"Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other."
--H.P. Lovecraft, The Silver Key
Showing posts with label Sword-and-Sorcery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sword-and-Sorcery. Show all posts
When I first started getting into sword-and-sorcery fiction, the internet was a fledgling, creaky, place. Charming, but impractical. Think bare-bones HTML websites and USENET and bulletin boards. Interesting, but not much help in finding what you were looking for, save by happy accident. Encyclopedias still had a place in this world.
So, I read the introductions of books, written by real people.
I found L. Sprague de Camp’s Swords & Sorcery (Pyramid, 1963) and read the stories of Clark Ashton Smith, C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner. I sought them out, and in so doing found authors like Poul Anderson and Jack Vance.
As the internet began to bloom I found the likes of Steve Tompkins at The Cimmerian and articles by Howard Andrew Jones at Flashing Swords and Black Gate. I read about authors like Harold Lamb and Karl Edward Wagner in their essays and sought them out.
In hindsight I was lucky. I was steered by people who knew what they were talking about.
In recent years I’ve been steered toward new finds by the likes of Morgan Holmes and G.W. Thomas and Deuce Richardson. Today I try to do that here and carry on the tradition. I am always very pleased when I read comments like this one, which I just got on a recent post about Darryl Schweitzer’s We Are All Legends.
I love hanging around this blog, for several reason but especially for a post like this. I had never heard of Schweitzer or seen his works in the wild until now. Seeing a "new author" to me is always exciting. Immediately ordered from Schweitzer's Ebay store.
We need people we know and trust and respect to give good recommendations.
I love this. Algorithms push us toward an average and mean, and who wants to be average, or mean (as in, not nice)?
Curation and tastemaking is a place where editors of S&S publications can step up. Set the direction. Show some taste. Differentiate yourself from AI slop. Give me the names of authors and artists whose work has moved you, and tell me why. You might convince me to give them a try.
I don’t want ChatGPT or Instagram algorithms steering me dully, without thought, toward whomever and wherever their programming tells me to go. Which is probably toward cat videos and thirst traps.
Sometimes the 1970s seem not so far away. Photos from my childhood confirm I was there; my old albums and books are a tangible affirmation. I can still see and touch that decade, I can smell it when I riff through the pages of my old first edition Dungeon Masters Guide (1979).
But the 70s are also a different, distant country. Things were Weirder then, or at least seemed that way. I don’t believe in ascribing magical properties to arbitrary 10-year windows of time other than to say that if the 60s were the decade of rebellion, the 70s, freed of shackles, were a decade of expression and experimentation.
With the demise of censorship codes and the rise of talented young directors we got some of the best films ever made in the 1970s. Record labels gave unpolished artists the financial freedom and a lengthy creative leash to experiment. The result was heavy metal, punk, … and disco (mistakes were made).
Fantasy fiction was likewise Weird. We had yet to become Sword of Shannara-fied and reading endless series of identical epic quests.
I was listening to a recent episode of the Geeks’ Guide to the Galaxy podcast discussing Flame and Crimson and the history of sword-and-sorcery. Somewhere around the one-hour mark one of the guests—a co-creator of the fine rotoscoped animated S&S film The Spine of Night—observed that the 70s and 80s were possessed of quality where it felt the “guard rails were off” and a reader or viewer felt that anything might happen.
I admire this quality.
Give me Weird.
S&S has a streak of this. Weird fiction predates sword-and-sorcery, originating with Edgar Allan Poe and carried on with Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood and H.P. Lovecraft. But it was married to swordplay, probably, with the likes of Lord Dunsany, then continued in works by A. Merritt and Clark Ashton Smith, and on into Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Tanith Lee, and Michael Shea. Today you’ll see it in John Fultz and Schuyler Hernstrom, and others.
It’s always been in S&S’ DNA. Howard’s Kull of Atlantis stories, in particular “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune” and “Striking of the Gong,” are in this tradition. Weird, brooding, dark, unsettling, introspective. They are the heritage of Weird Tales, the magazine from which S&S was born. If you abide by even a floor definition, its name, S&S needs swords (or a general medieval/pre gunpowder level of tech) and sorcery. Sorcery is not magic. It’s wild, dangerous, malevolent, often catastrophic to user as much as target. Think of a Neanderthal handling a hand grenade and trying to figure out whether to throw pin or charge; that’s sorcery. That’s Weird.
In that era a series of weird S&S stories appeared across publications now largely lost to time. Whispers. Void. Alien Worlds. Fantasy Tales. Weirdbook. These died out in the 80s as high fantasy rose to ascendancy, magic replaced sorcery, and the short story fell out of favor, replaced by epic quest. But for a time weird stories about weird characters drifted through these lost pages, including a wandering knight named Julian.
Darrell Schweitzer’s We Are All Legends collects 13 short stories published between 1970 and 1981. It’s a weird, wonderful little book. The stories take place in medieval Europe but of an uncertain date and place, with permeable borders. Magic has not left the world. It’s studded with Arthurian references, of wounded fisher kings and Merlin and Excalibur, even though its decidedly S&S. It’s dark, both in tone but also subject matter. Julian is haunted by his past sins. He believes he is beyond redemption, his faith in God irrevocably shaken, possibly shattered. “God” if there is one appears to be gnostic demiurge, a flawed, limited, and possibly malevolent creator:
I knew that if God is mad, and the signs show that he is, his Foe is mad also, and there can be no hope for the world between them, for creation is but a battleground for two maniacs in their death struggle.
We Are All Legends ticks a lot of my boxes. Obviously S&S, but also King Arthur, horror (some of these stories appeared in DAW Year’s Best Horror). Stories of anti heroes, even ostensibly peerless knights, grappling with a loss of faith and their own brokenness:
“When I was a child I heard about a man, a very, very old man, whose father had been a werewolf. So they took him, the son, whose father had been a werewolf, and shut him up in a tower. He remained there always, never knowing love, never knowing life. I, too, live in a tower, only mine is invisible and I carry it around with me. Its walls are just as strong though.”
“Are you a werewolf then?”
“Only in my heart.”
Purple and awesome.
Schweitzer would have been in his mid-late 20s writing these stories, which is remarkable. He is very underrated, by me and the community at large, though this YouTuber is a huge fan of the book.
Schweizer confirmed on a Facebook post by Charles Gramlich that the two biggest influences on these stories were Ingar Bergman’s 1957 film, “The Seventh Seal,” and “The Travels of Sir John Mandeville,” a 14th century travelogue (reportedly true) of an English knight into the middle and far east. It doesn’t seem The Life of Sir Aglovale de Galis is among its influences, but We Are All Legends feels something like Clemence Housman’s fine, near forgotten little tale, and its damned, forsaken, wandering knight, a tragic hero. I also noted the influence of Michael Moorock; a possible reference to Corum and the Hand of Kwll. Julian’s wanderings resemble something of a tormented Elric seeking the equilibrium of Tanelorn.
Fabian...
In addition to a fine series of stories the book is blessed with Stephen Fabian illustrations. These are terrific, both the wraparound cover and the wonderful black and white interior accent work. Weaknesses? It is tiring to read all at once; while I am happy having all the Sir Julian stories in one volume, some collections need to be dipped into and sampled from rather than read entire; eating too much rich food or red wine can spoil the effect. Perhaps too much repetition of theme, tone. Some of the stories are perhaps a little too weird for my tastes, untethered to the ground. I feel like this book could have used some more internal character work.
… but that is not what Schweitzer was after. He is of the belief fantasy is examining internal conflicts through explicit, external struggles against real-world demons. From an interview on Black Gate:
In your estimation what are the elements that make truly great fantasy fiction? Truly great horror? Is “weird fiction” more than simply a co-mingling of these two genres?
The point of much fantasy is to deal with mythic elements directly, rather than through symbol and metaphor only. You could, for example, write a story about someone who “sells his soul” and makes a “Faustian bargain,” i.e. he sacrifices his personal integrity in an irretrievable manner for some dubious goal-say, success in the Mafia, or in Hollywood, or in politics. It needn’t have any fantastic content, and the Faust symbolism would resonate. But the fantasist’s approach is to bring the actual demon on stage and deal with the material directly.
Schweitzer is a former Weird Tales editor, living elder scholar, and longtime champion of the weird, you can find more of his observations here. Here’s a bit of his learned commentary on the weird and my response.
Of genre categories:
These categories are ultimately marketing tools. Horror is what is published as horror. Fantasy is what is published as fantasy. It’s all about labels and which shelf in the bookstore a book is displayed on. Aesthetically, the distinction is not particularly meaningful.
Believe it or not I an S&S historian agree with some of this. Genre categories began as marketing tools and probably function best that way, less so than tools of analysis. However, I do think having genre parameters or aesthetic template to follow, bend, or break, can produce surprising results and possibly great original art. As can deliberate mixing of genres.
Of the greatness of Tanith Lee (agreed here; we need more Tanith Lee in this world):
Tanith Lee strikes me as the perfect Weird Tales writer, which is probably why WT has published more by her than anyone else. Her work is poetic, sensual, scary, imaginative, erotic if it needs to be. She’s got everything.
And a final hell yeah; I could not agree more with his assessment of the winner take all state of publishing, death of the midlist author, and our need to cultivate more readers:
Forty years ago, you could assume anything in SF/fantasy would sell more like thirty to fifty thousand copies in mass-market paperback without even trying. Just slap the right kind of cover on it and it would sell this acceptable minimum. Well, maybe the ceiling on genre fiction has come off, and today you get an Anne McCaffrey or a Stephen King who can sell millions of copies, but we have also lost the floor, which protected us. Now the major publishers are only interested in writers who have the potential to be the next McCaffrey or King, not the interesting mid-list writers who are worth publishing for what they are, even if they never will sell a million copies — the Davidsons and Laffertys. We have lost our innocence. Once it was demonstrated that SF/fantasy/horror could go to the top of the bestseller lists, anything that doesn’t is now viewed as a failure by those faceless, impersonal Suits who control corporate publishing.
… The U.S.A. has a population of three hundred million. Two thousand copies is not a lot. We have a reading public the size of Luxemborg’s. What any genre needs to stay healthy is more readers and a means of reaching them.
I don’t mind pastiche … which is I suppose a bit of a lukewarm way of saying I support it.
Nonetheless it’s how I feel.
I’m on record as loving SSOC and Roy Thomas stories and even (gasp) some of the old Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp Conan stories. I’m not a purist, as long as we have unadulterated Howard somewhere in print I’m good with new stories and interpretations. The Del Reys stand, so bring on the rest.
No one will ever match Howard at his own game, because he himself was of course in every story. Unless you have access via medium to his soul, or his ghost visits your shoulder like Conan did Howard and compels you to write, there will never be another REH.
While I used to indulge in Conan pastiche it’s not something I seek out anymore. I don’t read much of it these days … but once in a while I dip back in. I’ve bought the first half dozen SSOCs. I’ve read Scott Oden’s The Shadow of Vengeance and S.M. Stirling's Blood of the Serpent. I still feel a dim stir when I see the name of “Conan” in new art and stories.
What do I think makes for a good Howard pastiche? I have a few boxes I like to see checked. Here they are, and as with everything I write, YMMV.
The first and faraway most important: The story must be good, above all else. This almost covers for breaking any of the subsequent rules that follow.
The character should closely mirror the original. Conan should feel like Conan, act according to the broad parameters of his established nature. If not, why write him? That said, if a pastiche writes an immature Conan or an aged Conan reflecting on his deathbed, I would expect some new ground to be broken.
The world should feel that way too. I don’t think you should eliminate Hyborian Age countries or distort the literal map Howard laid down. The same goes for its peoples; Cimmerians should be mostly brooding and fierce, Picts savage and Pict-y. But I’m OK with adding to what is there, exploring a new island in the Vilayet or a dark and forgotten corner of Stygia, creating outlier characters and so on.
Here's what I don’t care about.
Established timelines. Because pastiche isn’t canon there is no need to connect up all the history. There is no way Conan could pack in all the adventure from every pastiche into one lifetime, so we can assume that pastiche operates independent of other pastiche—and even the originals. I don’t care how or when pastiche fits into the established storyline, even Howard’s chronology. Telling me that Conan couldn’t have done something because he was 27 at the time and a pirate might be technically accurate, but it also makes me yawn. YMMV.
Writing style. I admire when someone like Scott Oden can mirror Howard’s prose, but I don’t find it necessary. When someone covers a song I actually prefer hearing their own interpretation. Bruce Dickinson covering Sabbath Bloody Sabbath on Nativity on Black is not trying to be Ozzy … and its awesome and still honors Black Sabbath. Likewise Rob Zombie put his own unique Charles Manson inspired spin on Children of the Grave and Yungblud is fanastic covering “Changes” with his very different voice, albeit the same lyrics. Honor the original but do something new. It can sound different, whether musically or on the ear of a reader. The style should be appealing of course but it doesn’t have to sound like REH’s prose. YMMV.
***
This is a big roundabout way of saying that author John C. Hocking checks my boxes with Conan and the Living Plague, one of two complete novels published in the recent Conan: City of the Dead by Titan Books (2024).
I’m not a fan of plot summaries and I don’t feel like doing one here. But here’s what I liked about it:
Conan feels like Conan. I really like when we get to see how strong Conan is in non-combat situations. There’s a great early scene of him wielding a log-like wooden “sword” that leaves hardened mercenaries with their mouths agape; we see him lifting stone doors of crypts that baffle other strong men, on and on. Fun. But he also comports himself with the same rough barbaric code of honor, the same ferocity in battle but not recklessness, and so on.
The writing, which includes some really fine turns of phrase and metaphor. Hocking is an underrated stylist even within the small circle that is S&S but I really enjoyed passages like this:
Pezur saw Conan bare his teeth in an unconscious snarl of defiance and felt a surge of kinship with the barbarian. He knew the Cimmerian felt the rigid touch of those distant eyes as keenly as he did.
Indeed, Conan sensed the unnatural scrutiny as well as if the dim figure had reached out across Dulcine and laid a cold hand upon his breast. The undulled instincts of the barbarian sent the same thrill along his nerves that he might have felt confronting a lion in a jungle grove. Though he could not give it a name, he knew there was danger here, a danger born of black sorcery.
“What are you, devil?” growled Conan.
It’s not Howard’s style but it doesn’t have to be.
The fast pace. The chapters are short and end on something of a cliffhanger, the action almost unrelenting. Yes, we do have other characters, a small cast, which you need in a novel that doesn’t spend time inside the characters’ minds. But it’s still recognizably S&S, nothing like A Game of Thrones or its epic fantasy ilk. It reads fast.
A few particularly memorable scenes. A harrowing trip through dank underground crypts pursued by a horde of ghouls, and later an encounter with waves of plague infected living that attack in mindless zombie like hordes and whose touch brings death, are suitably hair-raising and stick with you.
Nice fights with mini-bosses. No spoilers but Conan has a nice mano-y-mano with a towering armored plague knight that was really freaking cool, a sorcerer wielding dangerous spells, and so on.
The sword-and-sorcery easter eggs (don’t think I didn’t see these, John). Two paired soldiers hold Conan at crossbow point, one named Rald and the other, Duar. A spell ripped right out of Jack Vance. Nice little nods there to the S&S faithful. And there’s also Lovecraftian menace and oblique reference, including the likes of the Hounds of “Thandalos.”
Little dashes of humor. Conan engaging in a bit of self-deprecation over his (very) short career as a sorcerer. A mercenary mutters that a sword weighs as much as his wife. And so on. It’s OK to have a little fun in S&S.
The plague and the characters needing to mask anticipates the COVID-19 pandemic. Prescient but happenstance because the novel was written pre-COVID (I have a rare copy of a limited printing from 2019), but it nevertheless serves as prospective commentary and evokes memories of the real-world outbreak.
I noticed a few wobbles (a side character is given a backstory late for no reason; perhaps too much description of architecture and rooms and the like, one of the big bads, a demon, is set up well but removed from the stage too quickly), but these are minor and hardly worth noting.
What Conan and the Living Plague is not, is REH. It never will be, nor can be. And that’s OK. It’s still a hell of a lot of fun and a worthy S&S novel.
I just closed the cover on DMR Books’ latest release, Celtic Adventures, and had to say a few words about the final entry collected therein: “Grana, Queen of Battle,” by John Barnett.
Because it’s damned good.
Were it anthologized amid a dozen modern S&S/historical adventures it would not be out of place—except it would likely be the best story in the collection. And it was written in 1913 for The Cavalier. That’s pre-World War I for those keeping score at home, and yet it is in no way dated. In fact, it is burning with life in these pages.
“Grana, Queen of Battle” is a novella comprised of six chapters and 94 pages. Each chapter is a standalone story with minor reference to the preceding chapter, the same type of thing Howard Andrew Jones was doing with the first book in his Hanuvar series. Clearly this is the stuff from which sword-and-sorcery would be made. Short, episodic stories building on one another, action-packed, relatively small stakes (save to Grana herself of course).
In the barest space imaginable—the first three pages—we meet a dying Irish chieftain, Dubhdara. Sonless, his lands and castle must pass to his daughter Grana. We meet Grana’s sidekick, a rawboned and lean fool in motley named Bryan Tiege, deadly with a sword. And we meet Grana, “a woman whom Fate restricted to a petty stage, but who might have ruled a kingdom. A woman who mastered men, whom men followed because she was stronger, bolder, and more daring than themselves.” And we get the setup for the conflict of the first chapter, a brewing coup by Red Donell, who with his lord on his deathbed schemes to take the castle for himself--even as Dubhdara breathes his last, and Grana offers her dying father a few comforting final words.
All of this is done with incredibly deft strokes of detail and emotion in just three pages. The economy is worth studying for anyone writing this stuff.
It’s positively wonderful and reminds me why I read S&S and classic historical adventure.
***
It’s Cimmerian September, the equivalent of the high holy days for sword-and-sorcery and all things REH.
I don’t typically participate but the enthusiasm I’m seeing feels around the interwebs is contagious. I might have to get in on it, either with something by Howard or a Conan pastiche. Or both.
Dialing up a bit of Manilla Road this Metal Friday, one of the most swordly-and-sorcerous metal bands ever.
I love the atmosphere of "Mystification." Mark Shelton sounds like an evil sorcerer out of a Clark Ashton Smith story here.
Through the winds of time
A poet found The Key
To The Elder Rhyme
Some call the song mystic
With tales of gore
And terror in the night
His words, no more,
Have kept me mystified
Someone in an online group posted that they fail to see the aesthetic connection between metal and S&S (?) Sarcasm doesn't always come across well on the internet so I hope this was a case of crossed wires ... otherwise this is a really bad take.
Mystification is basically Weird Tales with guitars.
Manilla Road also has a song called ... Queen of the Black Coast.
Sword-and-sorcery typically works better in the short form than the novel, and I think I know why. It’s a lot harder to sustain breakneck action over 250-300 pages. I was reminded not for the first time of this maxim while reading Andrew J. Offutt’s Sword of the Gael (1975, Zebra Books), which I found to be a bit of a mixed bag.
Sword of the Gael is the first in a series of six books from Offutt (and later co-writer Keith Taylor) of Cormac Mac Art, a quasi-historical/mythic High King of Ireland out of medieval Irish legend. Robert E. Howard wrote a handful of stories about the character collected posthumously in Tigers of the Sea, two of which were completed by S&S author Richard Tierney. It is from REH’s interpretation of Mac Art that we get Offutt’s series.
Sword of the Gael opens with a couple fantastic chapters that hooked me out of the gate. A dragon-prowed ship bearing Cormac and his crew capsizes in a storm; many men drown but about a dozen or so including the mighty Dane Wulfhere the Skull-splitter cling to the wreckage and survive after they wash ashore on a rocky isle. Combing the barren spit for any signs of life or life-giving water they happen across a temple of anachronistic construction. Something not of Roman construction, nor even ancient Celtic, but of Atlantis. And it’s occupied by a hostile Viking crew.
Had Offutt ended there it would have made for an excellent short story. But after this well-done piece of Howardian world-building and weirdness we never see nor hear of Atlantis nor the temple again. A classic unused Chekov’s gun. Maybe we will in the second book, The Undying Wizard (1976) however this is not pitched as a series nor a book one. And after the great opening sequence the story begins to flag.
But hold your judgement for a moment.
Though it fails to live up to its opening promise there are many interesting elements in the reminder of the book that carried me through to the end. Offutt says in the introduction he read millions of words and took thousands of words of notes researching ancient Ireland, aka., Eirrin, and in the process fell in love with its history and legends. This is evident. The story feels historical and interesting in a way a lot of generic fantasy does not, clothing and food and Irish culture faithfully depicted. We get so little of Ireland/Eirrin as the setting of fantasy novels (Taylor’s Bard is a notable exception) that this was welcome, and moreover well-rendered. Here’s a bit of that rendering, from a monologue delivered from Cormac’s love interest, the Irish princess Samaire:
There are no former sons of Eirrin, Cormac of Connacht! It’s a spell there is on the fens and the bogs, and the cairn-topped hills of green Eirrin called Inisfail, and it envelops us all at birth like a cloak about the mind. We are forever under it—even those who so long and long ago moved across Magh Rian to Dalriada in Alba. Eirrin-born is Eirrin-bound, as if by stout cords and golden chains.”
This stirs my Irish blood. What do you expect with a last name like Murphy? More than a bit of Eirrin is in me (as well as Danish blood from my mother’s side).
Speaking of stirred/spilled blood, we also get a desperate pitched battle against Picts, and a fun battle against a pool dwelling giant squid. We get a reasonably well done and familiar story of a hero’s homecoming, back to the land that once declared him an exile. Cormac is the son of a murdered high king but cannot return to Eirrin because of a killing he committed years before at a great assembly, a sort of great fair and friendly gathering of competitive clan rivals where no quarrels are permitted (not unlike a Danish Thing). But the young and hot-headed Cormac is goaded to violence and flees his homeland for a dozen years.
Offutt isn't Howard but he’s a good storyteller in his own right. Sword of the Gael is earnest (Offutt even includes bits of his own verse); you cannot fake its enthusiasm. As a standalone novel it’s not entirely successful. But it’s an interesting failure, entertaining enough, and moreover instructive for writers working in the field. I’d give it a tentative recommendation to S&S fans.
My grandfather had fabulous foresight. After WW2 he and his buddy bought a piece of property in the lakes region of New Hampshire and built a pair of cabins that still stand today, with modifications. It’s an inspiring story of wartime service and family sacrifice you can find here on the blog.
We still have the cabin. It’s passed through a couple generations and today I’m a 1/5 owner. My extended family splits the cost of utilities, taxes, maintenance, etc, and we all put in for vacation weeks in the summer.
I’m currently in the midst of our week away. I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I saw the lake, and felt an unseen load lift from my shoulders. It had been too long.
My company has an unlimited PTO policy, which means you can take as much time off as you want (with approval). What this ideal scenario means in practice is often less time off. Guilt and the protestant work ethic are powerful forces. I hadn’t’ taken anything beyond a few scattered days off this year. But right now I’m enjoying a whole lot of little. Pontoon boat rides, Old Fashioneds, the mournful wails of loons.
I’ve put blogging on hold too, but this morning as I was sitting out on our deck listening to the wind sighing through the maples and ripple across the water I was inspired to write something I could reasonably shoehorn onto the blog.
Here’s a few swordly and sorcerous updates.
I enjoyed a visit from Tom Barber. Tom and I get together at least once a year but typically at his house. This year I invited him to the camp and took him out on a leisurely pontoon boat cruise. We got caught up on everything in his life, including the loss of his beloved partner Terri. Tough times for Tom but he seemed to leave in good spirits.
After a span of more than a decade I watched The Whole Wide World with my wife and daughter. I loved it; they liked it although they found themselves annoyed by Bob’s erratic behavior and creeped out with his too close relationship with Hester. This is a very well-done movie and it left me choked up, but I can see the issues it can cause for an outsider with no context for Howard’s life. For example, there is no mention of the extremely late payments from Weird Tales, which we now know greatly impacted his mental health. But you can't expect too much from a 106 minute film and there is some fabulous acting by Zellweger and D'Onofrio. I enjoyed this revisit of Cross Plains.
I’m reading Andrew J. Offutt's Sword of the Gaels and finding it fun. The first two chapters are absolutely fantastic, setting up the reader for a late Roman Empire/Viking Age historical … that suddenly takes an unexpected left turn into the weird. Cormac and his crew are shipwrecked on a seemingly deserted rocky isle and discover a fortress that seems out of another era, evoking deep ancestral memories of Atlantis and snake-men:
Unfortunately some 70 pages later I can feel a bit of sag that plagues so much long-form S&S. It seems hard to sustain swordplay and fast pacing and lack of character interiority over a few hundred pages. We’ll see what else Offutt can do with the rest of the book.
I read a draft of David C. Smith’s Cold Thrones and Arcane Arts. This is a new title in the works from Pulp Hero Press that offers analysis of what makes sword-and-sorcery fiction tick—what it is, and what it does well when it’s at its best. Interestingly Smith spends most of the page count on new S&S, authors like John Fultz and Schuyler Hernstrom and John Hocking and Howard Andrew Jones and many, many others besides. I suspect this will be well-received in the community although I did offer up a few ideas for expansion and revision. Some inspired stuff here.
My friend Ken Lizzi, one of the dudes with whom I split a house rental at 2023 Robert E. Howard Days, is having his Cesar the Bravo fiction collected and kickstarted by Cirsova. Cesar, a sometimes-condottiero and a bravo by trade, has earned a reputation as one of the best swords for hire in the city of Plenum. If you need a foe humiliated before a cheering crowd, he’s your man!
This collection includes 5 previously published adventures plus an all-new full-length novel! Ken is a good dude and a good writer. Get in on that today.
I'm giving Old Moon Quarterly a shot. I bought one of their issues recently and now am kickstarting issues #9-10. One of these is Arthurian themed which ticks a lot of my boxes. I'm liking the aesthetic of this publication. As I write this entry I can see they've met their funding minimum and now we'll see what else they might unlock. Maybe Excalibur from the stone?
Digging the Celtitude.
Speaking of great aesthetics, DMR Books has published Celtic Adventures, with one of the best covers I've seen. This reminds me I still need to pick up Swords of Steel vol. 4. Some awesome reprints in this one, including the likes of REH and Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, whose "Vengeance" in DMR Books' Viking Adventures I could not put down.
When I was a kid I used to regularly check out Monster Tales: Vampires, Werewolves & Things (1973, Rand McNally & Company) from my elementary school library. I LOVED this book even though it scared the piss out of me. But when I moved on to middle school that was the last I saw of it.
Until now.
You may recall my prior posts about it here on the blog. Here's the first, A scare from the deep mists of time: Monster Tales, from July 2009. At the time I could not even remember the name of the book, only a few vivid details. A happy Google search struck paydirt. I wrote at the time:
Were you ever seized by the intoxicating memory of reading a much-loved book as a child, only to despair that you'd never remember the title? This happened to me today. From some subterranean depths in my brain came the tale of a boy who exacts revenge on his family's killers by voluntarily taking on the form of a werewolf. I remembered it being a short story contained in a red hardcover book, filled with startling black-and-white illustrations. I remember reading it over and over again in my elementary school library in the 1970s. But that was the extent of my recollection.
I plugged in "werewolf stories for children" and "horror anthologies for children and 1970s" into Google to see what would come up... and eventually came across this marvelous link, courtesy of The Haunted Closet: http://the-haunted-closet.blogspot.com/2008/10/monster-tales-vampires-werewolves.html.
Twelve years later I revisited Monster Tales in a post for the blog of Goodman Games/Tales from the Magician's Skull, Brian Murphy's Gateways to Sword-and-Sorcery. Monster Tales was one of my gateway drugs to S&S, and a potent one. As I wrote in that 2021 blog post:
In hindsight I can see how I was being inevitably steered toward sword-and-sorcery by consuming its various components; historical elements, grit and danger, monsters, tough and resourceful heroes, horror, and the weird. I am grateful to have had access to books that moved me, exposed me to grim struggle, even disturbed me. Here’s a PSA for parents of young children: A few bad dreams are OK if the reward is making a lifelong reader.
Within a year or so of consuming the titles in this list I would discover Robert E. Howard in the pages of The Savage of Sword of Conan, and my path was fixed. But I have these gateway books to thank for getting me started down that savage trail.
Sixteen years later, I now have a copy of my own.
I haven't been looking with any regularity. No ebay or Google alerts. Just the occasional search... and blanching at the typical $80-100 asking price (I've seen it listed for as much as $120. WTF). But a couple weeks ago I popped it into ebay and saw a copy listed by Thrift Books for $33. Immediately bought it. Today it arrived in the mail, in surprisingly excellent shape.
With patience, you can still get a decent deal. BTW I also tracked down a copy of Fire-Hunter.
Looking forward to a re-read for the first time in a VERY long time.
Tell me these aren't some creepy images for a kid...
I love the pairing of sword-and-sorcery aesthetic with machines of glass and steel. My idle daydream is to acquire a couple. Given the time and money I’d build a dedicated gaming den, dominated by … Gorgar.
I’ve never played this but chanced upon it in a happy internet search and fell in love with this and a bunch of other games that hold a dim place in my Gen-X memories.
What’s not to love about Gorgar? Hot chick in a bikini on a bloody altar? Check. Skulls. Muscular warriors. And giant snakes everywhere (a meme has been circulating that sword-and-sorcery is when the snakes are big). “Beware of the Pit.”
And of course, Gorgar himself, a red skinned demon with a menacing bass voice. The world’s first-ever talking pinball machine.
Then there’s Sorcerer. Seriously, look at this thing: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/sorcerer/gallery It’s got that stoned 70s vibe, an image you once saw airbrushed on the side of a van. Hard to rip your eyes away.
Centaur (1981) is absolutely balls-out as well. Take a listen to the voice and sound effects, a robotic “Destroy Centaur!” Incredible.
Even cooler, the centaur isn’t half man, half horse, it’s a half man, half motorbike. Wielding an axe. This can be none more metal.
This dude has it going on with Centaur in his game room (and don’t think I don’t see that collected edition of Captain America).
Apparently player demand for Centaur led to Centaur 2. This video gives a better look at the complex clockwork mechanisms underpinning the game. Pretty freaking cool.
Today everyone is playing fully immersive MMORPGs with photorealistic graphics and novel-quality storylines. I have no problem with this, even though I gave up video games long ago. But there is something about real steel and glass, painted cabinets and game boards and lightbulbs and rubber bumpers. The tactile, analog, reality of these games, that have huge appeal.
Further there is something about the aesthetic of the late 70s/very early 80s games in particular that grip me. The colors have that Frank Frazetta/Jeff Jones muddiness/dun pallor to them, yellows and tans mixed with splashes of bright red and pale gold. As you slide into the mid-and late 80s the cabinets are brighter, a bit more comic book bright and garish. There are still amazing games here but just a little bit outside of what I’m looking for. And while I’m no pinball historian the video game boom of the early 80s dimmed this golden age of the silver ball.
By the way this theoretical S&S game room is not restricted to pinball. I’d have Heavy Metal, Fire and Ice, Conan the Barbarian 1982 and Thundarr the Barbarian playing in a continuous loop on a projection screen. Perhaps Gauntlet in the corner, or Joust. And of course, a bar with a couple kegs of beer tapped 24-7. Which is dangerous … but sword-and-sorcery is not for the faint of heart, and ale must be quaffed in quantity.
My tastes are simple, Conan with a slight tweak:
Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I play pinball, and am content.”
I just finished re-reading The Long Walk after a long walk of my own, years and years of life since my last reading decades ago. Some thoughts.
We get no details on why the Walk came to be, just a couple scant suggestions. Like this: “In the old days, before the Change and the Squads, when there were still millionaires, they used to set up foundations and build libraries and all that good shit.” There is a reference to a war fought against a nuclear-armed Germany in 1953. So it’s not set in an apocalyptic future but some alternate history, perhaps one in which Germany develops an atomic weapon before 1945 and greatly extended the second world war. The result is a terrible totalitarian 20th century where the country is so lost and the future so bereft of hope that it turns to horrible death-fueled game shows to forget.
We don’t know, and I like it this way. Given the many chapter epigraph references to the Price is Right, prize fighting, and the Ten-Thousand Dollar Pyramid, I’m sure King was inspired by the game show craze sweeping the nation in the 1970s.
Things haven’t changed all that much. We all seem to be walking around in a fog, distracted just enough by digital spectacle to ignore the real horrors going on around us, as well as our own impending deaths. Just scroll an Instagram feed.
The Long Walk is an extended metaphor on dying. We’re all on the same Walk, two minutes from a ticket out (Walkers who slow their pace get three warnings before they are shot dead). That brief space tracks somewhat closely to what happens when you stop breathing. We’re separated from the other side by a thin margin. So we walk, and everyone around us drops off, one by one, until its our turn.
I know the literal, physical territory of this Walk, I was just on it, yesterday, when my wife and I had a nice dinner in Portsmouth, NH. The Walk starts in Maine, crosses into New Hampshire, and a skeletal handful make it all the way to my home state of Massachusetts. Weird, wild. Between King and H.P. Lovecraft New England takes a back seat to no other region of the United States when it comes to horror.
I really do enjoy King, in particular his old stuff. Say what you want about his long-windedness, his occasional closure whiffs and bad endings, and his lack of philosophical depth (King himself describes his work as the literary equivalent of a cheeseburger). I’d be hard-pressed to think of another writer who can so sweep you up into a story and hold you spellbound until the end. That’s true talent.
Thing 2
I’ve seen a few places—messageboards, articles, reddit threads—refer to the sword-and-sorcery definition I offered in Flame and Crimson as “seven points,” which makes it seem like a cumbersome checklist that must be met.
This is not correct, because it’s not what I wrote.
What I wrote was, sword-and-sorcery often contains these handful of elements; it does not need all of them nor any precise proportion. But shorn of any it’s hard to picture anyone calling said story S&S.
I kind of like this, it seems to me flexible and elegant, forgiving but not without boundaries. A precise definition of S&S is not really possible, IMO. When you look at how the subgenre evolved it coalesced over three decades and in conversations with authors and a fan community. It has changed and will continue to evolve. So instead of a precise definition I offered up a constellation of tropes. With the caveat that I am just a guy and YMMV.
But for some reason this seems to be a continued source of confusion and occasionally complaint. Some feel the need to simplify the definition, boil and boil down like maple syrup in some type of purity contest, until the definition of S&S might fit on the head of a pin.
If you must insist…I can’t boil it down to one word but I’ll give you two: Pulp Fantasy.
I am this target audience.
Thing 3
I mentioned Instagram further up; yesterday that platform triangulated me with precision, locked in with unerring heat detecting radar, launched its missile, and hit me with a dead-on bullseye.
Cauldron Born is sword-and-sorcery brought to heavy metal life. Band members Howie Bentley and Matthew Knight are not just talented musicians (the latter is also the band's new lead singer) but also published S&S authors, well versed in the sacred genre. After hearing them speak on recent podcast interviews and YouTube videos I figured some of their music was in order.
Blast their first album "Born of the Cauldon" this Metal Friday. Soak in the impeccable guitar tone and revel in that incredible album cover art by Lionel Baker II (you can view more of his artwork here, click on the album links).
I don’t write fiction, but I’ve read enough of it to make some observations about what makes for good writing. Here’s one: Good writing results from knowing what to emphasize, and what to leave out.
Poor writing is usually not the result of a bad idea, nor even of clumsy or artless style. Rather it suffers from being bogged down in needless detail, not placing proper emphasis on the right things. Good storytellers know where to aim the lens. When to let it linger, and when to move it along. Then comes inventive plot, believable character, and good word choice and style. In no particular order.
Tanith Lee is such a storyteller. She’s a writer of atmosphere and romance and decadence and depth who accomplishes this with an economy of words that astonishes. She seems to have an unfailing instinct for what is boring (what to leave out), what keeps the story moving (what to emphasize). Lee then harnesses these principles to a wonderful and unique style that makes every word a pleasure, the act of reading immersive. Dense yet somehow elegant, evocative, lush, and dreamlike. A master of the craft.
The result is that a short story collection like The Empress of Dreams moves, and contains multitudes.
This 2021 collection from DMR Books includes16 stories written over the course of Lee’s career, the earliest from 1976 (“The Demoness,” originally published in The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 2), and the latest 2013, just two years before her death (“A Tower of Arkrondurl,” originally published in Legends: Stories in Honor of David Gemmell). All can be grouped loosely as sword-and-sorcery. There are some who seem to want beefcake heroes and epic battles and slaughter out of S&S. You don’t get that here. What you do get is dark magic. Atmosphere. The true weird, displacement and strangeness in quasi-medieval settings that derived from Lord Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith and continued through to Jack Vance and Michael Shea. For modern comparisons, look to the likes of Schuyler Hernstrom or John Fultz.
Some of these stories are S&S through and through. Mercenaries in search of gold, a hot meal, or a new start in life. Warriors encountering strange towers. Everything is small stakes (well, if you count your life as small stakes). But there’s also deep symbolism, engagement with themes and the human condition. “The Woman in Scarlet” explores the fickleness and disloyalty of women in a frank albeit oblique way—it’s told from the vantagepoint of a female sword--that I think a man would have trouble writing. Fearless, edgy stuff. “Odds Against the Gods” is about a young woman in search of her past, and her identity. Lee writes strong men and women in her stories, lusty and brave and three dimensional. Four pages into this collection a woman is enjoying the pleasures of another woman, and later on the attentions of a man. If this type of thing offends you, sorry? Look elsewhere.
I haven’t even mentioned her imagination which at times seems unshackled from the earth. In “The Pain of Glass” Lee conjures a story about a goblet spun from a patch of desert on which a dying woman is separated forever from her true love. Part of her ethereal voice and spirit is absorbed into the sand and later heated and molded into a glass that seeks its soulmate, traveling from hand to hand over years. Those who drink from it are changed:
“Is the cup ensorcelled?”
“I cannot definitely tell you,” Jandur answered. It was a fact, he could not.
“It is—what is it?”
“Alas, I cannot say. Mystical and magical certainly.”
“Does it affect all—who—touch it?”
“In various ways, it does. Some weep. Some blush. Some begin to sing.”
“And you,” said Razved, with another warning note suddenly entering his voice; that of jealousy, “what do you feel when you take hold of it?
“Fear,” Jandur replied simply.
“Ah,” said Razved. “It is not meant for you, then.”
But again, what unites all of these disparate stories is terrific writing. Here’s how Lee renders the changing face of an arrogant town guardsman, whose veneer of invulnerability crumbles beneath the insult of an insouciant outsider who refuses to be intimidated:
Razibond’s face was now a marvellous study for any student of the human mood. It has passed through the blank pink of shock to the crimson of wrath, sunk a second in superstitious, uneasy yellow, before escalating into an extraordinary puce—a hue that would have assured any dye-maker a fortune, had he been able to reproduce it. More than this, Rozibund had swollen up like a toad. He cast his wine cup to the ground, where it shattered, being unwisely made of clay, and, disdaining his knife, heaved out a cleaverish blade some four feet long.
Wonderful.
Admission—I had read Lee prior in the likes of Swords Against Darkness, The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories, and Amazons, which I re-read while researching and writing Flame and Crimson. But I’ve never any of her many novels, of which she’s written more than 90(!), nor a collection. This was a mistake. I think she is close to a first rank S&S writer. She’s that good. In fact she might now rank as my favorite female S&S writer. I feel that strongly after reading this collection. C.L. Moore’s best short stories (Black God’s Kiss, Shambleau, Hellsgarde) and Leigh Brackett’s The Sword of Rhiannon are as good or arguably better as anything in here but The Empress of Dreams as a whole is in incredibly diverse and strong all the way through, hit after hit or at least strength to strength.
Lee’s literary debt to Vance is evident and admittedly her greatest influence, and so it is appropriate that the collection ends with “Evillo the Uncunning,” which originally appeared in Songs of The Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance (2009). This story ends with Lee’s short appreciation of Vance, in which she writes, “I don’t quite believe Jack Vance invented the Dying Earth. Part of me knows he’s been there. Often.”
Lee seems to be having a bit of a resurgence these days due to the Neil Gaiman controversy, which has brought to light Gaiman’s liberal borrowing from Lee’s flat earth stories. No one would have a problem with this had Gaiman admitted as much; Lee certainly admits to her own great indebtedness to Vance, for example. The fact he has seemingly never admitted to Lee’s influence does him no honor. See more here.
What criticisms do I have of this collection, if any? Lee loves open-ended endings perhaps a little too much. Not all her stories do this, but enough fall into the category of leave it up to the reader to figure out the meaning. I’m of a mixed mind of these types of stories; it can rob them of impact, leaving you with the feeling you’ve read something unfinished, scratching your head. But these are also the sort of stories that stay with you; you are made to put the pieces together and assemble the meaning, and when you do, you participate in the story. And it lingers. As this collection does.
James Silke, best known in S&S circles as the author of the Death Dealer series, recently passed away. He was 93 and lived a full and varied life as a photographer, writer, art director and more.
I'd been slowly working my way through the Death Dealer series and am posting here links to my prior reviews. These unfortunately are not great books, certainly not as good as their fantastic Frank Frazetta cover art ... but they do possess a ridiculous charm of their own, a bit of a "WTF did I just read?" unpredictability that makes them ... notable.
Some treasures acquired while out and about or through the post.
The three other images below are postcard ads included w/Lee volume.
About time I picked up Empress of Dreams by Tanith Lee. DMR collected all her tales of S&S in one volume.
I now have the first six issues of SSOC. I’ve only read the first three of the new run from Titan but plan to read the next three ASAP. Covers are still looking fantastic.
The Trooper is not a great beer, but not bad either. Drinkable, pleasant, reliable British ale with a malty backbone. And of course it’s really all about the can art.
When My Body’s Numb and My Throat is Dry, I grab a Trooper.
Was just listening to an interview with Michael Moorcock on the Monsters, Madness and Magic podcast (recommended BTW). Co-host Dave Ritzlin of DMR Books posed an interesting question, which prompted an unexpected response from this grand master of fantasy (lightly edited for clarity):
Ritzlin: “Earlier, we were talking about the tragic aspect of your fiction. I was wondering if there were any tragedies from your personal life, perhaps the death of a loved one or a romantic relationship that inspired some of your writing, and did it like in a therapeutic way.”
Moorcock: “A few years ago, I would have said no. But since then, I’ve been writing the Whispering Swarm series, which is partly autobiography … as a result I’ve been having to look at myself a bit more closely, as it were. And I think probably my father leaving, which I’ve always said was a good thing for me, I mean he was a pretty dull man and it wouldn’t have been much fun, you know, with him being around when I was younger… but I also had a problem pretty much most of my life, which I didn’t really get to the roots of until I was doing this book. And it’s basically just separation anxiety. It’s abandonment issues as it were, which come from my father leaving when I was what, five or six? … I can’t really think of losing anybody, except my father. Effectively, I suppose he died.”
There is a much separation in Moorcock’s works. I haven’t read all of his stuff, but clearly it comprises a large part of the Elric and Corum stories. Lost eyes/hands, lost loves … severed and destroyed families, separation from home and country. Anything any capable writer without a great personal loss can include in his or her stories, but perhaps given additional resonance and authenticity in these stories due to Moorcock’s very personal loss.
Take this with a bit of a grain of salt. Moorcock later admits in the interview he was writing Elric at a young age, when everything seemed a tragedy (including getting dumped by his then girlfriend), and was “maybe” just channeling teenage angst. Which is a common interpretation of this very angsty character … but maybe it was something more.
Regardless this anecdote is an interesting window into Moorcock as a writer, and his influences, which I don’t think any of us writer types can ever fully know.
The news is out, and it is terrible though not unexpected. Howard Andrew Jones, author of The Desert of Souls, the Hanuvar chronicles, and former editor of Tales from the Magician’s Skull, passed away yesterday following a short battle with brain cancer.
Make no mistake, this is a first order tragedy. Howard was not old—56 is the middle of a writer’s career, an age where most are still working and at the height of their powers. He was in the midst of a popular series of books published by Baen, the Hanuvar chronicles, one that will probably be remembered as his best work.
More than his professional life, Howard had a vibrant, loving family around him that are suffering an unimaginable loss. And it’s all over.
Howard’s death is a catastrophe. Depressing, and a grim reminder of our own frailty and mortality.
Sad and terrible.
Others knew Howard far, far better than I did, and you can find those tributes elsewhere. Joseph Goodman at Goodman Games, a close friend and collaborator on Tales from the Magician’s Skull, wrote a nice piece. I also found a fantastic and moving tribute on Facebook by author Greg Mele.
Read those pieces, they are from people who knew Howard at a personal level I never did.
I enjoyed Howard’s fiction. My favorite was probably The Desert of Souls. But I think one of his greatest accomplishments were his wealth of posts and essays on S&S, Robert E. Howard, and of course, Harold Lamb. I credit Howard fully for introducing me to Lamb. I’ve got a couple of his Bison Books edited volumes on my bookshelves. A great recommendation, thank you Howard.
As noted previously I served on at least one virtual panel with HAJ, and a podcast. We messaged each other publicly on forums and occasionally privately. He had some nice things to say about Flame and Crimson. I can confirm he was a wonderful human being, friendly and encouraging, non-confrontational and supportive, broad-minded and beneficent. Traits which are increasingly rare these days.
I’ll miss him, and the S&S community will miss him.
I hope one of the enterprising S&S publishers starts an annual award in Howard’s name. Or keeps his wonderful Skull mascot alive, or The Day of Might going, in his honor.
There was something of Hanuvar in him, and so his spirit will live on, eternally, in his works.
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.
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.
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.
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.
