Fiction (Semicolon): The Secret of Terror Castle is the first installment in The Three Investigators series of mystery detective stories, also known as Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators. The original series was published from 1964 to 1987 and comprised 43 finished books, written by at least five different authors and illustrated by a multiplicity of illustrators over time.

Anime (Kairos): Anime’s unique visual storytelling enthralled audiences with its trademark artistry. But the industrywide abandonment of hand-drawn cel animation to digipaint has degraded the medium’s look and feel.

Weird Tales (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Being a Pulp writer was not a high-status affair. A sale was a sale. Some Pulpsters were completely mercenary, selling to anyone, any genre that would pay a penny-a-word, or some times less. It was only with the coming of Science Fiction that writers thought to make a living writing only one kind of story. Edmond Hamilton and Jack Williamson tried their hardest to be simply SF writers but succeeded in a limited way.

D&D (Jon del Arroz): Dungeons & Dragons has a woke problem with Wizards of the Coast and the official D&D discord attacking Gary Gygax.

Comic Books (Comic Books.com): Acclaimed illustrator Daniel Brereton is the latest artist to offer his talents to Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring. The four-issue limited series spins out of Heroic Signatures and Titan Comics’ Conan the Barbarian series and puts the spotlight on the “Sword of Vengeance.”

Tolkien (Notion Club Papers): The Notion Club, as depicted by Tolkien, is a magical society; albeit not of the earlier and formal kind (of which Charles Williams was an active and advanced participant) that was characterized by graded initiations, sworn secrecy, and costumed and scripted rituals.

Weird Tales (Paperback Warrior): Pennsylvania native Lloyd Arthur Eshbach (1910-2003) discovered science-fiction at the age of 15. He soon began writing his own stories and sold his first to Science Wonder Stories in 1929. Eshbach became influential with his small Fantasy Press, initially publishing authors like E.E. Smith and Robert A. Heinlein. My first experience with Eshbach is the novelette Isle of the Undead, originally published in the October 1936 issue of Weird Tales. 

Tolkien (Fairly Fictional): Today we explore the history of Glorfindel, before trying to decide whether or not he is the most powerful elf of the Third Age. Explore the alternative elves who may also be the most powerful, including some unexpected mystery candidates.

James Bond (MI6-HQ): ‘From Roger Moore With Love’ is an exclusive behind the scenes look at the charismatic actor who redefined the role of James Bond. The film, commissioned by BBC Arts and Fremantle, takes viewers back to a golden age of cinema, tracing Moore’s unlikely rise as a working class boy from South London to an era-defining global icon.

Art (Allphtooz): Stephen Emil Fabian (Stephen E. Fabian; 03.01.1930 – American Artist) – American illustrator fiction and fantasy.

Authors (DMR Books): Yesterday was Keith Taylor’s birthday. I always try to come up with a DMR blog post to celebrate the occasion, since Mr. Taylor is one of the greatest living practitioners of Sword-and-Sorcery. However, from the beginning of his career, Keith has always done a great job of incorporating horror elements into his heroic fantasy fiction, as any good S&S author should.

Comic Books (50 Year Old Comics): In June, 1974, the Hyborian Age was clearly in full flower at Marvel Comics.  Along with the latest installment of the publisher’s successful ongoing Conan the Barbarian series (issue #42, for the record), the month also brought the fans of Robert E. Howard’s famous sword-and-sorcery hero the first issue of a brand-new quarterly companion title, Giant-Size Conan.

D&D (The Other Side): Yes. There was the giant “The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons” book which seemed to please and piss people off in equal measure. There were some 50th Anniversary minis, and yes, the new edition of D&D, which they missed the mark on by having the Monster Manual out in 2025. But in truth, there has been…very little.

Review (Rageaholic): Razör Reviews NOSFERATU (2024) – Gothic Horror is Back!

Horror (Too Much Horror Fiction): Busting out of nowhere in 1977 with his debut novel from Dell, John Saul had success immediately, watching as Suffer the Children hit the bestseller charts and sold millions of copies, thanks to an easy-to-remember name and a first-ever tv commercial ad campaign. Saul wrote his books fast, like in a month, so the publisher was always happy to have a new paperback original from him every year.

Fiction (Tangent Online): Since 1999, Keith Taylor has been publishing a series of stories in Weird Tales about Kamose, a magician and the archpriest of Anubis in ancient Egypt.  Servant of the Jackal God collects these stories and adds two new ones featuring Kamose and some of his aids. It’s actually surprising that there are so few fantasy stories set in ancient Egypt. There’s a rich mythology to draw from, which not only is fascinating, but also helps the story to stand out from the pack of fantasy. 

Clark Ashton Smith (Wormwoodiana): The Clark Ashton Smith and weird fiction scholar Scott Connors passed away near the end of October. I’ve looked for obituaries but have found none. His work deserves more attention, particularly in the weird fiction community, so I’ve gathered some information from friends and other sources, and would like to present it here as a memorial.

Year’s Best and Worst (Book Graveyard): For the list we’re not including new releases as this is primarily a vintage genre fiction blog. Though we will give a shout out to Terrance Layhew and his book One Man’s Treasure- it was incredibly enjoyable. We’re also not including art books, or magazines but we’ll mention them all here because I love them and everyone should support them by buying a copy.

Robert E. Howard (Pulp Super-Fan): An interesting series of works on Robert E. Howard is the “Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard” series by Fred Blosser from Pulp Hero Press. At present the series consists of five volumes.

Year’s Best (Grave Tapping): There was a time not so long ago when I read enough new mystery and crime releases that I would have felt more comfortable (although not that comfortable) putting together a “best of the year” listing, but 2024 hasn’t been that kind of year. I have read a bunch of books published this year—I’ve even reviewed many of them here at the blog and at Mystery Scene’s website, which like the magazine is now gone—but my survey of the genre hasn‘t been broad enough to declaratively state what I think of as the best.

Pulp (Rough Edges): I really like the cover by Robert Fuqua on this issue of AMAZING STORIES. It’s certainly dramatic. William P. McGivern is the dominant author in this one with three stories: the lead novella under his own name, a novelette as P.F. Costello, and a short story as Gerald Vance.

Westerns (Western Fiction Review): The author, George W. Proctor writing as Zach Wyatt, plays with historical facts a little so that the fictional Josh Sands can take a lead role in the battles to stop Woll’s invasion of Texas. Sands private life is also explored when he is cut lose from the Rangers due to financial cuts.

Tolkien (Silver Key): I’ve started re-reading The Silmarillion. It’s been a few years, and I’m due to revisit the rich and wonderful history of Middle-earth. I’m enjoying it as much as I did upon my last re-read, which prompted me to revisit my old “Blogging the Silmarillion” series for the Cimmerian website.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (M Porcius): Recent purchases and recent reading have put Edgar Rice Burroughs at the front of my mind, so why not take down from the shelf my 1963 paperback printing of the eighth Tarzan novel, Tarzan the Terrible, which has a Richard Powers cover hinting that Lord Greystoke is going to encounter Tyrannosaurus Rex?

Comic Books (Rip Jagger Dojo): Beowulf – Dragon Slayer adapts the famous Old English epic poem into comics form. It was not first to do so and far from the last. Michael Uslan and Ricardo Villamonte are the creative team on this effort. Save for Beowulf getting a strange superhero-like visual treatment (his helmet is supposedly a minotaur skull), the story begins much like it does in the original Anglo-Saxon poem.

Authors (Goodman Games): We’ve talked a lot about Fritz Leiber, whose birthday we’re celebrating today, over the last few years. Leiber, born December 24th, 1910, is most widely known among gamers as the man responsible for the fantastic Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories. In the years running up to DCC Lankhmar, a lot of ink has been spilled discussing Leiber’s most famous creation. Today, however, we’re going to examine some of Leiber’s other work and see how we can apply it to our games—especially DCC Lankhmar.

Weird Tales (Tellers of Weird Tales): Many years ago, author Jeff VanderMeer wrote an essay called “Moving Past Lovecraft” in which he objected to what he called the adulation, imitation, fetishizing, and commodification of H. P. Lovecraft. He wrote that soon after his wife, Ann VanderMeer, resigned as editor of Weird Tales magazine. There was a controversy and some conflict in all of that. One of the principals, Marvin Kaye, has since died.

Westerns (Vintage Pop Fictions): Mad River, published in 1956, is one of the handful of westerns written by Donald Hamilton. Hamilton of course is best known for his spy fiction. He wrote crime fiction as well. I’ve read several of Hamilton’s Matt Helm spy novels and I consider them to be among the best spy thrillers of their era, or any era for that matter.

History (With Both Hands): And now we have John’s review/reflection on just how the Western Roman Empire became capable of falling. As John was keenly interested in cyclical theories of history, it should come as no surprise that John’s analysis is a combination of decreasing state capacity occurring in a vicious cycle with cultural changes that made further decrease inevitable.

Radio (Old Time Radio Researchers): Escape – Single Episodes.

Weird Tales (The Obelisk): Author Allison V. Harding is another name long lost and forgotten by supposed Weird Tales afficionados. Harding wrote exclusively for the magazine during the 1940s and 1950s, and during that time she published strange and absorbing stories that often blurred the line between horror and science fiction. “Allison V. Harding” was not a real person, mind you, but rather a pen name.

Favorites (Black Gate): Time for a Ten Things I Think I Think as we close in on Christmas. Those two things are unrelated, though…So, I think that: