The Sapphire Siren & Portal Fantasy
“The Sapphire Siren” was an unusual tale from an author with an equally odd name, Nyctzin Dyalhis. The story appeared in Weird Tales, February 1934 Read More
Category: Sword & Sorcery
The Dark One by Bill Purcell
I came across this old review I wrote for The Dark One by Bill Purcell and it got me thinking. How many now obscure books Read More
Careful What You Wish For III: I Want a New Genre
One piece of advice most writing books make is that a new writer should familiarize themselves with their chosen genre so they don’t repeat worn Read More
Top Ten Favorite Robert E. Howard Monsters
My top ten favorite Robert E. Howard monsters appear here chronologically because I can’t bring myself to pick a number one favorite. It was hard Read More
Conan and the Cthulhu Mythos
Conan, the black-haired, red-skinned Cimmerian, has become over the last fifty years a different fellow than the legendary swordsman who walked off the pages of Read More
The Towers of Fantasy
The Pulps The towers of fantasy fiction have always been locations of sorcery, mystery and strife. If the bad guy lives in a tower, whether Read More
The Gothic in Sword & Sorcery
Pulp Origins Sword & Sorcery, from its very first story in 1929 was steeped in the Gothic. Robert E. Howard published “The Shadow Kingdom” in Read More
The Weird Tales of Galen C. Colin
Galen C. Colin (1890-1973) wrote for the early Weird Tales. He later went onto write dozens of Westerns, mostly for Wild West Weekly. Those early Read More
Historical Sword & Sorcery
Robert E. Howard muddied the waters when he created Solomon Kane, his first historical Sword & Sorcery series. By definition, heroic fantasy is set in Read More
The Northern Thing: Artists of the Golden Age
Robert E. Howard and J. R. R. Tolkien shared one thing for sure: a love of “the Northern thing”. The two giants of heroic fantasy Read More