Tag Archives: Robert E. Howard

Happy Birthday, Margaret Brundage

Margaret Brundage was born on this date in 1900. Brundage gain fame, some would say infamy, illustrating covers for Weird Tales in the 1930s. She was born Margaret Hedda Johnson and was married briefly married to “Slim” Brundage, a painter with radical politics. The had one son. I guess that means the rumor I heard that she used her daughters for models isn’t true.

The best way to honor Brundage is to show examples of her work. Since the illustrations won’t be to everyone’s taste, and some folks get offended waayy too easily these days, the illustrations will be after the “Continue Reading” break. What follows may not be approriate for youonger readers and the uptight. There’s a reason she’s been called “Margaret Bondage.” Continue reading →

Happy 100th Birthday, Leigh Brackett

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So today is the centennial of Leigh Brackett’s birth. If you’ve paid any attention to this blog in the last few weeks, you know that I’ve been making a big deal of that and will continue to do so.

Some of you good people might be wondering: So just who was this Leigh Brackett person and why was she so important?

I’m glad you asked. Continue reading →

Brackett and Bradbury: “Lorelei of the Red Mist”

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This is a unique item. The only collaboration between two great science fiction authors, Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury. Here’s how it came about:

Both authors were living in the Los Angeles area in the 1940s, and both had been working hard to develop their craft as writers. Both were regulars in Planet Stories at the time. They were friends who had both been mentored by Henry Kuttner. They used to meet once a week to read and critique each other’s work.

Brackett had sold some detective short stories as well as one novel, No Good From a Corpse. The novel caught the attention of movie producer Howard Hawks, who decided he wanted Brackett to work on the screenplay for his next project. She was approximately halfway through a novellette she was writing for Planet Stories that was set on Venus (More about Brackett’s Venus in a bit.) when she got a call from Hawks, or more probably his secretary. Which is how Brackett launched her screenwriting career by coauthoring with William Faulkner the script for Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. How freakin’ cool is that? Continue reading →

Hearing Whispers Out of the Dust

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Whispers Out of the Dust
David J. West
ebook $3.99, paperback $14.99

Take the Mormon settlement of the West, mix in some M. R. James and H. Russell Wakefield, throw in a healthy serving of H. P. Lovecraft and a dash of Robert E. Howard, stir in Native American lore, bake in the desert heat and wash down with a lake formed by a damn, and what you’re likely to come up with something that resembles Whispers Out of the Dust.

David J. West has begun to build a body of work in the subgenre known as the weird western, and his most recent book is a solid addition to the field. It’s also one of his most ambitious projects to date. (And I absolutely love that cover.)

St. Thomas, Nevada was settled by Mormon pioneers, but the area had been home to the Anasazi and other tribes long before. The Mormons, many of them anyway, moved away when they discovered they were in Nevada rather than Utah and Nevada wanted to collect several years of back taxes. Still, the town survived until the Hoover Dam was built, and the waters of Lake Mead covered it up.

That much is historical fact. What David does is add a dose of fantasy which he blends so smoothly that you find yourself believing things you know can’t really be so. (At least you don’t think so.) The footnotes (endnotes, really) certainly add to the feeling of verisimilitude. David includes a number of photos he’s taken, which give you an idea of what the area looks like. Continue reading →

Howard Andrew Jones and Bill Ward Start Conan Read Through

New BAF Post on The Young Magicians

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I’ve got a new BAF post up at Black Gate.

This one is on The Young Magicians, the second anthology of the series that Lin Carter edited. It’s a companion to Dragons, Elves, and Heroes. This one starts at William Morris and continues up to what was then the present day (1969). Included are selections by Lovecraft, Smith, Howard, Kuttner, Merritt. and de Camp, as well as Lin Carter himself.

Manly Wade Wellman’s Kardios of Atlantis

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“Straggler From Atlantis”
Swords Against Darkness
Andrew J. Offutt, ed.
mmpb, Zebra Books, 1977, $1.95

In the late 1970s, Manly Wade Wellman began a series of novelettes about the last survivor of Atlantis, a warrior bard named Kardios. Or at least he began publishing them in the late 1970s. In his introduction to “Straggler from Atlantis”, Adrew Offutt says that Wellman tried to publish them in the 1930s, but some other chap was writing about an Atlantean named Kull at the time and no editor was buying.

Be that at it may, the Kardios stories were published, although to the best of my knowledge, they’ve never been collected in book form. The ISFDB shows a total of five, with the first four appearing in the first four volumes of Swords Against Darkness and the final one in an anthology from DAW books with the generic title of Heroic Fantasy. Continue reading →

Report on Howard Days, Part 2: Saturday

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Things started a little later on Saturday than they did on Friday. I slept late (or what passes for late for me), showered, went into Cross Plains, and joined some folks for breakfast. After some good conversation, I toodled over to the pavilion and hung out there for a while.

The first panel (all panels where held in the library) was another great discussion. Entitled “A Means to Freedom”, Rusty Burke led the conversation about the correspondence between Lovecraft and Howard. The general consensus was that it was a good thing the internet wasn’t around in those days, or the two men would never have gotten any fiction written. Continue reading →

Report on Howard Days, Part 1: Thursday and Friday

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Robert E. Howard Days 2015 has come to an end. And while I have enjoyed them all, this has probably been the one I’ve enjoyed the most. There are a number of things that came together to make this one of the most enjoyable Howard Days for me. The weather couldn’t have been better. The high temperatures were in the low 90s, which means it was warm but not really hot, especially since there was a breeze and the humidity wasn’t too bad. Continue reading →

Blogging Conan: Rogues in the House

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