Blog Archives

There is an odd passage in the book of Hebrews where the author rattles off a list of all the things he’s not going to talk about.¹ The subjects he takes for granted as being too straightforward and elementary to spend much time on happen to include things that have been hotly debated for centuries. (It’s funny, […]

Pulp fiction gets a bad rap, really. Whenever the newspapermen want to invoke classic science fiction and fantasy from the thirties and forties, they go out of their way to dredge up a particularly lurid magazine cover from the period. Sure, even fans of the stuff get a chuckle out of the crazier ones. But the […]

Fantasy role-playing games from their outset have included the possibility of epic level play. And though players often passed over these possibilities in their campaigns, nevertheless it was integral to the zeitgeist of the medium. In first edition Tunnels & Trolls, player characters could raise their attributes to god-like proportions as they leveled up. In […]

Frederic Brown’s stories are impeccably well crafted. He really is a master of the short story form. From the opening hook, through the pulse of each development, and on down to the final kicker, there is not one extraneous word or sentence. His tales usually have twist endings in the same style as, say, the […]

Margaret St. Clair’s formula for an original novel is to start with a realistic dystopian near-future, then layer in a major fantasy element for counter-point, incorporate widespread drug use and hallucinations, and finally… throw in at least two over-the-top science fiction elements that (in comic book fashion) fail to disrupt either the setting or the plot overmuch. It’s […]

Jack Williamson is another one of those names on the Appendix N list that, for too many people, simply doesn’t register as being of any significance. The fact that his career spans eight decades means little now in terms of fame and recognition. That will seem outrageous to some, but I ask librarians and book store […]

Michael Moorcock’s Elric has a tremendous following. And it’s true, there’s a lot here to like. Elric is the quintessential fighting man that can wield both swords and spells. The magic system that’s in force in his setting is based on hereditary pacts with demons and is clearly powered by fatigue points. And the sword Stormbringer […]

What if demons weren’t monstrous spiritual forces out to corrupt the souls of humans that have dealings with them? What if instead they were rather strong and fairly unattractive… but other than that were just plain, ordinary, upstanding folks? Salt of the earth types, as it were…. And what if there was a reason they had […]

The cover on this one is outrageously mismatched to its actual content. There simply isn’t a Conan clone to be found within the pages of this book. There’s not even anything remotely like a swords and sorcery tale here. It’s as if in 1969, Robert E. Howard had defined fantasy in the minds of typical fans to […]

Lin Carter is better known for editing the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series, but this volume from 1974 is anything but a backward glance at the forgotten classics of fantasy. Rather than a mythic past, this tale is set in a far future where the twentieth century isn’t even a dim memory. And though this volume […]

This book is just plain strange. It’s more in line with older works like Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz than anything even remotely like Dungeons & Dragons. And as much as anything, it reinforces the impression that the fantasy genre as we know it today simply did not exist in the nineteen-forties. It says […]

While this book was published too late to have any impact on the design of the initial iteration of Dungeons & Dragons, it nevertheless merited being singled out in Gary Gygax’s list of inspirational reading that appeared in his 1979 AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Given the wide range of authors presented here, this collection preserves a snapshot […]