The Silver Key: 2024 in review

Life is pretty good these days, both personally and creatively. Even though I slowed down a bit on the blog, I’m making an impact.

Life is imperfect and hard and 2024 was no exception. My body continues to age, and hip and knee pain have made a dent in the formerly carefree way I could train with heavy weights. Yet it’s manageable and I keep pushing.

My wife and I are dealing with aging and increasingly infirm parents. My dad is 81, immobile and prone to falls, and I spend a lot of time helping him with day-to-day life. My father-in-law, 85, has early-stage dementia and now requires 24-7 in-home assistance. We’ve got some good external help, but you can imagine what that means for us, and in particular my wife. She spends a lot of time caretaking. We both do. 

But, despite these challenges I can say unequivocally that life is good. 

Why?

We’re grateful to be in a position to take care of our parents when they need us.

I’m blessed beyond measure with two wonderful daughters and a healthy marriage and a good job.

At age 51 I’m at ease with myself at a depth and surety I’ve never previously experienced. I am no longer plagued by unrelenting self-doubt. I know my value, I know where I stand on most issues, and I know what I value. I know enough to say when I don’t know (which is often), and I know when to keep my mouth shut.

This is what true wealth looks like.

My posting here on the blog has declined, but for good reason. My forthcoming heavy metal memoir is taking serious shape, and I know it will see publication this year. Either with some third-party publisher, or more likely self-published. I still sometimes wonder why I’m bothering with a relatively banal story of a no-name heavy metal fan, but I keep pushing, because I believe it’s an important story others might enjoy and learn from. It’s my life, shared in the context of a style of music that has meant so much to me.

But, between writing the memoir, aging parents, work and careers, maintaining friendships on and on, something has to give, and in 2024 it was my posting on The Silver Key. As it publishes this will be my 59th and possibly final post of 2024. 

Last year I had 65 posts, and the year prior 101.And yet somehow my blog traffic has … gone up?

Per Google Analytics, I had 29,352 total post views in 2023, and this year through Dec. 28 I have had 45,230 views. That’s a 54% increase YOY.

How did that occur? I don’t know. Perhaps someone with knowledge of search traffic trends and Google’s air-tight algorithm can offer some insights. I’m at a loss.

It had nothing close to a viral post, but if you look at my top 10 posts by views of 2023, the numbers are significantly higher across the board this year than last. Even though I don’t monetize this blog in any way it’s nice to know people are reading.

On to the show.

Most popular posts of 2024

Normally I do a clean top 10 type post in this spot, but in 2024 I had 17 posts with more than 400 views each. Last year I only had 3 posts exceed the 400 mark. So I’m listing all of these, lowest to highest.

Going Viking at DMR Books, 404 views. A review of the Saga of Swain the Viking, vol. 1.

Of internet induced “Panic Attack” and Judas Priest’s Invincible Shield, 413 views. My review of Judas Priest’s latest, awesome studio effort.

A review of Metallica, August 2nd 2024, Gillette Stadium, 450 views. I knocked out I believe four concert reviews this year, all of which pick up regular seach traffic and occasional traffic from Reddit.

Death Dealer 3: Semi-enjoyable (?) train-wreck, 467 views. So bad its good, I am “enjoying” the Death Dealer series and am reminded I need to review vol. 4.

Ruminations on subversive and restorative impulses, and conservative and liberal modes of fantasy fiction, 482 views. I liked this essay and am glad others did too, which I believe successfully navigated a fraught political line. 

A review of Iron Maiden, Nov. 9 2024, Prudential Center, Newark New Jersey, 483 views. Glad I got see Maiden perform a heavy dose of my favorite Maiden album Somewhere in Time, and one of the final performances of drummer Nicko McBrain.

Prayers for Howard Andrew Jones, ardent sword-and-sorcery champion, 490 views. A terrible tragedy and I continue to wish the best for Howard and his family.

Our modern problems with reading, 499 views. The first of a couple rant-y type posts, people do like these (and I find them easy to write, they come out in a rush) but I’m often left with a feeling of guilt, like I’m adding yet more negativity to an ocean of internet awfulness. But I try to keep rationality at the foundation.

Not all books need be movies, 500 views. See above, I still get irked by everyone wanting a movie made out of every book or literary character. Books can just do some things better.

50 years of Dungeons and Dragons, 559 views. A big round anniversary for a game that’s meant a lot to me.

A review of Judas Priest, April 19 Newark NJ, 586 views. It’s amazing these guys are still doing it.

Some observations while reading Bulfinch’s Mythology, 605 views. Possibly the biggest surprise, a semi-review/scattered observations on an old book of mythology made my top 6 posts of 2024.

The Shadow of Vengeance by Scott Oden, a review, 634 views. A review of a book in the Heroic Signatures line by a writer with an ear for Howard’s prose style.

More (mediocre) content is not better than no content: A rant, 689 views. A true rant, I stand behind my message but need to reiterate I believe everyone should create if the urge arises. I wish I had targeted it more at the major studios and the “franchise-zation” of everything good that ultimately tarnishes art.

And now the top 3:

50 years of Savage Sword of Conan, and beyond, 776 views. SSOC was my gateway to Conan and S&S and I couldn’t let its silver anniversary slip by. One of these days I might get around to completing my collection.

Organizing my bookshelves: How I do it (YMMV—no hate), 878 views. Not sure what happened here—this post was picked up by a blog with bigger traffic and that drove many views, but I think it’s a topic that all of us book collectors can appreciate. 

The Savage Sword of Conan no. 1, Titan Comics: A review, 1388 views. SSOC is an important title, both historically and today, and overall I’m pretty happy with what I’ve seen from Titan. Though as my review points I had some issues with no. 1 (in particular the printing). But this one brought in the most eyeballs of 2024, both out of the gate and continues to do so. I’m reminded I need to pick up issues 5-6.

To sum up: People like shit posting/rants, they like reviews about Conan, they enjoy advice on how to shelve books (?), and they like heavy metal. All these things bring me great joy and I’m glad they seem to bring joy to you, too. I do very much welcome comments on the blog, and thank all my regulars, but the numbers have a power all their own, and demonstrate that which resonates with a broader audience. I’m not a numbers chaser at all and I write what I enjoy, but nevertheless I find the numbers interesting.

As always I welcome comments here about what you like, don’t like, or what you want to see more of in 2025 and beyond. 

Weird Tales of Modernity: Elevating the artistry of the Weird Tales Three

Pulp and other forms of genre fiction have become not just an accepted form of entertainment, but an acknowledged outlet for meaningful artistic expression. But this is a relatively recent phenomenon. For more than a century literary critics shunned pulp, categorizing it as cheap entertainment for coarse consumers, junk food devoid of value. Some actively discouraged its consumption.

Today literary elites no longer dictate broad cultural tastes—or if any do, they certainly wield less power and influence than the likes of Harold Bloom, Edmund Wilson and William Dean Howells once did. At least from my limited perspective.

But one result of this century of neglect is comparatively few literary studies. Only recently have we seen a steady uptick with the likes of Jonas Prida’s Conan Meets the Academy (2012), Justin Everett and Jeffrey Shanks’ The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales (2015), Mark Fisher’s The Weird and the Eerie (2017), Bobby Derie’s Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others (2019), John Haefele’s Lovecraft: The Great Tales (2021), and Stephen Jones’ The Weird Tales Boys (2023). We have plenty of catching up to do, which makes Jason Ray Carney’s Weird Tales of Modernity (McFarland, 2019) a welcome volume. It’s a work that certainly deserves more attention. I recommend it strongly, with a few caveats.

The first caveat is price. McFarland describes itself as a leading independent publisher of academic and general-interest nonfiction books, but academic publishers typically charge more due to their small print runs, and McFarland, though cheaper than some academic presses, is still pricey. This book runs nearly $40 new at just under 200 pages.

The second is accessibility. Weird Tales of Modernity is a challenging read. It took me a while to get into the flow due to the denseness of Carney’s language and use of academic jargon. I have a degree in English and have read (and even appreciate) academic writing, but it’s been a while since I tackled such material and needed to shake off a little rust to get back into that headspace. It probably also assumes a little too much familiarity with literary modernism.

But once I acclimated to the language I both enjoyed Weird Tales of Modernity as an entertaining read, and for the compelling case it makes for the literary merits of H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard. Carney’s central thesis is that the “Weird Tales Three” were not just producing entertainment, but contributing meaningfully as original artists writing in reaction to literary modernism.

This would be a good time to explain that particular term. 

Literary modernism was an experimental mode of fiction in vogue from roughly the late 1800s to the early 1940s, peaking in the interwar period (1920-39)—roughly concurrent to the literary output of Howard, Lovecraft, and Smith. It was a time marked by profound disillusionment in institutions and doubt that universal truth and human progress were possible. Rapid changes in technology and industrialization coupled with the carnage of World War I made old certainties a shifting sand.

Amid these rapid changes artists such as T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, William Faulker, and Virginia Wolfe adapted modes of literary expression to match, abandoning old traditions and pioneering new prose and poetry techniques--slice of life, introspection, emphasis on realism, abandonment of meter and rhyme in poetry. As the old sureties in life were slipping away, they sought to achieve immortality through “art in amber,” even if just in limited, fragmentary glimpses. A chief example is Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), a dense and sprawling work which depicted the events of 24 hours in the life of Leopold Bloom.

Carney argues that Smith, Lovecraft, and Howard were aware of this movement, but instead of engaging in it produced stories of shadow modernism, “strange art, artists, and experience of art created in reaction to modernity.”  Howard’s decaying cities and corrupt civilizations and Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones and uncaring, indifferent cosmicism were symbolic representations of the terrible ephemerality that lurked behind the seeming consistency of our day-to-day lives—the inevitable march of time and the subsequent corruption and decay of all human endeavor. The Weird Tales Three saw through this veil and understood the ephemerality of life—the “ephemerality of the ordinary” as Carney repeats in an oft-used phrase.  “Irrespective of tribe, race, clique, or coterie, we are all ephemeral forms trembling in strange stasis destined for formlessness.” 

Capturing the ephemerality of human endeavor required more than the language of literary modernism could provide. It required fantastic and extraordinary literary techniques married to the techniques of the Gothic novel—hallmarks of the Weird Tales Three. Writes Carney, “After many creative iterations honed over several stories—e.g., Pickman’s demented art, Malygris’s sorcery, the fell mirrors of Tuzun Thune—this shadow modernism becomes an inhuman form of technology that, functioning like a cognitive prosthesis in the virtual world of fiction, thereby reveals the secret truth of history: history is a cruelly accelerating process of deformation. The ordinary is ephemeral. History is the interplay of form and formlessness with formlessness terminally ascendant.”

Carney does an impressive job supporting his thesis with multiple references from the literature, both from mainstream modernist writers and from Howard, Lovecraft, and Smith. I found his arguments original and convincing, offering new insights and perspectives I hadn’t previously considered. If you take these writers seriously it’s a book you ought to seek out.

In addition to his scholarship Carney has done much of note for sword-and-sorcery and the broader field of pulp fiction. His efforts building the online Whetstone discord community (which recently shut down after a notable run of some five years), initiating the Trigon awards and associated conference, organizing academic panels at Howard Days, and of course establishing the Whetstone Amateur Magazine of Pulp Sword-and-Sorcery, served an important function for many. We’re all on the same path of dissolution and formlessness, which makes any efforts to make sense of the art we enjoy while offering warmth and community for other like-minded souls deeply appreciated and sorely needed. Weird Tales of Modernity and Carney’s broader oeuvre serve as a bulwark against the ephemerality of the ordinary.

This review also appeared on the blog of the Rogues in the House podcast.

Hither Came Conan; A Review

Also a winner of The Valusian Award from
the Robert E. Howard Foundation.

Robert E. Howard Days was wonderful for many reasons, but among them was the opportunity to talk Robert E. Howard, anywhere, anytime, with anyone. Standing in line waiting for barbecue at the pavilion, on a schoolbus tour led by Rusty Burke, or wandering around downtown Cross Plains, everyone was there to talk REH and ready to engage in banter about their favorite tale or their own Howard origin story.

It was like being in a warm blanket of Howard-heads.

Then it was over, and I was thrust back into the hard cold world of the ordinary.

The good news is if you own Hither Came Conan you don’t have to wait a year for a similar experience. Imagine a bunch of folks gathered around a proverbial campfire with an assignment: "Why is this Conan story Howard’s best? You’ve got 10 minutes. Go.” That is the premise of this volume, published in 2023 by the nonprofit publishing house Rogue Blades Foundation.

Hither Came Conan serves as a fine companion to the Conan stories. I can imagine this book serving as an ongoing reference, pulling it off the shelf and seeing what Deuce Richardson or Gabe Dybing has to say when you’ve finished re-reading “Black Colossus” or “The People of the Black Circle” for the eighth time.

This exercise admittedly gets a bit absurd when you are assigned something like “Vale of Lost Women” or the unfinished “Wolves Beyond the Border.” Everything Howard wrote has some minor touch of genius, some cool scene or vivid snatch of poetic prose, but no one can seriously defend the likes of “Vale” as REH’s finest hour. But I give the respective essayists credit for the attempt.

The list is authors assembled for this project is impressive. Wide ranging, from top scholars to fiction authors and ardent fans. People like Patrice Louinet, who stands in the black circle of top Howard scholars (his Hyborian Genesis essays in the Del Reys are a must), Jeff Shanks, David C. Smith, Bobby Derie, Mark Finn, Morgan Holmes, Richardson, many others.  But the true spine of the book is “Re-Reading” Conan by Bill Ward and Howard Andrew Jones, a written dialogue which appears with every story including the “Wolves on the Border” fragment and “The Hyborian Age.”

Truth be told I was preoccupied and not paying attention in 2015 when the great Black Gate Conan re-read was going on, and so I missed this series when it first appeared. It is reprinted here in Hither Came Conan and so was new to me. This remains the best part of the book. Ward and Jones engage in a back-and-forth discussion that almost feels like spoken word. Both are of course incredibly complementary to REH and offer shrewd insights into what makes each tale great, or at least solid pulp fare, while largely managing to avoid engaging in hagiography. Neither are afraid to critique REH and talk about which stories or parts of his stories fell flat or conform to predictable pulp formula. I’m still puzzled by Howard (Andrew Jones’) ongoing rejection of “Beyond the Black River” but hey, that’s why you read a book like this. If it was all unadorned praise it would invite no engagement and discussion and get real boring, real fast.

Some of the essays are very good, others are uneven or somewhat uninspired. My own is in here (“Honor Among Thieves: Hyborian Age Morality,” an “Extra, Extra!” essay analyzing “Rogues in the House,”) which in hindsight is OK. I’m my own worst critic. If you’ve read it let me know what you think.

I gleaned a few new insights reading the essays, for example the considerable effort REH placed into “Man-Eaters of Zamboula” after reading John Bullard’s appraisal of Howard’s careful revisions over three drafts. But what is best about this book is the sense of shared admiration for this character, and the varied voices of the wonderful community of fans that have sprung up around him. In that vein I also appreciated the work of editors Jason Waltz and Bob Byrne for also including the voices of the readers of Weird Tales. It gives us a sense of communion with the past, and the knowledge that fans leaving comments on the Black Gate website aren’t so different than fans writing to The Eyrie letters column circa 1932-37. 

Indeed any evaluation of Robert E. Howard and Conan involves a communion with a time and place nearly 100 years ago. But one that thankfully shows no signs of slipping into the past, thanks to new volumes like this.

Worms of the Earth, Eternal Champion

I found out last night that Eternal Champion bass player Brad Raub passed away, just 36 years old.

So on this Metal Friday I honor his memory with “Worms of the Earth,” off their wonderful album Ravening Iron. With its spectacular Ken Kelly album cover (now THAT would be an amazing original to hang on my man cave wall).

Beyond badass.

Still feeling my way out with this band but I’m really starting to dig Ravening Iron. "Worms of the Earth" should be a hit with any red-blooded sword-and-sorcery/Robert E. Howard/Bran Mak Morn fan. Here’s a sample of the lyrics, which are basically a faithful retelling of the tale:

Upon a Roman cross there hangs a man I cannot save

For this, Rome will have to pay

I must find the door to ebon depths where they degenerate

There's nothing I would spare to see Rome howl in pain

Eyes like golden stars shining in the dark

In Dagon's Barrow I will take the stone they must obey

The King of Picts has forced his claim

One of the all-time greats in visual adaptation. Fight me if you think otherwise.

The King of Picts has forced his claim... he certainly did. Love that.

I can’t express how glad I am to see a band like Eternal Champion lend their own artistic interpretation to REH. We’ve got pastiche novels, visual artists, comic adaptations, gaming supplements, and now heavy metal bands, all keeping Howard alive with their own inspiring visions of the greatest sword-and-sorcery author who ever lived. 

Raub added his own verse to that roll-call, no doubt.

Rest in peace brother.

50 years of Savage Sword of Conan, and beyond

Ahh, no. 29, I love you. Love them all...

Savage Sword of Conan debuted August 1974. 

I was just one year old. Probably a little young to be reading this great old magazine. But looking back, I love the thought that when I was born, it existed. Imagine a not yet two-year -old me toddling over and placing a chubby hand on Conan nailed to the tree of death, a grinning skull leering in the distance. Boris Vallejo’s stunning artwork gracing the cover of issue #5, which I proudly own.

SSOC changed me. It was my gateway to Robert E. Howard, and to sword-and-sorcery. It introduced me to a darker, more brutal, savage, and sexy brand of fantasy than I was used to from the Chronicles of Prydain and The Hobbit, books I was first encountering around that same time. 

I might not be here blogging were it not for SSOC.

I’ve recounted this story a few times now. Here on the blog, in the foreword to Flame and Crimson, possibly on a podcast or two. But I still remember that initial shock upon finding a horde of back issues of the magazine circa 1984-85. Some of the fondest memories I have in my life are buying a couple at a time as I could afford them, bringing them home, leaning back in my second-hand split leather desk chair, putting my feet up on my desk. Sipping a cold Pepsi and eating a candy bar bought at a local drugstore. And getting utterly lost in the Hyborian Age. I was gripped in the potent spell of a necromancer.

As I write this essay an overflowing comic box sits to my left. The same ones I bought back in the mid-80s, with a couple issues added here and there over the years. One day I will probably finish my collection.

SSOC had it all. Great art of course, which goes without saying. Considerable diversity in its artists, but with some powerhouses to anchor the title, big names with which I’d become familiar—Adams, Vallejo, Norem, Buscema, Alcala, Chan. And others.

After the art, the terrific map of the Hyborian Age topped by an excerpt from the Nemedian Chronicles. Opening SSOC and seeing this splash page made it feel as though I was being guided into a lost world--perhaps due to the way it presented a lost text disclosing an even deeper layer of history (a layering technique J.R.R. Tolkien used in his works, to great effect). It felt real, lived in, once upon a time, impossibly dim and remote, but possibly our own, historical earth before the time when the oceans drank Atlantis.

Beyond that, SSOC featured stories about other Howardian characters, like Red Sonja or Solomon Kane (whom I did not know at all at the time). Beautiful art portfolios. Letters columns. Prose articles. I even loved the ads, pointing to treasures that I hoped I might one day acquire.

I just pulled out no. 29 at random (see above). And it’s just as awesome as I remember. 

Issue 29 TOC.

That map made me a child of sorcery...

Conan's Ladies... easy on the eye.

Holy balls that's some good artwork... Almuric at left (Tim Conrad)

I desperately wanted to participate.

Would they still honor these prices?

RIP John Verpoorten. I'd read every article, regardless of subject matter.

Swords and Scrolls... first letter by one Andrew J. Offutt. With praise for issue #24 and "Tower of the Elephant."

Listening to an interview with Jim Zub on The Rogues in the House podcast got me interested in subscribing to the new incarnation of the magazine, published by Titan. Which is a bit surprising, I suppose, as I’m no longer a comic book guy (or even an illustrated magazine guy). I’m not opposed to them by any means, but they’re just not in my wheelhouse anymore. 

But with the new SSOC the urge is deeper. It’s tapping into my nostalgia, sure, and that’s a potent vein. But it’s also akin to paying my respects. And seeing what new hands and minds might bring to this beloved old character.

OK, I did it. I ordered issue no. 1. It’s been so long since I bought a comic that I’ve never bought one online. I’m nearly certain the last SSOC I bought was issue 184 (April 1991), featuring “An All New Epic Adventure! Disciple!” I hadn’t yet graduated high school. There was no internet.

I thought I might be prompted to subscribe, but instead I purchased the issue as a standalone.

Here we go again.

Here’s to 50 years of this wonderful old magazine, and for what the future may yet bring.

The Shadow of Vengeance by Scott Oden, a review

Some would say there is no good Conan pastiche*, that the only stories of the Cimmerian worth reading are the 21 originals by Robert E. Howard. If that’s you, I get it. 

Me? I have no problem with pastiche, because I can differentiate new takes on the character from canon. They are something apart. That’s why I am able to enjoy the 1982 film, and Savage Sword of Conan and Conan the Barbarian the comic, even (gasp) the Lancer paperbacks with the L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter additions.

If you’re in the latter camp it does beg the question: What makes good Conan pastiche? Is it getting the character right? The setting, a convincing Hyborian Age verisimilitude? Or is it the style in which the story is told? Should it/must it “feel” Howard-esque?

“The Shadow of Vengeance” by Scott Oden checks all these boxes, but above all else nails Howard’s style.

This is I believe the fifth prose release from Titan, which began with "Conan: Lord of the Mount" by Stephen Graham Jones and includes one Solomon Kane story and the rest Conan. It’s a novella, some 18K words, about 60 pages, and like the rest of the line it is available as an e-book only. 

I, being a transported relic from 1984, don’t possess an e-reader, but Scott was generous enough to send me a word doc.

It’s also apparently the second time the story has been published, the first in Savage Sword of Conan volume 2, in monthly installments across issues #1 – 12. But not having read the Dark Horse or Marvel Comics relaunch of SSOC it was a first read for me.

This is not the next great Conan story … but that’s an impossible standard. As Karl Edward Wagner said, there was only one Robert E. Howard, and we’ve had him. But, it’s terrific pastiche, and can stand alongside much of what Roy Thomas and others were doing during the classic run of Savage Sword I so loved, after Howard’s adapted originals were exhausted.

If it lacks the great pathos of “The Tower of the Elephant,” or the unsettling insights into barbarism vs. civilization like we see in “Beyond the Black River,” that’s OK. Howard’s Conan stories themselves did not all rise to that highest of his own high standards, but instead were what we have here: A very fine adventure story, soaked in blood and the weird.

“The Shadow of Vengeance” follows on the heels of the events of “The Devil in Iron,” which if not accorded one of Howard’s best is still a good, entertaining Conan story. It’s a tale of vengeance, with the vengeance directed at Conan himself by Ghaznavi, regent of Khawarizm.

Big mistake, Ghaznavi. 

Howard fans will recognize these names from “The Devil in Iron” and why the events of that tale would lead to Ghaznavi seeking vengeance for his dead lord, Jehungir Agha.

What makes this story different from the likes of Robert Jordan, John Maddox Roberts and Steve Perry (not the one that sang “Open Arms”) et. al is Oden’s mimicry of Howard’s prose—check that, his near mastery of Howard’s style.

I read Blood of the Serpent last year and while I liked it well enough, it was not Howard-esque, though it was recognizably Conan’s character. Oden’s style is ridiculously like Howard, ripped from the pages of Weird Tales in the mid-1930s. Its uncanny. 

Here are some Howard-esque passages I really enjoyed:

Karash Khan left but a single watcher to mind the Cimmerian.  This thankless task fell to the youngest of the nine Sicari, a quick-eyed Turanian not much older than twenty.  No one knew his given name, but his brothers called him Badish Khan.  Bred in the alleys of Sultanapur, when the Master found him he was already a hired knife at fourteen with more kills than throat-slitters thrice his age.  He was like an ingot of iron, crude and without form; while Karash Khan was the hammer, it was dark Erlik who provided the flame.

And this, too.

Even so, the Sicari could not withstand the Cimmerian’s berserk fury.  Death might have been their master, but neither god nor man could master this wolf of the North.  His god was Crom, grim and savage, who gave a man the power to strive and slay and little else.  And when he called upon Crom, it was not in prayer or benediction . . . it was so the dark lord of the mound might bear witness.

It all seemed like I was reading something Howard would have written in 1934. Awesome stuff… “dark lord of the mound” induces chills. 

Oden does insert the word “fey” at least twice in the novella, a very old Northern term which I don’t know if Howard ever used in a Conan story, though he may have in “The Grey God Passes” or elsewhere (“It was Dragutin, fey and terrible as he rose up from behind the wagon, who reminded them.  He jabbed an accusing finger at the Cimmerian and yelled: “Kill them!”). It doesn’t matter anyway; I love the term and it works, and is placed here deliberately by Oden, author of The Grimnir Saga, who like me is also possessed of “the Northern Thing.”

Oden also builds the gloomy Cimmerian culture with a few choice passages, as here:

Among southern nations, Conan had seen madness dismissed: a disease physicians sought to cure, a weakness learned philosophers debated in shaded courts.  Madmen were broken men, they said, who could hope for no better than a quick and quiet death.  Among the barbarians of the north, however, madness was something else – a thinning of the veil between worlds, a harbinger of doom, or the curse-gift of that fey and feral goddess, Morrigan.  The Cimmerians held madmen apart from others, their ramblings fraught with the truths of a perilous world.

That’s some fine Hyborian Age goodness there.

There is a great final fight, a terrific desperate melee, and a cool monster too. If that’s what you’re after, you get it here.

If I had any critique, the story perhaps takes a bit too long to get going, with a bit too much up front info. But once it properly starts it doesn’t let up until its savage ending.

If you can’t get enough Conan, start with Scott Oden and “The Shadow of Vengeance.”

*I am aware that pastiche has varied meanings; some say pastiche is a deliberate homage to an author’s style, not a new story of an existing character as I’m using it here. 

The Silver Key: 2023 in review

It’s the tail end of 2023. Another trip round the sun, another year of blogging on The Silver Key.

Many things of import happened this year.

I turned 50, and went places. To Las Vegas and Chicago for business conferences. Cross Plains TX for Robert E. Howard Days, and back to TX (Dripping Springs) for a fun company retreat. And to the Outer Banks, North Carolina, for a multi-family vacation and heavy metal party.

I delivered a keynote speech in May at a conference of 1500+ attendees to honor a former coworker and friend who passed away in 2022 at the age of 48 from breast cancer. By far my most meaningful accomplishment in 2023.

I spent a lot more time with my old man.

My wife and I found ourselves empty nesters. I have two daughters and my youngest went off to college in the fall. My eldest started her senior year in college, leaving us without children at home for the first time since… early 2002. It got oddly quiet all of the sudden, and we adjusted.

Life is changing. But I keep plugging away here on the blog.

I was making good headway until June, when my posting took a sharp downturn. This was due to my non-fiction heavy metal memoir taking sharp inroads into my free writing time. I went from 101 posts in 2022 to just 64 this year.

I hope to have the new book completed in 2024. I haven’t thought about publishing options as I’m focusing all my energy on making it the best book it can be. The first draft is 80-90% done and then comes revisions. But I’m liking how it’s shaping up.

Despite my posting falling off in the latter half of the year I passed 1,000,000 views since the blog’s inception. And wrote a few posts that resonated. So without further ado:

Most popular posts of 2023

1. 1979 Ken Kelly heroic fantasy calendar, month-by-month (231 views). We lost Kelly in 2022, and I covered his passing last year. But in June I gained a terrific Kelly keepsake, a mint condition 1979 calendar purchased at Robert E. Howard Days. It’s now hanging on my wall. The artwork is stunning.

2. The Big Excalibur Post (267 views). I think this was my best essay of 2023, written for the blog of DMR Books. I love Excalibur, I think it is the second or third best fantasy film of all time after The Lord of the Rings and/or CtB 1982. It’s gorgeous, but also literary--every allusion to the Matter of Britain is encompassed in John Boorman’s sprawling technicolor vision. No other film since has covered the Arthur myth with such savage, passionate beauty and intensity.

3. RIP David Drake (280 views). With every year comes the tolling of the bell for more sword-and-sorcery legends. Last year we lost Kelly, this year David Drake, best known for his Hammers Slammers series and military SF but also an S&S author of note. His “The Barrow Troll” made my top 25 favorite S&S short stories of all time.

4. My Howard Days 2023 Haul (287 views). People like book porn, and this post on my Howard Days haul was Triple-X. Something snapped inside of me at Cross Plains and I started buying up books with the abandon of a crack addict, taking home a massive glut that threatened to burst the bonds of my suitcase.

5. Sometime Lofty Towers, David C. Smith (293 views). An unexpectedly excellent sword-and-sorcery novel from Smith. Not that I don’t like his prior work (Oron, Red Sonja, etc.) but Smith delivered here his best work IMO, covering some thoughtful thematic ground in a fast-paced, bloody S&S novel.

6. Neither Beg Nor Yield and Other S&S Developments (306 views).  One of a handful of S&S kickstarters I backed this year. This gave me the chance to link to a two-part Keith Taylor interview I did for DMR Books (Taylor will appear in Neither Beg Nor Yield). I’m expecting this book soon and look forward to reading it.

7. Remembering The Cimmerian (316 views).  This now defunct print publication edited by Leo Grin was my introduction to Howard scholarship, and as a journal it has yet to be surpassed. I had an essay published in it and wrote for its website until it shuttered its doors in June 2010, an experience that deepened my understanding of all things Howard and heroic fantasy. I looked back on that here.

8. There and Back Again from Massachusetts to Cross Plains: A recap of 2023 Robert E. Howard Days (448 views). The full monty recap of my trip to Howard Days. Unforgettable, I can’t recommend this enough to any Howard heads. If you have yet to make the trip to the mecca put it on your bucket list. Somehow I found myself speaking on a pair of panels and working up the courage to recite a poem on Howards front porch, in between drinking Shiner Bock.

9. Are We in a New Sword-and-Sorcery Renaissance? Not yet. At least not commercially (795 views). I’ve enjoyed watching the recent resurgence in interest in sword-and-sorcery fiction (and like to think I played a small part in that, with Flame and Crimson). But I would not call what we’re seeing a third renaissance. There might not ever be one given publishing realities. The days of paperbacks on wire spinners in every drugstore are long gone, our attention fragmented, reading is in decline, and subgenres ever more narrowly and inwardly focused. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t building toward … something. Howard Andrew Jones’ Lord of a Shattered Land—a series of episodic stories that can be read singly but build toward a larger narrative arc—is a promising new title that takes the venerable subgenre in new directions while still very recognizably S&S.

10. Assessing the sword-and-sorcery glut (836 views). A polarizing post and these always attract the eyeballs. I piggybacked off an observation from Jason Ray Carney that we’ve gone from an S&S desert to a (relative) glut of new titles, making it hard to keep up as a reader. This topic sparked broad conversation in the S&S community. Some were critical (there can never be enough S&S! non-issue!), but unfortunately the underlying issue remains: Not enough readers to make this a sustainable genre for working authors. See no. 9. Of course given a choice I’d much rather have a glut than no new fiction, and this post was never meant to discourage new authors, just to point out that it was once possible to buy and read every new S&S release, and it’s now a lot more difficult.

My reading

This year I’ve read 44 books. I’m currently in a re-read of Bernard Cornwell’s highly recommended Warlord Trilogy, finishing up book two (Enemy of God). My favorite reads included The Silence of the Lambs, The Goshawk, The Art of Memoir, Night Shift, and Watership Down.

A personal note

My life is better than ever, a development tied to a commitment to my mental and physical health. I firmly believe that the more self-responsibility you accept, and the less time you spend doom scrolling on social media, the better your life will be. Take the time to discover your values. Make room for exercise. Eat less calories. Practice mindfulness. 

Yeah, I’m not a fan of generative AI as it is applied to art. I’m concerned with political divisions here in the U.S., foreign wars abroad, climate change, the mental health of our youth, etc. These are real problems, possibly existential. But to dwell too long on issues you cannot personally change is not a good use of your time. Start with you, then slowly work outwards. Read more. Write, or create in the way that suits you. Lift more weights. Listen to more heavy metal, and Rush. Rinse and repeat. My advice to you, free of charge.

Merry Christmas all, and thanks for reading.

Part II of S&S interview video up on YouTube

Part II of a video interview I did with Jan, The Brilliance of S&S, is now up on YouTube. Check it out here.

Part I is available here. 

I enjoyed chatting with Jan and love what he did with the interview and accompanying visuals. Good stuff.

1979 Ken Kelly heroic fantasy calendar, month-by-month

Let's look inside, shall we? And return to an age undreamed of ....1979.

Among my prized finds at 2023 Howard Days was this bad boy. A 1979 Ken Kelly Robert E. Howard Heroic Fantasy Calendar. 

Although it came sealed I’ve been dying to open it. But only very lightly sealed, as I recently discovered, and definitely a reseal job. Which made opening it easy. I used a fine knife and cracked through some weak adhesive, leaving the envelope undamaged.

And the glory was revealed. Check out the pics below.

I’m not a collector. I like owning cool shit to display and read, and put my hands on. Life is about enjoying things. We can’t take it with us. The work of the late Kelly (1946-2022) was not meant to be kept under wraps and passed along from investor to investor.

This calendar is in fantastic shape, unmarked and unused and crisp. I’ll keep it that way and handle with the utmost care, but have no desire to keep it hermetically sealed and resell at profit. It’s now going to be displayed on my wall, as it should be.

And its practical applications are not over. In addition to full-color images of Howardian heroes of heroic proportions and the glorious contrasts of light and dark that highlight the best of Kelly’s work, the website www.whencanireusethiscalendar.com tells me that this calendar will be accurate again in 2029, so there’s that, too. I’ll plan to leave it up for at least the next six years until I can use it to plan my summer vacations.

And of course, a centerfold. 

Talking sword-and-sorcery on YouTube and my current reading

Prior to my vacation to the Outer Banks I was invited to speak with Jan, a cool dude from the UK with a YouTube channel that covers pulp fiction and other related topics. We had a lengthy recorded session about sword-and-sorcery (of course!) on which he did a lot of cool post-editing, including adding tons of interesting visuals and cool transitions. It makes for nice viewing rather than staring at my unattractive face.

We cover what sword-and-sorcery is, its defining characteristics, the Lovecraft-Howard exchange of letters in A Means to Freedom, and the need for re-enchantment. Stuff you probably already know about if you’re a fan of S&S or have read Flame and Crimson, but otherwise might find interesting.

The final video is here. Enjoy!

***

Despite the above video I’m on an S&S break at the moment. I enjoy reading outside of the subgenre and needed a palate cleanser, so recently read The Silence of the Lambs (Thomas Harris, love the film but had never read the novel until now), Gov’t Cheese (non-fiction/memoir by Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire and The War of Art) and am midway through a re-read of Watership Down. The first two were wonderful reads, and as for the third I’m reminded why it’s an acknowledged classic. It probably would fall in my top 10 books of all-time, should such a list exist.

Glen Lord Symposium panel video up on YouTube

As noted in my recent writeup of 2023 Robert E. Howard Days, I was asked to present a paper at the Glen Lord Symposium. This is an academic panel and regular part of the event programming led by Jason Ray Carney, editor of Whetstone and a senior lecturer at Christoper Newport University.

The panel is now available on YouTube. You can view it here. 

The title of my paper is “Far Countries of the Mind: The Frontier Fantasy of Robert E. Howard." I had fun writing it and reading it aloud, if a little intimidating. 

Love Jason's comment that I deserve an honorary PhD in sword-and-sorcery :). I'll take it.

Enjoy!

Going Rogue(s) with another 2023 Howard Days recap

This week I was invited to join the wonderful sword-and-sorcery podcast Rogues in the House to continue the discussion about Robert E. Howard Days 2023. You can listen to the episode here.

Joining me were Jason Waltz (publisher, Rogue Blades Entertainment) and Jason Ray Carney (publisher, Whetstone) a pair of fellow attendees whom I met for the first time last week in Cross Plains.

The show as always was a blast. Give it a listen, if for no other reason than to hear host Matt John deliver "Cimmeria" in his dead-on Arnold imitation. This had me in stitches. Dude should take this act on the road.

In addition to Howard Days recaps we also talked about the ongoing sword-and-sorcery revival. Jason Waltz and I served on the S&S panel organized by Deuce Richardson at 2023 Howard Days, while Jason Ray Carney was one of our avid front-row listeners. We get into some of the same territory here on the podcast, covering recent S&S history as well as current venues, authors, and trends. Good stuff.

My Howard Days 2023 haul

Somewhere under here is a bar...

Many amusing escapades and scrapes unfolded during Howard Days 2023, not the least of which was my complete and utter lack of restraint around anything vaguely book shaped. I was like a Grateful Dead fan in a pot shop or a PETA member in a rescue shelter, unhinged and helpless, grasping and wanting everything at once.

Someone should have taken my wallet from me.

I came home with 20 “books.” In my defense 9 of these were free, 11 were purchases. But the count is actually higher.

Two of those “books” were bundles of Fantastic magazine won in the silent auction, basically the entire run of issues published in 1961 and 1962. So that is technically an additional 23 digest sized "books" (May 1963 is missing). I also purchased a calendar. So technically I came home with 41 separate items, loosely classified as books. 

And a Robert E. Howard Museum t-shirt. With Conan on it, of course. Not pictured.

I think I need help.

Worse, I packed lightly with just a carry-on suitcase and a separate carry-on leather bag. The latter is something resembling a leather briefcase, with some extra pouches on the side. I was warned to bring an oversized suitcase for the spoils and promptly ignored those warnings. 

Come Sunday I found myself in deep shit. After carefully packing up all my books first (of course! they're the most important items) I was nearly full and hadn’t touched my clothes yet. That left me shoving items for which no room remained into every conceivable pocket. I wound up stuffing dirty underwear into my computer bag to make room. 

Not proud of this, just stating the facts.

Anyway, somehow I made it home with a 60 pound carry on that was a beast to lug, even with wheels, and threatened to burst its zippers. I'm a pretty strong dude but I felt like Vasily Alexseyev on a max clean and jerk getting that thing into the overhead bin.

Following is a complete list of my gross take:

• The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, vol. 1
• The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard, vol. 3
• Thick as Thieves, Ken Lizzi
• Cross Plains Pilgrimage, Bobby Derie
• The Robert E. Howard Trivia Book, Bobby Derie
• Hither Came Conan, Jason Waltz (editor)
• Scott Oden Presents The Lost Empire of Sol, Rogue Blades Foundation
• Death Dealer 3, Tooth and Claw, James Silke
• Chacal #2
• The Dark Man Journal vol. 13.1
• Stan Lee Presents Conan the Barbarian #1 (paperback collection of first 3 comics)
• The Filming of Conan, Cinefantastique Special Double Issue
• Skelos #4
• REHUPA Oct. 2012 (no. 237)
• From the Heart of Darkness, David Drake
• 2018 Investigations of the Robert E. Howard House Cellar, Jeff Shanks et. al
• Kagen the Damned, Jonathan Maberry
• Ken Kelly’s Robert E. Howard Heroic Fantasy Calendar, 1979
• Fantastic 1961 bundle
• Fantastic 1962 bundle

Good thing my wife doesn’t read the blog.

There and back again from Massachusetts to Cross Plains: A recap of 2023 Robert E. Howard Days

Ken Lizzi, me, and Deuce, on sacred ground.

That Saturday morning long ago remains fresh in my mind. The day I stumbled across a hoard of Savage Sword of Conan magazines. 

The moment I became spellbound with the worlds of Robert E. Howard.

SSOC spoke to me on a level my then-favorite Avengers or Captain America could not. It was dangerous, barbaric, sexy, violent. Adult, with articles and photography to accompany the gorgeous black and white interior art, welcoming 10- or 11-year-old me to the savage Hyborian Age.

This wonderful, fortuitous find set me on a lifelong love of Howard and the subgenre of fantasy he founded, sword-and-sorcery. Little did I know that 40 years later it would also lead to an unforgettable trip to his hometown.

This past weekend I traveled to Cross Plains for 2023 Robert E. Howard Days. This was not a lightly-made decision. I live in Massachusetts, some 1600 miles from the small town in West Texas that Howard called home. With a wife and family, domestic obligations, and a busy professional career to manage, there is never a good time to do something like this, even though Howard Days had been on my bucket list for years.

Part of the whole wide world of Cross Plains.

But this year the stars and planets aligned. Two dudes whom I knew mainly from online interaction, Deuce Richardson and Ken Lizzi, had rented a house in neighboring Cisco, so I had company and a place to sleep. 

The time had finally come to head to the mecca of all things Howard and sword-and-sorcery.

Last Thursday I flew into Dallas Fort Worth and picked up a rental car. Shortly after 5 p.m. Ken, Deuce and I arrived in Cross Plains. The Howard House had closed for the day but two and a half days of non-stop celebrations were about to begin.

Thinking this could be a once in a lifetime trip, I wanted to see it all—the town, the house, the gravesite, the panel sessions. I also wanted to give myself adequate time to hang out and talk to the throng of Howard fans and Howard Days volunteers that make this event so special.

Deuce had wise words for navigating this dilemma: “Balance the living and the dead.”

So, I gave it my best go to honor the man and explore the town while also spending time with as many attendees as I could. I feel pretty good about the balance I struck.

With Jeff Shanks (left) and Mark Finn.

Meeting Rusty Burke, Fred Blosser, Patrice Louinet, Chris Gruber, Mark Finn, Jeff Shanks, John Bullard, Gary Romeo, Will Oliver, Dierk Gunther and others was incredible. I felt like I already knew many of them from YouTube videos, articles, and podcasts and the like, but talking and shaking hands with them all made it tangible. It was wonderful meeting fellow S&S aficionados Jason Waltz, Keith West, Jason Ray Carney, Aaron Cummins, Chuck E. Clark, and many, many others whose names I’ve unfortunately forgotten or failed to ask.

Far too few know the name Robert E. Howard and the opportunity to talk shop and swap REH nerdity comes very infrequently. At Howard Days its endless. “What’s your Howard origin story?” “What’s your favorite Conan tale?” “Have you read his westerns?” These spontaneous conversations happen in line to get your barbecue, perusing the tables at the silent auction, and especially in the evenings at the pavilion. It’s glorious.

The pavilion.

I thought for my first trip I’d simply soak it all in, but instead found myself serving on two speaker panels. On the first, the Glenn Lord Symposium I found myself sandwiched between two PhDs. But both proved incredibly gracious and down-to-earth. I enjoyed Dierk Gunther’s paper which attempted the formidable task of answering the charges of racism in “The Vale of Lost Women.” Will Oliver’s session was fascinating, offering up statistical evidence including recorded interviews with oil field workers to corroborate that Cross Plains was plagued by crime and violence during the oil bloom. This colored Howard’s worldview and creative output and helps to explain why he thought enemies might be lurking around the next corner.

I offered up “In a far country: The Frontier Fantasy of Robert E. Howard,” making the case for Howard as a writer experiencing the absence of a recently closed frontier, unlike his literary hero Jack London who experienced the gold rush of the Klondike first-hand. This absence caused Howard to turn to fantasy and frontiers within. I indulged the audience and myself with a few passages from Jack London and REH, which I greatly enjoyed reading aloud. It seemed well received and I expect it and the other panels to eventually appear on YouTube, courtesy of videographer Ben Friberg.

The atmosphere at the pavilion made it extra sword-and-sorcery

On Saturday I served on a second panel at the pavilion, “Sword-and-sorcery revival,” an informal, impromptu discussion of the recent upsurge in S&S publishing and authorship. I would describe the panel setting as a raucous tavern in the heart of the Maul. I’ve both run and attended many conferences, and at some point attendees hit panel fatigue and want to get down to the business of socializing. We hit the tipping point midway through and it was hard to control the volume in the pavilion; some 30 or so were quite interested in the panel but others were more interested in beer and conversation. I get it. We soldiered on and gave a pretty good rundown of current sword-and-sorcery publishers, authors, other outlets (podcasts, comics, etc.) and in general stoked enthusiasm for the revival of a genre Howard started back in 1929 with “The Shadow Kingdom.” John Bullard helped us greatly with the panel by making flyers and securing space. Thanks John!

Among the more unexpected experiences was feeling like a quasi-celebrity. I must have signed at least 20-25 copies of Flame and Crimson, Hither Came Conan, New Edge #0, and other odds and ends. Watching former Weird Tales editor John Bettancourt select Flame and Crimson as his raffle prize at the S&S panel and note that he had been looking forward to reading it was a strange, rewarding feeling. 

So, a lot of socializing and hanging out. But it’s also important to honor the dead.

Thank you Project Pride!

Nothing can quite prepare you for the first view of Robert E. Howard’s home and ultimately the humble bedroom where did the majority of his writing. Others have made the same observation many times, but its stunning that Howard was able to birth and deliver such vivid creations to the world from such small, prosaic quarters. It’s a testament to his unique genius. The volunteer docents who serve as tour guides, women from the Cross Plains community, were patient and wonderful. I learned that Howard’s father, Isaac, treated bloodied oil field workers right in the Howard home. One docent noted poetically that blood has seeped its way into the roots of the home.

We also folded in a visit to Brownwood to visit the family gravesite. We timed our trip just right, pulling into the sprawling cemetery in the golden sunlight of the late afternoon and paid our respects to Howard and his parents, laid side-by-side. Someone had left behind a book and figurine; I wish I had thought to do something similar.

I left with a more detailed depiction of Howard’s environs. All the tours including a bus tour of greater Cross Plains were absolutely worth doing. I found it to be a charming little community that feels a little like a relic of a lost age, with a few modern updates (a Dollar Store and the like).

Other highlights:

• Witnessing the incredible dedication of the volunteers that makes Howard Days possible. The Cross Plains community rallies together to do wonderful things, and preserve Howard’s legacy is a year-round effort.

• Buying enough books to break the back of a camel and strain the uttermost capacity of my suitcase. As I shoved volumes in every pocket and cavity I was advised my clothes were expendable. My haul included a pair of winning bids for two large stacks of Fantastic magazine (including the first appearance of Fritz Leiber’s “Bizaar of the Bizarre”) and a couple new hardcovers from the Foundation, the collected letters and poetry. Perhaps my favorite find was a 1979 calendar illustrated by the late great Ken Kelly. I'll share a pic of my hoard later.

• Drinking beer at Red Gap Brewing on a gorgeous day while listening how Foundation board member John Bullard assembled the collected letters of REH for the second edition. Monster effort worthy of an award.

• Attending the Robert E. Howard Foundation awards. Clapping for many deserving winners including John Bullard and Bill Cavalier, Willard Oliver, and Jason Ray Carney. I have not read Dennis McHaney’s Robert E. Howard in the Pulps (winner: The Atlantean), but was very impressed thumbing through Deuce’s copy. That definitely earned its award, too.

• Listening to experts like Bobby Derie, Finn, Shanks, Louinet, guest of honor John Betancourt, and others at the panel sessions. The theme this year was “100 Years of Weird Tales” (founded 1923, still publishing) and the panelists were deeply informed experts and a pleasure to listen to. Derie in particular struck me as a walking encyclopedia of the Weird. 

• Taking a break from Howard to visit Woody’s, a classic car and baseball memorabilia museum just across from the Howard house. This contained an immaculately maintained collection of stunning automobiles once owned by a wealthy private donor.

What's best in life? This.

• Hearing “Cimmeria” recited aloud on the front porch of the Howard house in Italian, Spanish, Gaelic, and Latin. The first man up after “Cimmeria” recited “Solomon Kane’s Homecoming” FROM MEMORY, a tough act to follow. Best performance went to some dude from North Carolina who ROARED a poem Howard wrote about the joys of drinking and fighting, punctuated with accusations addressed to “You Sons of Adam!” He had us all laughing and cheering. Howard would have approved.

• Working up the courage to read a poem myself, “The Rhyme of the Viking Path.” I gave the last few verses some appropriate barbaric emphasis and was pleased with the outcome and the crowd reaction. 

• Talking heavy metal with a fellow fan as we waited for the poetry readings to commence (I need to check out Dimmu Borgir).

• Walking across the same scenic iron bridge that Howard once traversed, which later inspired a scene from “The Whole Wide World.”

• Chatting about Red Nails and Margaret Brundage with the great Fred Blosser—a dude I was reading FORTY YEARS ago in the pages of SSOC—in the Cross Plains public library as I scanned through REH manuscripts and a beautiful collection of Weird Tales magazines. Surreal.

• Watching Master and Commander with Deuce and Ken while drinking Shiner Bock, a Texas classic.

• Conversing with a great group about all things Howard and S&S during our final evening at the pavilion. I learned that Will Oliver is working on a Howard biography and is as passionate about the works of Karl Edward Wagner as I am. In short, finding my tribe.

So, there you have it. Robert E. Howard Days 2023 proved to be a quirky, fun, charming, welcoming, and utterly unique event that every Robert E. Howard fan ought to attend at least once in their lifetime.

I wish I could have done more, but 2 ½ days pass quickly. And I suppose that’s what return trips are for. Many prophesized that if I came once to Howard Days it would be forever in my blood, and I’d be back again. 

I suspect one day I will. 

Here's to Howard Days.