Robert E. Howard (REH World): The recent discovery of an unpublished Robert E. Howard letter, announced by scholar Will Oliver, has sparked excitement among Howard enthusiasts. Found in the Forrest J. Ackerman Papers at Syracuse University, the letter is addressed to E. Hoffmann Price and offers fresh insights into Howard’s correspondence, literary interests, and personal connections.

Comic Books (Fandom Pulse): DC Comics makes some of the most bizarre moves for a company in such trouble that it felt the need to go “All In” and change its entire line because of low sales. As Absolute Batman continues to make waves, the company has reportedly hired one of the most hostile-to-fans creators in the business, Dan Slott, to write Superman.

Cinema (Nerdrotic): “THE WORST FILM EVER MADE!” ‘Joker 2’ Gets DESTROYED on Joe Rogan!

Science Fiction (Dark Worlds Quarterly): H. G. Wells changed Science Fiction forever when he gave readers the first invasion of Earth by an alien race. (Along with this idea, he also introduced the concept of the heat ray that would become the blaster. For more on that, go here.) The War of the Worlds first appeared in Pearson’s Magazine, April-December 1897.

Gaming (Andy Pants Gaming): We need to talk about the many problems of the game awards.

Horror (Tellers of Weird Tales): “Cosmic vs. Abrahamic Horror” by F. Paul Wilson is the third and last essay in the Cosmic Horror Issue of Weird Tales. The text of Mr. Wilson’s essay is a little less than two and a half pages long. There are two illustrations. One is a half-page, main-title illustration showing a man (wearing a blue turban), a woman, and a crying boy in a Renaissance-like tableau.

T.V. (Kairos): What are kids watching these days? Gen Y’s nostalgic myopia for Saturday morning cartoons and PG-13 horror flicks can leave them blinkered when it comes to how their now-adolescent children are entertaining themselves.

Cinema (Giant Freakin Robot): Everyone knew who Ernest was back in the late 80s and well into the 90s; played by veteran actor Jim Varney, the dim-witted, accident-prone character starred in local commercials along the Gulf Coast before becoming so popular, Disney executives decided to make him the centerpiece of a feature film. But today, the film that started it all has been erased from history.

Tolkien (Ink and Fantasy): In this video we explore Hayao Miyazaki’s views on the Lord of the Rings and J. R. R. Tolkien, as well as the similarities between their respective works!

Horror (Reactor Mag): Flannery O’Connor might not have invented the Southern Gothic, but her work certainly helped define the genre. Through her stories of grotesque situations underpinned by what she characterized as “harsh, unsentimental realism” and exaggerated characters. Good Country People” showcases all these elements, observing an arrogant bully whose toxic defense mechanisms and deep resentment of herself and the world around her deliver her directly into the arms of a much greater monster.

Tolkien (Sorcerer’s Skull): If we take The Silmarillion as Elvish mythology (which it is) promoting a slanted point of view, then most of the doings in Middle Earth are a proxy conflict between two super-powers: Sauron and his minions and the Valar and the Elves. We needn’t assume either side is particularly good, In fact, we know the Valar unleashed a devastating weapon of mass destruction against their former allies in Numenor just for getting too cozy with Sauron.

Cinema (Art of the Movies): I’m here to argue the case for an even better year for celluloid that unfurled half a century ago. Yes, 1974 is my pick for cinema’s greatest – and here’s the evidence.

Writing (Marzaat): Reading The Raymond Chandler Papers, I came across this quote from a 1945 Newsweek article, “Chandlerism, a select a cult year ago, is about to engulf the nation.”

That got me to thinking if I’m a cultist of any author. And what qualifies as belonging to the cult of an author?

Firearms (Isegoria): I couldn’t help but notice that the Soviet operator in Britain, when finally cornered, reached for his Sako target pistol, which was set up to use the largest of the three calibers it could chamber.

Reading (History Debunked): One point which stands out when looking at the children’s books of this period is the more or less complete absence of parents. This may well have a bearing on the feelings of adults who grew up at that time, that children being out and about by themselves was in the first place quite normal, and secondly, perfectly safe. It is almost as though they had been indoctrinated into this strange and counterintuitive point of view from a very early age by the books which they read.

Conan (Conan Chronology): The further I’ve gotten into Conan’s late life, the more I kind of wish that I had stopped at The Hour of the Dragon, which would have been such a fitting end to everything. “The Witch of the Mists” was painfully mediocre, “Black Sphinx of Nebthu” was hot, boiled ass, and “Red Moon of Zembabwei” had far too few good ideas.

Cinema (Swordslore): Continuing September’s theme of GreedFall and combining it with further analysis of possible Celtic themes, this week’s post will go over how some cinematic and narrative elements of the game might indicate some inspiration from otherworldly adventures prevalent in Celtic language literature.

Radio (Old Time Radio Researchers): The Sealed Book was a radio series of mystery and terror tales, produced and directed by Jock MacGregor for the Mutual network. Between March 18 and September 9, 1945, the melodramatic anthology series was broadcast on Sundays from 10:30pm to 11:00pm. Each week, after “the sound of the great gong,” host Philip Clarke observed that the mysteriously silent “keeper of the book has opened the ponderous door to the secret vault wherein is kept the great sealed book.

Pulp (Rough Edges): Originally serialized in the September through December 1939 issues of WEIRD TALES, H. Warner Munn’s KING OF THE WORLD’S EDGE was a prime candidate for reprinting in the Sixties paperback fantasy boom sparked by Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and J.R.R. Tolkien. It features swordplay, magic, and lost civilizations. What else do you need?

Review (Tangent Online): This is a crowdfunded anthology that the editor claims is a start at a new genre of fiction that he calls “the Scandal,” which he describes as:

“Sexually explicit, but they are not erotica. They are subversive, without becoming Grimdark. They are bawdy, without being transgressive. They are experimental, but retain the fun of a pulp story. They are modern, but retain the wonder of a weird tale. They incorporate all types of humor; satire, farce, surreal, character driven, and black.” 

Games (Leviathan War): So I’ve decided to pull the trigger on the new Seb Games Leviathan 10mm game Lords of Havok. As of time of writing, all thats currently available is the Battle Vanguard Set which comes with a few units of 10mm infantry representing Orcs and Dwarves.

Cinema (Glitternight): REEL WILD CINEMA (1996-1997) – This program is still beloved by us fans of Psychotronic movies and the So Bad It’s Good subculture. Reel Wild Cinema helped feed America’s growing appetite for bizarrely awful cinema, an appetite most recently whetted back then by Joel Hodgson’s Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Reviews (Ken Lizzi): Thundar: Man of Two Worlds was meant as the first in a series, judging by the textual evidence. It is the work of John Bloodstone (that is, Stuart J. Byrne, who labored in the speculative fiction mines in the latter half of the Twentieth Century). Thundar is Edgar Rice Burroughs filtered through Lin Carter. The debt to ERB is evident from the beginning: a narrator revealing how he’d come into possession of the manuscript that provides the bulk of the novel.

RPG (Tenkar’s Tavern): Need more monsters to liven up your campaign? Need something unique to fill out your dungeon? Look no further than Monsters of Myth. Nominally written for OSRIC but suitable for the OSR ruleset of your choice, Monsters of Myth can be had for FREE. Monsters of Myth is the premiere collection of OSRIC monsters, and contains more than 150 new creatures for use with First Edition-compatible games.

Horror (Old Style Tales): If you have ever read “The Eyes of the Panther,” you know that there is little that I can say about it without giving away Bierce’s hallmark twist ending, but I can – without much fear of spoiling the plot – note that it is yet another story which involves familicide, distrust between partners, and mankind’s barely repressed animal nature.

James Bond (Jame Bond First Editions): Yesterday, rival auction houses saw Bond film props go up against a signed Ian Fleming first edition. I know which item I’d rather have. But which one ‘won’, and what does it mean?

Cinema (Fantasy Literature): In today’s Shocktober Double Feature we have two curious stories, courtesy of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s Die, Monster, Die! and I, Monster!

Comic Books (Glitternight): This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will look at Australia’s very different version of a superhero called the Shadow.

Crime Fiction (Marzaat): However, I’ve long intended to read some of the hard-boiled detective stories of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, especially since I’ll soon be reading a reputedly science fiction version of such a story. I probably should have started with Raymond Chandler since I suspect he may have been more influential on science fiction writers than Hammett.

Fiction (Paperback Warrior): The Deathlands series continues to be one of my favorites of the post-apocalyptic era of men’s fiction of the 1970s-1990s. I have a lot of series installments to get through, which probably won’t occur in my lifetime. But, I continue to plunge forward with two or three installments each year.

Fiction (Pulp Fiction Reviews): Though a wee bit dated, this crime thriller pro is still worth a read. Bob McKay is a talented band leader who lets success get the best of him. He becomes an alcoholic and loses his loving girlfriend, Terry, and then his band. Now on the skids, he drifts from one seedy bar to another until, through a series of unfortunate circumstances, he is falsely accused of murdering a local B-girl.

History (Frontier Partisans): The hunt for Dedan Kimathi during the Mau Mau Emergency of the 1950s in Kenya is a prime example of the Continuity & Persistence of one of the key elements of Frontier Partisan operations: the strategic manhunt.

Cinema (Little Wars TV):Why did “Kingdom of Heaven” flop at the box office? Ridley Scott’s 2005 crusades epic premiered with all the ingredients to be a smash hit–a massive budget, a star-studded cast, and a director in his prime. But Scott failed to rekindle the magic of Gladiator. Today we examine four theories explaining why “Kingdom of Heaven” underperformed at the box office.