A. Merritt's landmark heroic fantasy novel, The Ship of Ishtar, still resonates a solid century after its first publication. Since that time, it has inspired classic tales from the likes of Robert E. Howard, Leigh Brackett and Michael Moorcock.
Read MoreI attended Howard Days 2023 with several friends: Ken Lizzi, Brian Murphy, Jimmy Jarman and several others. It was a long road getting there.
Read MoreThe Battle of Clontarf was an inspiration to Robert E. Howard. It also inspired numerous excellent works of art, especially during the last half-century.
Read MoreFor the majority of the time that he wrote for Weird Tales, Robert E. Howard was an unabashed fan of the Celts—especially the Gaels of Ireland.
Read MoreThe 1990s were a pretty horrible time for Sword-and-Sorcery. However, by the early 2000s, there were signs of a new dawn for S&S.
Read More“The Horror From the Mound”, is a favorite weird western of mine written by Robert E. Howard. It’s possible that Cabeza de Vaca’s early accounts of exploring Texas inspired Howard to write his classic yarn.
Read MoreAs free-agents of the hard-boiled school, Conan and Mattias Tannhauser share a deep skepticism of the State. Kingship, the demands and prerogatives of the State, all that is meaningless in comparison to a man’s honor and loyalty to his dearest friends.
Read MoreClark Ashton Smith was a pioneer of the S&S genre. His “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” was the first sword-and-sorcery story he ever wrote. It is also, possibly, the most influential tale he told within that genre.
Read MoreThe White Company was Arthur Conan Doyle’s tribute to chivalry and the Middle Ages. He considered it his best novel. Robert E. Howard and George MacDonald Fraser were both fans of it.
Read MoreBarbarism, identity in relation to the natural world, and meditations on primeval forces are all conventions in Sword & Sorcery fantasy. In my research of the field of Celticism, I have found works—both mythic and modern—that also embody these concepts.
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