The DMRtian Chronicles, 11/1/2020
This week: HPL, Jeff Jones, Tarzan, Hawkwind, Manly Wade Wellman, and plenty more weird horror and sword and sorcery.
Read MoreJohn Keats and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"
John Keats’ poem, “La Belle Dame sans Merci”, remains a classic and it inspired Tim Powers’ novel, The Stress of Her Regard.
Read MoreReview: Gunthar, Warrior of the Lost World by Steve Dilks
Gunthar, Warrior of the Lost World combines the first three Gunthar stories and adds a new previously unreleased novella. The setting is a post-apocalyptic world filled with lost technology, mutants, and magic. A world where you must survive by the strength of your arm and sharpness of your wit.
Read MoreThe Edgar Allan Poe Portfolio by Bernie Wrightson
The Edgar Allan Poe Portfolio by Bernie Wrightson was the first portfolio he ever published, setting the stage for even greater triumphs.
Read MoreTim Willocks: Quotes from The Religion
Tim Willocks' birthday has rolled around again. I've had my hardcover copy of The Religion at my bedside the last couple of weeks, doing fairly random rereads . What strikes me now, just as it did in the winter of 2011, is just how quotable the novel is. Like The Iliad--to which I've compared it on numerous occasions--The Religion has sentences and passages on nearly every page which can stand on their own as things of worth. Sometimes bloody, sometimes beautiful, sometimes philosophical. Often all three at once.
Read MoreKeith Parkinson -- 15 Years Gone
Before his untimely death, Keith Parkinson created cool art for book covers, RPGs and collectible card games.
Read More1932, The Year of Conan: Sword and Sorcery and Historical Pessimism
Although Robert E. Howard had previously worked out the conventions of sword and sorcery in his earlier Solomon Kane and Kull tales, the publication of “The Phoenix on the Sword” marks an important event in the history of the genre: Conan, the most famous sword and sorcery barbarian, had arrived.
Read MoreThe DMRtian Chronicles, 10/25/2020
This week: New Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories, the Conan Netflix series, Lovecraft, Poe, Frazetta, and the latest goings-on in sword-and-sorcery.
Read MoreHail to the King: N.C. Wyeth
N.C. Wyeth created a body of work that has influenced American Illustration up to the present day. If you love the art of Frank Frazetta or Brom, thank Wyeth.
Read MoreTestaments of Horror
It appears again and again in horror fiction: The lost journal detailing the events of the story. While there are plenty of good horror stories that are written in third person, many of the best are written in the first person. More interesting is when such novels use multiple forms of media with multiple narrators to tell the story. The media might be journal entries, letters, or even newspaper reports. I will look at three examples: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu,” and Jean Ray’s Malpertuis.
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