As someone who writes a great deal of heroic fantasy set in a Dark Age Britain (or an ‘early medieval’ Britain, as the scholars would have it now, but they have no ear for poetry) with the serial numbers filed off, it behoves me to have some idea of what those ages were actually like. Thankfully, I have the recently-published The Book of Taliesin.
Read MoreMike Resnick, the winner of numerous SF awards, including five Hugos—back when they counted for something—died the other day. While not a berserker in the front rank of the shield-wall, Mike was one of us. How so? Let me count the ways.
Read MoreThis week: Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, tit-bait fantasy covers, The Land That Time Forgot, Neil Peart, and more.
Read MoreMichael Moorcock is one of the authors who always impresses me with creative ideas when it comes to magic and supernatural elements. Throughout the Eternal Champion cycle, we encounter not only his own breeds of various mythical beings, but also patron demons, elemental spirits, cosmic monsters, strange races, Lords of Chaos and countless creatures of multiversal netherworlds.
Read MoreOnce Upon a Time there was a negative, put-down review of a Sword and Sorcery novel (are you surprised?). The reviewer sneered at the book as being, “The Heavy Metal of Fantasy Fiction.” But the put-down backfired.
Read MoreBrian Murphy and I were corresponding the other day, discussing his forthcoming book, Flame and Crimson. He mentioned that Fritz Leiber read H. Rider Haggard; that, in fact, Leiber was reading HRH during the very period that Fritz and his friend, Harry Fischer, were creating Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.
Read MoreThroughout the 1980s it became harder to find sword and sorcery on bookstore shelves. Whatever the reason, it couldn’t have been due to lack of interest, for the genre remained popular in a variety of other media: films, games, heavy metal album covers… and Garbage Pail Kids!
Read MoreI first read David Gemmell’s debut novel Legend when I was fifteen years old. I was immediately captivated by Gemmell’s vigorous prose style, his dynamic narrative technique and the vividly compelling depictions of his characters. In short, I became a fan for life.
Read MoreThis week: Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, The Witcher, The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series, and more.
Read MoreJacob Grimm was the elder brother of the well-nigh legendary “Brothers Grimm”, the two of which laid the foundations for future studies of Teutonic folklore and mythology. In their spare time, he and his brother, Wilhelm, collected the folktales of the German countryside, preserving a priceless legacy. Jacob would go on to publish his landmark volume in Nordic studies, Teutonic Mythology.
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