Possibly because Black Gate leans more towards sword and sorcery than to high fantasy, the varied works of Robert E. Howard are a lot more discussed here than those of J.R.R. Tolkien. But there are quite a few devotees of both, and the writings of the two fathers of fantasy are favorites. Back in the summer of 2015, writers from all over waxed eloquently on various aspects of REH’s life and works in a series we called Discovering Robert E….
It’s installment number six in Bob’s Books’ Shelfie series. Combining a couple fantasy shelfies from my Reddit series, and I kick it off with the terrific GLEN COOK. When I see a fantasy shelfie here in this bookshelf subreddit, there always seems to be the same few authors popping up – Martin, Sanderson, and Rowling. I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen much Tolkien beyond The Hobbit and the Trilogy – not many Silmarillions appear. I’ve got a SERIOUS Tolkien…
I haven’t done a What I’m Watching this year, so here’s a new installment. DANGER! THERE BE SPOILERS I’m talking about shows I’ve watched. I won’t give away anything huge, but in the context of the discussion, there will probably be spoilers. You have been warned. STAR TREK PICARD: SEASON THREE Prior to Strange New Worlds and the terrific job that Anson Mount continues doing as Captain Pike, ST: The Next Generation, was my favorite Trek series. I wrote about…
It’s installment number five in Bob’s Shelfie series. This time, I’ll do a shelfie for my favorite fantasy author (Tolkien is second) – Robert E. Howard. He is of course best known for his Conan the Cimmerian (the movies made it ‘the Barbarian’). They are terrific sword and sorcery stories. If you only know the movies, you should read some of the stories. On the bottom left are the Del Rey volumes, covering most of his writing. Howard struggled to…
It’s here! You probably know that back in 2019, many of the leading Robert E. Howard experts and fans contributed to a terrific series here at Black Gate on REH’s Conan stories. Prior to that, Black Gate’s own Howard Andrew Jones, along with Bill Ward, had over on his own blog, done a deep dive into each story as well. Jason Waltz and his Rogue Blades Foundation combined those two series’ and added much more content. Now, Hither Came Conan…
I’ve done three shelfies posts. If you missed those (shame on you!), I’ve been posting shelfies, with comments on some of the books, over in a bookshelf subreddit. With over 2,000 physical books, I’ve got a lot of shelves. And to me, if you’re talking about a shared universe, you gotta start out with Thieves World. I own a (non-RPG/comics) almost complete library; including one few folks know about, let alone have. THIEVES WORLD The first Thieves World book came…
Official continuators of a literary series can engender mixed emotions. Some folks are happy to see more stories of a character they like – even if the creator has died. Others feel that only the original author should write that character and they should lie in the grave together. Characters eventually enter the public domain. Though exactly when varies in different countries; and it’s not always clear, regardless. But the rights holders (often the family of the author, or their…
I enjoyed last week’s 10 Things I Think I Think. And it got some comments, which is kinda the goal of blogging. So, following up with 5 More Things I Think I Think. 1) THREE PINES is a Prime Original, based on a books by Canadian author Louise Penny. The series is at 18 novels and still going! Alfred Molina is Inspector Armand Gamache, head of the Quebec Surete homicide department. It’s a French-Canadian murder mystery with a little bit…
1) THE MANDALORIAN remains the best Star Wars property going. My son loves The Bad Batch, and it seems cool. But as I wrote here, the mix of innovation and fidelity; and simply all-around awesomeness, I’ll take this over just about any Star Wars of the past few decades. I liked Boba Fett – and it didn’t hurt that it was like a subs-series for The Mandalorian. I quit Battlestar Galactica, as it put me to sleep. But I’m a…
I’m going to write a post on G.M. Ford’s Leo Waterman series. Waterman is a Seattle-based PI whose dead father was a Tammany-Hall style politician, and he uses some alcoholic bums as his Baker Street Irregulars. Ford wrote six in the series, took a long break, and returned to Waterman and wrote six more books. As with Robert Goldbsorough’s Nero Wolfe continuation novels, the break damaged the series. While Goldsborough’s second run is, simply, not good, the second batch of…