In 2006 and 2008, Tor books sought a revival of Sword & Planet fiction with two books by S. M. Stirling. It didn’t quite work out but the readers got some interesting results, including a book that is now in my top ten of S&P novels.
I recently picked up the revised and expanded edition of Gideon Cain: Demon Hunter, edited by Van Allen Plexico and published by his White Rocket Books in 2022. The first version came out in 2010 from Airship 27 with seven stories by various authors.
Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction , Volumes 1-3 (Ansible Press, December 13, 2023, November 22, 2024, and October 21, 2025). Covers by Tithi Luadthong, Xiaofan Zhang, and Pascal Blanché I was delighted to see (on S.
Will Murray recently came out with his third book on The Shadow: Knight of Darkness: The Legend of The Shadow. This follows his prior books on The Shadow: Master of Mystery: The Rise of The Shadow and Dark Avenger: The Strange Saga of The Shadow .All these come from Odyssey Publications.
It’s been August since I shared What I’ve Been Listening To. My apologies for depriving you! And you know that I listen to audiobooks every single day: Work, home, car, walking, bedtime: I’m constantly listening to them.
Ten years ago to the month (I started this in October), I wrote about Terry Brooks’ groundbreaking The Sword of Shannara (1977), and declared that the joy I got reading the book the first time around was something I couldn’t recapture.
#4 – Predator 2 (1990) Strong link, or tenuous as all hell? Fairly bloody strong. What’s the link? This is the one that threw the chum into the sea of nerds. What’s it all about? Stephen Hopkins, British music video auteur, fresh off his bonkers stint on the Nightmare on Elm Street series, with the fabulously daft Dream Child, was handed this and must have thought to himself, ‘I’m gonna make the most 1990s film ever 1990-ed in the year...
Read More Read More
John Varley makes his third and final appearance in the Tor Double series in volume #29, which was originally published in January 1991. Ian Watson makes his only appearance in this volume. The Persistence of Vision was originally published in F&SF in March 1978.
What do James A. Corey, George RR Martin, and Mary Robinette Kowal have in common? Like thousands of their peers, each had a mentor help them navigate the wild world of publishing in some way, shape, or form.
Today, we come back from our excursion into the realm of Space Opera to our home territory of Sword & Planet fiction. One of the most unique S&P series I’ve ever encountered is the four-book series by Jack Vance (1916 – 2013) generally called the Planet of Adventure series.
A new fanzine devoted to Edgar Rice Burroughs is RevERBerate. The first issue came out in May 2025 and is 48 pages printed on high-quality, glossy pages, perfect-bound with cardstock covers. It’s edited and published by Scott Tracy Griffin.
It’s been a while since I’ve taken a look at a ’70s science fiction novel in this space, and this seems a good book to feature. It’s rather better than some of the books I’ve written about, though it has, as far as I can tell, never been reprinted.
I had previously posted on the excellent Illustration magazine, published by Illustrated Press, which was published quarterly for several years and then ended with issue No. 84 in 2023. It published articles on a variety of illustration artists who did advertising art, book and magazine covers, and interior artwork.
The late Sam Gafford (1962-2019) was a scholar on the work of William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918). Hodgson wrote essays, short fiction, novels, and poetry, most in the genres of horror, fantastic, and science fiction.
Last year, I did a three-part series on Steve Hockensmith’s terrific Holmes on the Range series. This essay, a comprehensive chronology, and a Q&A which Steve kindly did with me, represents the deepest dive anyone has written on these fun books.
In celebration of the recent streaming series, Alien: Earth (whether you enjoyed it or not), I have created a new list of films that most certainly exist in the Weyland-Yutani universe, and if not certainly, then enjoy an unbelievably tenuous link to it.
This is a strange (in a good way) hybrid of alternate history (a 2023 Sidewise Award winner, in fact), syncretism, crime noir, and Christological sacrifice. Oh, and it has a little something to do with jazz, specifically that of the 1920s hot jazz era played in bars and brothels.
I have posted on Harry Dickson, the American Sherlock Holmes, a popular character and series in Europe. As I noted, he started as a German pastiche series, with Holmes now helped by Harry Taxson, later renamed Tom Wills in the Dutch version.
Originally published in December 1990, Tor Double #28 contains the fourth story (but third headlining story) by Kim Stanley Robinson, who first appeared in Tor Double #1, and the second, and final story by Jack Vance.
Kolchak the Night Stalker: Double Feature by Richard Matheson and Chuck Miller (Moonstone, November 2017). Cover art by Mark Maddox I’ve been asked over the years about the process I used to adapt the late Richard Matheson’s unproduced script for “The Night Killers” into a novella.
Ace Double #42900: Tower of the Medusa by Lin Carter, and Kar Kaballa by George H. Smith (Ace Books, November 1969). Cover art by Jeff Jones and John Schoenherr I’m working on a Halloween entry for the Swords & Planet League, and on a couple of posts about Jack Vance.
We recently got a new collection of stories with Ravenwood, Stepson of Mystery from Airship 27. He was an occult detective who had a short-lived series that ran in the back of Secret Agent X for five issues in 1936.
Good afterevenmorn, Readers! I am writing this the day after returning from my favorite genre literary convention ever with a report. Can*Con is the kind of SFF convention I will try very hard to never miss.
While I am not big on most biographies, I did have a couple on my want list tied to Walter B. Gibson (1897-1985), best known as the author of The Shadow, and Lester Dent (1904-59), who did Doc Savage. When I found both of these at great prices at PulpFest 2025, I got them.
Well, August was the last time I shared What I’ve Been Watching, and I know you’re always wondering what is getting my attention. This week we’ve got three British crime shows, one American comedy cop show, and…an action movie.
Samhain Sorceries, edited by D.M. Ritzlin (DMR Books, September 24, 2022). Cover by Adam Burke The mighty Dave Ritzlin, mastermind of DMR Books, continues to refresh his impressive backstock. Just in time for Halloween he’s re-released his popular collection of spooky Sword & Sorcery, Samhain Sorceries, with a brand new cover.
In celebration of the recent streaming series, Alien: Earth (whether you enjoyed it or not), I have created a new list of films that most certainly exist in the Weyland-Yutani universe, and if not certainly, then enjoy an unbelievably tenuous link to it.
Originally published in November 1990. In addition to the stories, Orson Scott Card provided two essays entitled “Foreword: How Lloyd Biggle, Jr., Changed My Life, Part I (The Tunesmith)” and “Afterword: How Lloyd Biggle, Jr., Changed My Life, Part II (The Tunesmith),” both original to this volume.
August 3rd, we highlighted the first three stories of The Chain Story 2 – Sword and Sorcery. All these stand-alone stories are “chained” together with a common element (a common magical artifact represented in the logo), with different contributors showcasing their own characters/worlds.
While Edmond Hamilton introduced me to Space Opera, his wife, Leigh Brackett, and another woman writer, Catherine Lucille Moore (1911 – 1987), showed me the kind of emotional power these stories could wield.
After reading and enjoying The Python God and The Fortune Cave, the first two Thomas Adam Grey thrillers by Duane Laflin, I picked up the third one when it came out: The Treasure Whale. Laflin is a retired professional magician who now writes novels.
Torchship by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press, December 9, 2015). Cover by Stephanie G. Folse In the introduction to his first collection of short fiction, Unmitigated Acts (the title comes from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Female of the Species”), Karl Gallagher reflects on the history of the series: “I have a fondness for ‘rag tag crew on ramshackle ship’ stories” (p.
We now have the annual issue of Blood ‘n’ Thunder, the Blood ‘n’ Thunder 2025 Special Edition, from Murania Press, but instead of showing up just prior to the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, it was at Pulpfest.
It’s been a year, so let’s look at another volume of William Bernhardt’s awesome Red Sneaker Writers books. These things are absolute treasures. I started reading William Bernhardt’s Ben Kincaid books back in the mid-nineties.
Rouge by Mona Awad (Simon & Schuster, August 1, 2024). Cover uncredited Red footwear is a powerful metaphor in folklore and fantasy. Dorothy clicked her red slippers to go home. (Yeah, I know, the slippers were silver in the Baum book, and only became red as a better fit with new Technicolor filming, but stay with me here.) Let’s go back to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Red Shoes in which Karen is given a pair of red...
Read More Read More
In celebration of the recent streaming series Alien: Earth (whether you enjoyed it or not), I have created a new list of films that most certainly exist in the Weyland-Yutani universe, and if not certainly, then enjoy an unbelievably tenuous link to it.
