Fantasy (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Continuing our series of Sword & Sorcery Firsts we are technically still in the Pulp Era until 1954 or so a few of the following happened in a Pulp magazine. The Digests take over shortly thereafter. Fantasy Fiction as a whole, whether it is S&S or not, has faded from much of the magazines, being replaced by Science Fiction. In some cases, S&S tales take on a Sci-Fi look to become Sword & Planet.

Literary Criticism (Arkhaven Comics): I mentioned last week the concept of academic wankery. This book is an excellent example. Conan Meets the Academy (McFarland, 2013), trade paperback, 216 pages, edited by Jonas Prida.

Conan (Paperback Warrior): Conan the Usurper was published in 1967 by Lancer with a painted cover by Frank Frazetta. It was later reprinted by Ace once Lancer ceased publishing operations. The book includes an introduction by L. Sprague de Camp and two short stories solely authored by Robert E. Howard. There are two additional stories included that were manuscripts by Howard that de Camp took it upon himself to edit and complete. 

Awards (Fandom Pulse): SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association posted their annual Nebula Award winners to little fanfare last evening. The physical awards were given out at their conference in Kansas City.

Literature (Imaginative Conservative): The whole edifice of western literature stands on the statuesque shoulders of Homer. If there had not been Homer, we would not have Virgil’s Aeneid, and without Virgil there would be no Divine Comedy.

Authors (Goodman Games): Linwood Vrooman Carter was born on June 9th, 1930 in St. Petersburg, Florida. In the august company of his fellow Appendix N authors, Lin Carter is a figure both of high esteem and some controversy. As an editor and critic, he is indispensable, most notably for his role in editing the landmark Ballantine Adult Fantasy series (BAFS). 

Science Fiction (SFF Remembrance): Philip K. Dick is one of the most important SF authors to ever live, and this is despite dying at 53 with a string of failed marriages and financial hardship left behind him. He was the first genre SF writer to get a Library of America volume, preserving some of his novels with fancy hardcover editions. The Philip K. Dick Award, given annually to the best SF novel first published in paperback, is still going to this day.

Science Fiction (M Porcius): One of the 1940 stories we tackled in our last episode was Edmond Hamilton’s “City from the Sea,” which was printed in Weird Tales.  Hamilton’s typewriter was clacking up a storm in this period and he had stories in numerous magazines in 1940; let’s check out three others, another from Weird Tales, one from Marvel Tales and one from Thrilling Wonder Stories.  

Popular Culture (Silver Key): I love the pairing of sword-and-sorcery aesthetic with machines of glass and steel. My idle daydream is to acquire a couple. Given the time and money I’d build a dedicated gaming den, dominated by … Gorgar.

Science Fiction (Porpor Books): ‘Maske: Thaery’ (216 pp.) was published in hardcover in 1976. This Berkley Books paperback was issued in September, 1977, with cover art by Ken Barr. It has been some time since I last had read a Vance novel, so the initial twenty-five or so pages of ‘Maske’ were slow going as I tried to reacquaint myself with Vance’s idiosyncratic prose style:

Comic Books (Black Gate): One Black Gate series which I have started, but is still for somewhere down the line, is a look at the first dozen-or-so issues of Roy Thomas’ Conan the Barbarian comic. And even before running that series, I intend to write one for the second dozen-ish, so I can tie together the various overlaps. This was prompted by a combination of the over-sized Marvel hardback Omnibuses, and Roy Thomas’ TERRIFIC (now) three-volume memoir about the series, from Pulp Hero Press.

Authors (Adventures Fantastic): Wednesday (May 21) is the birthday of Manly Wade Wellman (1903-1986). Wellman is best remembered for his stories of John the Balladeer. Wellman’s work reflects the beliefs and people of the Appalachian Mountains. He found rich inspiration in their folklore and legends, of which the John the Balladeer stories are only part of that body of work. Wellman truly found his authorial voice with these stories.

Comic Books (Rageaholic): Why Comics REQUIRE Vigilante Justice (w/ Mike Baron!) – Iron Age Attacks.

D&D (Grognardia): One of the characteristics of the Silver Age of Dungeons & Dragons (1983–1989) is its concern with “realism,” both in its worldbuilding and in the game rules intended to facilitate them. You can clearly see this in the kinds of articles Dragon magazine published during the mid to late 1980s, a great many of which I still remember to this day.

Tolkien (Kairos): Tolkien stated the above points explicitly, repeatedly, and with the weariness of a man who knew exactly what he was up against. His tragedy was that of the linguist trying to speak to a civilization that had lost the ability to hear. Because our society no longer reads; it scans. All day online, we listen to commentary from people who have not read The Lord of the Rings—never mind The Silmarrillion or Tolkien’s letters—and would not understand the material if they had.

Pulp (Spectre Library): This is the July 1935 Canadian edition of Top-Notch magazine, identically mirroring the fiction contents of the American edition of the same date. The Canadian print run would be vastly lower, making it scarcer. The upper left cover states “Printed in Canada” below the 15c cover price; the American version has the NRA stamp in its place. All adverts are Canadian, often for liquors.

Pulp (Book Graveyard): This story first appeared in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales and was Catherine Lucille Moore’s first paying story. She went by the moniker C.L. Moore to hide her author side hustle from her day-time banker job. It also might have had to with the fact that she wrote the story there. In order to stay busy during a lull she was practicing her typing speed.

Fiction (Vintage Pop Fictions): Pieces of Modesty, published in 1972, was Peter O’Donnell’s first Modesty Blaise short story collection. By this time he had already written five extremely popular Modesty Blaise novels. There are six short stories in this collection and they’re rather varied in tone and approach.

Westerns (Western Musings): This anthology offers ten stories and one poem. Ahlswede’s story is the reason I sought out the anthology—Jon Lewis has listed it as one of the 100 Best Western Short stories and it does indeed pack a mature wallop. Another fine story is T.V. Olsen’s They Walked Tall. It is a formulaic tale well told.

Science Fiction (Rough Edges): STARHAVEN is Silverberg’s only novel under the Jorgenson name, originally published by Thomas Bouregy in 1958 and reprinted a year later by Ace as the other half of Edmond Hamilton’s THE SUN SMASHER, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. It’s the story of Johnny Mantell, a beachcomber and bum on the resort planet Mulciber, who has to flee from his peaceful existence because he’s unjustly accused of murder.

D&D (Swords and Stitchery): Imagine two nations one based on magic and the other black powder weaponry. These nations are locked in a cold war surrounded by a hellish wasteland of radioactive ruins and strange dungeons. Welcome to Mathew Tapp’s Barrows & Borderland rpg a love letter to old school games. 

Pulp (Pulp Super Fan): An interesting pulp author I want to focus on is Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur (1888-1971), who was a scholar of early English, German, and Old Norse literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Academically, he is probably best known for his work on Beowulf and for his translation of Snorri Sturluson‘s Prose Edda, which is still in print. But he was also a pulp author.

Weird Tales (Fantasy Literature): John Martin Leahy was born in Washington State in 1886 and, during his five-year career as a writer, came out with three novels – Draconda (1923), The Living Death (1925) and Drome (1927) – as well as four short stories. Of these seven works, only The Living Death did not make an initial appearance in Weird Tales magazine. Making matters difficult for latter-day readers is the fact that the majority of those seven works have never been reissued.