The Gray Ghost

Posted by on Sep 16, 2011 | 6 comments “It is just as legitimate to fight an enemy in the rear as in the front. The only difference is in the danger…” – Col. John S. Mosby, CSA As the winter of 1863 set in, General JEB Stuart gave special permission for his favorite scout, a plucky little lawyer named John Singleton Mosby, to lead fifteen cavalrymen to Loudon County, VA to make things hot for the invading Yankees....
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“Barbarian” – Good or Bad?

Posted by on Sep 14, 2011 | 9 comments Like Christopher Heath who posted earlier, I was really honored when Jason invited me to contribute here, but “didn’t feel I was qualified to submit or had anything substantial to say.” (Though if I say anything as substantial as he did, I’ll be doing very well!) As I told Jason, I’m just an interested dabbler in the reading of heroic fantasy, not an expert; my own writing hasn’t been...
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FANTASY BY DEFINITION (Part I)

Posted by on Sep 12, 2011 | 13 comments Heroic Fantasy is a type of fiction in which a heroic (usually bigger than life) figure uses a combination of physical strength and edged weapons (Swords, Axes, Spears) to face bigger than life foes. The hero may be either male or female, but the focus is primarily on personal conflict between the hero and villain. I divide Heroic Fantasy into four categories: Sword & Sorcery, Sword &...
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Pulp Heroes: Doc Savage

Posted by on Sep 9, 2011 | 3 comments The pulp adventure hero, The Shadow, hit the stands in April of 1931 as explained in Pulp Heroes: The Shadow, and he was an instant hit, spawning literally every pulp action hero that followed. Less than two years later, in March of 1933, the third of such heroes appeared in his own magazine (The Phantom Detective beat him out by just one month). Street and Smith published Doc Savage magazine...
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On the Enduring Popularity of Sword & Sorcery Fiction

Posted by on Sep 7, 2011 | 8 comments In some ways, Sword & Sorcery fiction’s enduring popularity is due to its uniquely primal elements. It is an embrace of the “first principles” of fantasy fiction–even myth itself:  the hero has nothing more than his (and, yes, more often than not it’s a he) might and mien to rely upon in an often antagonistic or at the very least wholly indifferent world. While he might...
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An Author is Not Without Honor . . .

Posted by on Sep 5, 2011 | 9 comments In 2012, with the release of John Carter of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote A Princess of Mars, the novel the film is based on, may become more well-known and appreciated than he has been in the past. 2012 just happens to be the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first Mars volume as well as another well known work, Tarzan of the Apes. The Post Office is going to issue a...
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Reclaiming the Blade

Posted by on Sep 2, 2011 | 6 comments A recent documentary called Reclaiming the Blade (available on Netflix streaming video as I write this) makes a nice introduction to the topic of Western Martial Arts and the cultural significance of the sword in European history. The initial focus of the film is cinematic swordplay, with numerous Lord of the Rings personnel on-hand to discuss the role of the sword and sword-fighting in our...
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The Avengers: The Power and the Glory

Posted by on Aug 31, 2011 | 3 comments “History is movement, and if you’re not riding with it then in all probability you’re beneath its wheels… [Yet] in even the most contemporary of modern comic books, our previous heritage looms large, and is in many ways the most important signifier.”  —Alan Moore “The Avengers are the varsity.” —Kurt Busiek The Avengers are indeed, as writer Kurt Busiek once stated, the...
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WARRIOR WOMAN: The Sword and Sorcery of Marion Zimmer Bradley

Posted by on Aug 29, 2011 | 6 comments In the mid 80′s, two authors stood at the top of the DAW line of Sword and Sorcery novels. One was John Norman, the author of the Gor novels. The other was Marion Zimmer Bradley whose Darkover series took the slant of swords in space. While Norman’s work was clearly a “man’s world” complete with rape, pillage, murder, slavery and women as nothing more than chattel,...
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Amazons

Posted by on Aug 26, 2011 | 9 comments When I received my copy of Swords & Dark Magic, I had to laugh at the cover. It struck me as so clichéd with the dainty swordswoman in armor sort of like the Roman lorica segmentata hoisting a very large medieval sword. One can’t have a fantasy painting these days without a female warrior (warrioress?) or amazon. I have problems with Swords & Dark Magic but that discussion is for...
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Wars are Fought by Individuals: A Review of The Roads to Baldairn Motte

Posted by on Aug 24, 2011 | 2 comments The Roads to Baldairn Motte By: Craig Comer, Ahimsa Kerp, and Garrett Calcaterra Paperback: 230 pages Publisher: L & L Dreamspell (May 22, 2011) ISBN-10: 1603183124 ISBN-13: 978-1603183123 For a story about a war of succession, this was something of an unusual novel.  That’s a compliment.  What this really is, is three novellas set against a common background, telling parts of a...
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The Keys to Conan: Blood and Thunder on the Underwood No. 5

Posted by on Aug 19, 2011 | 9 comments You might think the new Conan movie inspired this article, especially since the last article I did here was a review of the THOR movie. Alas, you would be wrong. I had intended to write this article months ago. Its source: my immense appreciation of Robert E. Howard’s work and my love affair with vintage manual typewriters. Yeah, I said it. Yeah, you read it. To understand the blood and thunder...
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Words of the Sword Saint

Posted by on Aug 17, 2011 | 6 comments or Musings on Miayamto Musashi and the Book of Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho) A long time ago in a land far, far away, there lived a very strange and very dangerous man.  He is known to us as Miyamoto Musashi also called the Kinsei or “Sword Saint”–though a better translation might be “Master of the Way of the Sword” as his use of the weapon was hardly saintly in the...
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Special: The Lone Marine’s Annual Vigil

Posted by on Aug 15, 2011 | 3 comments Due to circumstances beyond our control and in lieu of Euan Harvey’s regularly scheduled appearance, RBE offers this salute to a determined hero: It is evident, after watching the video, that this Marine does not stand alone.
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Seven Things: A letter from an old adventure to a new

Posted by on Aug 12, 2011 | 0 comments Dear Hero, We thank you for saving our world. Many have come before, but now it’s your turn. That doesn’t mean you have to go alone. I’ve included seven things you’ll likely come across. We did. Maybe you won’t come across all, but you’re likely going to hit some (or most). We have faith in you. The “Stranger Danger” is undoubtedly what you’ve encountered first and maybe why...
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Fools in the Hot Zone: Saruman as Bold but Incompetent Firefighter

Posted by on Aug 10, 2011 | 11 comments Every year the Man sends me to Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response class. These HAZWOPER classes are almost always taught by firefighters because they routinely deal with emergency responses to hazardous materials. Over the years I’ve noticed a trend in the way they teach the course–that most of the examples of what not to do when knee-deep in an emergency dealing with...
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Death Before Dishonor

Posted by on Aug 8, 2011 | 3 comments Heroism and honor go together like swords and shields or guns and targets.  Honor is a common motive for heroism and is found at the heart of heroic characters across a wide spectrum of time and mediums.  It’s also become a somewhat archaic concept in our world, where we tend to speak in terms of ethics and legality rather than honor. Historically speaking, honor has led to acts rightly...
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HEROES & ANTIHEROES – How Far is Too Far?

Posted by on Aug 5, 2011 | 13 comments How far is too far? At what point do an antihero’s actions push him over the edge into villain territory? Or do we sometimes refer to a character as an antihero when he’s been a villain all along? Sometimes an antihero is a good person forced to do some bad things, or a bad person who is forced to do good things or does them accidentally, as a byproduct of his otherwise bad actions. A lot of...
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Yahweh as Warrior-Hero

Posted by on Aug 3, 2011 | 17 comments When Jason asked me to contribute to the Home of Heroics, my initial thought was to say no. I’ve not written many sword and sorcery stories, and while I enjoy reading heroic adventure, I have to admit, I’m not that well-versed in the genre. I can barely tell you the difference between Conan and Elric. There, I’ve lost some of you already. So why am I here today? Because of this one line in...
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The Line That Sent Me to Mars: How Edgar Rice Burroughs Lit a Beacon for my Young Imagination

Posted by on Aug 1, 2011 | 12 comments When I was in the third grade, I read a little bit of everything (still do). From Zorro to the Hardy Boys to Pippi Longstockings, I gave everything a try. But already I was being drawn more strongly to works of speculative fiction, especially heroic fantasy. The year before, I’d gotten hooked on C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. I often did my best bouts of reading after I’d been tucked...
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Though He Walks Through Shadow: Three Faces of Heroism

Posted by on Jul 29, 2011 | 3 comments (Or: A discussion of motivation, methodology and conviction in your garden-variety Superhero, Hero and Antihero.) Superheroes, heroes and antiheroes alike thrive in speculative literature these days. Captain America is receiving good reviews, a good deal of fandom is discussing the heroic Hobbit, and Game of Thrones…well, is there a ‘just plain heroic’ character in there? But...
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A Cold Corner of Forgotten History

Posted by on Jul 27, 2011 | 8 comments “Never have any of our soldiers been on American soil, but your soldiers were on Russian soil. These are the facts.” When Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made that statement during a tour of the United States in 1959, he sent people scurrying to their history books. Lost to American history, but never forgotten by the Soviets, the Allied incursion into Russia in late 1918 set the tone of...
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Dispatches from the Lone Star Front: The Heroic Legacy of Robert E. Howard

Posted by on Jul 25, 2011 | 17 comments The Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition defines a legacy as “anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor.” Legacies are not necessarily material things.  Often those who bequeath the legacy are completely unaware that they’ve done so at the times of their deaths. That’s the case with Robert E. Howard.  Howard was 30 years old at the time of his...
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So You’ve Run Out of Ideas to Steal – History and the Heroic Fantasy Writer

Posted by on Jul 22, 2011 | 22 comments Let’s be honest with ourselves – many of you are either writers of heroic fantasy fiction (like me) or want to attain this lofty station in life. But if you want to write heroic fantasy fiction – stories about men and swords and valor and evil wizards – where do you get ideas? It would look pretty suspicious if you invented a barbarian hero who goes by the name of Fonan, hails from...
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Wolf-Pack Heroism

Posted by on Jul 20, 2011 | 5 comments Napoleon Bonaparte thrashed the Prussian army on several occasions, most notably at Jena-Auerstedt. Smarting from the defeat, in 1814 the Prussians recognized that it was difficult for any one general, however talented, to defeat a military genius like Napoleon.  But a team of men, a colloquy of experts, each bringing more expertise to bear than a single man like Napoleon was likely to have,...
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Don’t Pigeonhole Fantasy Writers

Posted by on Jul 18, 2011 | 8 comments I’m hanging out the other day in an online forum filled with fellow writers. The majority of writers and authors on the site lean more toward your thriller and romance writer … ya know, the “acceptable” genres. So I’m hanging out and there’s a posting about historical fiction, asking what are some of your favorite historical novels and short stories. I start salivating a little...
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DOUBLY HEROIC: Duos in the Heroic Fantasy tradition

Posted by on Jul 15, 2011 | 33 comments The Heroic Fantasy tradition has more than its fair share of heroes and many of them work alone, but there are a small number of heroes who work with a partner. Duo heroes are not a new concept. Many heroes in literature are incomplete without their counterpart. The concept of the “buddy movie” is well known in cinema and examples of that abound: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,...
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Frances Marion, Queen of Early Hollywood Screenwriters

Posted by on Jul 13, 2011 | 7 comments I’d say that Frances Marion was the most famous woman that you’ve never heard of, except that I’m fairly certain she’s just one of the many famous women who have dropped out of the public conscious. But Frances Marion is probably one of the most famous women writers you’ve never heard of. Beginning in 1917, Frances was Hollywood’s highest paid screenwriter for...
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Graphic Heroics: The Anti-Pretension Machine, Part 1

Posted by on Jul 11, 2011 | 6 comments More and more, modern comics and graphic novels seem to get wrapped up in a sense of literary pretension.  Whether it is a litany of “This is a graphic novel, but it’s okay because its literary,” or “This graphical novel is bad because it lacks literary merit,” literary snobbery seems to be on the rise with this growing literary art form.  Not that “literary” graphic fiction is...
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An Interview With Janet Morris

Posted by on Jul 8, 2011 | 7 comments Heroes in Hell was first published in 1986 and quickly established itself as a cornerstone of shared-universe fiction.  Using hell as its playground, it incorporated all of the known hells from various religions, both modern and extinct, and populated them with such notable figures as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Niccolo Machiavelli, Cleopatra and Che Guevara, to name a few of many. The...
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On the Outside, Looking In, and on the Inside, Looking Out

Posted by on Jul 6, 2011 | 15 comments I’m kind of different from most of the other writers that Jason has invited to create content for Home of Heroics. I share many of the traits of the rest, such as a deep love of reading S&S and a number of stories published over the years as well, but I am a bit of an odd man out. For one thing, I was born and currently live (albeit by a somewhat circuitous route) in Argentina. For another,...
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Semper Fi!

Posted by on Jul 4, 2011 | 15 comments When someone mentions iconic, this is what they mean. All branches of service have heroes but if you are looking for an entire organization that is dedicated to taking the fight to the enemy and delivering a healthy dose of kick-ass, the Marines are your go-to choice. From since before the Declaration of Independence to Iwo Jima and Desert Storm and beyond, if you absolutely, positively have to...
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Big Heroes Make Big Decisions

Posted by on Jul 1, 2011 | 18 comments Everyone knows the basic characteristics that make up the standard hero. Courageousness, dedication, perseverance, endurance, determination and grit. And, of course, they have to be flat out cool. They need to be able to fight and look good doing it, and they usually have some superhuman abilities to assist them, just in case regular old human ones fail. While exciting, many of these...
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The Barbarian Hero

Posted by on Jun 29, 2011 | 5 comments There are some people who seem to have lost the definition of exactly what a hero is, thinking that the very word is ‘corny.’ To many it summons up the image of a PG fellow from a Disney film where he never curses, doesn’t drink and is a flat ‘cutout’ of a human rather than a fully developed character. These are the people who have confused the terms villain, anti-hero and hero. They...
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To Be Virtually Heroic

Posted by on Jun 27, 2011 | 12 comments As a writer, family-man, and working stiff, sometimes I need to shake off those enjoyable (not being sarcastic here) bonds and pursue a breather. I have a multitude of unread or half-read books on my bookshelf to attack, yet sometimes the allure of a tabletop strategy game or virtual adventure via computer- or console- based video game is just too great. Like kids nowadays or Kevin Flynn, I tend...
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Long Lost Heroes

Posted by on Jun 24, 2011 | 8 comments Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t see through the wolf in grandmother’s clothing, ended up eaten and needed the hunter to rescue her and cut her free from the wolf’s belly.  Right? Almost. In my recent hunger for myths, legends and tales I have not yet read, I came upon a wonderful collection of stories by Kathleen Ragan entitled Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters.  I stared at...
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I Dream of Heroes

Posted by on Jun 22, 2011 | 15 comments I dream of heroes—not of superheroes like Spiderman or Batman, but of ancient warriors with bloody axes and scars. Most times in such dreams, I am myself or some variant of myself. And whatever happens to the character happens to me. At other times I’m merely an observer, looking on as if I’m some invisible traveler exploring lost times and parallel worlds. Not long ago in a dream, I...
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Black Death (2010) – A review

Posted by on Jun 20, 2011 | 7 comments Starring Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne and Carice van Houten. Directed by Christopher Smith. Screenplay by Dario Poloni. Tagline: Journey into Hell It is 1348A.D. The Plague, also called the Black Death, is ravaging Europe. The disease will eventually kill between 30 to 60% of the continient’s population. And, most importantly to the characters in the story, the Plague is mankind’s punishment...
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The Knight of the Golden Spurs

Posted by on Jun 17, 2011 | 20 comments “…If you want to catch the Devil—If you want to have fun—If you want to smell Hell—Jine the Cavalry!” Stuart’s official theme song, the irreverent  “Jine the Cavalry” In the 1860s, General J.E.B. Stuart put the glory into being a cavalryman. He lifted his troopers above the muck, sweat, and terror of being the hard-worn reconnaissance arm of the service,...
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The Breath of Horror in Sword-and-Sorcery Fiction

Posted by on Jun 15, 2011 | 53 comments (Spoiler alert: In the following essay, I give away the outcomes of some scenes in the stories discussed.) A line in Robert E. Howard’s “The Queen of the Black Coast” has stayed with me ever since I first read this story more than forty years ago in the old Lancer paperback series. Conan and Bêlit are in conversation, and Bêlit asks, “Conan, do you fear the gods?” He replies, “I...
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Warriors of the North

Posted by on Jun 13, 2011 | 5 comments Vikings. Now, they had some true heroes, and I have decided to tell you a little about them. I guess many of you have heard about Leif Eriksson? Now, he was a true hero–at least we in Scandinavia think so. When he found America he saved a lot of lives. How? It is simple really, but not everyone thinks about it. Back in those days the Vikings travelled far and wide. When they settled on...
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Pulp Heroes: The Shadow

Posted by on Jun 10, 2011 | 3 comments To modern audiences, The Shadow is either a one-shot movie that starred Alec Baldwin, or possibly a Bronze Age comic book drawn by Mike Kaluta, or, to the majority, a dusty old adventure hero from their grandparent’s generation. But to think any of that is to do a disservice to a character that might possibly have been the first superhero, who was once considered by many as the greatest...
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Cross Plains, Texas

Posted by on Jun 8, 2011 | 6 comments Robert E. Howard is my literary hero. Now, don’t curl your lip at the inclusion of the word “literary” in that sentence; sure, Howard never ran into a burning building to save a baby, nor did he walk on the moon, or any of those other things that go into the inarguable definition of what it means to be heroic. But he’s my literary hero nonetheless, because his career was a courageous and...
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Leigh Brackett: Heroic Fantasy at its Best

Posted by on Jun 6, 2011 | 12 comments Whenever there are discussions of heroic fantasy fiction, the usual names are trotted out: Howard, Leiber, Carter, Moorcock. But there is one name that is sometimes overlooked and really should be added to that list. Leigh Brackett (1915-1978) may best be known to some as a Hollywood screenwriter, but she also wrote some of the best heroic fantasy stories ever published. Brackett was a writer...
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When Realism Isn’t Real — Conan the Jazzerciser

Posted by on Jun 3, 2011 | 14 comments My favorite scene in Conan the Jazzerciser is when Conan, following the trail of his stolen leg warmers, tracks Trudy the decadent Aquilonian aerobics instructor to a gym in the Zingaran capital of Kordava. He not only discovers his stolen leggings and a dark plot by a Khitai sorcerer, but also that Trudy has been using the Cimmerian’s very own workout mix tape to conduct her classes! It...
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Dig Deeper to Find a Heroic Heart

Posted by on Jun 1, 2011 | 5 comments The heroes portrayed in television and movies send a tangible message, often based on market research, to the audience about who they are and what they can do. If the audience is primarily male, then a heroine might be shaped with a larger bust size to appeal to them. If the audience incorporates kids, then the costumes might be brightly-colored and their actions might be more exaggerated. For a...
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The Dynamic Duo of Nehwon

Posted by on May 30, 2011 | 5 comments So, I was just a page shelving library books the day I first met Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. It was one of those moments when I was trying to stuff yet another paperback into the turnstile racks when I spotted Swords and Deviltry. To be honest, I had not read many fantasy novels in a while (not since my early teens). I remember dashing through the Narnia books long before I took my job as a...
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We are All Ghosts Now

Posted by on May 27, 2011 | 9 comments Heroism is a major part of Robert E. Howard derived sword and sorcery fiction. Stories of heroes engaging in deeds that seem impossible is a criticism aimed at the genre. But, real acts of incredible heroism do happen. One of my favorite acts of heroism took place in World War II. In January 1945, a small group of U.S. Army Rangers and Philippine guerrillas accomplished a near impossible feat...
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Masters and Mentors

Posted by on May 25, 2011 | 15 comments Although I loved the idea behind Home of Heroics articles, I had only planned on reading it, rather than contributing. Quite simply, I didn’t feel I was qualified to submit or had anything substantial to say. After being honored by a personal request from Jason Waltz, it was hard to refuse the offer. Even more difficult, choosing what I would write about that pertained to heroic fantasy....
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Warriors of the Bright Country

Posted by on May 23, 2011 | 18 comments In the West African bulge is a land known in pre-colonial history as the Sudan. This Sudan is not to be confused with the modern nation that bears the same name. It is a moniker which translates from Arabic to mean ‘The Land of the Blacks.’ This pre-colonial Sudan covered an area that stretched from the West African coasts to the borders of the Nile, running north along a border of grasslands...
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