destroyer, and more. I realize a lot of Howard fans don't like CtB, mainly because Schwarzenegger's Conan is not REH's Conan, but these guys make a compelling case that it's a work of surprising depth, and exceptional artistry and quality. I happen to agree.

As for me, I've got an essay on C.L. Moore that will definitely see the light of day as Swords & Shadows has met its funding goals, ensuring that this special sword-and-sorcery themed issue of Sexy Fantastic magazine will be published. I'm also working on a review of Fred Blosser's The Annotated Guide to Robert E. Howard's Weird Fantasy for The Dark Man journal (spoiler alert: It's good).

Heavy metal summer

It’s going to be a metal summer and fall, and man am I excited for what's to come.

The great Iron Maiden (my favorite heavy metal band ever, sometimes Judas Priest ekes out the no. 1 spot) has released a new single, The Writing on the Wall. I was on vacation when this hit and experiencing it first over shitty iPhone speakers was a mistake. I made myself wait until we got home and had proper sound/headsets before the next attempt. I haven’t given it enough listens to make up my mind, but with each spin it gets better. Love the opening hook and the Celtic feel. No, Bruce is not the same singer, but damn, he’s 60. Who is at that age? Regardless of what the album holds, new Iron Maiden is always a cause for celebration, as is the prospect of seeing the boys from Britain live on their inevitable support tour. The fun I’ve had at these shows over the years is off the charts. I suspect “The Writing on the Wall” will kick ass in concert. I CAN’T WAIT.

Concerts galore. I’ve got three shows lined up for the summer and fall:

1. KISS, Mansfield MA, August 18. Save for the fact that this falls on a Wednesday (blech) and getting out of Mansfield after a concert is like trying to escape from the Hanoi Hilton, I’m always glad to see KISS. My buddy Wayne is an even bigger KISS fan than I.
2. Alice Cooper, with opening act Ace Frehley, Gilford NH, Sept. 18. The best thing about this show is its on a Saturday night. Tied for second is the great double-bill of Alice and Ace. Another show with Wayne. Afterwards we plan to crash at my family’s lake house, a short drive from Gilford, to avoid a long trek back to MA. I’ve seen Ace several times and he’s always good. Alice of course is wonderful (trivia: My first ever concert was Alice on his Trash tour, March 1990).
3. Judas Priest, Lowell MA, Oct. 31. Are you kidding me? The Gods of Metal on Halloween night, at a venue about 30 minutes from my home? Like Maiden, Priest is no mere nostalgia act. I was blown away with their last album Firepower, in particular “No Surrender” and “Traitor’s Gate.” You get new material, but of course with a catalog stretching back 50 years (!) most of what Priest plays are the classics.

Let’s hope this new Delta variant of COVID-19 cooperates and I can get all these in.

Also wanted to mention the passing of Mike Howe, lead singer of Metal Church, dead at 56. A reminder of our mortality. This is why going to shows and enjoying life today is so important because damn, once it’s over it’s over. Apparently he was a family man and in great shape and no cause of death has yet been released. I was not the biggest Metal Church fan but loved a few of their songs, in particular “Badlands,” “Fake Healer,” and “Date with Poverty,” among others. I’m pretty sure I still own the cassette of The Dark. Time to crank some Badlands and remember Mike. RIP.

Swords & Shadows kickstarter underway

In July (starting today, in fact), Dream Tower Media is running a 30-day fundraising campaign to finance issue 4 of Sexy Fantastic magazine: Swords & Shadows! This is a quarterly SF and fantasy digital magazine of art, literature, and culture, produced and managed by Robert Szeles (aka, Robert Zoltan) of the Literary Wonder and Adventure Show podcast.

This issue is all about sword-and-sorcery. Supporting patrons can unlock a few gifts, one of which includes a signed copy of my own Flame and Crimson, as well as Ryan Harvey's science fantasy novel Turn Over the Moon, Szeles' sword-and-sorcery novel Rogues of Merth: The Adventures of Dareon and Blue, and other goodies, including art, podcast interviews, and more.

I've written a piece on C.L. Moore for Swords & Shadows and her unique contributions to the sacred genre. This issue will also feature four heroic fantasy/sword-and-sorcery tales, including one by the outstanding Adrian Cole.

Consider becoming a patron here.

Sword-and-sorcery news and goings-on

Some recent news and items of interest that readers might find interesting.

My Q&A with Bard author Keith Taylor has been posted in two parts on the DMR website. If you're at all interested in his life, early writing career, collaboration with Andy Offutt, health, and current plans and writings, and much more besides, I recommend checking them out. Keith was super generous with his time composing these wonderful answers. Part one is here, and part two here.

The dudes over at the Cromcast released their final episode of season 13, covering Karl Edward Wagner's Bloodstone, and gave some good coverage to my DMR essay on the (possible) influence of The Lord of the Rings on that book. This is why I write these essays--not for the fortune and fame, but in the hopes that people will read them, interact with them, maybe leave thinking a little differently about their favorite works and authors.

I sent an essay over to Bill Ward at Tales from the Magician's Skull asking and attempting to answer the question, "Is Jack Vance's The Dying Earth Sword-and-Sorcery?", in 1,000 words. Not easy. That I believe will be published in June.

My buddy Wayne hung up my beloved Miller Lite sign in my new basement office/bar/man cave last night. And with that final flourish, it's done, man, and I'm pretty darned happy with the finished project. I'll post some pictures here soon. I describe it as a mullet--business in front (work station and desk) party in the back (bar and bookshelves featuring much S&S and other books).

Flame and Crimson nominated by the Robert E. Howard Foundation

This was a heck of a surprise.

Flame and Crimson has been placed on the final ballot for the 2021 Robert E. Howard Foundation awards. You can find a complete list of the 2020 and 2021 nominees at the link above, which I can't resist sharing because it's probably the one time I'll ever get mentioned on Locus. Here is the initial announcement on the REH Foundation website.

I have been twice nominated for awards by the foundation, both times for print essays. These included "The Unnatural City" (from The Cimmerian, Vol. 5 No. 2), in 2009, and for "Unmasking 'The Shadow Kingdom': Kull and Howard as Outsiders" (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #14) in 2011. This time I've been nominated for The Atlantean — Outstanding Achievement, Book (non-anthology/collection). Per foundation rules, books nominated for the Atlantean may be print or digital, must be a minimum of 50,000 words, and must be substantively devoted to the life and/or work of REH. Reprinted works without significant revisions are not eligible.

I'm up against some stiff competition as Charles Hoffman & Marc Cerasini are legends in Howard studies, as is Fred Blosser, and their books are more purely aimed at Howard scholarship, as opposed to the broader S&S genre. But anyone who has read Flame and Crimson will note the substantial amount of attention rendered to Howard and the case the book makes for his place in S&S, fantasy in general, and as a writer of consequence.

Let's hope the third time is a charm.

The deadline for ballots is Sunday, May 16, at 11:59 pm CDT. I am a member of the REH Foundation (supporting member) and I haven't quite figured out how voting works. If you are a member, let me know how this is done, as there are several other worthy nominees on the ballot for whom I'd love to cast my vote. And I see the late Steve Tompkins has made his way into the nominees for the Black Circle Award for lifetime achievement. That's a pretty darned good group he's a part of, and Steve absolutely deserves to join that elite inner circle someday.

Some more S&S thoughts on the way; Keith Taylor news

Recently I've completed a couple of essays that will be published, both as early as tomorrow, by Dave Ritzlin over at DMR Books and Bill Ward at Tales from the Magician's Skull. "Myth manifesting in the present: Robert E. Howard’s “Marchers of Valhalla”* was a semi-spontaneous eruption of sheer joy to see Howard making myth, very much in the vein of J.R.R. Tolkien, with this wonderful, lesser-known story that Dave recently reprinted in Renegade Swords 2. Anything with Vikings in it gets my attention, and when you combine REH at his wild, poetic best with mythic Aesir I'm all in.

The piece for Tales from the Magician's Skull, "Under the spell of Keith Taylor's Bard Songs"* was likewise inspired by two new-to-me stories from Keith Taylor from Renegades Swords 2 (these stories were first printed in the revival of Weird Tales back in 1988). Since then, I was able to obtain Keith's email address and wrote to him, and he's generously and at length been answering a series of 10 questions I posed to him about his early influences, writing career, and current health and upcoming plans. Great stuff from Keith which I hope to publish in some form or fashion.

(*Bonus points to those who spot the Blind Guardian references in both essays; they're pretty obvious).

Flame and Crimson in Xuthal: Innsmouth Book Club Podcast is up

As mentioned on my last post, I was recently invited to guest on the Innsmouth Book Club podcast. That recording is now up; you can listen here (note: the podcast is hosted on Patreon but you don't have to be a patron to listen).

I have to say I was probably at my relaxed best; I had a lot of fun with this show. I spent a fair bit of my time on my childhood memories of what got me into S&S. I also relayed a story of the time I visited the abandoned Danvers State Hospital, one of the eeriest experiences of my life. I do after all live in Lovecraft country, a long stone's throw from the historical Innsmouth, Newburyport MA.

The two hosts were great and a lot of fun, and were well-read and asked some good questions that allowed me to ramble. It's amazing that you can just hop on a Zoom call and shoot the shit for an hour with two like-minded dudes from Britain. What a world.

The first 30 minutes or so are the two guests talking about Xuthal of the Dusk, with me joining later.

Some swordly-and-sorcerous goings-on, and guest appearances

If you want to get invited on a podcast, the thing to do is to write a book (it's that easy! Well, not the writing of the book part, which is rather hard). Then apparently you have become an authority, or a quasi-celebrity, instead of an average boring dad who likes to read about men stabbing monsters, and each other, during his spare time.

Tomorrow I will be serving as guest on the UK-based Innsmouth Book Club, a podcast which covers HPL, CAS, REH, and other like authors. The hosts will be covering "The Slithering Shadow"/"Xuthal of the Dusk," then I'll be on to talk S&S more broadly. Little do these guests know I live within a stone's throw of the historical Innsmouth, Newburyport MA. And have seen Deep Ones (or maybe they were just drunk bar patrons ... who knows).

Next month I've been asked to guest on a new show called Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection, with the episode to appear sometime this summer.

I've also been told that a podcast episode I did with Robert Zoltan on the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show last June is nearing 2K views. Check that out here.

Among the reasons I love to write is that it allows me to express my true and actual voice, which due to a combination of natural introversion (I definitely recharge in solitude, away from people) and mild social anxiety is far easier for me to do in the written word than in conversation. That's why I've resisted starting a podcast myself. I fear I'm not very glib, or interesting. Just interested in certain things, like S&S and heavy metal, if that makes sense.

I hope I can deliver something of value to these programs. Even against my natural inclinations I'm leaning into the apprehension and doing my part to spread the gospel of sword-and-sorcery.

On the writing side of things, I recently had published an academic essay, "From Pulps to Paperbacks: The role of medium in the development of sword-and-sorcery fiction," in The Journal of American Culture. The publisher is the Wiley Online Library and it's behind a paywall, but if you're interested and/or have library or other free access, you can find it here. One of my discoveries during the research and writing of Flame and Crimson was that sword-and-sorcery was shaped as much by medium as by the idiosyncratic contributions of individual authors. That's what this essay is about, covering the role of pulps, magazines and fanzines (in particular Amra), and mass-market paperbacks, on how sword-and-sorcery came to be. It was done on a very tight deadline after Jason Ray Carney, editor of The Dark Man, asked me to fill in for someone else who had to bail last minute, and so it relies on much material from Flame and Crimson. But the focus is more squarely on the medium, not the authors. I do hope it opens up S&S to some academic-types and other cultural observers.

A Fitting, Final Honor for Charles Saunders, Author of Imaro

My latest post for DMR Books is up: A Fitting, Final Honor for Charles Saunders, Author of Imaro. 

Check it out for my thoughts on the late, great Saunders, who fled the circles of this world in May 2020, but left a warrior behind.

RIP Charles Saunders (July 1946-May 2020)

Up the Irons and eff the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Boys from Britain don't need no stinking HOF!

Iron Maiden has been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

My reaction? Who gives a shit.

Evidently I’m supposed to be excited by this news… I find myself feeling rather apathetic, with a smattering of bemusement and a (slight) bit of anger.  I do recognize the considerable irony in stating “who gives a shit” and then spending my time writing a post about the news. Evidently I have some level of investment. But I’m writing this as much for as my own amusement as anything else.

A little history on my relationship with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In the past I have kept tabs on the list of inductees. I was happy to see the likes of Black Sabbath and KISS eventually get in, though both are kind of no-brainers. I didn’t get too wrapped up in either nomination, because I figured it was a done deal. And it was (an aside: it took KISS, eligible for induction since 1999, FIFTEEN YEARS to get in, which it finally did in 2014).

My typical level of detached minor interest ratcheted up in 2018 when stupidly, I got wrapped up in the fan vote for Judas Priest. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame includes a fan vote, with the top five acts in the popular vote earning what amounts to a single “vote.” These five bands then get that one vote added to the couple hundred votes cast by the real power-holders, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Committee, a shadowy cabal of unknowns who hold all the power of who gets in and who gets left “Out in the Cold” (pun intended).

As should be obvious by the formula, one fan vote stacked against a couple hundred “educated” votes by the “critics,” counts for next to nothing. I spent time--too much, as you can vote over and over again, though only once per day--voting on the HOF platform, only to see Priest—which did get in the top five in the fan vote—get croaked by the committee.

So, in 2018 Judas Priest—a band who revolutionized heavy metal by adding an iconic sound (the twin guitar attack) and establishing its iconic look (leather and studs), immortal songs like “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” and “Breaking the Law,” and a 50+ year legacy of influencing countless bands—lost to the likes of Nina Simone.

Since then Priest has failed to make it any further, to the Hall’s eternal shame.

That brings me to Iron Maiden, another personal favorite band of mine about whom I’ve made my love abundantly clear here on the blog.

Maiden has had a career that would turn 90% of the previously inducted acts’ faces green with envy. I don’t think people outside of heavy metal circles understand how massively popular and influential these guys are. They’ve been selling out sports arenas (pre-COVID of course) for 40 years. They’ve sold more than 100 million copies of their albums worldwide, all without any commercial airplay or support. At one point VH1 ranked them No. 24 in their “100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.”

It’s utterly absurd to think that they need to add a Hall of Fame credential to justify whether or not they are great, or influential on the development of rock-and-roll. But frankly, it’s the “hard” part of “hard rock” that makes Maiden an unlikely candidate for Hall of Fame acceptance.

The fact is, the voting on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is calculatedly political, and archly snobbish, and therefore actively hostile to brash, loud, metal acts. Heavy metal can never get its just due in this stifling, narrow-minded environment. Even relatively safe, mainstream party rock acts like KISS only get a look when their case is so overwhelmingly obvious that to leave them out would compromise any shred of validity the enterprise still holds.

Bruce Dickinson has voiced his opinions very clearly on the Hall of Fame, calling the Hall "an utter and complete load of bollocks" that is "run by a bunch of sanctimonious bloody Americans who wouldn’t know rock ’n’ roll if it hit them in the face." Go Bruce.

So in the end, it does not matter whether Maiden gets in. Their career speaks for itself. When Maiden is finally retired and gone, the echoes of “Hallowed be thy Name” and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” will ring through the ages, long after most of the acts in the Hall of Fame have been forgotten.

Unlike 2018 I will not waste a moment voting for Maiden. Not because I don’t love the band, but because the institution itself is corrupt. No Maiden, Priest, or Motorhead renders the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame utterly irrelevant.

The Last Wolf is out

I'm really looking forward to this new documentary on Karl Edward Wagner. "The Last Wolf" has been some time in the making by Brian M. McKnight and Brandon Lunsford and is now available for purchase on Vimeo. 

Check out the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/thelastwolf?fbclid=IwAR0LMZ3jQrQadN8VqYkl3gz9lM6Gu0z85-ORq75ImWntTHEC6uHfQZJ61Xc

There is a huge dearth of critical and biographical material on Wagner and I hope this film helps to rectify that.

Some new sword-and-sorcery titles worth a look

Here at The Silver Key I spend most of my time talking classic sword-and-sorcery, but I’ve been keeping track of some new releases that I thought were worth reporting on. My wallet will be feeling the pinch in the coming weeks. 

Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy: Volume 1. I’m really liking this old school cover by Jim Pitts, and the editor Steve Dilks knows sword-and-sorcery. Looks like a great new collection.

Necromancy in Nilztiria by D.M. Ritzlin and The Godblade by J. Christopher Tarpey, from DMR Books. DMR is the most committed publisher of sword-and-sorcery today, republishing classic titles and issuing original works. I haven’t been disappointed with Swords of Steel or Heroes of Atlantis & Lemuria, and Renegade Swords, another purchase, is on my TBR pile. These two new titles look excellent also.

New Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories coming from Tales from the Magician’s Skull. I’m a subscriber to Tales from the Magician’s Skull and am interested how they plan to handle these classic characters. Leiber had such a unique voice, and it’s not clear if author Nathan Long will be using the characters to tell new stories, or will try to imitate Leiber’s style (the way this release is written I’m leaning toward the former). I’m on record as saying I have no problem with pastiche, or writing new stories using classic characters, as long as they are not passed off as works of the original author. Adrian Cole has done some excellent work with new stories of Elak of Atlantis, for example.

Barbarians at the Gates of Hollywood: Sword and Sorcery Movies of the 1980s. Black Gate’s review by Fletcher Vredenburgh of this title convinced me I should give it a shot. Other than Conan the Barbarian and perhaps a couple others, sword-and-sorcery’s silver screen boom was uniformly terrible, but a detailed history of how this phenomenon came to be is up my alley.

Robert E. Howard: A Closer Look (Hippocampus Press). An update of a 1987 title by Charles Hoffman and Marc Cerasini. Looks like a solid study. More Howard scholarship is always welcomed.

Upcoming panel session: "The Best Sword & Sorcery Stories of the 20th Century"

On Friday Oct. 16 I'll be taking part in an S&S panel session, part of the (wonderfully named) Bride of Cyclops Con, an online convention hosted by Goodman Games. Goodman Games is the publisher of the fine Dungeon Crawl Classics line of role playing games, as well as the Tales from the Magician's Skull S&S magazine, of which I'm a subscriber..

Below are the panel details.

A lot more S&S goodness is going on in the track, with sessions with publishers, authors, and RPG designers. Apparently you can watch these sessions free of charge on the Goodman Games Official "Twitch" channel (what is Twitch? I don't know, now get offa my lawn!).

It's a great group of panelists and I'm honored to be part of it.

“The Best Sword & Sorcery Stories of the 20th Century” – Friday, October 16, 6:00 pm-8:00 pm EST

Six sword-and-sorcery fans and scholars compare notes about the important works in the genre, starting with foundational fiction and moving on to more recent times. This panel will talk details, not just an author’s name, but why a particular story or novel is worthy of note.

Panelists:

Brian Murphy, author of Flame & Crimson

Dr. Jason Ray Carney, author of Weird Tales of Modernity, editor of Whetsone and co-editor of The Dark Man

Bill Ward, Online Editor for Tales From the Magician’s Skull

Howard Andrew Jones, Editor Tales From the Magician’s Skull

Jeff Goad, co-host of the ENnie nominated podcast Appendix N Book Club

Steve Tompkins at 60

Deuce Richardson at DMR Blog asked me to write something to commemorate what would have been Steve Tompkins 60th birthday today, had he had not passed at the far too early age of 48 back in March of 2009.

I chose for the occasion a look back at Steve's first official post on the old Cimmerian blog. "Maybe Not a Boom, But a Drumbeat" isn't a classic, sprawling, deep essay like the ones Steve carved out a legacy writing, but it's a fun, witty, inside look at the state of Howard scholarship and questions regarding his legacy circa 2006.

Check it out here if you're interested. RIP Steve (and since I'm in a mourning mood, RIP to the great Eddie Van Halen, who today passed at 65 after a long battle with cancer). 

Farewell to Charles Saunders

Word spread on Facebook last night that Charles Saunders, author of Imaro, has passed away. It is being reported he died in May. Odd that an obituary search turns up empty. 

Let's hope it may be a rumor, but it does not appear that way. Author Milton Davis, who continued in Saunders' "Sword-and-Soul" tradition, broke the news, and many authors, friends, and peers have chimed in since.

Imaro and its subsequent volumes deserves a longer post than I have time for at the moment, but I consider these terrific works of sword-and-sorcery. If not at the level of Howard/Leiber/Moorcock/Anderson, they rank up there with Henry Kuttner, Karl Edward Wagner, David Drake, and many other fine authors. 

I regret not contacting Saunders when I had the chance to let him know how much I enjoyed his work. Nyumbani, Saunders' fantastic parallel of Africa, is a rich and sharply realized setting worth exploring, and Imaro is a memorable character with a dark past whose relentless search turned inward, far more than most sword-and-sorcery heroes. As a black author working in a largely white field, Saunders was a pioneer and penned many thoughtful essays on his complex relationship with fantasy fiction and sword-and-sorcery ("Die Black Dog!" is worth seeking out). His stuff absolutely deserves a bigger following. The late Steve Tompkins of The Cimmerian website was one of Saunders' biggest champions and found a rich, mythic layer to the Imaro cycle.

Rest in peace.

Feeling SAD on a Monday? Listen to this

Dangers galore in these old books...

By SAD of course I mean Swords Against Darkness, that awesome 1977 Zebra anthology of sword-and-sorcery edited by Andrew J. Offutt. I got to spend a nice hour+ talking about it with the hosts of the Appendix N Book Club podcast.

The episode is now live. Listen here or on your favorite podcast app.

Here is a sampling of what we covered:

Reading fantasy fiction as a kid, writing about swords and sorcery, second generation sword and sorcery authors, the understated prose of Poul Anderson, O. Henry’s sword and sorcery, multiclass characters, the collected Ryre stories, elves and dwarves in swords and sorcery, sword and planet, and much more!