A Brief History of Sword & Sorcery
So, What the Heck Did You Think It Was Made Of? This piece is a condensed history dedicated to a sub-genre of fantasy called “Sword Read More
Tag: J. R. R. Tolkien
The Monsters of Grettir the Strong
This piece uses quotes from the Gutenberg version of Grettir the Strong. Available here. Grettir the Strong is a 13th Century heroic saga of the Read More
Thongor of Lemuria
Uninformed critics have written off the Thongor novels as a bad Conan the Barbarian copy. This really isn’t true. Thongor the character is very much Read More
Why I Read & Write Pulp
I’ve been spending a lot of time amongst the Pulps lately. And it begs the question: what is the appeal of these old, flaking, brown Read More
Lin Carter’s Imaginary Worlds
One of the last books published by the Ballantine Fantasy Series (BFS) was Imaginary Worlds (1973) by Lin Carter. I recently picked up a copy Read More
The False Monster Tradition
This post begins: The notion that a monster should prove to be a fraud is a fairly recent idea. The warriors gathered around the scop Read More
The Scale of Sword & Sorcery (or Why Conan Doesn’t Suck)
There are those Fantasy writers and critics that accuse Robert E. Howard’s Conan of lacking any depth because he just hacks his way out of Read More