Or Those Who Fail to Study History…
This is gonna be a rant, just so you know.
So over the weekend, a controversy got started on Twitter. Like when doesn’t a controversy get started on Twitter, right?
Anyway, this one involved someone saying that if you want to be published, you should read at least one book published in the last five years so you would know the trends in publishing. I think the word “beg” may have been used. Continue reading
One of the most influential and arguably the greatest fantasy artist of the last century, Frank Frazetta, was born on this day, February 9, in 1928. I’m gonna shut up and let his art speak for itself.
What follows are some of his art. Enjoy and let me know which are your favorites, and that includes pieces not shown here
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A few nights ago, I decided to check what the traffic had been here on the blog before I went to bed. It was high, highest it had been all month. The number on the bar graph didn’t match the total count for the day; I think it was off by two. Nothing unusual. I’ve seen that before. Just refresh the stats, and they’ll agree.
So I refreshed. The numbers were the same. And several page views higher than they had been before. So I refreshed again. The numbers were climbing. And climbing.
Long story short, I was on the receiving end of some sort of attack by a bot. I went in to the security settings and tightened things down. Before I was done, though, that became the second highest traffic day I’d ever had. (The highest was some years ago when a high-traffic blog linked to a post.)
Traffic seems to be back to normal, although it’s hard to be sure. It’s been a little erratic lately, and today it is down quite a bit. Yesterday seemed to be fine.
If anyone is having issues accessing the site, please let me know. I tightened the security quite a bit. Since I’m still learning about some of the security features, I don’t know if I over did it. I would have asked this question a few days ago, but I’m got an infection hangnail, and typing has been uncomfortable, to say the least.
One of my favorite writers, C. L. Moore (1911-1987) was born on this date, January 24.
Moore needs no introduction to readers of this blog. She was not only one of the best female writers of science fiction and fantasy of the pulp era, she was one of the best of either sex of any era.
Today’s post continues my series of looking at the Northwest Smith stories in order. For those of you who may be new around these here parts, Northwest Smith is widely regarded to be the inspiration for Han Solo. Only ol’ Han never had adventures like these. There will be spoilers. Continue reading
Today, January 22, marks the birth of Robert E. Howard (1906-1936). In observance, I’m going to look at “The House of Arabu”. I read it in The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. It will be reprinted in Renegade Swords from DMR Books later this year. Look for it. I’ll have an announcement when more details about Renegade Swords are released, details such as the publication date.
I don’t know when “The House of Arabu” was written. It wasn’t published until 1952 in The Avon Fantasy Reader #18 under the title “The Witch From Hell’s Kitchen”. I like Howard’s original title much better. The story has been reprinted several times, but it isn’t as well known as much of Howard’s other sword and sorcery. I did notice that the version reprinted in The Ultimate Triumph had a slightly different closing line than the version in The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. Continue reading
Abraham Merritt (1884-1943), who as A. Merritt, was born on this day, January 20.
Merritt’s influence on the field was vastly disproportionate to his output. He worked as a full-time editor, so time for writing was not exactly plentiful. He only completed eight novels and about as many short stories.
In spite of this small output, his work was highly regarded and for a number of years there was a fantasy magazine named after him. Merritt influenced a number of writers in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.
In honor of his birthday, I’m going to look at “The Pool of the Stone God”. SPOILERS TO FOLLOW Continue reading
Today, January 18, marks two birthdays of note. I’ve decided both people are of enough significance, and different enough, that I’ve done separate birthday posts rather than one. This one concerns C. M. Eddy, Jr (1896-1967). The post on Clare Winger Harris can be found here. Continue reading
There are two birthdays of note today, January 18. Normally I would write one post about both of them. In this case, though, I’m going to write separate posts because the contributions of the two authors were so different. This post will focus on Clare Winger Harris. The post about C. M Eddy, Jr can be found here. Continue reading
Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961) was born on this date, January 13. Along with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft, Smith was considered one of the Big Three of Weird Tales. Smith lived the longest of these three gentlemen, but his writing career wasn’t much longer. He wrote during the 1920s and 30s but stopped writing around 1937. Smith was a poet as well as a short story writer, and it shows in his lush, baroque prose. In fact, one of the more common criticisms of Smith is that reading him requires too much work and too large of a vocabulary. His stories were often set in imaginary worlds such as Hyperborea, Poseidonis, and Zothique. They are well worth seeking out. Fortunately they are available in inexpensive electronic editions.
In observance of his birth, let’s look at two of his stories set in more modern times. Mild spoiler warning. Continue reading
The local friends of the library had another sale today. Here are a few things I picked up. These are the ones I made a conscious decision to buy. Continue reading