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Rogue Blades presents: In Defense of the Heroic

Rogue Blades presents: In Defense of the Heroic

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henry david thoreau
Henry David Thoreau

This article originally appeared last year on the Rogue Blades Web site, but I thought readers of Black Gate would appreciate it.

“The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times…”

Henry David Thoreau wrote those words in the mid-19th Century for his distinguished book, Walden. They rang true then and they ring true today. Of course there will be those who say we do not live in degenerate times, that we live in the greatest of all ages, that our technological and social achievements are pressing us towards some utopia, but those who are true students of history and have open eyes might argue otherwise, or at least they might hold more than a little skepticism about the potential greatness of the immediate future.

Whether or not we live in a degenerate age, we are in need heroes more than ever. The Thoreau quote above concerns heroic books and not specifically heroic individuals, but I still believe it is appropriate to our current age.

But why do we need heroes? What do they bring to the table? After all, haven’t we shattered the myths of all our heroes from the past? Haven’t we discovered all the dirty little secrets about our real-world heroes? Haven’t we become so modern and avant-garde that the very idea of a fictional hero is quaint? Was not Tina Turner correct in her 1985 hit song, “We Don’t Need Another Hero?”

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Rogue Blades Author: An Empire of Ghosts and Smoke

Rogue Blades Author: An Empire of Ghosts and Smoke

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Howard changed my lifeThe following is an excerpt from Scott Oden’s essay for Robert E. Howard Changed My Life, an upcoming book from the Rogue Blades Foundation.

Let me tell you a story…

Once upon a time, there was a kid from the Deep South, a fairly bog-standard middle-class white boy who was small for his age and a bit asthmatic. He wore glasses, had the profusion of freckles endemic to gingers, and possessed far more hair than he (or his mother) knew what to do with. On the surface, he seemed the normal sort.

This kid, though, he saw things. Things that weren’t there. He saw gnarled trolls lurking under fallen trees, dragons soaring among the clouds, and goblins hiding in fields of waving grass. The rusted-out shell of a boat drawn up on the bank of the pond behind his house was, in this kid’s reality, the Argo of legend. It was not a knotty pine branch he carried, stripped of its bark and dark from weathering. No, it was a sword: a great blade like Excalibur or the sword of Perseus. The old galvanized trash can lid on his arm was a shield wrought of silver; the tablecloth tied around his neck was a magic cloak, spun of silk and moonlight.

This kid’s domain was an eighteen-acre fiefdom with fields and woods and boggy creeks; at its heart: a two-acre fishpond thick with cattails and catfish, frogs and snakes, and surely haunted by merfolk and the ghosts of lost sailors. When the goblins swarmed down from the North, the kid met them blade-to-blade in the tall grass of a fallow field. When the trolls encroached from the East, he hunted them through the woods with spear and shield. And when the dragons threatened, the kid wisely retreated to his fort made from hay bales and old canvas, its walls impervious to dragon-fire. There, he plotted their demise.

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Rogue Blades Presents: Who Was Your First Hero?

Rogue Blades Presents: Who Was Your First Hero?

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Kirk-Spock-McCoyDo you remember your first hero? Any kind of hero. It could have been a hero from a movie or a book or a television show, even a hero from real life.

As a child of the 1970s, one might think Luke Skywalker was my first hero, but I would turn eight years old a month after the original Star Wars was released in theaters, and by then I already had plenty of heroes.

Re-runs of the original Star Trek TV show from the 1960s were still airing, and I watched every one of them. Of the crew of the Enterprise, Captain James T. Kirk seemed the most heroic of the figures presented to us viewers, or at least he stood in the most traditional of the heroic modes.

Then there was the Six Million Dollar Man, starring actor Lee Majors from 1973 to 1978 on television. For those not familiar with the series, Majors played U.S. astronaut Steve Austin who was seriously injured in an accident. Not only did Steve survive his accident, but the government decided, “We can rebuild him. We have the technology.” And they did. Steve got some bionic legs and an arm and an eye. He fought crime. And Bigfoot. It was awesome.

Some might not consider Godzilla a hero, but by the time of my childhood in the ’70s, Godzilla was mainly a good guy, so he was a hero of sorts to many of us. For better or worse, my first Godzilla movie was Godzilla vs. Megalon, a film sometimes not remembered fondly by Godzilla fans. Either way, I was maybe five years old when my dad drug me into an old downtown theater to witness the spectacle of this movie, and again, I have to say it was awesome.

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Rogue Blades Author: How Robert E. Howard (and Glenn Lord) Changed My Life

Rogue Blades Author: How Robert E. Howard (and Glenn Lord) Changed My Life

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The following is an an excerpt from Roy Thomas’ essay for the upcoming book from the Rogue Blades Foundation, Robert E. Howard Changed My Life.

I’ve told this story so many time by now that I figure everybody who would want to know it is tired of it already, but I can’t make up new facts just because I have to write a new article, can I? Well, maybe there’ll be a few twists in my tale this time, because I want to tell it a little bit more from the angle of Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) and Glenn Lord (1931-2011).

Robert E. Howard came first, but just barely.

I had, to the best of my memory, never heard of Robert E. Howard — or of Conan or any of the other Howard characters — when the Lancer Books paperback Conan the Adventurer appeared on the racks in 1966, some months after I started working for Stan Lee at Marvel Comics. Well, truth to tell, he was mentioned in a couple of paragraphs in my fan/friend Richard A. Lupoff’s 1965 book Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventures as one of the literary heroes inspired, at least in part, by Tarzan of the Apes… but that part of Dick’s study slipped right past me, leaving no imprint on my mind. When I saw the first Conan paperback, my eyes were drawn — as they were meant to be — by Frank Frazetta’s stunningly savage cover. I bought that book as I’d been buying others of an ERB ilk, pastiches of Burroughs by Otis Adelbert Kline, Gardner Fox, Lin Carter, whomever. I didn’t always actually read those pastiches, but I kept a little collection of them on a shelf in my apartment. One day I might get around to them.

castle of blood brunner the bounty hunter Rage of the Behemoth

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Rogue Blades Presents: It’s a Time for Heroes

Rogue Blades Presents: It’s a Time for Heroes

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the-lost-empire-of-sol-front-cover-smallIn a matter of weeks, months, it has become a different world. Even within the confines of speculative literature and what’s oft referred to as nerd or geek culture, there have been big changes. For instance, disappointing to those of us who had planned to attend this year, Howard Days in Cross Plains, Texas, has been canceled, as have hundreds of conventions and gatherings across the globe. Closer to home for me, a board member of Rogue Blades Foundation, a nonprofit publisher focusing on all things heroic, we have had to push back to 2021 publication of the book Robert E. Howard Changed My Life (though The Lost Empire of Sol is still expected to be published next month).

Now don’t think this is grousing, complaining. I’m merely pointing out how some of the world has changed of late. For that matter, some of the changes aren’t all bad.

As a writer and editor, I normally work from home, so all this isolation most of us are having to contend with of late isn’t new to me. What is new for me is that everybody else is home. Including all my online gaming buddies. And most of them don’t seem to be working at home. Which means they have lots of time for Dungeons & Dragons. Which means I have lots of time for Dungeons & Dragons. And other games. Which means I’m getting less work done than usual.

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Rogue Blades Presents: Out There in the Wilds with Robert E. Howard

Rogue Blades Presents: Out There in the Wilds with Robert E. Howard

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Howard changed my lifePublisher Rogue Blades Foundation recently announced the upcoming release of the book Robert E. Howard Changed My Life. Below is an excerpt from author Joe R. Lansdale’s essay for the book.

You can feel so lonely, out there in the wilds.

Oh, I had my parents’ support. They were great. But it isn’t quite the same. I wanted to know other writers, meet an editor or publisher. As for an agent, I thought they worked for the CIA.

I knew this, though.

I loved books, and I wanted to write them, and I had figured out when I saw names on comic books, Bob Kane and Gardner Fox, that real people came up with this stuff, but I was told, by someone who didn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground, that everyone who wrote comics, or novels, or stories, lived in New York or Los Angeles.

I had never been to either.

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