Blog Archives
sConan meets Cthulhu
Saturday , 18, March 2017 Appendix N, Authors, Before the Big Three, Short Fiction 23 CommentsIn Jeffro’s last Sensor Sweep he made note of the Alexandru Costantin’s recent blog post, which puts forth a rather bold claim – that Robert E. Howard did Lovecraftian horror better than H.P. himself. For those who may be unaware, Howard was one of the major contributors to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. In other words, he wrote stories […]
Summer 1947 Issue of Planet Stories Scans Now Available!
Friday , 17, March 2017 Short Fiction 7 CommentsWhen I first started doing Short Reviews, back even before I was writing at Castalia House, the first real pulp I’d read was the issue of Planet Stories featuring Gardner F. Fox’s Vassals of the Lodestar on the cover. I was completely blown away by how good or how crazy a lot of these stories […]
The Best SHORT Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2016
Saturday , 11, March 2017 Short Fiction 17 CommentsNovels get the glory. Movies get the eyeballs. Television gets the binge-watching. And video games are probably bigger than all three put together! But for my money… short fiction really is where the action is. That really is the most striking things about how times have changed since the seventies. Tabletop games of the period are […]
When I criticize contemporary science fiction fantasy, it is almost entirely from a cultural angle. If something is done almost exactly the same way practically everywhere, I will absolutely light it up. This seems to summon some sort of Greek chorus that has stick up for Hollywood and Big Publishing. Not sure why that is, […]
The first number produced by the extrapolated algorithm was off by one-ten billionth. There were nine zeros behind the decimal point. It was a tiny error, all but impossible to detect unless one was looking specifically for it. The second number was off by twice that. Two in ten billion. Or, rather, one in five […]
Here, things differ. It is not as on Earth. Approach the tree naked, carrying no ax, no saw. Explain in a clear voice your sorrow, but do not use words. Sing. Our trees know music as our universal language. Perhaps there is much which cannot be expressed in such a language, but these things, the […]
I have mentioned before that the small press is where the action is with sword and sorcery fiction. Case in point, Swords of Steel. The back cover says “Not For Wimps!” Swords of Steel came out in February 2015. I had heard about the anthology before it came out. Editor/Publisher Dave Ritzlin had an […]
P. Alexander on Why Pulp Revolution is Different
Saturday , 28, January 2017 Pulp Revolution, Short Fiction 1 CommentChris Lansdown has an excellent interview with the mastermind behind Cirsova Magazine, the inestimable Castalia House blog columnist P. Alexander. Within it you will find the most concise explanation of what Pulp Revolution is and what makes it different that pretty much everything else on the market: What we’re doing with Cirsova is not about […]
SHORT FICTION: “It’s Me or the Robot” by Mark Kirkbride
Monday , 9, January 2017 Short Fiction 12 CommentsWell I sure picked the perfect time to subscribe to Sci Phi Journal. I was very pleased to receive a copy of Forbidden Thoughts as a subscriber bonus just this week! If you haven’t already, you might want to cruise on over to their website and get on board. The subscription has more than paid […]
I had mentioned two years back about the idea of an anthology of orphan sword and sorcery characters– Jirel of Joiry, Elak of Atlantis, Rald of Forthe, Prester John, Kothar etc. We have seen some characters continued by other hands, Adrian Cole has written two Elak of Atlantis stories and now we have a full-fledged […]
SHORT FICTION: The Teenage Girl’s Robot Army by Rawle Nyanzi
Monday , 2, January 2017 Short Fiction 26 CommentsI’d put it off for a long time, but when I found out that Sci Phi Journal had purchased a story from top book blogger Rawle Nyanzi I finally bit the bullet and figured out how to become a Patron over there. (It’s a relatively painless process.) It’s a very short piece and I admit, […]