Blog Archives

Appendix N (Cirsova) More Fafhrd & Gray Mouser Thoughts — “While there were a couple really good 60s stories in Swords Against Death, I think that the few from the 40s were my favorites. They were great short adventures and each stood nicely on its own. Honestly, the weakest parts (despite the excellent writing) of […]

Science Fiction (Not a Blog) A Sadness — “The Hugo voters knew what they were doing when they gave Pournelle that first Campbell; he went on to have an amazing career, both on his own and in collaboration with other writers, particularly Larry Niven. With INFERNO, LUCIFER’S HAMMER, FOOTFALL, and (especially) MOTE IN GOD’S EYE, the […]

Appendix N (Shop on the Borderlands) “APPENDIX N: INSPIRATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL READING” AND OTHER FANTASY RPG READING LISTS: PART 1 — “That distinction between swords & sorcery and epic high fantasy is important in the history of D&D and other fantasy RPGs. It’s clear from Appendix N, and from early modules like the Giants series or […]

Movies (RMWC Reviews) Movie Review: Mr. Majestyk (1974) — “There’s a few nods to the labor disputes of the early 70s, but at its core, its basically a libertarian western. The man just wants to get his harvest in and make some money, and the cops do nothing except get in the way of that. Everybody […]

Pulp Revolution (Jon Mollison) Adventure Constant: Exuberant Adventure — “But this book is more about action and adventure and the panoramic setting of Mollison’s parallel Earth: a globe divided into the Red Collective, the Shogunate of the Red Dawn, the Machine Empire of Europe, the Allied States, the Hashishim Moonies, and undoubtedly more not yet mentioned […]

Pulp Revolution (Wasteland and Sky) To Pulp or Not to Pulp ~ A Review of Astounding Frontiers #1 and a Bonus! — “Keep in mind that there are no bad stories here. They’re all well written and do what they do well, but they are not Pulp stories aside from According to Culture. The reason they’re […]

The Wasteland (Barbarian Book Club) The Western Canon — “My college experience was even more disappointing. The few English, Literature, and Creative Writing classes I managed to take were disappointing. I remember an introductory literature course where the dreadlocked grandma professor informed the class on day one that she would only focus on feminist literature […]

A Look from the Outside (Kairos) Superversive vs. PulpRev — “Though my work doesn’t meet the ideal of either literary movement, I’m sympathetic to and have friends in both camps. For those who are unfamiliar with the Superversives and the #PulpRev, the former seek to overturn the rampant nihilism in contemporary SFF from above with […]

D&D (Cirsova) D&D Alignment Part 2: D&D’s Cosmology — “Picking an alignment which fits your character’s personality and shaping the cosmos around those characters’ alignment choices is doing it backwards, which is why many people find alignment rules baffling. Unless you are actually using AD&D’s implied setting and cosmology, of course, there’s no mechanical reason […]

Pulp Revolution (Kairos) PulpFail — “There are people whose lives have no other meaning than Star Wars. They are legion. And now their last common cultural touchstone is being strip-mined of all value. It’s like some kind of memetic disease. They pay people who hate them to be insulted. Delude themselves into thinking they enjoyed […]

Appendix N (Cirsova) Reviews on Issue 5, CL Moore & Hugos — “I’d read some Moore, but I’m just now getting around this classic anthology edited by Lester Del Ray. I was left a bit unimpressed by her collab with Kuttner on The Last Citadel, but I gave the grande dame another chance when I […]

Traveller (Tales to Astound) An Improvised Classic Traveller Convention Game — “And I type all this up to say–the game was written and designed to play this easy, fast, and loose play–and you can play this way too. No long, detailed introduction by the Referee about politics that the Player Characters can’t influence anyway. No thoughtfully […]