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Tor Doubles #8: Leigh Brackett’s The Nemesis from Terra and Edmond Hamilton’s Battle for the Stars

Tor Doubles #8: Leigh Brackett’s The Nemesis from Terra and Edmond Hamilton’s Battle for the Stars

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Cover for The Nemesis from Terra by Tony Roberts
Cover for Battle for the Stars by Bryn Barnard

This volume includes the story Nemesis from Terra by Leigh Brackett and Battle for the Stars, byt Edmond Hamilton. There are two significant distinctions for this volumes. The two authors represented  were married to each other and one of the stories was previously included in the Ace Double series. The Tor Double was originally published in May 1989.

The Nemesis from Terra was originally published as “Shadow Over Mars” in Startling Stories in Fall, 1944. It was previously published as part of an Ace Double (F-123, with Robert Silverberg’s Collision Course) in 1961.  The Nemesis from Terra is the first of three Brackett stories to be published in the Tor Doubles series.

Although set on Mars in the far future, as with many of Brackett’s Martian stories, The Nemesis from Terra feels more like a fantasy novel than a science fiction novel. It is a descendant of the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs and could easily be classified with the stories of Robert E. Howard, neither of which is a surprise.

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Interviewing the Champion of Heroes, Jason M Waltz of Rogue Blades Entertainment and Foundation

Interviewing the Champion of Heroes, Jason M Waltz of Rogue Blades Entertainment and Foundation

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Jason M. Waltz has published 16 Books under Rogue Blades Entertainment (RBE), another 3 under Rogue Blades Foundation (RBF), having lured in authors Such as Brandon Sanderson, Orson Scott Card, C.L. Werner, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Ian C. Esslemont, William King, Andy Offutt, and spurred the writing careers of dozens. Not all are Sword and Sorcery (S&S), with weird western and pirate anthologies appearing, but most are.  Two of my favorite introductions to anthologies cap the ends of the RBE series: Return of the Sword (2008) and Neither Beg Nor Yield (2024 BG reviewed by Vredenburgh and Mele), the latter JMW refers to as his Swan Song marking a shift toward focusing on his own writing. Coincident with that, he has recently sunsetted the related RBF.  We’ll discuss some of his works to date, but note that he has three stories seeing publication in July 2025!

He’s mingled with the Black Gate crew in many ways over the years, invited John O’Neill to pen the introductions, published many contributors here, and now he is interviewing them. Yes, you will be glad to know that even as he steers from publishing to writing more, he is still actively building the community through his 24 in 42 podcast [broadcasted via the Rogue Blades Presents YouTube channel]. Heck he is even hand in the game by guest editing Raconteur Press’ first Sword & Sorcery anthology.  He never tires.

As we salute his heroic efforts, let’s learn more about his journey!

“Heroes are those who continue to do the ordinary in extraordinary times, and to do the extraordinary in ordinary times.” –  JMW 2008

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The Old-Fashioned Way: Tove Jansson’s Hobbit Illustrations

The Old-Fashioned Way: Tove Jansson’s Hobbit Illustrations

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Okay — close your eyes and visualize Middle-earth. I can’t be certain what you’re seeing behind your eyelids, but I think I have a good chance of guessing; five will get you ten that whatever you’re conjuring bears a strong resemblance to the Alan Lee Lord of the Rings book illustrations and to Tolkien’s world as envisioned in Peter Jackson’s films (on which Lee and John Howe did much of the production design).

The austere, rather chilly (once you’re out of the Shire, anyway) Lee/Howe template has become the default picture of Middle-earth for many — if not most — people, but there are other ways to view Tolkien’s realms and their inhabitants. I have already sworn my fealty to the first such visualization that I ever encountered: the beautiful Tim Kirk paintings that were featured in the 1975 Tolkien Calendar.

I am also partial to another version that’s not nearly well enough known, the gorgeous illustrations done by Michael Kaluta for the 1994 Tolkien Calendar. (Kaluta is probably best known for his comic book work, especially on the 1970’s Shadow for DC.)

One thing that makes both Kirk’s and Kaluta’s art so attractive to me is that its depiction of Middle-earth is just different from the one that has become the current standard. (Kaluta’s work is especially striking because it is so extravagantly colorful compared to Lee’s and Howe’s bleached-out work.)

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When Satire is Overwhelmed by Reality: Moon Missing: Edward Sorel’s Report on Future Events

When Satire is Overwhelmed by Reality: Moon Missing: Edward Sorel’s Report on Future Events

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Moon Missing (1962)

At about 1:46 am EST in the middle of the American night of April 4, 1965 the Moon disappeared. The American people were informed the next day at a Presidential news conference. President Kennedy was in no way responsible, said Allen Dulles, disgraced former CIA director but now Secretary of the Exterior, tapped to safeguard American interests in outer space.

Cartoonist, caricaturist, satirist Edward Sorel published Moon Missing in 1962. He had no need to prognosticate the future; the world around him gave him all the ammunition his ink Speedball B6 required.

So insistent are we today that the early Sixties were a more innocent time that the reality of the fear, paranoia, tension, and general unhappiness of the era can only be exhumed from period pieces. Sorel’s vision of the craziness ready to be let loose by a global event relied heavily on contemporary names in the news, but to find frighteningly many parallels in today’s world the names need only to be changed to modern equivalents.

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The Suspension Bridges of Disbelief

The Suspension Bridges of Disbelief

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A friend and I have been watching The Wheel of Time adaptation on Amazon. Both of us expressed surprise not at the open casting, which we agree is wonderful, but at how that production choice plays out in small hamlets like Rand al’Thor’s “home town” of Two Rivers. After observing that every possible racial group is represented in this isolated, insular mountain community, my friend had an epiphany.

“I had to remind myself,” said my friend, “that if I suspend disbelief to accept that there’s magic in this world, then I might also have to suspend my disbelief in genetics.”

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Get it While You Can: Manly Wade Wellman’s Cahena Going Out of Print

Get it While You Can: Manly Wade Wellman’s Cahena Going Out of Print

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Cahena by Manly Wade Wellman (DMR Books, November 1, 2020). Cover by Lauren Gornik

I’m hearing reports that Manly Wade Wellman’s final novel Cahena, out of print for nearly 35 years until DMR released a handsome new edition in 2020 with a striking cover by Lauren Gornik, is on the verge of going out of print again.

Cahena is an overlooked gem in Wellman’s distinguished catalog. A historical novel with fantasy elements, it tells the tale of the legendary Berber queen who lived in the 7th Century in North Africa, and led her people against the Romans and later Muslim invaders. The Cahena, as she was known, was said to be both a sorceress and prophetess, and she led an army forty thousand strong in a valiant struggle to save her beleaguered people.

DMR’s rights to the book expire this month, and at the end of May it will not longer be available. Morgan Holmes says that with this final novel, “Wellman went out on top.” If you’re a Wellman fan, or a fan of quality adventure fiction, grab a copy while you can. Don’t wait another thirty-five years for the next reprint! Order directly from DMR Books here.

Writ in Water: V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Writ in Water: V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

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How many times have you heard (or even repeated) the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for?” Of course it’s a cliché, a commonplace beloved of parents and primary school teachers the world over, but such chestnuts sometimes actually contain the distilled wisdom of the human race, and you ignore them at your peril, as is demonstrated (or not, maybe) in Victoria Elizabeth Schwab’s 2020 dark fantasy, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It’s a spirited, stimulating read that gives you something to think about.

The story begins in a small French Village, Villon-sur-Sarthe, on a summer evening in 1714. A young woman named Addie LaRue is “running for her life.” Her family has affianced her to an inoffensive but crushingly dull young man. Addie, however, doesn’t want her life to be yet one more colorless copy of the bland existence that her mother (and her mother before her, and her mother before her, and her mother before her…) has led.

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Houses of Ill Repute: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix and Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Houses of Ill Repute: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix and Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

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Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix (Berkley, January 14, 2025) and
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow (Tor Books, October 3, 2023). Covers: uncredited, Micaela Alcaino

No, not that kind of house of ill repute (though I confess I thought the semi-salacious implication of the headline might get some of you to read a bit further, though of course not you who are reading this now, just all those others). Rather the gothic trope of the creepy house, the mansion where ancestral secrets lie, where bad things happen. From The House of Seven Gables to The Fall of the House of Usher to Wuthering Heights to more contemporary (all the more so because they actually existed) houses of horror such as Colson Whitehead’s Nickel Academy and Tananarive Due’s Dozier School of Boys,  these are places that present a facade of safety, but are far from it.

That’s the kind of  house found in Grady Hendrix’s Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. Don’t be put off by the middle school YA sounding title. Homes for “wayward girls” actually existed in mid-20th century Florida. It was where unmarried pregnant teenagers were sent to have their babies, give them up for adoption, and then return to “normal” life with their and their family’s “reputations” intact.  

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What I’ve Been Watching: May 2025

What I’ve Been Watching: May 2025

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Wow. It’s been over half a year since I did a What I’ve Been Watching. I’ve already forgotten some of the stuff I watched since then! But let’s tackle a few more recent favorites. And what I’m re-watching, as usual.

COUNTY LINE

From 2017 through 2022, there were three TV movies (is that still ‘a thing’) in this series. I did not recognize the main actor away. He reminded me of Dan Dierdorf, but I had to look him up on IMDB. It was good ol’ Tom (Luke Duke) Wopat!

He’s Alden Rockwell, a sheriff/former sheriff in some Georgia country town. The city is split down the middle between two counties. So, you’ve got Alden, and the sheriff of the other county, involved in the same case. In the first one, Alden’s best friend (and sheriff) is shot, so he tries to solve the crime – and there’s a bigger thing going.

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Half a Century of Reading Tolkien: Part Four – The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien

Half a Century of Reading Tolkien: Part Four – The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien

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A wild light came into Frodo’s eyes. ‘Stand away! Don’t touch me!’ he cried. ‘It is mine, I say. Be off!’ His hand strayed to his sword-hilt. But then quickly his voice changed. ‘No, no, Sam,’ he said sadly. ‘But you must understand. It is my burden, and no one else can bear it. It is too late now, Sam dear. You can’t help me in that way again. I am almost in its power now. I could not give it up, and if you tried to take it I should go mad.’

Frodo to Sam in Mount Doom from The Return of the King

And so we come to the end of the first part of my return to JRR Tolkien’s work. For those not following along with my earlier essays (links at the bottom), inspired by a hate watch of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, I picked up The Fellowship of the Ring and quickly succumbed to a complete reread of the trilogy. As I set out to write an article about Fellowship, I instead, found myself realizing I’ve been reading the professor’s books for fifty years and how much they’d meant to me.

Last time, I wrote that when I was young, I tended to struggle through bits of The Two Towers. That was never the case with The Return of the King, something that I found to remain so on this reading. It’s got wilder and bigger battles than the previous book, incredible scenes (including one of the greatest in all three books and that Jackson insanely cut omitted from the theatrical release!), and Frodo’s and Sam’s journey becomes more desperate and its evocation of Christ-like self-sacrifice more potent. The penultimate chapter, The Scouring of the Shire, portrays the transformation wrought on the four hobbits by their undertakings. Finally, the book ends with one of my favorite closing lines of any book.

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