S.E. Lindberg's Blog, page 14

Mar-Apr 2022 Group Reads: Tierney Memorial and Obscure Books

Goodread's Sword & Sorcery GroupMarch-April 2022 Group Read Topics:

Topic 1) Richard L. Tierney memorial group read (link to folder)

Richard L. Tierney passed away this month. Let's read some Weird Detective occur or Red Sonja in his honor!  

Topic 2) Obscure Books group read (link to folder)

Dig through your bookshelves and unearth some arcana.  Or seek out an underappreciated classic and shed some light on it!

Banner Artist Credits

Boris Vallejo 1981 "The Ring of Ikribu"Zach McCain 2021 "the Drums of Chaos"Steven Gilberts 2021 "Sorcery Against Caeser"

Tales From the Magician's Skull - Blog Round-Up Early Feb 2022

 

Tales From the Magician's Skull Blog Early Feb 2022 Round-Up
JAN 28 My Favorite Solomon Kane Tale: “Wings in the Night” by Robert E. Howard by Fletcher Vredenburgh

“Wings in the Night” (1932), is one of Solomon Kane’s, Robert E. Howard’s swashbuckling Puritan, African adventures. In the face of darkness, he sees himself as Satan’s implacable foe.  Kane’s a dour man, dedicated wholly to defeating evil and meting out justice. In two separate stories, he spends years hunting for the killers of innocents. A skilled swordsman, he has freebooted in the New World, suffered at the hand of the Inquisition, and fought vampires and cannibals in Africa. In this story, he battles great bat-winged, razor-taloned monsters.

This story is one of REH’s most visceral, and blood is spilled on every other page. Also, it’s one of my favorites. As it opens, Kane is fleeing from a band of cannibals when he discovers a devastated village and within it, a mutilated, yet still living man, tied to a stake. The village appears to have been attacked from above. One body hangs high up in a tree, impaled upon a branch. Continuing to evade his pursuers, he finds himself set upon by a winged creature with a manlike face.

FEB 4 Archiving the King’s Blade Champion: An interview with John C.Hocking by S.E. Lindberg  

John C. Hocking is a nigh-obsessed reader and writer of lurid pulp fictin, the author of Conan and the Emerald Lotus, “Black Starlight” serial, and their time-lost companion, Conan and the Living Plague, as well as an obedient thrall of Tales From the Magician’s Skull. Recently Black Gate reviewed John C. Hocking’s Conan Pastiche; then they cornered him to learn more about his pastiche and weird fiction muses in an interview. That post is a companion with this interview and we hope you’ll brave the Black Gate and check it out. Here we focus on Hocking’s original Archivist and King’s Blade series — now to the interview!

FEB 17 Adventures in Fiction: Andre Norton by Jim Wampler

Famed fantasy and science fiction author Andre Norton was born on February 17, 1912. Join us, as we celebrate her birthday by taking a look at her works and their influences on both adventure gaming and genre fiction. Born as Alice Mary Norton in 1912, Norton started writing while she was still in high school in Cleveland, Ohio. In fact, she completed her first novel while still attending high school, though it was not published until later in 1938. Wishing to pursue writing as a career, in 1934 she had her name legally changed to Andre Alice Norton, and adopted several male-sounding pen names so as to prevent her gender from becoming an obstacle to sales in the first market she wrote for: young boys literature.

 

FEB 17 Adventures in Fiction: Margaret St. Clair by Michael Curtis

Margaret St. Clair was born on February 17, 1911. Her work appears in Gary Gygax’s Appendix N, and is important for lending a crucial concept to the D&D game: the idea of dungeon levels. Here is Michael Curtis with more information on this important writer…

The titles and authors appearing on the Appendix N list are varied. Some are fantasy, others science fiction, and they range in time period from works contemporary to when Gygax was designing D&D to much earlier stories. While some of the Appendix N authors’ contribution to fantasy role-playing are obvious, not all lend themselves to easy discovery.

FEB 18 Ballantine Adult Fantasy: E.R. Eddison

The success of The Lord of the Rings in paperback lead to a fantasy boom in publishing — and in particular a boom at Ballantine. In the wake of Tolkien’s success they turned to fellow English fantasist E.R. Eddison for more fiction in a similar vein, re-publishing both his landmark 1922 novel The Worm Ouroboros, but also the three books in his 1930s Zimiamvian Trilogy.

Spawn of Dyscrasia review by BJ Swann

This review made my week. Like bizarre, horrific fantasy? The Dyscrasia series may be for you. Thanks to B.J. Swann for the kind words!

BTW, the series is continuing, currently in the form of short stories being published across various eZines and anthologies.
Here's a blurb:

"Lords of Dyscrasia offered an epic tale of apocalyptic dimensions steeped in extreme strangeness. Helen’s Daimones dialled back the scope, providing a more intimate story with more relatable characters. Spawn of Dyscrasia balances these two extremes, alternating between the earth-shattering battles of inhuman sorcerers and the earthier perspectives of mortal protagonists. The result feels perfectly balanced, as does the cast of characters. We get to see Lord Lysis, the transcendent undead demi-god, unleash his freakish might against a new eldritch enemy. At the same time, we also get to witness the trials of the very human Helen as she struggles to find a place for herself in a diseased world ruled by weird magic and plagued by monsters. We also get to see a lot more of Echo, one of the more mysterious but weirdly compelling characters in the series. The result is a tightly-woven tale offering a compelling mix of intrigue, horror, weirdness, and genuine human drama.The weirdness, as usual, is pretty much off the scale. We get to see diseased orchards where the hearts of golems grow from fleshy trees. The psychic mating rituals of regal insectoid hybrid monsters. Skulls blown apart by animate blood known as Lapis Elixir. And just wait till you see what a Behemal Centimani is! The weirdness here is so intense it makes most books I’ve read in the Bizarro genre feel like realist lit fic in comparison."

On Audible too, narrated by the hauntingly, beautiful Kathy Bell Denton

Tour Guide of John C. Hocking's Archivist Series

Originally posted on the Tales of the Magician's Skull Blog: Archiving the King’s Blade Champion: An interview with John C. Hocking

Saved here for redundant archiving!

John C. Hocking is a nigh-obsessed reader and writer of lurid pulp fiction, the author of Conan and the Emerald Lotus, “Black Starlight” serial, and their time-lost companion, Conan and the Living Plague, as well as an obedient thrall of Tales From the Magician’s Skull. Recently Black Gate reviewed John C. Hocking’s Conan Pastiche; then they cornered him to learn more about his pastiche and weird fiction muses in an interview. That post is a companion with this interview and we hope you’ll brave the Black Gate and check it out.

Here we focus on Hocking’s original Archivist and King’s Blade series — now to the interview!

You’ve had six [now seven! — ed.] Benhus tales (The King’s Blade series) that appeared in each of the Tales From the Magician Skull magazines. The first one appeared in 2019, and is called “The Crystal Sickle’s Harvest: From the World of the Archivist.”. Tell us more about the Archivist series and how it informs the King’s Blade.

John C. Hocking: The Archivist stories take place in the same world, the same city, as those about Benhus. They just occur 12 or 15 years later. The Archivist sprang from my desire to keep writing sword and sorcery but step away from using a mythic warrior character like Conan.

Hocking’s King’s Blade Series in Tales From the Magician’s Skull by issue number:

I. “The Crystal Sickle’s Harvest”

II. “Trial by Scarab”

III. Tyrant’s Bane”

IV. “Guardian of the Broken Gem”

V. “In the Corridors of the Crow” *read the preview*

VI. “Calicask’s Woman”

VII. “The Gift of a Poison Necklace” *read the preview*

The Archivist series seem difficult to track down. Any comment about readers with OCD/completionism that desire to read these?

JCH: Right now, there are 8 stories about the Archivist and his friend Lucella:

‘A Night in the Archives’ appeared in the Flashing Swords ezine Vol1-#2. available online

‘Web of Pale Venom’ appeared in Flashing Swords #3 and was recently reprinted in Goodman Games ‘Cubicles of the Skull’. available online

‘The Lost Path Between the Worlds’ appeared in the Flashing Swords ezine #4 . available online

‘A River Through Darkness & Light’ appeared in Black Gate #15 (last print issue of BG).

‘Vestments of Pestilence’ was featured, and available for reading on Black Gate.

‘Pawns in a House of Ghosts’ appeared in Skelos #3.

‘With a Poet’s Eyes’ appeared in Weirdbook #38.

“From a Prison of Blackened Bone’ is awaiting publication by Weirdbook.

I imagine I’ll eventually try to assemble a collection of all the Archivist yarns. I’d like to add a few more entries before then, though. I outlined a novel about the character but can’t say if I’ll ever write it.

Can you compare/contrast the Archivist with Lucella & Benhus?

JCH: The Archivist is an unlikely hero, a more cerebral and self-absorbed character than most you’d see in Sword & Sorcery. His ability to fill a heroic role in the dangerous environment of a S&S tale is boosted by his connection to the lady soldier, Lucella. Although the Archivist is unselfconsciously brave when the occasion calls for it and can throw a mean dagger, Lucella is the real fighter of the two. Odd as it may sound, Lucella’s attitude toward violence, and how fighting affects her, are as realistic as anything in my work, as I patterned it after the only people I’ve known who really, truly loved a serious fight. The Archivist is wry and often pre-occupied, but a thoroughly decent fellow with a strong sense of justice. Lucella is more pragmatic but tends to follow his lead. I find the relationship between the Archivist and Lucella more satisfying than much of my work. The two basically combine to form one functional hero.

The Benhus character is an attempt to create a Sword & Sorcery character in the mold of hardboiled crime fiction. He lacks the experience, knowledge, skill set and sense of justice that the Archivist and Lucella bring to the table. Benhus is very young, but tough, determined and possessed of few scruples, especially when it comes to self-preservation. His occasionally callous behavior can be alienating to readers not expecting it. The fact that the guy is in so far over his head, is so isolated from any substantial assistance or understanding, that he is surrounded by people vastly more powerful and better informed than he is, that he must watch his every step to avoid losing his position or his life—I hope all this leads readers to identify with the guy, even if they might find him a less than delightful dinner companion.

Juxtaposing the Archivist and Lucella with Benhus was great fun. For anyone who might care to know, the Archivist encounters an older and more seasoned Benhus in ‘Pawns in a House of Ghosts’.

Let’s focus on Benhus now. In the TFTMS 2021 Kickstarter updates & interviews, you revealed that his name was a tribute to Ben Haas. He was a writer who wrote westerns under several pseudonyms [(1926 – 1977) aka John Benteen, Thorne Douglas, Richard Meade)]. Please expand on Ben Haas, and how Benhus may embody some aspect of his writing/characters?

JCH: I admire the work of Benjamin Leopold Haas as one of the most polished and seemingly effortless pulp writers of the 1970’s. He spun formula men’s adventure fiction into gold over and over and over again. If I’ve tried to adopt anything from his writing style it would be a ceaseless forward movement and a steady, zero-padding approach to storytelling. But one of the things I admire most about his work is the one I will never even be able to approach—his remarkable coupling of prolificity and solid, satisfying storytelling.

Each of the TFTMS issues come with illustrations. Can you comment on these depictions?

I. Jennel Jaquays: I wrote a whole essay for the first Tales from the Magician’s Skull Kickstarter about how happy I was to have Jaquays illustrate one of my stories. That is one elegant image.

II. Russ Nicholson: This one explodes off the page. One of the most spectacular single page monster images I’ve seen, and I was delighted to have it attached to my story.

III. Matthew Ray: I loved the tight depiction of the three main characters (four if you include their undead foe). That’s a particularly good King Numar Flavius right there.

IV. Samuel Dillon: Lushly detailed, almost pointillist, illustration captures a good likeness of Benhus.

V. Doug Kovacs: This one startled me because it’s such a serious attempt to illustrate a specific scene from the story and do so with as much accurate detail as possible. The artist even gets Zehra’s tattered hand restraints.

VI. Jennel Jaquays: Lucky me—a second Jaquays illustration. I worked hard to make the creatures in the Wall of Demons as nasty as I could. The artist made them nastier than I imagined. That white eel/serpent horror is ingeniously disgusting.

And each story, true to TFTMS form, comes with DCC stats (thanks to Terry Olson). What are your thoughts on gamifying your world? Have you had the pleasure of reenacting a story?

I. Crystal Sickle Wraith (creature) & Nobleman’s Comfort (wand)

II. Great mud scarab…knockout powder, message vial= (magic item)

III. Blind sight (spell), nobleman’s comfort (more wand abilities), Silver risen (a spell?), Tyrantsbane dagger (weapon)

IV. Nobleman’s Comfort (wand, even more abilities) and Scimitar Nemesis (creature weapon)

V. Carapaced Mauler (creature)

VI. Gray Umbra Guardian (creature)

JCH: I haven’t been in a real RPG in 20 years, so I’m not really qualified to comment intelligently on the stats. But I’m delighted with the idea that fragments of the stories appearing in The Skull might find their way into gamers’ adventures. I wish the Skull had a space where anyone who saw any of our statted creations showing up in a game could tell us how it went.

Generally, S&S spawned in the short story form, and characters did not necessarily develop (i.e., as much as they may in a novel). The Benhus short stories are stand-alone episodes, but there is definite progression of character (especially with the titular “king” of the King’s Blade branding, issues #3 and #5 ramped up the relationship). Do you have a long-term vision for a collection/novel?

JCH: Yes and no. I want to keep telling an unspooling, chronological series of stories about Benhus. I have plenty of ideas for what happens to the character and how it affects him and those around him. In his near future I’ve plotted a story that could probably be presented as a novel but will more likely be broken into shorter narratives that I’ll submit piecemeal to Tales From the Magician’s Skull. Writing a novel is such a difficult, sustained and uncertain effort that I’m more comfortable wrestling with short fiction these days.

Be sure to check out the companion interview on Black Gate to learn more about Hocking’s Conan pastiche and weird fiction influences. And for the the latest story in the King’s Blade series, be sure to pre-order a copy of (the soon to be released) Tales From the Magician’s Skull Issue 7!

 

John C. Hocking Interview

 BEAUTIFUL PLAGUES: AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN C. HOCKING - originally posted on Black Gate Feb 4, 2022

To help reveal the muses that inspire weird fiction and horror writers, this interview series engages contemporary authors on the theme of “Art & Beauty in Weird/Fantasy Fiction.” Recent guests on Black Gate broaching this topic have included Darrell Schweitzer, Sebastian Jones, Charles Gramlich, Anna Smith Spark, & Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney. See the full list of interviews at the end of this post.

Today we corner John C. Hocking whose Conan pastiche we reviewed a few months ago.

John C. Hocking is an American fantasy writer who is the author of two well-acclaimed Conan novels and has also won the 2009 Harper’s Pen Award for Sword and Sorcery fiction for his story, “The Face In The Sea”. He lives in Michigan with his wife, son, and an alarming quantity of books. He is a nigh-obsessed reader and writer of lurid pulp fiction, the author of Conan and the Emerald Lotus, the "Black Starlight" Conan serial, and their time-lost companion, Conan and the Living Plague, and an obedient thrall of Tales From the Magician’s Skull.

For clarity, we'll actually corner him twice. Firstly, here on Black Gate, we'll cover his weird, pulpy muses & Conan pastiche; secondly, in a companion interview, we'll cover his King's Blade and Archivist series on the Tale from the Magician's Skull Blog.

CONAN PASTICHEIn Rogue Blades Foundation's Robert E. Howard Changed My Life, you contributed the essay “REH, Conan and Me” (readers should get that book to learn details). Can you comment more on how the supernatural horror of “The People of the Back Circle” (your first REH exposure) affected you?

[JCH] I was a kid when I read it and that story provided my first encounter with a lot of things.  The supernatural horror of the Seers of Yimsha shook me because it was so visceral, so physical and so twisted.  The tale starts with the wizards of the title reaching out to seize the King of Vendhya’s soul and it’s so horrific that he begs his own sister to stab him to death just to get away from them.  The supernatural, in this swashbuckling fantasy adventure, is as frightening as anything in a well-wrought horror story.  That stuck with me.

Let’s pretend you get to contribute to a Howards Phillips Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith “Changed My Life” anthology. What inspirations have you had for cosmic horror or weird fiction?

[JCH] I’m a Weird Tales fan to the marrow and admire the achievements of both HPL and CAS.  Lovecraft’s conception of what made a story of supernatural horror resonate with the reader, and his attempts to create work that met his own standards, revealed a profound understanding of, and dedication to, weird fiction as a high craft.  This was powerfully inspiring, even if it did make much of the horror I’d read seem shallow and undistinguished.  I try to burnish any supernatural element in my own writing with elements of ‘cosmic horror’ or what HPL called spectral fear.  I’ve never been able to do more than touch on it, but I hope to write at least one memorable horror story that’s true to HPL’s tenets before I’m done.

Comics were influential in your youth and creative development.  Can you comment on how reading comics informed your writing? How cool is it to have your “Black Starlight” serialized novella appear in 12 issues of Marvel Comic’s Conan the Barbarian?

[JCH] I was surprised that they wanted to include prose fiction in the comic and delighted that they used my work.  That said, the serial format keeps the full story out of the hands of all except those who picked up each of the first twelve issues of the magazine, so I hope we see ‘Black Starlight’ collected in a book right beside the other serial fiction Marvel commissioned.

I read the Marvel Conan comics written by Roy Thomas every month from when I was 12 until I was 20 and he left the magazine.  The consistent presence of the Conan character across some of my most tumultuous and formative years was both a comfort and an encouragement.  The comic showed me that Conan pastiche could take a different form, play by different rules and still do honor to REH’s character.  And it showed me that good pastiche could still be produced, that stories written about Conan could keep coming and that maybe even I could try to write one.

In the recent Black Gate review of Emerald Lotus & “Black Starlight” I highlighted one of my favorite battle scene: Conan and crew vs. the demonic, mega-flora oasis creature. If you were to highlight a scene, which one would it be?

[JCH] There are several sequences in Emerald Lotus in which I tried to conjure up some of that old school Weird Tales atmosphere—the scene in which the sorcerer Ethram-Fal finds that one of his men has been surreptitiously sacrificed to Nyarlathotep, for instance.  But the scene I put the most effort into is Conan and Heng Shih's battle with Ethram-Fal's mercenaries over the lotus pit.  I was all but obsessed with trying to write the kind of battle that Stopped The Show.  A full-on, balls-out, hack-n-slay display of exhausting combat against the odds that could stand in the shadow of the best Sword & Sorcery battle scenes I’d read.  I rewrote that scene entirely 14 times simply trying to hold a candle to the hellfire to be found in Solomon Kane’s clash with the Akaana in ‘Wings in the Night’, with Kull’s battle on the stairs in ‘Swords of the Purple Kingdom’ or Conan’s donnybrook with Thog in ‘Xuthal of the Dusk’.  While I still find my scene to be pretty good, nobody has said a word about it to date.  If you read the book, please take note of the scene and see if I get points for trying.

You’ve endured and enjoyed publishing experiences with the Conan IP. You broke into writing Lotus in 1995, and even though “Black Starlight” made it to print in 2019, the pseudo-follow-up novel to Emerald Lotus called Living Plague was pulled at the last minute. Not to pick scabs, but readers may be hopeful for any update or perspective. Can you comment on any part of your journey? Any pastiche for the future?

[JCH] While I’m pleased to have made some contribution to the Cimmerian’s saga, writing pastiche has been a rocky road.  Lotus has been out of print for more than twenty years, and Living Plague came within inches of being published twice and died on the doorstep each time.  Lately I’ve heard some appreciative things about Lotus, which is heartening even all these years later, but the book got its share of negative feedback.  A pastiche that appeared before REH’s restored works were available, it won me some choice bits of hate mail when it first appeared.

When it seemed that Conan and the Living Plague was finally going to be published, I got pretty fired up, and outlined a new Conan story set in Asgard and Vanaheim.  And I was approached with the suggestion that I go back to work on the Conan pastiche I’d begun way back when Living Plague was completed.  I found notes and a partial manuscript for Conan in the City of Pain but put them aside when plans to print Lotus and Living Plague fell through.  While I’d be game to write more about the Cimmerian I can’t afford to give it much thought until my second pastiche finally sees publication.

Sidebar: the Perilous Worlds imprint handling publications stumbled…which happens often, unfortunately. Note that all Conan IP was just purchased by Funcom in late 2021, so the ownership is ever-changing and complicated (fiction falls under its Heroic Signatures entity).I appreciate you sharing the manuscript of the almost published Living Plague. It reads like a S&S-bank-heist novel. Conan and a gang break into a quarantined, plague city to recover treasure; catacombs, ghouls, and zombies, and tons of necromancy. Some of the initial settings from Emerald Lotus begged to be addressed again (i.e., the fate of Conan’s mercenary buddy Shamtare and King Sumuabi’s need for raising armies) and you developed them further in Plague. Let's discuss some teasers without spoiling anything:Both Emerald Lotus and the Living Plague-manuscript have prologues that focus on an apprentice/sorcerer relation that is dysfunctional. Brilliant way to set up the conflict. Can you comment on plot design and organizing novels, and perhaps your perspective on sorcerers?

[JCH] Howard’s The Hour of the Dragon begins with a chapter showing the resurrection of the story’s villain, Xaltotun.  I like the idea of teasing readers with a look at the potential challenges and adversaries the Cimmerian will be forced to overcome.  And starting my books in emulation of the only canonical Conan novel just felt right.

I outline extensively and did my best to keep a driving pace with chapters ending on a sharp note or revelation.  In this sense, my Conan books owe something to the Gold Medal Original novels of the 1950’s.  I admire their fierce pace and narrative drive—something that’s become uncommon in modern fiction and quite rare in fantasy.

 I wanted my sorcerer villains to be the sort of people who were tempted to latch onto personal power, power they convinced themselves they deserved, and to do so despite its obvious dark, undependable and dehumanizing nature.  These guys are evil through self-indulgence, self-deception and moral weakness.  Also, having seen perhaps a few too many fictional wizards who could perform spectacular miracles with the wave of a hand, I opted to make my sorcerers more limited and uncertain in their skills.

The living-plague is airborne; COVID-conscious readers would latch onto the protective masks now.

[JCH] Yeesh.  I can now see that aspect of the book as being called out as trendy or, worse, politically relevant.  Ugh.  Please keep in mind I wrote Living Plague in 1996.

S&S tends to have one hero (maybe a duo). In your Conan pastiche, almost everyone has a partner or bodyguard (friend or foil). When designing heroic fiction, what do you consider for heroes (solo or teamed)?

[JCH] This is different for hero and villain.  The villain needs bodyguards/followers to do his will and to provide additional colorful and dangerous threats for the hero to overcome.  I found that, at times, putting Conan, an iconic character of mythic stature, into the company of comrades to be a way of letting the reader see how the Cimmerian appears to others (that is to say, epic) without leaning too hard on the third-person narration to simply tell the reader about him.

 WEIRD MUSESHow do you define Beauty in art/fiction that appears to be repulsive (weird/ horror)?

[JCH] I think Beauty in weird and horror fiction often parallels beauty in nature.  There is a terrible beauty, a symmetry and elegance, in a spider’s web, in a tiger’s smile and in the technique of a parasitoid wasp.  It falls to the artist to call it out, but there can be beauty in the weird and in horror even when they are at their most terrible. 

Do you find beauty in your heroic fiction? Dissect an example.

[JCH] Tough and personal question, Seth.  Yes, I do.  I try to convey beauty in descriptive sequences, of course, and can lean into it when trying to get across something supernatural.  The extradimensional demon Benhus encounters in ‘Guardian of the Broken Gem’ (Tales from the Magician’s Skull #4) is a good example.  I tried to make it otherworldly and frighteningly alien but described it in terms that might be seen as beautiful.

But in my heroic fiction (and I certainly cannot speak for the reader here) I find the most beauty in the connections I’m trying to forge between characters.  I make sure my characters are up against serious adversity as much as I can and try to show, directly and indirectly, how this bonds them together.  In ‘The Bonestealer’s Mirror’ (Black Gate #14) Brand, the narrator, is formidable and brave but young and unsure of himself.  He has come to look up to Halfdan, an older warrior in his company.  Near the climax of the story Brand is trapped in the base of a small tower by a terrible, unnatural foe.  His comrades can hear and partially see the conflict but cannot aid him as he battles for his life.  In the claws of a demon, with his leader laid low beside him, Brand hears “Halfdan calling my name in a voice like my father’s”.  At this character’s moment near extremis, I found beauty in making explicit what had only been implied in the story, and unclear in Brand’s own mind, until then.

What scares you? Is it beautiful?

[JCH] I am frightened by the immensity of history, the cosmos, and the endless catalog of all the things I can never know or understand.  The incomprehensively vast expanse of the unknown scares me, but it is coldly, distantly beautiful.

But what I’m truly scared of is the loss of my family, and that is not beautiful at all.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." HPL The Call of Cthulhu (1928)

Art vs. the Artist? Is there a character that you most empathize with, or reflects you?

[JCH] Honestly, no.  While most any character I’ve written has some elements of my past or present personality in the mix- the Archivist’s pedantry or Brand’s youthful confusion, for example.  I don’t think I’ve ever written or even read about a character who reflected my personality with any real accuracy.

Do you practice other arts? If so, can we share them (i.e., images of fine or graphic art) or mp3s/videos (of music). Likewise, can you discuss how art from one medium can inform/inspire another?

[JCH] Alas, I can’t draw or make music worth a damn.  I love music and listen to it during most of my waking hours.  I get a huge emotional satisfaction from music and generally have it playing as I read or write.

 

MORE HOCKING

Check out the companion interview on The Tales of the Magician's Skull Blog to learn more about Hocking's other Sword & Sorcery characters.

 

Interview List Regarding #Weird Beauty on Black GateDarrel Schweitzer  THE BEAUTY IN HORROR AND SADNESS: AN INTERVIEW WITH DARRELL SCHWEITZER  2018Sebastian Jones  THE BEAUTY IN LIFE AND DEATH: AN INTERVIEW WITH SEBASTIAN JONES  2018Charles Gramlich  THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE REPELLENT: AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES A. GRAMLICH   2019Anna Smith Spark  DISGUST AND DESIRE: AN INTERVIEW WITH ANNA SMITH SPARK   2019Carol Berg  ACCESSIBLE DARK FANTASY: AN INTERVIEW WITH CAROL BERG  2019Byron Leavitt  GOD, DARKNESS, & WONDER: AN INTERVIEW WITH BYRON LEAVITT  2021Philip Emery  THE AESTHETICS OF SWORD & SORCERY: AN INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP EMERY   2021C. Dean Andersson  DEAN ANDERSSON TRIBUTE INTERVIEW AND TOUR GUIDE OF HEL: BLOODSONG AND FREEDOM!  (2021 repost of 2014)Jason Ray Carney SUBLIME, CRUEL BEAUTY: AN INTERVIEW WITH JASON RAY CARNEY (2021)Stephen Leigh IMMORTAL MUSE BY STEPHEN LEIGH: REVIEW, INTERVIEW, AND PRELUDE TO A SECRET CHAPTER (2021)interviews prior 2018 (i.e., with John R. Fultz, Janet E. Morris, Richard Lee Byers, Aliya Whitely …and many more) are on  S.E. Lindberg’s website

 

S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at Black Gate, regularly reviewing books and interviewing authors on the topic of “Beauty & Art in Weird-Fantasy Fiction.” He is also the lead moderator of the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group and an intern for Tales from the Magician’s Skull magazine. As for crafting stories, he has contributed five entries across  Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series and has an entry in Weirdbook Annual #3: Zombies.  He independently publishes novels under the banner Dyscrasia Fiction; short stories of Dyscrasia Fiction have appeared in Whetstone and Swords & Sorcery online magazines.

TFMS - mid-end Jan 2022 Blog Roundup

Tales from the Magician's Skull Blog Roundup, mid to end-Jan 2022BLOG = https://goodman-games.com/tftms/Skull Champion of the Fifth Order, Bill Ward, continues to marshal his army of articles! Here is the latest headlines (linked) with blurbs:

JAN 26 Adventures in Fiction: Philip Jose Farmer by Jeff Goad
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
Today we are celebrating the birthday of Philip José Farmer. While he isn’t around to celebrate this day with us, his books are still here inspiring writers and game designers as they have for decades past.
Farmer found early acclaim in the pulps, winning the Hugo in 1953 for Best New SF Author only a year after the publication of his first tale in Startling Stories. He continued writing for Startling Stories where his work would be found beside that of other Appendix N luminaries like Jack Vance and Fletcher Pratt. Other early works can be found in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, a publication that features a letter to the editor from Gary Gygax himself in the August 1963 issue.
Farmer’s first novel, The Green Odyssey, was published by Ballantine Books in 1957 and was the start of a prolific output of novels for Ballantine Books, Ace Paperbacks, and other publishing houses. He released 15 novels in the 1960s then topped that with another 23 in the 1970s!

JAN 25 Classic Covers: The Savage Sword of Conan
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
How do you skirt a restrictive comics code and make visual Conan stories with the requisite blood-pumping grittiness that is integral to Howard’s adventures? You make a magazine of course! Already popular in his initial comic book incarnation of Conan the Barbarian, Marvel introduced the more adult-oriented The Savage Sword of Conan in 1974, quickly achieving a wide circulation and, thanks to writer and editor Roy Thomas’ legendary first 60 issue run, eventual cult classic status. Savage Sword featured straight Howard adaptations, pastiche, and original stories, and included more than just Conan tales but adventures from other popular Howard characters such as Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, and King Kull.

JAN 23 The Best Of The Conan Pastiche Novels by Howard Andrew Jones
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
If I didn’t love the writing of Robert E. Howard I would probably never have bothered with any Conan pastiche. As a matter of fact, those Conan novels on store shelves in the ’70s and ’80s made me so skeptical of Conan that I didn’t try Robert E. Howard’s fiction until years later. I wrongly assumed that because the series looked cheap and mass-produced that Howard’s writing would sound that way. (Robert E. Howard, of course, had nothing to do with the mass marketing of his character, having been dead for decades before that marketing was carried out by other hands.)
You can fit the sum total of all the Conan that Howard wrote (including some fragments and rejected stories) into one large hardback. That’s not a lot of fiction about such a great character, and so for decades, people have been trying to create new tales of adventure starring Conan, mostly because they wanted MORE!

JAN 22 Adventures in Fiction: Robert E. Howard
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
There may not be a more iconic character in fantasy—and particularly sword and sorcery—fiction than Conan the Barbarian. From his first appearance in Weird Tales back in 1932, the character has influenced how we see any iconic sword-wielding hero. And for that, we can thank Robert E. Howard.
Over the years a number of posts on our site have been focused on Mr. Howard and his impact not just on literature, but also on the world of role-playing games. All of those posts can be found under our Adventures in Fiction banner, but we want to give you direct links to a trio of our favorites, as well as the post included here. So, after reading below, be sure to go give a look at Films of High Adventure: Robert E. Howard, Real Life Adventures – The Robert E. Howard House, and Gen Con Videos, Part 1: Gaming in the Spirit of Robert E. Howard.

JAN 21 It Was a Dark and Silly Night – A Look at John Bellairs’ The Face in the Frost
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
Whimsy and suspense don’t generally mesh all that well together, for they tend to swing toward opposite poles of reader engagement. Whimsy tickles the intellect, relying on novel juxtapositions and a great deal of textual playfulness – it’s cute, it’s precise, and most often it resides in a place of certainty and safety. Suspense – or more accurately in the case of John Bellairs’ 1969 debut novel The Face in the Frost, dread – is instead the assassin slipping past the intellect to knife that deepest part of the hind-brain, or perhaps its better to say its the cold, rhythmic pounding of subtle waves of suggestion that periodically climax in the massive erosive collapse of the shoreline of a reader’s composure. This horror effect absolutely requires a sort of visceral engagement with the material, a thorough Secondary Belief just like with fantasy – the kind of thing that jokey anachronisms, deliberate wordplay, and humorous allusions would seem to undermine at every turn. But Bellairs manages the trick of juggling these disparate elements with the sure confidence of a natural storyteller in a concise, captivating way that rarely places a foot wrong and never comes close to overstaying its welcome.

JAN 20 Adventures in Fiction: Abraham Merritt by James Maliszewski
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
Of all the literary influences on D&D and DCC RPG, Abraham Merritt is perhaps the “most-influential of the least-known.” His work is rarely read in this modern time, yet he is named by Gary Gygax as one of “the most immediate influences on AD&D. Today, on January 20, 2020, the 136th anniversary of his birth, we provide a little more insight into this little-read but well-deserving author. You can also learn about all the Appendix N authors by listening to the Appendix N Book Club. For Merritt in particular, his most famous work, The Moon Pool, was recently covered in a special session on the Appendix N Podcast in which Joseph Goodman participated.

JAN 19 Appendix N Archaeology: Edgar Allan Poe by Bradley K McDevitt
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
Ok, class, before we start… let’s have a show of hands. Who here thinks about reading Edgar Allan Poe and gets traumatic flashbacks to seventh-grade English?
I thought so. Having the father of the modern horror story force-fed us tends to have that effect, as opposed to other lesser writers like Lovecraft, Howard, or Tolkien, all of whom we had to discover on our own.
Poe was the first successful writer to pen stories intended with no purpose but to ensure the reader would not have pleasant dreams that night. I dare anyone suffering from claustrophobia to go back and read A Cask of Amontillado or The Black Cat and then sleep with the lights off. Go ahead, I double-dog dare you.

JAN 18 Adventures in Fiction: John Bellairs by Ngo Vinh-Hoi
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
John Anthony Bellairs was born on January 17th, 1938 in Marshall, Michigan, which he described as “full of strange and enormous old houses, and the place must have worked on [his] imagination.” A shy and overweight child, he “would walk back and forth between [his] home and Catholic school and have medieval fantasies featuring [himself] as the hero.” He found refuge in books, excelling in college as an English major and even appearing on an episode of the TV quiz show G.E. College Bowl in 1959, where he recited the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in fluent Middle English. After getting his Master’s degree Bellairs taught English at several colleges across the midwest before taking time off in 1967 when he moved to Bristol, England, for a year to concentrate on his fiction writing. Many years later a fan asked Bellairs about his time in England only to have him reply “I lived for a year in Bristol [England], and it was the most miserable year of my life.” Bellairs’s misery was everyone else’s good fortune though, as this is when he wrote The Face in the Frost.

JAN 14 Where to Start With Robert E. Howard
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) was a giant and a father to giants, his literary creations so potent that they have informed popular culture and permeated mass consciousness down to the present day. But their very ubiquity can obscure and deceive – if two people strike up a conversation about Conan, are they actually talking about the same Conan? What’s going on with all of these other writers penning stories of Howard’s heroes, and do they need to be read in order? Out of the dozens of reprints and collections over the years, just where do you actually start?

TFMS bi-weekly Blog Roundup

 

Tales from the Magician's Skull Blog Roundup, end-Dec-2021 to min-Jan 2022Skull Champion of the Fifth Order, Bill Ward, continues to marshal his army of articles! Here are the latest headlines (linked) with blurbs:

Dec 27: Appendix N Archaeology: Clark Ashton Smith by Michael Curtis

Gamers often point to Appendix N and decry the absence of a particular author (or three, or seven, or…), declaring Gygax’s omission of them to be a literary crime of some sort. Putting aside the unbelievable idea that gamers may complain about things for the moment, we must realize that Appendix N is not a list one can argue with. It is a catalog of all the literary influences Gygax chose to recognize as wellsprings from which Dungeons & Dragons flowed. Since it is representative of one man’s work, we can’t claim he made the error of excluding a particular author, even if we believe we can see their influence in the final product. Game design, like art, is a subjective process and one tends to see what one is inclined to see.

Dec 28: The Self-Made Mind: The Art of Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith, an untutored genius self-educated in both poetry and pulp, also turned his restless mind to art. In everything from his simple line sketches and watercolor landscapes, to his carving and sculpture, Smith demonstrates the same characteristics of baroque intricacy, imaginative grotesquery, and dark humor that are a hallmark of his writing.

Dec 29: New In The Online Store: Tales From The Magician’s Skull #0

This may be #0, but it’s certainly far more than zero.

Back by popular demand, resurrected from the dim corridors of lost time, it’s TFTMS #0! This special issue of Tales From the Magician’s Skull was only available to Kickstarter backers — but now it’s back and available as a PDF! It’s filled with stories and articles about sword-and-sorcery fiction, and features a spectacular cover by legendary artist Ian Miller! Let’s take a look!

Jan 3: Classic Covers: J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was the book that launched a thousand trilogies, and made Tolkien’s name synonymous not just with modern fantasy fiction, but publishing mega-success. With more copies, in more languages, in more editions, than anything else in its category, and with an entire sub-industry spun out of publishing various notes, unpublished drafts, and side-excursions of its author, The Lord of the Rings remains the gold standard by which all other secondary worlds, and all other fantasy blockbusters, are judged. With covers ranging from the iconic to the iconographic, the literal to the surreal, many even featuring the art of the good Professor himself, and with editions spanning leather-bound limited-run collectibles to utterly ubiquitous mass-market paperbacks, copies of Tolkien are as ever-present and universal in the physical world of books and book collections as the tales they tell are ingrained in the imaginations of modern readers.

Jan 7: A Kind of Elvish Craft: Quotations from The Lord of the Rings

“To make a Secondary World . . . commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labor and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories”

J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal lecture/essay “On Fairy-Stories” is nothing short of a manifesto of his art, and a spiritedly reasoned elaboration of his Theory of Story — specifically Fairy-Stories, or tales of the Land of Faërie.

Jan 11: Reading About Robert E. Howard

It’s safe to say Robert E. Howard has passionate fans. And this passion goes beyond buying stacks of books and old comics and limited edition resin sculptures, beyond pilgrimages to Cross Plains or Valeria cosplay, beyond, even, mimeographing ‘zines in their basement or writing fiction inspired by Howard’s example. For you see, Howard’s fans have dared to set their sandalled feet upon the tumbled jeweled thrones of literary criticism, and they’ve been trampling such thrones for decades. Here’s a look at just some of what they’ve been saying.

 

Rogues in the House Podcast

As posted on Black Gate:

GO ROGUE!: ROGUES IN THE HOUSE, THE ULTIMATE SWORD & SORCERY PODCAST

Rogues in the House

In 1934, Weird Tales magazine published Robert E. Howard's Conan story "Rogues in the House." Bob Byrne covered the story on Black Gate as part of his "Hither Came Conan" series.

Just a few years ago, in late 2018, Sword & Sorcery enthusiasts and content creators forged Rogues in the House - the Ultimate S&S Podcast (the link is a portal page to multiple listening Apps). This post spotlights it because it is more than just a source of perspectives. The crew genuinely wants to support a growing community. Their roundtable discussions always start with the "Bazaar of the Bizarre" round table, in which the cast shares recent events or learning opportunities (the session a call out to Fritz Leiber's 1963 Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story of the same name.

Beyond luring in S&S authors like Howard Andrew Jones, Scott Odenm John R. Fultz, and  Jason Ray Carney, they've got guests covering Movies, Video/Board Games, and Art. We embed three selections here:

Morgan King and Phil Gelatt creators of the movie The Spine of Night (covered by Matthew David Surridge on Black Gate).Peter D. Adkison, founder and first CEO of Wizards of the Coast (1993–2001) and owner of GenCon (the world's largest board game convention).Sara Frazetta, granddaughter of the fantasy master painter, an artist herself, and CEO of Frazetta Girls

Select Guests & Episodes



The Rogues

Who comprises the Rogues' cast? The crew's biographies are below, but guests may be labeled "rogues" by association too.

Matthew John

Matthew is an English language arts teacher and employee of Monolith Games (Conan, Batman: Gotham City Chronicles). He lives with his wife, two children, and countless cats and dogs in Nova Scotia, Canada. When time allows, he likes to write short fiction, waste time at the gaming table, and chat sword and sorcery on the Rogues in the House Podcast. His work has been published in Grimdark Magazine, Skelos (SkelosPress), Weirdbook (Wildside Press), and Robert E. Howard’s Conan the roleplaying game (Modiphius Games). More of his work will soon appear in Tales From the Magician's Skull (Goodman Games) and the Terminator Role Playing Game (Nightfall Games)

Alex Kostopoulos

Alex's origin story began on the fateful Christmas, on which he received a Nintendo Entertainment System and his first Dragonlance novel. On that day, he held aloft his magic game controller, said the words "I have the power" and became a lifelong nerd. Shortly after that, Alex was introduced to tabletop role playing games and of course, sword and sorcery.  Along with Matt and Logan, Alex started the "Rogues in the House" podcast. Today he enjoys playing music (mostly metal), playing games, reading, and all things sword and ______. He is currently pondering starting a band, starting a tabletop campaign, and finishing his miniatures ruleset, but unable to choose which to do first.

Logan D. Whitney

L. D. Whitney was born upon the Great Plains, but now calls the High Desert his home. He is an Educator, modest adventurer, and author of "Remnant" from Primal Press, His short stories appear within the pages of Rogue Blades Entertainment, Weirdbook, and Tales from the Magician's Skull. When not sitting at his desk, he wanders the canyons and crags in search of treasure and inspiration.

Deane L. GeikenDespite growing up in a small, rural town in East Central Illinois, Deane Geiken was fortunate to discover J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, and other S&S/Fantasy/Sci-Fi authors (plus Avalon Hill games and Dungeons & Dragons).  An overwhelming love of all-things-military and western-European history fueled a passion to be an educator; fate then led him into a lifelong career in radio broadcasting. Involved in many historical reenactment groups from the 100 Years War, The American Revolution and Civil War, and World War II, he now has more uniforms than he has socks.  And the love of gaming has only grown, with >300 board games in his collection.  An avid enthusiast of shooting sports, he has made his own longbows and arrows, flintlock rifles, and gotten quite good at ax throwing. When he is not working as a radio station director at the local community college, he hosts a radio show called "Geekin' With Geiken", creator of a now-defunct podcast called "The Grognards", and current co-host of the "Rogues in the House" podcast.

 

Publication(s):

In late 2019, the Rogues published the anthology Rogues in the House, A Sword & Sorcery Anthology. Logan’s introduction explains the purpose:

This short collection is something of a “thank you letter” to all of you .... Thank you for listening, thank you for the tweets, comments, shares, and messages. …

... Here, we are trying to not only give our fans more of what they want – Sword and Sorcery stories – but also improve our product, as all of the proceeds from this endeavor will go directly back into the creation of the podcast. Whether that be actual microphones, technology, or whatever it is that comes up, remains to be seen. But, we thought offering you a product as opposed to asking for money via Patreon or something like that was a better.

Cover Blurb:

A desperate rogue finds more than he bargained for...A Guild of Assassins starts a war with the stroke of a knife...A wanderer on a rescue mission discovers truth living behind legend...Rogues in the House Volume 1 brings short stories, poetry, and artwork FOR fans of Sword and Sorcery BY fans of Sword and Sorcery!

2022, the Rogues promise another volume, a beefier one, S&S luminaries such as John C. Hocking, Howard Andrew Jones, John Fultz, and Scott Oden, and more.

Go Rogue!

Join the critically acclaimed podcast focusing on Sword and Sorcery & Heroic Fantasy.

Podcast portal: Rogues in the House - the Ultimate S&S PodcastFacebook: www.facebook.com/RoguesintheHouseTwitter: twitter.com/rogues_podcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/roguesinthehouse/ 

Blood on the Blade - Review by SE

Blood on the Blade by Cliff Biggers

S.E. rating: 4 of 5 stars

Overview: Blood on the Blade (Edited by Jim Beard, John C. Bruening) offers 10 varied S&S tales, several that stick to the tropes (super-charged male heroes takes on evil sorcerers), and several that showcase non-standard milieus (such as Polynesian and Meso-American settings). The subgenre/tones range too, from violent-Grimdark, to light-adventure, YA-fantasy, to humor. I star the ones that I most enjoyed.

The “Scroll of Scribes & Artisans” Afterword offers nice biographies of all the contributors. It’s a great way to amplify a key purpose of anthologies: explore a variety of authors, discover a new one; let it guide you to more of their work.

I learned of this book by following DMR’s blog and publications (https://dmrbooks.com/); he has a nice contribution here. Also, the cover art by Mark Wheatley resonates with the title (and I believe the “GodKiller” opening story).

Some spoilers are below, but I attempt to obscure them

“Godkiller” by Cliff Biggers
Hero vs. sorcerer mayhem. Fast-paced to the point I would have enjoyed the story being longer (i.e., when certain enslaved warriors re-awaken). It’s solid S&S fare with a few memorable writing moments: (1) the hero butchering a priest and (2) learning that the body can be fashioned into weapons.

“The Unlidded Eye” by James R. Tuck
Reads like a Conan pastiche with all its Hyborian Age references. Threok the barbarian is our hero, and the slow-start has a drawn-out, weird-romance with a Prince. Suddenly, the story ramps up so fast it almost stumbles. Uneven pacing, but a satisfying conflict with the god Set. Apparently, Tuck has a book out on this dude: Theok the Indomitable: A Spill of Sorcerer's Blood.

* “The Island of Shadows” by Paul R. McNamee
Starts in media res with two protagonists on a boat (an outrigger actually) so the conflict is not clear. A magical storm get forces them onto a haunted island, so the conflict is not clear at first. The Polynesian milieu was great to be immersed in (ka magic and patu clubs, tiki statues, and puipui skirts). Fun stuff.

* "More Blood" by D.M. Ritzlin
An extended gladiator battle with an overpowered hero (without memory of who is) almost feels like a juvenile attempt at writing fiction, but then the setting clarifies, and the denouement rocked. A fun read brought to you by the champion of DMR books.

"Hounds of Morhullem" by James A. Moore
I’ve had James A Moore’s Seven Forges/Godless books in my TBR for too long. Here we have another duo of protagnists. Valen and the mercenary Berek make a fine pair as they experience an extended battle with undead hounds. It’s fun, but the setup appeared for a goal outside the story; the initial goal is discarded for a battle. Fun, but a sucker-punch for expectations. This must serve as a chapter for a larger series (or the Worthy of King book mentioned in the Afterward).

"The Sorceress Maiz" by Anne Marie Lutz
Vinton and his mother are spellcasters (with royal ties) out to save brother prince from the evil dad-king-sorcerer. There is a ton of sorcery here (paralysis, invisibility, body-switching). The pacing and delivery felt YA-fantasy-ish; the variety complements the other stories. Wish more female writers were out there!

"The Bloody Crooked One" by Charles R. Rutledge
The next overpowered hero is Kharrn. He’s got a big ax and is nigh-indestructible. He teams up with some stray Roman getting slaughtered by a dark-druid, a druid he had dealings with. The plot was supported by ample exposition.

* “Knock the Hell Out of You” by Steven L. Shrewsbury
I tend to roll my eyes anytime heroes enter a tavern, and I tend to like my heroes challenged a lot. In this case, despite the tavern scene and lack of a challenge, it felt fun because it was an over-the-top gorefest. The body-hopping demon fights our protagonists Gorias La Gaul and his daughter, Roan. They make for an interesting pair (there are a bunch of Gorias La Gaul stories elsewhere according to the Afterward). I'm leaning toward tracking these down.

"Dishonor Among Thieves" by Adrian Cole
I’ve enjoyed Adrian Coles's works (i.e. the Dream Lords, and his Elak of Atlantis pastiche), but this was my first exposure to Elfloq, the batrachian familiar. He’s seeking to connect with a bad-arse Voidal sorcerer. Cole already has two short stories about Elfloq in Parallel Universe Publication’s S&S anthologies). This was not classic S&S; it featured our fairy-like familiar Elfloq messing with idiotic mages and barbarians. The humor and tone were a pleasant variation from the others.

"Blood Games in the Temple of the Toad" by Frank Schildiner
The setting shines here, being a Meso-American backdrop. Obsidian Jaguar, a way-overpowered hero, kicks tons of arse. His primary enemies are Caiman (reptile) tribal folk who also have lots of societal issues, including an authoritarian theocracy with a penchant for gladiator fights. I enjoyed the potential here, especially with Clawed Butterfly, a sorceress frenemy. Overall, this felt longer than it had to be, and the plot felt a bit forced.

View all my reviews

Tales From the Magician's Skull Blog - Dec14th-24th Roundup

 Tales from the Magician’s Skull Blog - Dec 14th - 24th RoundupBill Ward champions this at: https://goodman-games.com/tftms/


Dec 24 Adventures in Fiction: Fritz Leiber By Michael Curtis
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2021/...
We’ve talked a lot about Fritz Leiber, whose birthday we’re celebrating today, over the last few years. Leiber, born December 24th, 1910, is most widely known among gamers as the man responsible for the fantastic Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories. In the years running up to DCC Lankhmar, a lot of ink has been spilled discussing Leiber’s most famous creation. Today, however, we’re going to examine some of Leiber’s other work and see how we can apply it to our games—especially DCC Lankhmar.

Dec 21 Classic Covers: Michael MoorcockBy Bill Ward
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2021/...
With more than a half-century of prolific, diverse, and wonderfully inventive writing in everything from classic sword-and-sorcery to surreal alternate history to sword-and-planet pastiche to counter culture lit fic, Michael Moorcock has seen more editions of his work than you can shake a demon-possessed sword at. And while Moorcock freely hops from genre to sub-genre to whatever-he-feels-like, he seems to have inspired a similar variety of artistic interpretations of his work, sometimes very at-odds with traditional branding, and at others pitch perfect examples of publishing trends. As wild and inventive as his fiction, the following mad collage of images just scratches the surface of the wide array of covers that have helped Moorcock’s books leap from the shelf and into the hands of eager readers since the 1960s.

Dec 20 Adventures in Fiction: Zenith the Albino By Terry Olson
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2021/...
Many of us come to Gygax’s Appendix N to explore the works that inspired both the D&D of our youth and our favorite fantasy RPGs of today. We read these literary progenitors for both insight and inspiration, and we begin to recognize their themes, plot-twists, villains, and heroes being adapted and personalized by today’s authors. But the writers whom Gary Gygax read were not writing in a vacuum. Surely they were adapting and personalizing the themes, plot-twists, villains, and heroes that they were reading. Who inspired them? Answering this question by reading further back in D&D’s ancestral chain, by going “back to the roots of the genre as deeply as possible” (as Moorcock puts it), is what we call “Appendix N Archaeology.”

Dec 19 Brian Murphy’s Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery By Bill Ward
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2021/...
In Flame and Crimson (2019) Brian Murphy has crafted no less than the first book length history of the sword-and-sorcery genre, from its origins and antecedents right down to its reflection in the popular culture of the present day. It is a work both indispensable and long overdue, one that fills a gap in our collective bookshelves while establishing an academic and historical baseline for discussion of sword-and-sorcery going forward. But Murphy also accomplishes the most difficult task of all, balancing the need for critical rigor with readability, and the result is a book that not only provides a compelling and comprehensive view of its subject, but is also as fun to read and impossible to put down as the classic stories referenced in its pages.

Dec 18 Adventures in Fiction: Michael Moorcock By Terry Olson
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2021/...
On the 18th of December, we celebrate the birthday of Michael Moorcock—a big writer with big ideas (regardless of what he thought a handful of decades ago). It’s difficult to rank Moorcock’s diverse achievements in terms of importance or influence. He’s impacted gaming through his Elric stories, he’s been a prolific writer of the Eternal Champion and Multiverse themes, he’s been an influential editor that helped change (dare I say, “improve”) the face of Science Fiction, he’s written comics, and he’s written lyrics for and performed with major rock bands! Perhaps most important of all, he’s inspired generations of great writers, such as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Thomas Pynchon.

Dec 18 Adventures in Fiction: Sterling E. Lanier By Jim Wampler
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2021/...
Yesterday was the 93rd anniversary of the birth of Sterling E. Lanier. He wasn’t just a favorite author of E. Gary Gygax, nor was he merely a cited influence on both the Dungeons & Dragons and Gamma World role playing games. For those things alone he would still be notable and of interest to role playing gamers everywhere. Sterling E. Lanier was the quintessential polymath. His personal interests ranged from skin-diving and boating to bird watching and conservation causes. He was also a naval and military history buff.

Dec 17 The Mad Dream Dies: Karl Edward Wagner’s Bloodstone By Bill Ward
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2021/...
Aliens, lost civilizations, superscience vs. sorcery, perilous expeditions, a warrior maid, sentient crystalline entities, virgin sacrificing witches, bandits, ambushes, teleportation, a magic ring, cosmic visions, possession, a conjured tsunami, desperate battles, a jungle-shrouded city, cross and double-cross, devolved frogmen, a field tracheotomy, wall-leveling green lightning bolts, a world-threatening power, amphibian-crewed hydrofoils, lost tomes brimming with secret knowledge, a reconfigured semi-solid army of the elder dead, and an immortal juggernaut of a man at the lonely center of it all – it’s Bloodstone!

Dec 14 Heroic Fantasy Quarterly’s 50th Issue By Bill Ward
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2021/...
The Skull and his various minions, flunkies, lieutenants, and, yes, even interns would like to send a hearty congratulations to our sword-brothers over at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, on the occasion of their 50th issue! Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is an online magazine specializing in adventure fantasy of all kinds, from eponymous tales of heroism and epic fantasy, to sword-and-sorcery, dark fantasy, and skulldugging daring-do. If you love Tales From the Magician’s Skull, you’re sure to thrill to our mighty sister publication, who have been in the game for over a decade of consistently excellent fantasy publishing!