Reading (John C. Wright): Readers who do not want to read a curmudgeon (me) being curmudgeonly, please go away. This is not a review or a philosophical analysis. No attempt at balance or fairness has been made: the following consists of merely a description of negative reactions. These are some books I just could not finish. I am only going to list books that I thought I would like and that I really, really wanted to like, and that I could not finish.

Horror (Monsters, Madness, & Magic): Join Justin and special guest co-host Howie Bentley of Cauldron Born and Briton Rites as they chat with legendary author Ramsey Campbell about classical music, horror films, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P Lovecraft, writing fiction that drips with dread, and more!

Star Trek (Fandom Pulse): IDW Publishing has been under intense scrutiny, especially as their company relies on expensive licenses of various properties for the majority of their comic sales. The publishing company has obtained the license to publish Dungeons & Dragons, Star Trek, Godzilla, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sonic The Hedgehog, and many others.

Weird Tales (Sprague de Camp Fan): I recently purchased 100 Years of Weird Tales and have just finished reading it. It’s lots of fun although I do think it could have been even better. This 488-page volume has an introduction by Jonathan Maberry. In “The Eyrie” he writes about how as a youngster he used to attend meetings of “The Hyborian Legion” at the house of George Scithers where the works of REH, HPL, CAS, and Fritz Leiber would be discussed.

Legend (The Library Ladder): Stories about King Arthur have been used as tools of political, religious and cultural propaganda for more than a thousand years. In this video, I discuss how Arthurian literature has been used for centuries to shape both public opinion and history. And in a companion video to follow this one, I’ll discuss what I think are some of the most memorable and essential retellings of the Arthurian Saga.

Robert E. Howard (Echoes of Crom): Join me and my co-host Matthew Knight as we discuss Robert E. Howard’s Bran Mak Morn tale Kings of the Night!

RPG (Grognardia): Roger E. Moore’s article in issue #20 of Polyhedron about “Women in Role Playing” reminded me of this ad that I first saw on Jon Peterson’s blog. According to Jon, it first appeared in the June 1977 issue of Fantastic, a Ziff Davis pulp magazine founded by Howard Browne (a protégé of Ray Palmer).

Comic Books (Vintage Pop Fictions): Vampirella the character was at least partly the creation of science fiction super-fan Forrest J. Ackerman. Each issue of the comic included half a dozen or so comic-strip adventures plus various other features. Disappointingly Vampirella herself only features in one story per issue. This volume begins with issue 8 of the comic. Lots of different writers and artists contributed.

Fiction (Paperback Warrior): Patrick A. Davis is a U.S. Air Force veteran and former commercial airline pilot who began writing military-based conspiracy thrillers in 1998 before finding a series character named Martin Collins for a three-book run. The debut is called The Colonel from 2001.

Our hero and first-person narrator is widower Martin Collins. When we meet him, he is living in rural Northern Virginia with a grass airplane runway while enjoying his retirement from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.ack Warrior).

T.V. (Barebonesez): In “Don’t Interrupt,” the only episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents written by Sidney Carroll, a situation similar to that described by Hitchcock is shown. However, in this instance, a single character is aware of the danger but has a vested interest in keeping his mouth shut.

Pulp (Adventures Fantastic): One of the themes of the blog this year has been bringing attention to writers who have faded into obscurity and whose work has been forgotten. No other writer fits this description more than Carolynn Catherine O’Shea. Even many of the most knowledgeable pulp scholars know little about her. When I asked Mark Finn for information while researching this article, he told me he had never heard of her. That was when I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Comic Books (Barebonesez): Mobster Luke Thomas and his goons have stolen precious gems in Egypt, but how will they smuggle the rocks back to the States? Luke gets a brainstorm: he’ll have archaeologist Ahmed Al-Dur wrap him in bandages and ship him back to America in a mummy case. Al-Dur protests but gives in due to “so much armament” waved in his face, all the while promising the criminal that the tomb is cursed and he will pay dearly.

Crime Fiction (M Porcius): It’s been a while since we’ve read anything by Leigh Brackett, who, besides writing all those science fiction adventure stories we’ve read, worked on screenplays for films directed by people like Howard Hawks and Robert Altman and starring people like Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne and penned well-respected detective fiction–Bill Pronzini, in Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories, says Brackett has the “most impressive body of work” of a woman in “hard-boiled and noir fiction,”

Fantasy (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Abraham Merritt was the king of the Fantasy writers in the 1920s. He didn’t even do the job full time. He worked on a newspaper and wrote for fun. Which partly explains why his seventh novel wasn’t a Lovecraftian monster story, a lost world tale or a full-blown Fantasy novel like his previous trade. Merritt could do what he liked. And for his seventh novel in 1932 he wrote what is in my opinion, the first modern Horror novel. It was called Burn, Witch, Burn! and it appeared in Argosy in October 22-November 26, 1932 as a serial.

Weird (Black Gate): Nights Black Agents was Fritz Leiber’s first first collection — and in fact his first book. It was originally published in hardcover by Arkham House in 1947, when Leiber was 37 years old. It collects six stories published in Weird Tales and Unknown Worlds, plus one tale from a fanzine, and three new stories — including the long Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser novella “Adept’s Gambit.”

Review (DMR Books ): David A. Riley’s anthology series certainly has some longevity. With seven volumes to date it has eclipsed several seminal anthology series of the past. As I understand it volume eight will be published later this year with submissions reopening late this year or early next year for volume nine.

Heinlein (Sargon of Akkad): These political systems are actually not the same.

Games (Grim Dark Magazine): At the time of writing, it has been precisely 8 days, 14 hours and 46 minutes since I completed Larian Studios’ magnificent Baldur’s Gate 3. It took me approximately 5 weeks to complete—5 weeks that went by in a sleepless, dazed, hyper-focused blur—and I am now ruined for all other video games in the future. My gaming life will never be the same again. My mind is shot to pieces, my heart a bereft wasteland of too many emotions, and all I can think about is my character, their lovable, beautifully written companions, their epic journey across Faerûn, and how devastated I am knowing I can never experience playing this wonderful, incredible game for the first time all over again.

Review (Rough Edges): I’ve been reading quite a bit of sword and sorcery fiction in recent months, and I’m still in the mood for it. So after finishing the new anthology NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD, I moved on to SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY, VOLUME 1, which came out several years ago. Edited by David A. Riley and published by Parallel Universe Publications, it features eight stories, some by authors I’m familiar with and some by authors I’m encountering for the first time. The cover and interior illustrations are by Jim Pitts.

Lovecraft (Tentaclii): Reading through the back-issues of the Tolkien Society members-journal Amon Hen, in #272 I came across a report of a conference in Italy titled “Tolkien and the literature of the Fourth Age”, which took place just before Christmas 2017. Some big names were there, including Tom Shippey and Thomas Honegger. The latter presented “Tolkien and Lovecraft”, and the report summarised some of the talk’s main points…

Paleontology (Extinct Zoo): he dinosaurs as most people know them, in other words, non-avian dinosaurs are gone, but dinosaurs are still very much alive, through birds. Admittedly, these guys don’t quite live up to the reputation as some of their ancestors, but not long after the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs, there was a family of birds that emerged that came pretty darn close to becoming just as scary as some of the fiercest dinosaurs, these were the terror birds.

Cinema (Fantasy Literature): The first of the two, The Intruder, to be perfectly honest, is hardly anyone’s idea of a horror picture, although the character that Shatner portrays in the film, a white supremacist/rabid segregationist, is surely some kind of a terrible monster. In the second, Shatner’s turn as a serial killer might prove stunning for those of you who have always pictured the beloved actor as “the good guy.” And need I even mention that both of these films might prove perfect viewing fare for this Halloween season? 

Science Fiction (Mystery File): ROGER ZELAZNY “Damnation Alley.” Novella. First appeared in Galaxy SF, October 1967. First collected in The Last Defender of Camelot (Pocket, 1980). Reprinted in Supertanks, edited by Martin H. Greenberg et al (Ace, 1987). Expanded into the novel of the same title (Putnam, hardcover, 1969). Nominated for a Hugo Award in Best Novella category (placed third). Film: 20th Century Fox, 1977, with Jan-Michael Vincent (as Tanner) and George Peppard.

Science Fiction (Reactor Mag): You could always count on Poul Anderson to do something different—he was a “Swiss Army Knife” kind of writer, with a wide variety of capabilities. He wrote both science fiction and fantasy, and his heroes filled pretty much every niche listed above. Anderson’s “Technic History” was a consistent backdrop for stories set over centuries, and of the most interesting periods in that history was when mankind was first spreading out among the stars, encountering alien intelligences and finding common ground with them.

Conventions (Pulpfest): With all the news that PulpFest has to share, Jack Cullers and his volunteers have been manning the presses. With the ink barely dry, our latest newsletter should have already arrived in your mailbox. The PulpFest newsletter tells all about this year’s convention. You’ll find a programming preview, news about our hotel, registration and auction details, and much more. A registration form for both dealers and regular members is also part of the newsletter.

Paperbacks (Gold Medal Book Blog): Then I discovered the glorious world of Fawcett Gold Medal.

Accumulating Fawcett Gold Medal paperbacks over this last decade has been the most rewarding and enduring of all the obsessive rabbit holes I’ve fallen into.

Men’s Magazines (Book Graveyard): The new MAQ magazine just came out and it’s a hard-hitting time capsule collection of vintage fiction, non-fiction, art and attitudes from the era of the ‘Nam. Besides introductions, comments for context and a few articles related to the subject, everything inside was originally printed in various Men’s Adventure Magazines of the 60s and 70s and painstakingly compiled by co-editors, Robert Deis and Bill Cunningham.

Thrillers (The Real Book Spy): Since launching The Real Book Spy in 2015, thrillers have been our bread and butter, driving more people to the site and sparking more conversations than any other genre or sub-category. Yes, we’ve embraced mysteries and covered that genre too over the years, but ’round here, thrillers reign supreme, and since we didn’t do an end-of-the-year “Best Of” article, I got a lot of emails, tweets, DMs, messages, and comments asking for just this such list. So, it’s a little late, but hopefully better than never.

Review (Pulp Fiction Reviews): With “Levon’s Time,” we pick up Cade after his rescue mission back in Iraq and finds him slowly attempting to slip out of the region among refugees and get back to the states. Unfortunately his noble intervention in saving a young teenage girl from being raped by a Turkish government agent lands him in a hellish Turkish prison.