Sensor Sweep: Pulpfest, Westerns, Conan Cartoon
Conventions (Pulpfest): PulpFest is a top venue for writers and publishers to roll out their newest titles. Below, you’ll read about some of the books that will be appearing for the first time at this summer’s pulp con.
Games (Grognardia Games Direct): In the meantime, though, I’d like to share my current thoughts on the presentation of Thousand Suns, specifically with regards to my current work. Back at the end of February, I floated the idea of breaking with the first edition by splitting the rulebook in two. By and large, the reaction to that approach was lukewarm at best, with many people expressing dislike of the idea.
Fiction (Tellers of Weird Tales): Once they enter the realms of fantasy, airplane stories and car stories are more often science-fictional than horror-, Gothic-, or weird-fictional, although they may include horror, Gothic, and weird elements, too. A perfect example is “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” by Richard Matheson, adapted to an episode of The Twilight Zone in 1963. It’s a monster story and a story of psychological horror and modern anxiety.
Westerns (Paperback Warrior): Cliff Farrell (1899-1977) began his writing career in the newspapers and pulps. By the early 1920s, he could be found routinely in the pages of Sport Story Magazine and Cowboy Stories. Over his career, he penned over 600 short stories for pulps, magazines, and anthologies using his own name and house names like Dean McKinley, Frank Litchfield, and Franklin B. Holt. He also wrote nearly 30 western novels. I decided to read his mid-career work, California Passage, originally published as a serial in the pages of the Saturday Evening Post in 1957.
Cinema (Disparu): The Odyssey is Christopher Nolan’s modern adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. The Hollywood box office is doing well but as critic reviews praised the movie the media has decided to take a stand. Finally calling The Odyssey as proof that Hollywood can work, that the cumulated knowledge of the last 10 years is wrong, as The Odyssey is everything that made them fail. But can Christopher Nolan save Hollywood? Is The Odyssey worth watching?
Cartoons (Coming Soon): In the midst of a surprise appearance at SDCC 2026, animation legend Genndy Tartakovsky refuted the accusations of “wokeness” against his upcoming Conan the Barbarian show. Beyond countering his critics, Tartakovsky also proved his bona fides to adapt the fantasy icon in an adult animated series.
Review (JDM Author): Typically I prefer my Sword & Sorcery to be grounded in reality, to exhibit a gritty realism so that the reader is unsure whether the protagonist can actually prevail. Then I read Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria (review here), which convinced me to chill out and revel in the strange.
Animation (Cartoon Brew): Oscar-winning filmmaker Mark Andrews has joined the upcoming John Carter, Warlord of Mars animated series as supervising director and co-showrunner. Andrews, who directed Pixar’s Brave, will oversee the adaptation alongside co-showrunner and head writer Michael Kogge.
Robert E. Howard (The Silver Key): Can sword-and-sorcery be quiet, thoughtful … philosophical?
Not typically … but Robert E. Howard was anything but typical. If you want to know why Howard lasts while so many of his barbaric descendants have not, gaze into “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune.”
But not too closely. You might not be able to rip your gaze away.
Tolkien (Tolkien Medieval and Modern): The purpose of the Scouring of the Shire, upon my first reading, seemed a bit strange. Good had triumphed over evil, had it not? The movies ended off at Gondor with the hobbits being praised by all the nation. Why shouldn’t the book end there too? Why is it necessary to detail the long journey back to the Shire when a seemingly more “suitable” ending was available? There are a variety of reasons for why the Scouring is vital to the narrative of The Lord of the Rings, but I will primarily argue here that it is a vital part of Frodo’s story and to remove it would be to remove the complexity, beauty, and sorrow that defines his character.
Cinema (Script Trooper): Christopher NOLAN Has Become A FRAUD
Writing (DMR Books): It is often said that good characters are complex like real people. The truth is that real people are complex to the point of contradiction. A kind person can be cruel. A coward can sometimes be brave. Part of the reason so much fiction falls flat today is because of the characterizations. Many people today seem not able to understand extreme complexity and nuance.
History (Auron McIntyre): YouTube commentator NewsFist joins me as we continue our examination of historian John Glubb’s essay “The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival.” We’ll be looking at the role that trade and wealth play in the eventually downfall of empires. Is it possible to maintain a prosperous nation without falling into decadence and decay? We will also examine the nature of empire itself and whether territorial expansion is an inevitable part of the life cycle of civilizations.
Edgar Rice Burroughs (Shady Sam’s Shelves): In A PRINCESS OF MARS, former Confederate soldier John Carter finds himself transported to Mars (or Barsoom, as the locals call it). Captured by Green Martians and endowed with incredible strength and speed, Carter must escape his captors with the beatiful Princess of Helium Dejah Thoris. But Barsoom is not a peacful land, and the obstacles are many...
Myth (Fortress of Lugh): Lugh has been seen in a variety of ways by modern people. His true nature is much more complex than a label like sun god, storm god, or trickster god can do justice. However, he is related to all of these things, along with mental inspiration, visions, sleep and strength.
Games (Elfenomeno): Ares Games has announced Sieges of Middle-earth, a new expansion for War of the Ring: Second Edition, the board game published in Spanish by Devir as La Guerra del Anillo: Segunda Edición. Its release is scheduled for the second half of 2026, although some recent information places it in the last quarter of the year.
Nerdery (Yellowed Perils): George Lucas has made it very clear that the Star Wars series was heavily influenced by films of the 1930s and ’40s. But I don’t recall ever seeing a lightsaber-like device in any film from that era (or any film prior to the original Star Wars, for that matter).
Horror (Isegoria): When I finally read Dracula, I was struck by the number of visually interesting scenes that I didn’t remember from any of the movie versions I’d seen. For instance, when Harker is a prisoner in Dracula’s castle, he sees something he can’t quite believe:
Lovecraft (Old Style Tales): Written shortly after “The Doom that Came to Sarnath,” “The Statement of Randolph Carter” continued Lovecraft’s streak of minor hits with what would become one of his most famous short stories – a suggestive, small-scale snapshot that prefigures the structure, scope, depth, and themes of “The Music of Erich Zann.” Like that masterwork – written exactly one year later the following December – “Randolph Carter” revels in the Gothicism of Poe and the weirdness of Dunsany, yet still strikes out in a uniquely Lovecraftian direction.
Games (Calypso): The Sinking City 2: The Final Preview
Fiction (Frontier Partisans): Frontier Partisans reader and patron Bob Deis is doing noble work in keeping alive the spirit of the glorious pulpy goodness of Men’s Adventure magazines and paperback novels — and preserving the legacy of the outstanding artists who brought virile men and sexy women in dire danger to life in the 20th Century. MENSPULPMAGS.ORG — The Men’s Adventure Magazines & Books Blog, which Deis edits, is an absolute hoot to explore — and a tribute to a zeitgeist that some of us will never abandon…
Westerns (Six Gun Justice): Alan Le May built his reputation the hard way. He wrote steadily, often without recognition, moving through pulp magazines, novels, and screenplays with a working writer’s discipline. Success didn’t arrive early or easily. It came through persistence, an understanding of story mechanics, and a willingness to keep refining craft across years of effort without guarantee of reward.