Publishing (Wasteland & Sky): We’re going back to that seminal year in 1939. This was back when Fandom were holding conventions and looking towards the glorious utopic future. Meanwhile, a set of writers were more concentrated on preserving a past in danger of being forgotten. This is the story of Arkham House!

Fantasy (Echoes of Crom): Join me and Matthew Knight as we discuss the Nifft the Lean tale, The Pearls of the Vampire Queen, by Michael Shea.

Conan (Sprague de Camp Fan): Thoth-amon is commonly considered Conan’s arch-enemy, but in Robert E. Howard’s stories, he simply was not. Yes, he was in “Phoenix on the Sword,” the first Conan story; however, he wasn’t trying to kill Conan. He didn’t give a shit about Conan. Thoth-amon wanted to kill Ascalante. The only reason Conan was in danger was because of the last thing Thoth-amon said to his baboon-like demon, “and all with him!”

RPG (Tenkars Tavern): An enhanced and expanded version of the 1st Advanced edition of the world’s most popular tabletop roleplaying game. Interested in the best “what if” version of AD&D 2e? Look no further, as Joe “Greyhawk Grognard” Bloch has you covered with the Adventures Dark and Deep Core Rules 2nd Printing Kickstarter. (Joe will be a Special Guest on the April 24th Talking Crit Live! @ 8 PM Eastern)

Westerns (Art of the Movies): Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars shamlessly ripped of Yojimbo and Toho studios successfully filed a lawsuit that delayed its release in the States for three years. Yet, while the story follows Kurosawa’s almost beat for beat, the style was very much Leone’s.

RPG (Grognardia): I remember being very excited about the imminent release of the Oriental Adventures in 1985. Aside from the obvious reason – the introduction of playable ninja and samurai into Advanced D&D – I was quite keen to see “the Oriental lands of Oerth,” as promised in the “Coming Attractions” section of Dragon #102.

Conan (Bleeding Cool): Previously, Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures annnounced a Conan event coming, titled The Battle Of The Black Stone, beginning with their Free Comic Book Day title in May. We may learn more tomorrow when Titan’s June solicits drop, but there is also a listing for a Conan novel for publication in November, which will be part of this Conan crossover with the comics. Cult Of The Obsidian Moon by James Lovegrove and part of Battle Of The Black Stone.

T.V. (Frontier Partisans): The weird Western Outer Range is returning for a second season. I liked the first season OK — especially Josh Brolin — but I didn’t trust it. We’ve all been burned by high-concept weird tales that fizzled because the creators didn’t know their own story. Apparently, that was a problem — and it got fixed. Per Vanity Fair:

Crime Fiction (Por Por Books): ‘Alfred Hitchcock’s Noose Report’ (191 pp.) was published by Dell Books in August, 1966. The cover illustration is credited to Fred Banbery, who did artwork for Hitchcock’s young adult books. I’ve previously posted that as I get older, I find these Baby Boomer-era Hitchcock anthologies to well be worth reading, and this certainly is true of ‘Noose Report’.

Old Radio (Comics Radio): Shannon and Sailor agree to help a man find his missing wife. But there are those willing to kill to make sure the woman is never found.

Military SF (Black Gate): Without question David’s most significant creation was Hammer’s Slammers, a long-running SF series that followed the adventures of the mercenary Colonel Alois Hammer and the tank regiment that bore his name. Alongside David Weber’s Honorverse, Hammer’s Slammers was the most popular military science fiction series of the late 20th Century. Including spin-offs and related volumes, the series ran to over a dozen volumes between 1979 and 2002.

T.V (Fandom Pulse): FX’s Shogun the historical drama set in Edo-era Japan, revolving around a power struggle complicated by the arrival of a foreigner who may prove to be a valuable asset. Adapted from James Clavell’s 1975 novel, the series, helmed by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, stars Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Toranaga, evoking the likeness of Japan’s historical shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Cinema (Lauren Chen): Disney KILLED Marvel & Star Wars! With Nerdrotic.

Warhammer (The Critical Drinker): In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only The Message. Well, it was only a matter of time before they came for Warhammer. Games Workshop’s recent decision to alter the lore of their game universe has opened the floodgates, and there will be demands for more. Believe that.

Warhammer (Wert Zone): The Imperial planet of Quadravidia has come under attack by the Tau. Commissar Ciaphas Cain arrives to advise on the defence of the planet, after several previous encounters with the untrustworthy species. However, the Tau call an unexpected ceasefire in the face of a greater, mutual threat: an incoming Tyranid Hive Fleet.

Science Fiction (Reactor Mag): Today, we’ll be taking a look at Galactic Patrol, the first adventure of Kimball Kinnison, Lensman and defender of the galaxy, one of the greatest and most influential heroes in the history of science fiction. If I had to describe this book with one word, it would be “exuberant”—if Doc Smith wasn’t enjoying the heck out of himself when he wrote it, I’ll eat my hat.

Science Fiction (Marzaat): Raw Feed (2001): Space Soldiers, eds. Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, 2001. “Preface“, Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois — A perfunctory introduction to the anthology and the general theme of combat in space.

Star Trek (Future War Stories): Sometimes we do not know what promises are made to us by a TV show or film…we just watch and wait for the story to unfold. Then there are the works that are planned to be a multi-stage story arc were Luke becomes a Jedi Knight and takes on Darth Vader, or the Master Chief defends the Earth from the Covenant, or Frodo and Sam are on the quest to destroy the One Ring. Often, TV shows embark on a single storyline that webs through the show’s run and ties it together.

Tolkien (Notion Club Stories): Oronzo Cilli has found a description of a lecture JRR Tolkien gave at the Roman Catholic boarding school of Stonyhurst, in Lancashire (where his son John had been a member of staff); on the evening of 31st March 1946 – the day before leaving after a week’s working holiday.

Streaming (MSN): It appears that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will have a newfound life thanks to new modding tools. CD Projekt RED (CDPR), the developer of the 2015 hit game, recently launched the playtest for its modding tool known as The Witcher 3 REDkit, which is now available on Steam.

Dark Sun (Matthew J. Constantine): The first book of the Prism Pentad, this tie-in novel to TSR’s Dungeons & Dragons setting Dark Sun was written by Troy Denning.  I read this book a long, long time ago, when it was still fairly new and I was reading a bunch of D&D books in the wake of devouring the first few Dragonlance trilogies.

Art (DMR Books): April 23rd marked the one thousand and tenth anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf. It was recognized at the time as a major battle, one which rewrote what was politically possible going forward in the isles of Ireland and Great Britain. It was a reaping of kings and the endgame of thrones across that portion of Europe.

History (Celtic History Decoded): Britain and Ireland’s 5,000-Year-Old Proto-Celtic Language.

History (Frontier Partisans): David Hackett Fischer’s “Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America” gets at the cultural roots of the distinctive upland Southern yeoman culture through a regional rather than “racial” analysis that hits closer to the mark. He notes that North Britain had a distinctive regional culture that evolved through centuries of invasion, colonization and cultural exchange among Celtic peoples, Norse, Saxon, Norman French ALL of whom contributed to that culture.

Pulp (Rough Edges): This is a pulp that I own and recently read most of. That’s my copy in the scan. The cover art is by Peter Stevens, who did quite a few covers for ADVENTURE during this era.

This issue starts off with the initial installment of an espionage serial set in post-war China entitled “He Who Rides the Tiger” by James Norman.

Paperbacks (Gold Medal Book Blog): Travis McGee is a Florida man who avoids the tyrannies of everyday life. A self-described “beach bum”, he abhors the idea of a 9 to 5 job. He doesn’t partake in the rituals of consumerism and loathes debt spending. His home isn’t a postwar ranch-style dwelling, stuck in the middle of suburbia. It’s a houseboat called The Busted Flush which he won in a card game.