Stratofanatic's Emporium

Growing up, one of my all-time fantasy series was Mercedes Lackey's The Last Herald-Mage trilogy. I re-read it several years ago, and it help up admirably well -- easily the best work Lackey's done, in my view, as I've never cared much for her other works. (This was also my first literary exposure to a non-heterosexual character.) Anyway, there were a number of songs at the end of the trilogy's final book. Randomly surfing around, I discovered that all these songs are on youtube. The lyrics, I've always found, are competent -- but Lackey has a fantastic voice, and that just tickles me pink. Nice and soothing instrumentals, too. Awesome stuff. Check it out here .** ----- ***The link opens to "Shadow Lover," but you can click the other Valdemar songs on the upper-right column.

One of the least appealing things about modern Progressivism is its demand for absolute purity: one must always have had absolute moral and ideological perfection,** and any deviation, no matter how minor or long ago, are almost an instant grounds of attack.*** That observation has come back to me again during my recent crash-course self-study on H. P. Lovecraft. I'm not really talking about the recent controversy over the World Fantasy Awards, whose organization has now -- due to HPL's racism -- discontinued the award trophy featuring HLP's bust . Instead, I've come to realize how much Howie in his teens and 20s reminds me of my younger self. Oh, there's nothing about me as drastic as HPL's priggish & intolerant racism, nor his aggravating class snobbishness, although I certainly flirted with some wince-inducing views. Still, after HPL failed to get into Brown University due to ill health (I myself dropped out of Lycoming College due to finances), he sp...

Between fantasy, science fiction, and horror, the last genre has always been my least favorite. Granted, I love books that include elements of horror. But books that are horrific throughout and usually marketed as horror? Not so much. Some Stephen King, some Dean Koontz**, but that's about it. Various short stories, but I've rarely found horror all that sustainable in the longer form. Anyway, the last 6 weeks or so have given me a brutal crash course in H. P. Lovecraft. Back in my college dropout days, maybe around the year 2000 or so, I did read The Dreamscapes of H. P. Lovecraft, a collection of his Dunsanyian dreamland fiction and, despite really liking "The Quest of Iranon," just couldn't get into him. The horrors were all rather lame, I had no idea that this collection didn't include any of HPL's best stuff, and damn the prose was lush but dense -- and extremely light on dialogue. Even now, HPL's more streamlined stuff isn't calculated to wi...

Two days ago we had our big Fafnir editorial meeting: setting goals, discussing issues, and whatnot. It went swimmingly, and it's a good deal of fun to work on an up-and-coming academic journal. Among my own contributions, I worked on a new layout format, composed a journal style sheet, and formalized our book reviewer guidelines. Some of my future tasks include getting us listed on the Directory of Open Access Journals and updating the language on our website. The editors in chief are working on a whole host of new things such as social media advertising, streamlining our peer review process, and more. Great meeting, all told. The future holds a lot of promise.

Apparently, tomorrow in London there is a symposium dedicated to John Polidori, the physician to Lord Byron and the author of a gothic tale, The Vampyre (1819). The title of this symposium is "Open Graves, Open Minds." All, apparently, are invited. I work in an odd profession.

Looks like the Los Angeles Review of Books has a new article on the recently published The Fall of Gondolin , which can be found here: " The Final Treasure from the Tolkien Hoard ," by Nick Owchar. Decent enough review, although a bit gushing -- I"m surprised that he didn't mention that the story's been previously published, but anyway.