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(group member since Nov 01, 2012)
S.E.’s
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from the Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" group.
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The July August "2-month spotlight/groupread" will be New Edge (i.e. contemporary) S&S. What "new" S&S will you be reading? Write-in "answers" to this poll to grow the list.Your mission (when July arrives): explore a new S&S author (and/or magazine). And, chime in...but let us not get mired is "what is" or "what is not S&S." Share where you think the genre is going, or can go.
Link to the "poll" which has no winners but dose broadcast what can/will be read: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/8...
those count as new edge too...but we could focus on them
Ah ok crew... hold on. This is good. Lol. Just wanted to see if we had passion to propose the New Edge topic,So it seems a "go!"
Allow me a few days to get the poll together. We can add books to that list.
Recall, the poll is not really a poll....but a means to share what we all plan to read. Also, I can repopulate the list with some of thee suggestions above.
I was stewing about getting a poll together for the July-Aug topics.New Edge S&S has been a hot topic lately... spurred on by Scott Oden and others like Oliver:
Putting a NEW EDGE on an Old Blade
https://scottoden.wordpress.com/2022/...
New Edge S&S Guest Post: Oliver Brackenbury
https://scottoden.wordpress.com/2022/...
This, and a few folks have been direct messaging me about contemporary S&S authors.
So.... I was considering making July-Aug a "New Edge S&S" topic, and we can use the Poll to nominate/declare books that folks could or intend-to read (kinda like we do with the Anthology topic in Jan-Feb period.
Defining New Edge wouldn't have to be too tricky. It would basically be S&S published in >2000 (or something like that....i.e. it would mean "not the classic 1930-1980" offerings).
Thoughts?
Are there other topics that would be desired? Like this idea?
Michael Fierce (aka Darth Fierce) wrote: "For a limited time nearly everything on DMR Books website is 70% off including Swords of Steel II Paperback for $1 & Swords of Steel III Paperback for $5 + shipping!..."wow! great share!
Sweet. Thanks Clint!
Terra Incognita: Lost Worlds of Fantasy and Adventure
Reposting from DMR Books (link) :https://dmrbooks.com/terra-incognita
Edited by Doug Draa
BLURB:
You are holding a ticket in your hands. A ticket for a voyage of thrills, wonder, and discovery as seven of today's top fantasists, each one a master of Heroic Fantasy, transport you to lands beyond your imagination. Lands of fantasy and adventure. And the only passport needed is your imagination.
David C. Smith's courageous rebels under the leadership of the undying warrior Akram must form an alliance with an ancient race to overthrow murderous usurpers, along with their necromantic masters, who are hellbent on destroying their kingdom in an insane attempt to conquer the world.
Adrian Cole transports a group of explorers to a Lovecraftian netherworld of no return. Or is there, if one is courageous enough?
S.E. Lindberg gives us a distant world where two alien sisters, who were created in the image of man, wage a war against each other to determine the future of their world.
J. Thomas Howard reveals the harsh realities of ancient Eire, Samhain, and the war between the Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Danann.
Milton J. Davis introduces us to a young man, barely past boyhood, who has to brave great dangers on his own to seek the help of ancient allies who may no longer exist.
John C. Hocking regales with the plight of a young archivist who is forced at swordpoint to travel into a parallel world full of horrors from a time long forgotten.
Howard Andrew Jones sets sail into adventure with a group of sea-going merchants and their passengers. Many of them are not who they seem to be and only reveal their true selves once a sunken kingdom from the bottom of the sea launches an attack against the travelers.
Release date: May 2022
Trade Paperback: 9” x 6”, 222 pages, $14.99
Digital: $4.99
got it!
Dariel wrote: "Tales from the Flat Earth is not a series of novels in the traditional sense, but rather a collection of standalone but interlocking tales in the manner of the Arabian Nights. Each book is themed a..."Dariel, so if one were to start the Flat Earth series fresh off the bat, should they start with Night's Master? I think that was suggested to me before but can't remember. Wait..I see Joseph said that above....
Kirk wrote: "Hello, all. I've been in and out of this discussion group, and it occurred to me that I haven't properly introduced myself. My name is Kirk Johnson. I'm a published author with a soon-to-be-release..."Welcome Kirk! Glad you formally introduced yourself.
You headed to GenCon in Aug?
looking forward to your book, David C Smith!
wow! I didn't know ARC were running wild already. thx!
Phil, thanks for sharing that.
The Skull continues to chant! Hear ye the ritualistic words of contagion and power! Or something like that.
Blog link: https://goodman-games.com/tftms/
Highlights from April 1-20th, 2022
Apr 4: Adventures in Fiction: Stanley G. Weinbaum by Ngo Vinh-Hoi
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
Not many authors can be credited with changing the entire trajectory of a genre, yet Stanley Grauman Weinbaum managed to do so with his very first published science fiction story A Martian Odyssey. The story first appeared in the July 1934 issue of the science fiction pulp magazine Wonder Stories, which was a distant third in popularity to Astounding Stories and Amazing Stories. Forty years later, no less a figure than Isaac Asimov would declare that “hidden in this obscure magazine, A Martian Odyssey had the effect on the field of an exploding grenade. With this single-story, Weinbaum was instantly recognized as the world’s best living science-fiction writer, and at once almost every writer in the field tried to imitate him.”
Apr 5: Classic Covers: Adventure Magazine
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
At its height, Adventure Magazine had a circulation of over 300 thousand and was published three times a month, marking it as one of the most successful fiction pulps of all time (in 1935 Time Magazine dubbed Adventure ‘The No. 1 Pulp’). Adventure gave the audience just what the title suggested; pulse-pounding tales set in exotic locales, desperate journeys on land and sea, western gunfights, jungle explorations, and blade-whirling exploits throughout history. It even frequently intersected with real-world adventures offering true (ish!) accounts of modern day acts of exploration and daring. A host of classic adventure writers appeared in its pages, such as H. Rider Haggard, Rafael Sabbatini, Baroness Orczy, John Buchan, Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, and H. Bedford Jones.
Apr 8: A Look at Edgar Rice Burroughs’ I Am A Barbarian
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
If the nickname “Little Boots” doesn’t fill you with dread perhaps it will in the original Latin: Caligula. The byword for depraved tyranny, the quintessential Mad Monarch, Caligula’s brief reign as third Emperor of Rome has been the fascinating stuff of prurient legend and scandalous rumor for nearly two thousand years. A megalomaniac combining arbitrary cruelty with a wicked sense of humor – flinging coins to the poor after first heating them in a brazier, turning the Imperial Palace into a brothel to pimp the wives of senators, ordering his legions to attack the oceans and gather seashells as plunder, appointing his favorite horse to the Senate – this “viper for the people of Rome” is like a joke you’re ashamed to laugh at, or a car crash from which you can’t look away. Separating the truth of Caligula’s reign from the rumors and embellishments is the mostly impossible task of historians – but using it as a backdrop for titillating fiction is the job of storytellers, something Edgar Rice Burroughs’ I Am a Barbarian does with page-turning success.
Apr 12: Where to Start With Harold Lamb by Howard Andrew Jones
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
It wasn’t so long ago that the fiction of Harold Lamb was best known only as a footnote in the old Lancer Conan books, mentioned in passing as being important and influential but almost completely unavailable. All that could be found of his prose were some late novels and his biographies, and, fine as those biographies are, neither were foundational works of sword-and-sorcery. Today, though, most of Lamb’s fiction is in print once more, and fairly easy to lay hands on, just like the histories, many of which are retained to this day by libraries across the United States. So much is out there now it can actually be difficult to know where to start. You need no longer scratch your head in wonder, however – this essay will show you the way.
Apr 15: Classic Covers: Harold Lamb’s Histories
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
What do you get when you cross an expert adventure storyteller with a linguistically-gifted polymath? Some of the greatest popular histories ever written. While Harold Lamb’s fiction was familiar to readers of Adventure magazine, it was his gripping histories and biographies, starting with 1927’s Genghis Khan, that won him international acclaim, and made him an acknowledged expert in both Hollywood and the State Department.
Apr 19: Adventures in Fiction: Turning the Khlit Stories of Harold Lamb into RPG Adventures! by Julian Bernick
https://goodman-games.com/tftms/2022/...
Here in the Goodman Games world, we’ve been rediscovering the works of Harold Lamb. He wrote timeless adventure stories that influenced a bevy of Appendix N authors, most notably Robert Howard. The strength of Lamb’s tales are tight plotting, crisply drawn characters and rich historical detail. But as enjoyable as Lamb’s tales are, they lack some of the cardinal elements of Appendix N literature and DCC RPG adventures: supernatural magic, brooding extra-human entities from beyond space, and the never-ending struggle between Law and Chaos. Without these elements, what can we draw from these adventure stories to enrich our adventures for DCC RPG? For this essay, I’ll discuss the Khlit stories collected in Wolf of the Steppes. These tales are just a fraction of Lamb’s pulp stories, but still provide plenty of useful ideas for DCC adventures.
The 2022 May June Groupread Topics have been selected and the discussion folders are set.
Please join us!
(A) Tanith Lee
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
(B)Sword and Planet
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Banner Credits
Tanith Lee Night's Master, art by Melvyn Grant, 1981
Tanith Lee Empress of Dreams, DMR Book 2021, art by Lauren Gornik
The Tides of Kregen (Dray Prescot, #12) , art by Michael Whelan, 1976 (Dray Prescot) Alan Burt Akers
welcome Felipe!
Sword & Planet: for example... Thundar: Man of Two Worlds or Swords of Talera or Transit to Scorpio (Dray Prescot, #1)
David wrote: "I am going to read Ambush Planet by E. Rew Bixby. I read this box when it came out and all I remember is the hero had red hair. So maybe a reread is required."Ambush planet looks interesting
Super cool that Devrim has a chance to experience history and fictional adventure!I just polished up a review and Tour Guide of the Simon of Gitta tales.
It's up on Black Gate:
https://www.blackgate.com/2022/04/03/...
Here's the GR review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
That's the Sorcery Against Caesar: The Complete Simon of Gitta Short Stories link (it's also on the The Scroll of Thoth: Simon Magus and the Great Old Ones: Twelve Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos page too):
In short, I really enjoyed the collection. It was more action-packed than I thought, given the "mage" characterization of the lead character, the stressing of it being "historical" or "horror" too. It was much more dark-fantasy or Sword & Sorcery ("Sica" and Sorcery)
It was a total blast, and homage to REH and Lovecraft....lots of callouts to David C Smth too. I'm saddened Tiernery's death had to be the catalyst to get his work on top of my reading-now pile, but I'm happy to have read all the short stories. Thanks to Pickman's Press, readers can get digital or print copies of everything!
