Fiction (Goodman Games): Born as Alice Mary Norton in 1912, Norton started writing while she was still in high school in Cleveland, Ohio. In fact, she completed her first novel while still attending high school, though it was not published until later in 1938. Wishing to pursue writing as a career, in 1934 she had her name legally changed to Andre Alice Norton, and adopted several male-sounding pen names so as to prevent her gender from becoming an obstacle to sales in the first market she wrote for: young boys literature.

History (Know History): The celts are a group of people that are usually linked with western Europe. However, how and why did the Celts end up in Anatolia?

Fiction (Rough Edges): Now I’ve read his novel DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE, and I can see why his books were popular for so long. There’s a lot to like here: a modern hero who’s the unknowing reincarnation of an ancient warrior-king; a lost civilization located in an isolated mountain valley in Alaska, which due to volcanic heating is actually tropical; a couple of beautiful women, one good, one evil, who have a habit of running around in few, if any, clothes (I told you the weather was tropical); a couple of evil high priests; a tentacled, otherworldly horror from a different dimension; castles, strongholds, and epic battles. Just my kind of book, in other words.

Comic Books (Dark Worlds Quarterly): The end has finally come. Warren Publications lost Louise Jones, the top editor in 1980, to be replaced by a revolving door. James Warren was ill and had little to do with the line anymore. Perhaps the biggest blow was the creation of comic shops that sold new types of comics. The old black & white magazine seemed old-fashioned in this day of independent and specialty comics. By 1983, it was over. Harris bought out the rights and produced only Vampirella comics. It is only in recent years that the full impact and power of the Warren comics has been appreciated.

Fantasy (DMR Books): By about 1984, it was pretty obvious that any prestige and interest that Sword-and-Sorcery had garnered heretofore was rapidly waning. The Ace Conans and the pure pastiche Conans were doing well–and the Elrics were hanging in there–but the overall trend was away from gritty, tightly-plotted, combat-centric fiction. For various reasons, bloated door-stopper epics were in ascendance.

Weird Tales (M Porcius): We’ve already read two stories from the July 1938 issue of Weird Tales, “He That Hath Wings” by Edmond Hamilton and “Return to the Sabbath” by Robert Bloch, and the issue includes work by Henry Kuttner (an Elak story) and Manly Wade Wellman (an episode of a serial) that we plan to read someday.  But there are still more stories I believe worth our attention in this issue, tales by David H. Keller, Clark Ashton Smith, and E. Hoffman Price.

Conan (Dark Worlds Quarterly): In the last post, we looked at the lost cities in the Tarzan novels. Edgar Rice Burroughs was one of Robert E. Howard’s commercial inspirations, along with Sax Rohmer. REH imitated both authors but the lost cities of Conan feel more like those found in other adventure fiction. There is a good dollop of H. P. Lovecraft’s R’yleh here too, with its weird geometry. Conan finds eldritch horrors galore in these cities forgotten by time.

Fiction (Sprague de Camp Fan): Remember those blurbs on the back covers of the Lancer Conan books? The first in the series was Conan the Adventurer. Along with the byline “A Hero Mightier Than Tarzan… Adventures More Imaginative Than “Lord of the Rings”” was a paragraph written by de Camp.

Firearms (Athlon Outdoors): SHOT Show is an industry-only trade show for those involved in the firearms and related accessory field. Hosted by the National Shooting Sports Federation (NSSF), the Shooting Hunting Outdoor Trade (SHOT) show is an opportunity to view new products before the general public. So, I took the time to round up the best in the concealed carry handguns category for this year.

Robert E. Howard (Prospero’s Productions): Seldom seen titles from creator of Conan The Barbarian and Sword and sorcery author, Robert E. Howard.

Review (Book Graveyard): Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle are back with the next installment of the Men’s Adventure Library Journal, Atomic Werewolves and Man-Eating Plants. This go around they’ve collected the best in “weird” fiction from Men’s Adventure Magazines from the 50s to the 70s. They even slip us through the loophole with some pulp reprints from the mags including heavy hitters like, MANLY Wade Wellman, HP Lovecraft, Gardner F Fox, Theodore Sturgeon and others.

Science Fiction (M Porcius): In our last episode we read a sex-positive, racism-negative story by Ward Moore that debuted in the April 1956 issue of F&SF.  (I called Moore’s story a “lemon” and a “clunker,” but editor Anthony Boucher said it was “one of the stories I have been most proud to publish.”  Looks like opinions differ.)  While I have the internet archive scan of this issue of F&SF open on my computer, let’s check out the stories it contains by Robert “Psycho” Bloch, Tom “Cold Equations” Godwin, and some guy I never heard of, Henry Gregor Felsen.

New (Withnail Books): Their combined time on screen is barely more than a minute. They remain entirely silent. Their names do not appear in the credits. And yet, for any viewer of Tod Browning’s classic 1931 film it is impossible to deny the impact of Dorothy Tree, Geraldine Dvorak and Cornelia Thaw as the brides of Dracula.

Fantasy (Rough Edges): At almost 500 pages and more than 180,000 words, NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD: STORIES WITH S&S ATTITUDE, from Rogue Blades Entertainment, is the biggest Sword and Sorcery anthology ever published. I’ll be going through it for the next few weeks, a few stories at a time, because with my age-diminished attention span, that’s the best way for me to tackle a big book like this.

Science Fiction (Black Gate): The Last Man on Earth (Fawcett Crest / Ballantine, August 1982). Cover by Wayne Barlowe. I continue to dip into the (seemingly endless) supply of anthologies from the three amigos of science fiction, Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh. I’m not sure how many they actually produced together, but I’ve managed to track down around 80. They began collaborating in the 80s, and averaged over half a dozen books a year, until Asimov’s death in 1992.

Conan (Rough Edges): I’ve been looking forward to this one, and I’ll say right up front that Scott Oden’s THE SHADOW OF VENGEANCE, the latest entry in the new series of Robert E. Howard-related short fiction, did not disappoint. At all. This novella is a direct sequel to Howard’s story “The Devil in Iron”, so, figuring my memory might need some refreshing, I took this opportunity to reread that yarn for the first time in a while.

Forthcoming (DMR Books): The clash of steel, the mysteries of magic, the adventures of a lifetime! Die By the Sword Vol. II promises more daring fantasy and high-stakes adventure than ever before. From DMR Books and the finest fantasists of our time come twelve sensational tales, ready to swallow you whole into a world of sword-wielding heroes, exotic locales, strange creatures, and malefic magic spells!

Comic Books (Starburst Magazine): With Conan the Barbarian: Bound in Black Stone, Zub has teamed up with artist Rob De La Torre to revive the retro pulp spirit underpinning every Conan adventure. Zub’s accessible storytelling, coupled with art that would have John Buscema swelling at the seams, escalates everything fans already love about Howard’s world: satisfying beat-downs, bottomless mythopoeia, and vibrant characters who basically peel themselves off the page.

Military (Frontier Partisans): A legend among the hunters of the battlefield has passed to Valhalla. Chuck Mawhinney matches the classic profile of the Frontier Partisan rifleman we so recently explored, bringing a hunter’s skillset, already nearly fully developed, to the grim work of sniping. Mawhinney grew up in rural Lakeview, in south-central Oregon. As he explained to John Barsness of American Rifleman:

Tolkien (Notion Club Papers): JRR Tolkien. The Notion Club Papers – in “Sauron Defeated” The History of Middle Earth Volume 9, HarperCollins: London, 1993.  [p277]. The Danes attack Porlock that night. They are driven off and take refuge by swimming out to the ships and so to ‘Broad Relic’.[Note 106]* A small ‘cnearr’ [ship] is captured. It is not well guarded. AElfwine tells Treowine that he has stores laid up. They move the boat and stock it the following night and set sail West.

Fiction (Star Ship Cat): By “Dark Religion” I am referring to a whole cluster of tropes, including the Evil Church of Evil or Evil Religion (exactly what it says on the tin), the Corrupt Church (which started out good and got taken over by tyrants or crooks), and the various kinds of Fake Church, including the Synthetic Church or Path of Inspiration (made up to control the lower classes, but not believed by the ruling classes and often known by them to be fraud), and the Scam Religion (deliberate fraud created to fleece the sheep).

Warhammer (Lord Samper’s Library): Constantin Valdor. It is a name that brings forth images of heroism, honour and peerless duty. For it is he who commands the will of the Legio Custodes that most esteemed and dedicated cadre of elite warriors. He is the Emperor’s sword, His shield, His banner and he knows no equal. Clad in shining auramite, his fist clenched around the haft of his Guardian Spear, he is the bulwark against all enemies of the throne, within or without. of Old Earth have been all but vanquished, and the Emperor’s armies are triumphant.

Tolkien (Darth Gandalf): n this video, we talk about Nan Dumgorthin, a place from Tolkien’s earlier drafts that felt like something HP Lovecraft would’ve written.

Mystery (Real Book Spy): If you love the classic Golden Age Mysteries made famous by Agatha Christies and many others, and happen to be in search of a modern whodunit, then you’ve come to the right place. Below are 20 books that pay homage to the Golden Age era while offering a modern take on the genre. From mind-bending mysteries to head-scratching murders, there’s a little something for everyone below.

Cinema (Don Herron): Joe McSpadden dropped a dime to let me know that the Charles Willeford movie The Woman Chaser returns to the Alamo Drafthouse on Monday, February 19 at 7:15pm.

Great chance to catch it on a big screen.

Firearms (Frontier Partisans): There I was, minding my own business, eating some mighty tasty green chili tamales, when the Almighty Algorithm sticks a rifle in my face. Sez I: “Um — WHUT?”Smith & Wesson unveiled their new 1854 lever action rifle at Shot Show this month. Damn. Lookit this thing, will ya?