Horror (Paperback Warrior): She appears in several horror anthologies and digests with her frightening tale “The Phantom Coach”. The story first appeared in All the Year Round in 1864 as “Another Past Lodger Relates His Own Ghost Story” with the author unnamed. My version of the story is in The Phantom Coach: Thirteen Journeys into the Unknown edited by Peter C. Smith and published by William Kimber in 1979. 

Cinema (Matt Walsh): Warner Bros has reimagined Batman as an Aztec warrior fighting Hernán Cortés, and it’s as ridiculous as it sounds. Welcome to woke Gotham.

Cinema (Fandom Pulse): RJ from The Fourth Age recently released an incisive takedown of the new Superman film, and if you haven’t seen it, you should.

His meta-commentary identifies what many already feel in their guts but can’t articulate: This movie isn’t a story, it’s a sermon.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc): Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., representing the estate of the iconic author behind Tarzan® and John Carter of Mars®, is developing an animated series based on the John Carter of Mars novels. Michael Kogge, who is writing and directing John Carter of Mars: The Audio Series and whose other credits include projects for Lucasfilm (Star Wars), Disney Interactive, Playtone, and Warner Bros., has been tapped to develop the series. Jim Sullos and Wolf Larson will oversee for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

Fiction (Glitternight): GULLIVAR JONES ON MARS aka Lt. Gullivar Jones – His Vacation and various other titles and spellings, was published in 1905 and is one VERY odd piece of work. The author was Edwin L. Arnold, whose ineptitude made this novel very unfulfilling as he defeated his storyline at every turn.

T.V (Metatron): Spartacus House of Ashur is a CRINGEFEST

Weird Tales (Tellers of Weird Tales): Bailey is best known and had real success with his stories of the occult detective Prince Abdul Omar of Persia, better known as Semi-Dual. The first of these was “The Occult Detector,” part one of which was published in The Cavalier on February 17, 1912.

Tolkien (Ink and Fantasy): In this video we explore the beliefs of J. R. R. Tolkien on the subject of the Roman Empire, as well as how Rome influenced Middle Earth and the Lord of the Rings!

Radio (Grognardia): I was delighted to learn that H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror” had been adapted into a 30-minute radio drama on Suspense. The adaptation, which premiered on November 1, 1945, is an abridged version of the tale told in an unconventional way but it’s not unfaithful to HPL’s original. It’s also notable for its casting of Ronald Colman in the role of Dr Henry Armitage. It’s worth a listen if you’ve got half an hour.

Review (DMR Books): James Reasoner is a serious guy. Not in the sense of ‘humorless’, but somebody who takes his life and things he likes seriously. Somebody who is legit. He’s been a published author for over fifty years. Born in Fort Worth, he grew up loving pulp authors like Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Greyhawk (Greyhawkery): Hey hey Greyhawkers! Time for another random quiz created by me! This one shouldn’t be too hard this time. If you’d like to tackle some of my past quizzes, follow the link. In the meantime, try out Classic Modules Sudden Death. Select the wrong title and it’s OVER! Enjoy!

Robert E. Howard (A Shiver in the Archives): In January 2019, I posted on this blog “‘All Fled, All Done’: Redux on Robert E. Howard’s Famous Couplet”, which mostly sorted out the inspiration of Howard’s famous couplet as coming from a poem by Viola Taylor (later Viola Taylor Garvin). I reproduced the publication of the poem from 1912, and noted that it had probably first appeared in The Westminster Gazette. In 1926, Taylor/Garvin dated the original appearance to 1906. Herewith I can update this and complete the study.

D&D (Grognardia): In honor of The Shadow over August, I thought I’d do something a little different with my weekly “The Articles of Dragon” series. Instead of continuing to highlight articles that I remember or that made a strong impression on me – good or bad – from my youth, I’m instead going to spend this month focusing on Dragon articles that touch upon H.P. Lovecraft,.

T.V. (Secret Galaxy): The Sad History of Thundarr: The Barbarian: Just Missed Being As Big As He-Man

Weird Tales (Paperback Warrior): The February 1937 issue of Weird Tales featured Robert E. Howard’s horror story “Dig Me No Grave”. The iconic Texas author was paid $100 for the story shortly before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1936. The story was later published in The Dark Man and Others by Arkham House in 1963, Fawcett’s Eight Strange Tales in 1972, and Zebra’s Pigeons from Hell in 1976. My version is from the Baen 1996 paperback Beyond the Borders.

Fantasy(Kairos): In the sphere of Modern genre fiction, few names spark as much excitement—or as much debate—as Brandon Sanderson. His intricate magic systems and meticulous world building have inspired countless writers to follow in his footsteps.

Conan (Dark Worlds Quarterly): “Legion of the Dead” was a later L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter tale that originally appeared in Conan the Swordsman (1978). Perhaps the most significant thing about this book was that it was one of the first to appear outside the Lancer collections, as that company had folded into bankruptcy. The book appeared right on the tail of Conan of Aquilona (1977), a tome that sat in limbo for years because of Lancer’s collapse.

Pulp (Grognardia): One of the regular series for which this blog was once known is Pulp Fantasy Library, in which I highlighted individual fantasy and science fiction stories I felt had been influential, directly or indirectly, on the development of the hobby of roleplaying.

Radio (Comics Radio): Three men are threatened with death by an escapee from Devil’s Island. But the situation actually might be more complicated than it first appears to be.

Fantasy (Fantasy Literature): That’s the magic of Tanith Lee: even her first novel, a work where she was clearly still working out her craft to an extent, feels like something you might find engraved on an ancient stone tablet under a forgotten prehistoric pyramid. She has remarkably rich prose, of course — it’s Tanith Lee, so that practically goes without saying — but she also makes the characters feel true in a way that so very few novelists can manage.

Pulp (Grognardia): Though the covers of Weird Tales are usually more well remembered by history (for obvious reasons), it should be remembered that most of the stories published within the Unique Magazine had at least one accompanying illustration. So it is with H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Silver Key,” which featured this piece of artwork by Hugh Rankin.

Review (M.C. Tuggle): In his foreword to Cahena: A Dream of the Past, Manly Wade Wellman describes the last novel of his brilliant and prolific career as an historical novel. That’s mostly true. The book is rich in historical details, from the hardscrabble life of the Berbers to their preparations for battle, which are especially vivid and convincing. But this intriguing tale is also spiked with the sorcerous, including a demon that stalks the camps searching out doomed warriors, and a vampire.

History (Metatron): Aztecs Were Stunning and Brave

Art (Michael Whelan): For this Whelan Wednesday, we have an interior illustration for H.P. Lovecraft’s horror classic At the Mountains of Madness featuring an Antarctic explorer consumed by madness as he grips a star relic.

Cinema (Rough Edges): That’s right. Somehow, I’ve managed to spend more than 70 years on this planet, and I’ve never seen CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON—until now.

T.V. (Frontier Partisans): Outlander has loomed large in the personal mythology of Clan Cornelius over the past decade. I was aware of the Diana Gabaldon book series because my brother John and his wife enjoyed them.

History (Raymond Ibrahim): The true story of Richard the Lionheart’s most daring—and desperate—charge at Jaffa. In the summer of 1192, facing overwhelming odds, Richard launched what eyewitnesses remembered as the most suicidal—yet triumphant—assault in history, defying death to drive Saladin’s forces from the city.

Review (Sprague de Camp Fan): If you don’t have unrealistic expectations for a low budget Sword & Sorcery film, Red Sonja will entertain. The movie mirrors the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film more that the 1985 Red Sonja movie.