Remembering The Cimmerian

I own these guys, and others besides...

When I first got into this “thing” --writing about sword-and-sorcery and heroic fantasy, on the internet, and launching The Silver Key blog, more than 15 years ago—I had no idea what I was doing, or why. Only that I had a powerful urge to write about stuff I loved, and a few ideas to share. That I suppose I hoped someone, somewhere, might read. And maybe even take some amount of pleasure in, or learn something new from my scribblings.

 

One of the first people to take notice of this blog on any scale was the late, lamented Cimmerian website, and the editor of its accompanying print journal, Leo Grin. Back in November 2007 Grin penned a short post praising my newbie efforts. That post is now gone, but the uplift it gave me remains.

A few months later website editor Steve Tompkins emailed to ask me to join a few other writers to contribute to the relaunch of The Cimmerian website, which was moving beyond its Howardian roots to include a broader focus on heroic fantasy and J.R.R. Tolkien. 

Hell yeah. That decision took about three seconds to reach in the affirmative. Steve, I’m in.

 

Grin and Tompkins asked only that we post once a week and consistently hit our deadlines. That proved to be harder than expected with a full-time job that included travel. But I nailed it; I don’t think I ever missed a deadline.

Writing for the website led to my first submission for The Cimmerian print journal, which I believe was the first time I had ever been paid to write about fantasy, and, barring my work as a sports editor for a local newspaper, my first print appearance. Steve edited my piece, strengthened it significantly with some references to REH’s letters, and it went on to earn a nomination for best essay by the Robert E. Howard Foundation. I think Leo had some input on the essay as well.

  

The Cimmerian Journal was all killer, no filler, and served this space far better than any publication since perhaps Amra. Others have attempted similar projects and journals, most of which either faded away or failed. This should come as no surprise, given publishing reality. I have a pretty good idea of the time and effort that goes into high-quality print productions. The time required vs. the financial return just isn’t there. These efforts only work as a labor of love.

I don’t know how Grin did it but for five years he produced an incredibly high-quality, regular print journal with outstanding essays by the likes of Glenn Lord, Don Herron, and Mark Finn, reviews, recaps of Howard Days, original research, contentious and fun letters to the editor, and much more. Poetry by the likes of Richard Tierney and Darrell Schweitzer, for example. One of my favorite all-time essays, not just in the pages of The Cimmerian but favorite essays, period, was Steve Tompkins’ “The Shortest Distance Between Two Towers,” which I first read online but had to get in print. And did. It’s a wonderful comparison of J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard that appeared in vol. 3 no. 3. (March 2006).

I’ve got a few of these issues in digital format, and the following print editions:

Volume 1 Number 1, April 2004

Volume 1 Number 2, June 2004

Volume 2 Number 2, April 2005

Volume 3 Number 2, February 2006

Volume 3 Number 3, March 2006

Volume 3 Number 12, December 2006 (yeah for a time The Cimmerian was being published monthly)

Volume 5 Number 1, February 2008

Volume 5 Number 2, April 2008

Volume 5 Number 3, June 2008

Volume 5 Number 4, August 2008

Volume 5 Number 6, December 2008

 

My first post for The Cimmerian website, “Mourning the loss of print fantasy pubs,” appeared on Feb. 7, 2009. You can read the start of all my old posts here; I would post the first few paragraphs and then link to the rest.

This glorious golden age with The Cimmerian was cut lamentably short. Steve passed away March 23, 2009, far too young, and the world lost an utterly unique, irreplaceable voice. Steve took a backseat to no one as an essayist and walking encyclopedia of the fantastic. I think he was a genius. Deuce Richardson stepped in admirably as managing editor and our work continued, but Grin shut down the operation for good on June 11, 2010. A subsequent crappy controversy and fallout with many former authors resulted in many posts coming down, and a splintering of its archive. 

Along with the end of the website came the end of the journal, in spectacular and melodramatic fashion. Grin declared that all the back issues were going up for sale, and any remaining copies would be burned like the pagan kings of old. I never saw pictures of said burning, but am told it occurred and that there were witnesses. Grin said he wanted to honor the investment of those that bought the journal and not have their collectibles and commitment diminish in value with hundreds of remaindered copies flooding the market. Every issue of The Cimmerian was individually numbered with ink, BTW. Pretty awesome.

On the one hand I respect this decision, on the other the gesture was a little too Viking, even for my Old Norse tastes. At the time I did not have the financial wherewithal to purchase all the back issues of The Cimmerian, so I bought what I could afford based on TOCs that most interested me. 

I cried out, once, when the proverbial torch was lit, and the journal pushed flaming out to sea. I believe they are still accessible in the archives of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, the Ray and Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

I keep meaning to go back and repost all my old Cimmerian essays in full on the blog, and one day may still. But my voice sounded different back then, and moreover I can’t get into that same headspace. I was a different man, the world was different, and I feel they’re someone else’s words, spoken from far beyond. Or perhaps it’s because I was part of a special crew committed to writing about all things sword, sorcery, Robert E. Howard, and J.R.R. Tolkien, a fellowship that has broken up. 

Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

It was an amazing time, and one likely never to be repeated. 

A monthly print journal? We won’t see that again.

Sometime Lofty Towers, David C. Smith

There is a metaphor in this tower, for sure.

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

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

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

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

And in my opinion, is wonderful. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kill Devil Hill, Bruce Dickinson

It's no secret I'm a Bruce Dickinson fanboy. I straight up think he might have saved heavy metal (or at least, threw me a lifeline I desperately clung to during the demoralizing grunge era).

Bruce is not only the lead singer of the world's greatest heavy metal band, but he also has an amazing side solo career. Today's Metal Friday features a wonderful cut off his 2005 solo effort Tyranny of Souls, "Kill Devil Hill."

This song is a paean to the birth of flight and Bruce's aviation obsession. Maiden is notorious for teaching history in their songs, whether you want them to or not/find it tedious or not, and this tune is no exception: 

On December 17th, 1903, the Wright Brothers launched off a downhill track in Kill Devil Hills, and their airplane flew for a full 12 seconds. These 12 seconds would prove to be revolutionary, and the first airplane had successfully taken flight. 

Bruce is in full-throated, top form on this one. The song soars, literally and figuratively, when he leans into the chorus at 1:14. 

As the wind whips over the hillside

Twenty knots over Kill Devil Hill

Steady wind blows over the sand

Twenty knots over Kill Devil Hill

If you're a Maiden fan who hasn't yet explored Bruce's solo career, get on that now. 

Las Vegas is pretty sword-and-sorcery

Kind of like Lankhmar, but a little less stabby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RUSH--Show Don't Tell (Live)

Today's Metal Friday is not really metal... but close enough, and IDGAF. It's Rush, and they get to call the shots.

This choice is drenched in nostalgia. I'm a big Rush fan, and my first concert experience with them was the Presto tour. I'm old enough to remember them looking and sounding like this. Still have the t-shirt too, although were I to put it on it would look like someone spray-painted it on my body.

How's this for old school--I bought Presto (the tape) from a Columbia House deal--buy 12 tapes for a penny, then cancel, and chuckle. Rinse and repeat until Columbia catches on. 

You know the deal. 

Still have the same tape, in fact. Still think Presto is an amazing album, an underappreciated gem from their catalog. So many good songs to choose from that album but I'm going with the opener here. I actually prefer Presto (the song) and The Pass, and possibly Superconductor, but this one is harder and at least brushes up to the edges of being metal.

Video is not cooperating so you can view it here on YouTube.

The subjectivity of star ratings

What do you consider to be a five-star book (on a rating of 1-5 stars)? Or a one star book?

Is the former a book that you couldn’t put down? Or that covers its subject comprehensively and in impeccable detail? Or that is an acknowledged classic (but you didn’t necessarily enjoy)?

Is the latter a book that is badly written? Or maybe you could not finish? Or is it in a genre in which you have zero interest? Or, perhaps its even an acknowledged classic that you could not comprehend, and threw down in frustration.

It could be any one of these, which is why star ratings are so subjective as to be almost useless.

I used to rate books on a scale of 1-5 stars but eventually stopped the practice because I didn’t have a firm set of criteria that measured quality. For example, I once thought only a handful of the very best all-time books (The Lord of the Rings, Watership Down) etc. could earn a 5-star rating, which meant that other awesome books or stories could only earn a lesser rating. In short, I was grading on a curve. But this doesn’t really work; how can you possibly compare The Rise of the Fall of the Third Reich (a 5-star history if there ever was one) to The Lord of the Rings. If I found the latter more enjoyable to read, can the former only ever a achieve a 4 or 4.5 rating? Kind of nonsense.

So, I abandoned star ratings.

And yet, for some unexplainable reason I brought back a star rating for my recent review of Blood of the Serpent. But as I evaluate my 3.5 stars for that book, I realized my rating was not based on any objective measure of quality, but purely on whether the book met my expectations for a prose relaunch of Conan. It didn’t quite, hence the 3.5. But you might find it did for you, and give it a 5 (or didn’t at all, and rate it a 2).

If you look at Amazon or Goodreads reviews you will find that they do not correlate highly with quality, but what I do think they represent is the expectations the reader brings to the book.

For example, Moby Dick rates at a 4.4 while the Da Vinci Code is a 4.6. Does that make the latter better? Perhaps, but it probably means some bored high school students took out their frustration on the former (they wanted Jaws or The Meg, but their expectations were unmet). Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword rates a 4.2, below the sixth volume of 50 Shades of Gray (which rates a whopping 4.8/5). But most likely that’s because its readers got the S&M they wanted in 50 Shades of Gray, as opposed to readers who came to The Broken Sword expecting Brandon Sanderson length epic fantasy. And rated it lower. 

This is a roundabout way of saying that thoughtful individual reviews are superior than the aggregate of a thousand star ratings. 

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

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

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

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