Blog Archives
sSF Coverage in Transition: SF Signal Shuts Down, io9 Makes Move
Thursday , 12, May 2016 Fiction, Uncategorized 21 CommentsAfter covering nearly the last decade and a half of science fiction publications, movies and events, SF Signal is shuttering its doors. From John DeNardo and JP Frantz, founders of SF Signal: When we started SF Signal in 2003, it was because we loved speculative fiction. Having a blog allowed us to share that love with other […]
The 1970s continued the same pattern set in the late 1960s with anthologies that were not Weird Tales centric but did reprint a few stories per book. Peter Haining was possibly the greatest English anthologist of horror and weird fiction. He got his start in the late 1960s with The Hall of Mirrors (Four Square […]
Short Reviews will wrap up the Summer 1945 issue of Planet Stories next week with Chester Whitehorn’s Coming of the Gods. Again it’s time to look at the letters to the editor sections of SF mags from the days of yore in search of juicy tidbits and glimpses of what was relevant and interesting to […]
Answering the RPG Critic: Left Over Lies from the Satanic Panic
Thursday , 5, May 2016 Games, Tabletop Games, Uncategorized, Wargames 3 CommentsDarren Molitor played Dungeons & Dragons for many years as a youth and became convinced from a personal perspective that role playing games are unhealthy and should be avoided, and wrote a guide for the interested non-player as a warning. At first he gives a basic overview of character generation to introduce the uninitiated. Then […]
Another source for Weird Tales reprints are the fiction reprint magazines. Thirty years ago, you could find some of them for modest amounts of money. I mentioned The Avon Fantasy Reader paperbacks. The original magazine was digest sized, published by the paperback publisher Avon, and edited by the great Donald A. Wollheim. There were 18 […]
Building a Weird Tales Library: Part 3
Sunday , 24, April 2016 Fiction, Short Fiction, Uncategorized 2 CommentsIn the 1960s, Warren Magazines revolutionized comic books. Using the 8 ½ x 11 inch size with black & white interiors, the company side skirted the comic books code. Horror returned with the success of Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella. I can remember issues of the magazines making the rounds on the bus ride home from […]
Media Driven Satanic Panic Changed the Way We Can’t Talk About RPGs
Thursday , 21, April 2016 Uncategorized 22 CommentsThe recent discussions about “why we can’t talk about rpgs” have touched on some of the history of role-playing. One watershed moment that changed, fundamentally, how role-playing games are discussed (both within games and in the general public) cannot be overstated. Just as Dr. Frederick Wertham, with the blessing of academia and a concerned public, […]
In the 1960s and into the early 1970s, there were genre specific anthologies that had Weird Tales reprints. The two genres are Cthulhu mythos and sword-and-sorcery. I mentioned in the previous post how the Arkham House anthology, Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos was my gateway to Weird Tales in general. The first paperback edition was […]
Science Fiction Hall of Fame Opens Noms and Awards to Public: or 2016, The Year Popular SF Recognition Became…Popular
Thursday , 14, April 2016 Uncategorized Leave a commentYet another means of recognizing achievement in Science Fiction has turned to the consumers of Science Fiction for insight. This time, it is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Founded in 1996, the Hall of Fame was relocated from the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas to […]
While Anthony and I are dealing with the end of our semesters, Ben Zwycky, a fellow superversive author, will be holding down the fort. I’ll be back in a few weeks with something relevant, because I don’t think this is the right blog for a discussion about the filioque controversy. Without further ado, Part 2 […]
Building a Weird Tales Library: Part 1
Sunday , 10, April 2016 Fiction, Short Fiction, Uncategorized 4 CommentsSo, you have read your Del Rey trade paperbacks of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. You might even have picked up the Penguin collection of Clark Ashton Smith stories. You keep hearing about a magazine called Weird Tales where Lovecraft and Howard’s stories first appeared. There is some curiosity if there were any […]
The Dragon Awards: Fan Driven, Open Voting
Thursday , 7, April 2016 Comics, Fiction, Games, Uncategorized 6 CommentsDragonCon 2016 has launched a new award and invites all fans everywhere to participate: Welcome to the first annual Dragon Awards! As a part of our 30th Anniversary as the nation’s largest fan run convention, we are introducing a new way to recognize excellence in all things Science Fiction and Fantasy. These awards will be […]