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.
"Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other." --H.P. Lovecraft, The Silver Key
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Saturday, August 14, 2021
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.
Monday, August 9, 2021
The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E. Howard studies, vol. 12.1
I took a (small, calculated, $8) risk on the latest volume of The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E. Howard and Pulp Studies, purchasing it based on the table of contents and the fact that editors Jason Ray Carney and Nicole Emmelhainz-Carney are talented and invested in this venture.
I was not disappointed.
Some may not be happy with the direction taken by this semi-venerable journal, which has published 27 issues since its debut in 1990. Jason and Nicole have decided to branch out to the broader field of pulp studies, rather than a laser focus on Robert E. Howard. I think it was a great move. We need a journal that fosters discussion on other Howard-inspired or Howard-adjacent writers, such as Karl Edward Wagner. And we get that with the latest edition.
Vol. 12.1 includes seven pieces, ranging from editorial to
interview, to scholarship to book review, and runs 113 pages.
First the news: I was thrilled to hear that Gary
Hoppenstand, editor of the short-lived but highly regarded fanzine/semi-pro
zine Midnight Sun, is under contract with McFarland to write a book analyzing
Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane studies. McFarland is an independent publisher of academic
nonfiction with a bent towards pop culture. I’ve got a couple of their books on
my shelf, including J.R.R. Tolkien,
Robert E. Howard, and the Birth of Modern Fantasy (which I reviewed for Skelos #1) and Michael Moorcock: Fiction, Fantasy, and the World’s Pain, by Mark
Scroggins. The latter was an invaluable help to me in the writing of Flame and
Crimson. I am very much looking forward to this new book on Kane, for which the
scholarship is lacking. The preface will be written by the great David Drake.
This news was revealed in an interview conducted with
Hoppenstand by Luke Dodd, one of the co-hosts of the Cromcast podcast. Dodd for the same issue contributed a publication history of Midnight Sun, about as thorough a
treatment of that long defunct ‘zine that we can hope to get. Dodd used available resources
form the likes of the ISFDB with additional information from Hoppenstand to
fill in some of the blanks. Hoppenstand launched Midnight Sun as a teenager to help place some of Wagner’s Kane
stories. Hoppenstand had written to KEW enthusiastically after reading Death Angel’s Shadow, starting a
correspondence that led to Hoppenstand placing the likes of “Lynortis Reprise,”
“In the Lair of Yslsl,” and “The Dark Muse,” among other stories, poems, and
artwork. Wagner had experienced difficulty placing some of his Kane stories and
Hoppenstand and Midnight Sun filled
the void, later branching out and publishing other genre authors including David
Drake and H.H. Hollis. Midnight Sun
published its fifth and final issue in 1979, a victim of Hoppenstand's lack of funding.
Given the scarcity of material published on Karl Edward
Wagner I was particularly happy to read Dodd’s pieces, but there are
some other entries in TDM vol. 12.1 worth talking about.
I approached “REH N-grams: A Study of Cultural Trends
Related to Robert E. Howard” by Williard M. Oliver with some trepidation; even
for an REH and S&S nerd this one seemed rather esoteric and data-geeky. I
have read the related “Statistics in the Hyborian Age: An Introduction to Stylometry” in
Conan Meets the Academy and that one, while having some points of merit, left
me a bit cold, mainly because it dwells too long on explaining what stylometry
is and too little on its application to REH; Oliver’s piece however was on
point. The author used a tool called the Google Books N-gram Viewer to analyze the
recurrence of terms related to Howard and his creations and popular phrases. While the Viewer only
includes books published up through the year 2000, the tool helped Oliver demonstrate
a Howard presence in the 1930s, a slight but minor rise in the 1940s and 50s,
then a significant increase from the late 60s through the 1980s. Which tracks
rather nicely with the Arkham/Gnome, Lancer/Ace, publications, and the oft-told
stories of how these latter books brought many readers into the fold. In short, it adds statistical rigor to conjecture.
Quinn Forskitt’s “Building a Universe: An Analysis of the
Works, Lives, and Influences of the Lovecraft Circle” is an invited essay, a
boiled down version of Forskitt’s master’s thesis. While this information is
likely well-known to the die-hards, it’s great to see new scholars and scholarship in the
field. Very readable and engaging work. I found “Adapting Lovecraft to Video
Games: What is Lost, What is Gained,” to be less interesting, only because I’m
not a video gamer, but I have to say this is highly original, and probably a
must-read for players of Hidetaka Miyazaki’s Bloodborne. The author also has a strong grasp of what makes
Lovecraft’s stories unique, and hard to adapt in a visual medium.
Rusty Burke has a review of the new REH biography by Todd
Vick, Renegades and Rogues. While Burke invites the work, defends the need for further
REH biography, and so welcomes it on his shelf, he does declare it only half
successful in its stated purpose: It answers the question of who Robert E.
Howard was, but not why he was important, Burke concludes. In full disclosure I have
not read Renegades and Rogues.
All in all, I enjoyed the heck out of this issue of TDM. And
I’m greatly looking forward to Hoppenstand’s book.
Saturday, August 7, 2021
Technopoly, Neil Postman
Finished Neil Postman’s Technopoly the other day, and loved it, and was enlightened by it, challenged by it. It was very interesting to read a book published in 1992, pre commercial internet, with the premise that technology had (even by then) been so mindlessly and carelessly adopted wholesale, and given such primacy, that it quickly wiped away our norms and culture and destroyed its sanctity and symbols. It's hard to argue with this when we spend all our time with our heads down in our phones these days (self included). One wonders what Postman would have had to say about Tik-Tok.
There is great stuff in here about the insidiousness of "invisible technology," for example standardized testing and our harmful desire to assign IQ scores when intelligence cannot be measured with a single score. Basing our decisions on polling data when this data can change dramatically based on the subtle wording of a question and a given poll taker’s mood, and thus forfeiting our sovereignty or outsourcing it to the crowd. How ruthless efficiency and skill building has risen to prominence over liberal arts education in the drive to create skilled workers who can add to the GDP, warping the true purpose of education. The inevitable advance, today led by neuroscience, to reduce humans to 0s and 1s.
Postman asks some deeply penetrating questions on how we can fight back against Technopoly, which include establishing an academic curriculum rooted in history, across all subjects, that offers a narrative of the ascent of man and why decisions were made and from where our current beliefs/practices/scientific advances/theories have derived. In short, an education that makes us think, not conform, and embrace humanity and the human ideal, not machines. Education is not a means to an end; rather being educated, broadly and richly, is the end goal.
These issues and solutions may sound a bit like cranky conservatism or “old man shouting at cloud” but I happen to agree with many of them. There is something in these narratives that speaks to me, I think anyone who can take a step back and observe will realize that progress is not always for the good, but for the good and bad, simultaneous. More to the point, technology changes the landscape, forever, and while we make gains we inevitably lose something in the translation, including our individual sovereignty. J.R.R Tolkien was acutely aware of this, as was Robert E. Howard (see his letters to H.P. Lovecraft).
I am aware of my own hypocrisy, writing these words on a blog on the internet, with immediate distribution. I am a beneficiary of technology. But I also shake my head at our mindless adoption of the latest shiny that comes along.
In summary I like this damned blog just fine, I don't need a Twitter following.
Friday, August 6, 2021
Sepultura, The Hunt
I was a huge Sepultura fan back in the day, when Max Cavalera was fronting the band. They put out 3-4 stone cold classic albums in that period, with my favorite probably going to Chaos A.D. I was lucky enough to catch them in concert a couple times.
Here is "The Hunt" from that album. The lyrics are a straight up apology for vigilantism, which some days and for some types of offenders I can get behind:
Searching all the places that you hang about
We're looking for you
In the discotheques and the gaming pubs
We're looking for you
And what he has become
And a hundred other boys and girls
And all that you have done
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
The problem with reviews
I get asked for book reviews, with some amount of frequency.
I don’t blame anyone for asking me, or asking others, to review their
book. Now that I’m an author I empathize with that sentiment, quite deeply. All
authors want and need readers, and reviewers. More than money, or at least on equal footing, writers
crave readers who enjoy their work. They seek validation that their work is
good, and connects with a reader on some emotional level. And most want others to write about their book.
But please know that when I get your email, it makes me wince,
and hurt a little inside, as reviews present many problems to the reviewer.
Here are a few:
They’re a huge time
commitment. Reviewing a book requires you to read the book (you better read
it; “reviewing” a book because you know the author is unethical), and read it
closer than you might if you were reading for pure enjoyment. Then comes the
writing. To write a review of any substance requires some degree of planning,
and thought, and care. You can certainly go the route of a four-five sentence capsule
of what you liked about a book, and there is a place for those, particularly on
Amazon. But I think careful reviewing is an art form. An honest review should do
more than breezily sketch the plot and end with “I highly recommend this book
to anyone who enjoys Robert E. Howard.” A good, earnest review should teach you
something new about the book, or the genre, and place the author in a community
of like authors. There should be some indication of the style and manner in
which the story is told. In short, a good review is itself an art form, and
takes time to craft properly.
Related to the above, reading
something new must always close other doors, possibly to something better. Years
ago I wrote a post for Black Gate on the problem of the glut
of fantasy in the market. An intractable problem facing new writers is the
weight of history, and the hundreds of thousands of authors that have gone
before them. In my middle age is it apparent that I will NEVER be able to read
all the books I want to. Right now I’m barely managing a book a week, which
puts me at 52 books a year. At age 48, I might have another 40 years of life in
me, if I’m lucky… that’s a little over 2,000 books, at best. A sobering
thought. My time is finite and I want to spend it well. Should I read a new
book by an unknown author, or should I read the Poul Anderson and Fritz Leiber
and Michael Moorcock titles I haven’t gotten to yet? Or re-read a beloved old
classic?
The moral quandary of
reviewing bad books, or books you don’t enjoy. What if you don’t like a book,
either one you’ve sought out, or one you’ve been asked to review? Do you write
the review, or say nothing? Do you write a (semi) dishonest review, focusing
perhaps on a few things you found OK, while leaving out your valid critiques? I
still think of this
brilliant review of Patrick Rothfuss’ The
Name of the Wind, a highly regarded book which I detested. Like a surgeon
Adam Roberts dissects his problems with that book, comparing it unfavorably with
The Children of Hurin, released at the
same time by the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. Roberts’ review is perhaps a little
arch in places but it’s not mean-spirited. I find it illuminating, with much to
teach us about the potent spell good fantasy can place on the reader, and the
importance of being taken out of the modern world. Some might object to this
line of criticism. If you have nothing good
to say, don’t say anything at all. I do believe there is a time and place
for that sentiment, but I also believe that good critique serves a valuable
function. The problem is that I don’t think most authors want to hear it. And I’m
not sure I want to write it, as I don’t like hurting anyone’s feelings.
...
Now that I’ve spent some considerable digital ink expressing
my deep reservations of the book review enterprise, believe it or not I do want to do more reviews of new works—as I am able. I want to support the
sword-and-sorcery community, and there are many worthy publications and authors
and titles that deserve the exposure and the commentary. I’ll mix them in as I
can.
Friday, July 30, 2021
Sword-and-sorcery news and happenings
DMR Books to publish Viking Adventures in August. Just take my money. Although I've read a fair bit of Viking historicals and Viking flavored fantasy, I'm not familiar with these tales which makes it all the better. In particular I'm looking forward to reading "The Trader and the Vikings." With works like The Broken Sword and Hrolf Kraki's Saga, Poul Anderson does the Northern Thing as well as any author past or present. And damn, that cover (see right). Speaking of DMR you can now pick up Flame and Crimson at that fine publisher.
If you like Conan the Barbarian (1982), this 2 1/2 hour+ video by The Critical Drinker (how fun is that name?) and guest Andre Einherjar is worth the watch. This is an incredibly in-depth, informed, interesting, and just plain fun and compelling listen, with lots of interesting asides on Milius, Dino DeLaurentiis, the riddle of steel, the train wreck that was Conan the Destroyer, and more. I realize a lot of Howard fans don't like CtB, mainly because Schwarzenegger's Conan is not REH's Conan, but these guys make a compelling case that it's a work of surprising depth, and exceptional artistry and quality. I happen to agree.
As for me, I've got an essay on C.L. Moore that will definitely see the light of day as Swords & Shadows has met its funding goals, ensuring that this special sword-and-sorcery themed issue of Sexy Fantastic magazine will be published. I'm also working on a review of Fred Blosser's The Annotated Guide to Robert E. Howard's Weird Fantasy for The Dark Man journal (spoiler alert: It's good).