Contemporary sword-and-sorcery: 2023 reading updates

A "striking" cover (<=see what I did there?)

This year I am trying to add more contemporary sword-and-sorcery into my reading. To date I’ve read four S&S titles, including:

• Blood of the Serpent, S.M. Stirling
• Sometime Lofty Towers, David C. Smith
• New Edge #0
• A Book of Blades

You can read my reviews of the first two books here and here.

Short stories collections are hard to review; inevitably there will be stories I like more, others less. That is true of New Edge #0 and A Book of Blades. But having finished the latter last night, I can say there were more hits than misses. Favorites included John C. Hocking’s “By the Sword,” Howard Andrew Jones’ “The Serpent’s Heart,” and John R. Fultz’s “The Blood of Old Shard.” The last story in particular is terrific, probably worthy of some type of end of year award consideration.

This is not to slight any of the others, I liked most of what I read in here. A whole bunch of fun, blood-pumping stories of adventure and the weird.

Coupled with some awesome art, both on the cover and then in an expected gallery at the back, I greatly enjoyed A Book of Blades.

Considering I’m in New Edge #0 with an essay, and am also slated to appear in issue no. 1, reviewing it seems a bit self-serving. But, I enjoyed the rest of the contents of issue #0. The standout story for me was David C. Smith’s “Old Moon Over Irukad.” T.K. Rex’s “The Beast of the Shadow Gum Trees” while not traditional sword-and-sorcery was well-done, and pushes the borders of what S&S is, which fits with the new magazine’s mission. I also very much enjoyed a pair of essays, one by Cora Buhlert on C.L. Moore, the other by Nicole Emmelhainz on Howard’s “Sword Woman.” Will be very interested to see what issues 1-2 will bring, as both met fundraising goals on editor Oliver Brackenbury’s recent kickstarter.

Next I’m hoping to wade into a couple recent titles from DMR Books.

Why (Human Generated) Sword-and-Sorcery?

Fuck you asshole... I'm here to write your sword-and-sorcery

Wherein I rage against the machine. Check it out here, on the blog of DMR Books. Then let me know what you think.

I am probably making a bigger deal out of this than the technology currently warrants, but GPT is only going to get better, and no one has answered the question of what we're to do when the machines can do everything better than we can.

One thing we could do is keep art off-limits.

Sword-and-sorcery updates: Howard Days, Flame and Crimson review

Headed to the hallowed homestead of REH...

A few items of note on the sword-and-sorcery front.

I’m headed to Howard Days! Yesterday I “locked in” with a non-refundable plane ticket and car rental. 

No turning back now. It’s official. Boston Logan to Dallas Fort Worth, April 27-30.

I’ve even got lodging lined up: I’ll be staying at an air BnB in Cisco with a couple dudes whom I’ve corresponded with, but never met in person: Deuce Richardson and Ken Lizzi. My wife is making me download a tracking app on my phone in case I wind up gagged and bound in the trunk of a car. 

Kidding, of course. I’ve spoken with Deuce on the phone and collaborated with him at The Cimmerian and now on the blog of DMR Books. He seems like a trustworthy fellow. Ken is an author with a website of his own who secured lodging for the three of us.

But I suppose if you don’t hear from me after April just assume I’m buried in the desert somewhere in the immediate radius of Cross Plains.

I plan to document the trip here on the blog, as this might prove to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip (or not). I’ve very much wanted to attend Howard Days for years, since I first heard about it via The Cimmerian. But cost and time commitments are formidable obstacles. 

I dropped $580 on airfare and another $335 on the car rental. Fortunately I was able to apply a lot of points to remove some of the sting. Three nights at the BnB split three ways looks to be another $160. 

That puts me over $1,000 and I have yet to buy beer, food, and books and other mementos. I figure I'll wind up $1,500-$2K in the hole.

But I imagine it will all be worth it when I set foot in the Howard homestead, which some have described as a near religious experience. I get to meet many of the personalities that I’ve only ever read accounts from, or seen in clips on YouTube. And see the place where it all started.

The theme for this year is 100 years of Weird Tales (first issue March 1923) so I look forward to the panels and programming, too. Weird Tales was the medium which published the majority of Howard’s stories and allowed him to earn a respectable income that outstripped his unsuspecting neighbors (until the fickle Depression Era checks ran late and unpaid obligations accumulated).

Much more to come here.

Flame and Crimson received a nice review on the website of the Grumpy Wizard. 

The review was kind and generous (and, not without thoughtful critique). There was a lot more in it than a typical Amazon or Goodreads review—both which I still deeply appreciate, but longer form essays are where I live.

Head over and read it. I particularly liked this observation:

I consider Flame and Crimson a case study in how the creation of a new forms distribution can cause massive change in an artform. It’s a lesson we should pay attention to in an age of rapid change in distribution and creation of media.

S&S was born in the pulps and I believe it is at its best when it bears some of the hallmarks that heritage (i.e., shortish, pulse-pounding action, and the weird). Unfortunately, today there is no comparable market to Weird Tales, though many are trying. WT not only paid its top authors a livable wage, but was permissive and experimental with form, and served as sounding board and ideas exchange between authors and fans. Genres not only grew, but were born in its pages. Today it still seems like most authors are writing multi-book epic fantasy, which holds little appeal for me.

Also this:

Always there is tension between the stasis of too much Law and the formlessness of Chaos! Too much of either is damaging and destructive. It is difficult but ideal to find the balance between a narrow and restrictive vision and one that is overly expansive. The best work within a genre is created by artists who explore the boundaries of its universe without straying into shapeless dimensions.

There is a tension of form in genre fiction. When you write for a commercial market you are faced with the pressure of reader expectations vs. authentic expression. Like the Grumpy Wizard, I enjoy fiction that pushes edges, but remains something recognizable…

… Along with stuff that is unrepentantly S&S. 

In the end, what matters most is not the boxes you check, the genre you work in, or the boundaries you cross, but the quality of the writing. 

Anyway, thanks Grumpy Wizard, for the non-grumpy, thoughtful discussion of F&C.

Sometime Lofty Towers, David C. Smith

There is a metaphor in this tower, for sure.

I can’t help but feel sorry for Charles Saunders, Richard Tierney, David C. Smith, and others working in the “second commercial wave” of sword-and-sorcery. Writing in the wake of the Lancer Conan Saga, the Elric DAW paperbacks, and Fritz Leiber’s “swords” series, this group of authors appeared poised to bring S&S to a new generation of readers in the late 70s and early 1980s. Only to have the bottom fall out as the decade of excess got underway.

For reasons I can’t get into here, lest I derail this review, it suddenly seemed no one wanted to read this unique blend of swashbuckling action, horror, and fell magic. By the early/mid 80s it was over for S&S, at least commercially.

For a time it seemed Smith’s writing career was over as well. After spending some years away from writing altogether and later branching out to write realistic novels and epic fantasy, Smith recently returned to sword-and-sorcery under Pulp Hero Press with Tales of Attumla (2020). 

Sometime Lofty Towers (2021) is his latest. It’s an ambitious novel that is recognizably sword-and-sorcery, but also contemplative, dark, mature, with an emphasis on exploration of character over typical fast-paced S&S plotting. 

And in my opinion, is wonderful. 

I have read some of Smith’s early material, including a few of his Oron stories and a smattering of Red Sonja, and the odd short story elsewhere. I’m hardly an authority on his body of work. But Sometime Lofty Towers is easily the best I’ve read from him.

Hamlin is a veteran of many battles and bears many scars, internal and external. The short novel (194 pages with afterward material) explores his struggles to overcome a great betrayal in his past, an ambush and the death of his comrades in a literal river of blood. The plot is essentially secondary to Hamlin’s story, but concerns the designs of the wealthy and avaricious Lady Sil who sets her sights on the native lands of the Kirangee. Sil hires a troupe of mercenaries to force out the natives at swordpoint, including Hamlin’s longtime friend-in-arms Thorem. Hamlin joins forces with the natives and so the conflict unfolds.

The book critiques colonialism and unbridled capitalism while plumbing matters of the human heart—the cancer of vengeance and vendetta, and the difficulty of letting go of painful past memories and finding peace in an unjust, cruel world.

Smith does a nice job building the culture of the Kirangee, which feels Native American but also a-historical, perhaps owing something to Robert E. Howard’s Picts. The method by which he does this reminded me of Charles Saunders’ Ilyassi from his Imaro series, complete with italicized native words that are unfamiliar but offered up in a way as to be understandable. No infodumps, Smith handles this all skillfully while telling a compelling story.

Sometime Lofty Towers contains some incredibly strong/queasy scenes of violence and brutality, including graphic depictions of torture. It reads angry, and in a helpful afterward we learn why: The story was born out of Smith’s bitterness and grief over the death of his father, who was exposed to asbestos for decades (even after the dangers of the substance were well known) and suffered for 17 years with declining health, hospitalizations, and treatment before his death in 1997.

The style of the writing is sparse and strong, which makes the reading easy. There is perhaps some sag in the middle of the novel. Looking back I think it’s when Smith moves away from Hamlin’s story and relays the unfolding external plot, which is interesting but not as compelling as Hamlin’s internal saga. When Smith returns to Hamlin for the third and final act it reaches a satisfying conclusion. There is a definite feel of Clint Eastwood’s William Munny here; Hamlin is not as rusty as the aged gunfighter we meet in Unforgiven, still every bit as vital and dangerous at 40 as he was in his youth. But he’s the equivalent of an aging, scarred gunfighter who wants to be rid of the ghosts of his past, and his memories to fall quiet. And when roused to violence is terrifying, because killing is second nature.

Overall this is the work of a mature author who has lived much and experienced life with all its griefs and disappointments and loss. When I read something like this I can’t help but wonder about REH, and whether had he managed the storms of his own clinical depression might have produced something similar in his latter years. Imagine Conan looking back on his adventures—the loss of Bêlit and Balthus, the betrayals of Amalrus and Strabonius--returning to Cimmeria to perhaps find some measure of peace, perhaps with Zenobia in his arms. 

Smith has demonstrated the heights to which sword-and-sorcery can aspire with Sometime Lofty Towers, which to me is a welcome return from someone who experienced personal loss and professional disappointment but emerged from these trials to offer us a rich, thoughtful story.

Las Vegas is pretty sword-and-sorcery

Kind of like Lankhmar, but a little less stabby.

I've been to Las Vegas at least a half dozen times, all for work, and have emphatically decided that I'm a Vegas guy. Sin City is a "love it or hate it" destination, and I'm decidedly in the former camp. I would gladly visit every other year or so. Take in a show, gamble, watch the train wreck of humanity slouching down the strip, stay up late drinking until I join the train wreck of humanity slouching down the strip. 

... but only for 3 days at a stretch, after which no shower can get me clean and I need to head straight into mental and physical detox. Which is all very sword-and-sorcery.

Anyways, I'm back after three nights at the Palms Casino Resort for a healthcare conference. I managed to fit in some fun, including 3-4 hours of gambling my last night there. I set a cheap $100 cap and was up as much as $155 at the blackjack table, gave about all of that back at roulette, and called it a night after breaking even.

In addition, the long flights from my home on the east coast to the west and back again afforded me some rare sustained reading time that I took advantage of.

I managed to finish That Hideous Strength, the third and final volume of C.S. Lewis' space trilogy, which I started this year and can now cross off the bucket list. I feel rather guilty saying it, considering how celebrated these books are, but they didn't do a whole lot for me. Some great ideas in here, but I found the execution lacking. Lewis left a lot of drama on the table and it was all too dialogue-heavy, even plodding in places. But, I loved the concepts and appreciated the modern-day parallels with N.I.C.E. (the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments).

On the way back I started reading David C. Smith's Sometime Lofty Towers and man, this is simultaneously grim, dark, personal, and well-done, at least through the first 60 pages. Looking forward to finishing it and giving it a proper review.

On the subject of reviews, I have admittedly not kept up with contemporary S&S and am planning to rectify that this year. Here is a partial list of works I either want to purchase and read, or already have purchased and are part of my 2023 TBR list:

• Worlds Beyond Worlds, John Fultz
• The Penultimate Men: Tales from Our Savage Future (Schuyler Hernstrom and others)
• Sometime Lofty Towers, David C. Smith
• Arminius Bane of Eagles, Adrian Cole
• Frolic on the Amaranthyn, Chase Folmar
• A Gathering of Ravens, Scott Oden
• Swords of the Four Winds, Dariel Quiogue
• S&S magazines including New Edge #0 (full read), and my backlog of Tales from the Magician’s Skull issues

As previously noted I've started the year with S.M. Stirling's Blood of the Serpent.

I also backed the New Edge kickstarter (and recommend you do too), and am 100% confirmed for Robert E. Howard Days, with lodging lined up. 

More on that later, once I complete my Vegas detox.

Blood of the Serpent: Is the New Conan Novel Really Conan?

This past weekend I finished the new Conan novel, S.M. Stirling's Blood of the Serpent. And wrote a brief review which you can find on the blog of DMR Books.

The TL;DR version should you not want to spare the click: 3.5/5 stars. I liked it, found it to be a well-written page turner, but not the terrific relaunch of authorized Conan prose fiction I wished it to be. I had high expectations, only partially met.

Have you read this? If so would be curious to hear your thoughts.

Top 5 Manowar Songs

Metal Friday is a day late this week but coming in hot, ready to smash your face in with the death tone of amplified guitars and massive hammers of war.

Most metal album cover ever?  Probably.

Manowar is everything I love about sword-and-sorcery and heavy metal, in one glorious Ken Kelly infused package. Badass. Ridiculous. In your face. Muscular. Offensive. Fun. So over the top you’re not sure if it’s all tongue-in-cheek… then realizing it’s not, and then going “holy shit, OK” and leaning into it. Embracing the fact that life need not be cynical, or subtle. That it’s OK to like loud and obnoxious and even dumb things. 

Yes Manowar has a few ridiculous songs … and I love those too.

Here are five guaranteed to raise my testosterone levels to the level of the occupants of a Viking longship circa 9th century AD, and get me ready to fight the world. Whilst eating beef and drinking ale.

Warriors of the World. The first comment on Youtube is I just played this song for my 4 week old son. He’s now 40 and a navy seal. Manowar has this effect, I've seen it. Probably their ultimate anthem.

Hail and Kill. By Divine Right, this one rips.

Fighting the World. I’ve been fighting the world every fucking day for nigh 50 years and will keep doing so… stripes on a tiger don’t wash away.

Master of the Wind. Manowar can do wistful ballads too … infused with mighty power. Manly tears. Might be played at my funeral.  

The Sons of Odin. Love the groove in this one, hits you in the face from the opening beat and never lets up. Sword and axe sound effects. Valhalla I am coming, open the door.  

Honorable mentions: "Mountains," "Carry On" 

New Edge Magazine kickstarter--get in on it

The sword-and-sorcery renaissance/modest revival continues. There is a lot going on in S&S circles these days, and I admit I'm behind in keeping up with many of the developments. I'll be doing my best to correct that this year.

One of the new projects I AM up on is New Edge sword-and-sorcery magazine. New Edge launched issue #0 last September to test the waters for a periodical that both embraces old S&S and expands its boundaries, and now has launched a kickstarter to fund issues #1 and #2. 

You can sign up for updates here. 

Signing up to be notified has extra value, including a first day physical backer exclusive: a bookmark featuring original art by Sapro (see above, this dude has some game. Love this piece).

I had an essay in issue #0, "The Outsider in Sword-and-Sorcery." I still owe a full read and review of the complete contents of this issue, but was impressed with Cora Buhlert's essay "C.L. Moore and Jirel of Joiry: The First Lady of Sword & Sorcery."

The kickstarter launches Feb. 2 and will cover production costs of issues 1 and 2. As well as paying the artists and authors... of which I'm one! I'm going to have an essay in issue #1, and as I understand it there will be a couple of much bigger names than my own contributing fiction.

I can't tip hand any more than that. Some cool stuff going on here.

Sign up for the updates and decide for yourself if this is something you want to back. I hope it smashes its goals. We need more good S&S.

Night Winds blowing for Karl Edward Wagner, Kane

My latest post is up on the blog of Tales from the Magician's Skull: (Night) Winds Blowing for Kane--Toward a Karl Edward Wagner revival.

Will 2023 finally be the year we get good affordable editions of the immortal Kane? There have been stirrings at publisher Baen, with rumors that KEW's estate holders have been approached about the possibility. The current situation--wildly and fantastically priced Centipede collectors editions, tattered and increasingly expensive Warner mass-market paperbacks--is pretty untenable. The barrier to entry for new fans is high, and the property is languishing. I've heard the current kindle editions are lousy, laden with typos and other gaffes, and the cover art is certainly ... uninspired. I might say shit, if I were being less kind.

I'd love to see Kane back in print, the stories are terrific and an important piece of sword-and-sorcery's past. If you would too, send an email to info@baen.com. 

2022 in review

2022 is just about in the books. Gosh, this was a good year for me professionally. After more than 17 years with the same company I changed jobs in March, and my life and mental health improved immeasurably. Nine months post momentous change, my overriding thought is: Why didn’t I do this sooner? But I guess I wasn’t ready; every season in its turn and all that.

Here on the blog and this relatively small, alternative online sword-and-sorcery/heavy metal space I inhabit, I was reasonably happy with the work I produced. It was my most productive year since 2009, on the basis of sheer number of posts (exactly 100 as I press publish, and I'll have a couple more before the year is out). I wrote several posts for the blogs of DMR and Tales from the Magician’s Skull. I guested on two episodes of the Rogues in the House podcast, which is always a blast. I won a second award from the Robert E. Howard Foundation, co-winning the Venarium, given to an emerging scholar in Howard studies. It's an honor, and I’m planning on making the trip to Cross Plains in April.

2022 was a good year for sword-and-sorcery. We got a new Elric novel from Michael Moorcock, who is still with us and still writing. We got a new Conan novel, S.M. Stirling’s Blood of the Serpent, which I have in hand but have not read, but am planning to begin soon. There are an increasingly large number of outlets publishing sword-and-sorcery, too many to mention here. Tales from the Magician Skull (which I continue to back on Kickstarter) is the most prominent, and the new issues have been good. Whetstone is an important outlet for new writers. New Edge #0 pubbed and I contributed an essay for it. Schuyler Hernstrom’s revised Thune’s Vision was awesome. I hope this small renaissance continues to gain steam. I need to check out more new authors and titles in 2023.

It was also a year of loss for S&S. We lost Richard Tierney, Neal Adams, and Ken Kelly among others. Kelly was a hard blow; his art was a big part of my adolescence, adorning the albums of Manowar, KISS, and various covers of Conan books and other S&S titles. 

This blog is evolving. It’s gotten more personal since I dumped Facebook back in April. Facebook was a place where I would share occasional posts about my family. I don’t miss that platform, but my family is a huge part of my life and so I need to channel that expression somewhere. I also think it’s because of how I’m evolving as a person; I’ve worked hard to balance the personal and professional in my life, and family/friends with my esoteric interests and private writing. Expecting a sharp divide on a personal blog and never mentioning the events of my personal life seems unnatural. So, expect more of that on The Silver Key.

Top 10 most popular posts

Here are the posts that got the most traction on the blog in 2022:

Some ruminations on sword-and-sorcery’s slide into Grimdark, 528 views. The S&S to Grimdark transition was an interesting one that I did not cover in Flame and Crimson, and when I wrote about here it proved to be my most popular post of the year. Like all the highest-performing posts this was linked to elsewhere, driving traffic to the site and the post views up. 

Whetstone #5, a review, 398 views. Many authors who appeared in Whetstone #5 appreciated my review of this publication. I’m grateful to editor Jason Ray Carney for producing such a fine, free outlet for new S&S and am looking forward to reading issue no. 6. 

S&S updates: Dunsany, New Edge, book deals, and a fine response to a troubling essay, 333 views. Speaking of Carney, I still agree with his response. 

My top 5 Frank Frazetta paintings, 302 views. Who doesn’t like a top “whatever” list? Couple with Frazetta imagery and no surprise this one rounded out my top 5. 

Top 10 reasons why I don’t care about Amazon’s The Rings of Power: 297 views. The Rings of Power sank beneath the waves like Numenor, only this event will not pass into Atlantis-like myth. And I still don’t care, although it’s disappointing. The subject matter deserved better.

On suspect art, sword-and-sorcery, and good storytelling, 282 views. My first of two off-the-cuff editorializing posts. This one defends old S&S.

Raging against Twitter and the dying of the written word, 282 views. This one takes the piss out of Twitter but also the need to constantly shrink messages to the smallest possible word count (and the lowest common denominator). Engaging in that garbage risks your own artistic integrity and attention span, and it’s not even debatable. 

A shout-out to five S&S voices on the interwebs, 274 views. We need more praise; I need to do more of this here in between the rants. These five deserved the props.

Robert E. Howard Changed My Life, 274 views. A great read deserving of a Robert E. Howard Foundation award. 

I, Black Sabbath (with incredible Conan imagery), 252 views. The single best S&S music video on YouTube; watch and see if you don’t agree. Plus the song is an underappreciated stone cold classic of Dio-era Sabbath. 

My reading

Damn but I can’t seem to hit my stated goal of 52 books in a year (book/week). As of this post I have read 44 books in 2022, and hope to finish a couple more before year’s end.

The best books I read this year included Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy, Who Fears the Devil? By Manly Wade Wellman, and Thune’s Vision. I also enjoyed re-reads of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword, all of which are spectacular.

Other news of note

I have started work on another book. I don’t want to say much more than that, other than (and sorry to disappoint readers of Flame and Crimson) it is not sword-and-sorcery related. It’s not fiction either, but I will say no more, as I’m not sure if I have the ability to write it. I’ve only just begun and it may derail or reach an impasse and I don’t want egg on my face if I can’t finish. But I have much more than just an idea, the outline is done and I’ve started principal writing. We’ll see where it leads.

I survived a bout of COVID, saw Iron Maiden and Judas Priest along with a handful of other live shows, and enjoyed several business and personal trips, including one with my family to Bar Harbor, a kickass guy’s weekend in New York, and a company retreat to Dripping Springs, TX. I’m grateful I have my health and my old man is still here.

To put a wrap on this overlong and semi self-indulgent post, thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed anything I’ve written, on this blog or elsewhere. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year celebrating with friends and family, or with a broadsword and tankard of ale on the rolling deck of a longship. However you choose to celebrate.

Piecing together Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword

My review/revisit/recap of/love letter to Anderson's magnificent 1954 novel is up on the blog of Tales from the Magician's Skull. Check it out here.

I wrote this without re-reading the book, but writing it prompted me to pick up The Broken Sword once more and go to war against Trollheim. It's as good as I remembered; I don't feel betrayed by my considerable nostalgia.

TftMS has a 1,000 word cap which I sometimes stray over a little but is nevertheless challenging to write within. I allude to some things in my review that are deserving of a standalone essay. Like Skafloc/Valgard being two halves of a broken sword. Tyrfing feels to me like a symbol of unleashed weaponry best left on the scientists' notebook. I can't help but wonder if Anderson felt the shadow the mushroom cloud, writing as he did in 1953-54. "Yet this is the curse on it: that every time it is drawn it must drink blood, and in the end, somehow, it will be the bane of him who wields it."

We have a potential end to unending conflict in the teachings of the new White Christ. "Was the White Christ of whom she had told a little not right in saying that wrongs only led to more wrongs and thus at last to Ragnarok; that the time was overpast when pride and vengefulness give way to love and forgiveness, which were not unmanly but in truth the hardest things a man could undertake?"

Alas we have forgotten the lesson. No one turns the other cheek, but strikes back with harder force. And so it escalates.

I love this line too; we can meet Ragnarok with bravery at least:

"None can escape his weird; but none other can take from him the heart wherewith he meets it."

An observation about heavy metal and sword-and-sorcery

Blue Cheer and Deep Purple = Lord Dunsany and James Branch Cabell

Black Sabbath = Robert E. Howard

Judas Priest and Iron Maiden = Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance

Metallica and Megadeth = Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock

Queensryche and Danzig = Karl Edward Wagner and Charles Saunders

Slayer, Sepultura, Pantera = Ramsay Campbell, David Gemmell, Glen Cook

Warrant, Poison, Def Leppard = Gardner Fox, Lin Carter, L. Sprague de Camp

Black metal, death metal with cookie monster lyrics = Any Grimdark writer

Obviously meant as fun, not some profound observation.

Every art form probably goes through the same evolution, of early experimentation/breakthrough/pinnacle/steady state/commercialization and exploitation, collapse, followed by further cycles of experimentation.

I don’t have enough expertise in other types of art to say that for sure, but horror comes to mind, going through a similar arc.

If I missed your favorite author or band, no offense meant.

The Day of Might!

I realized this day has come and largely gone, and I've yet to acknowledge it. I'm rectifying that now before the Skull reduces me to ash.

Read sword-and-sorcery, mortal dogs!

I didn't spend the day reading sword-and-sorcery but did watch Evil Dead II, which features the Necronomicon as well as a protagonist who morphs into an S&S hero about 2/3 of the way into the film (the incomparable Bruce Campbell). Close enough.

Happy Day of Might, sword-brothers.

Why bother blogging? And other personal updates

Why?

Why do I continue to keep this blog?

I’ve been doing this a long time, since Sept. 2007, save for a long break circa 2013-2019 to write Flame and Crimson and tend to other matters in my life.

What is its purpose? What is my purpose, continuing to post after all these years?

Occasionally I ask myself, why bother? But such feelings always pass, and I continue my scribblings into the electronic ether. 

I don’t know why I’ve continued. But let’s see what I can come up with.

I love old authors and old bits of popular culture that are slipping away, and I want to preserve them. Jack Vance, Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, etc. are grandmasters of fantasy and SF, towering talents better than most authors you will read yesterday, today, or tomorrow, but I’d be surprised if their combined annual sales are 1% of Brandon Sanderson. And then you’ve got dudes like Karl Edward Wagner, Charles Saunders, Gardner Fox, C.L. Moore and others who, outside of some diehard horror and S&S circles, are rapidly fading into yesteryear. I like talking about their stuff and keeping it alive, because it’s damned good, and they need champions.

I am pushing back against Twitter and the dying of the light of (semi) intelligent conversation. Not fighting Twitter in a literal sense (I have no more or less disdain for that platform than any other), but the notion that our thoughts can be compressed into 280 characters, and that history is meaningless. I’m not exactly a purveyor of profundity here, but I try to write the stuff I like to read, that has some amount of context and substance. You can see every post I ever wrote here on this site if you choose to do so, no account necessary. Does anyone read old social media posts? They are vaporware, spoon fed by algorithms over which you have no control. I don’t think they can even be searched in any meaningful way. I like that this page is static AF, boring even. Just read it and leave. But here it remains.

I am fighting the trend of “hot takes.” By which I mean, unqualified gushing praise, or unwarranted criticism, of new and hot properties, for clicks, followers, and ad revenue. My takes are about as hot as reruns of the Golden Girls. I’m OK with not having 500,000 followers as a result.

I’m stubborn. I am aware that blogs are so like, 2008 man. This platform has been supplanted not by Facebook, but by MySpace … and then Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. It’s a dinosaur way to do “this thing,” whatever that may be. I sometimes wonder if Google will just up and delete the Blogger platform. But I despise the need to obsessively create accounts on the latest and greatest platform, again and again. Why? Where does it end? Maintaining 26 social media accounts, and pouring your entire existence into a digital vortex of bullshit? I think most people would be best served picking one or two platforms and settling in. But I’m aware that patience and attention span are in short supply.

So in summary, I’m an old fart who likes old things, including evidently a fondness for outdated blogging platforms. I guess that means I’m here to stay, at least until Google says otherwise.

--

A few other matters less contemplative.

I am reading Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. I’m not much of a western reader, at all. Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, a Zane Gray novel or two. Some Breckenridge Elkins… that’s about it. But this one had caught my eye (reviews exclaiming, “if you only ever read one western, make it this one,” Pulitzer Prize winner, etc.) and I needed a sword-and-sorcery break, so I pulled this one off the shelf. It was a slow slog at first, 200 pages of OK slow build, but I’m really enjoying it at the moment. Incredible character studies, outstanding portrayal of frontier life in the waning days of the frontier, some shocking violence. McMurtry skillfully puts you into what a long distance cattle drive in the 1870s/1880s must have been like. Some absolutely beautiful passages. I’m glad I’ve made the effort as the damned book is a monster (858 pages).

Simultaneous with this western foray I’m also in full-blown Halloween mode. I wrote a piece on Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows” for Tales from the Magician’s Skull. Last night I re-watched The Lair of the White Worm (1988). Campy as hell, fun. Recommended. Prior to that watched “The Vampire Lovers” (1970, Hammer). Also campy and fun, and recommended. Both films star absolutely gorgeous female leads, too.

If you sign up for the mailing list (free) for New Edge Sword and Sorcery magazine you will be entered for a drawing to win a free hard copy of Flame and Crimson. I will mail the book myself, how about that? And make my mark on it, should you want that.

I am committed to going to Howard Days next year. You read it here. More to come on that later. 

I’m on Day 4 of COVID and feeling much better this AM. In another day or two at most I should be back to regular form. Note to self: Get the booster. Dealing with this is a pain in the ass. I’ve had worse cases of the flu, but COVID places your life on hold as you isolate. Not cool to miss your daughter’s senior day cross country meet.

New Edge #0 is out

If you're looking for some new sword-and-sorcery fiction and non-fiction in a compelling package, New Edge #0 is now out. The editor of this new magazine is Oliver Brackenbury, who also hosts the podcast "So I'm Writing a Novel." I've got an essay in it, "The Outsider in Sword-and-Sorcery."

I have not read or perused the issue yet and don't know what to expect. I see the likes of Dariel Quiogue and David C. Smith have fiction in it. There are articles by Howard Andrew Jones, Cora Buhlert, Nicole Emmelhainz, and others, authors with whom I have some level of familiarity. Looking forward to checking it out! Cover art is by Gilead Artist, who was kind enough to send me a sketch inspired by his reading of Flame and Crimson.

Brackenbury is offering epub/PDF versions for free, and selling print copies at cost, and if interest is high enough plans to publish subsequent issues.

Stories include:

The Curse of the Horsetail Banner by Dariel R.A. Quiogue

The Ember Inside by Remco van Straten & Angeline B. Adams

Old Moon Over Irukad by David C. Smith

The Beast of the Shadow Gum Trees by T,K. Rex

Vapors of Zinai by J.M. Clarke

The Grief-Note of Vultures by Bryn Hammond

Articles include:

The Origin of the New Edge by Howard Andrew Jones

C.L. Moore and Jirel of Joiry: The First Lady of Sword & Sorcery by Cora Buhlert

Sword & Soul - An Interview with Milton Davis

The Outsider in Sword & Sorcery by Brian Murphy

Gender Performativity in Howard's "Sword Woman" by Nicole Emmelhainz

The Obanaax and Other Tales of Heroes and Horrors, a review by Robin Marx

What is New Edge Sword & Sorcery? by Oliver Brackenbury

Michael Moorcock and other Stranger Things

I was OOO (and frankly, only semi-coherent) this past Friday-Sunday, after a sorely needed guys weekend getaway. Me and four other dudes rented a house on Whaley Lake in Holmes, NY, consuming booze and retelling old college stories. Included in the trip was a stop at Darryl's House, a bar/restaurant owned by Darryl Hall, where we took in a wonderful Foreigner tribute band. If you ever come across Double Vision, check them out, they're highly recommended.

As a result I failed to mention my most recent blog post for Tales from the Magician's Skull/blog of Goodman Games is now up: Stranger Things in the Stories of Michael Moorcock.

I hope you like it. I enjoyed digging out the old AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide for this, and my treasured copy of S2: White Plume Mountain.

Fantastic essay and other updates

Failed to mention that my post on Fantastic, that digest-size magazine that ran from 1952-1980 and published a fair bit of sword-and-sorcery, is up on the blog of DMR Books. The link is here.

Can you believe Fantastic had Fritz Leiber writing a regular book reviews column? Can you imagine Fritz F-ing Leiber reviewing your stuff? 

I found one column from 1975 where he reviews Poul Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga. This is the sword-and-sorcery equivalent of Mike Tyson breaking down fight film of Muhammad Ali. 

What else am I working on? Bill Ward over at Tales from the Magician's Skull/Goodman Games is keeping me busy. I have a post on Michael Moorcock in his hands, and then will be turning my attention to a couple other pieces he wants me to write in October/November. Won't spoil any of them now.

Speaking of Tales from the Magician's Skull I'm supposed to be getting my hard copy of issue no. 8 in the mail any day now, along with a TftMS beer coaster. Will post pics when they arrive.

A shout-out to five S&S voices on the interwebs

We don’t always stop to praise others whose stuff we read, or who are doing general good work in the spaces we enjoy. So here’s a shout-out to a few folks who deserve it for their work as S&S champions/commentators/historians/publishers/etc *:

Dave Ritzlin: DMR Books is the premiere publisher of all things S&S/S&P/heroic fantasy, which makes Dave, well, the premiere publisher of all things S&S/S&P/heroic fantasy. For that alone he deserves our praise. But on top of that he curates a must-read website and is a good S&S writer in his own right. Recently he’s been running a series of interviews with contemporary S&S authors, “Independent Author Spotlight,” to champion their work. So I thought I’d champion his.

Deuce Richardson: Deuce is an interesting dude. I have never met him in person but have corresponded with him a bit over the years and had a couple phone calls. I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone with a memory like his, or quite as well-read (except for the late Steve Tompkins). His stuff at DMR Books is always worth reading. He never fails to recognize important anniversaries. Strong historian and champion of pre-S&S adventure writers. I love his posts unearthing artwork from artists I know well but whose full catalog I have not seen. 

Jason Ray Carney: The hardest working person in this space? I would say, yes, without question. I don’t know how Jason manages to do it, but he’s pulled off a small conference, established awards, edits several amateur magazines (Whetstone, Witch House), started up the Whetstone discord group, writes fiction and non-fiction books and academic essays, edits The Dark Man journal, creates Youtube videos, speaks at conferences, organizes online panel sessions, on and on. Boundless energy and erudition.

Oliver Brackenbury: Oliver has been hard at work bringing new voices to S&S. I’ve enjoyed several episodes of his So I’m Writing a Novel podcast, which has morphed into interviews with a diverse range of writers old and new. He is also the host of Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection podcast, a moderator on the Whetstone server, and more.

G.W. Thomas: A bit of an unsung hero in this space but deserves greater recognition. Every time I go to Google something S&S related, it turns up something with his name on it. I recently wrote a piece for DMR on S&S in Fantastic magazine and halfway through realized Thomas had already done something similar. He provides encyclopedic coverage of the genre in a fun way for Dark Worlds Quarterly and elsewhere. I’m indebted to his comprehensive, thorough, tireless work.

*There are many others of course but that’s for another post, another day.

Tales from the Magician’s Skull #6

They're back! 

Finally getting around to review of a magazine I have been subscribing to since its inception, Tales from the Magician’s Skull. I decided to go with issue no. 6 because of the new (and estate of Fritz Leiber authorized) Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story by Nathan Long. 

I jumped straight to Long’s story and liked it. Credible, solid pastiche. The Gray Mouser was well-channeled, though Fafhrd felt a bit flat to me. The story suffers a bit from too many characters, I don’t need all the names and details for what are essentially one-act props for the main show. I liked the conceit of the story, a play infiltrated by F&GM on a thieving caper that turns (somewhat) deadly serious. Good stuff, I think Fritz would have been happy with this effort. Hope we see more F&GM from Long. I would love to hear more details on how Goodman Games secured the rights to produce the story.

On to the rest. 

Issue 6 leads off with a pair of S&S stalwarts, John Hocking and Howard Andrew Jones. Both serve up a pretty good story. Hanuvar is an interesting character, a later middle-aged centurion, deadly, honorable. I was not wild about this particular story, not as hard/heroic as I prefer. But very well-written, being Jones. The danger is palpable; swords are weighty, violence not casually handled. Nice use of snake monsters, Saathra, which felt dangerous. Hanuvar is pressed into finding a young woman, Tura, who has run away into the swamps in a bout of grief after her mother, a priestess, dies. Jones dangles some compelling threads that make me want to revisit this character (his missing daughter for example) and we’re going to get the chance in the upcoming Baen novels.

Hocking’s story “Calicask’s Woman” was likewise solid. Some good fight scenes, a reasonable twist at the end, nice closing image. The light titillation is a false front, as the story is an underlying critique of ill-treatment of women and warning against treating them like objects or chattel. All the bits about wands and figuring out number of “charges” remaining felt a little too D&D to me. Some cool spells flung about (“Wall of Demons”) that felt suitably dangerous.

Two other stories did not resonate with me because they are not what I’m after in sword-and-sorcery.

Greg Mele’s “Shadows of a Forgotten Queen” is almost all resolved through dialogue. “Isle of Fog” by Violette Malan suffers from the same malady, too “talky” and dialogue-heavy for me. The latter opens with a compelling intro (“No one comes back from the Isle of Fog”) but then gets bogged down. I need less, not more, when I read S&S. S&S at its best offers stories that stand on their own, plot-driven, adventure-focused. I prefer more swashbuckling, more happening, in my stories, and less motivations, politicking, world-building. These are short stories, keep them simple at least for simple readers like me with simple tastes. Again, this is MY preference, it’s no knock on the quality of the stories. These are authors with potential that deserve your attention.

We also get in the back half of the magazine “Cold in Blood” by James Enge which was the highlight of the issue for me. Morlock is pitted against a dangerous, murderous vampiress but the story is leavened with a wry sense of humor. Basic, entertaining, fun, weird, uncomplicated, even as it ends on a somber-ish note. Well written, well done. It strikes me I haven’t read enough Enge and need to rectify that. His stuff is consistently excellent.

The Leiber article is solid. I had forgotten that the Leiber estate allowed author Robin Wayne Bailey to write Swords Against the Shadowland (1998) featuring the two heroes, and now Nathan Long’s story.

Long story short: This is a good issue of the magazine. I am quite glad Tales from the Magician’s Skull exists. I will continue to support it as long as it keeps publishing. It is one of the few regular markets for sword-and-sorcery. It gives authors a chance to ply their craft. It just needs more S&S refinement—in my opinion. YMMV.

And, good lord is the supporting apparatus a blast. These include fun editorials, an S&S word search, humorous letters to the editor. Skull Scrolls is fun, letters to the editor as answered by the Skull himself, or hapless interns who will soon meet their death. It has considerable gaming related content at the back, mechanics assigned to the creatures and spells, etc. in the stories. It's a great idea, I’m glad it’s included even though gaming is largely in my past. It’s all well-packaged. Some of the art is crude and clunky but it’s quite welcome here, delivering an old school AD&D vibe and charm.

This reminds me, I felt the first tinge of fall the other day when I went into my local liquor store and saw a display of Pumpkinhead beer on the shelves. We’re about 10 weeks out from Halloween, and closing in on the next Day of Might (Oct. 23), the sword-and-sorcery national holiday as ordained by the Skull. Save the date.

What is best in life?

 Look no further.