Eleven Years of Monday Mornings with Bob

Eleven Years of Monday Mornings with Bob

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Wow. Eleven years ago today, on March 10, 2014, I became an official Black Gate blogger. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes kicked off a three year run, bringing a mystery presence every Monday morning. I roamed off topic a bit – but NOTHING like I do now. I mean, did you read last week’s baseball post?

Encouraged by my buddy William Patrick Maynard (an established Black Gater), I went from some uknown guy commenting on other people’s posts, to a moderately interesting weekly columnist. And every World Fantasy Award-winning website, with an amazing roster of bloggers, needs a mystery column, right???

I talked about joining Black Gate in my chronicle of what passes for my writing career: Ya Gotta Ask.

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One of the Finest Achievements of Heroic Fantasy in the 20th Century: Dilvish, the Damned by Roger Zelazny

One of the Finest Achievements of Heroic Fantasy in the 20th Century: Dilvish, the Damned by Roger Zelazny

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Dilvish, the Damned (Del Rey, November 1982). Cover by Michael Herring

Roger Zelazny was unquestionably one of the great American fantasists of the 20th century. That’s not to say he was perfect. His woman characters were often 2-dimensional, and he paired an unwillingness to work with an outline (“Trust your demon” was his motto) with a fondness for projects that really needed an outline.

But perfection is boring. Zelazny rarely is. Much of Zelazny’s work is on my always-reread list, anyway. He had a nifty way of putting things, and in describing the Amber series he brilliantly expressed the kind of fiction I love best and have often tried to write: “philosophic romance, shot through with elements of horror and morbidity.” Philoromhorrmorbpunk. That’s my genre. Or you could just say sword-and-sorcery.

Some people doubt whether Zelazny counts as a sword-and-sorcery writer, but he didn’t doubt it. He described not only the Corwin novels but also big chunks of Lord of Light as sword-and-sorcery. Some people think that a story only counts as S&S if it has a Clonan at its center, but as far as I’m concerned, if you’ve got an outsider hero on a personal mission in a landscape of magical adventure, and there are swords or other edged weapons, you’ve got sword-and-sorcery.

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There, Wolves: Part III

There, Wolves: Part III

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My Mom’s a Werewolf (Crown International Pictures, May 12, 1989)

A 20 film marathon of werewolf movies I’ve never seen before.

As usual, the films must be free to stream.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

My Mom’s a Werewolf (1989) YouTube

Man or beast? Gradual, hairy transformation into rubbish suits.

Howlin’ good time? The 80s are arguably the greatest decade for horror and, perhaps, the much maligned sub-genre of horror comedy, but this one squeaks in at the end hoping to ride some Teen-Wolf coat tails, and it doesn’t quite succeed. The intention is there, everyone gives it their all to a cartoonish level, and John Saxon is awesome, but for me the jokes didn’t always land, and it felt horribly dated.

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Two Howards Fathering Sword and Sorcery – Swords Together!

Two Howards Fathering Sword and Sorcery – Swords Together!

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Left: The memorial booklet for Howard Andrew Jones given to attendees at the February
22nd Celebration of Life. Right: Sean CW Korsgaard gives his eulogy for Howard.
Foreground: Christopher Rowe, Cinda Hocking, John C. Hocking. Photo by John O’Neill

A Celebration of Life for Howard Andrew Jones (HAJ) was just held in Evansville, IN, Feb 22, 2025.  The event gathered friends, family, and over a dozen author colleagues. Numerous online memorials and tributes had been posted leading up to this. Links to many are listed at the bottom of the post; reading these reveals wonderful insights. This article aims to honor HAJ slightly differently by echoing excerpts from his blogs intermixed with remembrances and emphasizing the importance of community.

It struck me that when discussing HAJ, there are always references to REH (Robert E. Howard, indisputable “Father of Sword & Sorcery Genre”). Whereas REH kicked off the genre with his heroes in the 1920-30s (Conan, Bran Mak Morn, Kull, etc.), a hundred years later, the other Howard, our dear HAJ, championed S&S, wrote S&S, and built a community of S&S readers & writers.

You may already know that HAJ edited the online Flashing Swords ezine (links to internet archives below), grew Black Gate in print and online, edited the Harold Lamb series, led the Tales from the Magician’s Skull Magazine, and wrote copious amounts of pulp and fantasy fiction (Asim & Dabir, Ringsworn, Pathfinder, Hanuvar). He did all that while immersing himself with authors and readers.

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Goth Chick News: Corpses, Monsters and a Giraffe Onesy – Hitting the Road to TransWorld 2025

Goth Chick News: Corpses, Monsters and a Giraffe Onesy – Hitting the Road to TransWorld 2025

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TransWorld’s Halloween & Attractions Show 2025

Around this time every year, Black Gate photog Chris Z and I pack up the car for the 10-hour-round-trip from Chicago to St. Louis to attend the TransWorld Haunted Attractions Show. This event not only kicks off the spooky season for the new year but never fails to produce at least one memorable adventure. From Fireball shots to epic snowstorms, to celebrity encounters, I can always count on our annual road trip to produce stories that will easily carry me through a year’s worth of cocktail-party small talk.

This year was no exception.

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And Now For Something Completely Different: The Borrowers, by Mary Norton

And Now For Something Completely Different: The Borrowers, by Mary Norton

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The Borrowers and The Borrowers Afield, by Mary Norton
(Odyssey/Harcourt, January 1998). Covers by Marla Frazee

I’ve done four posts in a row on Edgar Rice Burroughs, with more to come. But right now it’s time for a change of pace.

It’s going to be a big change for this particular post. It’s about The Borrowers. In my late teens, after I learned Andre Norton was a woman, someone told me she’d written books under her own name of Mary Norton, and that one was called The Borrowers. Turns out this wasn’t true; her original name was Alice Mary Norton, although she changed it legally to Andre Alice Norton in 1934. This was in the late 1970s, pre-internet, and I believed Andre Norton wrote The Borrowers for several years. It added to her charm for a while because I’d read The Borrowers when I was 11 or 12 and adored it.

The Borrowers may seem pretty far afield from Sword & Planet fiction, but the story of little people living in human houses and borrowing things from them, which would explain why things got “lost,” inspired my imagination and I invented many stories of myself shrunk down to that size and adventuring. After I wrote Swords of Talera, my first S&P novel, I toyed with the idea of writing an S&P story with borrower size characters but never did. Many many years later I discovered a graphic novel from DC called Sword of the Atom, which somewhat scratched that itch for me. (More on that later.)

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“Worms of the Earth” and Robert E. Howard’s Ultimate Triumph

“Worms of the Earth” and Robert E. Howard’s Ultimate Triumph

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Robert E. Howard in a photo sent to H.P. Lovecraft in 1931,
and Bran Mak Morn: The Last King (Del Rey, May 31, 2005)

January 22, 2025 was the 119th birthday of Robert E. Howard, my favorite author. The works of this great author resonate with countless fans to this day.

“Worms of the Earth” is my favorite story by Robert E. Howard. It features Bran Mak Morn, the last king of the Picts.

Howard was fascinated with Picts, his conception of whom was largely mythological, with splashes of real world history. The Picts in his stories span Kull, Conan, Bran, James Allison, and more.

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Was Don Newcombe a Hall of Famer? – Spring means Baseball

Was Don Newcombe a Hall of Famer? – Spring means Baseball

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I have occasionally strayed off topic here at Black Gate, KISS, the Beach Boys, Humphrey Bogart…stuff like that. I played tee-ball as a tyke and have loved baseball my whole life. With a new season dawning (one in which my beloved Dodgers are the reigning World Series champs for the fourth time since I was born), I wanted to talk baseball. And I think that sharing about Don Newcombe is the way to do it.

In 1949’s (sappy) It Happens Every Spring, Ray Milland’s chemistry professor suffers through his life half of the year, to get to baseball season.

Lord Tenneyson said ‘In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.’ For a long time, it was baseball, not love, that young men thought of in American Spring.

When Spring Training would roll around in Florida (and then later, also in Arizona), I used to say “If they’re playing baseball somewhere, there’s till some hope for the world.” I’m not sure I believe that in these messed-up days. But the Dodgers (the epitome of a small-market, hard-working franchise, competing against big city, big money teams – HA HA HA) are working out and playing games in Arizona. It’s baseball season, which helps me ignore that my Ohio wind chill is 15 degrees right now.
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Half a Century of Reading Tolkien: Part Three – The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien

Half a Century of Reading Tolkien: Part Three – The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien

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Gollum sat up again and looked at him under his eyelids. ‘He’s over there,’ he cackled. ‘Always there. Orcs will take you all the way. Easy to find Orcs east of the River. Don’t ask Sméagol. Poor, poor Sméagol, he went away long ago. They took his Precious, and he’s lost now.’

‘Perhaps we’ll find him again, if you come with us,’ said Frodo.

‘No, no, never! He’s lost his Precious,’ said Gollum.

Sméagol from The Taming of Sméagol of  The Two Towers

When I was younger, The Two Towers (1954) seemed to suffer from middle-book syndrome: the bits after the start of series that had to be trudged through in order to reach the exciting end. Not all of it — it does feature a big battle complete with magic and explosives — but Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol’s trek to Mordor sometimes felt as arduous for me to read as it was for them to cross the swamp and slag heaps. Now, I believe The Two Towers, and the second half, The Ring Goes East, is the heart of the whole series. Nowhere does Prof. Tolkien speak more clearly on the weight of war, the burden and necessity of standing against evil, and the eroding effects of that duty.

The Two Towers has some of the most powerful writing in all the trilogy. There are several passages that have never failed to move me. That one of the most powerful of these lines was taken away from Sam  carelessly given to Bad Faramir (more on that atrocity later), is one of the greatest crimes among the many I hold against Peter Jackson.

It’s the book of the trilogy that contains the most obvious references to Tolkien’s own service at the Somme in 1916. In the comments on my first article in this series, Half a Century of Reading Tolkien: Part One, K. Jespersen wrote that the books tasted of ashes, a flavor he linked directly to the First World War. I don’t tastes ashes in the books myself, but there are chapters redolent  of them.

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There, Wolves: Part II

There, Wolves: Part II

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A Werewolf in England (Dark Temple Motion Pictures, 2020)

A 20 film marathon of werewolf movies I’ve never seen before.

As usual, the films must be free to stream.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

A Werewolf in England (2020) Prime

Man or beast? A bunch of hairy honkers.

Howlin’ good time? Hot on the heels of Werewolves Within comes another horror comedy, although this one doesn’t come close to succeeding. It starts well enough, with a title card font reminiscent of the best Bray Studios films, and some gravelly voiced dialects, but it soon regresses into a two-note gag reel of chamber pots and the contents of chamber pots.

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