Blog Archives
sScience Fiction (Wired): Conventional wisdom holds that science fiction was written almost exclusively by men until the advent of feminism in the 1960s and ’70s. But when Lisa Yaszek, who teaches science fiction studies at Georgia Tech, went digging through old magazines, she discovered a very different story. Tolkien (Daily Mail): […]
Sensor Sweep: RPG Theory, Paizo, Grimdark vs. YA, Lankhmar RPG, Prydain
Monday , 4, February 2019 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentRPG (RPG Pundit): There’s a whole generation of new D&D gamers who missed all the long history of people studying and debating RPG theory, and the thinking behind the conclusion that regular RPGs are not a good medium for ‘making story’. And a lot of them have been fed the same old bullshit as in […]
Sensor Sweep: Skullsplitter Dice, Fantasy divisions, Future Firearms, Samson Pollen
Monday , 21, January 2019 Sensor Sweep 4 CommentsFiction (DMR Books): I have a real attachment to the supernatural tales that appeared in what is often called the golden age of the English ghost story. Ranging from around 1880 to somewhere in the 1920s its boundaries are as vague as its achievements are remarkable. For a time, in that difficult to imagine world […]
Sensor Sweep: Occultism, Jack London, The Moon of Skulls
Monday , 14, January 2019 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentWriting (Erindor Press): There’s this thing about new writers. They’re very tentative and they’ve yet to embrace any sense of authority over their writing and choice of career or hobby. You can tell by the way they interact with other writers, often being deferential in the extreme to those of us who have published something. They eat […]
Sensor Sweep: Horrors of the Hyborian Age, Tarzan, Keith Taylor, Atomic Tunnels!
Monday , 7, January 2019 Sensor Sweep 4 CommentsRPG (Modiphius): Horrors of the Hyborian Age is the definitive guide to the monstrous creatures inhabiting the dark tombs, ruined cities, forgotten grottos, dense jungles, and sinister forests of Conan’s world. This collection of beasts, monsters, undead, weird races, and mutants are ready to pit their savagery against the swords and bravery of the heroes […]
Sensor Sweep: Black Mask, A. Conan Doyle, Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, and more F. Scott Fitzgerald
Monday , 24, December 2018 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsWriting (Black Gate): The hardboiled school was born in the page of Black Mask Magazine under the editorship of George W. Sutton, with Carroll John Daly’s “Three Gun Terry” (which I wrote about here…) and “Kings of the Open Palm,” and Dashiell Hammett’s “Arson Plus,” appearing in 1923. In 1924, Sutton resigned and circulation editor Phil Cody […]
Sensor Sweep: E. R. Eddison, Robert W. Chambers, Starship Troopers 20th Anniversary Edition
Monday , 17, December 2018 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentWriting (Sacnoth’s Scriptorium): So, while revising to my Eddison piece I came across a striking passage that I’d either overlooked before or, more likely, read when the book in question (Paul Thomas’s edition of ERE’s ZIMIAMVIA) came out (in 1992) and since forgot. In a passage discussing the composition of THE MEZENIAN GATE, Paul describes […]
Fiction (Bleeding Fool): ‘Red Nails’ is a novella first serialized in 1936 in the July through October issues of Weird Tales, and the last of the tales of Conan the Barbarian penned by Robert E Howard, as well as one of the best. Some of the appeal of this yarn may be lost on any […]
Sensor Sweep: C. S. Lewis, Dennis Wheatley, Strange Detective, Convention De-platforming
Monday , 3, December 2018 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentFiction (Adventures Fantastic): Tolkien was the subject of yesterday’s post. He was a member of the famed group of writers known as the Inklings. Another Inkling was Tolkien’s close friend C. S. Lewis, who was born this day, November 29, in the year 1898. In light of yesterday’s post, I thought the above quote was […]
Sensor Sweep: Christopher Tolkien, Robert Jordan, White Wolf, Outlaw King
Monday , 26, November 2018 Sensor Sweep 4 CommentsFiction (Weekly Standard): In 1975, Christopher Tolkien left his fellowship at New College, Oxford, to edit his late father’s massive legendarium. The prospect was daunting. The 50-year-old medievalist found himself confronted with 70 boxes of unpublished work. Thousands of pages of notes and fragments and poems, some dating back more than six decades, were stuffed […]
Sensor Sweep: Streranko, Wulf, Space Warships, Seven Ronin
Monday , 19, November 2018 Sensor Sweep 4 CommentsArtists (DMR Books): Jim Steranko‘s eightieth birthday snuck up on me. Hard to believe that number, because he’s still out there rollin’ like a boss. Jim is possibly the coolest eighty-year-old I know of. This is a last-minute post, so I’ll have to keep things brief. I first became aware of Jim in fifth grade […]
Sensor Sweep: Celtic Fantasy, Donald Wollheim, Creepy Magazine, Hideous Creatures
Monday , 12, November 2018 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsPopular Culture (Men of Violence): Historical fiction special! Vikings! Roman soldiers! Pirates! Swash-buckling soldiers of fortune!68 pages, all colour, packed with reproductions of rare and unusual paperbacks.Articles, reviews, interviews and features on Casca, Gardner Fox, Henry Treece, Talbot Mundy, Rosemary Sutcliff, Rafael Sabatini and forgotten cover artists. Fiction (DMR Books): Awhile […]