Thursday, July 10, 2008

Tomb of Horrors: A D&D classic, or an unplayable deathtrap?

The iron men of visage grim do more than
meets the viewers eye
You've left and left and found my Tomb
and now your soul will die.

It's the module whose name sends chills down the spine of any serious D&D player. Chock full of spiked pits and other assorted death traps, dead-ends and false finishes, and a final encounter against a nearly invulnerable creature that can kill a PC every round, it's notorious as a character-destroying meat grinder, and the epitome of old school D&D. Those who (claim) to have played and survived it wear their experience like a Purple Heart.

I'm writing of course about S1: The Tomb of Horrors, as penned by the late, great Gary Gygax. What I'd like to know is whether anyone has ever legitimately played through this module and lived. I just don't see how it's possible.

My own experience with this module is non-existent. In the interest of full disclosure I've never played or DM'd the Tomb, and for most of my life I didn't even own a copy. But the information I gleaned about it online over the years simultaneously intrigued and scared the crap out of me. I knew I had to eventually get my own copy.

A couple years ago I had the fortune to find and purchase a used copy of the legendary S1 at a local gamestore. My reaction upon reading it was: Holy Shit, you can never play this, straight up and legit, make it through the tomb, and come out alive. By legit I mean playing without any foreknowledge of the killer, no saving throw, instant death traps that litter the tomb of the demi-lich. That's very hard to do nowadays: It seems like everyone at least has a passing familarity with the module, due to the internet and the fact it's been around for 30 years.

S1 strikes me as the ultimate stand-alone scenario. Even though Gygax placed it in the World of Greyhawk and provided a backstory, The Tomb of Horrors really cannot be part of any long-running campaign. Unless your players are the type who don't mind watching their carefully-crafted 13th level fighter--built up through years of hard-fighting and treasure gathering in memorable campaigns--slid into a molten lava pit to die screaming with no save, they're probably going to end up angry. In the Tomb you can be sucked into Acererak's eye (annihilated with no save), crushed flat beneath the roller of a massive stone juggnernaut (death, no save), turned into green slime (no save!), and generally snuffed out of existence in a million other ways.

This leads me to believe that S1 is not intended as a serious module, but rather a strange and amusing artifact to be read and put back on the shelf. Or perhaps it was written as a means to punish cocky players.

Despite its propensity for killing PCs, I do think The Tomb of Horrors has plenty of merit and deserves a place of honor in any serious D&D player's collection. The reasons include:

It's amazingly well-written and illustrated. It oozes flavor. Gygax was on top of his game here. Here's a good example:

The mists are silvery and shot through with delicate streamers of golden color. Vision extends only 6'. There is a dim aura of good if detected for. Those who step into the mist must save versus poison or become idiots until they can breathe the clean air above ground under the warm sun.

In addition, the Tomb of Horrors comes with a beautiful 20-page illustration booklet, containing 32 illustrations showing various features of the Tomb. If you're a fan of old-school art this alone is worth the purchase.

It's a marvel of economy. Outside of the illustration booklet the module itself is a dense, compact 12 pages, which includes pre-rolled PCs! Pretty amazing.

It's hard-core and the essence of old-school. Gygax writes at the outset what could be a treatise of old-school gaming. He states the following: This is a thinking person's module, and if your group is a hack and slay gathering, they will be unhappy .... it is this writer's belief that brainwork is good for all players, and they will certainly benefit from playing this module, for individual levels of skill will be improved by reasoning and experience.

Later on, he adds as a tip for running the module: Read aloud appropriate sections, but never give any additional information which player characters would have no way of knowing, and avoid facial expressions or voice tones which might give helpful hints or mislead players. The real enjoyment of this module is managing to cope, and those players who manage to do so even semi-successfully will appreciate your refereeing properly and allowing them to "live or die" on their own.

In other words, S1 challenges the skill of the players, and not the abilities of the PCs.

And what a challenge it is. So again I'll ask: Has anyone played through S1 and lived? Or is the Tomb of Horrors widely regarded as simply not a "serious" module?

One other interesting sidenote to the Tomb of Horrors: Inside it says that it was originally used as a tournament module at Origins I (which is probably the ideal way to play it). Me, I would kill to enter a time machine and watch a few sessions of that.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Camelot on a pontoon boat--'tis a silly sight

This, folks, is what a first-place entry in the Highland Lake Fourth of July Annual Boat Parade looks like.

And further on down is what a ridiculous man with a tinfoil-covered cardboard box/faux helm looks like.

During my family's recent July 4 vacation we put together the above float and managed to win first place in the boat parade, taking home $50 and more importantly the Highland Lake Protective Agency first place banner for another year. It's hanging proudly in our lakeside cottage now.



Camelot, I'm proud to say, was an invention wholly my own (shocking, the theme I chose!) I got all of the boxes for the castle walls free from Wal-Mart, and had only to buy five cans of spray paint, a few items at the party store, and a plastic sword, shield, and greaves. A few other props I had kicking around at home, including the viking helmet and axe. All told it cost me just under $50, so I earned about $1.50 from our epic victory over the 6-7 other boats who had the temerity to compete against such an awesome and threatening float.

I built the walls and cut out and decorated the shields on the side of the boat, and also constructed my awe-inspiring helm. My crew pictured above helped assemble the final product and added a few touches of their own. My favorite was my fellow warrior, Greg, who fashioned his helmet from a empty 12-pack cardboard container of Bud Light. Notice the "old queens" in the back with their chalices, my two daughters in the castle tower who posed as princesses in dire need of rescue, and the drawbridge in front.

But neither big cash prizes nor fame motivated us to enter. I'll leave it to you to imagine the fun we had parading around the lake perimeter in our boat, shouting, "We're the knights of the round table!" "Camelot!" "Hail to King Arthur and his old queens!" etc., etc. to all the cheering spectators on shore. It was sheer awesome.


Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold. A review

If you like a big, heaping helping of vanilla with your fantasy, you'll probably like the flavor of Terry Brooks' Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold.

Me, I'm a New York Super Fudge Chunk guy and I thought Magic Kingdom tasted like shit.

Yeah, that's harsh. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all, etc. etc. But I have an obligation to review Brooks' work for two reasons: I owe it to http://www.sffaudio.com/, and I figure I might steer away a couple potential readers who might stumble with tragic results into the banal minefield that is Magic Kingdom.

To be fair, Brooks can write, in terms of stringing gramatically correct sentences together. I've read much, much worse stuff than Magic Kingdom. I also have fond memories of Brooks' Sword of Shannara series, which I read as a teenager and liked (although I knew even then that they were derivative of Tolkien). But I'm afraid to revisit Shannara these days, especially after Magic Kingdom. I just know its not going to hold up.

Magic Kingdom is about the tale of Ben Holiday, a 40-year-old lawyer burned out with his profession and his life, having lost his wife to a car accident and finding no satisfaction in his work. While thumbing through a specialty catalog he finds a literal magic kingdom for sale for a million bucks and decides to make the purchase. The broker, a wizard, whisks Holiday away to the fantastic realm of Landover, a once shining kingdom now in serious decline. The land is failing and the great castle of Sterling Silver is tarnished because Landover has been without a king for 20 years.

Holiday soon finds out that he's not the first king to try to ascend to the throne in that time, however. Far from it. Instead, he's been duped by the broker, and learns that dozens of previous kings have failed before him, and were meant to. Landover's peoples are bitter and disenchanted with the string of would-be kings turned failures, and Holiday has a fight on his hands to win their pledges.

But Holiday has help in the form of a doddering old wizard (Questor), a talking dog who once served as a court scribe (Abernathy), a beautiful shape shifting sylph named Willow, a pair of Kobolds, and a pair of hairy, grubby, earth-tunneling gnomes.

The biggest problem I had with Magic Kingdom is that this is kids' stuff, but it's not labeled nor probably intended as such. I don't buy that Magic Kingdom is written for an adolescent audience: its clearly marked as "adult fiction" on the cover of the audiobook I've reviewed. Nor is its subject matter for adolescents: At it's heart it's about a man's middle-age crisis, hardly the stuff to captivate a young audience. And because Magic Kingdom doesn't know what it wants to be, it suffers mightly. I enjoy good adolescent fantasy lit--C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia and Nancy Farmer's The Sea of Trolls, for example, are terrific reads for folks of any age--but Magic Kingdom failed to satisfy my grown-up tastes, or my childhood love for good, simple stories.

Secondly, Landover as a world is completely unrealistic and devoid of any personality or charm. With generic place names like "The Greensward," "the Deep Fell," "The Wasteland," and "The Mountains of Melkor," Landover may as well be anywhere fantasy USA. And the way Brooks describes Landover you'd think it was the size of a postage stamp--two sentences of description here and there and Holiday and his crew have traversed the whole continent without breaking a sweat.

Thirdly, I didn't much like the main character. There's nothing to dislike about Holiday, but there's not much to like, either. He's bland and featureless. Holiday stumbles around most of the story, avoiding scapes by luck or occasionally pluck and wit, but mostly because he's "fated" to become king. He's revealed as the chosen one almost from the outset of the story, so there's really no tension or doubt that he will ascend to the throne of Landover. I also found his companions extremely annoying. The kobolds, gnomes, and even Abernathy and Questor resemble a troupe of circus clowns who are there to provide levity, a sounding board for Holiday's questions, and occasionally bail him out of trouble, but do little else.

Fourthly, the underpinnings of the story have some serious flaws and holes. We find out that the evil wizard who "sells" Landover to Holiday is doing it for the money. Keep in mind that this is a wizard who has powerful magic at his disposal--and can use it freely on Earth--but can't seem to figure out how to use it to make a few honest bucks. Lame. Brooks draws some extremely tenuous connections between the health of the king and the health of the land, an old Arthurian trope that is not at all developed in Magic Kingdom. Other than a few brief mentions of blighted crops, swirling mists and gloom, and some unhappy farmers, there's no overt suffering, darkness, or disease, nor any explanations about why a king is needed to restore the land's health. In short, I had no emotional investment in whether Holiday succeeded or failed in his mission because I didn't find myself caring about him or the plight of Landover. By the conclusion of the story I was simply glad to see it end.

I could go on and on with the criticisms (the evil wizard allowed Holiday, a brilliant lawyer and a golden gloves boxer, to buy Landover because he thought Holiday was a good candidate to fail at becoming king?) but it's like shooting ducks in a barrel. I do think there is an audience for Magic Kingdom, and you could do worse if you're looking for a brainless beach read, but suffice to say that it's not for readers like me.

Edit: This review also appears on SFFaudio.com: http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=2908

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Taking the Lamentations of the Flame Princess challenge

Over at Lamentations of the Flame Princess, James Edward Raggi IV has asked the blogosphere to take up the gauntlet and list the media influences that impact their D&D campaigns. This is a difficult one for me as I'm not currently running a game, but am involved as a player in two long-term 3.5 campaigns.

However, I can't resist taking up the challenge and listing those sources of media that have the most impact on my line of thinking re. RPGs, and perhaps will one day make their way into a campaign run by yours truly. So here goes:

Heavy metal. I think I could write an epic, years-spanning campaign based off nothing except for Ronnie James Dio song lyrics. Hell, maybe I'll do it some day. I'd throw some Manowar in, too.

J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien is my favorite fantasy writer so there's no way he wouldn't make an appearance on this list. If any clowns out there actually think Tolkien is "soft," please pick up The Silmarillion and tell me otherwise. There's brutal fate, awesome battles, evil and death enough in those tales to sate even the most Nordic-influenced reader. And who hasn't imagined Moria during a dungeon-crawl sequence, or Smaug when role-playing a red dragon?

Robert E. Howard/Conan. This includes not only the writings of the man himself, but also the great Savage Sword of Conan adaptations of his material. Vine-choked ruins of lost civilizations, corrupt, decadent, wealth-choked, whoring cities, pirates, dark and wild magic, what's not to like?

Bernard Cornwell. Cornwell is a great grim and gritty, historically accurate writer in the midst of a great series called the Saxon Chronicles, which are a must-read if you like dark ages warfare. Shield walls, Viking coastal raids, etc. would all make their way into my campaign.

Malory/King Arthur. I love the old tales of the round table, particularly the holy grail stories, the evil Morgan Le Fay and Mordred and the corruption at the heart of Camelot, a shining kingdom creating a circle of light in the dark ages, and the themes of the rise and fall of kingdoms.

Gary Gygax. Every page of the old Dungeon Master's Guide and Player's Handbook ooze inspiration and ideas, like some great, musty old tomes of lore. I also love Greyhawk and most of his modules, in particular Keep on the Borderlands, the Giants/Drow series, and his work in the S series. Gygax would definitely be at the heart of my theoretical campaign.

And with that list, I'll see you all in a week or so. I'm off on an internet-free vacation for a week or so. Take care all!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

My top 10 favorite heavy metal vocalists of all-time

Heavy metal as I see it: An irregular series about the highest form of music known to man.

I love heavy metal for many reasons, not the least of them the great singers. Metal's best frontmen--the Bruce Dickinsons, Rob Halfords, and the Ronnie James Dios--are insanely gifted vocalists whose voices soar operatically above--or brutally crush underfoot --the digitally-enhanced, studio-made, lightweight pop singers of today. I've definitely suffered some hearing damage over the years blasting these guys on my car radio, but you know what? It was worth it.

So who is the best heavy metal singer of all time? Everyone has their own opinion, but following are 10 that I believe epitomize the power, grandeur, range, and rage that define the very essence of heavy metal. I've included a clip from Youtube depicting a great vocal performance from each, so click through and decide for yourself.

1. Rob Halford, Judas Priest: Currently I have Rob Halford of Judas Priest ranked at no. 1, but depending on what day of the week you ask me, any of the "big three" are interchangeable in the top slot. Halford is so damned amazing. The clip from Youtube is a live performance of The Sentinel. Halford is not just singing here, but his voice is a literal instrument, a glass-shattering sound from another, futuristic dimension in which the Sentinel lives. It sends chills down your spine: http://youtube.com/watch?v=AgCe56T4HxU

2. Bruce Dickinson, Iron Maiden: Bruce has tremendous range, and while he may not pack the ethereal scream of Halford at his best, he has, for my money, the best sounding "metal" voice. It's strong and powerful and epic, and he hasn't lost a step with the passing of the years. In fact, I think he's singing much better now than he was at the tail end of his days with Maiden pre-split. Here's an early rendition of a live performance of Maiden's best song, Hallowed be thy Name, which captures the incredible strength and soaring heights of the "air raid siren": http://youtube.com/watch?v=7vP2hFFV57E

3. Ronnie James Dio, Black Sabbath/Dio: Dio's voice (and his lyrics) are the soundtrack of a Dungeons and Dragons game: He has a voice like an evil sorcerer in a fantasy opera, and its powerful and stirring to boot. I can't argue with those who think he's the best metal singer of all time. Here he is singing one of my favorites, Die Young, with Black Sabbath: http://youtube.com/watch?v=hA9d9sSWFRA

4. Geoff Tate, Queensryche: At his peak, Tate could hit notes like no one else, save perhaps Halford. He's an opera singer turned metal. Take Hold of the Flame showcases his considerable talent and that opening note (you know the one) remains an absolute marvel: http://youtube.com/watch?v=uUrnCLWqmzA

5. Tobias Sammet, Edguy: It's too bad Edguy isn't better known, especially over here in the United States. Sammet is a throwback to the Helloween/King Diamond school of metal singers, hitting impossibly high octaves with an ease that's scary: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SPI9fa-Rbow&feature=related

6. Hansi Kursch, Blind Guardian: Although more well-known than Edguy, Blind Guardian is also no household name, but with Kursch at the helm they deserve to be. Kursch can do it all, from powerful, angry, high speed metal to glorious, bardic, medieval hymns. Check this out: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pQDt7dP3Ksk&feature=related

7. Eric Adams, Manowar. Adams has a voice made for power metal and songs about dragons and warriors. Very clean, very powerful, epic, and the guy can scream with the best of them, too. Here's a good example of his considerable ability: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzJxP3Bh-eo

8. Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath. Sure, he's a running joke now and his voice is completely shot, but Ozzy had one of the most distinctive and coolest-sounding "metal" voices in the business back in the 70's and 80's. He did great work on all the old Sabbath albums, and here's one of my favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBsJjVS8aPA

9. Phil Anselmo, Pantera. Anselmo is very different than any of the singers above and is definitely not a classic/power metal type singer. He's all rage and emotion, but its positively contagious and damned effective in getting fists and heads banging: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONZ9bL2WGBE&feature=related

10. James Hetfield, Metallica (pre Black Album): I know, I know. Hetfield is not a great singer and is out of his class on this list. But I think he was the perfect singer for early (pre 1991) Metallica, back when they were a very, very good band. For example, I can't imagine anyone else singing Welcome Home (Sanitarium): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WElvEZj0Ltw

So there you have my top 10. Some honorable mentions include Glenn Danzig and Dave Mustaine, who could have made the list on another day.

Footnote: If you Google "Best heavy metal singers," this top 100 list by Hit Parader comes up. This is among the worst pieces of garbage I've ever read, and again proves the point that the vast majority of music journalists and critics don't have a clue regarding heavy metal. And this was released in 2006! I mean, David Bowie? Eddie Vedder? Steven Tyler? Freddie Mercury? Steve Perry? By anyone's definition with half a clue, these guys are NOT METAL.

...Rod Stewart at no. 60?


Someone at Hit Parader needs to be punched dead in the face. I'm tempted to believe that this is some big jest, a cheap way to get fans stirred up. Heck, I'd buy the magazine just to burn it.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Iron Maiden: Old guard still the vanguard of heavy metal

A review of Iron Maiden at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA, Friday, June 20.

This was the second time I've seen the gods of metal on their "Somewhere Back In Time" tour, which features a setlist and stage show from Iron Maiden's golden years (roughly 1982-92). Once again, they kicked major ass, despite some problems with the sound (see below). Maiden continues to wave the flag for heavy metal and are the epitome of showmanship and professionalism. May they continue to wave the Union Jack--and the Heavy Metal standard--for years to come.

Iron Maiden did not change its setlist (you can read my prior review here), so I won't spend a lot of time on the review of the show, which more or less replicated the former show. There were a few more stage effects this time, including a giant mummy Eddie that emerged from an oversized golden Pharoah mask. Good stuff.

Friday's show was not sold out, which was a disappointment, but it was probably at 85% capacity. Even better was the large number of younger fans I saw walking around, mixed in with the older dudes like me. It does my heart good to see so many teenagers latching on to Maiden this late in their still prolific careers. Iron Maiden is and remains the best heavy metal band of them all, and I hope these youngsters appreciated seeing greatness before their eyes. This was the eighth time I've seen Maiden and I still get giddy like a schoolgirl every time.

One other bit of good news from the show: Bruce Dickinson announced that the band would be back again for a future tour in support of a new album. He said that the band was planning to hit the recording studio after this tour. This was good and surprising news for two reasons:

1. Good: Iron Maiden could retire any time they choose, and I still hold my breath with each studio release, fearing it may be their last. However, Maiden is still producing incredible material, so why should they stop? I'm a huge fan of all three of their last releases (Brave New World, Dance of Death, A Matter of Life and Death), and they remain creatively fresh and vital and on top of their game.

2. Surprising: I thought Maiden's plan all along was to do three tours in support of each of their "periods": The early years (Iron Maiden through Piece of Mind, which they did as part of the Ozzfest bill in 2005), the middle years (this tour), and their later material. But perhaps their next tour will highlight the new album and be supplemented with material post Fear of the Dark. Time will tell, I suppose. I frankly would love this, although I know there's a sizable and stupid percentage of Maiden's fan base that would prefer that they play only 80's songs.

The sound
One more disappointing detail: Friday's show was unfortunately marred by poor sound, a fact confirmed by a second reviewer from The Boston Herald. When I saw Maiden at the Izod Arena in New Jersey back in March the sound was a good deal superior. The sound at the Comcast Center was muddled and Dickinson's mike was much too low in the mix. It improved as the night wore on, but it took way, way too long.

Frankly, there's no excuse for this. To the assholes who performed the sound checks for Maiden in Mansfield: You suck, and please return the pay you received for your day's work. Back in the old days guitar techs would come out and actually play (imagine that!) to make sure the sound was correct and mixed properly; however, never once did I hear a single instrument played before Maiden took the stage on Friday night, and it showed. People pay big bucks for concert tickets and often wait years to see their favorite bands, so there's no excuse for extended periods of poor sound.

More ridiculousness: $8 beers? $35 t-shirts? Outrageous. At the risk of sounding like the old man from The Simpsons, back in my day t-shirts were $20, and beers were $3.50! Some of the t-shirts had great artwork, and I would have sprung for one except for the price tag. I just couldn't make myself buy a piece of clothing that would fade to a pale grey, shrink to the size of a postage stamp, and begin to disintegrate after three washings.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: A review

At what point do pulp heroes become superheroes? Your answer is the fourth entry in the Indiana Jones franchise, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I try to turn off my inner skeptic when I watch films like Indiana Jones. Gritty realism is not why I like the franchise, and I love and appreciate Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. But when you have scenes in which:
  • Indiana Jones survives a nuclear blast by hiding inside a refrigerator
  • A boy befriends a tribe of monkeys, and swings with them through the vines of a jungle a-la Tarzan, then lands onto the back of a truck moving at high speed
  • A jeep plunges over a series of three waterfalls--the latter close to the height of Niagra falls--and all the passengers come away without a scratch

then you've officially taken the leap from the exciting, over-the-top action that defined the best films in the fanchise into the territory of sheer physics-defying ridiculousness. Director Steven Spielberg routinely crossed the lines of pulp conventions in the Crystal Skull, and in my opinion greatly dimished the film as a result. Instead of a quickening of my pulse, I found my eyes involuntary rolling in their sockets.

Perhaps the worst offender was the scene in which Marion, Indy's love interest from Raiders of the Lost Ark, deliberately and blindly drives a duck boat over a sheer cliff. The boat lands on a tree branch, which bends just enough to cushion the fall, and lands them safely on the ground. It was bat-shit insane on her part and completely unbelievable.

What's worse is that the movie didn't need these scenes. There were some other terrific chase sequences (the motorcycle chase at the beginning a prime example) that evoked the best moments from the original film. I enjoyed the well-placed nods to the first film (the Ark), and I also thought the Crystal Skull did a good job of painting the period (the 1950s) with broad, colorful strokes, including the music, the cars, the duck-bill haircuts, and the political atmosphere of the Red Scare and McCarthyism. There was some clever humor as well, including a chase in which Soviet KGB agents are blinded by a "Better Dead Than Red" banner being carried by a group of college students. In general, I thought the Russians, led by Cate Blanchett, were fine replacements for the Nazis from the earlier movies.

But it seemed as though Spielberg and George Lucas (writer) were intent on one-upping all the great chases and escapes from the past films with sheer implausibility and overuse of CGI. And the ending ... well, the "aliens" left me cold.

Overall, I walked out of the theatre at the end of the Crystal Skull with the same impression I had of the Star Wars prequels: They certainly ramped up the action and the effects, but removed the soul that the older films had. The Crystal Skull, with a few notable exceptions, left me with the same hollow feelings.

My rating: 2 1/2 out of 5 stars. Although I hate to admit it, the Crystal Skull is probably the worst film in the Indiana Jones franchise.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Welcome to the Hall of Fire: My theoretical RPG/book store

I think it's every gamer's fantasy to own his or her own game store. For me, it's one of those idle "wouldn't that be cool" thoughts that creeps into my brain from time to time. Also, whenever I visit game stores, I can't help but think how much cooler I could make them, given enough time and money.

Unfortunately (or fortunately perhaps), I've learned just enough about the reality of store ownership to keep that fantasy in the land of daydreams. A guy in my current gaming group used to own his own store and, from everything he's told me, there's absolutely no glamour involved and even less profit. Plus there's long hours, shoplifting, and that smelly dude who spends the whole day hanging around without ever buying anything.

But despite my better judgement, I still think that, were I to ever hit the lottery, I'd open up my own role-playing/book selling sanctuary (after I returned from that six-month trip to Europe, Asia, and Australia). Flush with cash, I'd open up a paradise on earth for like-minded individuals who share my passion for RPGs, books, movies, and other nonsense.

Since this is an exercise in sheer make-believe, my theoretical game store would offer much more than just a clean, friendly environment with a wide selection of merchandise. I'd make it a fantasy-lovers paradise, an over-the-top den of merriment and madness like a modern day Shadizar. I kind of like the name The Hall of Fire, which is taken from the elven hall in Rivendell where stories are told, verses recited, songs sung, ale and wine drank, and past glories relived.

Here's what you'd might see in the Hall of Fire:

Fantasy/medieval architecture. I'd pay a mason to make the front of the building look like a medieval castle. Or maybe I'd just hire an architect to build a room-for-room replica of The (pre) Ruined Moathouse. The entrance hall could look like the entrance to Acererak's Tomb of Horrors and another wing would be a classic Viking mead-hall with a long fire pit running down the middle.

Armor, weapons on the walls: I'd have suits of armor on display and shields and crossed swords and spears on the wall. Just for show of course, but in case of a possible break-in I'd keep at least one axe razor sharp.

A clean bathroom. A must of course, and the toilet paper would be printed with Jack Chick tracts.

Role-playing games, and lots of 'em. Duh. However, unlike most hobby stores that only stock the latest version of D&D and perhaps Exalted or GURPS, I'd keep a copy of every role-playing game in and out of print I could on the shelves, from Runequest and Lords of Creation to Toon, Top Secret, Boot Hill, Chivalry and Sorcery, Star Frontiers, and Marvel Super Heroes. The Hall of Fire could double as a research library for RPG scholars by the time I was done stocking it.

Board games/wargames. Axis and Allies? Wooden Ships and Iron Men? Squad Leader? Revolt on Antares? Car Wars? Star Fleet Battles? Check, we've got them.

Miniatures. I love minis and wish I had the time to paint my old and small collection of lead, so with money and time no object I'd have thousands of minis for sale. And I'd hire these guys to paint them and conduct classes.

Organized trips: I'd organize bus trips to places like Higgins Armory and King Richard's Faire.

Books: Small, independent bookstores are a dying breed these days, so I'd do my part to keep fantasy, horror, and sci-fi titles alive. I'd have floor to ceiling shelves stocked full of Howard, Leiber, Tolkien, Lewis, Cornwell, Anderson, G.R.R. Martin, Moorcock, Vance, King, Poe, Lovecraft, and more. And I'd pay to get authors in for book signings.

Movies: I'd have films like Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, Wizards, Dragonslayer, The Lord of the Rings, The Terminator, and more running on constant loops. Oh yeah, and Thundarr the Barbarian too.

No Magic: The Gathering. Offenders will have their cards tossed into the yawning black mouth of the Great Green Devil on the wall (a cleverly disguised incinerator).

Music: I'd play a wide selection of heavy metal, and for a change of pace, different kinds of heavy metal. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Dio, and Blind Guardian would get heavy rotation.

Artwork: In and around the weapons I'd hang artwork by Frazetta, Vallejo, Alan Lee, and John Howe, plus I'd obtain permission to reproduce or buy the originals of all the classic D&D artwork (A Paladin in Hell, the PHB idol, the Magic Mouth, etc.) and place them in frames under glass. And I'd commission a talented artist to paint a giant picture of Orcus, too.

Guest speakers: I'd fly out big names like Mike Mentzer, Greg Stafford, Monte Cook, the guy from Grognardia, etc., to provide informative lectures on the history of RPGs, DMing advice, etc.

Book discussion group: I'd hold discussion groups on great fantasy titles like The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, The Worm Ouroboros, The Broken Sword, The Once and Future King, and everything Robert E. Howard ever wrote.

Regular schedule of fun
In addition, I'd keep a regular schedule of games and other assorted nonsense. I'd run some games, play in others, and pay a stable of DMs a decent salary to keep the others going:

Monday: Wargame night. We'd wage World War II and then move on to history's other great conflicts at least once a week. Uniforms are encouraged, and I'd have films like Patton and The Longest Day playing in the background.

Tuesday: Dungeons and Dragons. Pick your poison--OD&D, basic, 1E, 2E, or the newer versions should you choose, I'd have them all. I myself would run that epic 1E campaign I've always wanted to try, culminating with Against the Giants/Drow/Demonweb series.

Pit-fighting Wednesday: I'd erect a shallow stone pit in the rear of the store, and, equipped with foam axes, swords, nets, tridents, shields, customers could go at it a-la the pit-fighting scene in Conan the Barbarian. This would be a great mid-week stress reliever for those sad souls still working the 9-5 shift :).

Thursday: Alternate game night. Those games of Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, 007, or Runequest you've always wanted to play? This is your chance.

Friday night: Alefest, followed by a drunken session of D&D. Again, costumes encouraged (required?). Oh yeah, did I mention that I'd be acquiring a liquor license?

So what does your gamestore look like?

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

The magic of Moldvay

My gateway drug into the seductive hobby known as role-playing was the 1981 Basic D&D box set, as edited by the late, great, Tom Moldvay. For my money, page for page, this is still the best iteration of Dungeons and Dragons ever written.

I still own the same careworn copy of Moldvay basic that I bought back in 1981-82 or so. As I look at it now it remains a marvel of utility, organization, inspiration, and playability.

To begin with, Moldvay basic comprises a total of 64 pages. Take away the title page, foreward, and glossary, and you have a total of 60 pages. Heck, there are longer modules than this. By way of comparison, a single issue of Dungeon and Dragon magazine exceeded 100 pages towards the end of their run!

The rulebook is comprised of the following 8 sections:

Part 1: Introduction (2 pages)
Moldvay introduces what D&D is all about, how to use the book, and provides some basic D&D definitions.

Part 2: Player Character Information (10 pages)
Moldvay explains how to create a character, explains the character classes and their abilities, provides a simple list of arms and equipment, and adds an example of creating a player characer.

Part 3: Spells (4 pages)
A listing of cleric, magic user, and elf spells, as well as a brief description of how magic works.

Part 4: The Adventure (4 pages)
Moldvay explains how a party is organized, how to keep track of time in the dungeon, movement, traps, encumbrance, light, doors, and retainers, as well as how to award experience points.

Part 5: The Encounter (6 pages)
Moldvay describes monster reactions, combat sequence, saving throws, hand-to-hand vs. missile fire, morale, and adds a nice example of combat. It's a sobering look at how deadly and unforgiving low-level D&D can be: The hobgoblin attacking Fredrik rolls a 17, hitting Fredrik's Armor Class of 2, and scores 8 points of damage! Poor Fredrik had only 6 hit points, so he is killed. I'm also a fan of the morale rules in Moldvay: Why should every monster opt to fight to the death? The rules explain that you should check morale twice: After a side's first death in combat, and when half the monsters have been incapacitated. Monsters that successfully check morale twice will fight to the death. It's a simple, intuitive system resolved with an easy 2d6 roll against the monsters' morale score.

Part 6: Monsters (16 pages)
The longest section in the book is a listing of monsters, from acolyte to zombie.

Part 7: Treasure (6 pages)
Here is provided treasure types, general advice on how magic items work, and descriptions of items such as swords, potions, rings, scrolls, wands, gems, jewelry, and armor.

Part 8: Dungeon Master Information (10 pages)
Advice on how to choose a scenario, draw a map, and stock the dungeon. There's also a sample dungeon, the immortal Haunted Keep with its mysteriously vanished Rodemus family and band of goblin raiders that have taken up residence therein.

The last couple pages of the book include an afterward, a glossary, and inspirational source material. Several of my favorites are listed here, including Poul Anderson, T.H. White's The Once and Future King, and E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros. Moldvay was obviously a man of refined reading taste :).

In a hobby dominated by massive three-tome, 300-plus page core rules, it is shocking to see what Moldvay accomplished in so little space. Take a look at how short each of those chapters are (4 pages of spells!), and yet, they are all you need to learn

  • what roleplaying is
  • what D&D is
  • how to create a character
  • how to build a dungeon, and stock it with monsters and treasure
  • how to play the game, as both a player-character and a dungeon master

Frankly, it's an amazing feat of economy and clarity. Moldvay basic is playable, as-is, right out of the box. The character record sheet provided in the rules fits on a single side of a standard 7 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. You can open up the rules, roll up a character in 3 minutes, and get started. I know because I did it and had a blast with it many, many years ago.


I'm also a big fan of the presentation, including the organization, writing, and the art. I even like the font! There's some great pieces in here by Erol Otus, Jeff Dee, James Roslof, and Bill Willingham. I've included a couple samples here. I'd prefer not to launch into a full-scale attack on 3E "dungeonpunk" art, but I do find the style of the art in Moldvay basic far, far more appealing. More than any other of its numerous strengths, this game is inspirational and just wants to be played.

The only two weaknesses I think that you can level at Molday basic D&D are the following:

1. It only goes from levels 1-3. My character is weak. I can't fight dragons and go toe-to-toe with demons. True, that, and for this argument I have no rejoinder. This boxed set is not made for epic, level-spanning campaigns. I would, however, add that, if you couple it with the 64-page Dave Cook edit of Expert (levels 4-14), the companion set to Moldvay, you probably have all the game you'll ever need in a total of 128 pages.

2. It's too basic. Where are the options ? The feats? The skills? Elves and dwarves are classes? And huh, three alignments? Well, this one is a matter of taste. As anyone who pokes around the internet knows, D&D has become divided into two camps--those who prefer their games with heavy crunch and tactical options galore, and those who like to "make stuff up" and let the DM sort it out. At the risk of fence-straddling I'm in a third camp, and frequently vacillate between both extremes. I currently play in a 3E game and enjoy the tactical, battlemat combats, but at other times I find the rules maddeningly and needlessly complex.

But if I had to choose one play style or the other at gunpoint, I'd take the magic that is Moldvay. Because, if I had to, I could make up my own rules and get my theoretical game to the preferred level of crunch. I prefer to think of Moldvay as a toolkit: Here is everything you need to build a house, including hammer, nails, and a saw. There's nothing to say that you can't put more tools in the box. It's a framework made for tinkering.

Moldvay says as much in Part 1: Introduction:

While the material in this booklet is referred to as rules, that is not really correct. Anything in this booklet (and other D&D booklets) should be thought of as changeable--anything, that is, that the Dungeon Master or referee thinks should be changed.

Now that's my idea of options.

Here's a perfect example, courtesy of Trollsmyth, of what you can do with the rules: Shields Shall be Splintered! It's a simple fix that allows you to add "combat crunch" and a bit of realism into the rules, should you so desire. And you can add or cut rules as needed: The foundation upon which they are built is quite sound.

To quote the great Elvis Presley, Moldvay, "How Great Thou Art."

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Age of Conan: Big money for game companies, but (likely) not book publishers

So have you have you heard of Age of Conan (AoC)? This new computer game is quickly shaping up to be the next World of Warcraft (WoW), a massively popular online "role-playing" game in which you create heroic characters, explore fantastic worlds, fight, loot, and gain power. Inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and other pen-and-paper RPGs, AOC, WoW, and others of their ilk strive to incorporate the best parts of traditional tabletop games--the immersive aspect of assuming a character's role and exploring a detailed world--with the latest in computer graphics and player-to-player interface technology.

Although I don't play them, I can understand the allure of on-line fantasy RPGs. One of my gaming group admits to playing so much Everquest he became strung out on the game (earning it the nickname "Evercrack"). As a big fan of pen-and-paper RPGs it seems awfully appealing to have the opportunity to play anytime, without having to set a time and gather a group of friends together. All that's needed is a computer and the money to pay for a monthly subscription.

And on-line RPG fans are legion. Take a look at how successful AoC has already become:

Durham, USA - June 6th, 2008 - Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan will pass the astounding "One Million Copies Shipped" milestone, in less than three weeks after the launch of the game. Due to overwhelming demand Funcom's retail partner is now re-supplying retail boxes rapidly while also including new markets to the mix. As a result of the tremendous interest from gamers, Age of Conan has for the past few weeks been claiming number one spots on the sales charts across the western world - including the US, Germany, France and the UK - while receiving glowing review scores from gaming media.

In the US, Age of Conan has a strong # 1 chart position and is now moving past the 500.000 shipped mark. Meanwhile the attention for the game is growing across the globe, with over 8 million unique visitors from over 200 countries to the Age of Conan websites so far in 2008. The community surrounding the game is also growing fast, with over 800,000 signing up as members of the Clan of Conan fan club.


Source: Age of Conan website (and thanks to the REHcomicsgroup Web site for alerting me to the news).

I'm not here to debate the merits of online RPGing (hey, I pretend to be an elf in my D&D game, so that would be a severe case of the pot calling the kettle black), but rather to ask a more interesting question--whether or not AoC will expose more people to its source material, Robert E. Howard's Conan. That question sparked some lively debate on the REHcomicsgroup mailing list, with folks taking both sides. Some said yes, AoC will create a new legion of REH readers, while others said no.

As for me, while I'd like to think the answer is yes, my gut places me in the latter camp.

Why won't AoC inspire gamers to seek out the stories? Personally, I think it's because the two mediums are mutually exclusive. Computer RPGs are played for the experience--the combat, the choices, and the accumulation of power. They are not tools to fire the imagination, but are portals that allow for immediate player interaction and active engagement, be it virtual sword-play or puzzle-solving. Reading of course requires engagement, but it's of the mind, picturing events as they unfold on the written page. Reading and playing are fundamentally different mediums and experiences, and it's my belief that people choose to do them for vastly different reasons.

That's not to say that the same people can't enjoy both--I enjoy reading and pen-and-paper RPGing, for example--but one does not necessarily feed into the other. It's like comparing running and stamp-collecting--the two are on completely opposite ends of the entertainment spectrum.

Furthermore, history has not shown that successes in electronic media lead to a rise in reading. Wildly popular films like Spiderman and the X-Men have not led to growth in the circulation of those flagging comic book titles. More to the point, the Conan film franchise (Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer) did not create a groundswell to get REH's original stories reprinted.

Now, I'm sure there may be a handful of exceptions, a few youngsters who might gravitate towards a Conan book because of their exposure to AoC, but I suspect they will be very, very few. AoC gamers will instead move on to bigger and better computer games when AoC becomes passe', not the books.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

The Worm Ouroboros: War goes ever, ever on

Warning--spoilers ahead

E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros is not an easy read. You cannot drink it whole and entire in a single draught; it must be sipped and savored like a complex wine, and (to continue the metaphor) its taste is an acquired one. But it is a marvel of fantasy, one of the all-time classics, and if you're a fan at all of the genre you owe it to yourself to at least give it a try. It has fallen in and out of print over the years, although you can buy it on Amazon (I myself have the 1967 Ballantine Books edition, pictured here).

I recently re-read The Worm Ouroboros for this review after a space of a few years, and, as was the case before, I had to slowly break my way into it. It's written with beautiful and ornate language from a bygone era, which has its charms and its drawbacks. More than once I had to go back and re-read archaic words and opaque sentences and paragraphs. But it's never ponderous, and once you have a feel for the language it becomes part of the journey, a wonderful tool of immersion into Eddison's act of creation.

And Eddison uses that language to fashion wonders. The Worm Ouroboros delivers you into a world of bright color and thunder, of larger than life landscapes, and of heroes and deeds beyond the abilities of ordinary men. Here are soaring mountains that blot out the sky; noble hippogriffs and savage mantichores; achingly lovely princesses; and heroes of epic proportions and heroic hearts. And, above all, here is war, full-scale bloody battles of annihilation on land and sea.

And yet The Worm Ouroboros has far more to offer than (a great) story. Eddison had a message to say and while it's not readily apparent, it is there, beneath the surface, revealed in its suggestive title, by its deliberate structure, and through the actions of one of its central characters--Lord Gro.

The story
The Worm Ouroboros tells the story of a great war between the Demons--the good guys, not actually "demons," but noble and and heroic men--and the Witches (not actual broomstick-riding women, but men, evil and warlike). Through the use of a powerful and dangerous spell, the King of Witchland (Gorice XII) ensnares Goldry Blusczo, the Demons' mighty champion, and imprisons him in a magical fortress. Two of the Demon lords embark on an epic quest to find him and bring him back, while the Witches use this opportunity to launch a full-scale war against Demonland. War and epic quest are intermingled.

Along the way we're treated to a number of memorable events and scenes. A handful of my favorites include:

Conjuring in the Iron Tower. Evil witch-king Gorice XII uses the black arts to summon a mighty spell and capture Goldry Blusczo. This is magic as I like it: Not safe and predictable, but wild and dangerous and chaotic. I don't think I've ever encountered a description of a summoning more dark and evocative than that in The Worm Ouroboros:

But the King pronounced not yet those words, pointing only to them in the book, for whoso speaketh those words in vain and out of season is lost. And now when the retorts and beakers with their several necks and tubes and the appurtenances thereof were set in order, and the unhallowed processes of fixation, conjunction, deflagration, putrefaction, and rubefication were nearing maturity, and the baleful star Antares standing by the astrolabe within a little of the meridian signified the instant approach of midnight, the King described on the floor with his conjuring rod three pentacles inclosed within a seven-pointed star, with the signs of Cancer and of Scorpio joined by certain runes. And in the midst of the star he limned the image of a green crab eating of the sun. And turning to the seventy-third page of his great black grammarie the King recited in a mighty voice words of hidden meaning, calling on the name that it is a sin to utter.

The battle with the mantichore. Two of the Demons greatest champions, Brandoch Daha and Lord Juss, do battle with a mantichore on the cliffs of the great mountain Koshtra Pivrarcha. And what a beast it is:

The shape of it was as a lion, but bigger and taller, the colour a dull red, and it had prickles lancing out behind, as of a porcupine; its face a man's face, if aught so hideous might be conceived of human kind, with staring eyeballs, low wrinkled brow, elephant ears, some wispy mangy likeness of a lion's mane, huge bony chaps, brown blood-stained gubber-tushes grinning betwixt bristly lips.

The Battle of Krothering Side. I'm a sucker for big battle scenes and this is a great one. Here's but a small sample of this epic clash between Demon and Witch, as told through the eyes of a survivor:

I scarce know what way the battle went, father. 'Twas like a meeting of streams in spate. I think they opened to us right and left to ease the shock. They that were before us went down like standing corn under a hailstorm. We wheeled both ways, some 'gainst their right that was thrown back toward the camp, the more part with my Lord Brandoch Daha to our own right. I was with these in the main battle. His highness rode a hot stirring horse very fierce and dogged; knee to knee with him went Styrkmir of Blackwood o' the one side and Tharmrod o' the other. Neither man nor horse might stand up before 'em, and they faring as in a maze now this way now that, amid the thrumbling and thrasting o' the footmen, heads and arms smitten off, men hewn in sunder from crown to belly, ay, to the saddle, riderless horses maddened, blood splashed up from the ground like the slush from a marsh.

The wrestling match of Goldry Bluszco and Gorice XI. Forget the WWF--within the pages of The Worm Ouroboros is a wrestling match to the death between the two strongest men alive. Eddison paints the match in words that bring to life the crash of the muscular bodies, the teetering balance as each strives to overthrow the other, the terrible strain and the brushes with death.

Lord Gro
Like the Norse sagas from which it derives inspiration, Eddison portrays his characters using their actions and words, not their thoughts or motivations. They are mythical heroes, larger than life, and not conflicted with doubts and uncertainties, but driven by great passions, honor, and warrior spirit. In other words, if you're looking for character studies, look elsewhere.

And yet The Worm Ouroboros also features the conflicted, philosophical, and thoroughly modern Lord Gro, an exile from another country who casts his lot in with the Witches, later defects to the Demons, then rejoins the Witches at story's end. I can't help but think that Gro=Eddison, or at least is the individual with whom Eddision most readily identifies, since he is the most fully realized character in the novel. In the midst of all the savage warfare, Gro in a memorable passage steps back and questions the entire conflict--and the very nature of competition itself:

"Surely," he said, "the great mountains of the world are a present remedy if men did but know it against our modern discontent and ambitions. In the hills is wisdom's font. They are deep in time. They know the ways of the sun and the wind, the lightning's fiery feet, the frost that shattereth, the rain that shroudeth, the snow that putteth about their nakedness a softer coverlet than fine lawn: which if their large philosophy question not if it be a bridal sheet or a shroud, hath not this unpolicied calm his justification ever in the returning year, and is it not an instance to laugh our carefulness out of fashion? of us, little children of the dust, children of a day, who with so many burdens do burden us with taking thought and with fears and desires and devious schemings of the mind, so that we wax old before our time and fall weary ere the brief day be spent and one reaping-hook gather us home at last for all our pains."

Notably it is Gro, the anti-soldier, who sees the clearest.

War as glory and horror
Eddison wrote The Worm Ouroboros in 1922, just four years after the bloody conclusion of World War I. Unlike the stories of his contemporary J.R.R. Tolkien, Eddison glorifies war as a grand stage upon which heroes achieve great deeds and carve out their legacies.

But underneath this simple portayal lurks a more conflicted reality of war. After the great Battle of Krothering Side in which the Demons drive the Witches out of Demonland and the tide of war turns, Arnod, a warrior who fought with the Demons, tells the story of the battle to his family in the gorgeous rays of the setting sun. Eddison, who uses the landscape of his world to convey moods, drops the image of an ugly cloud that looks like a battered sword into the midst of the glorious sunset (emphasis mine). It's a subtle but important reminder of the ugliness and monstrosity that is war:

A faint breeze rippled the foliage of the oakwoods of Tivarandardale. The sun was down behind the stately Thornbacks, and the whole sky from bourne to bourne was alight with the sunset glory. Dappled clouds, with sky showing here and there between, covered the heavens, save in the west where a great archway of clear air opened between clouds and earth: air of an azure that seemed to burn, so pure it was, so deep, so charged with warmth: not the harsh blue of noon-day nor the sumptuous deep eastern blue of approaching night, but a bright heavenly blue bordering on green, deep, tender, and delicate as the spirit of evening. Athwart the midst of that window of the west a blade of cloud, hard-edged and jagged with teeth coloured as of live coals and dead, fiery and iron-dark in turn, stretched like a battered sword. The clouds above the arch were pale rose: the zenith like black opal, dark blue and thunderous gray dappled with fire.

The Worm Ouroboros
Eddison's book derives its curious title from a mythical, culture-spanning serpent/dragon named Ouroboros that swallows its own tail. Ouroboros appears in Norse mythology in the form of the serpent Jormungandr, a monstrous creature that circles the world and grasps its own tail in its teeth. In the Norse myths Thor kills Jormungandr during the last great battle (Ragnarok), but is himself slain by the venom spewing from the great wound. Ragnarok is the ultimate expression of this cyclical pattern, as it results in the destruction of the norse gods, their enemies, and the world itself, followed by a rebirth. Thus, the worm is both a symbol of the pattern of life and death and rebirth, or, in this case, eternal warfare.

The much-discussed ending of The Worm Ouroboros conforms to and continues that pattern. The Demons have achieved complete victory with their foes, the Witches, all slain. But instead of thanking the Gods for the great triumph and its promise of peace, the Demons instead long for the return of their vanquished and slain opponents. Lord Juss of the Demons is granted a wish from the magical Queen Sophonisba, and asks of the Gods:

Would they might give us our good gift, that should be youth for ever, and war; and unwaning strength and skill in arms. Would they might but give us our great enemies alive and whole again. For better it were we should run hazard again of utter destruction, than thus live out our lives like cattle fattening for the slaughter, or like silly garden plants.

Eddison does not pronounce any judgements upon the Demons, so we do not know whether this endless cycle of war continues because men desire it due to pride, or foolishness, or vainglory, or because warfare is inherent in our nature. All that is known is that the gods grant the Demons' wish and the cycle begins again: the worm has swallowed its tail, the other tale continues, and the war--the great war--will go on and on.

I have included a few passages of Eddison's unique prose, but should you wish to sample more you can actually read The Worm Ouroboros in its entirety here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/ring/two/index.htm

Thursday, May 29, 2008

The glory that was The Savage Sword of Conan

As a kid I used to take weekly walks to a local comic shop to blow my allowance. It was there in this dusty, creaky old store on the edge of the town common that I first discovered The Savage Sword of Conan.

At that time I was a fan of a handful of Marvel superhero titles, including Captain America and The Avengers, primarily, with a smattering of Fantastic Four, Hulk, and Thor thrown in. But one day I stumbled across a rare find: An unmarked cardboard box on the floor of the store, with two rows of a strange magazine standing unbagged and upright therein. I lifted out an issue and looked at the cover, which depicted a muscular hero swinging a bloodied axe, battling a horde of ghouls, skeletons, pirates, and a wizard, while a scantily-clad, voluptuous blonde woman looked on in amazement and desire.

It was SSOC 16, the cover of which I've included here. I knew the name of Conan from the movies and from references in popular culture, but this was something different: A magazine both dangerous and adult, with unfathomable alien articles and lots of text to go with stunning black and white artwork by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala. I bought it right then and there, paying the princely sum of $2, and put in the bag with the other handful of titles I purchased that day.

When I got home I was treated to the first part of The People of the Black Circle, described in the magazine as follows: In the vast, mysterious subcontinent that is Vendhya, Conan the Cimmerian battles to save an ancient throne from the most fearsome wizards of the Hyborian Age. Next to the splash art was an evocative page with which I'd soon become intimately familiar, and one that still evokes a feeling of excitement and adventure: the famous excerpt from The Nemedian Chronicles ("Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of..."), along with a map of the Hyborian Age of Conan, circa 10,000 B.C.

Also in the issue were:
  • A Probable Outline of Conan's Career (by popular demand!), a reprint of a classic Robert E. Howard essay from Weird Tales detailing Conan's timeline;
  • A Portfolio of Robert E. Howard, illustrations of Conan, Kull, and Red Sonja by seven artists;
  • Fire and Slaughter, the fifth chapter of Howard's saga of prehistoric civilization (circa 9,500 B.C.);
  • Worms of the Earth (at last!), a story of Bran Mak Morn, king of the Picts, who battles against the invading Romans with the hordes of Hell on his side!; and
  • Swords and Scrolls, the letters page, featuring a lengthy letter from Yasmina, flower of the dawn and thief in the night, a belly dancer (accompanied with a semi-revealing photo) who attended a comic book convention dressed as Conan's love-interest Yasmina.

Needless to say I was hooked, drawn into a world in which all the men were mighty of limb; the women full of hip and breast; where magic was wild and unpredictable and to be feared, the province of madmen; where ancient, vine-choked cities lay in the heart of foreboding forests, to be plundered only by those foolish or brave enough and trained in the art of the sword. Conan was my guide in this wondrous Age of Hyboria and I lived vicariously through his adventures. Over the coming months I would return to the store again and again, buying a couple of SSOC titles each time for $1 or $2 apiece. I read the remainder of The People of the Black Circle (issues 17-19) one-by-one like a highly anticipated serial, then moved on to buy #5, 6, 13, 21, 23-27, 29-31, 33-38, 40-50, 55-59, 61, 63-64, 67, 69, 75-76, 78, 80, 81-82, 84, 92, 94, 95, 97, and 100. I know the exact numbers because I still have them all and cannot bear to part with them, and probably never will. I have too many memories wrapped up in these magazines, and owe them a debt for the hundreds of hours of enjoyment they delivered. Later on I would go on to buy many more SSOC titles in the mid-upper 100's.

In addition, I also purchased a huge run of Conan Saga out of the same box. Conan Saga was great because it was cheap and contained classic reprints of SSOC as well as Conan the Barbarian and Savage Tales. For as little as 75 cents each I scored issues 1-13, plus 16-30, 32-42, 46-52, and 54. The value of these magazines had no meaning for me at the time, only the stories they contained.

The now-defunct SSOC was--and remains--a terrific swords-and-sorcery magazine. I prefer the term magazine when referring to SSOC (1974-1995) because it can't rightly be called a comic book, which to me implies a safe, bubblegum adventure story for kids. I don't know how many comic books contain actual articles (reprints of Robert E. Howard articles from Weird Tales), detailed and scholarly book reviews (of Howard collections), or eye-popping photograph spreads (of bikini-clad Red Sonja lookalikes). Savage Sword had all these and more.

Soon SSOC and Conan Saga became an obsession. I liked them because they contained self-contained adventures (a few had stories that spanned more than issue). You didn't have to invest a ton of time and money following a long story arc like you did with traditional comics. Each magazine was its own entity, with a great swashbuckling adventure that started and concluded right there.

The scantily-clad women and decapitations were great, too, but most of all SSOC stood out for its great cover and interior art, and also for having terrific writing and amazing stories. I'm sure the X-men and Batman had some good writers working for them in those days, but SSOC had Robert E. Howard (until his tales ran out). Advantage? SSOC.

Sadly, both the comic book store and SSOC are long gone, but the memories (and my back issues) remain. And I have SSOC to thank for awakening me to Howard's actual stories themselves, which will likely be the subject of another post. In fact, this might in the end be its greatest legacy: I firmly believe that, in addition to the Lancer/Ace Conan paperbacks of the 1960s/1970s, SSOC and its brethren introduced a new generation of fans to Howard that might not otherwise have ever read of the mighty-thewed barbarian.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Del Toro, Jackson talk The Hobbit

Okay, so I'm a day late and a dollar short on this one (blame the long weekend and a lack of internet access), but the WetaHolics Web site recently posted a transcription of a series of Q&As that fans and Weta staff asked of director Guillermo del Toro and producer Peter Jackson regarding the forthcoming film adaptation of The Hobbit. You can find the complete transcript here. Thanks to Trollsmyth for tipping me off to this event.

Following are some highlights from the transcript and my own thoughts on the exchange (note that I'm dropping my comments into the Q&A; I unfortunately was not part of the dialogue :).

WetaHost: Peter: What was it about Guillermo that made you feel he was the right guy to continue on the saga of Middle-earth? Are the two of you on the same page for the vision, direction, and style that these movies will have? If the two of you disagree on a point, who wins out?

Peter Jackson: I'll talk more about this in a later question, but watching his films, he has respect for fantasy. He understands it, he's not frightened by it. Guillermo also understands character, and how the power of any movie is almost always linked to how closely we empathize with characters within the story. His work shows great care and love for the main characters he creates. He also has supreme confidence with design, and visual effects. So many film makers are scared of visual effects - which is no crime, but tough if you're doing one of these movies! If we disagree, the director has to win, because you should never force a director to shoot something they don't believe in. But we're both reasonably practical and ego-free, and I believe that if we disagree, we both have the ability to express our differing theorys - state our case, like lawyers - and between us, work out what's best for the movie.

Me: I'm glad that Jackson is giving Del Toro plenty of freedom on The Hobbit. Movies are definitely one of those mediums in which too many cooks can spoil the broth, and create a watered-down, safe, boring product. However, I'm also glad that Jackson will be providing a fair amout of input.

Eriol: So what age rating are you aiming at?
Peter Jackson: Hi Eriol - the rating will be the same as the Trilogy, PG13 on both movies
Guillermo del Toro: An intense PG-13...

Me: Exactly as I had expected. Surprisingly, many across the internet were expecting a PG-children's film, but with the success of The Lord of the Rings, I knew that there was no way New Line and Jackson were going to mess with the audience or the formula.

WetaHost: In the Hobbit book, we have talking trolls and the Eagles and Smaug talks as well, however in the LOTR Trilogy, trolls did no more than grunt, Fellbeasts screamed, and the Eagles, who were meant to talk, just stayed silent. How much will the portayle of such animals change in the Hobbit?

Guillermo del Toro: I think it should be done exactly as in the book- the “talking beast” motif has to exist already to allow for that great character that is Smaug. It is far more jarring to have a linear movie and then – out of the blue – a talking Dragon.

Me: My confidence in del Toro is rising. More Tolkien=better product (see The Lord of the Rings films, which were at their best when they hewed closest to the source material).

WetaHost: Hi. Do you intend to play this one by the Book (The Hobbit that is) and make it a very light childrens tale on film, or do you plan to stick with the much darker treatment- in keeping with the LotR films - particularly the latter ones. My personal preference would be for the latter - cannot see how eg. the Rivendell Elves could regress from their nobility in LotR to those "...Tra-la-la-la...." singing versions which were in teh Hobbit Book. Thank you.

Guillermo del Toro: We’ll see about the “Tra-la-la-" later- but the book, I believe, in echoing the “loss of innocence” England experienced after WWI, is a passage form innocence to a darker, more somber state- The visual / thematic progression should reflect that in the camera style, color palette, textural choices, etc.

Peter Jackson: As I said earlier, I personally feel that The Hobbit can, and should have a different tone. The "tone" of these stories shouldn't be defined by the pressure our characters were under in LOTR. The world is a different place at the time of the Hobbit. The shadow is not so dark. However, what should stay the same is the reality of Middle-earth, and the integrity we bring to it as film makers.

Me: I like this decision too. As I've mentioned in past posts, The Hobbit is certainly lighter in spirit than The Lord of the Rings, but the difference is most pronounced at the outset of the story. Over the course of The Hobbit a tonal shift occurs which moves the tale into a darker, more complex, adult story. Tolkien later stated that he would have written it with the same voice he employed in LOTR, given a second chance, so I have no quarrel here.

Merlkir: Any ideas about the talking wargs? the wargs in hobbit are remarkably different from the "hyena" ones in the LOTR movies..

Guillermo del Toro: Absolutely: they will be different from the Hyena ones established in the Trilogy- they will be faithful to the creatures in the book and will be redesigned accordingly.

Me: So far, del Toro is batting 1.000. Wargs should be wolf-ish, albeit larger and more menacing and a bit more bestial. The wargs from LOTR (the films) were certainly nasty, but they weren't very wolf-like.

WetaHost: I always thought creating Gollum would pose a great artisic challenge to the artists whose job it would be to adapt the Lord of the Rings. With the Hobbit I believe Smaug will pose one of the great challenges. Now we have all seen dragons in movies. But for the Hobbit I personally am excepting nothing less than unbelievable . Were will you go for inspiration? What styles will the art dirction look at? Personally I can see a lot being done with the setting from Pan's Labyrinth. Thank you and good luck to you all.

Guillermo del Toro: This is a big one-- Allow me to quote form my random responses at Onering.net… I am a big Dragon fan. I've said it before- And I was fortunate enough to be born a Dragon in the Chinese Horocope... And although its always impossible to agree on the "greatest" of anything, I bring forth these two as the main film contenders for that title: Eyvind Earle / Disney's Maleficent dragon ( a triumph of elegance of color and design) and Vermitrax Pejorative from Dragonslayer. In my opinion, every other design has borrowed heavily from these two. I plan to create something new and groundbreaking. Smaug should not be "the Dragon in the Hobbit movie" as if it was just "another" creature in a Bestiary. Smaug should be "The DRAGON" for all movies past and present. The shadow he cast and the greed he comes to embody- the "need to own" casts its long shadow and creates a thematic / dramatic continuity of sorts that articulates the story throughout- In that respect, Smaug the CHARACTER is as important, if not more important, than the design. The character will emerge form the writing- and in that the Magnificent arrogance, intelligence, sophistication and greed of Smaug shine through- In fact, Thorin's greed is a thematic extension of this and Bilbo's "Letting go" and his noble switching of sides when the dwarves prove to be in the wrong is its conceptual counterpart (that is a hard one to get through, Bilbo's heroism is a quiet, moral one) and the thematic thread reaches its climax in the Bilbo / Thorin death bed scene.

Anyway, back to Smaug: One of the main mistakes with talking dragons is to shape the mouth like a snub Simian one in order to achieve a dubious lip-synch. .. A point which eluded me particularly in Eragon, since their link is a psychic one. To me, Smaug is the perfect example of a great creature defined by its look and design, yes, but also, very importantly, by his movement and -One little hint- its environment - Think about it... the way he is scaled, moves and is lit, limited or enhanced by his location, weather conditions, light conditions, time of the year, etc. That's all I can say without spoilers but, if you keep this curious little summary you'll realize several years form now that those things I had in my mind ever since doodling the character as a kid had solidified waaay before starting the shoot of the film. A big tool is also how and when he is fully revealed. I could give you specifics- beat-by-beat in fact (I'm geeking out to do it), but... I will say no more in order to save you from ruthless spoilerage (we have a few years to go, you know...?) and increased anxiety. Let me, however, say that this is actually one of the points I feel most enthusiastic about. As to his voice- well, each reader has a Smaug voice in his / her head, just like you always do when "hearing" a great character in a book. I have mine... and it will be revealed in time...

Me: del Toro is the man--dropping a Vermithrax reference into the interview was totally unexpected and very cool. Dragonslayer is one of the best fantasy movies to emerge from the 1980's and that decade's pile of wildly awful and great fantasy films, and Verithrax remains my favorite wyrm put to film. If The Hobbit can improve on him we'll be in for some great scenes, indeed. More to the point: It is nice to hear del Toro put into words that he's drawing on Dragonslayer for some degree of inspiration and is chomping at the bit to get his vision on film.

WetaHost: Hello Mr. Jackson and Mr. Del Toro! Thank you very much for this time. My question is one that I think you will hear alot of from many of us...from what material will you pulling the second movie from? I know it'll be great with you two on board, but I am mighty curious. I am a huge fan of both of you and I look foward to more Tolkien films!

Guillermo del Toro: The idea is to find a compelling way to join THE HOBBIT and FELLOWSHIP and enhance the 5 films both visually an in their Cosmology. There’s omissions and material enough in the available, licensed material to attempt this. The agreement is, however, that the second film must be relevant and emotionally strong enough to be brought to life but that we must try and contain the HOBBIT in a single film.

Peter Jackson: I'm really looking forward to developing Film Two. It gives us a freedom that we haven't really had on our Tolkien journey. Some of you may well say that's a good thing of course! The Hobbit is interesting in how Tolkien created a feeling of dangerous events unfolding, which preoccupy Gandalf. There's an awful lot of incident that happens during that 60 year gap. At this stage, we're not imagining a film that literally covers 60 years, like a bio-pic or documentary. We would figure out what happens during that 60 years, and choose one short section of time to drop in and dramatise for the screen. I'm really interested in how it effects The Hobbit - do we show what happens to Gandalf during his trips away? We'll see. We may well have seeds for Film Two that we'll subtly sow during The Hobbit.

Me: Pretty much a non-answer to my biggest question. Film two could be a great and worthy addition to the series, or frankly, it could veer into disaster. Without a strong, central narrative from Tolkien to draw upon, I fear that the latter is more likely. And no offense to del Toro, Jackson, or the other wonderful writers on this project, but Tolkien is the wellspring from which your movies--and financial and artistic success--flow. Again, the best parts of the LOTR films were straight from or closely aligned with Tolkien. The handful of failures--shield surfing, Aragorn over the cliff, etc.--were deviations.

WetaHost: Considering that you're stretching The Hobbit into 2 movies can we assume that Beorn will be featured and will not be given the Tom Bombadil treatment?

Guillermo del Toro: I may be in the minority, but I absolutely LOVE Beorn and I intend to feature him in the films. BTW I also like TB quite a bit…

Me: Okay, back to the good. I love Beorn too, and it sounds like he'll be in the films--unless Jackson and Boyens rip the decision from del Toro's hands.

WetaHost: I'd comment on the awesomeness of director choice, but I'm sure that gets old. Concerning The Hobbit and the numerous Dwarves, I was wondering if all of them are going to find their way into the film. In Lord of the Rings, you had 9 in the Fellowship, but you had three movies to flesh them out. In the Hobbit, you have 13 Dwarves and one film to throw them all in. I'm definitely hoping to see all 13 make their way in, but what are you doing about this?

Guillermo del Toro: Tolkien wrote 13 dwarves and I intend to use 13 dwarves. I am, in fact, thrilled to keep them all and have them be distinguishable and affecting as characters. Much of the drama and emotion in the last third of the book and film will come from them.

Me: This may seem like a minor issue, but I'm glad that del Toro will be retaining all 13 dwarves. It's going to be difficult to write in 13 short, stumpy men early into the script and make them unique and accessible to the audience, and it would probably be easy to cut the number down to a manageable 6 or 7. But again, more Tolkien=better (keep repeating that mantra).

WetaHost: My question is, when Del Toro has acknowledged his disdain for Hobbits and "sword and sandals" fantasy, how can he do justice to the movie? Why can't Peter direct it himself after The Lovely Bones? He can direct these 2 movies and then direct the 3rd Tintin movie.

Guillermo del Toro: Okay- If by “Sword and Sandal” you mean “Sword and Sorcery” I stand by the general lines of my statement in 2006. But allow me to reproduce the following paragraph from ONERING.net and expand it- Since the age of 4 I became an avid reader and collector of books; manuscripts, pamphlets, first editions, small press or worn-down paperbacks... they all find a home at my library which has grown so cumbersome and obtrusive that I had to move to a separate home from the family one... For many decades my main area of interest has been horror fiction: Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, MR James, LeFanu, etc and classic Fairy tales and literature about the engines of Myth: unabridged Grimm, Andersen, Wilde, Bettelheim, Tatar, etc.

Now and then I indulge in Science Fiction (not hardware oriented but more humanistic things) and thus I count Bradbury, Ellison, Sturgeon and Matheson amongst my favorites. My area of interest gets much narrower when we deal with another genre... the genre that is shelved under Fantasy. As a youngster I read Moorcock, Clark Ashton Smith, Lord Dunsany, Lloyd Alexander, Fritz Leiber, Marcel Schwob, RE Howard and a few others.

Nevertheless I was never propelled into an aleatory addiction to sub-genres like Sword & Sorcery or indiscriminate fantasies about magical this or that- Like any other genre or subgenre there's a great abundance that makes it hard to discern when a new "trilogy" or "chronicle" comes from as genuine a place as Tolkien's or derives from genuine fervor -religious or otherwise- like C.S. Lewis' did. But here I am now: reading like a madman to catch up with a whole new land, a continent of sorts- a Cosmology created by brilliant philologist turned Shaman. As if he grasped an existing universe outside our Platonic cave, Tolkien channels an entire world, weaving expertly from myth and lore. The oustanding virtue is that all this scholarly erudition doesn't reduce his tales to mere Taxidermy. He achieves an Alchemy all of his own: he writes new life in the freshly sculpted clay of his creatures.

I have, through the years become familiar with the very roots of Tolkien's myths and the roots of Fafhrd or Elric or Hyperborea and many a time I have relished the intricate ways in which demonic wolves, shape-shifter and spindly-limbed pale warriors can be woven into those many tales that become, at the end, the single tale, the single saga- that of what is immortal in us all. In creating Pan's Labyrinth I drank deep of the most rigid form of Fairy Lore and tried to contextualize the main recurrent motifs in an instinctive rhyme between the world of fantasy and the delusions of War and Politics (the grown man's way of playing make-believe) and in re-reading THE HOBBIT just recently I was quite moved by discovering, through Bilbo's eyes the illusory nature of possession, the sins of hoarding and the banality of war- whether in the Western Front or at a Valley in Middle Earth. Lonely is the mountain indeed.

When that statement was made- at different times during PANS LABYRINTH’s promotion, many a time I made the distinctive call to say that although I had not read Tolkien outside THE HOBBIT I had been fascinated by the Trilogy films. A statement that I already had the chance to make in 2005 when PJ, Fran and I met about HALO. So, no, generally I am NOT a “Sword and Sorcery” guy or a “Fantasy” guy- By the same token, I'm not a sci-fi guy but I would make a film based on Ellison in a second- or on Sturgeon or Bradbury or Matheson. I'm not into Barbarians with swords but i would kill to tackle Fafhrd and Grey Mouse... and so on and so forth... I'm a believer but not a Dogmatic.

Allow me to put a final, finer point to our discussion. The aesthetics of HELLBOY II are completely Pop and color-saturated, much more comic book / modern than I would ever use in THE HOBBIT but- I spend two years creating a world of Fairies, Elves, Trolls, etc Two Years. A career / creative decision that precedes any inkling of THE HOBBIT. I wrote the script years before I met with PJ or Fran. In other words I dedicated the last 6 years of my career (between PL and HBII) to create Fantastical world inhabited by Fairies, Fauns, Ogres, Trolls, Elves, etc In that respect- I guess I am a Fantasy guy when the particular world appeals to me. Back in the Jurassic Period (1992 / 1993) when CRONOS won the Critic’s Week at Cannes I was referred to as an “art house guy”- I followed that with a giant cockroach movie that proved successful enough to spawn two sequels and allow me to co-finance THE DEVILS BACKBONE which send me back to being an “art house guy”. Then I did BLADE II and people thought of me as an “Action guy”- PJ went through a similar mercurial career with HEAVENLY CREATURES, BAD TASTE, DEAD ALIVE, etc I squirm away from a tag and I hope I can avoid being just a “Fantasy guy” after PL, HBII and H… I do the tales I love (regardless of what shelf Barnes & Noble classifies the book under) and I love the HOBBIT. I love it enough to give it half a decade of my life and move half a world away to do it.

Me: Another big question I wanted answered, and I'm glad that del Toro took it on, even if his answer is not completely satisfying (and a bit prepared). I think I know where he's coming from--he's not a "sword and sorcery" fan, but rather a supporter of stories with resonance and meaning regardless of the forms they take. I respect that, even though I don't like when folks try to place themselves above particular genres. You don't have to read every derivative series ever written (Dennis McKiernan, I'm looking at you) in order to be a fantasy fan, but there's also no shame in respecting the fantasy genre as a place where terrific authors have worked, great stories are told, and lasting myths are made. I think he mostly did that here.

Summation: Del Toro won some major points with me in this interview and my faith in The Hobbit has been re-energized.

Friday, May 23, 2008

The swords and sorcery debt owed to Lin Carter

The name of Lin Carter, widely reviled in fantasy fiction circles, deserves some reconsideration.

Nowadays Carter is regarded as a hack who tarnished Robert E. Howard's Conan stories. There's little debate that he and L. Sprague de Camp engaged in some heavy-handed editing of Howard in the famous (infamous?) Lancer-published Conan paperback series of the 1960's, altering Howard's words and intermingling his stories of the legendary Cimmerian with some questionable-quality pastiches of their own.

But the other day I had a revelation after reading Flashing Swords #1 (Dell Publishing, 1973), the first in a briefly-running fantasy anthology series edited by Carter: The guy had an undeniable passion for the branch of fantasy fiction known as swords and sorcery, and, as a keeper of its flame for a good decade or more, probably deserves much better treatment than he receives in many Howard circles.

One of Carter's short stories appears in Flashing Swords #1: "The Higher Heresies of Oolimar," an adventure of Amalric the man-god. It pales alongside the other trio of swords and sorcery heavyweights in this volume, including Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, and Jack Vance. On his best day, Carter was nowhere near the class of writer of these three.

"Oolimar" reads like a bad Conan pastiche, all sound and fury and no soul (although Carter is not without a sense of humor, and there's some amusing scenes in it. In fact, I'm not sure that Amalric isn't intended as some lampoon of the mighty-thewed barbarian archetype). Even his most ardent fans (if any such exist) surely wouldn't claim that Carter was a great writer. He was not. But it's not his swords and sorcery yarns, his science fiction, nor his Cthulhu pastiches for which Carter deserves reconsideration. Rather, it's his contributions to the field as an editor and ethusiastic, influential spokesman that makes Carter worthy of respect.

I found his introduction to Flashing Swords #1 ("Of Swordsmen and Sorcerers") as illuminating and entertaining as any of the tales that followed. Carter's best qualities as an editor shine through here, including the following:

His knowledge of the field. Carter starts off with a definition of Swords & Sorcery, a branch of fantasy that is still widely misunderstood today (heck, Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro called Tolkien's body of work "swords and sorcery," which couldn't be further from the truth). As Carter succinctly sums up:

We call a story Sword & Sorcery when it is an action tale, derived from the traditions of the pulp magazine adventure story, set in a land, age or world of the author's invention--a milieu in which magic actually works and the gods are real--a story, morever, which pits a stalwart warrior in direct conflict with the forces of supernatural evil.

That seems to be a pretty-spot on definition to me, and it was written in 1973. Carter also wisely credits Fritz Leiber for coining the term Sword & Sorcery, and Howard for founding it. Again, I think he's spot-on here. His essay speaks eloquently about Howard's influence and the genre's beginnings in the pulp men's magazine Weird Tales.

His enthusiasm for Swords & Sorcery. Love him or hate him, Carter's passion for Swords & Sorcery was undeniable. After laying the foundations of the genre, "Of Swordsmen and Sorcerers" next details Carter's relationship with the other S&S writers of the 1960'/70's. During a three-way exchange of correspondence between himself, de Camp, and John Jakes circa 1970, Vance hit on the idea of forming a guild, similar to the Mystery Writers of America or the Science Fiction Writers of America. Calling themselves The Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America--or SAGA for short--the group banded together and eventually expanded to eight members, a terrific cast that eventually included Jakes, Carter, de Camp, Leiber, Vance, Anderson, Michael Moorcock, and Andre Norton. Says Carter:

We authors of S&S--all eight of us!--would form a genuine do-nothing guild whose only excuse for existing would be to get together once in a while and hoist a few goblets of the grape in memory of absent friends.

How can you hate a guy with that kind of passion? SAGA's members later conferred outrageous titles upon each other--for example, de Camp was honored with the title of Supreme Sadist of the Reptile Men of Yag, while Carter was the Purple Druid of the Glibbering Horde of the Slime Pits of Zugthakya.

Getting S&S into print. Folks today largely forget that fantasy fiction was once a pale shadow of its current self--bookshelves now choked with heavy volumes of fantasy trilogies were once dominated by science fiction titles, and writers like Poul Anderson--whose natural inclination was fantasy--were forced to write science fiction stories because they paid the bills. But the rise of J.R.R. Tolkien helped change all that, as did the influence of the oft-overlooked Carter. Springing from SAGA came Flashing Swords, an anthology of stories by some of S&S's best minds. And according to the Web site below, during his stint as a Ballantine editor Carter was also responsible for revival reprints of fantasy masters such as Lord Dunsany, James Branch Cabell, William Morris, and E.R. Eddison.

So how is Flashing Swords #1? Not bad. I enjoyed Leiber's tale ("The Sadness of the Executioner," a story of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser). "Morreion" by Vance didn't do much for me, although for D&D buffs it contains a couple recognizable elements that Gary Gygax borrowed wholesale, including Ioun Stones and colorfully named spells like Houlart's Blue Extractive. The best of the lot was Anderson's "The Merman's Children." I find Anderson to be a great writer. Check out his wonderful description of this ruined undersea city:

Below him reached acres of ruin. Averorn had been large, and built throughout of stone. Most had toppled to formless masses in the silt. But here stood a tower, like a last snag tooth in a dead man's jaw; there a temple only partly fallen, gracious colonnades around a god who sat behind his altar and stared blind into eternity; yonder the mighty wreck of a castle, its battlements patrolled by weirdly glowing fish; that way the harbor, marked off by mounds that were buried piers and city walls, still crowned with galleons; this way a house, roof gone to show the skeleton of a man forever trying to shield the skeletons of a woman and child; and everywhere, everywhere burst-open vaults and warehouses, the upward twinkle of gold and diamonds on the seabed!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Anderson is one of the unappreciated true greats.

But back to Carter: While I fault him for his ill-advised editorial decisions with Howard, his work bringing to print Flashing Swords and other stories "with verse and sparkle and wit and polish ... headlong adventure and excitement; stories of action and stories of subtler mood" makes him worthy of equal parts criticism and praise.

Note: For more about Lin Carter's influence, check out this Web site (if your eyes can stand the horrible green background): http://www.angelfire.com/az/vrooman/index.html