Sorry the blog’s been quiet! Not because nothing’s been going on… just that it’s been going on in other forums. One day I’ll get around to updating the bibliography and other pages, but in the meantime they’re like a peek back. Hard to believe the first posts are nearly 10 years old, moved here when I switched to WordPress all the way back in 2008!
RSS supporting our friends at Black Gate- Weird Tales Deep Read: June, 1923Cover by Heitman for “Murders in the Rue Morgue” June 1923 was the magazine’s fourth issue, and it was still clearly a magazine in search of itself. There are very few authors who had a major impact on the magazine appeared in this issue. The most notable name, of course, is Edgar Allen Poe with a reprint […]
- Tales of Attluma by David C. Smith: A Review and Oron Series Tour GuideDavid C. Smith was the 2019 Guest of Honor at Howard Days 2019 for good reason, having written the acclaimed Robert E. Howard: A Literary Biography in 2018 to complement his decades of writing Sword & Sorcery (he has 26 novels written or co-written, including the Red Sonja series with Richard L. Tierney, the Oron and The Fall of […]
- After Action Report: Gen Con OnlineGen Con is a major — the major — tabletop gaming convention of the year. 60,000 gaming enthusiasts arrive in Indianapolis (where the con has been held since 2003) to participate in thousands of board games, card games, miniature games, role-playing games (including live action), seminars, reveals, auctions, and cosplay. And more. Spread across the Indianapol […]
- A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ Don’t You Cry for Me’“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun) On my Hardboiled Mount Rushmore, it’s Dashiell Hammett, Frederick Nebel, […]
- Future Treasures: Star Daughter by Shveta ThakrarShveta Thakrar’s short fiction has appeared in the anthologies A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Toil & Trouble, The Underwater Ballroom Society, and Clockwork Phoenix 5, and magazines such as Uncanny, Enchanted Living, Faerie Magazine, Mothership Zeta, Mythic Delirium, and Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. Her debut novel Star Daughter mixes Hindu […]
- Edith Wharton, Jean Cocteau, and an Ancient Mesopotamian TaleI have been making my way through Edith Wharton’s autobiography, A Backward Glance. Along the way I found an interesting bit about a famous (even notorious) French poet and filmmaker, and especially an ancient story he told her. Wharton describes her time in Paris, particularly pre-World War I. As usual she spends most of her […]
- Uncanny X-Men, Part 16: Enter Wein, Claremont and Cockrum in 1975Welcome to the 16th installment of my reread of the X-Men, starting from issue #1 in 1963! Today’s post is kind of a big deal, because Giant-Size X-Men #1 is the launch pad for the modern X-Men. This of course leads to the gigantic sales success in the early 90s, the cartoons, the movies and everything. In […]
- Horrific Fright and Traumatic Scenes: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham JonesCover designed by Ella Laytham The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones Saga Press (310 pages, $26.99 hardcover/$7.99 ebook, July 14, 2020) Stephen Graham Jones has been a force on the horror scene for well over a decade now. His first major book Demon Theory came out back in 2007. But he quickly became a […]
- Character Options Explode in Advanced Player’s Guide for Pathfinder Second EditionLast year at Gen Con Paizo released their Pathfinder Second Edition. The reception, from those I spoke to, was generally positive. People hadn’t been particularly displeased with Pathfinder First Edition, though after a decade of the game there were some balance issues. When people gave it a chance, many players transition to Second Edition without […]
- New Treasures: The Sin in the Steel by Ryan Van LoanI have a foreboding TBR (to-be-read) pile by my big green chair, and I’m not the kind of guy who just turns my back on something like that…. except for a really promising fantasy debut, maybe. One with pirates. And a rave review from Tor.com. One like Aidan Moher’s July 23 piece on The Sin in […]
- Weird Tales Deep Read: June, 1923
