Jim Pitts at 75
Jim Pitts has spent the last half-century creating cool art for the UK fantasy/horror market, including some classic sword-and-sorcery work. It’s time to celebrate that.
Read MoreKarl Edward Wagner: Born For Blood and Darkness
Karl Edward Wagner was born on this date seventy-five years ago. By the age of thirty, he was making waves in both the genres of Horror and of Sword and Sorcery. At the time of his untimely death in 1994, he was already a legend.
Read MoreOne Ring Rules Them All: A Comparison of Karl Edward Wagner’s Bloodstone and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994) began a draft of Bloodstone and its immortal protagonist Kane in 1960, while just a freshman in high school. Wagner finished the draft of Bloodstone in 1970 while enrolled as a PhD student in neurobiology. By then, J.R.R. Tolkien was everywhere—including, as I argue, in the published version of Wagner’s 1975 novel.
Read MoreThe Compatibility of Dwassllir’s Romanticism with Kane’s Pragmatism: Thoughts on Karl Edward Wagner’s “Two Suns Setting”
“Two Suns Setting” has held a grip on me for a couple of decades now. The dichotomy of the city of Carsultyal, that being progression built on the conservation of cultural fundamentals, is expressed throughout the story in the relationship between Kane and Dwassllir. Furthermore, it is the harmony of this duplexity that has drawn me to “Two Suns Setting” from the start. But why?
Read MoreThoughts on Karl Edward Wagner’s “Cold Light”
“When you seek to destroy an absolute evil, you must destroy it absolutely. Show mercy in expunging a blight, and you only leave seeds to sprout anew. Kill them all.”
- Gaethaa the Crusader
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