I re-read books. Yes, I keep going back to the well, or, rather, wells. But if the water is so good — uisce beatha, if you will — what’s wrong with that? I have the Baen edition of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt’s The Complete Compleat Enchanter, which I haven’t read in years.… Continue reading The Complete Compleat Enchanter. Part One, of the Making of a Hero.
Category: Reading
Kandar. Good Nyborg.
The tastefully named Kenneth Bulmer produced a slim volume of sword-and-sorcery titled Kandar, published in the auspicious year of 1969, my natal year. What to say about this? Let me try a few different approaches. This is streamlined S&S. The paperback weighs in at 127 pages, yet the narrative covers a lot of ground. Bulmer… Continue reading Kandar. Good Nyborg.
Cahena, Manly Wade Wellman’s Heroic Historical Fiction
Christmas gifts can extend the season substantially. I received a Christmas present of the DMR edition of Manly Wade Wellman’s novel Cahena: A Dream of the Past. I read it this week, thus drawing my holiday out longer. Well, Merry Christmas to me; what a fine gift. Manly Wade Wellman was one of the last… Continue reading Cahena, Manly Wade Wellman’s Heroic Historical Fiction
Bard IV. A Bloody Culmination.
I have been belatedly reading through Keith Taylor’s Bard series. I was going to write “working my way through” but that phrase suggests effort, labor. The Bard books are effortless. Reading them is a joy, not a chore. Book Four, Ravens Gathering, is, as the title suggests, a story of a convergence, a gathering. Characters,… Continue reading Bard IV. A Bloody Culmination.
The Watchers Out of Time. H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth.
H.P. Lovecraft receives top billing for The Watchers Out of Time. But the stories in this collection appear to have been actually written by Lovecraft’s acolyte, August Derleth. He seems to have used notes of Lovecraft’s as the springboard for the fifteen (fourteen and a half, rather, since Derleth died before completing the titular tale)… Continue reading The Watchers Out of Time. H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth.
On Stranger Tides: Tim Powers’ Swashbuckling Adventure
It has been years, decades, since I first read On Stranger Tides. I suppose I have been busy reading other things. It’s a pity those other things couldn’t all have been as fun as this. It’s long for a work of (perhaps) sword and sorcery, 322 pages in my paperback edition. But despite the length… Continue reading On Stranger Tides: Tim Powers’ Swashbuckling Adventure
Jack Vance’s Maske: Thaery. Plus Beer Tasting Notes.
I can conceive of no reason not to accompany a review of Maske: Thaery, by the sui generis literary genius Jack Vance, with a review of a few brews. And I might as well do it while watching a football game. If that seems an unexpected, odd, and yet ultimately compelling combination, welcome to the… Continue reading Jack Vance’s Maske: Thaery. Plus Beer Tasting Notes.
Death Angel’s Shadow. A Terrific Trio of Tales from Karl Edward Wagner.
Karl Edward Wagner created a truly unique character in Kane. Yes, that Cain (maybe, more or less, perhaps in a different world.) Death Angel’s Shadow collects three Kane novellas/stories. Reflections for the Winter of My Soul is an excellent werewolf story. It is a massacre in an isolated chateau. It should be filmed by Neil… Continue reading Death Angel’s Shadow. A Terrific Trio of Tales from Karl Edward Wagner.
Golden Blood. A Jack Williamson Adventure Textbook
Was the 1930s the last great period of adventure fiction in the modern era? There’s Indiana Jones, Tales of the Golden Monkey, Robert E. Howard’s oriental and boxing tales, to mention a few examples. And then there is Jack Williamson’s Golden Blood. What captured my attention was the tank on the cover. And then… Continue reading Golden Blood. A Jack Williamson Adventure Textbook