A Fine Sword & Sorcery Anthology: The Spell of Seven, edited by L. Sprague de Camp

A Fine Sword & Sorcery Anthology: The Spell of Seven, edited by L. Sprague de Camp

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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.

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Dragonslayer: How to Slay Your Dragon

Dragonslayer: How to Slay Your Dragon

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Dragonslayer (Paramount Pictures, June 26, 1981)

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. The jerk of a king and the local populace eventually prove more trouble to deal with than the dragon. Unfortunately, the dragon loses.

Noteworthy

A joint production between Paramount and Walt Disney, Dragonslayer was only the third PG-rated film associated with Disney. Indeed it feels like a Disney movie that has taken a dark turn along the way. Although not a profitable one.

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What I’ve Been Watching: February, 2026

What I’ve Been Watching: February, 2026

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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.

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Classics of Sword & Sorcery: Echoes of Valor, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

Classics of Sword & Sorcery: Echoes of Valor, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

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Paperback editions of all three volumes of Echoes of Valor, edited by Karl Edward Wagner (Tor Books, February 1987, February 1991, and September 1991). Covers by Ken Kelly, Rick Berry, and Rick Berry

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.

Echoes of Valor (1987, Cover Ken Kelly)

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.

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My Top Thirty Films, Part 5

My Top Thirty Films, Part 5

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Mackenna’s Gold (Columbia Pictures, March 18, 1969)

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. A motley collection of outlaws, Apaches, traitors, and nefarious ne’er-do-wells coerce MacKenna into leading them to the hidden valley where the riches are rumoured to be, but infighting, jealousy, and greed soon thins out the gang. Will MacKenna make it out alive?

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Forgotten Authors: John Taine

Forgotten Authors: John Taine

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John Taine/Eric Temple Bell

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.

Bell was educated at Bedford Modern School, where his was inspired to study mathematics by Edward Mann Langley. He attended college at the University of London for a year before transferring to Stanford University, from which he graduated in 1904. He earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of Washington in 1908 and a Doctorate from Columbia University in 1912.

After graduating, Bell taught at the University of Washington and the California Institute of Technology, focusing on number theory and developed Bell series, which is a formal series used to study properties of arithmetical functions. He also gave his name to Bell numbers, which count the possible partitions of a set.

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Dark Muse News: Reviewing Conan – Spawn of the Serpent God by Tim Waggoner

Dark Muse News: Reviewing Conan – Spawn of the Serpent God by Tim Waggoner

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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.

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Heroic Historicals: Robert E. Howard, Harold Lamb, Poul Anderson and James Clavell

Heroic Historicals: Robert E. Howard, Harold Lamb, Poul Anderson and James Clavell

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Robert E. Howard’s The Sowers of the Thunder (Ace Books, July 1979 and Zebra Books, March 1975) . Covers by Esteban Maroto and Jeff Jones

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. The hero may be either male or female, but the focus is primarily on personal conflict between the hero and various villains.

I divide Heroic Fantasy into four categories: Sword and Sorcery, Sword and Planet, High Fantasy, and Heroic Historical. I’ve already discussed/defined S&S and S&P earlier here at Black Gate, so today I’m looking at Heroic Historical.

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The Sword and the Sorcerer: Cranking Sword & Sorcery Up to Eleven!

The Sword and the Sorcerer: Cranking Sword & Sorcery Up to Eleven!

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The Sword and the Sorcerer poster-small

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.

That, I would argue, is a tragedy. Because this movie is fantastic, if you go into it with the right mindset. Because it is without question an absolutely pure Sword and Sorcery extravaganza.

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Five Things I Think I Think (February, 2026)

Five Things I Think I Think (February, 2026)

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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. But hey, Ohio thinks a foot+ of snow, and consistently negative wind chills, is perfectly acceptable. So, I’m doing some grumpy old man this Winter.

1 – READING IS FUNDAMENTAL

We are not nearly the reading culture we were in the past. Online has massively increased ‘watching’ bite-sized content. Which is rarely as intellectually as fulfilling as reading. Or even watching en entire movie.

And I happen to believe the messed-up state of the world is in part attributable to the decrease in intelligence (ignorance runs rampant) resulting from video being as filling as cotton candy and replacing reading (somebody scrolling tik-tok for three hours a day is not learning the way someone reading a half hour a day is).

You don’t have to read Shakespeare, or bios of physicists, or Wuthering Heights. There’s plenty of ‘more accessible’ non-fiction. And while there’s a lot of garbage fiction out there, the choices are endless.

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