Thomas Anstey Guthrie was born in London on August 8, 1856. He attended King’s College School and studied at Trinity Hall in Cambridge. Over the course of his career, he used multiple pseudonyms, including Hope Bandoff, William Monarch Jones, and the one most associated with his genre work, F.
This Dark Muse News column continues its coverage of Beauty in Weird Fiction/Art via interviews (a series that began in 2014 on my author blog and was taken up by Black Gate in 2018). We’ve hosted authors such as Carol Berg, Anna Smith Spark, Darrell Schweitzer, CSE Cooney, Scott Oden, CS Friedman, Bryn Hammond….
I have posted on some other fanzines produced by Justin Marriott, and this time I take a look at Men of Violence: The Fanzine of Men’s Adventure Paperbacks. While not pulp, I’ve long felt that the numbered men’s adventure paperback series were another successor to the pulps.
Warlocks and Warriors, edited by L. Sprague De Camp (Berkley Medallion, January 1971). Cover by Jim Steranko Warlocks and Warriors (1970) was edited by L. Sprague De Camp, who did quite a few anthologies around this time while also busy editing and rewriting Robert E.
Alien Clay (Orbit, September 17, 2024). Cover design by Yuko Shimizu Mushrooms in the cellar. Brood parasites. Puppet masters. Body snatchers. The Borg. Resistance is futile. But what, exactly, are we resisting? Possession by alien entities into some kind of hive mind may have been inspired by studies of the social behaviors of ants; indeed, aliens are often depicted as bugs that threaten to unseat humankind’s self-awarded seat at the top of the evolutionary pyramid.
Carroll John Daly (1889–1958) is best known for his hard-boiled detectives, such as Race Williams in Black Mask, and Satan Hall in Detective Fiction Weekly (since 1930). But another interesting character is Mr.
I LOVE the movie, Eddie and the Cruisers. I’ve seen the flick, about a short-lived Jersey bar band, at least a dozen times. And it’s got a terrific soundtrack by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown band.
Siren Queen (Tor.com, May 2022). Cover design by Julianna Lee Nghi Vo isn’t your typical award-winning writer of speculative fiction. Don’t take my word for it. Flip threw her oeuvre and select a story around at random: your bound to wind up reading something that will leave you spellbound.
Hold onto your butts — a new watch-a-thon starts today! Who likes alien abduction flicks? I’ll soon fix that. The McPherson Tape — 1989 – Tubi The youngest of a trio of brothers has acquired a new video camera, and makes his directorial debut at a birthday party for his young niece in a remote Montana farmhouse.
Last week, I mentioned Arthur Leo Zagat, who was born in New York on February 15, 1896. He collaborated with Nat Schachner on their first eleven short stories, before they both launched solo careers. Like Schachner, Zagat attended City College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Race For the Galaxy, Revised 2nd Edition, by Tom Lehmann (Rio Grande Games, 2007) As I mentioned in my review of Terraforming Mars, Race for the Galaxy is one of my long-time favorite games. Its play models the expansion of up to four interstellar civilizations, each from one of five possible starting points: Old Earth, Epsilon Eridani, Alpha Centauri, New Sparta, and Earth’s Lost Colony.
Swordsmen and Supermen (Centaur Press, February 1972). Cover by Virgil Finlay Swordsmen and Supermen 1972, subtitled “Swashbuckling Fantastic Anthology.” From Centaur Press, edited by Donald M. Grant. Cover from Virgil Finlay.
Around Thanksgiving, the fifth Thomas Adam Grey thriller by Duane Laflin, The Medusa Sting, came out. As I’ve been enjoying this series, I quickly got and read it. This series continues to be great, and I look forward to the next ones.
Kingdom of Heaven (Director’s Cut) (194 minutes; 2005) Written by William Monahan. Directed by Ridley Scott. (There is a shorter theatrical cut, which should be avoided at all costs, like the plague it is.) What is it? Ridley Scott’s epic saga of the Crusades, as seen through the eyes of a simple French blacksmith who travels to Jerusalem in an attempt to save the soul of his late wife, and ends up as the defender of the city against the...
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On Black Friday weekend 2025, Steeger Books put out their next two sets of Argosy Library volumes, Series XVIII and XIX, getting closer to 200 volumes. As always, with each series, we get 10 books of great and sometimes overlooked fiction that appeared in the early pulps.
Firefly For a show that hardly anybody watched (it was reportedly 98th in the Nielsen Ratings for 2002-2003. The TV Guide Ratings page has it at 125th, and Fox’s lowest-ranked show), that one word carries a lot of weight 23 years later.
A complete set (18 issues) of Avon Fantasy Reader, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and published 1947-1952 Donald A. Wollheim edited a magazine between the years 1947 to 1952 called Avon Fantasy Reader for Avon Publishers.
Arcane Arts and Cold Steel (Pulp Hero Press, December 24, 2025) David C. Smith is a name that speaks to lovers of sword & sorcery, if not with the power of a Karl Edward Wagner, then not far behind, and if you love the genre but don’t know Dave’s name…1) Shame on you; 2) Let me get you up to speed.
Nat Schachner was born on January 16, 1895 in New York. He earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from City College in 1915. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I in the chemical warfare service from 1917 to 1918 and, when he returned to New York he earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence from New York University in 1919, the same year he married Helen Lichtenstein.
Black Gate has been tracking the inception and growth of New Edge Sword & Sorcery (NESS) mgazine, starting with Micheal Harrington’s 2022 interview with Oliver Brackenbury (champion and editor of NESS), through 2023 with NESS’s first two magazine releases (also Greg Mele’s review of #1), and then into 2024 with NESS’s first book “Beating Heart and Battle Axes and its two-novella combo book Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery, and then in 2025 we covered NESS‘s publication of a NEW Jirel of Joiry tale! (2025) and we interviewed one of their...
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When you mention John Jakes (1932 – 2023) to the average reader, they’ll probably come back with, “The Kent Family Chronicles guy?” or “the guy who wrote that North and South trilogy they made that mini-series from?” I have some of those books but I’ve never read them.
In addition to The Paperback Fanatic, Justin Marriott has put out several other fanzines. Another is Pulp Horror, which I believe has run for eight issues. From No. 5 on, they have been available via POD on Amazon.
Good afterevenmorn, Readers! I’ve been receiving a great many emails of late, of a kind that I’m sure many authors are getting, and I think I should probably talk about it, because it’s all such a scam.
I had previously posted on the excellent Illustration magazine, published by Illustrated Press. It was published quarterly for several years and then ended with issue No. 84 in 2023. It featured articles on a variety of illustration artists who did advertising art, book and magazine covers, and interior artwork, including some pulp magazine artists.
I continue taking a look at the pulp fanzine The Shadowed Circle with the most recent two issues. The focus of this fanzine is, of course, The Shadow, and I subscribed for issues #7 through 8. While you can get the issues from Amazon, I’d rather subscribe because you get some extras, plus they come […]
I’ve read 24 books so far this year, and 17 were audiobooks (we’ve already established I’m not going to say ‘books consumed.’ Listening and physically reading are distinctive, but they’re interchangeable here).
From beside the queen Gawain to the king did then incline: ‘I implore with prayer plain that this match should now be mine.’ Somehow, I’ve never read Prof. Tolkien’s, let alone anyone’s, translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th cent.), an English poem written by an unknown poet.
Remains, issues 4 and 4. Cover art by Richard Wagner There are readers who, like me, prefer dark fiction in short form, because their suspension of disbelief is too brief to sustain — with a few exceptions — a full novel.
Theodora McCormick was born on September 14, 1890 in Brooklyn, New York. Her father died when she was a year old and she was raised by her mother and stepfather. She attended the Barnard School for Girls in Manhattan and the Halsted School in Yonkers.
Unnatural Death by Dorothy Sayers (Avon Books, 1964) “I know who you are now,” said Nurse Philliter, slowly. “You — you gave evidence against Sir Julian Freke. In fact, you traced the murder to him, didn’t you?” In Unnatural Death, the third Wimsey novel, Sayers again makes medical issues vital to the plot and the mystery.
Towards the end of 2025, we got the fourth volume of Wild Inc. by Jack MacKenzie: Go, Johnny Go. The covers, both front and back, are clearly inspired by the Bantam Doc Savage volumes, as the main character and organization are a loose pastiche of Doc.
I don’t systematically collect comic book materials but I pick up Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert E. Howard related stuff when I see it. Found all three of the Marvel paperbacks above at various book sales.
The 13th Warrior (102 minutes; 1999) Written by William Wisher and Warren Lewis. Directed by John McTiernan Based on the novel, Eaters of the Dead, by Michael Crichton, who also served as a producer and uncredited director.
When I was reading the recent work by Marcos Legaria on Robert Barlow, The Man Who Collected Lovecraft, I read of an incident when the young Barlow had a dealing with another young fan that went sour. And I learned that a book about this fan’s life had been published by one of his sons, […]
Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk have become geek icons. A Knight’s Tale, Castle, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Resident Alien, The Rookie: they’ve built successful careers over the years. Their real-life friendship, and their nerdy idol status, tracks back to Firefly.
If there is one group of people that deserve more praise in the literary community, it’s translators. Recent years have shown us just how vital they are to our bookshelves and TBR lists. Its them we have to thank for every Roadside Picnic and Eternaut that dares to tantalize English speakers the world over.
Tom’s Crossing (Pantheon, October 28, 2025) Every now and then I reach for a copy of Anna Karenina on my TBR bookshelf, but hesitate to wonder, “Do I really have time to get into this kind of heavy reading of some 800 plus pages right now?” So far, the answer has been, “No.” I really do intend to get to it at some point because, well, it’s Anna Karenina.
Sterner St. Paul Meek was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 8, 1894. He earned as associate of science degree from the University of Chicago in 1914 and continued his education at the University of Alabama, becoming a member of Phi Beta Kappa and earned a bachelor of science in metallurgical engineering.
In August 2025, we hailed the emergence of a second Chain Story project championed by Michael A. Stackpole. This is a Sword & Sorcery-focused, contagious set of connected (“chained”) stories. Each is: A standalone tale Readable in any order Free to read Interconnected via a theme involving a Crown Stories are being released every few weeks.
Savage Heroes (Star, February 1977). Cover by Les Edwards A couple more Sword & Sorcery anthology reviews: first up is Savage Heroes (Subtitled Tales of Sorcery & Black Magic) (1977), from British Publisher Star, edited by Eric Pendragon and illustrated by the great Jim Pitts, who is still working today.
Code Name: Intrepid is an interesting series from Robert J. Mendenhall, available through his own imprint Blue Planet Press. CNI is a special team of military and civilian experts who handle cases that are extraordinary or of an unusual order in the 1930s.
Good afterevenmorn, Readers! Since the release of Iron Lung, the independent film adaptation of the equally independent video game of the same name, I have been awash in articles, interviews and reviews about the piece.
I have posted a few times on the fiction of Gary Lovisi. He is an author, editor, publisher (Gryphon Books as well as Paperback Parade), and book dealer. While some of his work has come out from his own Gryphon Books, he has also put out works from Ramble House, Wildside Press, and now Stark […]
I have not been active in the John D. MacDonald world for awhile. Time is limited, and interests are many. I recently jumped down the Columbo rabbit hole (I wrote about him back in 2016, and I’ve got a big project in the works for 2027).
Can you match the fantasy world on the left with its creator on the right? Kregen _________ 1. John Norman Magira _________ 2. Edmond Hamilton Newhon ________ 3. Gardner F. Fox Janus __________ 4. Charles Allen Gramlich Ur_____________ 5.
So here we are, the final wild bunch of my favorite films; films that I have returned to time and time again purely for their entertainment value and healing properties. I’m sure most of the thirty films on my list are favorites for you too, but I hope there are at least one or two titles spread upon this charcuterie board of nostalgia and cheese that you haven’t seen, and might have piqued your interest enough to seek them out....
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Rosel George was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 15, 1926. She attended Sophie Newcomb College and earned a Master of Arts degree in Greek at the University of Minnesota. In 1947, she married W.
Stand on Zanzibar (Del Rey/Ballantine, June 1976). Cover by Murray Tinkelman Watching their sets in a kind of trance Were people in Mexico, people in France. They don’t chase Jones but their dreams are the same— Mr.
The Spell of Seven (Pyramid Books, June 1965). Cover by Virgil Finlay L. Sprague de Camp was a major player in the paperback Sword & Sorcery boom of the 1960s. I had the good fortune to meet him and his wife; both were urbane and erudite.
I recently discovered a new New Pulp hero, The Grey Phantom, created by Brian K. Lowe. At present there are two novels, The Invisible Crimes and The Mad Monk, with a third coming, The Perfect Murders. There are also two short stories available electronically, “The Silverback Murders” and “The Golden Rainbow Murders.” I hope they […]
Dragonslayer (109 minutes; 1981) Written by Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins. Directed by Matthew Robbins. What is it? A sorcerer’s apprentice travels across sixth-century England to battle a dragon terrorizing a small kingdom.
I have posted before on the Burroughs Bibliophiles, a literary society started by Vern Coriell with the permission of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In addition to publishing The Burroughs Bulletin, Coriell started a publication arm called the House of Greystoke, which published a variety of works from the late 1960s into the late ’70s.
I haven’t told you about What I’ve Been Watching since last year! Of course it’s only February 16, so I guess we can keep a sense of proportion. But I’ve been watching a lot of stuff this year. As always, many are re-watches.
The three book Echoes of Valor anthology series from TOR was edited by Karl Edward Wagner, who wrote excellent Sword & Sorcery tales himself, and could recognize good ones when he saw them. These were not anthologies of new stories, but reprints.
Four horror films and a western. Sounds like a great night in. Mackenna’s Gold (1969) Who’s in it? Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif, Telly Savalas, Julie Newmar What’s it about? Marshal MacKenna (Peck) chances upon a map to a legendary treasure, and burns it after committing it to memory.
Eric Temple Bell was born in Aberdeen, Scotland on February 7, 1883, but when he was fifteen months old, his family moved to San Jose, California. After his father’s death in January 1896, the family moved back to the United Kingdom, settling in Bedford, England.
Conan: Spawn of the Serpent God by Tim Waggoner (Titan Books, October 28, 2025). Cover artist unknown Titan Books is on a roll, publishing Conan novels in quick succession: S. M. Stirling’s Blood of the Serpent (2022), John C.
I define Heroic Fantasy (HF) as a type of fiction in which a heroic (bigger than life) figure uses a combination of physical strength and edged weapons (swords, axes, spears) to face bigger than life foes.
Pulp Adventures #48 from Bold Venture Press, dated Summer/Fall 2025, came out toward the end of September. This time, we get classic pulp SF along with new fiction, plus reviews and info on some of the work.
The Sword and the Sorcerer (99 minutes; 1982) Written by Albert Pyun, Tom Karnowski and John V. Stuckmeyer. Directed by Albert Pyun What is it? Released less than a month before Arnold Schwarzenegger’s more stately and much better known Conan the Barbarian, The Sword and the Sorcerer is a somewhat over-the-top and low-budget Eighties Fantasy film – and not a particularly well-remembered one.
Seabury Grandin Quinn (1889–1969) is best known to the pulp world today as the author of the occult detective Jules de Grandin. However, he wrote more than just those works. I have posted on a pair of volumes from Black Dog Books that include both his non-series works as well as samples of some of […]
What? It’s been TWO WHOLE WEEKS since I told you what I’ve been thinking about? Well, we certainly can’t have that now, can we? I start with a bit of snark, and finish with a mini-rant.
“I’ve been away from Sati-Baa for ten years,” Omari said. “I’ve walked every inch of Ki Khanga and never truly felt at home. Now I have the means not only to return but establish something of my own.
There are many fantasy role playing games (RPGs) available but I’ve hardly played any. Dungeons & Dragons is the best known. I had a couple High School friends who read fantasy and probably would have played D&D with me.
As you will see, my choices are on the whole rather fluffy, but these are the films that I return to time and time again for comfort, or as a way to reset my brain. I’d be very interested to find out if any of my favorites align with any of your own – please let me know in the comments below! Without further ado, in no particular order, and no ratings (because they are all 10s), let’s get cracking!...
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Doris Piserchia was born Doris Summers on October 11, 1928 in Fairmont, West Virginia. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Fairmont State College in 1950. Although her family expected her to go into teaching, Piserchia had no interested in teaching an instead, after graduation, she served in the United States Navy until 1954, achieving the rank of Lieutenant.
The Weigher (Baen Books, November 1992). Cover by C. W. Kelly First contact stories are one of science fiction’s major subgenres, an important branch of stories about aliens, going back at least to H.
Continuing to catch up on my reading of the excellent Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective series from Airship 27, this time I go over volumes 15 to 18, which are the most recent volumes. I had hoped, like my last posting, to do just three collections and a novel, but it wasn’t to be.
I am gut punched to hear that author James Sallis (December 1944 – January 27, 2026) has died. James was the closest thing to a writing mentor I had. He was a friend, and certainly one of the most talented writers I’ve ever known.
Good afterevenmorn, Readers! I took myself on a date Thursday night. It was very romantic. I first went to a bookshop to pick up a new book for myself (this was because I had forgotten to take my book with me, and could not spend the evening passing time without a book.
Steeger Books in the summer of 2025 came out with a new expanded edition of Don Hutchison’s The Great Pulp Heroes (1996, 2007, 2025). This work has long been an excellent introduction and overview of the world of pulp heroes.
I’m working on a Douglas Adams post as part of an upcoming recurring feature on his non-fiction quotes. But I got sidetracked reading Calvin and Hobbes this past weekend. Much of America is in a war against brutal weather.
A series that I wanted but had a difficult time getting was the Berserker series by Chris Carlsen. There are three books, all from Sphere Books, published in 1977, 1977, & 1979 respectively. I finally got the last one and just finished reading it.
Following the excellent Starship Troopers feedback last week, here’s a selection that might be a little less controversial. Kidding. The Party (1968) Who’s in it? Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet, Steve Franken, Denny Miller What’s it about? Hrundi V.
Robert Moore Williams was born in Farmington, Missouri on June 19, 1907 and attended the Missouri School of Journalism, from which he graduated in 1931 with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism. He married Margaret Jelley in 1938 and they had one daughter.
Welcome to more Dark Muse News. This post reviews Anna Smith Spark’s A Sword of Bronze and Ashes. It was released in September 2023 (Flame Tree Press, cover illustration by Broci) and is the first book of the series The Making of This World: Ruined.
The name John Maddox Roberts (1947 – ) first came to my attention as a writer of Conan sword & sorcery pastiches from Tor. He wrote eight, and when I talk to other REH fans Roberts’ name is almost always listed near the top of the Conan pastiche writers.
Right on schedule in September, the fourth Thomas Adam Grey thriller by Duane Laflin, The Deadly Skulls, came out. As I’ve been enjoying this series, I quickly got and read it. This series continues to be great, and I look forward to the next ones.
It’s still January, which means I haven’t yet abandoned my ambitious New Year’s Resolution to get caught up on my favorite blogs. I started with Rich Horton’s excellent Strange at Ecbatan, and this week I’ve been spending time at Dave Hook’s book blog A Deep Look by Dave Hook.
Savageology is a new collection of works on Doc Savage by Philip José Farmer and others from Meteor House Press. It’s a sort of follow-on to The Man Who Met Tarzan, which collected Farmer’s work on Tarzan.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve shared some Things I Think. Since I just jumped back down the Castle rabbit hole, and finished off the associated Nikki Heat books, I had the basis for this column.
I’ve had a little think about my favorite films, and what makes them my favorites. As you will see, my choices are on the whole rather fluffy, but these are the films that I return to time and time again for comfort, or as a way to reset my brain.
James Silke (1931 – ) is something of a renaissance man in the arts. He’s a visual artist and prose writer, a set and costume designer, photographer, and comic book guy. Most people who I meet recognize him as a comic artist/writer, although I’ve never read any of his graphic stuff.
Raymond F. Jones was born in Salt Lake City on November 15, 1915. He studied engineer and English at the University of Utah before working as a radio engineer. He later suggested that getting an English degree is one of the worst things a writer could do.
About a year ago, I added Terraforming Mars to my collection of board games, fascinated by the premise. At the very end of the year, a local friend proposed to get together and try playing it. On 2 January, three of us sat down to a first game, using the beginner option of everyone playing a standard corporation and keeping all ten of their initial cards without having to pay for them.
Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken (Bantam Books, 1971) In my last post, I mentioned Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods? to introduce a Ken Bulmer (as Manning Norvil) heroic fantasy trilogy.
A popular element in comics is the crossover of different characters and worlds. This idea has come over to the pulps, usually with crossovers involving different characters from different companies. But what about authors with different character series who never met in the original stories? Hence, the interest of having characters from Edgar Rice Burroughs‘s […]
Good afterevenmorn, Readers! I’m going to rant a bit this post, so if apologies in advance for getting too serious about things that are, in fact, quite fun. I want to talk friendships. Friendships in fiction, specifically, and how they’re often hijacked by well-meaning, representation-starved folks, and how that robs us of examples of deep, meaningful, powerful, but entirely platonic love in real life.
I picked up a new work by Marcos Legaria, the author of L’Affaire Barlow: H.P. Lovecraft and the Battle for His Literary Legacy. Legaria is a leading authority on R.H. Barlow, the young fan of H.P. Lovecraft who became his literary executor after his death.
I bought LA Noire on sale, several years ago. But I did not actually dig in to play it until last year. 68 hours of game play later, I completed it the second week of January, this year. LA Noire is one of my all-time favorite games.
The infamous Chariots of the Gods was written by Erich von Däniken (1935), who died last week. Von Däniken was a Swiss author, and Chariots of the Gods was published in German in 1968. It was issued in English from Bantam in 1971, and I read it shortly thereafter, though I don’t remember where I got the copy.
The Devoured Worlds trilogy by Megan E. O’Keefe: The Blighted Stars, The Fractured Dark, and The Bound Worlds (Orbit, May 23, 2023, September 26, 2023, and June 25, 2024). Covers by Jaime Jones It’s January 17, and I’m doing a fairly good job on at least one of my New Year’s resolutions — catching up on some of my favorite blogs.
Horace Brown Fyfe, Jr. who published under then name H.B. Fyfe, was born on September 30, 1918 in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was educated at Stevens Academy before attending Columbia University. Fyfe served in World War II and earned a Bronze Star.
For this round of Dark Muse News, we’ll be seeking affirmations. I’m older than the typical kid who plays with toy-soldier figurines (well, I’m over 50) and love to play with plastic figurines.
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton (Bantam Books, April 4, 1977) Michael Crichton (1942 – 2008) apparently always wanted to be a writer but earned an MD from Harvard Medical school in the meantime.
In fall 2025, we g0t the second novel in the Paradise Investigations series from Teel James Glenn. This series, set in 1939 New York City, stars Adam Paradise, a private investigator who is Frankenstein’s monster.
Summer 2025 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the November/December issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact and Asimov’s Science Fiction. Cover art by John Jennings, Eldar Zakirov, and Shutterstock It’s a bittersweet month for fans of print SF magazines.
I have posted several times on the various collections taken from the men’s adventure magazines (or MAMs), which succeeded the pulps. The folks who put out the excellent Men’s Adventure Quarterly, Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle, have been putting out volumes in the Men’s Adventure Library, reprinting art and fiction (and nonfiction, some of which […]
(As long as Black Gate lets me post here, this will run every year the week of Howard’s passing (January 16), to help keep his flame alive) A LIFE IS NOT IMPORTANT EXCEPT IN THE IMPACT IT HAS ON OTHER LIVES – Jackie Robinson’s epitaph I did an interview last week with Jason Waltz for his ’24 in 42′ podcast (Yeah, I know: You just can’t wait to hear that one…).
I discovered Adrian Cole (1949 – ) in the late 1970s through his Dream Lords trilogy. 1. Plague of Nightmares (1975) 2. Lord of Nightmares (1975) 3. Bane of Nightmares (1976) All were from Zebra books, with covers by Tom Barber, Jack Gaughan (maybe), and Tom Barber respectively.
