Weird Tales (Tellers of Weird Tales): The illustration on the cover of Weird Tales for April 1925 is for “When the Green Star Waned” by Nictzin Dyalhis. The artist was Andrew Brosnatch. It shows a man who appears to be falling into a mass of aliens that have invaded Earth. In actuality, the aliens have levitated him the way a Roman might hold a grape over his open mouth. The intent is the same: the aliens mean to eat him.

Games (The Rageaholic): Let’s Talk About Battletech ‘Gothic’.

RPG (Grognardia): Of these, the one that immediately stands out in my memory is Ars Magica, released in 1987 by Lion Rampant, a small outfit co-founded by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen, two designers who would later leave a lasting mark on the hobby.

Review (Imaginative Conservative): Donald Jacob Uitvlugt has married the old talking animal story with a more newfangled kind of story: the multi-generational space flight narrative. The first volume of his story (epic?), Jiao Tu’s Endeavour, introduces us to an enormous spaceship with multiple levels that have earth, plants, weather, and, given the centuries in which it has been traveling, various cultures that seem to have developed.

Games (Wertzone): As was prophesised in the ancient texts (well, yesterday), Bethesda Game Studios have announced and released their remake of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on the same day. The game is available right now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Fantasy (Dark Worlds Quarterly): As a kid I would set up my tent in the backyard, listen to Yes and Jethro Tull and read big, fat Fantasy novels. I was young so my choices were non-judgmental. I remember enjoying Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara while The Lord of the Rings was too difficult. (I tried Shannara again last year and only got half way. Not really a fan anymore. The curse of getting older, I suppose.)

Robert E. Howard (Gatesville Messenger): Hardly anybody in Cross Plains knew the city once had a famous writer who grew up there until a reporter from Houston came to town inquiring about Robert E. Howard. “He’s the creator of the sword and sorcery genre,” says Arlene Stephenson, curator of the Robert E. Howard Museum in Cross Plains. “He wrote a lot of fantasy.”

Conan (Bleeding Cool): Tt was back in September 2020 when the news first hit that Netflix was developing a series based on Robert E. Howard‘s iconic sword-and-sorcery character Conan. Set to stem from Fredrik Malmberg and Mark Wheeler‘s Pathfinder Media,  the series was set to be the first project under the deal between Netflix and Conan Properties International (owned by Malmberg’s Cabinet Entertainment).

Forthcoming (DMR Books): One of DMR Books’ most popular releases in recent years was Samhain Sorceries, a sword-and-sorcery anthology based around the pagan festival that was the precursor to Halloween. We’re going to follow that up with a companion volume entitled Walpurgis Witcheries.

Fiction (Paperback Warrior): In 2000, American historian Jack Kelly set aside his non-fiction writing to author a femme fatale noir novel in the tradition of James M. Cain. The book is called Line of Sight, and it’s quite a wild ride.

Art (Art of Michael Whelan): Staking everything on a letter from Donald Wollheim that promised a cover assignment, bolstered by recent success selling his work at conventions, Michael packed his VW Beetle and with trailer in tow headed to New York City to pursue illustration in 1975.

Comic Books (Rip Jagger Dojo): Barry (Not-Yet-Windsor) Smith grew by leaps and bounds stylistically as he produced the earliest issues of Marvel’s surprise hit Conan the Barbarian. It was the birth of a franchise that would reap benefits for Marvel for decades. Smith left the title several times during the course of its run, sometimes by his own choice.

Fantasy (Wertzone): Karen Wynn Fonstad was one of fantasy cartography’s biggest names, best-known for her two editions of The Atlas of Middle-earth (1981, 1992). This was an attempt to create an atlas spanning the entire history of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy legendarium, including detailed maps of the lands explored in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

Cinema (Black Gate): Growing up in Southern California in the 60’s and 70’s was a movie lover’s dream. Late night and weekend television in those days was almost completely given over to old movies, especially on the Los Angeles independent channels: KTLA channel 5, KHJ channel 9, KTTV channel 11, and KCOP channel 13.

Pulp (Pulp Super Fan): I recently read and reviewed another early work from Perley Poore Sheehan (1875-1943) and bemoaned the fact that his early works, especially several fantastical works, hadn’t been reprinted. Now, from Steeger Books, we get The Woman of the Pyramid and Other Tales: The Perley Poore Sheehan Omnibus, Vol. 1.

Comic Books (Black Gate): Sometimes a project and a creator are brought together in the right place at the right time. Titan Comics’ Solomon Kane mini series The Serpent Ring is one of those times. Writer/Artist Patrick Zircher is working at the very top of his game. The project is dear to his heart, and it shows.

Firearms (Frontier Partisans): Ran across an NRA American Rifleman piece on the .62 caliber fowler carried by militia commander John Parker on the fateful day, April 19, 1775, when the American Revolution kicked off.

Review (Kirkus Review): The Revolutionary War enters its most desperate phase in the second volume of Atkinson’s trilogy. To read this book by prolific military historian Atkinson is to see the Revolutionary War as both a civil war—loyalists against rebels, with a sizable number of uncommitted colonists in between—and an international war involving numerous European powers.

Mythology (Swordslore): This week’s post covers three figures from Irish saga literature who might have once been gods that ruled the ancient, prehistoric tribes of Ireland, the Túatha dé Danann (“Tribes of the Goddess Danu”). These figures are sometimes speculated to have been deities of pre-Christian Ireland and are slowly coming to the forefront of many adaptations of Irish literature in pop culture.

Cinema (Art of the Movies): We all love rooting for our onscreen heroes but they would be nothing without a great villain to go up against.

Mythology (History Debunked): It is one of the most memorable passages in the story of King Arthur, as it has been handed down to us. He was the possessor of an important sword called Excalibur. As he lies wounded and at the point of death, Arthur orders his companion to take Excalibur and hurl it into a nearby lake.

Star Wars (Retro Scifi Art): The R1-G4 droid from Star Wars (1977) was made by Roger Christian as a homage to Chris Foss’s art for The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov (Panther, 1973)

Mythology (Celtic Source): Calan Mai (Beltane) is a time of flowers, birdsong and sunshine, but Welsh myths set at this time tell of conflict, horrific violence and monstrous threats to the very fertility of the land and the people. What does this mean? What’s at the heart of this contradiction?