My grandmother celebrated her centennial on Friday. It isn’t precisely eleventy-one years, but it is an impressive span nonetheless. And she is still chugging along. MBW, the HA, and I jetted off from Casa Lizzi to San Diego. We shared a rented house in the SD suburb of La Mesa with my mother and sister.… Continue reading A Long Expected Party
Author: admin
Writer of two-fisted fabulism.
Alan Garner’s “The Weirdstone of Brisingamen” and “The Moon of Gomrath.”
The cover of the 1960 Ace paperback of Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen guaranteed I’d pick this up when I found it in a used bookstore in Galveston, Texas. It’s Jack Gaughan art, and I had to read the story that inspired that image. The cover blurb states that Weirdstone is “A fantastic novel… Continue reading Alan Garner’s “The Weirdstone of Brisingamen” and “The Moon of Gomrath.”
A Galveston Thanksgiving
Once again the day of thankfulness and overeating arrived. I spent this one with MBW and the HA in Galveston. We rented a room in a mansion in the historic district. Wednesday featured a visit to a used bookstore (from which I was at length pried away by MBW) and a distillery. Thursday consisted of… Continue reading A Galveston Thanksgiving
They Can’t All Be Winners: “Demon in the Mirror” and “Thor: Love and Thunder”
We all know the aphorism: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. The problem is that this week’s post would minuscule, or even absent entirely were I to adhere to that admonition. I did not have high hopes for Andrew Offutt and Richard Lyon’s Demon in the Mirror. So… Continue reading They Can’t All Be Winners: “Demon in the Mirror” and “Thor: Love and Thunder”
Wandering Dunsany’s “Beyond the Fields We Know.”
Beyond the Fields We Know is part of the peerless Adult Fantasy series, edited by Lin Carter. Carter curates and edits selections from Lord Dunsany and once again proves his editorial chops. This is an excellent collection and the editorial material isn’t merely filler. The collection starts with early Dunsany, printing his complete The Gods… Continue reading Wandering Dunsany’s “Beyond the Fields We Know.”
Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 9
I cut my writing teeth on short stories before turning my attention to novels. I still like to work with the shorter form on occasion. In fact my entire published output this year will, it seems, be a couple of short stories. (I’ve been laboring steadily this year on a three-book series, attempting to get… Continue reading Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 9
Finding ERB’s The Land of Hidden Men
Tarzan and John Carter are deservedly famous. But I have extracted a perhaps unexpected amount of enjoyment from several of Edgar Rice Burrough’s less well known books, such as The Mucker, I Am A Barbarian, The Outlaw of Torn, and The Mad King. Now add to that The Land of Hidden Men. The Land of… Continue reading Finding ERB’s The Land of Hidden Men
Two Quick Shots: Thundar and Tigers of the Sea
Thundar: Man of Two Worlds was meant as the first in a series, judging by the textual evidence. It is the work of John Bloodstone (that is, Stuart J. Byrne, who labored in the speculative fiction mines in the latter half of the Twentieth Century). Thundar is Edgar Rice Burroughs filtered through Lin Carter. The… Continue reading Two Quick Shots: Thundar and Tigers of the Sea
The Ship of Ishtar
Look, The Ship of Ishtar is an unusual book. There’s no question of that. It dispenses with traditional tropes. A. Merritt does not tread familiar fantasy paths. He picks his own unexpected tangent and proceeds pellmell along it. The pocket universe he creates and its rules appear initially quite strange and arbitrary. But in context… Continue reading The Ship of Ishtar