Seventeen+year journey to a new career: Six takeaways

After spending the better part of 18 years with the same company, albeit one that has been purchased in that time, undergone many changes, and looks very little like the one I walked into on my first day back in June 2004, I recently made the momentous decision to change jobs. I landed at a new company, hired for a role that did not exist, which this company created exclusively for me, and they’re paying me well to do it.

 

It’s been a hell of a last few weeks, starting from accepting the offer on Thursday, Jan. 20, telling my boss and my colleagues on Friday Jan. 21st, then releasing the news to the broader healthcare community which I serve this past Thursday. Since then, messages of well-wishing and support (mixed with some of surprise and disbelief, and sadness), have been pouring in non-stop. It’s left me feeling exhausted, but also incredibly grateful, with a great sense of anticipation for this next chapter in my professional life. I’ll be working from home, permanently, as this new company—small and nimble—does not have a brick-and-mortar presence. I can’t wait.

What did I learn over the last 17 ½ years, and in particular this latest momentous turn in my career? What would I recommend to others looking to further their own career? Here’s my advice.

1. Get comfortable with discomfort. As someone who suffers from mild social anxiety, and has struggled with bouts of inferiority, imposter syndrome etc., giving opening conference addresses in front of crowds as large as 1,800 people, and leading teams through tough times, has not been easy, and resulted in considerable levels of personal discomfort. Playing football and lifting heavy weights has allowed me to work through pain, but never inured me to it. Discomfort never goes away. You have two choices when it confronts you—retreat, or press on. I choose the latter almost every time, and that has made a difference. Like tearing muscle fibers during a workout, and then allowing them to repair themselves and get stronger, you grow professionally in zones of discomfort. A hard lesson, but true.

2. Success mainly is a result of hard work. I don’t disregard luck, or privilege, but mainly, persistence and discipline make the difference, even more than talent. I have no special level of intelligence, or rare skill, but I do stick to things after others give up. I have a good attention span. I also communicate well. But most of all I’m a fairly disciplined individual. I like keeping busy and doing good work. I don’t kill myself with marathon days, and deeply value and make time for family life, but I don’t slack off. Stack several good days of work on top of each other, and you will have something good to show for it. Stack several good years together, and you’ve got a career and a resume that will make you stand out. There really aren’t shortcuts to this process.

3. Don’t blame others for your failures. One of the best books I’ve read in the last five years is ex-Navy Seal Jocko Willink’s Extreme Ownership. He describes a rule for self-conduct that is both incredibly simple, but very hard to rigorously follow—taking responsibility for everything in your life. Yeah, shit happens along the way, but we can choose how we react to it. We can choose to use failure as an opportunity to get better. If you experience failure, start not by looking for someone to blame, but asking yourself: What could I have done better? What will I do better next time? If you are a leader and someone on your team comes up short, instead of pointing the finger, recognize that it’s your responsibility to train that person better, and equip them with the tools they need to succeed. Victim mentality is a terrible mindset to adopt.

4. Kindness goes a long way. Treat people—especially your direct reports—as you would want to be treated. More than ever these days, there is no bossing people around (there never really was, unless we’re talking medieval lords/vassals relationship). In these days of labor shortages and “the great resignation,” employees more than ever hold the upper hand. Your colleagues will respond to being treated fairly, and with kindness, and will reciprocate with loyalty. You will find yourself surrounded by people willing to work hard and make you look better, because they care for you.

5. Networks are a thing, so cultivate them. Talk to people. Help them in their careers—invite them on a podcast if you have one, allow them to speak at your event, write articles about them, respond to their emails, link in on LinkedIn. Inevitably they will return the favor. This creates a network effect, where knowing a lot of people gives you acceptance, even authority, in your field. Congratulate others on their successes. Treat your competition as people, because that’s what they are, and all they are. Do this, and you will find doors open when you did not know they even existed.

6. Dip your toe in the water before taking the plunge. Putting in a few extra hours of work, after hours, is not easy, and will cut into your Netflix time, but it allows you to try the thing before you commit to it. In my case I started freelancing for this new company on my personal time, and they liked what I had to offer, which led to a conversation about coming on board full time. In short, see bullet point 2.

Richard Tierney, 1936-2022

Richard Tierney has died. I can't say much more than what is expressed in this fine post by Deuce Richardson over at DMR Books. Peace be with his friends and family.

Tierney was, as the article states, one of a thin line carrying on the sword-and-sorcery tradition with good new material in the 1970s, alongside the likes of Karl Edward Wagner and Charles Saunders. I very much enjoyed his Simon of Gitta stories, as found in the classic Swords Against Darkness anthologies, his pastiche work/posthumous REH collaborations in Tigers of the Sea, and his Red Sonja collaborations with David C. Smith. He was also highly regarded as a poet, and that bit of verse published on DMR confirms his skill.

It's sad to see these old S&S veterans go. But when you keep reading them, you keep the flame burning.

The Harp and the Blade, a review

At 10 cents you get your money's worth

Someone recently asked me, Can sword-and-sorcery be written successfully at novel length? My answer was, of course: See Karl Edward Wagner’s Bloodstone, or Fritz Leiber’s The Swords of Lankhmar.

But, after reading John Myers Myers’ The Harp and the Blade, I would now tell aspiring authors: Here’s a pretty solid template.

 

This book moves. The Harp and the Blade was originally published as a seven-part serial in the venerable magazine Argosy in 1940, and in paperback still bears some hallmarks of its pulp heritage. It needed to be swift, and grab readers from issue to issue. Each chapter is just 10 pages, and the entirety of the book is a mere 230 pages. No needless descriptions. No navel-gazing “world building” (it is set in 10^th century Dark Ages France, on the cusp of the feudal era, so not a whole lot of that is needed). More to the point: Something important happens each chapter to advance the plot. 

 

S&S beefcake... 1985 style.

Now, is The Harp and the Blade sword-and-sorcery? Maybe, but probably not. It’s best classified as historical fiction. Although you could be forgiven for thinking it was S&S, so closely does it skirt that territory. Certainly it’s packaged that way. I have the 1985 edition as published by Ace. Look at that cover! Two overmuscled dudes, one a hip bard with 80s surfer hair, the other a classic Boris Vallejo style barbarian. This was definitely marketed to the same audience that devoured the Lancer Conans in the 60s and the DAW Elrics in the 70s. Publishers of the era were going to great lengths to ride the sword-and-sorcery wave, although by the mid-80s the subgenre was about to disappear from the shelves, almost overnight, with few exceptions (Keith Taylor’s Bard novels, for example). Morgan Holmes calls this “The great sword-and-sorcery extinction event.” 

 

Oh, and the “barbarian’s” name happens to be… Conan! Not the Conan you’re thinking of, and in fact other than being a resourceful, charismatic leader with some skill with a blade, bears no resemblance to Robert E. Howard’s most famous creation. The name Conan has historical Gaelic/Celtic roots, although one might assume Myers Myers was at least familiar with Howard’s work.

 

Packaging alone is not enough, but what edges this book back into S&S territory is the geas our hero, the bard Finnian, is placed under. After callously watching a man get murdered in a tavern brawl when he may have intervened and saved a life, Finnian is shamed (and possibly, ensorcelled) by a druid in a wonderful scene atop a cromlech on a moonlit night. Thereafter his life is changed; he begins to accept responsibility, and act out of a sense of altruism. "From now on, as long as you stay in my land," here he swept an arm to include all directions," you will aid any man or woman in need of help," the old man declares. This is skillfully handled by Myers Myers, and it may just be shame, or the power of persuasion, that causes our hero to begin to take responsibility. But it may be magic.

 

This is the heart of the book, and the message that lies beneath the page-turning action. Finnian is, like many of the classic heroes of S&S, an outsider. He is literally that—an Irish bard in foreign lands, making his living with his songs and his poetry, never settling down but moving from modest payday to payday. Just living, untrammeled. Lacking any commitments, he has nothing to tie him down, but seemingly nothing to give his life meaning, either. He’s at a crossroads.

 

Make no mistake, this is THE struggle all men face. Do we drift through life, viewing others’ misfortunes as not our own (“not my circus, not my monkeys”—not a fan of that phrase), dreaming, noncommittal, childlike? Or, do we take a stand, find principles we can live by, put down roots, raise a family, and get to work on adulthood? Personally, I don’t think there is a choice, and if you fail to grow up it will bite you in the end, hard. Peter Pan is a cautionary tale, not an ideal, and the lost boys are just that. 

 

The book has an interesting, muted ending, where all does not turn out like we had thought, or hoped, or expected (and, which I had guessed due to some mild telegraphing from Myers Myers). I won’t spoil it here.

 

Despite what I’ve written above this is not a heavy book laden with psychoanalysis. It’s action-packed, with death defying rescues and escapes, violent combat, romance, wine, and song, set against a dangerous backdrop of lawless lands where outlaw bands carve out fiefdoms at the point of a sword, as Danes plunder from the North and Moslems threaten incursion from the South. There is drama, but it’s gritty, grounded, and the world does not hang in the balance. Just enough characterization to allow us to latch on to the main character. In short, good stuff. 

 

Sadly Myers Myers seems to have fallen into obscurity, but for a time had gained a level of popularity and critical respectability with Silverlock (1949), which I have not read. I can recommend The Harp and the Blade, however. Even if not S&S it follows the formula us fans want and appreciate.

Tolkien’s Modern Reading: A review

Tolkien: Not just for medieval scholars, anymore.

Given that Tolkien was not the first to write secondary-world fantasies for adult readers, nor the first to popularize traditional stories for modern audiences, we should ask what it was that made The Lord of the Rings so startling. Part of the answer, at least, is that Tolkien, like a scribe of the kingdom, brought out from his storehouse treasures both old and new.

 

--Holly Ordway, Tolkien’s Modern Reading

 

J.R.R Tolkien has been described as harder to influence than a Bandersnatch, and commonly believed to be utterly uninterested in any literature written after the Canterbury Tales. As it turns out, these claims are largely untrue. Tolkien was indeed an ardent medievalist, but the “leaf mould” of his imagination was far deeper, and richer, and broader, than just an amalgamation of ancient works. Despite what many commonly believe, Tolkien also read and enjoyed modern literature, too.

 

The person to blame for this inaccurate characterization? The late Humphrey Carpenter, author of the only authorized biography of Tolkien and the only outsider (still!) ever permitted complete access to Tolkien’s complete letters. We now have Holly Ordway to thank for setting the record straight with Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-Earth Beyond the Middle Ages (Word on Fire, 2021). This is one of the better works of Tolkien criticism I have read. Nothing can (or likely ever will) compare to Tom Shippey’s The Road to Middle-Earth, and I’ve also got a great respect and admiration for John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War, but Ordway’s book is both highly readable and illuminating, which is what I look for in literary criticism.

 

Ordway’s book studies fiction that Tolkien would have considered “modern” (published 1850 to his present day) and that had some influence, glancing or readily apparent, on his main legendarium (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion). Ordway restricted her work only to those authors whom Tolkien definitely interacted with, as can be traced to notations or references in his public writings, letters, interviews, from reports from other people, or in his work in academia. Ordway’s work lists a total of 148 authors and more than 200 titles. These include the likes of a few authors that should be familiar to readers of this blog: Poul Anderson, Algernon Blackwood, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, E.R. Eddison, H. Rider Haggard, Robert E. Howard, Henry Kuttner, Andrew Lang, Fritz Leiber, C.S. Lewis, H.P. Lovecraft, George MacDonald, C.L. Moore, William Morris, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Louis Stevenson, and T.H. White, among many others. Many of these seem to have had negligible influence (Tolkien read the likes of Howard and Smith for example in the L. Sprague de Camp collection Sword & Sorcery, and has little to say about it), but other authors made an impact, sometimes profound. 

 

Ordway does a fine job tracing these influences and matching them up, thematically or stylistically, with passages from Tolkien’s texts. For example, from MacDonald’s Lilith he may have drawn inspiration for his themes of death and deathlessness (MacDonald was father to 11 children, but was predeceased by six of them, including his eldest child Lilia). Both MacDonald and Tolkien were “men much acquainted with grief.” Tolkien also credits MacDonald’s goblins as a direct inspiration for his own underground dwellers in The Hobbit. MacDonald looms large enough to get his own chapter, as does, unsurprisingly, William Morris, whose Goths from The House of the Wolfings are stamped all over the Rohirrim. Interestingly, Ordway makes a good case that Morris’ imperialistic, militarized Romans may have inspired Tolkien’s orcs. 

 

Haggard might be a surprise to some: Tolkien read so voraciously of old HRH him that Ordway devoted a whole chapter to his influence (“Rider Haggard: Fresh Ore from Old Mines”). We know that the eponymous She of Haggard’s wildly popular novel was an influence on Galadriel, and that he loved King Solomon’s Mines, but Ordway also reveals that Tolkien read the likes of the lesser-known The Wanderer’s Necklace. As late as 1961 he was still reacting positively in interviews to the name of Haggard. Dunsany was like Tolkien a veteran and wrote the preface of Tales of Wonder while recovering from a war wound, just as Tolkien began writing of his legendarium while recovering from trench-fever. Ordway also includes some deep cuts, noting that Tolkien borrowed elements of a pitched wolf battle in the pines from S.R. Crockett’s The Black Douglas (1889) for Bilbo’s escape from the wargs in The Hobbit. The striking art from this book bears it out. Not all of Tolkien’s reading was fantastic: One of the books that apparently inspired him greatly was J.H. Shorthouse’s John Inglesant, widely read in Tolkien’s day though largely forgotten today.

 

There is much, much more to recommend from this book, including coverage of writers such as Matthew Arnold, Sinclair Lewis, even a handful of science-fiction authors like H.G. Wells (Tolkien read them, too). If you’re a Tolkien fan, seek it out and read it.

Latest Rogues in the House podcast is up: Deathstalker 2, and Flame and Crimson too

The Ultimate Sword-and-Sorcery podcast

The latest episode of the Rogues in the House podcast is now available for your listening enjoyment. The cast and crew of Rogues were kind enough to ask me on the show, and I have to say I had a BLAST. I mean, I spent last Thursday evening drinking a couple beers and talking sword-and-sorcery, Deathstalker 2, and the zaniness of the 1980s in general. 

We had way more fun than we had any right to, but if you can't laugh watching Deathstalker 2 you were obviously born without a sense of humor.

Check out the episode here. We also talked Flame and Crimson quite a bit as well.

Rogues in the House: Deathstalker 2!

You won't find this level of beefcake ...

Any fans of this fun podcast, the only program wholly dedicated to sword-and-sorcery? I’m one of them, and tonight I get the pleasure of guesting on an episode.

 

The topic? Deathstalker 2: Duel of the Titans.

 

Somehow I had never watched Deathstalker 2. I look back upon my many years of renting the most exploitative videos I and my high school buddies could find, idle time spent scrolling YouTube, the additional (painful) video research I conducted for Flame and Crimson, and I wonder how this one eluded me. The only explanation I can come up with is that Deathstalker 1 is so outrageously awful, near irredeemable, that I wanted no further part of the series. 

 

In addition, I’ve consciously avoided the S&S films of the 80s. It got too depressing to see a subgenre that gave us Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, The Dying Earth, Conan and Kull, Elric, etc. handled so badly on the silver screen.

 

But, in recent years I’ve made peace with sword-and-sorcery films. I view them now as a cornball corner of pop culture history to enjoy as guilty pleasures. And, I’m already glad I got the opportunity to guest on Rogues because Deathstalker 2 is fun. Sword-and-sorcery fans will find their subgenre treated with about as much subtlety and reverence as Animal House did for undergraduate education. I would describe it as objectively a bad film, but subjectively awesome. It knows what it is, and while not a true parody like Men in Tights for example it is entirely a tongue-in-cheek take on S&S. 

 

Make no mistake, this is by any measure a bad movie. Really bad. The acting is below the level of a soap opera, the plot barely a thread, the script full of holes, and the sets and props are cheap and flimsy and entirely recycled. It lacks proof of having been backed by anything resembling a budget; in fact, there really wasn’t one. If there was, it was spent by the cast and crew in Argentinian dive bars. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the hell out of it. It’s a poor man’s Army of Darkness.

 

You can currently find Deathstalker 1 and 2 on Tubi, a free movie service. My advice: Skip the first and head straight to the sequel. And look for our insights and analysis of this fine film on an upcoming episode of Rogues in the House.

Starting 2022 with Michael Moorcock’s The Swords Trilogy

My latest post, and first of the year for DMR Books in 2022, is now up: Starting 2022 with Michael Moorcock’s The Swords Trilogy.

I love The Book of Swords and think the Corum stories are perhaps on a par quality-wise with Elric. If you haven't read them do yourself a favor and get to it. And while you're at it, be thankful we still have Mr. Moorcock on the planet. I sent him an email a while back and he was kind enough to respond. 82 years old and 60 years of S&S is a pretty good run, and I suspect we'll see a few more stories from his pen.

This line made me sit up when I read it: “The nearest we ever come to knowing truth is when we are witnesses to a paradox.” Tanelorn, the city of equilibrium at the center of so many of Moorcock's stories and a refuge sought after by his Eternal Champions, is one such example. How can such a place exist; how can such a state exist in the heart of a species so divided and unreasoning and passionate as our own? How can fate and free will exist simultaneously and serve to explain our ultimate fate?

The answer is, they can. We are all Mabden, and Vadhagh, simultaneously.

Also, a castle made of blood? Yeah, it's in there too.

I, Black Sabbath (with incredible Conan imagery)

Metal Friday has come early this week because I just can't resist sharing this awesome video for Black Sabbath's "I," with the late, great Ronnie James Dio supplying the lyrics. This one is off the little regarded Dehumanizer (1992).

I don't know how much time went into the creation of this video, but Crom, is it awesome. A flood of great, classic Conan comics images, perfectly matched with the lyrical content and timed to the music. Well done, anonymous internet dude.

This might be the most sword-and-sorcery video I've encountered. Check it out, and be prepared to headbang, or behead someone with an axe.

Things That Are Undone and Ought Not To Be: A Sword-and-Sorcery Studies Wish List

My latest post is up on the blog of DMR Books. Check it out here.

I blasted this one out in a couple hours while reflecting on what still needs to be written about sword-and-sorcery and the impact it has had on popular culture. The list is long, and I don't pretend this is exhaustive. And I've already realized I inadvertently left off a proper history of all the rock and metal bands that have been influenced by S&S.

I'm not a collector, and even in the case of books I buy readers' copies, not rares or first editions. But I'm sorely tempted to drop a grand on Lost World, just to have and ogle. That artwork is sweet.

2021 in review

The end of the year is a time for reflection, and so here I offer up a look back on a swordly-and-sorcerous 2021.

 

2021 in hindsight felt a lot like 2020. The ongoing and seemingly eternal COVID-19 pandemic is probably the biggest culprit. As I noted in a previous post most of my waking productive hours are consumed by my day job, and ever since our company sent us home to work in March 2020 my days feel very similar, chained to a screen in the basement. Which explains the 22 months or so of relative sameness.

 

From a blogging/writing sword-and-sorcery standpoint I had a fairly busy and productive year. I wrote some original posts here on the blog, and a lot more besides between Tales from the Magician’s Skull and the blog of DMR Books. And, I contributed pieces for The Dark Man journal, The Journal of Popular Culture, and Whetstone. 

 

As always, I wish I had done more.

 

Most popular posts

 

From a page-view only perspective, here were my most popular posts on the Silver Key.

 

What sword-and-sorcery needs, 814 views. Weird because this was very much a throwaway/10 minutes of inspiration/no forethought or planning-type post. Anyways, it picked up a lot of steam on various platforms, some praise, some criticism, and much discussion. Which is what sword-and-sorcery needs.

 

The Dying Earth: A case for sword-and-sorcery, 626 views. This one picked up a lot of traction from the folks over at Goodman Games, as that fine outfit was launching a Dying Earth RPG around this time. Also it seems to be somewhat unique, and mildly controversial. Some don’t think Vance’s The Dying Earth is S&S, and so your mileage may vary.

 

Of Heady Topper and the craft brewery revolution, 402 views. People like good beer? I know I do, and plan to drink my share over the next 10 days. Viva New England IPAs and the craft beer scene.

 

Signs of a (modest) S&S revival, 388 views. Another spur of the moment post, I was seeing a lot of optimistic signs of an ongoing S&S resurgence, led by the new rotoscoped animated film The Spine of Night, and this one got a lot of traffic from Facebook and elsewhere. Make no mistake, S&S is still a very niche and somewhat tenuous subgenre, and apparently anathema to major publishers. But, there is SOMETHING going on, and I hope it continues to gain steam.

 

Sometimes you get lucky: An S&S haul, 349 views. I scored a major win this year when a dude from a Facebook S&S group I’m part of who happened to be local to my home state of Massachusetts announced he was moving across the country, and needed to unload his cache of S&S titles to someone who would appreciate them. Needless to say, I’m that guy. People love book porn and there you have it, the recipe for a popular post. Also, I am grateful that I have a proper home for these books and my growing collection, and can add a newly renovated office/man cave to my 2021 accomplishments.

 

What can we take from this? Talking about sword-and-sorcery sells, as does beer (put both together and you’ve got a great evening of entertainment. I know, I’ve done it). More broadly, “meta” posts about sword-and-sorcery/the state of the subgenre/etc. rather than individual authors or titles seem to resonate, and occasionally gain traction on the likes of Reddit and Twitter, which in turn drive the most page views. Sword-and-sorcery literature as a whole drives most of the traffic to this page. Back when I started the Silver Key in 2007 I was getting an overwhelming amount of traffic from roleplaying blogs, as somehow I got picked up by a few sites devoted to AD&D and the Old School Renaissance (OSR) movement. That largely seems to have died off, as has large volumes of blog traffic in general. I still like blogs and blogging and find it an infinitely superior medium to the ephemeral viral this second/gone in 10 seconds reality of social media. I know there are other options, but I don’t really know what a substack is and can’t be bothered to research it. So, I anticipate continuing here as long as the Blogger platform exists and Google doesn’t yank the plug.

 

A few other noteworthy items to cover.

 

Talking sword-and-sorcery

I was guest on three podcasts/panels in 2021, two of which are available (linked on the right of this blog). The other, an episode for Friends of the Merril Collection, I’m told will be published in the first quarter of 2022. I’m always on edge on these programs (thanks social anxiety) and much more comfortable behind the keyboard, but I love listening to podcasts, and I know they are great vehicles for learning and entertainment. And I’m getting more comfortable with them. I’m glad to be asked, and for the opportunity to step out of my comfort zone. Therein lies personal growth.

 

Achievements

Flame and Crimson won the Atlantean award from the Robert E. Howard Foundation. What an honor this was. I still don’t know who nominated my work but I’m eternally grateful. The plaque with Howard’s engraved visage is hanging on the wall of my sword-and-sorcery bar/mancave. F&C continues to generate very positive reviews and ratings on the likes of Goodreads and Amazon.

 

Vikings and S&S

Although it didn’t garner the most page hits I’m happy with this recent post for DMR Books, (Not) Lost in Translation: The influence of Old Norse Saga and myth on Robert E. Howard and sword-and-sorcery. I made this connection in Flame and Crimson but expanded on it over on DMR. I’m proud of this bit of original scholarship; I have not seen the link between S&S and Old Norse Saga and myth made so forthrightly anywhere else.

 

Reading

My reading slipped a bit from 2020, just 40 books and counting, which means I will finish well short of my goal of 52 books. Anything I offer up would be an excuse, so I’ll just say I want to waste less precious evening hours in 2022 when I could be reading instead. My reading was a mix of old and new, and I’ll post the list before the year is out, but I can say that the best new (to me) sword-and-sorcery author I read this year was Schuyler Hernstrom (his excellent The Eye of Sounnu). My review can be found here on the DMR blog.

 

The future

What will 2022 bring? Who can say. In the near future I will be attending a Whetstone Lantern Hour on Jan. 18 where Whetstone editor Jason Ray Carney and some other S&S fans will be gathering to discuss the first couple chapters of Flame and Crimson. Catch me there, or here on the blog, or at an Iron Maiden or Judas Priest concert near you. I’ll be seeing both bands in 2022, pandemic willing.

 

In summary, thanks for reading, and commenting, and following my meagre work here and elsewhere. I hope you all have an amazing Christmas and New Year.

20 year anniversary of the Fellowship of the Ring/LOTR films

I was there, Gandalf. I was there 3,000--err 20--years ago.

20 years ago today New Line Cinema and director Peter Jackson delivered unto the world the first of the three Lord of the Rings films, The Fellowship of the Ring (release date Dec. 19, 2001). I was there on opening night.

There was huge anticipation for these films. I was hoping against hope that they would be good, but I feared and expected the worst. The odds of them sucking were high. I could count on one hand the number of truly good fantasy films prior (Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, Rankin Bass Hobbit, the original Star Wars trilogy should you count them as fantasy). And, my expectations were incredibly high. The Lord of the Rings is my favorite novel, across any genre. It is one of the greatest novels ever written, and stands alongside the best classic literature of the last two centuries, full stop. To put a work like this in the hands of a Hollywood studio was an invitation to butchery and disaster. Surely Jackson would not be able to meet the high standard I had set.

Nevertheless I had to see the films. They were getting a lot of hype and some advance praise from critics (which I largely avoided), and so made the trek to the theater on Dec. 19, 2001.

Opening night was pandemonium. There were people in line in elven cloaks and chain mail. Two dudes were swordfighting in front of the screen with boffer weapons. Most nerdy of all, a dude in the row in front of me watched the film with an LED headlamp on, following along with the book on his lap.

I kid you not. That's some hardcore nerdity right there. 

When the opening title sequence came on with Howard Shore's atmospheric score the audience broke into cheering and applause.

I will admit, I was rapidly swept away into the film. The Shire looked largely as it had in my imagination. The cast was spectacular. I was moved to tears with Boromir's death. Shockingly, against all my fears, it worked. I left the theater blown away, surprised by joy beyond anything I had hoped. Over the next two years, I repeated the pattern with The Two Towers and the Return of the King. I cried again, when Sam put Frodo on his back on Mount Doom, and Theoden led the ride of Rohirrim on the Pelennor Fields.

I was sad to see it all come to an end.

So, twenty years later, how do they hold up?

Pretty darned great, in my opinion. Great does not mean flawlessly. When I watch them now there are a few parts that I actively dislike (collapsing bridge sequence in Moria, shield-surfing at Helm's Deep, and the green ghost army at Minas Tirith). The Paths of the Dead sequence is not particularly well-done. I don't miss Tom Bombadil and believe that was a smart cut, but I do miss the scouring of the Shire, and believe that its excision makes it a lesser film. The action is over-emphasized and some of the slapstick humor is out of place. Jackson would amplify these flaws a hundred fold in the absolutely abysmal adaption of The Hobbit a decade later.

Are the movies as good as the book? No, they're not, and they could not be, not even with 12 films and an unlimited budget. The world we see on screen is not as deep or wide as the one we encounter in Tolkien's text. Some of the themes and much of the complexity was removed.

All that said, I'm full of gratitude that we have these films. I think 20 years from now they will still be beloved. They hold up, quite well. I'd still love to see a proper Hobbit but I'm happy with the LOTR films. It might be time for a rewatch over the Christmas break.

Between the Hammer and the Anvil

Go on, listen to this one. And then name me a song that is more metal.

I'll wait.

Judas Priest was firing on all cylinders--10 out of 10 for fans of the V-10 powered Dodge Viper--when it released Painkiller (1990). The title track is a MONSTER, and deserves all the accolades it gets. As do songs like Nightcrawler, and Touch of Evil.

But this one... Between the Hammer and the Anvil? Oh boy. If you don't like this, I don't like you. Listen and you'll agree. It's steel. 100% distilled heavy metal.

Storm warning, but there's no fear.

Old Norse Saga part deux: I missed an opportunity to plug Steve Tompkins

With a few more days of separation from my recent DMR Books blog post, I realize I missed an opportunity to plug this wonderful essay by the late, great Steve Tompkins: An Early, Albeit Pagan, Christmas in the Old North.

Steve's essay is worth reading for many reasons, but I think it sums up well a point I wish I had made better: Old Norse literature has not been mined to death, but rather its surface elements have been too frequently skimmed by subsequent authors. If you want to tap into a rich lode, mine the old, original material. But be wary of the wonders and terrors you will find, or the way they might stir some ancient, ancestral memory.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the likes of Tolkien, Howard, Poul Anderson, Moorcock, and Leiber read the Sagas and the stories of the Elder Edda and Prose Edda and drew inspiration directly from them, rather than second and third-hand re-imaginings.

Quoting Steve's piece:

Despite his occasional fallibility with regard to Robert E. Howard, and his near-lifelong wrongheadedness about J. R. R. Tolkien, Michael Moorcock is an extremely perceptive writer, and I don’t believe he’s ever said anything more insightful than this:

To this day I advise people who want to write fantastic fiction for a living to stop reading generic fantasy and to go back to the roots of the genre as deeply as possible, the way anyone might who takes his craft seriously. One avoids becoming a Tolkien clone precisely by returning to the same roots that inspired The Lord of the Rings.

I know thoughtful people who are convinced that “the Northern thing” has been done to death in popular culture. With the best of intentions they urge the fantasy genre, on the page and on the screen, to turn to other climes and other cultures, retiring a stripmined, ransacked iconography wherein the very aurora borealis might now seem as tawdry and insincere as a neon come-on. Christopher Tolkien’s presentation of The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise is not only a fascinating foreshadowing of The History of Middle-earth but a reminder that no matter how many meretricious and mercenary versions of the Ancient North’s mythology have been in our face, for many of us those gods and heroes and dooms, to the extent that the original texts preserve them, are also in our blood.

 

(Not) Lost in Translation: The Influence of Old Norse Saga and Myth on Robert E. Howard and Sword-and-Sorcery

My latest essay has been published on the fine blog of DMR Books. Check it out here.

Norse Saga was hard to access back in the day for obvious reasons (you had to be able to read old Icelandic). But that changed with the first English translations in the late 1700s/early 1800s. By the late 1800s they were pretty widely available, and by the early 20th century many casual readers were encountering them in the likes of the popular Everyman's Library.

Robert E. Howard read them early, and late, in his life, and they influenced his fiction. The Sagas also influenced all of the great names in sword-and-sorcery, including Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Poul Anderson, and others. This essay is my attempt to shed some more light on how that all happened.

Review of KEW special edition Phantasmagoria

Khan!! I mean, Kane!!

I recently finished a special edition of Phantasmagoria dedicated entirely to the life and works of the late, great, Karl Edward Wagner. You can read the review here, at the blog of Tales from the Magician's Skull.

In short, it's excellent. If you love KEW you'll love this. Pick it up. Lots in here to love including many reminisces from friends and colleagues who knew him, KEW stories including the wonderful "In the Pines" and "Sing a Last Song of Valdese," a detailed interview with the makers of the recent documentary The Last Wolf, rare interviews with Wagner himself, scads of cool artwork, and much more.

Whetstone #4 is available (free sword-and-sorcery!), plus Viking Adventures

Free sword-and-sorcery, you say?

Whetstone, a new amateur digital magazine devoted to short works (2,500 words maximum) of sword-and-sorcery, yesterday published issue no. 4. You can download it here, free of charge.

Managing editor Jason Ray Carney asked me pen a short introduction, and I was happy to do so. While I'm behind on my reading of issues 1-3, I wholeheartedly support this effort, and I've derived hours of enjoyment on the Whetstone Discord group. I was glad to kick off the issue and the TOC looks great.

Time to do some reading.

While I'm on the subject of new(ish) sword-and-sorcery(ish), I recently finished Viking Adventures by DMR Books. While it got off to a bit of a slow start, this volume gained serious steam, and I positively could not put down the closing tale, "Vengeance" by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur. This is easily one of the darkest (near black), most intense tales of revenge I've ever read. I was floored to learn it was published nearly a century ago in 1925. It is as dark as the darkest Grimdark fiction, and while the prose is not modern it's highly readable, and beautiful in places.

Henry Kuttner's "Ragnarok" was a magnificent closing note, a fine poem about the twilight of the Northern gods. There are some other great entries in the volume too.

In short, I recommend Viking Adventures. Then again I'll read about anything with a Viking on the cover.

Eternal Champion: Sing a Last Song of Valdese

Can you have metal Friday on a Tuesday night? You can if its Thanksgiving week.

Today I'm highlighting "Sing a Last Song of Valdese" by Eternal Champion, arguably the most sword-and-sorcery heavy metal band of all time (Manowar might have something to say about that...maybe). I mean, lead singer Jason Tarpey writes for DMR Books. 'Nuff said.

I'm about halfway through the Karl Edward Wagner special edition of Phantasmagoria (highly recommended; it's FUN), and came across this quote by Tarpey about the inspiration for this song:

"I love Karl Edward Wagner; I almost made 'Sing a Last Song of Valdese' about another book of his called Dark Crusade, but then it occurred to me that I've already written a song dedicated to his novel Bloodstone, so this time around I wanted to focus on his short stories. There's actually elements of the lyrics in 'Sing a Last Song of Valdese' that are pulled from other stories in his collection called Night Winds, most notably the story 'Raven's Eyrie.' Kane is just an awesome character and I'm always tempted to write more songs in his honour."

Let's hope Tarpey does just that. Have you seen the album cover for their 2020 album Ravening Iron, with artwork by the great Ken Kelly? This image is mainlined S&S; to paraphrase Nigel Tufnel it could be "None more (sword-and-sorcery)." Love it.

You pulled the trigger on my Love Gun, indeed. Thanks Ken Kelly.

Sword-and-sorcery had a BAD reputation in the late 70s/early 80s; here's more evidence

In Flame and Crimson I advanced the claim that one of the principal reasons behind the demise of sword-and-sorcery was its poor reputation. I was mainly referring to critics and academics and cited many which were regularly lampooning the subgenre, but publishing houses were beginning to consider it anathema as well.

I feel pretty confident in that claim, and believe I backed it up pretty well in the book, but here's some more evidence courtesy of James Maliszewski of the Grognardia blog. This post includes some screenshots of an interview conducted with the late, great Greg Stafford in the pages of White Dwarf #17, published in early 1980. Here Stafford relays a story about submitting a sword-and-sorcery story to the editor of a semi-pro 'zine, and meeting with a harsh rejection slip stating that "all S&S is the same hackwork."

Worse, Stafford mostly agreed with the assessment.

The cool bit is that he used that rejection as fuel, and a springboard to create a highly innovative role-playing game, Runequest, which I played the hell out of back in the 80s. 

If it took a kick in the balls to S&S to produce Runequest, that rejection slip was probably worth it. 

But, like a kick in the balls it doesn't hurt any less.

It's an interesting post, and leads to unanswered questions about sword-and-sorcery and whether it can continue as a viable art form. How do we maintain its traditions and archetypes and themes, while not falling into the same repetition and pastiche trap that led to its demise in the mid-1980s?

Signs of a (modest) S&S revival

Look around, you can see the drips. Slow, and few, but persistent.

That's pretty sword-and-sorcery.

A new issue of Phantasmagoria dedicated entirely to Karl Edward Wagner.

 

Podcasts and videos popping up, led by Rogues in the House, and now Skull TV.

 

The appearance of new writers with promise (Schuyler Hernstrom), slowly swelling the ranks of the few and the proud (Scott Oden, Howard Andrew Jones, James Enge) who have been working all along.

 

Tales from the Magician’s Skull exceeding its modest kickstarter funding goal of $10,000 more than fourfold.

 

New publishing venues appearing on the scene. The likes of Whetstone. New volumes of Swords and Sorceries, and Savage Realms. An outfit called Flinch Books announcing a forthcoming anthology, Blood on the Blade.

 

DMR Books cranking up the volume with new titles and classic reprints.

 

More fans connecting, led by the Discord Whetstone server.

 

More critical awareness and historical perspective of the subgenre’s roots, of which I like to think I played a part. As have the likes of Deuce Richardson, and others.

 

The latest is the new film The Spine of Night. You can find a spoiler-free, good review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeiAswHi790. The reviewer describes it as a cross of Fire and Ice and Heavy Metal, violent and bloody as hell, with rotoscoped animation. I’m all in.

 

So, what can we deduce from this? Maybe nothing. A coincidental confluence, a mild nostalgia-fueled blip. 

 

But maybe, a portent, something larger, brewing at a low simmer. 

 

We’ll see.

Who am I?

Not Jean Valjean. But, maybe not quite who you’d expect, either. 

On this blog I have assumed a certain persona, centered around my various interests, which you can deduce through my posts. A guy who loves sword-and-sorcery, heavy metal, horror. All true, and I will remain a fan of these things until the day I die. A published author, recently, of Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery, a book I’m glad I wrote, and that I believe my favorite subgenre needed.

 

But then I realize, from that esoteric online profile you may deduce I’m some long-haired tattooed buff dude, or maybe a basement dwelling nerd trapped in the 80s. For the record, I claim just a little bit from each of those descriptions. But my posts here would likely lead you to an inaccurate perception of the man behind the keyboard.

 

The truth is a lot more prosaic. The truth is, I’m just an average guy.

 

Sword-and-sorcery is maybe 2% of my story. I live a full life as a knowledge worker, a dad, a homeowner, and all the other trappings and commitments typical of a middle-age (48 year old) dude living in 21^st century suburbia.

 

So, feel free to stop there, but if you want more, here’s a little about me.

I backed Tales from the Magician's Skull; you should too

Tales from the Magician's Skull has launched a second kickstarter, More Tales from the Magician's Skull, to fund additional issues beyond no. 6. You can find the kickstarter here.

I backed it today, going with an option that includes five print and digital issues.

If you enjoy sword-and-sorcery and want to see it survive and thrive, you have to support these types of publishing ventures. I'm not trying to shame anyone who doesn't have the cash, but if you do, why not give it a go? You're helping to foster new writers, new stories, and a pretty cool outfit. I love what Goodman Games has done with the magazine and the Skeletor-esque, tongue-in-cheek Skull mascot who immolates interns like a bug zapper. Lots to love here.

The Wolfen, Whitley Strieber

I own this same edition...

Stephen King once said that the release people get from horror is "sort of narcotic," freeing us from our normal day-to-day tensions (Feast of Fear: Conversations with Stephen King). I can identify. I recently after a span of probably 38 years re-read Whitley Streiber's The Wolfen, starting it while airborne, heading to a high-stress business trip to Dallas, TX. I can tell you, this fun novel took my mind off pandemics and presentations and uncertainty and swept me off to 1970s Brooklyn, where a pack of werewolves are terrorizing the city's ghettos.

I have some history with this book. My grandfather, a WWII veteran whose experiences in the Pacific I detailed here on the Silver Key, liked to read--specifically, he favored thrillers, horror, men's adventure, war novels, and other fun potboilers. He kept a few shelves of books in his basement, and a couple more shelves of paperbacks behind his leather easy chair. As a boy of probably 8-10 years of age I remember creeping behind his chair in his living room, reviewing the spines of books he had on his shelf, and selecting The Wolfen purely for its evocative title. The menacing eyes on the cover reflecting a woman in terror assured me I had made a good selection.

I still remember reading it, all those years ago, and being absolutely terrified, beset with nightmares in the days after. The book opens with a highly effective scene of two cops assigned to dump duty, marking up abandoned cars in need of crushing at the Fountain Avenue Automobile Pound. The place is typically no threat, with only a few homeless, rats, and stray dogs to contend with. But on this night the two policemen are surrounded, savaged, and eaten by a pack of werewolves in the most savage manner imaginable. These creatures are so fast that the cops aren't able to clear guns from their holsters.

Streiber's great conceit with The Wolfen is that werewolves have been living among us for thousands of years. Only scant, half-forgotten accounts remain. These are not classic Lon Chaney werewolves--men by day which transform into beasts by the light of the full moon--but an advanced series of semi-intelligent predators, wolf-ish but with fearsome paws that can grip like hands and end in razor claws, rudimentary intelligence, and faces that have something of humanity in them. Living stealthily on the edges of society, these incredibly efficient hunters and killers live off humanity, who exist side-by-side with the packs in blissful ignorance. The Wolfen plays on the theme of the threat of urban decay. Recall that New York in the 1970s was in deep crisis, a time when "wholesale disintegration of the largest city in the most powerful nation on earth seemed entirely possible." The wolfen are symbolic of the rot that accompanies urbanization.

I still have my grandfather's same paperback copy, and I loved it almost as much during this recent Halloween inspired re-read as I did as a kid nearly 40 years ago. I know that Streiber has gone off the deep end and is a bit of a pariah in horror circles, but he wrote The Wolfen (1978) very early in his career, and the book throws off sparks. If you like monsters and mayhem and hard-boiled police investigations and gunplay, you'll like The Wolfen. 

Unearthing David Drake's The Barrow Troll (back from Dallas)

Holy fuck. I'm back after 11 straight days of work, including a six-day conference in Dallas that consumed as much as 16 hours on given days. Delayed return flight, finally got in this morning around 2 a.m. 

I'm officially on E. Time for a short break.

During this epic stretch Tales from the Magician's Skull published my latest piece, "Unearthing David Drake's 'The Barrow Troll.'" I love this particular story and enjoyed my most recent re-read. Seek it out; as you will see from the linked piece it's been published a shit-ton over the years, and for good reason. It's great.

The Day of Might hath come!

 

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

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

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

Heart of a Lion, Judas Priest

For this Metal Friday, an obscure song by Judas Priest that nevertheless kicks some serious ass.

"Heart of a Lion" was supposed to appear on Turbo, but did not fit the album and so Rob Halford offered the song to the band Racer X, who parlayed it into a minor hit. Racer X admittedly do a nice version, but it doesn't compare to peak Halford wailing the chorus.

On Fridays at least I have the Heart of a Lion.

Listen and enjoy. And have a very metal weekend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ten Sword-and-Sorcery Tales For the Haunting Season

My latest post is up on the blog of Tales from the Magician's Skull: Ten Sword-and-Sorcery Tales for the Haunting Season.

I'm feeling the Halloween season. Over the last three nights, while doing some late evening bookkeeping, I've had in the background Poltergeist, The Witch (2016), and Scream. I do love horror movies... but I also love sword-and-sorcery, and as my post shows one needn't necessarily choose one over the other.

What are your favorite horror-infused S&S tales?

Moorcock's Missed Elric Opportunity

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

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

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

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

Sifting Through a Sword-and-Sorcery Definition

Latest mini-essay is now up on Goodman Games/blog of Tales from the Magician's Skull.

The metaphor of sword-and-sorcery as a sifter came to me while cutting the grass. I wish I could say it was a more profound process but that's it. The drone of the John Deere is apparently my muse.

It's frankly not possible to create a definitive, unassailable list of sword-and-sorcery authors or stories. Nor is it advisable. Trying to do so is not only a fruitless endeavor, but ultimately unhealthy for the process of art. I love the rush of enthusiasm when someone sends me a link to a new comic book or animated film and writes, "dude, check this out, it's SO sword-and-sorcery!" Most who are familiar with the subgenre will know what this sentiment means; whether it ultimately qualifies is always going to be subjective, and in the eye of the beholder. As I argue in the linked essay, it all depends on how fine your definition of S&S is, and what you will allow to pass through your personal sifter, or be caught and held.

I've already seen a comment on Facebook in my response to my essay that "all labels are stupid," which is rather ill thought-out. I wonder what this same person would say if I slapped a mustard label on his ketchup and he proceeded to pour it over his hot dog (who adds ketchup to a hot dog?). Labels have a purpose; broadly they get us where we need to be, and ultimately we decide if we want Heinz or Hunt's or French's or whatever. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Darkest Hour, Iron Maiden

I'm still in the discovery/absorption phase of Senjutsu, Iron Maiden's new album. This has been my pattern with all of Maiden's releases of the last two decades. Starting with their first post reunion album, Brave New World, Maiden has tended to write longer material that takes time to absorb. I've been busy with work and other things and so haven't yet gotten a proper feel for the album in its entirety.

A couple of songs grabbed me right out of the gate, however, among them "Darkest Hour." This is the latest entry in their various odes to World War II ("Aces High," "The Longest Day," etc.), and is a powerful, heartfelt ode to Winston Churchill and his refusal to accede to his critics and bend the knee to the Nazi war machine:

To blaze in glory like a dying sun
One last burning giant till Jupiter moves on
Turn the ploughshares into swords
You sons of Albion awake defend this sacred land

Remembering the life of Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was born on Sept. 1, and as this coincides with my current read: Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man who Created Tarzan, a massive two-volume biography by Irwin Porges, I thought it was time for a post in honor of ERB, albeit a couple days late.

I now consider ERB one of the holy trinity of speculative fiction, along with Howard and Tolkien. He’s right up there with those two in influence and imagination. Your mileage may vary but that’s my power trio, with H.P. Lovecraft coming up close in the rear-view mirror.

Sometimes you can find clues of what makes a great writer by analyzing the facts of his or her life. From a young age ERB was a restless, free spirit. He was highly imaginative, and playful, but he was also relentless. He didn’t stay at any one job for long as he was always searching for the next move, the next scheme, or the career that would lend his life meaning. The string of low-paying jobs he held did not.

These traits often got him into trouble as a youth and resulted in financial woes as a young man. He preferred the outdoors to studying in class. In the army, his nonconformist streak caused him to get busted down in rank and never made him a great fit for the discipline of the armed services. Upon discharge in 1897 he had to overcome a number of struggles all the way to early middle age. These were often of his own making. At several junctures he could have settled for a life of normalcy, but time and again opted out. At one point he was on his way to financial security with a great job at Sears, and senior leadership loved him, but he quit, abruptly.

I know I could not have made the choices he did, which often left he and his young wife penniless. But, his choices ultimately gave us worlds beyond worlds.

ERB finally broke through as a writer in 1912 with “Under the Moons of Mars,” and later that same year “Tarzan of the Apes,” both published as serials in The All-Story. That’s a hell of an opening combination right there. By then he was in his late 30s, a relatively late start for a writer, but the stage was set for a torrent of production. He had lived a life of scarcity and brushes with poverty, and when he finally found his calling the creativity rushed from his pen.

ERB famously wrote that “entertainment is fiction’s purpose,” and his stories are entertainment first, of the highest order. But they weren’t just that. He explored themes of nature vs. nurture, and the evils and depravity of civilization vs. the (harsh) purity of nature. Destructive man with all his vices is contrasted with the beasts of the jungle, who kill and eat but not out of malice or wanton destruction. ERB was also a skilled satirist, critiquing organized religion for example in “The Gods of Mars.” His stories offer a coherent and compelling worldview and a richness deeper than just story.

ERB was influenced by H. Rider Haggard, the grandfather of adventure fiction. Tarzan was derived from the Romulus/Remus myth in which the two founders of Rome were raised by wolves, and to a lesser degree Kipling. But by his own admission ERB was not a big reader of fiction; these were childhood reads. Perhaps as a result, stylistically he is probably the weakest of the major fantasists mentioned above. But his stories are propulsive, and his ideas and storytelling and creativity are on another level. He was doing things no one else was, breaking away from the more formal Victorianism of Haggard et al and writing stuff the people of the age could not put down.

More than 100 years later, they still can’t.

It’s a shame that ERB did not live a bit longer to see the resurgence in interest in his works in the Burroughs Boom of the 1960s. Like REH I’m not sure how widely read he is these days. But both men’s creations are immortal. Just like we’ll always have Conan, John Carter and Tarzan are with us to stay.

Porges’ bio starts slow, 170-odd pages of military and schooling detail that run a bit tedious. But once “Under the Moons of Mars” is out, it hits its stride. In my reading it’s currently October 1912 and Burroughs is finally meeting with success. He’s just completed “The Gods of Mars” for All-Story editor Thomas Metcalf, reader demand for more is huge, and although he has not yet landed a book deal his fortunes are about to dramatically shift.

It’s like I’m reading one of his stories, and I can’t wait to see what dramatic twists and turns come next.

The Fantastic S&S contributions of Cele Goldsmith

Fafhrd and GM going at it,
for show, in "The Lords of Quarmall"

Oliver Brackenbury, host of the Unknown Worlds of the Merrill Collection podcast, recently posted on the Whetstone S&S Tavern Discord group* some screenshots of the introduction to a 1995 White Wolf ominous edition of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. In the volume’s introduction Michael Moorcock writes a bit about the resurgence of sword-and-sorcery in the early 1960s, crediting the subgenre’s rise not only to the talents of the criminally underrated Leiber, but the efforts of Cele Goldsmith (later Lalli when she married in 1964).

In a time when publishers looked down upon the still-nascent subgenre, and authors like Leiber had to abandon S&S and write SF to make a living, Goldsmith (1933-2002) went out on a limb and published the likes of Leiber, Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, and John Jakes in the pages of a magazine in which she served as editor--Fantastic Stories.

From Moorcock’s introduction:

In those days the kind of supernatural romance which dominates today’s best-seller lists had virtually no commercial market. Leiber had done no better with his first Gray Mouser book than I had done with my first Elric book. Not only publishers scoffed at the notion of mass-market editions of these books, we authors scoffed equally. We knew there were only about twenty of us—readers and writers—spread thin across Britain and America… So Cele Goldsmith, when she commissioned Fritz Leiber to write a new series of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories for Fantastic, was taking a big gamble with her circulation figures.

Goldsmith had a reputation for bucking commercial trends throughout her career and so published Leiber's less-fashionable S&S. In so doing she improved the climate and conditions that allowed sword-and-sorcery to reach full flower later in the decade with the publication of the unauthorized The Lord of the Rings, the republication of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, and the publication of the Lancer Conan Saga. 

The great publisher Donald A. Wollheim later gave Leiber an even greater boost by commissioning him for the now-famous “Swords” paperback series (Swords and Deviltry, Swords Against Death, Swords in the Mist, etc. But it’s questionable whether Leiber would have been afforded that opportunity without first showcasing some of his best work in Fantastic (note: I am not discounting Leiber’s start with F&GM in the pages of the John W. Campbell edited Unknown). Under Goldsmith’s editorship Fantastic published a huge number of the all-time Fafhrd and Gray Mouser classics, including the likes of “Bazaar of the Bizarre,” “Lean Times in Lankhmar,” “Stardock,” “The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar,” and “Scylla’s Daughter,” the last of which was later expanded into the 1968 novel The Swords of Lankhmar. Again from Moorcock/White Wolf introduction:

Perhaps because [Goldsmith and Wollheim] worked mostly as pulp fiction editors, they have never been given the considerable credit they deserve, just as Fritz himself—who wrote so much that was illuminating on the subject of literary fantasy and who wrote some of the best examples there will ever be—still does not receive sufficient credit for his enormous contribution to the genre.

It strikes me that I failed to mention the efforts of Goldsmith in Flame and Crimson, though I did mention Fantastic Stories and other magazines as being important vehicles for S&S in the early 1960s, as well as the efforts of Wollheim and his great DAW volumes. I missed a chance to give Goldsmith her just due, and that is my error. I do not own the White Wolf edits of Fafhrd and GM so was oblivious to the existence of this essay. An unfortunate oversight I will rectify when I get to a second edition.

*A great watering-hole for fans of S&S. I was unaware of the Discord platform until joining, which in contrast to its name is a cohesive and welcoming community.

Men of Iron, Howard Pyle

Any Howard Pyle fans in the house? If so, or if you're looking for fun, old-school, historical fiction adventure, my review of Pyle's Men of Iron is now up on DMR Blog.  

Check it out here.

RIP Steve Perrin

Just heard of the passing of game designer Steve Perrin, best known as one of the key creators of perhaps my favorite RPG of all time, Runequest.

Greg Stafford is the figure most strongly associated with RQ, and for good reason, as he was creator of its setting, the wonderful world of Glorantha. But Perrin was the mind behind the game's engine. He created RQ's core rules, the elegant and flexible basic role playing (BRP) mechanics that were successfully transported across multiple iterations, including the likes of Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer.

For a time RQ was my preferred alternative to Dungeons and Dragons largely because of its fun and deadly mechanics for combat, including rules for parrying, hit points by body location, and armor that absorbed damage. I also loved its spell points system, allowing anyone to cast spells. Back in the day we used RQ2 and RQ3 interchangeably, mixing and matching rules as we saw fit, passing many fun hours with these wonderful boxed sets.

Perrin was 75 years old. He'll be missed.