Fabio was here
I have reached a milestone with the Castalia House blog: ten years of blogging. My first post was “The Mid-1980s Paperback Sword and Sorcery Extinction Event” on December 28, 2014. The blog posts have continued without interruption with the exception of once when the site was down. I have also written some extra blog posts along the way so I am over 520 posts.
I took over Sensor Sweep in November 2017 when Jeffro departed. Sensor Sweep’s emphasis changed some as I don’t have a gaming background. More fiction and some cinema in the mix.
I have written some series for the Castalia House blog:
The George R. R. Martin edited anthologies: 3.
The Pulp Swordsmen: 20 (!).
The Skaith Trilogy: 3
Building a Weird Tales Library: 9
Lovecraft’s Great Tales: 5
The Atomic Age Narrative: 6
Forgotten (and not so forgotten) Sword & Sorcery Artists: 35 (!)
Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: 3
Tales From the Magician’s Skull: 5
20th Century Small Arms: 7
Swords of Steel: 2
Author Bio-Bibliographies: 10
Poul Anderson: 3
Tempo-Star Conan the Barbarian Paperbacks: 6
Legends (David Gemmell Awards): 3
Marvin Albert as “Ian MacAlister): 4
Philip K. Dick Reader: 5
Renegade Swords (anthologies): 3
Science Fiction Adventures: 12
DMR Books Adventures: 2
Men’s Adventure Quarterly: 6
Sergeant Hawk: 6
Cirsova: 5
Manhunt: 3
Osprey Men-at-Arms: 8
Louis L’Amour: 5
Robert E. Howard’s Prehistoric Beasts: 6
Paperback Barbarians: 10
I enjoy writing the series as it locks me in for however many weeks and
gives focus. There are some individual posts that I enjoyed writing:
The Book of Swords: A scathing review of an anthology ostensibly of sword & sorcery (2017) edited by Gardner Dozois. This review got a lot of commentary.
The Mammoth Book of Warrior and Wizardry: This was a really gay and retarded anthology of fantasy stories.
“Men are from Cimmeria, Women are from Earth-Sea”: My response to a risible assertion by a would-be critic that sworda & swory is a “gender neutal” genre.
There are more review of books than anything the past ten years with an emphasis on historicals nad sword & sorcery/heroic fantasy.
Here is to another ten years!
Congratulations, Morgan! I didn’t pick up on your blog until about four or five years ago, but I have enjoyed it every week since. I look forward to reading your posts in the many years to come. And thanks for the handy list of past series titles–now I know what I missed from those early years.
I was there from the beginning. Keep up the good work!