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. I know John Jakes, and probably most of you do, from Brak the Barbarian. There are 5 books.
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. Thinking on it, I know there’s a cheesy looking movie, Sword of the Valiant, from the eighties starring Miles O’Keeffe and Sean Connery, but it was only David Lowery’s 2021 The Green Knight and its critical acclaim that made me think it was maybe time to read the poem. Now I have. Additionally, and most valuable to me wrestling with my understanding of the poem, I’ve also read the professor’s 1953 WP Ker lecture on work.
The poem recounts the temptations of Sir Gawain, youngest member of King Arthur’s Round Table, as he attempts to meet the suicidal obligation he accepted when he entered a contest with a mysterious green knight. More precisely, as told, it’s about the conflict between chivalrous virtues of honor and courtesy and, specifically religious, morality.
Gawain was written in Middle English, the evolution of the language used between the Conquest in 1066 and the late 15th century. Gawain, son of Morgause, one of King Arthur’s half-sisters, is a major figure in many of the assorted Arthur tales. His roots descend back into older Welsh tales, where he was known as Gwalchmei. Pre-Christian elements, including the Beheading Game and the Wild Hunt, are integral parts of the story, despite the tale’s overt Christianity. The Beheading Game is a recurrent motif that tracks back to at least the Irish tale Fled Bricrenn featuring the hero Cú Chulainn and the Wild Hunt occurs across various Northern European myth cycles.
The poem begins with a recounting of Britain’s founding by Brutus of Troy. Noble as he was, young King Arthur of Camelot was nobler still. One Christmas season, as Arthur’s knights were celebrating with a games and contests, a strange figure entered the hall.
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. Just not quite now.
Why then, did I pick up the 1,227 page opus by Mark Z. Danielewski, Tom’s Crossing?
Mainly because of the one and only blurb on the book jacket:
This is an amazing work of fiction. I absolutely loved it. At the heart you’ll find a blood drenched story of pursuit and two brave and resourceful children. But there’s so much more. I immersed myself in. Have never ready anything like it.
So, despite what we know about glad-handing you-blurb-my-book and I’ll blurb yours endorsements, this is the only blurb on a book by an author with a low profile and cult status, and the if it’s genuinely that great a read for Stephen King, it’s certainly good enough for me. (And, besides, I was going on a long trip where it made as much sense to take one big book rather than several. Sorry Tolstoy.)
 |
 |
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. The cover looks to have been done by Les Edwards, however.
It contains stories by C. L. Moore (Jirel), Henry Kuttner (Elak), Clark Ashton Smith, Clifford Ball, Ramsey Campbell, Daphne Castell, Karl Edward Wagner (Kane), David Drake, and Robert E. Howard. The REH tale is “The Temple of the Abomination,” a Cormac Mac Art tale.
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. Jack Vance
Amber__________ 6. Adrian Cole
Skaith__________ 7. Leigh Brackett
Gor ___________ 8. Fritz Leiber
Kaldar _________ 9. Alan Burt Akers
Tschai_________ 10. Edgar Rice Burroughs
Talera _________ 11. Andre Norton
Barsoom _______ 12. Roger Zelazny
Llarn __________ 13. Hugh Walker
Ghandor _______ 14. Robert E. Howard
Almuric ________ 15. Del Dowdell
Answers are here. Good luck!
 |
 |
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. and Mrs. Everywhere, that’s the right name!
Herr und Frau Uberall or les Partout,
A gadget on the set makes them look like you.
Stand on Zanzibar is perhaps John Brunner’s most significant novel. Up until then, he had written competent science fiction on familiar themes such as psionics (Telepathist) and time travel (The Productions of Time). With Stand on Zanzibar he began writing larger books that were no longer purely ways of playing with such standard ideas, but examinations of our own world in a fantastic mirror. At the same time, they used a more sophisticated literary method — not the surrealism that inspired much of the New Wave, but a naturalism similar to nineteenth-century fiction.
 |
 |
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 was able to correspond with him while in the ranks of REHupa, the Robert E. Howard United Press Association. De Camp’s role in promoting Robert E. Howard — and his own work with it — is not without controversary, which I’ll address.
But not today. De Camp was also a popular and successful fiction writer, both fantasy and SF, and even nonfiction. I’ll address those aspects in time, but today I’ll just bring some of his editing work into focus. He edited a number of fine Sword & Sorcery anthologies, most of which featured REH. These include Swords & Sorcery, The Spell of Seven, Warlocks and Warriors, and The Fantastic Swordsmen. I have two copies of The Spell of Seven and will discuss it first.
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. I opened up the DVDs for The Adventures of Brisco County Jr, which is still in my Top Two over thirty years after it’s lone season (Screw Fox for canceling this, and Firefly, so quickly).
Psych (the other show in my Top Two) is still frequently on screen, and I just started jumping back into Columbo; even adding more than ‘Just one more’ to my book library.
So, let’s talk about a few things.
THE NIGHT MANAGER
I watched this when it aired back in 2016. I kept thinking that Tom Hiddleston would be a great James Bond. I still do. He’s a natural. And Hugh Laurie was simply excellent. His cold, rational villainy was spot on.
So, Hiddleston, Laurie, and Olivia Colman in a super thriller based on a John Le Carre novel. I thought this was great. Definitely recommended.
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. Each contained a Robert E. Howard tale. Here are some capsule reviews.
Contains one story each by Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and Henry Kuttner. Howard’s story is “The Black Stranger.” It’s a Conan tale but wasn’t published in REH’s lifetime. He rewrote it as a pirate tale featuring Black Vulmea called “Swords of the Red Brotherhood.” It still didn’t sell. Long after Howard’s death, L. Sprague de Camp rewrote it as “The Treasure of Tranicos” and it was published. It didn’t really need the rewrite in my opinion, so who knows why it wasn’t published initially.
 |
 |
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. Hocking’s City of the Dead (2024), James Lovegrove’s Cult of the Obsidian Moon (2024), Tim Lebbon’s Songs of the Slain (2025), and Tim Waggoner’s Spawn of the Serpent God (2025). And their 2026 schedule promises more with John Langan’s The Brides of Crom.
Here we delve into Tim Waggoner’s Spawn of the Serpent God. He’s a Bram Stoker Award-winning author known for horror and media tie-in fiction. Recently, he was honored for his Terrifier #2: The Official Movie Novelization with a Scribe Award for Best Adapted Novel from the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. With approval from movie writer and director Damien Leone, Waggoner had doubled the size of the hack-and-slash script by adding lore and characterization (I plan to interview Tim Waggoner about this for Black Gate‘s Beauty in Weird/Horror series). Anyway, Waggoner’s knack for tie-ins and deepening characters is demonstrated again in Conan: Spawn of the Serpent as he highlights the dangers of Zamora.
