Coming (Wasteland & Sky): Space pirates and superspies, ghostly singers and half-orc bards, lost cities and deals with the devil . . . all this awaits and more in Pulp Rock: Twelve musically inspired tales of adventure, excitement, and horror by some of the most exciting voices in science-fiction and fantasy. Come explore the nexus between music and the written word, and get ready to rock.

Art (DMR Books): Bran Mak Morn, the doomed third-century King of the Picts, is one of Robert E. Howard’s most iconic creations. Bran has been depicted by numerous talented artists on the covers of books and in comics. Unfortunately, relatively few of those renditions are faithful to how REH actually described Bran Mak Morn and the Picts.

Pulp (M. Porcius): In his editorial in the April 1944 issue of Fantastic Adventures, editor Ray Palmer, in introducing the second Jongor tale, “The Return of Jongor,” relates to us SF fans a behind-the-scenes story about the first tale of Robert Moore Williams’s ersatz Tarzan.  According to Ray, whom I practically called a liar in my last blog post, in late 1940 Fantastic Adventures was about to go out of business.

Robert E. Howard (Sprague de Camp Fan): “The People of the Black Circle” first appeared in serialized form in the September, October, and November 1934 issues of Weird Tales. It was reprinted in The Sword of Conan, Gnome Press, 1952. It is the first story in Conan the Adventurer, Lancer Books, 1966. Conan the Adventurer was the first book published in the Lancer Series but is the fifth chronologically.

Tolkien (Arkhaven Comics): The cluelessness of Amazon’s marketing department is stunning and brave. Amazon UK put together a reaction of video for their own teaser trailer of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.  They gathered a panel of four self-described “Lord of the Rings superfans.”  These “superfans” were a Pakistani, a lesbian with a disability, a black woman, and a gay black man. They began every sentence with, “like.” And I am positive that there are outtakes where they call ‘Sauron,’ ‘Voldemort.’

Pulp (Vintage Pop Fiction): Paul Ernst’s novel Rulers of the Future was serialised in Weird Tales in January, February and March 1935. Paul Ernst (1899-1985) was an American pulp writer about whom I know nothing. Rulers of the Future takes place in 1990. Professor Ticknor and a wealthy adventurer named Brock are being interviewed by a newspaper reporter named Woodward (who narrates the tale). Ticknor and Brock are about to make the first voyage to Alpha Centauri.

Military History (Last Stand on Zombie Island): Dornier Flugzeugwerke’s all-metal three-engined Do 24 flying boat was designed in the mid-1930s to replace the Dutch Navy’s Dornier Do J Wal (whale) aircraft flown in the Dutch East Indies.

Below we see a Dornier Wal, taking off next to the Dutch cruiser Java, somewhere in the Dutch East Indies. As pointed out by Georgios Nikolaides-Krassas, an avid LSOZI reader, the Wal was “Do-24s ‘grandfather,’ so to speak, and predecessor in the Netherlands Naval Aviation Service (Marineluchtvaartdienst-MLD).

Fantasy (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Lin Carter’s Grail Undwin stories appeared in three paperbacks between 1978-1980. According to Lin: …The author writes that she lives in an old stone house in Cornwall which has belonged to her family since the days of Queen Anne. When her husband was killed in the Battle of Britain, she was left with three small children to support. At first she published some of the bedtime stories she had been making up to entertain the youngsters; later, she began writing full-length children’s books (under a pen name, or names, I believe).

Crime Fiction (Chimney Sweep Reader): This novel was MacDonald’s nineteenth novel, first published in February 1957. The plot is a fairly straight-forward murder investigation by a non-professional. Hugh is a construction engineer, not a private investigator. But he is an intelligent fellow and is very good at pounding the pavement, speaking with those involved, and putting together the subtle clues to solve the mystery and determine the real rapist/murderer.

Reading (Scott D Parker): What are the famous books of the 1990s?
Okay, do something with me. Think about that decade and see if you can recall any titles or authors but do not use the internet. Heck, don’t even look at your bookshelves. Just see if you can come up with any famous books strictly from your memory. I’ll wait. Okay, so how many did you remember? Truth be told, as I’m writing this, I have not yet turned to Google. I’ve not even turned my eyes to my various bookshelves.

RPG (Swashbuckling Planets): I’ve been reading the Eerie compilations by Dark Horse lately, especially those issues featuring Esteban Maroto’s work, and that has wrenched my mind from the planet of Maruzar to classic sword and sorcery mode. That’s made me decide to run a game of Witchland Saga, my sword and sorcery concept in which the heroes explore a mysterious land of magical legends and horror called the Witchlands.

RPG (Grognardia): Regular readers of this blog know that I am frequently critical of the impact of consumerism on the hobby of roleplaying. Yet, the reality is that, without the consumerist impulse, the hobby would probably have never become big enough for me to become aware of it, let alone participate in it. I was struck by this recently as I reflected on how closely some of my earliest RPG memories are intertwined with that monument to consumerism, the shopping mall.

Hunting (Field & Stream): There’s something in the human psyche that requires us to slay monsters. Werewolves must be shot with silver bullets. Vampires must have wooden stakes driven through their hearts. Witches must be burned at the stake. All of these beings are imaginary, but in the animal kingdom, there’s a monster that is not. He goes by the names of nyati and m’bogo and Syncerus caffer. We know him as the Cape buffalo. Probably no one has done so much to cloak the buffalo in monsterhood as the writer Robert Ruark.

New (Swords and Sorcery Magazine): Welcome to the February 2022 issue of Swords & Sorcery Magazine. This is the beginning of the eleventh year of publication for S&SM. Looking back on the first ten years I am happy with what I have achieved and look forward to the next ten. I have published stories from talented first-time writers and seasoned professionals, helping to keep a genre I love alive. By the quality of stories I receive, sword and sorcery and traditional fantasy are not only alive but thriving.

Science Fiction (Marzaat): “Genesis”, H. Beam Piper, 1951. This gripping tale of survival and technological devolution appeared in the September 1951 issue of Future.

The story opens on a starship with 1,000 colonists. Their leader is Colonel Kalvar Dard, and their voyage from Doorsha to Tareesh is almost done. Dard is in the cargo hold with six women helping him to inventory stowed construction materials.

Writers (DMR Books): I just found out the other day that Dave Wolverton—a.k.a. David Farland—had died on January 14, 2022. I was completely wrapped up in the 2022 DMR Bloggerama at that point and had no idea. Thus, this belated encomium. Here is his publisher’s (not updated)] bio of Dave: David Farland is an award-winning, international best-selling author with over 50 novels in print.

Fantasy (One Last Sketch): I’m bringing this up because at the beginning of the year I read Imaro II: The Quest for Cush and the book reminded me once again of his talent. Yes, Saunders wrote sword and sorcery, but unlike the stories in the first Imaro collection, other characters come into his life, and his own personality is complicated by that companionship in a way most sword and sorcery, to be honest, doesn’t attempt.

Writers (Goodman Games): Without August Derleth (1909-1971), you probably wouldn’t have that Cthulhu bumper sticker on your car, that Cthulhu for President poster, and certainly not that Plushie Cthulhu you have staring down at you from your geek-memorabilia shelf.  Not that Cthulhu would not exist, but he (it?) would be just one more forgotten character in a series of stories by an author unknown except to the most ardent of horror literati.

New (Up and Down These Mean Streets): Brian Leno continues to “splash the field,” sneaking articles into mags hither and yon — and this time he gets into a publication that has won numerous Rondo Hatton awards. Brian and I decided that the only award we’d really like to nab at this point would be a Rondo, but then of course I’d have to do something Rondoesque — at least Leno is on the hunt. “Here’s the Scary Monsters Magazine I am appearing in — their Monster Memories annual,” Brian reports. “My memory is titled ‘Monsters in the Closet.’

Weird Westerns (Tentaculii): Here’s one more I missed back in 2016. The Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns had an expanded second edition in 2016. It’s from McFarland, so one has to double-check to see if it’s not one of their duff ones (the Dune encyclopedia, etc). But it’s reassuring to see that True West magazine gave the first edition a good review.