Pulp Fantasy Library: Intermission

As of today, there are slightly more than 250 entries in the Pulp Fantasy Library series and I've decided to take a short break from it. The series began its life on September 1, 2008 as "Pulp Fantasy Gallery," with the very first post depicting Conan's debut cover image from Weird Tales. By the start of early 2009, I had decided to change gears slightly and Pulp Fantasy Library began in earnest. Since then, the series has become one of the signatures of this blog and one of the loudest champions of the otherwise forgotten writers and works of Gary Gygax's Appendix N. Indeed, my posts on some of these subjects are among the only ones to be found easily on the Internet, which gives me a small amount of pleasure. My intention with the series was to bring greater attention to these authors and books and I seem to have succeeded in that to some extent.

The quest to find unheralded writers and stories grows more difficult with each entry I post. Likewise, the Internet now holds a great deal more information about the classics of pulp fantasy than it did a decade ago when I first started writing about the subject. While there is no doubt still an appetite for additional Pulp Fantasy Library posts, I must admit to some fatigue in writing them. Partly, I think it's because I feel an obligation to avoid better known stories, but that's not an easy task, as regular readers no doubt recognize. Had I infinite resources to acquire and infinite space to store all these works, it would still be onerous. Since I have neither, there's necessarily a limit to my capabilities. 

At the same time, I continue to believe that there's a lot to be learned from the foundational writers of the genre we now call "fantasy." Consequently, Pulp Fantasy Library isn't going anywhere just yet, though I am pondering new approaches that might help me in composing entries each week. I still haven't come to any firm conclusions, which is why I'd be grateful for suggestions my readers might have to offer on this score. It may be that there's really no need to change anything at all. I may simply need a break from the series for a few weeks in order to recharge my batteries. All of which is a longwinded way of saying that there won't be any new Pulp Fantasy Library posts for at least the next couple of weeks. The series will likely resume shortly after the new year, whether in its original or slightly modified form.