Sunday, March 30, 2014

Wormy's World - Characters - Frank - #20



Wormy's World - Characters - Frank - #20

Frank


With a little more adjustment Frank finally gets his head on straight after the attack by the Snookerball Demon. Dudly gets him wondering how the Ogres would react if they found themselves with glassy-eyed little monster on their own pool table and this gives Dudly a great idea. The two trolls smuggle a fresh snookerball off of Wormy's table and high-tail it to the Ogres laughing.







Friday, March 28, 2014

Monday, March 24, 2014

Wormy's World - Characters - Dudly - #20



Wormy's World - Characters - Dudly - #20

Dudly


After his encounter with the Snookerball Demon Dudly is glad to be back in one piece and unsurprised that Wormy has a hard time finding anyone who wants to play pool. Frank wonders what would happen if the Ogres ran into one of Wormy's snookerballs and that gives Dudly an idea. The pair grab one of the cracked balls and sneak off to set his plan in motion.








Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Wormy's World - Characters - Wormy - #19



Wormy's World - Characters - Wormy - #19

Wormy


Wormy heads over to save his snooker table and finds the little Snookerball Demon sitting on his felt after having torn up Frank and Dudly. He tosses his hat at him and sets the Demon up for a perfect swing of his dragon-sized cue. Afterwards he starts to put the two trolls back together with Irving's help.





Monday, March 17, 2014

Wormy's World - Characters - Snookerball Demon - #19



Wormy's World - Characters - Snookerball Demon - #19

Snookerball Demon


After chopping up Frank and Dudly the Snookerball Demon decides to give a try against Wormy but ends up on the receiving end of a dragon-sized pool cue.



Saturday, March 15, 2014

Chooser of the Slain


From the Hall of the Mountain comes the fantasy Novella,

Chooser of the Slain


Now available on kindle

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Wormy's World - Characters - Irving - #19



Wormy's World - Characters - Irving - #19

Irving


After Frank and Dudly let the Snookerball demon loose Irving hears the commotions and gets Wormy to take care of the little bugger. Afterwards Irving goes to help Dudly pull himself together but needs to be careful where he steps.


Appendix Z - Keith Taylor



Appendix Z - Keith Taylor

A combination of Historical, Sword and Sorcery, his Bard series (5 books) is an enjoyable take on the bard of history and the bard of more popular fancy. I don't know if he is a gamer, but the series is wonderful inspiration for gamers. I can recommend the first three books in the series. I stopped reading somewhere shortly after starting book 4 (and can't remember why) and only recently picked up book 5.

He has a long list of short stories but the work is a bit too recent for me (I've never read any of the newer Weird Tales magazines or caught the work he did in the 70's).

Series

Bard
Bard II The First Long Ship
Bard III The Wild Sea
Bard IV Ravens' Gathering
Bard V Felimid's Homecoming

The Sorcerer's Sacred Isle
The Cauldron of Plenty
Search for the Starblade

Novel

Lances of Nengesdul
The Tower of Death (with Andrew J. Offutt)
When Death Birds Fly (with Andrew J. Offutt)

Short Story

"A Spear in the Night"
"The Archpriest's Potion"
"The Atheling's Wife" (as Dennis More)
"At the Edge of the Sea"
"The Bath-house"
"The Brotherhood of Britain"
"Buried Silver" (as Dennis More)
"The Castles of Testing"
"The Company of the Gods"
"The Conqueror of Vectis"
"Corpse's Wrath"
"Daggers and a Serpent"
"The Demon Cat"
"Dragon Hunter"
"The Emerald Scarab"
"Emissaries of Doom"
"The Favour of a Tyrant"
"The Forest of Andred" (as Dennis More)
"Fugitives in Winter" (as Dennis More)
"The Harvest of Malice"
"Haunted Shadows"
"The Haunting of Mara"
"Hungry Grass"
"The Lady and the Demon" (with Paul Collins)
"Lamia"
"The Lost Ship"
"Men from the Plain of Lir"
"On Skellig Michael" (as Dennis More)
"The Ordeal Stone"
"Revenant"
"The Scribe of a Hundred Lies"
"Sir Lionel in Tournament of Rogues"
"Spears of the Sea-Wolves"
"Spirit Places"
"Sunchosen" (as Cadmus Evans)
"Tournament of Rogues"
"The Unlawful Hunter"
"The Walking Walls of Rome"
"What Are You When the Moon Shall Rise?"
"Where Silence Rules"

"The White Doe"




Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Appendix Z - Karl Edward Wagner



Appendix Z - Karl Edward Wagner

If there is reincarnation then Robert E. Howard was reborn as this man. Wagner was a hell of a writer. His Kane books fall somewhere beside Howard's Conan, somewhere down a dark and twisted version of Earth and Hyperborea where man is just the latest and far from the most powerful occupier of the planet, where raw strength, intelligence and determination follow a nightmare path of sorcery and death.

As much as I love the Kane stories it was reading two of his Weird Tales style anthologies that I came to appreciate the talent and versatility of Wagner. Pulp stories, Lovecraftian stories, horror and adventure and just damn weird stories.

If I were to pick one story I'd say Bloodstone. For me it is the best of the Kane tales and Kane strikes a deeper chord for me than any of the others, but honestly, it is hard to go wrong with his work. Some shines out a bit more, like 'Sticks' but these are good stories from a great writer.



Poetry

Red Harvest
Songs of the Damned

Stories

.220 Swift
A Walk on the Wild Side
An Awareness of Angels
At First Just Ghostly
Beyond Any Measure
Blue Lady, Come Back
Brushed Away
But You'll Never Follow Me
Cedar Lane
The Coming of Ghor
The Dark Muse
Deep in the Depths of the Acme Warehouse
Did They Get You to Trade?
The Education of Gergy-doo-doo
Endless Night
Exorcisms and Ecstasies
A Fair Cop
Final Cut
The Gothic Touch
Gremlin
Hell Creek
I’ve Come to Talk With You Again
In a Lonely Place
In the Lair of Yslsl
In the Middle of a Snow Dream
In the Pines
In the Wake of the Night
Into Whose Hands
Killer (with David Drake)
The Kind Men Like
Lacunae
Legion from the Shadows
Little Lessons in Gardening
Locked Away
More Sinned Against
Neither Brute Nor Human
Old Loves
One Paris Night
The Other Woman as by "Kent Allard"
Passages
The Picture of Jonathan Collins
Plan 10 From Inner Space
Prince of the Punks
The River of Night’s Dreaming
The Road of Kings
Satan’s Gun
Shrapnel
Sing a Last Song of Valdese
The Slug
Stardust
Sticks
The Treasure of Lynortis
Two Suns Setting
Undertow
Unthreatened by the Morning Light
Walk on the Wild Side
Where the Summer Ends
Why Not You and I?

Kane

Darkness Weaves
Death Angel's Shadow
Bloodstone
Dark Crusade
Night Winds
The Book of Kane
Gods in Darkness

Midnight Sun: The Complete Stories of Kane 





Wormy's World - Characters - Frank - #19



Wormy's World - Characters - Frank - #19

Frank


Wormy helps to put Frank back together again, starting with his head, after he tangles with the Snookerball demon.

Appendix Z - Howard Pyle



Appendix Z - Howard Pyle 

Both illustrator and writer, Pyle was an amazing artist. So far I have only read three of his books, but his Merry Adventures of Robin Hood was probably the first non-children's book I ever read. For me it is the best of books and I've managed to hang onto that copy of it all my life. Men of Iron comes a close second. They made a rather enjoyable light movie out of it with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, but as with most Hollywood versions it has little to do with the book. The book has much more grit to it and much less pastel costumes and jumping about and tin plate armor suits. For the rest of his work I remember the Arthurian Legends vaguely but favorably (though I am not a big fan of the Arthurian tales).

Pyle is definitely the sword of sword and sorcery and his illustrations are some of the best I've ever seen.

A Modern Aladdin
Arthurian Legends
The Garden Behind the Moon
The Ghost of Captain Brand
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates
Men of Iron
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
Otto of the Silver Hand
Pepper and Salt
The Price of Blood
Rejected of Men
The Rose of Paradise
The Ruby of Kishmoor
Stolen Treasure
The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes
Twilight Land
Within the Capes

The Wonder Clock, with his sister Katharine Pyle





Monday, March 10, 2014

Appendix Z - Harold Lamb




Appendix Z - Harold Lamb

His histories and biographies are some of the most enjoyable I've ever read, but Lamb was also a writer of adventure fiction. His Cossack and Viking stories put him in the realm of Howard, or more correctly, Howard took the realm of Lamb's work and used it to help build a world of his own. Though Lamb's tales were not sword and sorcery, he proved that the sword could be more than enough to enthrall a reader and show what an exciting and adventurous world this could be.


Fiction

A Garden to the Eastward
The Curved Saber
Durandal
The Grand Cham
The House of the Falcon
Kirdy
Marching Sands
The Mighty Manslayer
Nur Mahal
Omar Khayyam
Riders of the Steppes
The Sea of the Ravens
The Skull of Shirzad Mir
Swords from the Desert
Swords from the East
Swords from the Sea
Swords from the West
Swords of the Steppes
The Three Palladins
Warriors of the Steppes
White Falcon
Wolf of the Steppes
Non-fiction

Alexander of Macedon: The Journey to World's End
Babur the Tiger: First of the Great Moguls
Charlemagne
Chief of the Cossacks
The City and the Tsar
Constantinople: Birth of an Empire
The Crusades
Cyrus the Great
The Earth Shakers
The Flame of Islam
Genghis Khan: The Emperor of All Men
Genghis Khan and the Mongol Horde
Hannibal: One Man Against Rome
Iron Men and Saints
The March of Muscovy
The March of the Barbarians
New Found World: How North America Was Discovered and Explored
Suleiman the Magnificent
Tamerlane

Theodora and the Emperor





Sunday, March 9, 2014

Appendix Z - M. R. James



Appendix Z - M. R. James

He writes frightening ghost and horror stories. I think he is the scariest ghost story writer I've come across. His work doesn't fit into the 'weird' as much as it does into the 'horror', but not the more modern blood and atrocities kind of horror. His is the kind of horror that can make you want to look under the bed, or maybe, not want to look under the bed. The kind of story that dreaming about can wake you up in the middle of the night and turn the light on. You read his story and you think about locking the door and maybe wedging a chair up under the handle or you begin to regret that shutterless big glass window in your room. This man is definitely a master.


A Neighbour's Landmark
A Night in King's College Chapel
A School Story
A View from a Hill
A Vignette
A Warning to the Curious
After Dark in the Playing Fields
An Episode of Cathedral History
An Evening's Entertainment
The Ash-tree
Canon Alberic's Scrap-book
Casting the Runes
Count Magnus
The Diary of Mr Poynter
The Experiment
The Fenstanton Witch
The Game of Bear (unfinished)
John Humphreys (unfinished)
Lost Hearts
The Malice of Inanimate Objects
Marcilly-le-Hayer (draft)
Martin's Close
Merfield House (unfinished)
The Mezzotint
Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance
Number 13
"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad
Rats
The Residence at Whitminster
The Rose Garden
Speaker Lenthall's Tomb (incomplete)
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral
The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance
There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard
The Tractate Middoth
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
Two Doctors
The Uncommon Prayer-book

Wailing Well