James Bond (The Book Bond): Calvin Dyson is back with his review of Raymond Benson’s Never Dream of Dying.

Fiction (Fandom Pulse): Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden Universe stands as a masterclass in world-building that combines the best elements of space opera, romance, and cultural complexity. Spanning over 26 novels and numerous chapbooks that cover multiple generations of characters, this series offers something increasingly rare in modern fiction: a universe that feels genuinely lived-in and authentic.

Cinema (Ryan Kinel): The Last Of Us DISASTER Gets WORSE After Massive Backlash

Robert E. Howard (The Silver Key): When I read I don’t go looking for symbols … but sometimes they just hit me in the face. Or in the case of Robert E. Howard’s “People of the Dark,” plunge me into their depths.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Goodman Games): September 1 is the birthday of Edgar Rice Burroughs, affectionately called “ERB.” Although he’s best known for his Barsoom/Mars, Tarzan, Pellucidar, and Venus series, he wrote many other works, including historical novels and westerns. It’s beyond the scope of this article to reveal just how influential ERB has been to science fiction, fantasy, gaming, and all the sub-genres therein.

Art (DMR Books): Michael Wm. Kaluta turned seventy-eight on August 25. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do a birthday post for him. I have been a Kaluta fan since I was seven years old. You can read my DMR posts about Mr. Kaluta here.

Cinema (Comics Radio): Let’s now jump ahead to 1936. An historical novel titled Northwest Passage, by Kenneth Roberts is serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in that year and into 1937. It’s published as a book in ’37 and is a bestseller. The book follows Rogers and his rangers during an expedition to attack a hostile Indian tribe in 1759 and a later search for a Northwest Passage–a water route that would take merchants across North America.

Weird Tales (Tellers of Weird Tales): No discussion of the July 1925 issue of Weird Tales would be complete without mentioning “Spear and Fang,” the first story by Robert E. Howard published in “The Unique Magazine.” Howard was nineteen and a half years old when “Spear and Fang” was published.

Gaming (The Rageaholic): Oh, so NOW we can admit there’s a gaming crash?

Comic Books (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Marvel had one of its periodic Horror explosions. The date 1971 is key here. That year the Comics Code Authority or CCA loosened its rules around supernatural creatures. Since 1954, the Code had ruled that “vampires, ghouls and werewolves” were out along with violence and drugs. The changes allowed that Horror monsters were allowed “… when handled in the classic tradition such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and other high calibre literary works written by Edgar Allan Poe, Saki, Conan Doyle and other respected authors whose works are read in schools around the world”.

Fiction (Por Por Books): ‘The Disaster Area’ is a 1967 anthology of short stories, originally published by Ballard in the interval from 1957 to 1966 in various UK magazines and digests, such as New Worlds. Several paperback editions of ‘Disaster’ have been released over the years, and many of the earlier releases are rare and costly. This Flamingo / Harper Collins paperback (191 pp.) was issued in 1992 and is one of the more easily acquired editions.

Conan (Elisabeth Wheatley): Conan the Barbarian embodies one of my favorite archetypes. Throughout the 21 short stories, novellas, and one full-length novel featuring the Cimmerian, Robert E. Howard illustrates this belief that “civilization” is just a facade to allow men to hide their bad intentions.

Fiction (Black Gate): Wellman created his character Hok the Mighty in 1939 and wrote several follow up stories with the character. In 2011, Planet Stories released a “complete” Hok the Mighty collection called Battle in the Dawn, with a cover by Kieran Yanner. The character as Yanner imagined it is shown here and makes me think of Brak the Barbarian.

Weird Tales (M Porcius): The September 1941 issue of Weird Tales is full of material of interest to us here at MPorcius Fiction Log.  We’ve got multiple great illustrations by Hannes Bok as well as good ones from Boris Dolgov and Andrew Brosnatch.

Cinema (Critical Drinker): It was buried for years for a very good reason, and now we know what it is. Join me for my review of Red Sonja.

Fiction (Paperback Warrior): My monthly review of an Arthur Catherall book continues. I’ve become quite fond of the British author and his nautical adventure fiction that was originally catered for the young adult market. I’ve covered his books HERE and featured the author’s literary work and author on a podcast episode HERE. I continue my examination and enjoyment with the author’s Night of the Black Frost.

Fiction (Arkhaven Comics): Historical adventure and sword-and-sorcery are genres that would make sense for a western writer to try his hand. A post-WW2 western writer who attempted any degree of authenticity was a de facto historical writer. If a writer loved researching the history of the 19^th Century, he might just as well love the Middle Ages. The drift toward “barbaric savagery” as described in Noel Loomis’ 1950s westerns could work as well for historical novels.

Radio (Old Time Radio Downloads): “The Horla”. Sponsored by: Camels, Prince Albert. The famous tale of the Frenchman tortured by an invisible creature. + Ladies and Gentlemen, there are two kinds of stories, those you can take to bed with you and relax at ease and then there’s the other kind. Tonight’s story is the other kind. I still do not know if it was the shadow of the madness to which the author himself so tragically succumbed or if there really was a an evil summoning that could not be seen or described.

Horror (Dark Worlds Quarterly): “The Horla” was the final masterpiece by the French writer, Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893). Best known for stories of naturalism, de Maupassant was a student of Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), author of Madame Bovary. Both authors wanted to write stories that were free of romanticism. In these circles, de Maupassant is best remembered for “The Necklace”, about a wife who has replaced her jewels with paste, unbeknownst to her husband.

H. P. Lovecraft (Grognardia): In our reality, H.P. Lovecraft died on March 15, 1937 at the age of 46. While it would be a stretch to say that he died “young,” he certainly died younger than most men of his era. For example, Clark Ashton Smith, who was born less than three years after Lovecraft, died in 1961 at the age of 68. With a better diet and better access to medical care, it’s not at all improbable to imagine HPL living into his 60s or even 70s – long enough for him to see World War II, the end of the Great Depression, and the monumental technological and social changes of the ensuing decades.

Fiction (Glorious Trash): This final volume of the Battle Circle trilogy by Piers Anthony was only published in the UK, until it came out in the United States in 1978 as part of the collected Battle Circle paperback. It’s curious that it did not receive prior publication in the US, but having read the book I would wager a guess that it was because Neq The Sword is a bit of a mess. 

Fiction (Ken Lizzi): I missed a great deal of excellent adventure fiction by failing to stumble across John Maddox Roberts during the last quarter of the twentieth century. I don’t know why our writing/reading paths did not cross: I was reading this stuff during the same period he was writing it, and it his output was precisely in my wheelhouse. I’ve picked up the first couple volumes of his S.P.Q.R. series. I’ve completed the first and am about a quarter of the way through the second.