Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams

... Interesting choice of cover illustration.

Since it's C.L. Moore's birthday, I thought I'd talk a wee bit about Jirel.

Literary Afterlives

See, Howard just got pirates. None of this "arrrr matey" theatricality: just a surly, burly man slouching with a sword.

22nd of January, another in a month with a disproportionate amount of memorials to death authors who've shaped my imagination. Tolkien, Smith, Lovecraft... Howard.

Even before I knew Howard's work, he was always there. He was in my genes, as my parents and grandparents read his work - and the work of those which informed his writings, like Conan Doyle, Burroughs, Haggard - so if nothing else, it's keeping in the family. During the long spell between when I read Almuric and my rediscovery of Howard through Conan, he still managed to be there, that liminal figure on the boundaries of my imagination. Howard's ideas and thoughts echoed throughout the stories I enjoyed even without my realising it: many of the things I liked were mirrored in Howard's work.

The Hobbit: The Official Movie Of The Game

What do you mean, you don't remember the bit in the book where Bard steers a rickety wagon down a street, over his children, and crashes into a troll?

It might surprise you to learn that I actually enjoyed The Hobbit: The Official Movie of the Game, and quite a great deal, too. After so many years, I've finally found my zone when it comes to them: I treat them much as I'd treat any ridiculous over-the-top blockbuster, which is to say, poke fun mercilessly and complain about how it wasn't like the books. I don't see why that should be such a controversial option, it's the internet, after all.

Because I need closure, a series of vignettes from that game's final session. And boy, does this film feel less like an adaptation and more like an RPG gone horribly, horribly wrong.