Category: Uncategorized

Niall of the Far Travels

The other night, as I updated the Sword & Sorcery Authors Page (hint, hint), I added Gardner Fox. He had a long writing career in both speculative fiction and comics. In his entry I mentioned the character Niall of the Far Travels, who was in fact my introduction to his writing, in the pages of Dragon Magazine; I am pretty sure it was issue 13, which I borrowed from my friend Dennis Brown, one of the first people I ever played D&D with. The first issue of Dragon I bought was #37, and the second was #38 which had another Niall tale, “The Cup of Golden Death.”

I mentioned in the entry that I did not believe the Niall tales were collected; I typed this as I linked to a Kothar collection on Amazon that had recently been republished. It would have taken three seconds to search for a Niall collection, and if I had I would have found one. It seems that with the 2017 republication of many of Fox’s S&S fiction, a collection of all 10 Niall tales was published for the first time.

This makes me happy. In those magical days of 1980, there was Conan and Niall as the embodiment of S&S for me, as I had not read about Kane or Fafhrd and the Mouser yet. Even now, when I think back on my earliest S&S impressions (as distinct from Tolkien’s high fantasy), Niall carries great weight. I am ecstatic to be getting this collection, of which I have only read about half.

I will be doing a review of the stories after reading the book. For now, here is my obligatory capitalist link:

Last weekend, one of the great people in miniature wargaming died. Uncle Duke ran Heritage Miniatures for most of its existence, and that is when I first heard of him. The Der Kreigspliers line were my first lead figures, specifically some of the Lorien elves and White Hand orcs. He also worked with TSR hobbies back in the day, and until a few years ago was a tireless promoter of adventure gaming. He ran some huge battle games at various conventions from various historical periods, from ancients to Medieval to Napoleonics to the American frontier, and did as much for the Adventure Gaming concept as Arneson and Gygax did for Role Playing.

This blog, in particular my Greywater Chronicles, owes as much a debt to him as it does to the other two gentleman. Sorry to see he has passed on, and joined them at the great sandtable in the sky.

So long, Uncle Duke.

Historical Miniatures Gaming Society Obituary

Some pictures from Uncle Duke’s games

Of all the old 25mm lead figures from the days of yore, Ral Partha had the most beautiful sculpts. The company still exists, as Iron Wind Metals. They have done two previous kickstarters to bring some of their old figures back into production, and I invested in both. They have just launched their third campaign; this one involves forces of chaos, fae, and dryads.

For their second kickstarter, I did a bit of writing for their campaign book, as well as some editing. I hope to do so this round as well.

Check it out, and back it if you are so inclined!

Ral Partha Chaos Wars Wave 3

Still too early to say where she’ll hit, but it should be south of us a good bit. We’ll still be in an area that gets a tremendous amount of rain as well as a storm surge. Mandatory evacuation issued for our area this morning, but we’re staying. Been through a couple by this point – Izzy was the worst – so while this will be one of the most devastating to hit the east coast, we’ll be pretty far away from the major impact and things should be good.

I am certain we will lose power, however, so for the next week or so, this blog will be transmitted through smoke signals. Watch the skies!

Did you hear Professor Farnsworth’s voice when you read that title?

I was unofficially hired yesterday. Once I clear up some social security (I lost my card) and/or birth certificate problems (when I was born, they didn’t always issue birth certificates; instead I have a Birth Registration Card), it will be official. I am really looking forward to not using my college degree again!

In other news: Continue reading “Good News, Everyone!”

I have never been a fan of blog content that is merely an update…and this is one of those blog posts. Sorry! But here is why I haven’t posted much recently:

1. I expanded the S&S author’s page, adding a half-dozen or so names. I’ll add more in the next week. Thanks for checking it out!

2. Followers of the Forbidden Circle: I have gotten some excellent feedback on the story-in-progress, and it has made me rethink things a bit. It was originally intended to be an exorcise in writing to a soft deadline, with Intellectual Property that is already established (via my partnership with Dark City Games). Continue reading “On All Fronts”

I finally put together a rudimentary page of great S&S authors. It is going to be an ongoing project, updated and expanded at least weekly, though the next several days will see a lot of activity. Many will have Amazon links if they are still in print; these are affiliate links, so if you add them to your cart, and purchase them within 24 hours of placing them in the cart, I get 3% of Amazon’s profit as a commission. Thanks in advance!

The new page is at the bottom of the header image on the right, and evidently as you scroll down it remains at the top of the page. I’m not real happy with its placement there, as it covers up part of the header image, so I’ll be working on that as well shortly.

It has been 60 days since I submitted two stories featuring Kabor to two different online magazines. I have not heard back from either of them. I think it’s safe to say that at this point, they’ve been rejected.

As a reader of swords & sorcery, I am critical but forgiving. I enjoy the genre, even if I find flaws in many of the stories I read. I am almost always thinking, I can do better than this.

But evidently not; at least not yet. Continue reading “Slings and Arrows”

It’s been quiet here the last couple of weeks!

Tales From the Magician’s Skull #2 showed up in the mail yesterday. Very excited to go through it! I should have a review of it on here in the next couple of weeks.

Also coming in the next week will be Greywater Chronicles issue #4 and the delayed third chapter of Followers of the Forbidden Circle.

Title says it all…

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying/description

Looks like it’s close to funding already.
Edit: Goal destroyed.

Here is the actual link:

The Fantasy Trip Kickstarter