Today marks the centennial of the first publication of A. Merritt's novelette, "The Moon Pool." Such a small thing--only about twenty thousand words--but one that has had an extraordinarily outsized impact in the century since.

Robert E. Howard died on this date in 1936. Thinking about that tragic day eventually reminded me that I'd never followed up on my first two looks at Stephen Fabian's illustrations of Howard's works. Today, I'll attempt to make the argument that Fabian should be considered the greatest illustrator of Robert E. Howard's characters and yarns.

Fortunately, we presently have a few writers who understand what REH-inspired sword and sorcery is supposed to be: aggressive, bloody, virile, menacing. Howie Bentley is one of the best, if not the best, writers of this style today.

Items of interest from around the web.

Clark Ashton Smith, of course, was one of the mainstay writers of the old Weird Tales, with Howard and Lovecraft.  Smith was chiefly a poet, and also a sculptor, but after a breakdown in health, during the Depression, he wrote more than a hundred bizarre short stories (between 1929 and 1934) to pay his bills.  Like Howard, he contributed to Lovecraft’s famous Mythos.

Harold Lamb died on this date in 1962. He left behind a staggering amount of quality fiction and nonfiction. He was one of the very top contributors to one of the premiere pulps, Adventure, and went on to become a popular and award-winning historian.