Fantasy Fiction (Forbes): The fantasy genre has exploded in recent years with the popularity of hit series like Harry Potter and A Song Of Ice And Fire. Fantasy first hit its stride in popular culture with old, pulp sword-and-sorcery stories like Conan the Barbarian and sword-and-planet fare like The Princess Of Mars.

Later, J.R.R. Tolkien sparked the modern era of fantasy fiction with The Hobbitand The Lord Of The Rings, which in turn inspired countless other authors to pen myriad tales of magic and adventure, and even led to the advent of Dungeons & Dragons and hundreds of other tabletop games.

Pop-Culture (Brain Leakage): I just wonder if before he asked it, he’d heard the news that scriptwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge is shaking up the iconic—and inarguably masculine—James Bond franchise by replacing 007 with a new female agent.

Quoting the article:

“Bond, of course, is sexually attracted to the new female 007 and tries his usual seduction tricks, but is baffled when they don’t work on a brilliant, young black woman who basically rolls her eyes at him and has no interest in jumping into his bed. Well, certainly not at the beginning.”

Anime (Walker’s Retreat): While Kyoto Animation didn’t produce much anime that’s in my wheelhouse–just Full Metal Panic–that doesn’t mean they haven’t put out good work, either in the past or present. (e.g. Violet Evergarden) Neither does it diminish the people who worked there or the respect for the work done. Now, because one man decided to torch the building they were in, 34 people are dead and–as quoted above–all of it is gone.

Gaming (Niche Gamer): A class action lawsuit has begun against Nintendo for the “drifting” issue on the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con.

Law offices Chimicles, Schwartz Kriner, & Donaldson-Smith have begun looking into consumer complaints over the controller’s drift issue. For those unfamiliar with the issue, it is when the joystick remains untouched, yet input is still registered. In addition this can also cause some input to be inaccurate (i.e. if the “drift” is to the left, it may result in inputs fully to the right only being half-way).

Awards (Dragoncon): Welcome to the annual Dragon Awards! A way to recognize excellence in all things Science Fiction and Fantasy. These awards are by the fans, for the fans, and are your chance to reward those who have made real contributions to SF, books, games, comics, and shows. There is no qualification for voting – no convention fees or other memberships are needed. The only requirement is that you register, confirm your email address for voting purposes, and agree to the rules. This ensures that all votes count equally. You may register to receive a ballot until Friday, August 30th at 11:59PM (EDT).

RPG (RPG Pundit): And thanks to everyone who’s been buying my products as encouragement to keep me doing videos and livestreams.  Thanks to you guys, both Dark Albion and Lion & Dragon are now GOLD Bestsellers on DTRPG! This in spite of the fact that both products are also sold on other venues like Lulu and Amazon.

Gaming (Table Top Gaming News): The West Kingdom series from Renegade Game Studios is getting a new addition. You can head over and put in your pre-order for Paladins of the West Kingdom. West Francia is under attack on all sides from the likes of Saracens, Vikings, and even Byzantines. The nobles of France must find soldiers to defend their territory. In the end, one will be hailed as the savior of France.

Cinema (G. Scott Huggins): And now for my review of Lifeforce.

When that movie came out in 1985, I was twelve. I hated horror movies, so was uninterested. But I knew the movie was about space vampires, and that sounded pretty stupid to me. Over the years, a number of people have referenced the movie, and it seems to have attained some sort of cult following as an underrated 80s classic. So when I saw it free to watch on Amazon Prime, I decided to see if maybe my twelve-year old self had been overly judgmental.

Pulp Fiction (Don Herron): THE BEST OF EDMOND HAMILTON was created as one in a series of such volumes, released in paperback by Del Rey/Ballantine — but here we have the first hardcover edition done by Doubleday for the Science Fiction Book Club in 1977. Hamilton (1904-1977) wrote the afterword in 1976 but didn’t live to see this collection appear. His wife, editor and introduction writer for this volume, would die in 1978, about a year after this book saw print.

Men’s Paperbacks (Paperback Warrior): Randy Wayne White became a New York Times bestselling author with his 25-book ‘Doc Ford’ series. Launched in 1990, the modern series stars a government agent turned marine biologist who fights crime in the Caribbean. However, before White went mainstream, he authored two men’s action-adventure paperback series in the 1980s – 11 novels in the ‘Hawker’ series written as Carl Ramm and seven for the ‘Dusky MacMorgan’ series under the name Randy Striker.

Horror (Too Much Horror Fiction): Wow, the 20th post in my quest to help horror fans find forgotten books and stories! These descriptions have me stumped, so can anyone help ID these works? Thanks in advance y’all!

1. Paperback, cover mostly black, front cover illustration of an evil or feral-looking naked woman lying on grass, glaring angrily up at the us, the viewer.

Non-Fiction (Glorious Trash): This is basically the primer for Marc Olden’s Narc series, sort of the “nonfiction” version of it. I put that in quotes

because for the most part Cocaine reads like fiction…many, many stories of drug dealers and the narcs who pursue them, with even the oddball “fact” coming off like fiction (like “the famous rock group” that was busted for coke possession and wrote a number one song about it, even sending the narc who busted them a thank-you note).

Pulp & Man’s Adventure Magazines (Menspulpmags): In fact, three of the top pulp magazines that pioneered the pulp genre and had the largest circulations and longest runs in the classic pulp format also pioneered the men’s adventure magazine genre and had among the largest circulations and longest runs in that realm.

Those magazines are ARGOSY, ADVENTURE and BLUE BOOK.