I was a regular reader of The Cimmerian until it shut down. For those not familiar with it, The Cimmerian focused on heroic fantasy and historical adventure. The name came from Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. Conan hailed from Cimmeria, and The Cimmerian started out as a print journal of Robert E. Howard studies. The website came later, as a natural extension.

The articles in the Cimmerian included reviews, profiles of historical people, and discussions of various authors who wrote material similar to Howard’s work. There was a great deal of amateur scholarship presented there, and many of the contributors have gone on to have significant blogs of their own or to be acknowledged for their level of scholarship. There was nothing quite like it.

Annoyed that I couldn’t find a replacement blog, I decided to start Adventures Fantastic. Now I hold no illusions that anything here approaches the level of what was published on The Cimmerian. For one thing I don’t have the knowledge some of those contributors demonstrated. I have no formal training in literature or history. But here I can build a community of like-minded individuals with a common set of interests.

Most of what I post will relate to heroic fantasy, especially sword and sorcery, or historical fiction. I won’t limit myself to those topics. There will be posts about pulps, fantasy in general, obituaries and news items of interest to the broader fantasy and science fiction community. But heroic fantasy and historical adventure will be the main topics.

What I won’t post here, as a general rule, will be anything relating to science fiction or detective fiction or noir. I have other blogs for those. (Futures Past and Present and Gumshoes, Gats, and Gams). Before I set up my own website, I included those things, but now I’m expanding. The focus here will be narrower than it had been when I was over on Blogger.