Blog Archives
sGaming (Goodman Games): To the casual RPG fan, D&D is steeped in Tolkien lore. The original game (1974) contained direct references to ents, balrogs, orcs, and of course hobbits. Due to the popularity of the game, this eventually resulted in a cease-and-desist letter to TSR. Later editions featured hobbits renamed as halflings (a more generic […]
Sensor Sweep: Newpub, Akira, Fantasy Fortifications, Aquanauts
Monday , 6, January 2020 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentAnime (Walker’s Retreat): Folks know about Ghost in the Shell, and plenty know of AD Police and Bubblegum Crisis/Crash/2040. Akira is a classic, but one other title once well-known in popular Japanese cyberpunk of the 80s has since faded: Appleseed. There have been post-2000 adaptations, but none are as good as the 1988 OVA and […]
Sensor Sweep: The Night Land, Fritz Leiber, Scott Oden, Viking Prince
Monday , 30, December 2019 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentHorror Fiction (Too Much Horror Fiction): Known for penning the novel The Night of the Hunter upon which the classic 1955 movie was based, Davis Grubb (1919-1980) was a West Virginia native well-versed in the pride, poverty, tribulations and superstitions that were endemic to that region. This collection of short stories ranging over 20 years, […]
Sensor Sweep: Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Machen, Brak, Isaac Asimov
Monday , 23, December 2019 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentDashiell Hammett (Don Herron): Mean Streets readers get a Christmas Treat this year from no less than the pulp authority John Locke, doing a deep-dive into the origins of Hammett’s career as a writer. John made a cool discovery in the forgotten trade magazines of yesteryear, he and Terry Zobeck exchanged a few remarks about […]
Sensor Sweep: Yetis, Mercenaries, Crusaders, Masters of Kung Fu
Monday , 16, December 2019 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentWeird Western (David J. West): It was fun to reread some old Louis L’amour books and even a couple Lovecraft stories I had missed like The Strange High House in the Mist – because I have a hardly touched Lovecraftian god = Nodens making an appearance. Fiction (Wasteland & Sky): For those that don’t know, […]
Sensor Sweep: Poul Anderson and D&D, Gollum, Castle of Llyr, Insanity’s Children
Monday , 9, December 2019 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentRPG (Goodman Games): Although most fans of fantasy fiction and RPGs assume that the classic “old school” alignments of Law, Neutrality, and Chaos are derived from Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion series of stories, some will be shocked to discover that Moorcock openly borrowed that concept from Anderson. In his novel, Three Hearts and Three Lions […]
Sensor Sweep: Firefly, Lou Antonelli, Nintendo 1985, Robot Anime
Monday , 2, December 2019 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentT.V. (Medium.com): Every generation has their white whale of a concluded series. Baby boomers got hooked on Star Trek and made a big noise about it until they got movies, spinoff shows, more movies, more spinoff shows… Generation X kept the love of Star Wars alive until they got novels, video games, comics and, err, […]
Sensor Sweep: Alan Moore, Louis L’amour, Conan Pastiches, Robots
Monday , 25, November 2019 Sensor Sweep 5 CommentsSuper Heroes (BBC): Is it embarrassing for adults to like superheroes? According to Alan Moore – creator of the Watchmen series and widely considered one of the greatest comic book writers – it is. He says superheroes are perfectly fine for 12 or 13-year-olds but adults should think again. “I think the impact of superheroes […]
Sensor Sweep: Wulfhere, Monster Manual, Heroism, Howard A. Jones
Monday , 18, November 2019 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsHeroism (Rogue Blades Entertainment): “The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times …” Henry David Thoreau wrote those words in the mid-19th Century for his distinguished book, Walden. They rang true then and they ring true today. Of course there […]
Sensor Sweep: Witherwing, Lankhmar, Mid-List Collapse
Monday , 11, November 2019 Sensor Sweep 4 CommentsWriters (Less Known Writes): David William Jarrett was the son of Mervyn Spencer Jarrett (1906-1986), a works engineer, and his wife Olive Elizabeth Jenkins (1907-1997), who were married in the summer of 1940. He had one older brother. Jarrett’s novel was Witherwing (London: Sphere, 1979: New York: Warner, 1979). It begins as a kind of […]
Sensor Sweep: Michael Shea, Hugh Cave, Walking Dead
Monday , 4, November 2019 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentComic Books (Paint Monk): If you think I worship at the proverbial altar of Roy Thomas when it comes to Conan comic books, you’re right. I do. But it’s not undeserved. Not only was Thomas the man who worked to bring Conan to Marvel, but he also took his time with character research, developing all […]
Sensor Sweep: Irish Horror Writers, Robert Jordan, E. C. Comics
Monday , 28, October 2019 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsIndie Fiction (Jon Mollison): Given that indy comics are shouting into the gale-force winds of multi-billion dollar marketing campaigns. It’s hard to get noticed, and every little of help that I can offer my fellow creatives is time well spent. These reviews aren’t just the writings of a fan, they are recommendations to help you […]