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Authors (Rich Horton): Roger Zelazny would have been 82 today, but, dammit, he died way too young in 1995. I loved his short fiction but I haven’t written a lot about it, so instead I’ve taken four rather short bits, capsules, really, that I did of four of his novels, for my SFF Net newsgroup […]

Reading (Rawle Nyanzi): By now it is well-known that reading in the US has declined across all demographic indicators. Whether it’s caused by television, the internet, video games, or boring literature classes, the drop-off in reading time is plain and obvious to see. Some even claim that we are entering a “post-literate” period where the written word is actively rejected in […]

Cinema (Kairos): An anonymous commenter on yesterday’s post asks who should have been cast in a hypothetical 1993 film adaptation of Heir to the Empire. The hour when such a film could have been made has long since passed, but wistful speculation on what might have been is all Star Wars fans have left. Without further ado, here […]

Popular Culture (Men’s Pulp Mags): Justin Marriott and Paul Bishop are two of my favorite pulp culture mavens. (“Pulp culture” is a term I borrowed from the book of that name by Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson and expanded to encompass both early pulp magazines and pulp art and later magazines, books and movies that have pulpy DNA, such as men’s adventure magazines and action/adventure […]

RPG (Modiphius): The John Carter Swords of Mars miniatures line is made up of 32mm scale high quality multi-part resin miniatures which come complete with resin scenic bases. The Swords of Mars campaign book includes a set of rules to play out battles involving squads and heroes, fighting across moving airships, desolate ruins or the […]

Lit-Crit (Jewish Review of Books): It’s a bit surprising to come across Harold Bloom’s confession that the literary work that has been his greatest obsession is not, say, Hamlet or Henry IV, but a relatively little-known 1920 fantasy novel. After all, Bloom is our most famous bardolater.  When I took an undergraduate class with him at Yale, he […]

Gaming (Niche Gamer): Sony Computer Entertainment has announced they’re shutting down several titles in a few months. First, they’re delisting Driveclub, Drivclub VR, and Driveclub Bikes from the PlayStation Store on August 31st, 2019, with the online servers for the shutting down a bit later – on March 31st of 2020. They’re also shutting down the online servers for Starblood Arena on July […]

Culture (Legends of Men): The primary professional association for classicists is the Society for Classical Studies. This was formerly called the American Philological Association. Mary Frances Williams, a Ph.D. in classics, former professor, and an independent researcher, decided to attend this year’s annual conference. There, she witnessed first hand how the classics field is becoming a […]

RPG (Tenkar’s Tavern): We’re very excited to announce the next release in our Original Adventures Reincarnated line: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks! As with previous releases in the OAR series, this one will include scans of the original 1E editions, a conversion to 5E, and new 5E material filling in some gaps from the original 1E […]

Authors (DMR Books): One thing that A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos really clarified for me was just how much impact Derleth and his publishing business, Arkham House, had on the weird fiction scene from 1939 to 1971. Arkham House didn’t just publish HPL in fine hardcovers and keep his name and works in front […]

Cinema (The Right Geek): What I’m trying to say here is that I’m the audience for a female superhero like Captain Marvel. And yet – and yet! – I have no interest in seeing her new movie because her marketing campaign has been a trash fire of epic proportions. First of all, there’s the deeply stupid year-zero mentality.   […]

Fiction (DMR Books): One hundred years ago today, A. Merritt‘s novella/short novel, “The Conquest of the Moon Pool,” was unleashed upon an eager public. The story which spawned it, “The Moon Pool,” had been met with such an outpouring of enthusiasm by the readership of All-Story Weekly that the pulp’s legendary editor, Robert H. Davis, […]