May 27
It’s pretty hard to find artwork of fantasy characters using magic items, even wands. Most contemporary artists just picture them with blasts of energy flying from their hands, which is visual shorthand for “MAGIC!” Rowena Morrill is one of the rare few who has depicted them. She actually read the books and took notes of …
Mar 11
Here’s the book that started the erotic vampire story trend. Released in 1994, at the height of the Splatterpunk trend, Love in Vein mixed vampires and sex in a new, explicitly adult way. Featuring fantasy and horror heavyweights like Kathe Koja, Gene Wolfe, and Charles de Lint, with an opening essay by Poppy Z. Brite …
Oct 08
The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee DAW, 1981 The Silver Metal Lover is perhaps Tanith Lee’s best known novel after her three Flat Earth books. It may be the most beloved. Though an abiding Lee fan I was immune to its charms for many years until finally deciding to read it last summer. The …
Aug 19
Isn’t this the prototypical damsel-in-distress image? Seriously, it strokes my sweet spot: the leering, Lon Chaney Jr.-as-Phantom of the Opera-like face of the villain and his floridly brandished pocket watch, and the wide-eyed look of the blonde, which is not so much terror as a mesmerized disgust. (The man tied up behind her seems to …
Jul 31
The gruff private eye who investigated crimes with a world-weary cynicism had his start with author Dashiell Hammett amidst the throes of Prohibition when organized crime ran amok. Paperbook books began to be widely available in the decade after, and the two combined for masterpieces of vintage kitsch like the above (actual) novel by Fredric …
Apr 29
A selection of covers for Vonda McIntyre’s dystopic SF novel Dreamsnake. RIP Vonda.
Apr 22
Todd Alcott re-creates old SF pulp covers into homages to David Bowie songs. You can buy his work on etsy.com.
Sep 13
Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series put dragons on the map in the science fiction and fantasy world as both plausible alien creatures and the brand-spanking-new fantasy trope of the all-knowing, intelligent animal companion. The first two stories, “Weyr Search” and “Dragonrider” were published in Analog magazine in 1967; they later were incorporated into the first Pern …
