Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Blood-Red and Blind – The Crimson Bat

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Blood-Red and Blind – The Crimson Bat

The Crimson Bat (Japan, 1969)

Here’s a pretty decent samurai series even I wasn’t aware of until recently: the Crimson Bat, four films starring Yoko Matsuyama as the eponymous hero. Moreover, all four movies are now relatively easy to find, available on YouTube with good English subtitles. There aren’t enough chambara movies with female heroes, in my opinion, so I was pleased to discover these — and hopefully, you’ll be pleased as well.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 50 & 52

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 50 & 52

So, in 2020, as the Pandemic settled in like an unwanted relative who just came for a week and is still tying up the bathroom, I did a series of posts for the FB Page of the Nero Wolfe fan club, The Wolfe Pack. I speculated on what Stay at Home would be like for Archie, living in the Brownstone with Nero Wolfe, Fritz Brenner, and Theodore Horstmann. I have already re-posted days one through thirty-nine. Here are days fifty (May 10) and fifty-two (May 12). It helps if you read the series in order, so I’ve included links to the earlier entries.

Day Fifty – 2020 Stay at Home

No surprise that it’s been quiet here in the brownstone. Getting out to investigate a crime at Lewis Hewitt’s place was a flurry of activity during the lock down. With so many cases of the virus still being discovered daily, I’ve resisted the urge to call Bascom for a new assignment. Though, I may soon.

At lunch, Wolfe talked about the recovery of the American economy from the Pandemic. Supply chains, consumer fears of infection, strained cash reserves of businesses, social distancing and other health guidelines; It will be a slow return towards normal. Fortunately for him, and also for my paycheck, he expects clients to return. He was suitably grumpy at the prospect, of course. Work remains something to only undertake when forced by circumstances.

But crimes continue. And there will be more crimes of the type clients bring to him, as activity ‘out in the world’ increases. Which will keep him in beer, books, food, and flowers. I may have to practice badgering him into taking on jobs. I’ve gotten out of the habit.

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Spider-Societies, Alien Structures, and Grim Wastelands: March/April 2022 Print SF Magazines

Spider-Societies, Alien Structures, and Grim Wastelands: March/April 2022 Print SF Magazines

March/April 2022 issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, and The
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by Shutterstock, 123RF, and Mondolithic Studios

One of the bennies of digital publishing is the luxury of enjoying magazine reviews while the magazines are still on the shelves. I haven’t purchased the March/April F&F yet, for example, but my interest has been sharpened by reviews like this one, by C.D. Lewis at Tangent Online, for Tobi Ogundiran’s “The Epic of Qu Shittu.”

[It] opens on a stowaway sneaking into the ship’s hold of a deadly enchanter in the hope of meeting the legend himself. What could possibly go wrong? Ogundiran’s language makes it a pleasure to read room descriptions; horror and humor meet in descriptions of “skulls wearing identical smiles as if sharing some secret joke…”  The story elements laid before the reader support so many directions it’s not initially clear whether “The Epic of Qu Shittu” will turn out to be a tragedy, a heist, a revenge plot, or something else; it’s an exciting read that adds psychological elements and moral problems to the physical conflicts.

The March/April print magazines contain stories by Matthew Hughes, Adriana C. Grigore, Ray Nayler, Will McIntosh, Marta Randall, Paul McAuley, Steve Rasnic Tem, William Ledbetter, Mark W. Tiedemann, Michael Swanwick, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Michael F. Flynn, and many others.

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Neverwhens, Where Fantasy and History Collide: Tanith Lee’s Cyrion

Neverwhens, Where Fantasy and History Collide: Tanith Lee’s Cyrion


Cyrion (DAW, 1982, cover by Ken W. Kelly)

The Empress of Dreams

I hardly need to sing the praises of the late Tanith Lee (1947 – 2015).  A two-time World Fantasy winner, Horror Grandmaster, Hugo nominee, yadda yadda yadda, she rose out of nowhere writing sword & sorcery (generally a male-dominated field) with the Nebula-nominated The Birthgrave, and went on to pen 70 novels, 300 short stories and create a style of lush, dark fantasy perhaps best represented by her two best-known series: The Tales of the Flat Earth and The Books of Paradys.

Lee was goth before goths, and alternative before we knew that was a thing. Her style, which was lush and baroque, but not always straightforward for the reader, prose designed to read aloud. Her settings and atmospheres were strongly in the tradition of “the Weird,” owing much to the influence of writers such as Lord Dunsany and Jack Vance.

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Vintage Treasures: Heroic Fantasy edited by Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt

Vintage Treasures: Heroic Fantasy edited by Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt


Heroic Fantasy (DAW, 1979). Cover by Jad

If you were a sword & sorcery fan in the 70s and 80s, there wasn’t a lot to get excited about. Lin Carter’s Flashing Swords anthologies. Andrew J. Offutt’s Swords Against Darkness, naturally. And the occasional Conan pastiche and Lancer paperback.

And there was Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt’s one-shot anthology Heroic Fantasy, which came out of nowhere, never had a sequel, but was packed with terrific original stories by Charles Saunders, Andre Norton, Adrian Cole, E. C. Tubb, Tanith Lee, H. Warner Munn, Darrell Schweitzer, F. Paul Wilson, and Manly Wade Wellman — and kept readers talking for years.

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Spacefaring Nuns at the Heart of a Galactic Rebellion: Our Lady of Endless Worlds by Lina Rather

Spacefaring Nuns at the Heart of a Galactic Rebellion: Our Lady of Endless Worlds by Lina Rather


Sisters of the Vast Black and Sisters of the Forsaken Stars
(Tor.com, 2019 and 2022). Covers by Drive Communications and Emmanuel Shiu

I’m a huge fan of the sprawling space opera sub-genre, but my love is conflicted. All the best — from Peter Hamilton to Ann Leckie, Lois McMaster Bujold to Becky Chambers — comes packaged exclusively as multi-volume epics. If you want to enjoy space opera these days, you need to schedule a 4-week sabbatical first. And a lot of caffeine.

Thank God for Tor.com, which has kept up their weekly drumbeat of top notch novella releases — including Lina Rather’s Sisters of the Forsaken Stars, sequel to her debut Sisters of the Vast Black. It’s the tale of a heroic band of space-faring nuns, hunted and on the run, and yet still bound by their calling to provide help and mercy to those in need. And best of all, you can devour both volumes in an afternoon.

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Goth Chick News: A Haunting Tale by Peter Pan Author is Coming to the Big Screen

Goth Chick News: A Haunting Tale by Peter Pan Author is Coming to the Big Screen

Hollywood rediscovering an old story and reimagining it for a modern audience is always a reason to get excited, at least at first. Not all of these ventures turn out well, but I especially like when the source material hasn’t been explored previously in film. Such is the case with a play written by J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan.

Barrie penned Mary Rose between August 1919 and April 1920, and it was performed at the Haymarket Theater in London, opening on April 22, 1920. A year later Mary Rose was included in London’s “Best Plays” list. It then moved on to Broadway where it has since been revived several times, as well as in London, and always to rave reviews. A New York Times reviewer called the 2007 revival of Mary Rose an “elegantly plotted ghost story,” which is why I’m exceptionally excited to learn that Hollywood is finally taking up the tale.

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Random Reviews: “Slaves of the Magic Lamp” by Anthony R. Lewis

Random Reviews: “Slaves of the Magic Lamp” by Anthony R. Lewis

Aladdin: Master of the Lamp, DAW 1992, Cover by Maren
Aladdin: Master of the Lamp, DAW 1992, Cover by Maren

In November 1992, Disney released the animated film Aladdin, with Scott Weinger providing the title character’s voice, Linda Larkin portraying his love, Jasmine, and the late and lamented Robin Williams voicing the Genie. About the same time, Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg edited an original anthology designed to take advantage of Disney’s new film. DAW Books published Aladdin: Master of the Lamp in December 1992, containing more than forty original stories by authors ranging from Janet Kagan and George Alex Effinger to Kate Daniel and Mark Aronson.

Atypical of most original anthologies, Aladdin: Master of the Lamp contains two stories each by Jack C. Haldeman II, Anthony R. Lewis, and Barry N. Malzberg. Lewis, who is best known as the Chair of twenty-ninth Worldcon, Noreascon, in 1970, and for the work he has done with NESFA Press, has also written several short stories, including “Fair Exchange,” which opens Resnick’s anthology, and “Slaves of the Magic Lamp,” which appears about half-way through.

Lewis elects to structure his story as a tale within a tale, although it isn’t clear that such a conceit is necessary, aside from playing homage to the version of the Aladdin story told in One Thousand and One Nights. In this case, the narrator is Lady Vashti, a cat/shapeshifter who exists outside the bounds of the physical world.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 4

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 4

The Warrior and the Sorceress (Argentina/USA, 1984)

Barbarians don’t get no respect. The fantasy films released in the wake of the unexpected worldwide success of Star Wars (1977) were all over the map, varying widely in approach and quality, but the barbarian lookalikes that followed the first Conan movie (1982) stuck to a formula, in quality plunging straight to the bottom of the barrel and mostly staying there as the barrel bumped along the cheapie exploitation circuit for the next five years or so. It’s as if filmmakers saw the sword-and-sorcery genre as suitable only for low-prestige flicks aimed at an unsophisticated market, a sad situation that wouldn’t really turn around until The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).

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Keeping Faith With the Rules of Writing: An Interview with K.D. Edwards

Keeping Faith With the Rules of Writing: An Interview with K.D. Edwards


The Tarot Sequence: The Last Sun, The Hanged Man, and The Hourglass Throne
(Pyr, 2018, 2019, and 2022). Covers by Micah Epstein

The last two years were pretty lousy for the world, but fairly good for reading! It was time to read some newer authors, and KD Edwards’ Tarot Sequence had been on my list for quite some time. Urban fantasy with a male protagonist, Tarot, and LGBTQ+ friendly? Published through Pyr — one of the more interesting mainstream publishers? Definitely a must-read for me. Plus, have you seen those gorgeous evocative covers?

I started reading book 1, The Last Sun, in mid-2020. Did I say reading? A more accurate statement would be devouring. Book 2, The Hanged Man swiftly followed, and then I felt bereft. The story clearly wasn’t over, but there wasn’t another book?

I reached out to KD on Twitter to inquire, and he let me know that not only was there a third book on the way — The Hourglass Throne, due out May 17th, 2022 from Pyr — but that there was free extra content (novellas!) available on his website.

I caught up with KD at Worldcon 2021 in DC, and he graciously agreed to answer a few questions.

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