Some more S&S thoughts on the way; Keith Taylor news

Recently I've completed a couple of essays that will be published, both as early as tomorrow, by Dave Ritzlin over at DMR Books and Bill Ward at Tales from the Magician's Skull. "Myth manifesting in the present: Robert E. Howard’s “Marchers of Valhalla”* was a semi-spontaneous eruption of sheer joy to see Howard making myth, very much in the vein of J.R.R. Tolkien, with this wonderful, lesser-known story that Dave recently reprinted in Renegade Swords 2. Anything with Vikings in it gets my attention, and when you combine REH at his wild, poetic best with mythic Aesir I'm all in.

The piece for Tales from the Magician's Skull, "Under the spell of Keith Taylor's Bard Songs"* was likewise inspired by two new-to-me stories from Keith Taylor from Renegades Swords 2 (these stories were first printed in the revival of Weird Tales back in 1988). Since then, I was able to obtain Keith's email address and wrote to him, and he's generously and at length been answering a series of 10 questions I posed to him about his early influences, writing career, and current health and upcoming plans. Great stuff from Keith which I hope to publish in some form or fashion.

(*Bonus points to those who spot the Blind Guardian references in both essays; they're pretty obvious).

Satsuma covers Ratt's "Lay it Down" and Judas Priest's "Hellion/Electric Eye"

At many points in my life I've debated picking up the guitar. I've always thought it would be awesome to be able to bust out a six string and entertain guests on the beach, or plug in and replicate some of the favorite riffs of my youth. Wouldn't that be cool?

Then reality smacks me upside the head. Specifically, the effort, and hours, it would take.

One of my friends brews beer. He spends hours, a couple weeks, to make a halfway decent batch. I've tried many; they're pretty good, though not great.

"Don't do it unless you love the process, man," he tells me.

"Why?" I ask.

"Because you can drive down to the local liquor store and buy something 3x better than you or I could make."

He's right of course.

The same words of wisdom apply to the guitar. I think about the amount of effort, and practice, hours upon hours, it would take to even muddle through a song. Is it worth it? Maybe? And then I think of this Japanese dude Satsuma, who exposes me to the futility of that dream. Look at this damn cover of Ratt's "Lay It Down." I'm in awe. This dude RIPS. So badass.

Check out his rendition of "Hellion/Electric Eye." I'm in awe of this guitar god. Stick around for the solo.

I can't even imagine the amount of practice that went into this.

So yeah, on second thought, I'll stick to watching Youtube, and dreaming of being a guitar god.

A wall of S&S

I'm currently in the final stages of a basement office/bar renovation that will yield me a retreat worthy of the Gods. This lengthy project, which left me without ready access to any of my books, is finally wrapping up, allowing me to spend some time unboxing and reshelving my small arsenal of S&S and other titles.

I decided to devote one bookcase entirely to sword-and-sorcery. Or mostly. There's a few odd books of mythology mixed in here, some Tarzan and sword-and-planet, old swashblucklers and historical fiction, etc., but mainly it's a wall of S&S coming right at you. Click on the photo to zoom in and revel in its greatness, if you enjoy such things (I know I do).

Behold the wall! Fear the wall, mortal dog!

Sometimes you get lucky: An S&S haul

Sometimes you just get lucky.

I managed to acquire this haul for free, from a very nice gent who was selling his home, moving across the country, and didn't want to be bothered hauling boxes of books with him. This was someone who said they had 75 S&S books to give away, but I was thinking I might be wasting 2 1/2 to 3 hours on a round trip drive, if the "S&S books" turned out to be fat fantasy/Harry Potter/etc. 

Instead, it turned out to be a jackpot. I told the dude that rest assured, his books were going to a good place.

Presented here for your viewing pleasure.

Gateways to sword-and-sorcery

Monster Tales! 

What are yours?

I have many fond memories of youthful reading. When I was in elementary school I was enthralled with the likes of Fire-Hunter by Jim Kjelgaard, Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (abbreviated/illustrated version), and was engrossed/entertained/scared shitless by Monster Tales: Vampires, Werewolves & Things. I'm still looking for a reasonably-priced copy.

With the benefit of hindsight I realize that these books were leading me, inevitably, toward sword-and-sorcery. Barbaric/pre-historic heroes. Warfare. Monsters and the weird. Throw into a bubbling cauldron and you get S&S. Soon I would find The Savage Sword of Conan, and my path was fixed. But I was already leaning heavily in that direction.

My gateways to sword-and-sorcery are here at Tales from the Magician's Skull. 

Flame and Crimson in Xuthal: Innsmouth Book Club Podcast is up

As mentioned on my last post, I was recently invited to guest on the Innsmouth Book Club podcast. That recording is now up; you can listen here (note: the podcast is hosted on Patreon but you don't have to be a patron to listen).

I have to say I was probably at my relaxed best; I had a lot of fun with this show. I spent a fair bit of my time on my childhood memories of what got me into S&S. I also relayed a story of the time I visited the abandoned Danvers State Hospital, one of the eeriest experiences of my life. I do after all live in Lovecraft country, a long stone's throw from the historical Innsmouth, Newburyport MA.

The two hosts were great and a lot of fun, and were well-read and asked some good questions that allowed me to ramble. It's amazing that you can just hop on a Zoom call and shoot the shit for an hour with two like-minded dudes from Britain. What a world.

The first 30 minutes or so are the two guests talking about Xuthal of the Dusk, with me joining later.

Some swordly-and-sorcerous goings-on, and guest appearances

If you want to get invited on a podcast, the thing to do is to write a book (it's that easy! Well, not the writing of the book part, which is rather hard). Then apparently you have become an authority, or a quasi-celebrity, instead of an average boring dad who likes to read about men stabbing monsters, and each other, during his spare time.

Tomorrow I will be serving as guest on the UK-based Innsmouth Book Club, a podcast which covers HPL, CAS, REH, and other like authors. The hosts will be covering "The Slithering Shadow"/"Xuthal of the Dusk," then I'll be on to talk S&S more broadly. Little do these guests know I live within a stone's throw of the historical Innsmouth, Newburyport MA. And have seen Deep Ones (or maybe they were just drunk bar patrons ... who knows).

Next month I've been asked to guest on a new show called Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection, with the episode to appear sometime this summer.

I've also been told that a podcast episode I did with Robert Zoltan on the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show last June is nearing 2K views. Check that out here.

Among the reasons I love to write is that it allows me to express my true and actual voice, which due to a combination of natural introversion (I definitely recharge in solitude, away from people) and mild social anxiety is far easier for me to do in the written word than in conversation. That's why I've resisted starting a podcast myself. I fear I'm not very glib, or interesting. Just interested in certain things, like S&S and heavy metal, if that makes sense.

I hope I can deliver something of value to these programs. Even against my natural inclinations I'm leaning into the apprehension and doing my part to spread the gospel of sword-and-sorcery.

On the writing side of things, I recently had published an academic essay, "From Pulps to Paperbacks: The role of medium in the development of sword-and-sorcery fiction," in The Journal of American Culture. The publisher is the Wiley Online Library and it's behind a paywall, but if you're interested and/or have library or other free access, you can find it here. One of my discoveries during the research and writing of Flame and Crimson was that sword-and-sorcery was shaped as much by medium as by the idiosyncratic contributions of individual authors. That's what this essay is about, covering the role of pulps, magazines and fanzines (in particular Amra), and mass-market paperbacks, on how sword-and-sorcery came to be. It was done on a very tight deadline after Jason Ray Carney, editor of The Dark Man, asked me to fill in for someone else who had to bail last minute, and so it relies on much material from Flame and Crimson. But the focus is more squarely on the medium, not the authors. I do hope it opens up S&S to some academic-types and other cultural observers.