While DMR Books is spearheading the charge for sword-and-sorcery fiction, we’re far from alone in our crusade. A number of notable S&S titles from a variety of publishers have hit the (virtual) store shelves just this week.
Read MoreParallel Universe Publications is a small press dedicated to publishing first class horror, science fiction, and fantasy books. One of their newest releases is Swords and Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume One. Eight tales that certainly fall within the realms of fantasy.
Read MoreCertainly Robert Burns’ literary influences can be seen far and wide – even across the Atlantic Ocean. Robert E. Howard, like most Americans, was a fan of the bard: The Howard family home’s library had the Harvard Classics volume The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns on their shelf.
Read MoreThis week: Lots of REH and Conan links. Plus Virgil Finlay, Storm Constantine, Roger Zelazny, Hawkwind, and more.
Read MoreA great aspect of Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse is that it has been used time and time again as a vehicle to introduce characters from one series into another. This device has allowed the author to successfully create new incarnations of a character in different planes, or to bring that very same character into a different world by means of sorcery or time travel. It is one of the many things that has made Moorcock’s works so intriguing and unique.
Read MoreRobert E. Howard only called Conan “Amra” in two completed tales. However, there is more to the story than that…
Read MoreRobert E. Howard had a definite pattern for his characters that culminated in his wandering barbarian in an age undreamed of. Howard’s literary hook was using hard men who physically dominated situations they were placed in, especially in civilized realms.
Read MoreIn 1939 two novels would appear in Unknown that were such sturdy examples of the genre that in the 1970s they would be adapted by Marvel Comics as further tales of none other than Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian. These stories, however, started out as something much different and the author behind them was The Spider’s Norvell W. Page. The hero in both stories was Wan Tengri, aka Prester John.
Read MoreRegular readers of the DMR blog should be well acquainted with A. Merritt, whose 137th birthday we celebrate today. In his heyday from the late teens of the twentieth century to the early 1950s, he was arguably the most popular fantasy author in America. His novel, The Ship of Ishtar was voted by the readers of Argosy as the most popular story to have appeared in the pages or Argosy or All Story, consigning Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes to second place.
Read MoreThe Ship of Ishtar is a thorough and beautifully-written exploration of one man’s journey in search for honor, courage, and love, after living in a world that has forgotten them. You’re going to want to place it proudly alongside your well-loved copies of Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien, and other timeless fantasists.
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