"To Veil the Moon and Scorch the Sun": The 2024 DMR Guest Bloggerama

February 10, 2024 Deuce Richardson

There were fifteen guest bloggers

Posting with passion, one by one.

Honoring the scribes of awe and wonder,

Who told timeless tales of blood and thunder

To veil the Moon and scorch the Sun.

(with abject apologies to Chesterton)

Well, here is the traditional capstone/summary post for the 2024 DMR Guest Bloggerama. It’s a week late but--hopefully--not one pazoor short in regard to giving credit where credit is due.

The Bloggerama officially ended with Doug Ellis’ bombshell post on February 1. We try to finish things on January 31, but sometimes we have a pile-up of posts at the end and, thus, we extend things a bit.

I truly enjoyed participating in and facilitating this Guest Bloggerama, despite all the difficulties (see below). Ken Lizzi, one of the most well-read S&S bloggers out there, started things off strong with his look at E.R. Eddison’s ‘Zimiamvian Trilogy’. My erstwhile sword-brother from The Cimmerian, Brian Murphy, fired off two great posts on Cornwell’s Arthurian novels and another one on Swain the Viking.

In my opinion, the rest of the guest posts were consistently impressive. I was especially glad to bring on James Maliszewski for the first time. I’ve been a fan of Mal’s for over fifteen years. He’s been doing Crom’s work over at Grognardia for a long time.

Putting all of it together wasn’t easy. DMR Books’ Dread Editor, Dave Ritzlin, was experiencing some major cyber-troubles in late December. Meanwhile, I was having to deal with serious medical issues affecting two members of my immediate family. As it was, I ended up editing/posting almost all the guest blogger posts. It was tough, but worth it. The morning of January 22, I found out one of my oldest friends, Joe Hellwig—also a fellow bandmate in my first band—had died of a heart attack. However, as Joe well knew, the show must go on. He was a Howard fan and a fan of this blog. I kept the show rolling.

One casualty of all these mishaps and tribulations was my commenting on posts. As a rule I always try to comment on every DMR blog post. That goes double for guest bloggers. On any given day this time around, I was doing well to write my own post or advise/wrangle some guest contributor. Now, at this point, I have commented upon every guest blogger’s post as well as many of my own. I don’t note this to get extra clicks, but simply to let all bloggers concerned know that I have commented.

For those DMR Books Blog readers who might have missed out on some of this year’s Bloggerama posts, you will find below the 2024 Roll Call of Honor. Every guest blogger is listed—with hyperlinks to each post—from first to last.

Ken Lizzi — E.R. Eddison's Zimiamvia: A Trilogy

Brian Murphy — The Truth of the Matter of Britain: Some thoughts upon re-reading Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord trilogy

Matthew Ilseman — Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber: A Comparison

Ethan Sabatella — Macpherson, Metal, and Memories of the Land

Brian Murphy — A Deep Cut of Adventure: The Saga of Swain the Viking, Vol. 1: Swain’s Vengeance

Morgan Holmes — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The White Company

Al Harron — The Land That Time Forgot at 100

Christopher M. Chupik — Scarce Our Mirages Now Are Seen

Richard Fisher — REVIEW: The City of Marble and Blood by Howard Andrew Jones

M.C. Tuggle — Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial”

James Maliszewski — Thoughts on the Occasion of Merritt’s Birthday

Jim Cornelius — Conan, Tannhauser & the State