Blog Archives
sA novel I pulled out to reread is Don Tracy’s The Black Amulet. I read this decades ago and remembered liking it at the time. The novel is set in a barbaric period and I thought of another “Paperback Barbarian” entry. Don(ald Fiske) Tracy (1905-1976) was an American fiction writer who wrote for slick magazines, […]
Sword & sorcery as a fictional genre had its origin in the weird fiction pulp magazines of the late 1920s into the 1930s. There was a forgotten variation in Planet Stories in the 1940s. Then it disappeared from the magazines for the most part in the 1950s. There was a renascence in the digest magazines […]
The 1950s was a period when historical novels were very popular. Thomas B. Costain, Frank Yerby, Frank Slaughter were among the top tier. Some science fiction writers supplemented their income writing historicals including L. Sprague de Camp and Poul Anderson. Another was Gardner F. Fox. Fox’s specialty was the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. The […]
I have read foreign language fantasy translated into English when I find them. DAW Books had some translations of French writer Daniel Walther. The anthology Terra SF II (DAW Books, 1983) had more fantasy than science fiction, all from European writers. I have wanted to read the two novels of Norwegian writer Egil Rasmussen for […]
Around 42-43 years ago, had you gone to a chain bookstore like Walden Books or B. Dalton Bookseller at your local mall, there would be a good sized shelf of Andre Norton books. “Andre” Norton, born Alice (1912-2005) was a writer that started out more in the young adult market but became one of Donald […]
There is more sword & sorcery from a writer normally associated with a different genre. This time it is James Reasoner who is well known for westerns and some well regarded crime novels. “Washed ashore on a jungle-choked island in the delta at the mouth of the great Jehannamun River, Jorras Trevayle has survived an […]
Mark Sibley’s follow up to Mongol Moon is A Dance of Devils. After a Christmas Eve EMP attack blinds America and Europe, triggering a meticulously planned attack on the West’s civilian populations, only a ragtag team of neighbors stands in the way of a new Axis invasion.
I have enjoyed reading future war/WW3 novels over the years – Ralph Peters, John Antal, Ian Slater, Tom Clancy, Harold Coyle come to mind. A new entry is Mongol Moon by Mark Sibley. The author bio states: “Mark Sibley is a corporate crisis manager and war gamer. He’s developed and facilitated over a hundred war […]
I take notice when a writer from another genre takes a stab at sword & sorcery. You had western writers Gordon D. Shirreffs, T. V. Olsen, and Philip Ketchum write interesting historicals that had a sword & sorcery vibe. Ben Haas who wrote the Fargo books as “John Benteen” wrote three sword & sorcery novels. […]
The most misinterpreted Robert E. Howard story is “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter.” Winter Elliott wrote in her essay “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Women” (Conan Meets the Academy): “Women in peril flee across the wastelands and marshes depicted on Howard’s pages; frequently like Atali of the story ‘The Frost-Giant’s Daughter,’ they’re pursued by men with […]
The weird westerns continue. This week’s book is Nancy A. Collins’ Dead Man’s Hand. It is a trade paperback collection from Two Wolf Prress from 2004. Contents are a collection of five stories, novellas, and a short novel. Introduction by Joe R. Lansdale. Nancy Collins was a member for a period of time in the […]
I have written before that I enjoy a good weird western story. I have looked at some anthologies of that genre here over the years. Joe R. Lansdale has been considered as the resuscitator of the weird western story after it was missing in action for fifty years. Two works in the 1980s brought the […]