Yep, Philip Jose Farmer would turn 100 today. He got pretty damned close to making it while still above ground. Diehard pulp fans are made of stern stuff, it would seem, and Farmer was nothing if not a diehard fan of the pulps.
Read MoreCatherine Lucille "C.L." Moore was born on this date in 1911. To celebrate, I thought it might be cool to take a look at how her fellow authors in the Lovecraft Circle felt about her fiction.
Read MoreGeorge Gordon Byron, better known as Lord Byron, would be two hundred and thirty years old today. Perhaps "would" is the wrong word. After all, this is the man who inspired and served as the model for Polidori's The Vampyre and likely was a partial inspiration--along with Richard F. Burton--for the titular character in Dracula. Who's to say he doesn't live on, walking the nightside, somehow?
Read MoreIt's January 20th and that means it's Merritt Day here at the DMR blog. Merritt is (along with Clark Ashton Smith) the favorite author of this blog's Most Puissant and Fearsome Editor, Dave Ritzlin, and I rank Merritt pretty damned high myself. Thus, this day shall not go without remark and due respect will be rendered.
Read MoreLast night being the dank and dreary 19th of January, I read myself some Edgar Allan Poe in honor of his natal anniversary. The tales in question had been placed in my hands by a strangely-clad man in a somber-toned conveyance some weeks before. My faithful dog distrusted him; I felt a twinge of unease, then thought of it no more.
Read MoreDid you know Playboy used to publish novels? Don’t get the wrong idea; this isn’t like Demon Bitch’s Punishment or The Man From S.T.U.D. in the Orgy at Madame Dracula’s. This is an excellent historical novel dealing with the clash between Celtic barbarians and Roman civilization during the fourth century A.D.
Read MoreThis date marks the one hundred twenty-fifth anniversary of the birth of Clark Ashton Smith. Readers of this site should require no introduction, as Smith was one of the “big three” writers for Weird Tales, along with Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. It only seems appropriate that we should honor this master of exotic, bejeweled prose today by reading and discussing one of his many magnificent stories. I have selected “The Maze of Maal Dweb.”
Read MoreThis book has a whip-wielding Nazi leprechaun on the cover. I thought this would be one of the trashiest novels I’ve ever read, but hopefully it would be some good dumb fun, too. Neither expectation was met. Instead of the wild, pulpy “novel of pure terror” the cover promises, we get a psychological drama.
Read MoreAs I noted in a previous post, today is Stephen Fabian's eighty-eighth birthday. Recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, Fabian's work as an artist was also nominated nine times for Hugo awards. He shares a birthday with someone else who never won a Hugo: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. As it turns out, Mr. Fabian is a fan of JRRT.
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