Tag: Brian W. Matthews

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News

Biweekly News Roundup 2022-09-11

Good day everyone!

I am revamping my news roundups for the time being. I don’t think I am quite prolific enough to merit a weekly aggregation, so instead I’ll be switching to biweekly. Think that will also help reduce the clutter of news articles at my website. I’m doing some other changes as well, so read on!

Personal / Website News

Not changing anything in the “Personal / Website News” section. If anything, they might get longer (such as this week’s) as I’ll be sharing more news in each biweekly post.

New Website Articles

I’ve published two articles at my website over the past two weeks.

First is my write up of the Bacardi Mai-Tai recipe that appears in the 1973 Bacardi Party Book.

I haven’t quite written enough essays here on cocktail and tiki culture, so I felt one was overdue. I’ve got a handful of other cocktail pamphlets like this from the 70s, so expect some more write ups of a similar ilk in the future.

Next, there is a new issue of Weird Tales that will be coming out very soon. This issue will focus on the sword and sorcery genre so I thought it would be awesome to help do my part to promote the issue by doing some micro interviews with some of the authors and poets within. I put out a call on social media for interested parties and this aggregation of short-form interviews is the result.

The article currently contains interviews with Brian W. Matthews, Teel James Glenn, Dana Fredsti, and Dave Fitzgerald.

H. P. Lovecast Podcast Updates

For August we got a little off track with H. P. Lovecast as we had to hunker in and prep for CoKoCon (see below) and other projects. This means that while August had only one episode of H. P. Lovecast (our dive into Douglas Wynne’s collection Something in the Water and Other Stories), September will have three episodes!

First, we have a Fragments episode that contains our interview with Wynne about his new collection, Something in the Water. The episode can be streamed at the H. P. Lovecast Podcast Buzzsprout page, via your podcast app of preference, or via the embedded player below.

HPLCP Fragments – Ep 18 – Douglas Wynne Interview – H. P. Lovecast Podcast

Second, our primary episode for September will be on the movie, Prince of Darkness, direct by John Carpenter. This episode will drop on Sunday the 18th. This episode will act as a companion episode to an upcoming Fan2Fan appearance (see below).

Personal collection.

Finally, for September’s Transmissions episode, we will be interviewing Ian Welke about his new novel, Union Station, and Brenda S. Tolian about her debut short story collection, Blood Mountain. That will drop the last day of September.

Other Podcast News

I met up with Bernie Gonzalez and Joshua Pruett to record some back-to-back Fan2Fan Podcast episodes.

In no particular order, three episodes were recorded:

  • Discussion on John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness
  • Top Five Vampires Films
  • Top Five Halloween Films

Our forthcoming H. P. Lovecast Podcast episode on Prince of Darkness will act as a companion episode to the Fan2Fan In the Mouth of Madness. Check out both episodes when they are online!

For Scholars at the Edge of Time later this month, (Thursday, September the 22nd), Michele and I will be discussing Son of Samson.

Personal copy of the recent Kino release.

Finally, to have on the radar, I’ll be doing a reading on the HWA New York Chapter’s Galactic Terrors vidcast. That will be in November.

All of these appearances, along with their publish dates (if known) have been added to the Podcast Index page. As always, if you feel like I’d make a great guest on your podcast, please feel free to reach out to me at vnvdiak@gmail.com.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

I am going to cease doing peplum-specific news go forward. While one of my expertise is peplum, my interests run in a variety of subject matters. Instead, I’ll have a section called “Miscellaneous Tidbits” (temporary name until I can think of another) where I’ll post news relevant to my research or projects I’m working on. Could be peplum, could be something else.

However, if folks do have their own peplum news they want to share with me to promote here, I am still very much available to do that. I am here to help others.

Blog and Adventures

I’ll be adding a new section that will appear time-to-time, and that will be “Blog and Adventures.” I’ll kick it off for this post with a re-cap of CoKoCon.

CoKoCon 2022 Experiences

CoKoCon is a Phoenix fan convention in the old school sense of the early days of fandom: smaller, more intimate crowd taking over a bit of hotel convention space. This is the first in-person version of CoKoCon since 2019 due to the pandemic.

Hal C. F. Hastell and Dee Hastell are the two primary folks behind CoKoCo. Despite us being still fairly new to the Phoenix area and not really knowing anyone, they extended an invitation to us to be on a few panels. We are both extremely flattered and appreciative. Michele and I wound up on two panels: Pre-Code Hollywood Horror Films, and Swords, Sandals, Sorcery, Planets and Other Worlds.

Our first panel was Saturday and we got to the Tempe Double Tree around 9am-ish. This was our first appearance at any sort of public event, let alone a con, since the Covid Pandemic started. We were a little bit nervous as we both have evaded getting Covid thus far. We were so relieved that CoKoCon has strict mask mandates and vaccination or negative Covid test requirements. We felt so much better: everyone was masked, all spaced out. We felt super safe.

We also got a cool swag bag filled with books, stickers, and other goodies. There was also a nice program booklet which had our brand new H. P. Lovecast Logo as an advert! We were pumped.

The Pre-Code Hollywood Horror Films panel started at 10:0am. Hal was the moderator with Michele and I as panelists. Michele is an expert on silent cinema, particularly the city symphony genre, but because of her interest in mummies, she had seen a lot of Universal Horror films. So, she was the big subject matter expert. I’m not too much of a specialist of the period, but know enough since it is all precursor to my Italian genre film/exploitation film studies (but I do love Busby Berkeley musicals). We spent all August prepping for the panel by watching quiet a few Pre-Code horror films: Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), Kongo (1932), King Kong (1933), Island of Lost Souls (1932), and Life Returns (1934). Michele watched a plethora of even more films.

Pre-Code Horror from our collection.

I suspect this might have been a panel that Hal had wanted to do for a while, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. We talked about how transgressive and ahead of their time these movies were compared to the films released in the years following the Hayes Code going into proper effect. We all agreed that Life Returns was a terrible film while Kongo was the most controversial and squeamish film we all saw. Definitely worth an experience.

After the panel we meandered around the con for a little bit. We ran into Beth Cato, steampunk author and baker extraordinaire. She gave us ooey gooey delicious cookies and a ribbon for our con badges that proclaimed we had taken part of her baked delectables.

We visited the dealers’ room which housed a handful of authors with tables along with the art that was up for auction. We met authors Adam Gaffen and David Lee Summers.They were cool folk and of course, we had to pluck up some books (can’t walk away empty handed!).

Michele and I returned Monday for the Swords/Sandals/Sorcery/Other Worlds Panel which was at 1:00 pm. This is a panel of Michele’s own creation which she has moderated at other cons, such as Long Beach Comic Con and LA Comic Con. I brought the sword and sandal knowledge while artist Gilead brought the sword and sorcery expertise. I believe this was the first time Michele had an artist instead of a writer on her panel, so it was nice to get a different perspective.

Gilead is an amazing artist. I had to purchase his original painting “Ziggurats and Tentacles” which was part of the art gallery/auction.

“Ziggurats and Tentacles” by Gilead. Now hanging in our living room.

This panel was a lot of fun. Gilead brought a list of sword and sorcery resources (websites, podcasts, Discord servers, etc.) and invited folks to copy it and check them out. He was super knowledgable about all facets of sword and sorcery.

Overall, CoKoCon was. a blast. It was a low-key event for us, which is exactly what we needed during these pandemic times. The 2023 conference is already being planned and has GoH information at the CoKoCon website. We will definitely be back!

The CoKoCon Facebook page is uploading photos, so keep an eye there for photos of the event.

Categories
Interview Peplum

New Tales of Heroic Fantasy: Sword and Sorcery Stories in Weird Tales #366

There’s no time like the present to indulge in the stories of the heroic, mythical, and magical past. Streaming services from Amazon and HBO launched brand new fantasy shows, The Rings of Power and House of the Dragon respectively. Young adult fantasy continues to be a lucrative market and indie fantasy comics books are being realized via the power of crowdfunding.

Vanguard literary magazine Weird Tales pioneered pulp, cosmic horror, and sword and sorcery stories. Their upcoming issue, #366, is devoted to tales of heroic fantasy with new stories, poems, and essays contributing to the contemporary fantasy canon. A few contributors to this sword and sorcery special issue have graciously shared tidbits of their poems and stories along with their relationship with the genre. 

Brian W. Matthews

Story Title

“Temm the Riven”

Story Synopsis

A knight is tasked by his king to save the realm, but to do so, he must return to his childhood home and confront the evil of his past.

Primary goal to accomplish with your story?

I wanted to create an effective blend of fantasy and horror. Clive Barker does it so well, but he blends horror with urban fantasy. I wanted to take a stab at injecting horror into an epic fantasy setting.

Your favourite type of sword and sorcery: classic heroic fantasy (like R.E. Howard) or big epic fantasy (like Tolkien)?

I’m more of an epic fantasy person. Nothing against heroic fantasy. I just never had much exposure to [Robert E.] Howard. 

Any S&S authors that have had an influence on you? If so, who and how?

I grew up reading Tolkein and Donaldson and Zelazny and was taken by their characters and how the setting forged who they were into who they became. This is particularly true of Stephen R. Donaldson. He makes his characters quite human, injects common sense and self-preservation into them, and then puts them through the grinder of the fantasy setting to see what kind of person/hero they can become.

Brian W. Matthews can be found at:

Teel James Glenn

Poem Title

“Bard”

Poem Synopsis

It recounts the life/career of a storyteller, and as a Celt a Seanache was an important part of the Celtic culture and means a lot to me. 

Primary goal to accomplish with your poem?

I think all cultures, especially warrior cultures, the propaganda of narrative and drive much of their agendas. This is a tale of someone embracing that warrior ethic.

Your favourite type of sword and sorcery: classic heroic fantasy (like Robert E. Howard) or big epic fantasy (like Tolkien)?

Absolutely the R.E.H. type of tale. My own approach to poetry is very much in the shadows of Howard’s poetry. I much prefer the “in the streets” fantasy as opposed to the ‘from the place window’ type of story that has a grand, expansive view.

My own fantasy series of Altiva stories, which often contain poetry as part of the narrative, are very “down to earth.”

Any S&S authors that have had an influence on you? If so, who and how?

Clearly Howard is prime, but so are the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Nancy Hansen, and even the Lin Carter books. All very much in the same “in the trenches” feel, though Ms. Hansen’s stories have a very wide world view they never feel ‘effete’ or fantastic—they stay grounded. And, Moorcock is the perfect mix of a grand vision but a very personal, human story telling. The characters never feel like analogs, they feel like real people.

Teel James Glenn can be found at:

Dana Fredsti & Dave Fitzgerald

Story Title

“Maid of Steel”

Story Synopsis

It’s a classic hero’s journey with really nasty monsters. 

How about: It’s a twist on the classic hero’s journey in a fresh fantasy milieu, with some really nasty monsters… 

Primary goal to accomplish with your story?

Dana: We pretty much wanted to write a story that was original, but stayed true to the elements that make sword and sorcery so much fun to read. I was dying to return to the fantasy world I’d created a few years ago for another short story. It had strong characters, both male and female, with a really unique setting and all the makings of a truly great series. Dave and I couldn’t wait to build on the promise of the original story. 

Your favourite type of sword and sorcery: classic heroic fantasy (like Robert E. Howard) or big epic fantasy (like Tolkien)?

Dave: I admire the beauties of high fantasy, but if pressed, I have to confess I prefer to play in the rough-and-tumble gutters and back alleys of low fantasy. 

Dana: I definitely prefer heroic fantasy, and more specifically, the darker entries in the genre. I love a good mix of fantasy, swashbuckling, and horror. 

Any S&S authors that have had an influence on you? If so, who and how?

Dave: Both REH and Tolkien, but also Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné series, Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories, Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, and so many others (RBT, Holdstock, Tanith Lee, Burroughs’ Warlord of Mars…). I especially love the blend of the outré and the strangely familiar in all these series. 

Dana: While I love the works of Robert E. Howard, the king of dark S&S for me is Karl Edward Wagner and his Kanenovels and stories. I don’t think there’s a better anti-hero out there. I’ve reread them at least a half dozen times, my old Wagner paperbacks are very well-loved! I am also a huge fan of Jonathan Maberry’s epic S&S novel Kagen the Damned.

[Note: check out the H. P. Lovecast Podcast interview with Maberry about Kagen the Damned]

Dana Fredsti can be found at:

Dave Fitzgerald can be found at:

Sincere thanks and gratitude for all who partook in this collection of short form interviews to talk about their sword and sorcery texts. If you’re interested in reading these stories and poems when they are published, make sure to pre-order issue #366 of Weird Tales. The product page for this issue can be found here.