Are We Not Men? Moreau’s Island
The Island of Doctor Moreau (1897) was written by H. G. Wells as a fundraiser and a pamphlet against animal vivisection. It is usually thought Read More
Just Add Monsters: Conan Rewrites
L. Sprague de Camp found himself in the position of editor and collaborator on the Conan series after 1951, when he read Conan the Conqueror. Read More
Link: Your Elder Sign Is In My Eye: or, Advice For Writers Of Cthulhu Mythos Fiction
A sign of true cultural phenomenon seems to be that many people want to copy its masters endlessly. Conan the Cimmerian. Sherlock Holmes. Dracula. The Read More
John Murray Reynolds, Forgotten Pulpster?
John Murray Reynolds (1901-1993) is a writer who was on my radar because I saw his name occasionally in Weird Tales or Planet Stories. I Read More
Sword & Sorcery Goes North
Sword & Sorcery comics, especially long-running ones like Conan the Barbarian, will eventually take their cast to the frozen North. When they do it is Read More
Link: Hawk Carse
The author of “Hawk Carse” was one of the Age of Wonder’s great mysteries. Who was Anthony Gilmore? The answer turned out to be Harry Read More
The Strangest Northerns: Ed Earl Repp
Ed Earl Repp (1901-1979) was a prolific Pulpster who wrote more Westerns than Science Fiction. (Some critics say it is hard to tell them apart.) Read More
Link: Sword & Sorcery – What’s in a Name?
Sword & Sorcery has become a term of derision since the 1980s. There are good reasons for this but much of that derision is out Read More
Link: The Gernsback Continuum
I know its cheeky to speak ill of the successful. They are after all… successful. But I can’t help it. “The Gernsback Continuum” by William Read More
Gardner F. Fox in the Fantastic Pulps
We live in a time when the creators of Science Fiction’s legacy go unacknowledged. For example, in the 2015 Ant-Man film Scott Lang goes “subatomic” Read More