Art by M. D. JacksonUnknown Worlds was an important magazine for Fantasy fiction. Before its run between 1939 and 1943, the fantastic genre was found in Science Fiction magazines like its sister, Astounding Science-Fiction and in Horror periodicals like Weird Tales. Both of these types of Pulps were of European origins in that Gernback based Amazing Stories on Verne and Wells, and Farnsworth Wright on the ghost stories of England, and classics like Dracula and Frankenstein, while the Shudder Pulps revived the Grand Guignol of France.
Robert E. Howard created Sword & Sorcery in the pages of Weird Tales, giving us another American style of Fantasy, closely allied to the private detective, the cowboy and the space captain, but its roots were also European. The tales of Conan began with a love of “the Northern thing”, or Scandinavian myths, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, and the tales of Ireland. John W. Campbell, in creating Unknown in 1939, gave us a truly American form of Fantasy.
If you’d like to read the rest, please check out Monster 2: From the Pages of Dark Worlds Quarterly.
I enjoyed your review across the genre but I really expected to see you mention Jack Vance who created a very formal system of magic in his Dying Earth series. It is very suited to fantasy gaming because of its rigid system where magicians have to memorize a spell. Most can only manage one or two at a time but more advanced adepts could memorize three or more. That is why magical talismans are so important in his world as they serve as a backup if the wizard is involved in a battle and runs out of spells.
I guess in my mind I think of The Dying Earth as Sword & Sorcery more than SF though you can make the case.
I enjoyed your review across the genre but I really expected to see you mention Jack Vance who created a very formal system of magic in his Dying Earth series. It is very suited to fantasy gaming because of its rigid system where magicians have to memorize a spell. Most can only manage one or two at a time but more advanced adepts could memorize three or more. That is why magical talismans are so important in his world as they serve as a backup if the wizard is involved in a battle and runs out of spells.
I guess in my mind I think of The Dying Earth as Sword & Sorcery more than SF though you can make the case.