Science Fiction (Vintage Pop Fictions): The Ginger Star is a 1974 science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett. It is the first volume in a loose trilogy featuring her hero Eric John Stark. Eric John Stark had actually made his first appearance back in 1949 in Brackett’s novellas Queen of the Martian Catacombs, Enchantress of Venus and Black Amazon of Mars.

New (Rough Edges): The Snakehaven saga continues with FEAR ON THE FEVER COAST! Young adventurer Jorras Trevayle is back, penetrating deeper into a dangerous world of giant serpents, sorcerers, pirates, and madmen. A deadly plague is laying waste to the land, and the secret to its cure lies within the sanctum of a vengeful wizard.

Weird Tales (Tellers of Weird Tales): In “The Eyrie” for April/May 1931, the editor wrote:

WEIRD TALES will continue the policy on which its brilliant success has been built since it was first published eight years ago. That is, we will print the best weird fiction in contemporary literature, stories that Edgar Allan Poe and FitzJames O’Brien would delight to read if they were alive today.

Amusement (KSL): PLEASANT GROVE — Evermore Park is soon to be nevermore. Utah real estate executive Brandon Fugal announced the private sale of the now-defunct fantasy adventure theme park Monday. “I am thrilled to see the venue transition into its next chapter, now in progress,” Fugal said. “The new owners have an extraordinary vision.”

Games (The Trent Report): New information has allegedly come out for Warner Bros. upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim animated film and it heavily indicates the film will be a bait and switch. ‪@TheOneRingcom‬ joins me to discuss.

Science Fiction (Galaxy SF): The Galaxy SF Relaunch. Thank you for being here! I am happy to announce that this magazine, like its sister publication, Worlds of IF, is also being revived and relaunched by Starship Sloane Publishing Company, Inc.

Review (With Both Hands): There are now a number of contemporary short fiction magazines publishing sci fi, fantasy, and weird tales, and Cirsova may be pre-eminent among them. While sales of these little magazines are far below what similar publications managed in the pulp heyday, I love them for keeping great storytelling alive. Issue # 1 of Cirsova was published in 2016, and now eight years later, the magazine is still going strong.

Publishing (Adventures Fantastic): But it is a valid question.  The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) hasn’t had a new issue in over six months.  Questions aren’t being answered. Last year some authors claimed they hadn’t been paid for their stories. The  question has come up over the last

week.

Star Wars (Bounding Into Comics): Former The Mandalorian actress Gina Carano has named a number of Disney big shots, including CEO Bob Chapek and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, as potential witnesses in her upcoming court battle with the House of Mouse.

Comic Books (Rough Edges): For a while there, I was reading all the new Conan comics from Titan, as well as the new prose stories, and I read and enjoyed the first issue of the new SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN. Then I kind of just stopped. Not intentionally. I just wandered away as I have a tendency of doing. But it’s time to get caught up on them again, so I started with the second issue of THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Michael K. Vaughn): The Mystery of John Carter of Mars.

Pastiche (Black Gate): John C. Hocking’s (1960 -) Conan and the Emerald Lotus came along in 1995, near the end of the Tor Conan pastiche series of books. I’d read a lot of pastiches early but by ’95 was burned out on them and stopped picking up the new ones. So I never read Hocking’s entry. Until now.

In 2024, Titan Books published Conan City of the Dead, by Hocking. It contained Conan and the Emerald Lotus, and a second pastiche called Conan and the Living Plague.

Cinema (Wyrd Britain): Amicus‘ 1977 direct sequel to 1974s ‘The Land That Time Forgot‘ returned us to Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ dinosaur riddled antarctic island, ‘Caprona‘ where Doug McClure‘s ‘Bowen Tyler’ had been stranded at the end of the previous movie.

D&D (Grognardia): Lizard men were introduced into Dungeons & Dragons in the pages of its first supplement, Greyhawk (1975). The first illustration of them appears on the inside cover of Supplement I, provided by Greg Bell. As we’ll see, this image established the general outlines of what D&D‘s lizard men look like and nearly all of those that follow will use it as the foundation on which to build their own specific interpretations.

Comic Books (Hyborian Reviews): There’s no doubt about it in my mind that Savage Sword of Conan is some of the best ways to experience this Cimmerian and his adventures. They often stays extremeley true to their source material much due to Roy Thomas’s dedication and respect for the character, they are black and white and never shies away from violence or nudity. In short: Savage Sword is Conan as he’s suppose to be!

Weird Tales (M Porcius): Weird Tales Sept 1939: T McClusky, E H Price, A Derleth & M Schorer, and C A Smith. No doubt you have heard that it is time to get weird!  (It’s long been the time to get weird here at MPorcius Fiction Log.)  Let’s not buck the zeitgeist and check out more Weird Tales from 1939 with the September issue.

Cinema (Marvelous Videos): Unleash the fury! Dive into a thrilling world of R-rated sword and sorcery epics. We’re slashing through 20 brutal films filled with barbaric heroes, mystical creatures, and powerful spells. Witness legendary warriors like Conan the Barbarian conquer blood-soaked battlefields, and delve into quests for mythical artifacts. From showdowns with monstrous foes to battles against dark sorcerers, prepare for an unforgettable journey through these iconic fantasy films.

Hard-Boiled (Black Gate): The Complete Black Mask Cases of the Continental Op, Volume One: Zigzags of Treachery, ended with “The House in Turk Street.” That was the tenth Op story, and as I wrote in the introduction to that volume: ‘For me, it’s in “The House in Turk Street” (which was adapted for the 2002 Samuel L. Jackson movie, No Good Deed) where we really see the classic Hammett for the first time. The characters, the pace, the tension, the plot elements: he was moving from learning, to improving, to the verge of mastering.’

Review (Ken Lizzi): Francis Xavier Gordon  — El Borak — is a quintessential Robert E. Howard hero. He is an American, a crack shot and wickedly fast swordsman, an intrepid and renowned explorer of the East, featured in conversations in caravanserai to bazaar from Kabul to Delhi. The Lost Valley of Iskander collects three tales of El Borak.

Robert E. Howard (Paperback Warrior): Glenn Lord (1931-2011) became a literary agent for the Robert E. Howard estate in 1965, a role he served in for over 25 years. Lord was instrumental in the resurgence of Howard’s work in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lord was able to amass hundreds of unpublished stories and poems and provided the source material for the author’s contents to appear in media from 1965-1997.

Cinema (Wormwoodiana): “The Pirate of the Round Pond” by Lord Dunsany is not a story I would ever have expected to have been filmed. It was collected in The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories (1952)–if there was a previous publication, it has not been discovered.

H.P. Lovecraft (Old Style Tales): Like so many of his shorter stories, “Polaris” was inspired by one of Lovecraft’s dreams. In a letter to a friend, he claimed: “Several nights ago I had a strange dream of a strange city—a city of many palaces and gilded domes, lying in a hollow betwixt ranges of grey, horrible hills.

Fiction (Balladeer’s Blog): Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog may remember the obscure horror stories I review during Halloween Month each year. I’ve been asked if I’ll ever review any of the better known, big names in Gothic Horror, so here we go.  THE MONK (1796) – Written by Matthew G. Lewis. Though The Monk was preceded by other works of Gothic Horror like The Castle of Otranto (1764) and The Necromancer (1794).

Art (Book Graphics): Rudyard Kipling. Mowgli’s Brothers. Illustrator Scott Plumbe.

Firearms (Frontier Partisans): I finally picked up a copy of Bob Boze Bell’s The Illustrated Life & Times of Geronimo. Bell is a Western historian, artist and the publisher of True West Magazine. His Illustrated Life & Times books are excellent and entertaining primers on legendary figures of the Western frontier — Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Wild Bill Hickock. I hear tell there’s one forthcoming on Jesse James. Anyways…

Conventions (Fandom Pulse): Worldcon has seen its share of controversies in recent years as the social justice mob who now controls this aging and dwindling subsection of science fiction fandom has gotten to the point where they’re gatekeeping so many people they’re creating their own death spiral. Now, in a bizarre move, the Glasgow Worldcon has banned last year’s Vice Chair and Hugo Award Administrator while clout-chasers brag about their being removed.