Robert E. Howard (M Porcius): Let’s read three stories from my copy of The Book of Robert E. Howard that I think are set in the 19th or 20th centuries and that may or may not have some kind of supernatural element.

D&D (Fandom Pulse): Dungeons & Dragons has moved into woke territory to the determinant of players in 2024’s new edition, and now a new supplement Forge of Foes by Sky Flourish turns an adventure into an “anti-colonialism” rant to further push woke politics on players.

Comic Books (Paperback Warrior): The Savage Sword of Conan #3 was first published in December of 1974. The cover, inspired by Bjorn Nyberg’s short story “The People of the Summit” (more on that in a bit), was painted by Mike Kaluta. The first pinup, which again is probably inspired by Nyberg’s story, is penciled by Alfredo Alcala. 

Science Fiction (Poul Anderson): While I’ve never considered Poul Anderson one of my absolute favorite science fiction authors, I realized the other day that I’ve been reading his books off and on for more than forty years, starting with his Flandry series back in the mid-Sixties. I don’t recall ever reading a book of his that I didn’t like, either.

Tolkien (Imaginative Conservative): Though I have read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and Tolkien’s other stories and books too many times to count, I never once lost interest in anything about or by the great Oxford don. Now, with the movie Tolkien out from Fox Searchlight Pictures, I’m seeing references to him everywhere.

Comic Books (Dark Worlds Quarterly): In previous posts I showed the pirates in the Pulps, the Golden and Silver Age of Comics and I thought the idea of space pirates had been pretty much worked dry. Well, was I wrong! The Bronze Age, partly thanks to the success of Star Wars, gave us a pile of new ones. Star Wars was such a cultural shot-in-the-arm for Space Opera that there is a very definable line between 1970-1976 and 1977 and later. This trend will be even more obvious in the 1980s.

James Bond (The Book Bond): Ian Fleming’s third Bond novel finds 007 tangling with the megalomanic Elon Musk. I mean Hugo Drax! Moonraker was published by Jonathan Cape on April 5, 1955 in the UK, and in the U.S. by Macmillian on September 20, 1955.

Horror (Vintage Pop Fictions): ritz Leiber’s You’re All Alone has a fascinating history. It was written between 1943 and 1947 as a 75,000 word novel which was never published and the manuscript was lost. He then rewrote it from scratch as a 40,000 word novella in which form it appeared in Fantastic Adventures in July 1950.

Lit-Crit (Don Herron): On December 26, 2014 the first of my eBook LitCrit MegaPacks dropped into the marketplace. Collecting in one place for the first time the critical anthologies The Dark Barbarian (1984) and the follow-up from twenty years later, The Barbaric Triumph (2004).

Review (Ken Lizzi): Just in time for Christmas I bring you an unalloyed self-promotional post. God bless us everyone! And especially me. The winter edition of Cirsova magazine is out. And — this is the important part, so pay attention — it contains a story by me. It’s The Red Hat, one of my Cesar the Bravo sword-and-sorcery tales. There are also several other stories that you may like, but focus now. This is about me.

Sherlock Holmes (Paperback Warrior): A Study in Scarlet begins by way of an introduction between Dr. John Watson, who narrates in first-person, and the enigma himself, Sherlock Holmes. Readers learn of Watson’s experience in the Anglo-Afghan War, his service as a surgeon with the Army Medical Department, and his education at University of London, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and Edinburgh University.

Greyhawk (Dungeons and Dragons Fan): The world of Greyhawk has been a major part of Dungeons & Dragons since the earliest version of the game. Yet it’s also one that’s been largely overlooked for the past decade, often mentioned only in passing in fifth edition materials with no substantive new content being created.

Fiction (Imaginative Conservative): One thing that Kirk most certainly did not acquire from Halliburton was the latter’s prose style. For Kirk’s inspiration we may look to Sir Walter Scott, Edmund Burke and other luminaries; for Halliburton, Edwardian dime-novels and Jazz Age journalism. The Guardian newspaper recalls him at his most purple:

Horror (Casual Debris): At thirty volumes, The Pan Book of Horror Stories is the longest running horror anthology series. The years preceding the publication of the first volume witnessed a number of successful horror anthologies, motivating Pan to assemble a collection of their own. This venture would prove to be a highly lucrative move for the publisher.

Comic Books (Rip Jagger Dojo): Unexpectedly this volume of Marvel’s Decades series has proven to be my favorite. Documenting as it does one of the most elegant aspects of the Marvel Universe, that it is indeed a universe, a mostly coherent environment in which heroes and villains live and fight on a landscape very similar to our actual reality. The linchpin in this tome is Spidey, the teenage hero who was incredibly successful and soon became the “Mickey Mouse” of the Marvel Universe.

Years (Glitter Night): Also the 1st – American astronomer Edwin Hubble, whom the Hubble Telescope was named for, announced confirmation of the existence of galaxies outside the Milky Way.  Also the 1st – The H.P. Lovecraft horror story The Festival was published in Weird Tales Vol. 5 #1.

Public Domain (Duke U): On January 1, 2025, thousands of copyrighted works from 1929 will enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1924. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon.[2] 2025 marks a milestone: all of the books, films, songs, and art published in the 1920s will now be public domain. The literary highlights from 1929 include The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, and A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf.

Authors (Adventures Fantastic): Karl Edward Wagner probably needs no introduction to anyone who reads this blog. He was one of the greatest writers of sword and sorcery and dark fantasy/horror of the Twentieth Century. We’ve not seen his like since, in my opinion.

Radio (OTRR): From July 3, 1947 to February 25, 1948, The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen brought listeners the weekly adventures of Philip Karney, master of the namesake ketch the Scarlet Queen, and his crew as they traveled around the seas of southeast Asia.

Current (Grumpy Wizard): Oxford University Press has declared the word of the year to be “brain rot.”

D&D (Grognardia): In my younger days, I was a big fan of The World of Greyhawk setting, for reasons I’ve discussed in other posts on this blog. Sometime during 1982, probably starting with the appearance of “The Deities & Demigods of the World of Greyhawk” series.

Conan (Paperback Warrior): “Three-Bladed Doom” was a short story authored by Robert E. Howard starring his character El Borak. It was not published during Howard’s lifetime. There were two versions of the story, one printed in REH Lone Star Fictioneer in 1976 and a longer version in the Zebra paperback of the same name published in 1977.

Science Fiction (Modern Age Journal): In his seminal essay “On Science Fiction,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “The proper study of man is everything.” He continued, “The proper study of man as artist is everything which gives a foothold to the imagination and the passions.” Ray Bradbury said something similar several years later.