Six Quarter-Centuries of Clark Ashton Smith

He and his followers were well armed and accoutered. Some of the men bore coils of rope and grapplinghooks to be employed in the escalade of the steeper crags. Some carried heavy crossbows; and many were equipped with long-handled and saber-bladed bills which, from experience, had proved the most effective weapons in close-range fighting with the Voormis. The whole party was variously studded with auxiliary knives, throwing-darts, two-handed simitars, maces, bodkins and saw-toothed axes. The men were all clad in jerkins and hose of dinosaur-leather, and were shod with brazen-spiked buskins. Ralibar Vooz himself wore a light suiting of copper chain-mail, which, flexible as cloth, in no wise impeded his movements. In addition he carried a buckler of mammoth-hide with a long bronze spike in its center that could be used as a thrusting-sword; and, being a man of huge stature and strength, his shoulders and baldric were hung with a whole arsenal of weaponries.
 - "The Seven Geases," pre-dating the current D&D Everything's Better With Dinosaurs craze by 80-odd years

125 years marks since the birth of Clark Ashton Smith. 2018 marks several other important anniversaries in the world of weird fiction, in particular dinosaur fiction. Because of this, I'm going to take inspiration from Mr Smith, & decide to finally do a thing that I've been wanting to do for years. I'll explain more in a future post.

Mr Smith wrote dozens upon dozens of extraordinary stories & poems: even if he doesn't receive anything like the recognition he deserves, his influence is clear among those who have shaped the worlds he lit up with the sparks of his prose.

World Book Day 2013

World Book Day 2013 falls on my 29th birthday, which makes me almost as happy as this little chap:



So I'm going to try out something different - tiny capsule reviews of short stories I've read or reread recently.

"The Jewel of Arwen" by Marion Zimmer Bradley
(From The Year's Best Fantasy Stories (1975) edited by Lin Carter )
The best Lord of the Rings fan fiction I've ever read - or, rather, the only good Lord of the Rings fan fiction I've ever read. It was written before The Silmarillion came out, so it relies only on the LotR appendices, and yet it still manages to be more in-tune with Tolkien than any number of Middle-earth pastiches I've experienced.

"The Sword Dyrnwyn" by Lloyd Alexander
(From The Year's Best Fantasy Stories (1975) edited by Lin Carter)
There should be a rule in fantasy fiction: if you encounter a black sword, do not look at it, do not touch it, do not pick it up, just walk away and leave the blasted thing alone. But then, if that was a rule, then we wouldn't have stories like this.

"The Double Shadow" by Clark Ashton Smith
(From The Year's Best Fantasy Stories (1975) edited by Lin Carter )
This is one of those Smith stories like "Empire of the Necromancers" that is told almost like a parable, and manages to achieve a sort of timelessness. It's also a perfect example of Smith's use of the exact perfect word for the situation, no matter how esoteric: it isn't purple prose, this is Tyrian loquaciousness. It also has a sapient snake as the protagonist, which is brilliant.

"The City of Madness" by Charles R. Saunders
(From The Year's Best Fantasy Stories (1975) edited by Lin Carter)

Who's the black Ngombe's pal
That's a sex machine to all the gals?
(Imaro!)
You're damn right!

Who's the barbarian
That would risk his neck for his brother man?
(Imaro!)
Can ya dig it?

Who's the chui that won't cop out
When there's mchawi all about?
(Imaro!)
Right on!

You see this chui Imaro is a bad mother -
(Shut your mouth!)
But I'm talkin' about Imaro!
(Then we can dig it!)

He's a complicated man
But no one understands him but his pompous pygmy priest friend...
(Imaro!)

(also read The Wasp's review)

"The Small Assassin" by Ray Bradbury
(A Chamber of Horrors unlocked by John Hadfield)
This is one of Bradbury's most evil stories when you think about it: what's most unsettling is the outcome is horrific whether the protagonist is right or wrong. It's one of those amazing stories where even the possibility of the protagonist imagining everything is just as monstrous as if the supernatural/uncanny aspect was actual - perhaps more so. Gave me the shivers, so it did.

"More Spinned Against" by John Wyndham
(A Chamber of Horrors unlocked by John Hadfield)
People love calling Wyndham's work "cosy catastrophe," as if comfortable surroundings or circumstances mitigate or even remove horror and terror, but as with Bradbury and others, I find that it can multiply that sense of unease and threat. "More Spinned Against" is a delightfully grim tale that has Wyndham's typically pointed critique of social mores and hypocrisies, while throwing you a lovely (if, in retrospect, clearly signposted) final twist.

"The Abyss" by Leonid Andreyev
(A Chamber of Horrors unlocked by John Hadfield)
A deeply unpleasant and malevolent story that doesn't have any overt supernatural elements, but is pregnant with supernatural subtext, if you will. It's not a happy story at all.

"The Monk" by M. G. Lewis
(A Chamber of Horrors unlocked by John Hadfield)
Another very horrible story in the sense that it left me feeling nauseous, but in this case it has a certain spiritual power and resonance by virtue of the protagonist's occupation and the setting.

"The Yellow Wall-Paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
(A Chamber of Horrors unlocked by John Hadfield)
Required reading for psychological horror aficionados. One of the most beautifully conceived, poignant and eloquent meditations on frustration, anxiety and perception degradation I've read.

"The Things" by Peter Watts
(Online)
If you've ever seen John Carpenter's adaptation of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" (or the short story for that matter), then this is a simply magnificent perspective switch.

 "... All You Zombies..." by Robert A. Heinlein
(Online)
Heinlein is fascinating as much due to his choice of subject as to his approach, and "... All You Zombies..." may well take the biscuit in terms of "What in Jove's Name Were You Thinking!?!" This approached Vonnegut levels - even Palahniuk levels - of Why Science Fiction Is Frightening As All Get Out. For the man who brought the word "grok" into popular usage, I don't think it's possible for any human being to grok Heinlein. He's... ungrokkable.

So, hope you all had as happy a World Book Day as I had a good birthday!

Clark Ashton Smith's "The Hashish Eater"

I'm always a bit haphazard observing my favourite writers' birthdays and other days of observation, but luckily I was reminded of Clark Ashton Smith's. I don't have much to say, but I'll link back to John R. Fultz' article on "The Hashish Eater, Or, The Apocalypse of Evil," which was my introduction to Smith's work.

And why not, let's read the entire poem. I've added some illustrations that I think have a little of that Smithian psychedelia. Now let's go on that journey through spaceward-flown horizons infinite...

The Blog That Time Forgot, Bite-Sized: SFX Fantasy - The Ultimate Celebration, Fantasy Author Favourites, and Martin vs Tolkien

(I have a post regarding the comic launch in the works, but until then, here's a quick post)

On a whim, I decided to pick this up back in March:

I guess with John Carter and fantasy/science fiction adaptations being on my mind of late, I wondered what they would have to say about the film before the John Carter Is The Biggest Flop Of All Time meme really went into overdrive. Turns out... not a lot.  And frankly, there's not a lot of many great fantasy authors for a supposed Ultimate Celebration.

Bite-Sized Blog: Adventure Author News

Preview of "Kalina & the Baba Yaga," which goes on sale from Black Hearted Press on Hallowe'en 2012, with a launch party at 55 Parnie Street, Glasgow at 7pm.

Another round-up of links and musings before Hallowe'en, featuring Conan novelisations, Howard reviews, Howard-inspired poetry, Machen, Lovecraft, Lewis, Saunders and Smith.

Clark Ashton Smith, The Man Who Brought You Ghost Dinosaurs

To his further disconcertion, he soon found that he had attracted the attention of a huge foggy monster with the rough outlines of a tyrannosaurus. This creature chased him amid the archetypal ferns and clubmosses; and overtaking him after five or six bounds, it proceeded to ingest him with the celerity of any latter-day saurian of the same species. Luckily, the ingestment was not permanent for the tyrannosaurus' body-plasm, though fairly opaque, was more astral than material; and Ralibar Vooz, protesting stoutly against his confinement in its maw, felt the dark walls give way before him and tumbled out on the ground. After its third attempt to devour him, the monster must have decided that he was inedible. It turned and went away with immense leapings in search of comestibles on its own plane of matter. Ralibar Vooz continued his progress through the Cavern of the Archetypes: a progress often delayed by the alimentary designs of crude, misty-stomached allosaurs, pterodactyls, pterandons, stegosaurs, and other carnivora of the prime.
- "The Seven Geases," in which Ralibar Vooz has to contend with ghost dinosaurs. Ghost. Dinosaurs. Also a carnivorous stegosaurus, apparently predating "Red Nails" by a few years.

What I'd really like for Blogger is a widget which allows you to post certain things on certain days which are relevant to the subject of your blog. Like This Day in History, but with specific events, rather than bringing up things like Orlando Bloom's birthday.  That way I won't miss someone's birthday, deathday, publication, or other important events. REH's birthday's on the 22nd of January, and Conan's 80th comes this December.

Today's the 119th birthday of the criminally underexposed third man of the Weird Musketeers, Clark Ashton Smith. Hilobrow, Grognardia, and the Greenbelt all have tributes. Unfortunately, just like last year, I'm just going to have to relink to my Cimmerian tribute, and echo James' desire to reread "The Empire of the Necromancers."  For now, I just wanted to provide my favourite passage from "The Seven Geases," for clearly discernible reasons. Hopefully Clark Ashton Smith was received by the Originals of Mankind in the Cavern of the Archetypes with pomp and circumstance, and didn't run into too many persistent megalosaurs.

Clark Ashton Smith, 50 years in the worlds between worlds

In all the hubbub about the Conan premiere and my subsequent review, I feel infuriated at myself for letting the regulars at The Blog That Time Forgot down, as well as allowing the supposed "Conan" film (I'm back to using apostrophes) to cloud my mind so much that I very nearly missed another important milestone: the 50th anniversary of Clark Ashton Smith's death.  After unforgivably missing C.L. Moore's centenary, I'm not going to let this celebration of the Emperor of Dreams be unmarked.

In addition, I really miss the pow-wows of the posters here, and frankly, I'm so sickened by the new Conan film that I'm probably going to be a lot less involved in the site.  I'll still post links, news and information, but after my critique and a few other things in the pipeline, I'm not going to let it dominate my waking hours.  I've spent enough time on it, and there's so much that's fallen by the wayside in the process.

So, Clark Ashton Smith. As I've said before, there was a period of my life where he was my single favourite author, and he remains one of my top ten.  Since I was caught unaware, I don't have anything prepared, but my memories of "The Empire of the Necromancers" still hold true, and he deserves more exploration. In addition, drop on by Two-Gun Raconteur for Brian Leno's interview with Smith emeritus Donald Sydney-Fryer, Rusty Burke's hearty hail to the sorcerer on REHupa.com, and Ryan Harvey's fantastic interview on Black Gate. Wander over to The Eldritch Dark to see what new wonders the folk there have uncovered, or just re-immerse yourself in the incomparable prose and poetry in the site's black library. Or just swing by your shelf and pick up one of the stories in print form.

Manilla Road: Metal Ambassadors to Weird Tales

I still need to finish that retrospective on Manilla Road's sonic tributes to Robert E. Howard, but then I found this recent interview, and I'm so thrilled I can barely type.

WC: It's like there's something in the collective mind of people that brings them all to a certain topic at the same time.

MS: That brings to mind that I saw an ad for a new Conan movie that's gonna come out in 2009. I have no idea who's in it but just the thought of another Conan movie is like "Well, I hope they do it right this time".

Watkiss has a rival for my man-crush affections: Mark "the Shark" Shelton, you are my Metal Hero.

MS: I do,too! My favorite movie of all time is "Jason and the Argonauts". I'm stuck on it just like I'm stuck on my old Judas Priest albums like "Stained Class" and "Sin After Sin".

WC: This computer generated stuff of today just doesn't have the personality of what Harryhausen did.

MS: I agree. I still like the original "King Kong". (chuckles)

WC: We better get back on track or we'll spend all night talking about this stuff.

MS: Yeah, I have a feeling we could!

Scratch that: Metal Icon.

WC. I know you've had whole albums where the lyrics are inspired by Poe and Lovecraft. What are some of your favorite stories by those authors?

MS: My favorite Edgar Allan Poe story is "Mystification". It's one you don't often find in the "Best Of" collections. There's a collection out there right now...I can't remember the name of the publisher...that's called "The Complete Poe" and it's a good one to get because it's got everything he's ever wrote. "Mystification" is not one that shows up as much as "Masque of the Red Death"...which would be my next favorite Poe story, by the way...but there's a lot of Poe's own personality in that story. I think he envisioned himself as one of those characters. It's a really good story and I thought he made statements through his storyline that were really statements about himself. That's why we did a song "Mystification", because that story hit me so hard.

As far as Lovecraft goes, my two favorite stories are not the usual Lovecraftian stories. One is a short story called "The Tomb" that I love completely. It's written in almost an Edgar Allan Poe style and I think Lovecraft was after that and he did it just splendidly in that story. That was one of those stories where you could really see where H.P.'s roots in the horror genre were. He proved it in that story. The other one,strangely enough, is his more Mary Shelley strain of work: "Herbert West, Reanimator". (laughs)

WC: If I remember right, Lovecraft didn't think too much of that story himself.

MS: He hated it. I don't think too many people knew about it until the movie started coming out. Jeffrey Combs I thought was really good in the Lovecraft movies. "From Beyond", he was great in that. You know, I actually acquired the original Necromomicon Press versions of "Reanimator". They were just little short stories that originally appeared in "Weird Tales". I've got a little booklet that was put out by Necronomicon Press that was all the little short stories put together. I just thought the whole thing was great!

WC: "The Color Out Of Space" was my favorite Lovecraft story.

MS: All of his work's really incredible. His real ethereal stories are so far out there that nobody could ever write like that, I think.

WC: The one guy who equalled if not surpassed him when it came to weird visions was Clark Ashton Smith.

MS: Clark Ashton Smith's pretty good. My favorite of all time, just because of the way he mixes reality with the supernatural, is Robert E. Howard.

WC: Yeah, he dabbled in just about every genre you could think of.

MS: Just about everything. Sports stories, Westerns...he was all over the board. His unedited works that are coming out now are just incredible. The Conan stuff is great, the King Kull stuff is pretty good stuff. Not as good as Conan, I believe. I love the Bran Mak Morn stuff, Solomon Kane...

Scratch that: Metal Heroicon.

And man, Wormwood Chronicles isn't that bad himself, giving Clark Ashton Smith props!

Clark Ashton Smith: 118 Today

I really should put important dates like this on a calendar.  However, James Maliszewski doesn't let the side down, as he pays tribute to Klarkash-Ton from a gamer's point of view, while Shane Mangus tips his hat.  In lieu of the sort of post Smith deserves, I'll just include a link to a video I greatly enjoyed of the man's work.

A significant milestone will be later this year, as it will be the 50th anniversary of Smith's death: coincidentally, it'll be the 75th of Howard's. While I'll obviously be observing the latter, I'm going to make a special effort to observe the former, too.  Smith's often considered the forgotten third of the Weird Tales Troika, and frankly, it's criminal. Let us not forget Clark Ashton Smith.

Handling Howard with "Kid Gloves"

I confidently predict that certain people in the wacky world of Robert E Howard fandom will have a fit when they read Richard Lupoff's introduction.
  - Jojo Lapin X

I have no doubt about that whatsoever, and by this time one would think they could just let the matter rest. There is a point at which these continual leaps to Howard's defense cease doing Howard any good and merely suggest to the world that this is an author who must always be treated with kid gloves, a notion Howard himself would most likely have found ridiculous.
  - jimrockhill2001

You should've seen the original version!
 - Scott Connors

From The Eldritch Dark Forums.  The Eldritch Dark is a fantastic resource for Clark Ashton Smith stories, poems, biographies, criticisms and links, and I heartily recommend it.  You can even brave the Forums if you like: they're at least as protective of Smith as Howard fans are of their favourite author.

Fritz Leiber reads Clark Ashton Smith!

OK, this is the last link post for this week, I'd try to have something more substantial tomorrow.

Saturday night, October 29, 1977 at the World Fantasy Convention, in the Music Room of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, following the 10:00 p.m. slot with Harlan Ellison performing his, “The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge,” was a hard act to follow, but as the years, and decades have gone by, Fritz Leiber’s far more mellow reading of Clark Ashton Smith’s, “A Night in Malnéant,” has become an absolute treasure to hear again and again.
Having the legendary Fritz Leiber, reading Clark Ashton Smith at the World Fantasy Convention dedicated to him, in the middle of so many Lovecraftians, and beautifully capturing the audio to share now for the first time in 33 years is amazing!

I hope this recording means as much to those who download it, as finding it, still in great shape, after all these years, means to me.

I’m so very glad to be able to finally hand out this treasure:

Fritz Leiber Reading Clark Ashton Smith’s A Night in Malnéant at the World Fantasy Con III in 29-Oct-1977 Biltmore Hotel Music Room Los Angeles

Please take a few minutes to look through the many new (248!) Fritz Leiber related images in the newly opened Fritz Leiber CthulhuWho1 Flickr Collection at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/cthulhuwho1/sets/72157625066410282/

And if you’ll move on to the next post, you’ll find Fritz Leiber’s comments from the HPL Panel in Phoenix now available as a separate file…

This is so cool.  Speaking of Leiber on the HPL panel...

This is part of a series on Leiber audio files.  I'm not really as big a fan of Leiber's Sword-and-Sorcery as others - for some reason he seemed a little too light for my liking - but his horror was top notch.

Swords Against the Outer Dark interviews Andrea Bonazzi

There's something about this chap that seems starkly familiar...

but I can't quite put my finger on it...

I dig Andrea Bonazzi's work. Those of you who've read my old Cimmerian entries might remember "The Letter of Glen Schuyler Hoffman," a fun little Weird Tales jaunt that recasts Lovecraft, Howard and Smith as paranormal investigators.  This was directly inspired by Bonazzi's photographs, where he digitally juxtaposes photographs of famous authors alongside sculptures inspired by their stories: most notably, the Weird Tales Troika.  Not just the Weird Musketeers: Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Edgar Allan Poe and even Tolkien receive the Bonazzi treatment.  You could make a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from them!  Well, Swords Against the Outer Dark has an interview up with the very clever chap.

I simply can't overstate how phenomenally cool his work is.  Lovecraft beside an unearthed Elder Thing tablet, Smith next to a blasphemous idol, Howard beside an uncanny statue! There's even a picture of the Weird Musketeers together, which ignited ideas of an alternate universe where they leave fiction aside to become Cthulhubusters, defending the earth from the machinations of the Black Ring, the Church of Starry Wisdom and the Brothers of the Yellow Sign.  They travel the world, sometimes teaming up with the Inklings, their British compatriots.  Sometimes they go off-world, to Almuric, Cykranosh, Yag, Yekub, Yuggoth and beyond, or to other dimensions of space and time - the Dreamlands, Zothique, the Outer Dark.

Plus the man made a Cthulhu pipe.  A Cthulhu pipe.

Ce n'est pas une pipe.

C'est glorieuse.

I must possess one.

Now, if only he could do some stuff with C.L. Moore, A. Merrit and Arthur Conan Doyle...

Triangulation: Jim Lad, Lil' Leo, Weird Tales Troika, Momo, and Painbrush

Getting back in my stride, I think.

Monday sees an interview with James Purefoy. I am totally sold on Jim lad, which is amazing considering how much I disliked him in "Rome": turns out, you're not really supposed to consider Marc Anthony a swell chap. Jim lad, though, he's awesome. I'd love to meet him and say "job well done" on his Blackbeard, the best performance of Teach between him and Angus McFadyen.


Tuesday's scoop is Leo Howard cast as the Littlest Barbarian. As with Momo, I'm not fighting down the urge to vomit in rage, even though there are certain problems. Give him blue contacts/digital colour correction, give him a more Cimmerian hairstyle, and he could work. His theatrical martial arts styles means he has great control over his body and strong athleticism: I can definitely see him climbing sheer cliffs, felling hawks on the wing, spearing wild beasts and killing Picts at a 10th-grade level. I still think he's too cute, though.

Thursday brings us an update on the Howard-Lovecraft-Smith poetry books. I can't help but be a bit disappointed. On the Howard side, I lament the absence of "Cimmeria," "A Word From The Outer Dark," "Red Thunder," "The Bell of Morni," and the Solomon Kane pieces, which is strange, since "The King and the Oak" appears. Amazingly, not a single one of the Smith poems I thought would be foregone conclusions--“The Hashish Eater, Or, The Apocalypse of Evil,” “Lament of the Stars,” “The Titans in Tartarus,” “The Sea-Gods” and “The Song of the Worlds”--made the cut, not even the stupendous "The Hashish-Eater," which utterly bemuses me. I was also woefully inaccurate in guessing stories for the Lovecraft collection, where again, none of my predictions--“The Cats,” “Providence,” “The House,” “Festival,” and “The City”--are present. I'm also surprised that Lovecraft's epic "Fungi from Yuggoth" is represented by only a handful of its thirty-six chapters, especially since Lovecraft's poetic output is considerably smaller than that of his Texan and Californian friends. Still, these books weren't meant to be "the complete Howard/Lovecraft/Smith" Weird Poetry collections, and the omissions might well be the result of copyright and public domain issues.


Friday, Momo Spaketh! There's a minor controversy over at the Robert E. Howard forums, as his mention of hoping Conan could get him a role on Pirates of the Carribean rubbed some REH fans the wrong way, the implication being that Momo viewed Conan as a mere "stepping stone" onto more worthy projects. I think it's a bit of an overreaction: more likely, Momo was simply saying what other jobs he'd like to do, and I'm sure being Conan would be a springboard if it was any good. Just talkin' bout his job. Besides, i can officially never make fun of him again after seeing his mammy's face. Her little smile will haunt me whenever I think of poking fun at Momo. Damn it.

That was originally going to be my Saturday post, but yet again, I posted too early. Rather than cash in one of my "week off" chips, I decided to put together a quick one for Saturday. I'd been meaning to mention Strom's wonderful and touching memorial to Dan on The Cimmerian, but never got around to it: I wanted it to be more than just a link and a paragraph. Still, it's more important it's on TC at all than worry about its content.

Triangulation: Donations, Newsletters, Smith & Clonans

Sunday saw a short post giving directions for donations to Project Pride in Dan Goudey's name. Not much to say, except it's a lovely tribute.

Monday's pretty cool, as we see that The Cimmerian was noticed and mentioned in the Library of America newsletter. Man, I hope they do a full Howard book soon.

Wednesday is Clark Ashton Smith day, as we at The Cimmerian celebrate Clark Ashton Smith's birthday. The illustrations therein (apart from the Fantasy Masterworks picture) are all by yours truly: the lineart very old stuff from 2005 or thereabouts, and the CG pictures two years later. One of these days I'm going to get my "Empire of the Necromancers" short finished and put it up on youtube. Those poor guys on the Eldritch Dark forums have probably been on tenterhooks.

Saturday get some Conan casting news. Seriously, of all the recent Conan contenders, two are former Abercrombie & Finch models, and two are Twilight alumnus. One is both. What kind of crazy world is it that underwear models and teenybopper heartthrobs can be considered for freaking Conan.

Just as well the film's already a disaster, otherwise I might be upset about it. As it is, I really want to see if Nispel can turn Mears into a romantic protagonist. I gotta say, they need to get a good thespian for Tamara, since it'll need a great actor to make Mears believably turn girls to hot butter on a skillet.

Also, an update on the Nostalgia Critic Conan the Barbarian/Conan the Destroyer review: I got in contact with Rob Walker the proprieter, and let's just say there's no need to worry on the Howard front. The only things that will be the target of scrutiny will be the films themselves, and Rob's even written in a special gag for us Howard fans. Awesome stuff, and it only cements my appreciation of them.

Triangulation: The Letter of Glenn Schuyler Hoffman

A little bit of fun for Samhain.

There are two major inspirations for this post: my own weird idea for Howard, Smith and Lovecraft to roam the world fighting crime and solving Cthulhoid mysteries, and this marvellous video based on the work of Andrea Bonazzi. I very much hope Mr Bonazzi doesn't mind my use of his artwork in such a blasphemous exercise.

I might turn "Weird Tales Investigations" into a mini-series of its own. It'd be of the same scary/absurd nature of Sam Raimi's horror more than anything else, but chock-a-block with references and allusions to pulp fiction. There's already a popular counterpart for the Inklings in Here There Be Dragons (which I haven't read, but really should) featuring Tolkien, Lewis and Charles Williams going off on high adventure, but apart from certain works which I won't dignify by naming, nobody's really done the Weird Tales Troika.

Of course, the holy grail is the one that few people really consider: a Howard/Tolkien mashup. Bob & Tollers fighting off modern Morgoth cultists, battling the "nameless things" that gnaw in the deep places of the earth, uncovering the lost histories of Middle-earth and the Hyborian Age. Deuce'll probably kill me for trying to mash-up the two again, but I'll think of some copout.

Until then!