Well, Adventurers...

The days are growing shorter across the northern realms, the leaves are turning golden, and there’s a familiar chill creeping into the evening air.

Autumn has a way of stirring old memories, doesn’t it? Of reminding us of stories we’ve loved, adventures we’ve taken, and faraway realms we’ve visited — if only in our imaginations.

I’ve been a bit under the weather these past couple of weeks, so rather than setting off on an entirely new expedition, I thought we’d do something a little different.

This week, we’re opening the Rediscovered Realms archives to revisit four favorites from years past — along with a handful of wonderfully strange illustrations from the legendary Virgil Finlay!

So pull up a comfortable chair, pour yourself something warm, and settle in. We’ve got a few tales to share.

And perhaps a few unexpected visitors lurking in the shadows...

This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

I - THE CHANGING SEASONS

There’s something magical about the changing seasons — those crossroads between what was, what is, and what might yet be.

Back in 2023, I shared a rather personal story about how a series of beautifully illustrated Time-Life fantasy books, a high school library, and an unexpected turn of events helped transform a difficult summer into a lifelong treasure.

Oh, and remember those wonderful Enchanted World television commercials narrated by Vincent Price?

Rediscover The Enchanted World →

II - THE PASSING OF TIME

Few fantasy authors captured the bittersweet passage of time quite like J.R.R. Tolkien.

In this 2024 edition, we explored Bilbo’s Last Song, a beautiful little illustrated book featuring the artwork of Pauline Baynes and a final farewell to Middle-earth.

It’s a poignant reminder that even the greatest adventures eventually come to an end — but the stories and friendships we discover along the way stay with us.

Revisit Bilbo’s Last Song →

III - THE MYSTERIES BEYOND

Lost cities. Mysterious artifacts. Legendary creatures. Forgotten myths.

Terry Breverton’s Phantasmagoria is a marvelous compendium of more than 250 strange and wonderful subjects, accompanied by hundreds of vintage-style illustrations.

Part encyclopedia, part bestiary, and part explorer’s journal, it’s exactly the sort of book that can send an imaginative mind wandering down a dozen unexpected paths.

Explore the Phantasmagoria →

IV - ONE LAST TALE BY FIRELIGHT

And what would an autumn evening be without a good story told beside the fire?

Last year, we traveled back to 1888 to rediscover Far Darrig in Donegal, an old Irish folktale of a wandering tinker, mischievous fairies, and a night he would rather forget.

I painstakingly restored the original text from W.B. Yeats’s Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, correcting transcription errors that have crept into many modern reproductions.

If you enjoy old folklore with a generous helping of mischief and a slightly unsettling twist, this one’s for you.

Read the Restored 1888 Fireside Tale →

A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA FROM THE VAULT...

And because I can’t seem to rummage through the Rediscovered Realms vault without finding something unexpected...

Here are 5 monstrously strange illustrations by legendary fantasy and science fiction artist Virgil Finlay (1914–1971).

Just a little extra eye candy for those who enjoy the stranger side of fantasy and for those who perhaps have already traveled these roads before.

Who knows? Maybe they’ll inspire a few delightfully disturbing encounters for your next D&D or tabletop RPG adventure...

Or just provide some good old-fashioned nightmare fuel. 😈

Enjoy!

And there we have it, Adventurers.

Four little journeys into the past, a handful of strange new discoveries, and perhaps a few creatures best left lurking in the shadows!

Whether it’s an old book rediscovered, a story remembered, or an imaginary road we’ve traveled a hundred times before, there’s always a little more magic waiting for those willing to look.

🍂 Before you go, I’m curious: What old fantasy book, story, or adventure do you find yourself returning to again and again? Is there one that feels like visiting an old friend? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Until next time, my Autumn Adventurers...

Keep the Adventure Going Strong!

(...and save me a seat by the fire. Preferably one with a clear view of the exits.)

🎶 THE MONSTERS ARE STILL LURKING IN THE MIST...

Enjoyed those monstrous visions? Perhaps you’re in the mood for a few more creatures lurking in the shadows...

My new 13-track dark fantasy folk album, Tales of Adventure: Monsters in the Mist, is filled with eerie legends, haunted places, and things that go bump along the old roads.

From banshees and barrow beasts to phantom pipers and other strange encounters, it’s a musical journey into the darker corners of fantasy.

🌫️ Enter the Mist — listen to free samples and discover the album!

Your next piece of fantasy fun is calling.

“Remember to check out the Rediscovered Realms Amazon Storefront for the most epic gift-giving ideas for those important adventurers in your life (including yourself 🗡)” - Brodryk (Shopkeep)

(As an Amazon Associate1 I earn from qualifying purchases)

You are not only brave, but a Generous Adventurer whose love of Discovery, Imagination & Fun transcends our mere mortal coils . . .

🗡Buy me a Sword +1 (or ☕...)

. . . and for that, I thank you!

Do you love heroic fantasy gamebooks like me? Consider signing up to be informed when I launch my very 1st one!

FOLLOW ALONG!

(Featuring artwork from Clyde Caldwell & Luke Eidenschink!)

In the summer of 1981, fantasy and horror writer Karl Edward Wagner sat down with Dr. Jeffrey Elliot for a sprawling two-part interview published across the July and August issues of Fantasy Newsletter.

Wagner was already well known for creating Kane — his immortal, murderous, fiercely intelligent antihero who wandered a prehistoric world of sorcery, violence, horror, and moral ambiguity. But Wagner was far more than Kane. He was a physician who walked away from medicine to write full-time, an editor, publisher, collector, horror writer, Robert E. Howard scholar, and a fixture within the interconnected fantasy and horror circles of his era.

And he had opinions.

About Conan. Tolkien. Lovecraft. Sword & sorcery. Violence. Villains. Critics. Writing. Growing up. Not growing up. And why sometimes the bad guy is simply more interesting.

I tracked down and purchased the original 1981 issues of Fantasy Newsletter containing this interview because I wanted to bring that conversation back into the light.

But somewhere along the way, this became something considerably bigger.

What follows is the complete two-part interview, newly digitized and carefully proofed against the original pages — but I’ve also surrounded Wagner’s words with more than 80 images gathered from across his career: paperback covers, hardcover editions, horror collections, magazines, fanzines, foreign editions, rare appearances, photographs, and wildly different artists’ interpretations of Kane.

You’ll even find a remarkable portfolio of Kane illustrations created by a 21-year-old Jeff Easley in 1976, years before he became one of the defining artists of Dungeons & Dragons.

And after Wagner’s 1981 interview ends, we’re going to travel a little farther down the road — to excerpts from one of his final interviews, and finally to the remembrances published after his death in 1994.

So this isn’t simply an old interview converted into text.

It’s an attempt to reconstruct a little corner of Karl Edward Wagner’s world — the books, artwork, magazines, people, horror, sword & sorcery, and wonderfully strange creative ecosystem that surrounded him.

Adventurers...

It’s time to start Raising Kane.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

BEFORE WE RAISE KANE...

⚔️ ABOUT THIS REDISCOVERY

This edition was assembled from original 1981 copies of Fantasy Newsletter #38 and #39 that I tracked down and purchased for the Rediscovered Realms archive. I digitized the two-part interview, proofed the text against the original pages, and then went hunting.

The visual journey accompanying it was assembled from 80+ images gathered from the web: old magazines, fanzines, booksellers, auctions, foreign editions, and my own collection. Many required additional editing and restoration before I could work them into the interview.

The idea wasn’t simply to reproduce Wagner’s words. I wanted to put some of his world back around them.

All reproduced artwork, book and magazine covers, photographs, characters, titles, trademarks, and other copyrighted material remain the property of their respective creators and rights holders and are presented here for historical, editorial, and educational commentary. No ownership of third-party material is claimed.

A little background about Karl Edward Wagner before we get started.

From Wikipedia:

⚔️ WHO THE HELL IS KANE?

Imagine a fantasy protagonist with the cunning of a master sorcerer, the brutality of a barbarian warlord, and the ruthlessness of a villain who doesn’t particularly care whether you like him.

Now imagine that he cannot die of old age.

Meet Kane, Karl Edward Wagner’s immortal, red-haired, blue-eyed antihero — a wandering warrior, sorcerer, schemer, and occasional monster whose adventures unfold across a dark, prehistoric world of ancient civilizations, forbidden magic, and unspeakable horrors.

Inspired in part by the biblical Cain, Kane is cursed with immortality after rebelling against his creator. He has wandered the world for countless centuries, accumulating knowledge, power, enemies, and more than a few corpses along the way.

Unlike Conan, Kane isn’t necessarily someone you’re supposed to root for. And unlike the traditional fantasy hero, he doesn’t always save the day. Sometimes he’s the very thing everyone needs saving from.

Wagner deliberately created Kane to challenge the conventions of heroic fantasy, blending sword & sorcery with Gothic horror, psychological complexity, and moral ambiguity.

Think Conan meets Dracula, with a healthy dose of Machiavelli.

And as you’ll discover in the interview ahead, Wagner had some fascinating things to say about why he created such a character — and why the villain is often far more interesting than the hero.

THE ORIGINAL PAGES

Before we bring Wagner’s words into the digital age, here they are as they originally appeared across two issues of Fantasy Newsletter in the summer of 1981.

I photographed each page from my original copies so you can browse the interview in its original form — squinting your way through it old-school, without all those pesky images I’ve scattered throughout the restored version, if you prefer.

RAISING KANE: THE 1981 INTERVIEW

Originally published in Fantasy Newsletter #38 & #39

KARL EDWARD WAGNER — INTERVIEW

Dr. Jeffrey Elliot

Born December 12, 1945, in Knoxville, Tennessee, Karl Edward Wagner is the youngest of four children (one sister, two brothers). His parents, Aubrey Joseph Wagner and Dorothea Johanna (Huber) Wagner, were both graduates of the University of Wisconsin. A self-made man, his father moved to Knoxville in 1934 to work for the Tennessee Valley Authority; he retired as chairman of the board of directors of TVA in 1978.

Karl Wagner grew up in Knoxville, attending Central High School there. He went on to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, receiving his A.B. (cum laude) in history, and graduating Phi Beta Kappa.

In fall, 1967, Wagner moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. There, he attended the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, graduating from that institution in 1974 with his M.D. The following year, Wagner took his residency in psychiatry at the John Umstead hospital in Butner, North Carolina. While in medical school, he also participated in a Ph.D. program in neurobiology at the University of North Carolina.

Not currently practicing, Wagner makes his living as a full-time free-lance writer. He began writing for publication in 1960. His first sale, Darkness Weaves, was published in 1970 by Powell Publications. Since then, he has published numerous works, among them: Death Angel’s Shadow, Bloodstone, Dark Crusade, Night Winds, Legion from the Shadows, and The Road of Kings. Forthcoming volumes include: In the Wake of the Night, Queen of the Night, and In a Lonely Place.

In addition to the above, Wagner has edited the authorized Conan series for Berkley/Putnam: The Hour of the Dragon, The People of the Black Circle, and Red Nails. He is also the editor of The Year’s Best Horror Stories, an annual collection from DAW Books, beginning with Series VIII. The editor of Carcosa, a small press book publishing project, he is a regular columnist for Fantasy Newsletter. In addition to his American sales, his work has been published in Britain, Germany, and Italy, and he has had stories translated into French and Dutch as well.

A leading writer in the fantasy field, he is the recipient of numerous awards, chief of which are the British Fantasy Award (Best Short Story) in 1975 for his tale, “Sticks,” and again in 1976 for “Two Suns Setting.” In addition, he was awarded the World Fantasy Award (for Carcosa) in 1976 and The Phoenix Award in 1978.

Karl Edward Wagner and his wife, Barbara Ruth (Mott) Wagner, reside in Chapel Hill, where they share their home with their German shepherd, Kelly, and black cat, Shakespeare. When he is not writing, Wagner enjoys films, guns, cars, football, rock music, fishing, travel, and Jack Daniels Black Label.

Elliot: Why, after completing your residency in psychiatry, did you choose to pursue writing as a career as opposed to going into practice?

Wagner: It’s kind of a long story. I had always wanted to write full-time. I’d been trying, ever since I was a freshman in high school, to get stories published. I was realistic enough about it to understand that, in the first place, I might never get anything published, and, in the second place, if I did, it would be awfully hard to make a living at it.

So, I planned on going into medicine from high school days, too. I thought that it would be a lucrative career, and that it would furnish me with material for writing.

I kept writing all through college and into medical school. When I was a first-year medical student, I would cut labs and stay back in the dorm and work on Kane stories that I was trying to sell at the time. I was trying to sell Kane stories all through high school and college, too, but with no success.

About the time I finished my second year of medical school, I finally sold my first book, Darkness Weaves. The summer that Powell bought the book from me, I was living in a log cabin in the North Carolina mountains, working in a medical clinic. I thought, “Fine, I sold a book. That’s good. I might be able to write as a hobby or something.” Well, I then sold a second book during my third year of medical school (which is the worst year, as anyone who has been through medical school can tell you). Paperback Library bought Death Angel’s Shadow and expressed interest in another Kane book I was trying to complete at the time, Bloodstone. That was at the end of my third year of medical school, and I had lost patience with that scene.

This was 1969 to 1970—the height of student activism. I was into a lot of other ideas and things that my classmates weren’t into. The situation in medical school was incredibly repressive in terms of any kind of intellectual freedom. One of my classmates wore a black armband after the Kent State massacre, and was told he was going to have to take his surgery rotation over again—nine weeks of pure hell—just because he was demonstrating interest in something other than medicine. That was the way medical school was, and I just didn’t want any part of it. So I dropped out of medical school to finish Bloodstone.

I did a brief stint in a Ph.D. neurobiology program, and decided, “To hell with that, I don’t need to be a student. I can be a full-time writer.” I spent about eight months working full-time to complete Bloodstone. At that point, Warner bought what had then been Paperback Library from Coronet Communications. The editor remained the same, she had liked the Kane books, but the new owners decided that they would phase out their science fiction line because it wasn’t very profitable for them. I got a letter from my editor saying, “This is the saddest letter I ever hope to write. I am returning the manuscript for Bloodstone, unread. We are unable to buy it. I’m not even sure that we’ll ever publish Death Angel’s Shadow.” This was the spring of 1971. All of a sudden, my budding literary career just came crashing down on my head.

I spent about two years working on other books, trying to sell them to other publishers, with no success at all. Death Angel’s Shadow finally came out in the summer of 1973, and it sank like a stone, the same way Darkness Weaves had done three years previously. No one noticed it. Sales were terrible. After a couple of years of trying to make it as a writer, with my parents being very patient and supporting me, I decided that it was time to realize that it wasn’t going to work; that I would go back to medical school, and grow up and earn a living. So I went back to medical school, figuring that my literary career was all washed up.

Instead, Death Angel’s Shadow evidently did well enough that Warner Books finally decided to spring for Bloodstone. Bloodstone, due to some fortuitous circumstance, was graced with a Frank Frazetta cover. Because it had a Frazetta cover, it sold very well, and Warner decided that they wanted some more Kane books. Meanwhile, I had obtained an agent, and he had arranged for me to do some Bran Mak Morn pastiches for Zebra Books. By now, I had graduated from medical school, was in the middle of a residency in psychiatry, and had sold two books that I hadn’t even written yet. Even psychiatry, despite what other M.D.s will say, is too demanding a profession to allow you to have the concentration you need for writing, and certainly for writing novels. I had to make a choice then whether to drop my practice, write full-time, or else tell my agent, “Well, I guess I’m just not going to have time to do these books. I’m sorry.”

This was one of those times, I felt, when I had to lay aside the small securities and do what I wanted with my life, instead. Otherwise, I could see myself twenty years down the road; a nice, prosperous psychiatrist somewhere, sitting around at a cocktail party, listening to someone mentioning that so-and-so had just sold a book, and then saying to someone, “Oh, yes, I once could have made it as a writer,” and he would smile politely and wonder when this silly old fart was going to shut up.

I knew that I had an M.D., and that I could always be a psychiatrist. If there were publishers around, I thought, who really wanted to buy my stuff, I had better strike while they were still crazy! So I quit medicine and started writing full-time. I’ve been doing that for three years now, and I haven’t regretted that decision for a minute.

Elliot: What are the major psychological rewards you derive from writing?

Wagner: Probably the most obvious one, I think, is the boost to your ego, whether it’s realized on the conscious level or not. To begin with, a person has to have a fairly powerful ego to think that anything he writes down is worth someone else’s attention to read. If you think you’re creating something that’s worth other people’s attention, then when you finally do convince a publisher somewhere that people would like to see this, and the book is published and people are nice enough to buy it and say that it’s a pretty good book, you get a nice little glow inside.

On other levels, there’s something to be said for knowing that a story or a book you’ve written has impressed someone enough to give them a nightmare, or to make them want to write themselves, or just to send you a letter saying, “Boy, that sure was a good book. I read it in half an hour!” You feel like you’re doing something that’s worthwhile and that people appreciate it. That’s one of the things, I might add, that you don’t get in psychiatry. Psychiatry is the one medical specialty where your patients don’t thank you. There were too many manic-depressives who would say to me, when I was trying to get them to taper off their manic phase on lithium, “Doc, why do you want me to come down to your level?,” or schizophrenics who argued, “I’m perfectly happy the way I am. Why do you want me to think otherwise?” And I couldn’t really come up with a good answer to that, which is another reason that I decided to do something else for a while.

Elliot: Why did you choose to write fantasy, as opposed to some other form of literature?

Wagner: It was always my favorite stuff to read. That goes back to Grimm’s fairy tales and Norse myths, which were considered good reading for children since they didn’t contain sex and violence and horrible things like that.

As a kid, in addition to having been brought up on gruesome fairy tales, I was fond of horror comic books. This was in the early ‘50s, before the Comics Code Authority took all the violence out of comic books. They were always my favorite ones, probably because my parents wouldn’t let me buy them, and I had to read other people’s copies, or sit around the comic stand and read them until the manager would throw me out of the store.

There’s something about fantasy that appeals to most people. Maybe they outgrow it, or have it drummed out of them at a certain stage in their adult lives, but fantasy gives free rein to your imagination, and it also has the ability to frighten you. Everyone likes scary stories and ghost stories, especially kids. On a camping trip, you would sit around the fire and tell spooky stories. You can sit around as an adult and think back on the books you read as a kid. Most of them—the ones that were good stories for children about good little boys and good little girls and had happy endings—you’ve completely forgotten. You remember the stories that frightened you, the movie that you weren’t supposed to see that gave you a nightmare. Terror is a very profound emotion. Imagination is a talent that’s fun to employ. When you put the two of them together, you create an imaginative setting in which the reader can be thrilled or terrified.

Elliot: Did your formal academic training—which was fairly traditional—hinder your development as a writer?

Wagner: I’ve often wondered about that. I don’t think it really hurt me. There were times when I might have been writing or doing something more enjoyable instead of studying stuff that didn’t interest me. But then, anything that you do in life can be valuable to a writer. Look at someone like Theodore Sturgeon, for example, who held all sorts of different jobs early on. At one point, he operated a bulldozer, and later he wrote a story called “Killdozer,” which I think is one of the five or six best modern horror stories. If he had never operated a bulldozer, he probably wouldn’t have written that story.

To me, the atmosphere of modern medicine is stifling, and medical education is a dehumanizing experience. But then, I had come into medicine from a liberal arts background. In some fumbling way, I was trying to follow the Renaissance ideal of the man who can write prose with one hand and take out an appendix with the other. This, at one point, was the ideal—the well-rounded man. One of my history professors said very gruffly to me during graduation activities, “Well, here’s young Mr. Wagner, who’s going to go out and attempt to bridge the gap between the arts and sciences.” I’m not sure that I bridged any gap, but I certainly stumbled into the ditch midway between.

The medical background, the discipline itself, is useful. Most people don’t understand that being a writer doesn’t mean that you stay home all day and goof off. Writing is awfully hard work. Few things are more frightening than sitting down at a desk and looking at a big ream of blank typewriter paper, and realizing that you have to put words that make sense on every single page of that paper before your job will be done. There’s a lot of mechanical drudgery as well as intellectual effort that’s called for in writing. Any kind of good formal education will give you training and self-discipline. The difference is instead of writing a term paper for a professor, you’re writing a book for an editor somewhere. Even worse, once the editor takes it, you’re going to have tens of thousands of readers out there who are going to pass judgment on it. Of course, by the time that they decide they don’t like it, they’ve already bought the book, so you’ve gotten yours! It’s nice, however, to have them think that their $1.95 was well spent.

The only time I’ve tried to use my medical background for a story was in one called “The Fourth Seal,” in which I drew upon some lectures on epidemiology about the cyclical nature of the killer plagues that strike mankind. For dialogue and characters, I drew upon conversations that I had had with my colleagues during labs and after rounds, that sort of thing. This story, for all its factual medical background, was rejected by the first two editors who saw it. One of them said it was a pretty good story, but the ideas in it were just too far-fetched to be true. Another editor looked at the tale and commented that it was a pretty good story, but that the characters just didn’t ring true, and had I ever listened to a real maniac talk before. Stuart Schiff at Whispers, maybe because he was a dentist and had enough medical background to appreciate the true horror of the story, bought it. The lesson from this is that if I want to write stories about immortal warriors, werewolves, vampires, and sorcerers—I can get away with that. If I try a factual background, it’s too unbelievable for people to buy!

Elliot: Despite the difficulty in placing the story, do you find that your knowledge of psychology proves helpful when it comes to creating believable characters?

Wagner: I think it’s useful. A criticism that is frequently levelled against writers, especially in science fiction and fantasy, is that their characters are unbelievable because the writers themselves are shy, retiring types who don’t relate to the real world. You’ve got some writer trying to describe brawny barbarian soldiers sitting around a bar and getting drunk, and perhaps this writer is a person who doesn’t drink and would never go into a bar, and if he did, it would never be with rough types like that. Or you have people writing torrid love scenes who are Casper Milquetoast types.

In psychiatry, you see a lot of people’s minds spread out before you, like someone has broken open a television set for you to put back together. You see certain aspects exaggerated and thought processes that are really bizarre. When you see things in an exaggerated form, it makes them easier to understand when you see them in a more subtle form. When you sit in a room and talk with a paranoid-schizophrenic for an hour or so, you know how the thought processes of paranoia work within the brain. Paranoids are usually very well put-together people. They can be very rational within their fantasies, as opposed to most schizophrenics who have such complete disintegration of the personality that talking to them is like paging through a phone book or catalog at random and pulling out a sentence here and there. You can understand thought processes better by seeing them in bizarre, exaggerated forms. A physician understands the human body because he has learned how to heal it. A psychiatrist learns about the human mind as he attempts to heal it.

Elliot: What are the salient characteristics of a Karl Edward Wagner book? What qualities make it distinctive?

Wagner: The character of Kane makes those books distinctive and sets their tone. In the Kane books, there is no clear-cut good or evil, as opposed to Michael Moorcock’s Elric, with whom Kane is sometimes compared. However, Moorcock is very much obsessed with the forces of law versus chaos, order versus evil, light versus darkness. That’s a nice fantasy universe, but it certainly isn’t very realistic.

In the Kane books, there is no good or evil, other than in the eye of the beholder. Kane’s actions are often despicable, and other times they’re laudable, depending on your point of view. He’s certainly more of a demonic than a heroic figure. Actually, he’s not even the hero of the books. Usually, there’s another character in the book or story who’s sort of a reader-identification character, somewhat less inhuman than Kane. The demonic nature of Kane, I think, appeals to a lot of people. It’s something very much different.

When I created the character of Kane in high school, it was in part a reaction to a lot of things that I’d read that I didn’t particularly like. I’d read all the Burroughs stuff—the Martian books and the Tarzan novels. His characters, John Carter or Tarzan, are too Simon-pure. You can predict that if some person should save John Carter’s life, then John Carter is going to be his friend forever. Forty-two chapters later they’re going to meet in the arena and John Carter is going to refuse to kill the other guy and they’ll battle their way out of the arena and go on to rescue yet another princess.

Kane, on the other hand, in Bloodstone, has his life saved by a soldier, and then kills the man because there’s a chance that this person might interfere with Kane’s plans. Kane is an immortal, which makes his point of view and motivations entirely different from those of normal humans, or even those of normal villains. Still, the people that Kane is involved with are frequently despicable types. Kane, being very good at destruction, often manages to wipe out enough of the unsavory types to be considered a hero. But it’s not being done for the purpose of righting wrongs. It’s being done for Kane’s own purposes.

Perhaps Kane is a hero for the ‘60s or ‘70s, the way Conan was very much a pulp hero. Where Conan succeeds—and this is where Howard’s genius came through despite all the pulp taboos and editorial meddling—is that Conan was a very, very dangerous person. He is a barbarian, and he acts according to his own code of honor. Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, mistakenly considered Conan a chivalrous hero, and he rejected two of the Conan stories that had Conan trying to rape the female leads, instead of rescuing them. If I had tried to write about Kane in the ‘30s, I don’t think I could have gotten anyone to publish him. Certainly, not in the pulps. Possibly some hardcover publisher might have thought that Kane would make a good arch-fiend, like Fu Manchu, but I would have had to include a series hero to battle Kane all through the books.

There’s a change in popular taste, today. Take westerns, for example—the corny matinee movies compared to the modern western films. A lot of people say that heroic fantasy is the western of the science fiction/fantasy field—good guys in white hats, bad guys in black hats, with a shootout at the end. Everything’s swell, the farmer’s daughter is rescued, and the hero rides out of town, looking for new adventures. There are probably some fantasy writers who write like that. Kane is more like what Sam Peckinpah might have in mind. Kane is a brother of The Wild Bunch, as opposed to The Lone Ranger Rides Again.

Elliot: In the past, you’ve described your work as “acid Gothic.” Could you define the term? How is it reflected in your writing?

Wagner: It was probably more a bit of whimsy than anything else to call it that. John Mayer always liked that term. It may be appropriate. What I was trying to say is that it’s an attempt to write Gothic fiction in the sense of the Gothic trappings of dark atmosphere, heavy mood, supernatural happenings, but yet do it with modern approach and technique. I called it “acid” because, at the time, the inspiration of LSD and a few other things were starting to crystallize the images that I wanted to reproduce in my writing.

In the Gothic novel, there really isn’t a hero, certainly not in the modern sense of the hero in fiction. The hero-villain is the chief protagonist, and while he’s portrayed as a person who is admirable for his heroic qualities (that’s heroic in the grand scale sense, not the dime novel sense), on the other hand, he’s an evil person, in the sense of Christian morality, at any rate, Kane is that sort of character.

I was interested in the Gothic novel. I liked them because they were excellent horror novels, and they were written in a sort of imaginary medieval world setting. I see myself more as a writer of horror stories than I do as a heroic fantasy writer. What I wanted to do with Kane was to write Gothic horror stories.

It seems today that in order to be known as a horror writer, you must always set your stories in small New England towns, or California towns, or New York City. You have your typical American family enmeshed in strange, shadowy horrors, nightmares, witchcraft, and stuff. That’s been done well and poorly, but it’s certainly been done enough.

In Death Angel’s Shadow, I used Gothic vampires and werewolves in an epic fantasy story. At the time, I thought it hadn’t been done. As it turned out, it had been done in the 19th century by Greenough and later by Crockett, but I didn’t know that until years later. Instead of writing a werewolf story that was set in Los Angeles, I wrote a werewolf story in a heroic fantasy milieu with Gothic trappings. So “acid Gothic” was an attempt to merge different genres, different motifs, different concepts, into a synthesis that hadn’t been done before, using modern writing ideas and experimental techniques.

Elliot: In what ways have your experiences with LSD and other mind-altering drugs proven artistically enlarging?

Wagner: You don’t have to look further than Coleridge, for example, for the strong effect of opium on the imagination. Writers are frequently trying mind-altering experiences. One age, it’s opium, another age, it’s absinthe. Hashish was very big at one point. Marijuana was the clandestine drug of the “lost generation.” At one point, bootleg hooch was big. In the ‘60s, LSD dominated the scene, and had advantages over a lot of the others.

I think the main thing that it did was that it tended to alter your perceptions. You aren’t opening the doors of perception, but you’re altering perception so that you’re seeing reality from a different point of view. It’s getting the different perspective, the different view, that enhances your understanding of significances and relationships.

It’s like the old story about the blind men trying to describe the elephant, each one hanging onto a different portion of its anatomy, and saying, “An elephant is like a snake,” “An elephant is like a wall,” “An elephant is like a tree...” With mind-expanding drugs, after you’ve been hanging onto the elephant’s foot, you go apart from yourself and see the whole elephant.

A lot of writers—Lovecraft is an example—have said they’ve gotten visions in dreams that they’ve later used for stories. You don’t dream a novel or trip a novel, but you maybe get an inspiration. In a story that I did, “The Dark Muse,” the opening passage was an acid trip. The final chapter of Dark Crusade, “In the Lair of Yslsl,” is a collection of all the bad trips that I could think of at the time. That’s the acid coming into the Gothic. If I had been writing during Prohibition, my nightmarish happenings in some of the Kane books might have been due to hangovers from bathtub gin.

Elliot: Does your fiction contain a personal message? Do you write with that objective in mind?

Wagner: Yes. I try not to make it as horribly obtrusive as a “message,” but there are little bits that people can pick up on. Kane is written to be enjoyed on multiple levels. Some people will pick up a Kane book for a good, quick action read. Other people will want to look a bit deeper and find other things, whether it’s an in-joke, a head-game, or some of my own philosophy of life. The anti-war motif is recurrent in the Kane books, which makes the gratuitous violence charge an interesting criticism.

Dark Crusade, which is probably the most intricate of the books, includes an epigraph from William Blake’s London. “And the hapless Soldier’s sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls.” Dark Crusade is about that: ordinary people who are caught up in the cogs of society, of a social movement, which they have no control over. You must either conform or die. If you do conform, you’re destroyed by becoming one of the soulless members of a mass society. What is the means to power. Those who hold the power reap its rewards; those who win that power for them earn only slavery and death.

Kane’s ally and eventual chief antagonist in Dark Crusade, Orted Ak-Ceddi, was based on Billy Graham and Richard Nixon—a religious zealot with mass political power and no scruples about increasing his power. (The Vietnam War and Watergate were all too real when I was writing Dark Crusade.) After the final battle, Orted escapes, the leader who has brought about the slaughter of millions of people. Some fans speculated from this that I must be planning on writing a sequel. Well, I wasn’t. On the contrary, Death Angel’s Shadow, published three years earlier, mentions in the first story that Kane eventually caught up with Orted and killed him. Kane did this for his own purposes, though—he had been double-crossed and wanted revenge. He wasn’t trying to right wrongs. The point I was making by having Orted escape is that the leaders are never punished. In war, the leaders never go out and die, the generals stay at their desks, the politicians stay in the State House, but they keep sending the soldiers out to die for the causes that they believe in. At the end of the war, the generals shake hands and go out to plot other wars. The politicians are re-elected, or else go off to San Clemente and live off the taxpayers. In war, it’s the soldiers who suffer and the civilians who suffer, while the leaders who start the wars reap the profits and share none of the risks.

Elliot: In Night Winds, one of your stories contains the line: “Security equals boredom equals stagnation equals death.” Is this also part of your own personal philosophy?

Wagner: Yes, that’s a bit of my philosophy. Also, it’s a part of the underlying philosophy of the Kane series. In a settled existence, nothing changes, and, if it can’t change, it eventually deteriorates. A society or civilization can exist for only so long, then it has to undergo so severe a transformation that it results in the disruption of that society in order to move onto another level.

Kane is a motive force. He may be destructive, but wherever he goes, things have changed when he’s gone. He’s like a comet or a glacier. No matter how well entrenched the status quo, once Kane becomes involved, there’ll be some changes made.

It’s a philosophy that might have grown out of the late ‘60s, when there was a tremendous feeling of individual helplessness in the face of society. The Vietnam War was kind of the culmination of that—being sent off by a society you detested to defend that society for a cause that was against your principles (and immoral even according to the principles of that society), and being powerless to do anything because you were only an individual against an entire society. You had a feeling that this was going to go on and on, and that the only way you were going to stop it was to tear it all down. There’s still a feeling of desperation—that when a situation is intolerable, it must be changed, and if violence will change it, so be it.

Elliot: You’ve said that the “raw material” for your books comes “mostly from a mood...rather than an idea.” What did you mean by that statement?

Wagner: There are various approaches to writing a story. One is to write “idea stories”—get an idea for a story, plot it out, write it down. On the other hand, I usually write to create a certain mood—often as a response to having experienced that mood. An example would be “Mirage,” a vampire story in Death Angel’s Shadow. The inspiration came while doing acid and listening to an album by one of the early psychedelic rock groups, Ultimate Spinach. “Sing a Last Song of Valdese,” one of the stories in Night Winds, grew out of a mood I experienced in the North Carolina mountains. Obray Ramsey was playing some mountain ballads on his banjo, and I was probably crocked on White Lightning at the time. While he was singing, I suddenly got this flash—an eerie feeling of the dark mountains and the loneliness of lost love. Rather than simply tell a story, I’m trying to re-create a mood or an emotion. I’m more interested in atmosphere than action, both in what I read and what I write. If a story achieves the moment that I want, then I’m satisfied.

There are some people who will argue that a sword and sorcery story always has to have some mighty warrior in the center stage, brainlessly hacking and chewing all about him at all times. Well, Kane’s not that type of character, and I’m not that type of writer. I try to write the sort of stories that would interest me if I was reading them, and, if I’m lucky, maybe someone else will find the stories of interest, too.

Elliot: In the past, you’ve taken umbrage with the term “sword and sorcery.” Why?

Wagner: It’s simply labelling the genre with the cliches that too many people see as being heroic fantasy’s hackneyed limits. You might as well call it “blood and thunder,” or “thud and blunder,” even. It’s like calling all mystery stories “whodunits” or “cops and robbers,” or calling all westerns “horse opera,” or calling all science fiction “space opera.” To condemn an entire genre for the cliches of one trivial aspect of it, I find very irritating. I know a lot of science fiction fans and writers hate the term “sci fi.”

“Sword and sorcery” conjures an image of yarns about girls in brass bras who are in constant danger of losing them, and mighty warriors with eighteen-foot-long swords killing wizards and monsters faster than thought. A sword fight every other page, kill a monster every other chapter, and rescue a girl at the end—there’s your sword and sorcery yarn.

Science fiction has gone a long, long ways past the old days of space pirates and bug-eyed monsters, even though the most successful things in science fiction lately have been space opera—Star Wars, for example. Science fiction itself, as a genre, has become far more literary, far more innovative than standard space opera fare.

There’s also a lot more to epic fantasy or heroic fantasy than sword and sorcery. Would you call Tolkien’s work “sword and sorcery?” You could do that. You’d have to change the titles to something like “Frodo and the Magic Ring.” Covers and blurbs are never very descriptive, and they’re almost always misleading. Imagine something like “Frodo the Invincible,” with mighty-thewed Frodo on the cover, wearing a loin cloth, holding a gigantic sword, with a couple of partially-clad girls clinging to his hairy toes. “In the tradition of Robert E. Howard: Frodo the Barbarian!”

Cover for Karl Edward Wagner’s unpublished sequel to Legion from the Shadows, Queen of the Night

Image from blackgate.com’s excellent series, “The Dark Fantasy of Karl Edward Wagner”

Elliot: Which sword and sorcery cliches do you most try to avoid? Which ones do you find the most objectionable?

Wagner: In the Kane stories, I have frequently and deliberately set up a situation for a cliche, and then have violated the cliche. There’s the one I mentioned in Bloodstone, where the soldier saves Kane’s life, and then, a few pages later, Kane runs a spear through his back. Kane was grateful for having his life saved, but he didn’t want the guy to get in the way of something else.

The best example is “Undertow,” another story in the Night Winds collection, where your typical sword and sorcery barbarian comes to town and confronts Kane. Kane is playing the role of an evil sorcerer, in what would be a standard sword and sorcery plot. I gave the barbarian hero a name I thought summed up all of the cliched names—”Dragar.” About two years after I wrote the story, Dell Comics brought out a sword and sorcery comic book with a character named “Dagar” in it, so I must have been on the right track.

The hero in “Undertow” is a big, blond, fearless barbarian who comes into town and falls in love with a beautiful girl who is the captive of the evil sorcerer who has the entire town at his mercy. The barbarian has a magic sword and all the standard trappings. The difference is that the evil sorcerer he is up against is Kane, and not all is what it seems to be, including the girl that he falls in love with. The structure of “Undertow,” going back to mood stories, was based on Last Year at Marienbad, a French film that I saw and admired because it distorted linear time. The scenes are out of sequence, and are frequently repeated from another character’s view of reality. In fact, the film was so disjointed that, when I originally saw it, they ran a couple of the reels out of sequence. No one noticed it at the time. “Undertow” is structured so that objective realities take precedence over linear time, creating a disjointed sequence of events, like the ebb and flow of a nightmare.

Jeff Easley’s Early Homage to Kane

I bought a copy of this last year and was looking forward to featuring at some point, but Dan from Conan Chronology beat me to it!

He kindly digitized Easley’s Kane illustrations from this 1976 premier issue of Chacal magazine.

You can check out Dan’s article here, along with his barbarously badass blog!

Jeff Easley was only 21 years old at the time and still in college at Murray State University! This was 6 years before he began working at TSR.

Karl Edward Wagner Interview — Part II

This interview began in the July issue of Fantasy Newsletter. Portrait at right by John F. Mayer, courtesy of Karl Edward Wagner.

Elliot: In one interview, you stated that, as a young reader, you often identified more with the villain in a story than with the hero. What is the psychological appeal of such characters?

Wagner: Anyone who analyzed that would probably say it was childhood rebellion, adolescent rebellion, an identification with the aggressor. Especially for young people, it’s common that they identify with the villain of the story. Without going into analytic detail, I always liked the villains because they were the ones who were usually doing something interesting in the story, who literally got the plot going. The villains were kind of heroic figures to me.

Captain Nemo, in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, was one of my favorites. The movie must have come out around the time I was pushing ten or eleven. I really identified with Captain Nemo. Here’s this guy who has lost his wife and family to some unspecified foreign power, but instead of being down in the dumps about it and deciding to join the monastery, he’s made himself an atomic submarine, and is cruising around having swell adventures, sinking his enemies’ ships right and left.

Then there was Peter Pan, the immortal bad boy. As a kid, I could identify with that. Peter Pan doesn’t have to go to school, doesn’t have to grow up. He can stay up all night if he wants to. He lives in Never-Never Land, fights pirates and consorts with mermaids and battles Indians, instead of having to get up in the morning and brush his teeth and go to school.

I can’t say whether everybody has this feeling of empathy with the villain or not; I know that a lot of people do. People will say to me, “I’m not really sure if I like Kane, but he certainly is fascinating.” Well, I hope he is fascinating, but I’m not really asking people to like him, like falling in love with Mark Hamill in Star Wars.

The villain, at least to me, is the most interesting character. In fact, Kane was my attempt to combine things that I liked in various villains. Other writers do it by combining things they like in various heroes. That could be what Ian Fleming did with James Bond. On the other hand the main strength of the James Bond books, and the movies, too, has been the villains.

As a rule, the villain is someone who is extremely intelligent—an expert criminal, an arch-fiend, a master genius—and who is somewhat weak, usually an old man. Fu Manchu, for example, is one of my favorite villains. He always had to have henchmen do his dirty work, though. He could never really wade in there where the blood was thickest, and dispatch people with blows right and left. Sometimes, the villains are the big, dumb brutal ones—the Lee Marvin types. These are the heavies who have physical power, but no brains. And then there are the nice, little, suave, nasty villains, like Peter Lorre or Charles Laughton, for example, who can invite their victims to dinner, sit there drinking fine wines and quoting choice bits of poetry, and planning on vivisecting them within the next fifteen minutes before the soup is served.

Kane is a sort of combination of all of these. He’s a master genius, who also is powerful enough to handle his end of the fight and then some—and then, along with the intellectualism, has a psychotic streak in him, kind of a combination of Fu Manchu and Dracula and Billy the Kid, with maybe a touch of the giant from “Jack, the Giant Killer.”

I do see evidence that people tend to be more fascinated with the villain than the hero. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the U.S. who hasn’t heard of Dracula. But if you ask the man in the street who Jonathan Harker is, virtually no one would know. You remember the arch-fiends, but the poor, beleaguered heroes who spend the whole novel trying to undo what the villain is doing, you can’t even recall their names.

Elliot: What makes Kane such a memorable character? Why is he so popular with readers?

Wagner: Any series character is going to get a following. Collectors tend to be obsessive-compulsives who want the “entire set.” Darkness Weaves, when it came out from Powell in 1970, languished on a few porno stands and disappeared. Then, when Kane caught on and people began finding out that there was an earlier Kane book that no one had read, I had dealers tell me they had waiting lists of maybe twenty-five customers wanting that book.

Maybe Kane inspires a fanatical following, because he’s a different series character. A lot of people identify with a character who is a rebel and gets away with it. Kane is a character for the modern age, a unique character, not a pseudo-Frodo or a pseudo-Conan. Kane knows that he has been damned by his god. He’s not about to turn to religion and try to beg forgiveness. Next time God sees him coming, God better run.

Elliot: How do you view those critics who fault the Kane series for excessive violence? How legitimate is that charge?

Wagner: “Gratuitous violence,” I think, is the term that has been used in association with Kane. I maintain that it’s not gratuitous—it’s essential to the story.

The Kane books are certainly very violent, and if violence isn’t your thing, read about Hobbits. I do, however, feel that Kane is a realistic portrayal of violence. There are a lot of different types of epic fantasy, which is one of the reasons I hate the term “sword and sorcery.” If you like fairyland fantasy with beautiful princesses and enchanted castles and dashing young minstrels and cute fairies and elves, that’s one sub-genre of epic fantasy, and you’re welcome to it. On the other hand, if you read a Kane book and are appalled because people are fighting with

edged weapons and getting cut, don’t call it “gratuitous violence.” Simply say that it’s not your thing, and if you don’t want to read it, go read another fairyland fantasy book, instead.

Sam Peckinpah again becomes an irresistible analogy. He’s been criticized for “gratuitous violence,” because in The Wild Bunch, when people are being shot with .45s and shotguns, there’s a splash of blood and the person is knocked head over heels. But this is what really happens when you get hit at close range with a load of double-ought buck, as opposed to the old westerns where somebody gets shot by a .45 at point-blank range, clutches his chest and says, “Oh, you got me!,” and slowly crumbles to the floor.

Some fans think that armed warriors, swinging swords at one another, can fight a battle without anybody being hurt. You cut your finger peeling a potato, and it hurts. Imagine that you’ve just been slashed with a six-foot long sword, and it’s your entrails that you’re looking at. People start swinging edged weapons, and things have a way of being cut off and cut open, and people bleed a lot when they’re taken apart. Combat is violent, and that’s the reality of it.

Dark Crusade probably drew the most fire for “gratuitous violence.” The book itself was inspired by the wars of religion in Europe. Over the period of centuries, civilized people destroyed towns, laid waste to other countries, killed and tortured millions—all in the name of religion. Was the violence in Dark Crusade an unrealistic portrayal of religious war? If you think so, talk to the Huguenots after the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Ask them if violence was a realistic mode of expression in religious argument. You need only go back to World War II, when, if you were Jewish, into the oven you went. Reality was the nightmarish absurdity of six million people being killed because of their ancestry. If you write a novel about World War II, should you be accused of “gratuitous violence” because you mention the Holocaust? Or because you mention that a flamethrower cooks people alive when it hits them? This is violence, certainly, but it’s realistic. If this sort of realism offends you, watch The Waltons. Take fantasy instead of reality.

Elliot: How would you respond to the charge, made by some critics, that Kane hasn’t caught up with the women’s movement—that women are treated in the series as subservient to men?

Wagner: Any critic saying that has definitely never read any of my work. That’s a criticism that you could level at Howard, but then Howard was writing for the pulp audience of the ‘30s, when pulp heroines were, by editorial decree, no more than beautiful things to be rescued.

As a matter of fact, some of my friends who are active in women’s lib, including friends who are militant lesbians, have rather liked the women in the Kane series because they weren’t the standard “Conan, oh, save me, save me!” types. For example, the character, Teres, in Bloodstone, is certainly a liberated woman. Teres is a woman who is very much in charge of things; she certainly leads her own life and is not subservient to anyone. I think that you could say that Teres is the first liberated woman to appear in an epic fantasy novel—and by that I don’t mean she’s simply Conan in drag. The female lead in Dark Crusade is, again, a person who does not follow the standard fantasy cliches. Kane doesn’t go about rescuing women, which is a standard plot in sword and sorcery stories.

However, because some critics label a book as “sword and sorcery,” they automatically assume they already know what it’s going to be about. And they never read the damned book, because they don’t like sword and sorcery. Critics are the first to judge a book by its cover and look no further. I read an astonishing review of Bloodstone where the reviewer was not at all familiar with the character or any earlier books, and started writing the review as a diatribe against pseudo-Conan trash. About half way through the review, he evidently started to read the book. He completely changed his opinion of the book and the character, but he didn’t have the afterthought to go back and correct the misinformation he was ladling out with invective in the first half of the review, before he ever read the book and found out that Bloodstone was not another “Bongo the Barbarian Rescues the Princess” novel.

The women in Kane are very independent characters. Kane is not a romantic lead, nor do the Kane books follow the old formula of boy-meets-girl and so on. I don’t think there’s any way someone could read a Kane book and say that the women are the helpless-girl stereotypes. A criticism might be made that the women in the Kane stories are frequently amoral, calculating, and quite ruthless, but not that they are simpering girls in diaphanous gowns.

Elliot: In an interview, a few years back, you stated: “Ten years from now, I may grow up and find I want to do something significant for society other than write this escapist, juvenile fare.” Is this how you really feel about what you’re writing?

Wagner: No. I was being sarcastic with that comment. When you go into free-lance writing after already having set up a nice medical career, you have a feeling that, “Gosh, I’m having a good time. There must be something bad about this.” Some people that would bother. It doesn’t bother me. It’s sort of like being on an endless summer vacation, and you keep thinking that eventually it will be the end of August and you’ll have to go back to school or have to start earning a living or something. It’s the old view that you shouldn’t enjoy what you’re doing. Working for a living is supposed to be drudgery, something you hate. Very rarely do you find people who are doing what they want to in life, and who are making a living doing it. Right now, I am. My opinions or attitudes may change, and I may someday be sitting behind a desk in a three-piece gray suit and a narrow tie, advising my young patients that they ought to make something out of themselves in life and not to give rein to their day-dream fantasies. Right now, I doubt it. At the beginning of Peter Pan, Barrie writes that “all children but one grow up.” I’m like Peter Pan. I may be the one who has never grown up.

Elliot: How do you select the names for your characters? Where do they originate?

Wagner: Generally, they’re imaginative. There are a number of approaches you can take on names. One of the things that Howard did in the Conan series was to give the characters semi-mythical names, for the most part. He said that the names would sound familiar because we still had vague memories of this earlier age. That’s why some of his characters have Latin names, some have Spanish names, some have Italian names, and some of the place names are almost real place names—instead of India, you have Vendhya. I find this irritating. It’s the sort of thing a kid does—garbled borrowings from stories and movies without any real awareness as to what’s appropriate.

Another approach is what Tolkien did, where you’re almost creating your own language, but using a really well-researched, scholarly basis in Celtic myth and Celtic languages. It comes across authentic as all hell, although you may need a glossary.

Still, another approach is to try to create names that do not have an immediate identification with a classical or medieval European milieu, which is what I usually try to do. One of the cliches of “sword and sorcery” is that you usually have a pseudo-Arabian Nights setting, or a pseudo-Classical setting, or maybe a pseudo-Nordic setting. The Kane stories are set on different continents in an age before history begins. It wouldn’t make sense for the names to sound like something out of Bullfinch’s Mythology.

Elliot: As you view it, what part of being a fantasy writer is learned, and what part is innate?

Wagner: It would certainly vary with each writer. I’m one who believes very firmly that you have to have the ability to write within you, or else all the creative writing classes you take and the authors whom you study will avail you nothing. It’s a lot like being an artist. You can take art history courses, study the works of the masters, and speak about art in the most expert manner, but you still couldn’t create a memorable painting. You have to have something in you, some ability to tell a story, to communicate ideas, to take what is in your head and put it on paper in recognizable fashion so that the reader will be able to recreate in his imagination what you were saying. You’ve got to have that talent, or else taking creative writing classes and studying Russian authors won’t help you.

I was a History major as an undergraduate, then attended medical school for my professional training. The only creative writing courses I’ve attended were a couple that I’d been asked to sit in on and explain what it is to be a “writer.” Maybe if you read my stuff, you’ll say, “Obviously, he’s never had a creative writing class.” On the other hand, you do have to have a certain amount of technical skill. Otherwise, all you may do is come up with some great idea, but never be able to communicate it because you lack the technical skills required to write prose fiction.

Technique is something that you’ll pick up, though, if you’ve got both the talent that it takes to write and the drive, the determination, or killer instinct, whatever it takes to keep working at it until you get it right. For myself, I picked up technique by reading a lot of other writers whose work I enjoyed. I’d find myself reading things I disliked, and wondering, “Why didn’t I like that?” When I read things I liked, I thought, “Is this an effect I can duplicate? Is this an effect I can use in my own writing?”

Early on, a lot of fantasy fans read Lovecraft. They think, “Boy, Lovecraft is great.” So they sit down and start writing stories, using four or five adjectives for each noun, and manage to say “eldritch,” “blasphemous,” and “squamous” at least three times in each paragraph. They are trying to duplicate the more glaring aspects of Lovecraft’s prose technique, but that’s not really what’s good in Lovecraft. I’m fond of him, although I admit that he’s a terrible stylist. To my mind, what’s impressive about Lovecraft is his profound cosmic negativism: the idea that mankind is confronted by horrors that are completely beyond his comprehension, forces against which he is powerless, and when he begins to realize these horrors exist, they inevitably destroy him.

Elliot: Speaking of technique, how conscious of technique are you as you write? Is experimentation an important objective?

Wagner: I’m very conscious of technique, and very interested in experimenting with it. With the stories in Night Winds, for example, each one is an experiment in technique or theme. In “Undertow,” time is out of sequence. I did that to create a deliberate nightmarish effect in the story. Robert W. Chambers is said to have created deliberate barriers to final comprehension—rather like an artist who chooses to draw a formless, nebulous horror instead of, say, a carefully delineated werewolf. There are times when you want to do one, and times when you want to do the other. If all of your horrors are vague and formless, your readers will decide that you don’t really know what’s happening yourself. In “Sing a Last Song of Valdese,” Kane is off-stage, but is central to the story. He is incognito, seated among a group of travelers who are discussing Kane as a legend, and his identity and presence are essential to the denouement.

One reason that I like to write epic fantasy is that there is a lot of room for experimentation in the genre. It has the potential to be the most imaginative genre of any of them. In epic fantasy, you can create your own universe, and you can make your own rules—just so long as the result is convincing. It makes me mad when some critics dismiss the genre as simple-minded fare, “thud-and-blunder” stories for nine-year-olds. Some books may be that way, but you still have many other writers—Le Guin, Zelazny, Vance, Peake, to name just a few—who are not writing that sort of epic fantasy. You can’t judge a genre by considering only the worst examples of it. If you do, you’re a far bigger fool than the writers you’re sneering at.

Elliot: How would you describe your audience? Do you write with a particular reader in mind?

Wagner: Actually, I write with myself in mind, and I hope that if it’s a successful story, it will appeal to enough readers to be worth their attention as well. Usually in a story, I’m trying to achieve a certain effect. I’m writing something that interests me. I don’t start by thinking, “Well, let’s see, the average reader of a sword and sorcery story is a thirteen-year-old with forty-seven pimples and vocabulary of a six-year-old. Therefore, this story should be keyed to a grade-school detention hall audience.”

The Kane stories are written on multiple levels. I hope the reader can pick up the book and you bog down the action in the fights.” They prefer a story where a bunch of men get their swords and armor, jump on their horses and ride out and fight, and, by the end read it through without being bored. For many fans, it’s enough that there’s plenty of action, a couple of plot twists, and it’s a good read. But there are other fans who have gone through and reread these books half a dozen times or so, picking up new little head trips each time. There’s a lot of in-joke stuff in the Kane stories. For example, chapter titles are frequently taken from songs or from other book titles, and worked in for readers to boggle over. If you want to find deeper symbolism or hidden meaning, you can play that game, too. There are people who read deep symbolism into stuff, sometimes even when the author claims there was no symbolism intended.

The Kane books are intended for sophisticated audiences. I’m hoping for a bit more than the standard “Give me a sword fight on every other page and kill a monster each chapter” type of audience. I’ve had military buffs who have read Dark Crusade tell me that the cavalry techniques are very convincingly portrayed. I spent about six months researching heavy cavalry, the pre-firearms period. On the other hand, I’ve had fans say, “You spend so much time on detail, of the day, only the good guys are left standing. If I don’t like what I’m doing, it doesn’t get written. That’s one reason why I’m such a notoriously slow writer. If it’s a successful book, it’s the way I wanted it to be.

Elliot: How concerned are you with impact? How would you like to affect your reader?

Wagner: I think that any writer would like to have his work be remembered. This goes back to the basic egotism of a writer. It’s nice to think that what you have to say is so good that somebody wants to read it. It’s even nicer to think that people may want to read it for years to come.

I think that Kane has already made an impact on the genre. The character is recognized as an original one, the books are considered innovative. As proof that Kane has arrived, I now have imitators. Whether or not my books are still in print twenty years from now, I think there will be hardcore fantasy fans who will remember Kane and will still have battered copies of the books around on their shelves.

Elliot: Do you have to be in a particular mood to write? For example, do you have to feel gloomy in order to write something downbeat?

Wagner: There’s a temptation to assume that writers must always think or look the way they write. For example, if you were to meet Robert Bloch, you’d be expecting some gloomy, cadaverous character, probably with a nervous twitch and all the sense of humor of a mortician. Instead, you’d find a very pleasant, enormously funny man. He’s extremely witty. In fact, he ought to have his own talk show on late-night television. Or take Gahan Wilson. You might expect someone about 3’4”, probably with tusks and a half-formed Siamese twin growing out of one shoulder. Again, he’s a very pleasant, humorous, polished gentleman.

Another temptation is to assume that a writer exorcises his own evil spirits in his writing in order to work out the gloom, the depression, the anger, the rebellion, or whatever else is bottled up inside of him. However, this isn’t necessarily so.

Writing demands enough attention to craftsmanship that you have to be in a fairly “up” mood in order to write. If you’re really depressed, you don’t want to sit around and obsess over comma splices or such. On the other hand, some of what I write does reflect moods or feelings that I’ve experienced at one point.

Probably the most depressed story that I wrote was “The Last Wolf,” which I completed on my twenty-fifth birthday. I had been trying to break into professional writing—I had broken in, and then I really hadn’t after all. My writing was being rejected right and left. I’d get lovely rejection slips from people like Fred Pohl, saying, “Well, this Kane story is certainly different for its type, and it’s quite good for its type, but we don’t publish this type of story.”

As a result, I wrote a story about the last writer on earth—literature having died out, not because of governmental intervention, as in Fahrenheit 451, but just because of popular apathy. Why read, when there’s television? The writer in “The Last Wolf” is making his last stand when nobody gives a damn any more. His agent tries unsuccessfully to get him to compromise and write some scripts for television, suggesting a new television situation comedy about a Vietnam POW camp, and another hit situation comedy about bomb-throwing hippies back in the ‘60s—all of this being nostalgia by then. If somebody had told me in 1957 that there would be a hit television situation comedy about funny hoods and the ‘50s scene, I would have hit them. At any rate, at the time, I was feeling like, “to hell with it.” I was really burned out, pissed off, and wrote this story kind of portraying that mood.

Elliot: Does writing come easily to you? Do words flow smoothly and effortlessly once you get started? Do you agonize over such things as word choice, syntax, etc.?

Wagner: I have a Roget’s Thesaurus, but I seldom use it. It’s on top of an old radio speaker, buried beneath my copy of Stone’s Glossary of Arms and Armor, several manuscripts, and a 1978 calendar, which shows how often I use it. I find that a dictionary is a far more useful tool to me. I’ve got a pretty fair vocabulary, and I can usually think of the word that I want, even though I might have to make sure how it is spelled or be sure I have the right shade of meaning. A dictionary is more useful for that. A thesaurus is what got Clark Ashton Smith into trouble. People talk about Smith’s rich vocabulary. What Smith actually was doing was dipping into a thesaurus and frequently using the wrong shade of meaning.

Clearly, word choice varies from writer to writer. Nobody writes the same way. I tend to compose in visual forms, and then try to reconstruct these images in prose with just the right word or phrase. Some people have said, after reading my work, that it was like being there, like watching a movie. I’m very much influenced by movies, and I try to reconstruct cinematic imagery in words rather than film.

Elliot: Finally, what were your reasons for establishing Carcosa? What satisfactions do you derive from publishing your own line of books?

Wagner: I was reading it, collecting it, and writing it, so I thought I might as well publish it. It started because I’m a collector of pulp magazines. I was aware of some excellent writers, very popular in their day, who had been unjustly forgotten because their work had not been reprinted since the pulp days.

On the other hand, the amateur presses were reprinting any scrap of scribblings by famous writers like Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, or Clark Ashton Smith. Or, if you wanted to buy a lavishly illustrated hardcover boxed edition of a book by a famous writer that was available in paperback anyway, you could do so. But if you wanted to read some of the best stories by less well known writers like Manly Wade Wellman, or E. Hoffmann Price, or Hugh B. Cave (to name the three writers that we’ve published so far), you’d better have an extensive collection of rare pulps, because otherwise you weren’t going to read them. Their stories had not been reprinted, the authors had been forgotten, and they probably weren’t going to be reprinted.

So, with the help of a couple of friends in Chapel Hill, I started Carcosa with the idea of bringing out big collections of the best stories by some of these other excellent writers of the pulp era. Being a collector, I thought it would be nice to bring out the kind of book that collectors dream of and publishers refuse to produce.

We wanted to produce hardcover editions with nothing spared in terms of materials and binding quality—lavishly illustrated by major artists—thick books that you could sit down and read over many evenings, as well as display proudly on your shelf. And, we wanted to bring out the book at the lowest possible price so that average fans could afford the thing. It seemed an impossible thing to bring off, but we did manage to do it.

Fans are enthusiastic about our books, and our authors have begun to receive the recognition they deserve. The thing I’m happiest about, though, is that all three writers whom we’ve published so far have become active again in the fantasy field, after having been out of it for a long time. Wellman recently has sold four fantasy novels to Doubleday. Price has just sold his third fantasy novel to Ballantine. Cave has sold new fantasy novels to Avon and Dell. They got recognition in their lifetime, which is important. I’m sure that Lovecraft and Howard would be very flattered to see all the fans they have now, but it’s too late for that.

— Karl Edward Wagner
& Jeffrey Elliot

I came into this edition knowing of Karl Edward Wagner more than actually knowing his work.

I haven’t read the Kane novels yet.

And perhaps that’s what made putting this together so interesting.

Over the course of tracking down these magazines, reading and transcribing this interview, hunting through decades of book covers and obscure publications, and watching one artist after another try to capture Kane on paper, I began assembling a picture of Wagner before ever properly entering his fictional world.

What emerged was considerably more interesting than simply “the guy who created Kane.”

Here was a physician who abandoned a respectable career because he’d rather write stories. A horror devotee. A collector. A publisher trying to rescue forgotten writers from obscurity. A man equally comfortable discussing Tolkien, Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Sam Peckinpah, Peter Pan, psychiatry, psychedelics, sword fights, pulp magazines, and why villains usually get all the good parts.

And behind it all was Kane.

The immortal wanderer Wagner deliberately created to be neither another Conan nor another Frodo — the villain, monster, hero, genius, killer, and rebel who simply refused to fit neatly into the fantasy archetypes around him.

Forty-five years after this interview appeared, I find myself wanting to know what happens when I finally open one of those battered old Kane paperbacks and meet him properly.

Which, I suppose, is exactly what discovery is supposed to do.

One passage near the end of the interview particularly stayed with me. Wagner talks about publishing forgotten pulp writers through Carcosa — writers whose stories had disappeared from print — and how much it meant to him that some received renewed recognition while they were still alive.

There’s something bittersweet about reading that today.

Karl Edward Wagner died in 1994, far too young, his own story having taken darker turns along the way. But the books remain. The artwork remains. The old magazines remain. And tucked away inside two issues of a fantasy newsletter from the summer of 1981, his voice remains too.

I’m glad we got to hear it again.

Until next time, Adventurers...

Keep the Adventure Going Strong!

💬Tavern Talk

❓Had you heard of Karl Edward Wagner or Kane before this edition? And if you’ve actually read Kane, where should a newcomer begin?

❓Wagner said, “The villain, at least to me, is the most interesting character.” Who’s a fantasy villain — or morally questionable antihero — you’ve found more interesting than the supposed hero?

❓Wagner hated the term “sword and sorcery,” arguing that it reduced an entire genre to its clichés. Do you embrace the term today, or do you think heroic fantasy, dark fantasy, or something else describes this corner of fantasy better?

❓Wagner believed fantasy could be far more ambitious than “thud-and-blunder” escapism. What fantasy book first convinced you that the genre could be something more than you expected?

Leave a comment

🧌 BRODRYK WANTS TO KNOW: WHY THE HELL CAN’T YOU BUY KANE?

Brodryk says: Naturally, after spending all this time with Karl Edward Wagner, I went looking for a Kane book to add to the Rediscovered Realms Shoppe.

By Crom.

Apparently, actually buying Kane these days requires completing a quest of its own.

Wagner’s Kane collections have drifted in and out of print over the decades, and many of the later editions are now collectibles themselves. Search for Gods in Darkness, Midnight Sun, or The Complete Kane and you may encounter asking prices ranging from hundreds of dollars into the thousands.

Brodryk checked beneath the counter.

Nope. No Kane.

He checked the storeroom.

Still no Kane.

He checked beneath the sleeping troll.

We will not be checking there again.

The good news is that at least one important piece of Wagner’s work has clawed its way back from the grave.

In a Lonely Place, Wagner’s acclaimed collection of horror stories, has been returned to print by Valancourt Books — and unlike Kane, acquiring a copy does not require selling your +3 vorpal sword, firstborn child, or undeveloped parcel of land you were planning to build your castle on.

And considering Wagner tells us in the interview above:

“I see myself more as a writer of horror stories than I do as a heroic fantasy writer.”

...this may actually be one of the better places to continue your own rediscovery of Karl Edward Wagner.

Brodryk approves. Mostly because he can actually stock the damned thing.

In A lonely Place on Amazon

And speaking of things lurking in the dark...

If Wagner’s Gothic horrors have put you in the mood for misty barrows, haunted fens, restless dead, and creatures prowling the old roads, our new dark fantasy folk album Tales of Adventure: Monsters in the Mist is waiting just beyond the firelight...

🎧 Sample the Mist

“Remember to check out the Rediscovered Realms Amazon Storefront for the most epic gift-giving ideas for those important adventurers in your life (including yourself 🗡)” - Brodryk (Shopkeep)

(As an Amazon Associate1 I earn from qualifying purchases)

You are not only brave, but a Generous Adventurer whose love of Discovery, Imagination & Fun transcends our mere mortal coils . . .

🗡Buy me a Sword +1 (or ☕...)

. . . and for that, I thank you!

Do you love heroic fantasy gamebooks like me? Consider signing up to be informed when I launch my very 1st one!

FOLLOW ALONG!

(Featuring artwork from Clyde Caldwell & Luke Eidenschink!)

October has arrived, Adventurers.

And around these parts, that means it’s time to let a few monsters out.

Gargoyles. Ghouls. Vampires. Zombies. Demons. Sorcerers. Things with claws. Things with fangs. Things that probably shouldn’t have names at all.

Fortunately, fantasy and horror artist Les Edwards has spent decades painting precisely the sort of creatures we’d rather encounter on a book cover than at the foot of the bed.

So dim the lights, lock the doors, and keep something pointy (and perhaps wooden) within reach.

I’ve descended into the darker corners of Edwards’ extraordinary body of work and returned with 50 monsters, monstrosities, and assorted things that go bump in the night.

Better still, I’ve included Les’ own recollections and commentary wherever possible, giving us a glimpse behind the paintings and into the stories of how they came to be.

Ready?

Good.

Something’s scratching at the crypt door...

This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

There is something wonderfully fun about fantasy when it gets a little ugly.

Not every enchanted forest needs to sparkle. Not every castle should be welcoming. And certainly not everything lurking beyond the torchlight needs to be beautiful.

Sometimes we need the gargoyles, ghouls, demons, vampires, shambling dead, and nameless things with entirely too many teeth.

For 50 years, Les Edwards has been giving those things form . . . and occasionally giving the rest of us good reason to leave the lights on.

And October seems like exactly the right time to acknowledge them.

Until next time, Monstrously-attuned Adventurers...

Keep the Adventure Going Strong!

💬Tavern Talk

❓Which Les Edwards creature would you LEAST like to encounter after dark?

❓Do you prefer your fantasy art wondrous... or wonderfully horrifying?

❓Which classic monster: vampire, werewolf, zombie, demon, ghost, etc. never gets old for you?

Leave a comment

THE MONSTERS ARE OUT... AND THE MIST IS SPREADING!

Well, Adventurers... apparently I’m not the only one who enjoys wandering into monster-infested territory!

My newly released dark fantasy folk album, Tales of Adventure: Monsters in the Mist, has already racked up over 2,000 plays on SoundCloud in less than a week!

That’s a whole lot of wandering souls venturing into the fog. And to everyone who’s already given it a listen and those who purchased the enhanced package on Gumroad — THANK YOU!

If today’s 50 monstrous masterpieces by Les Edwards have put you in the mood for more things that go bump in the night, I’ve got just the soundtrack for your next dark fantasy adventure.

13 tracks of banshees, kelpies, restless dead, phantom pipers, black hounds, and other creatures lurking along forgotten roads.

🎧 You can listen to the complete album on SoundCloud for a limited time, but if you’d like to own the adventure and support more original Rediscovered Realms creations, the downloadable edition on Gumroad includes all 13 tracks, a 17-page digital booklet with lyrics and stories, and high-resolution cover artwork — all for just $4.99.

The mist is calling, Adventurers. Will you answer?

👉 STEP INTO THE MIST — Listen to samples and Explore the Album

🦻Sample the Mist...

🎧 Already enjoying the album on SoundCloud? Next time you’re there, please give your favorite tracks a LIKE, leave a COMMENT, or SHARE them with a fellow adventurer. And most importantly, FOLLOW Rediscovered Realms on SoundCloud! Every bit helps more listeners discover the music and keeps the adventure going strong!

BRODRYK’S SHOPPE OF MONSTROUS DISTRACTIONS

“Bah! Fifty monsters and ye still want MORE? Fine. Brodryk has shelves for adventurers with questionable taste.”

Feeling inspired by all those ghouls, gargoyles, and things-that-should-not-be? Try conjuring a few of your own with Scared! How to Draw Fantastic Horror Comic Characters — the very book used to summon the Sea Hag from the blank page last October.

Or, if drawing your own monstrosities sounds suspiciously like work, grab some colored pencils and descend into the Fantasy Activity Books collection in the Rediscovered Realms Shoppe, where you’ll find Fighting Fantasy and other dark-fantasy coloring books waiting to be brought horribly, beautifully to life.

“Draw ’em. Color ’em. Just don’t blame Brodryk if one of ’em starts moving.”

✏️ CONJURE YOUR OWN MONSTERS
Scared! How to Draw Fantastic Horror Comic Characters

🖍️ COLOR SOMETHING MONSTROUS
Explore the Fantasy Activity Books Collection

“Remember to check out the Rediscovered Realms Amazon Storefront for the most epic gift-giving ideas for those important adventurers in your life (including yourself 🗡)” - Brodryk (Shopkeep)

(As an Amazon Associate1 I earn from qualifying purchases)

DARE TO DELVE DEEPER?

More dark & monstrous delights from Rediscovered Realms...

Rediscovering GrailQuest: The Forgotten Fantasy Gamebooks of 1984

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Monster Manual Home Security: 10 D&D Beasts I’d Want Guarding My House

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Breverton’s Phantasmagoria: A Compendium of Monsters, Myths and Legends

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Fantasy Art Workshop: Sea Hag

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An Eerie Irish Fireside Tale Rediscovered: FAR DARRIG IN DONEGAL (1888)

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Colorful Creatures Monstrous Portfolio by Jeff Butler

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Unearthing White Dwarf Magazine #16

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BattleCards: Scratch and Slay

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Fighting Fantasy Colouring Books!

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Fantasy Art Workshop: Cyclops

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Tales Unearthed: The Wizards Are Dying

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Lee MacLeod: Art, Ads & Avatars

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You are not only brave, but a Generous Adventurer whose love of Discovery, Imagination & Fun transcends our mere mortal coils . . .

🗡Buy me a Sword +1 (or ☕...)

. . . and for that, I thank you!

Do you love heroic fantasy gamebooks like me? Consider signing up to be informed when I launch my very 1st one!

FOLLOW ALONG!

(Featuring artwork from Clyde Caldwell & Luke Eidenschink!)

Rediscovered Realms is catching you up on some of the coolest fantasy news that just won’t fit in our regular weekly edition. Welcome to the October 2026 issue of The Phantasy Snitch!

Rediscovered Realms’ denizens . . . er, citizens can now enjoy a curated lite dose of worthy Fantasy-related news, products, and rumours from the RPG, fantasy book, movie, D&D, LOTR, mythology, board game, art & archaeology genres (and you now have extra time to immerse yourself within all our other beefier newsletters!)

This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

THE NEWS:

• 🌫️ “MONSTERS IN THE MIST” HAS ARRIVED!

  • Well, Adventurers... the mist has finally rolled in.

    ~~~

    I actually began this project over a year ago, before it stalled somewhere along the road and disappeared into the fog. But over the past several weeks, I’ve ventured back into the mist, picked up the trail, and today I can finally announce that Tales of Adventure: Monsters in the Mist is here!

    ~~~

    This new Rediscovered Realms album is a journey into the darker corners of old-world fantasy: mist-shrouded barrows, haunted fens, forgotten hills, moonlit roads, and the creatures that still wander them.

    ~~~

    Across 13 tracks, you’ll encounter kelpies calling from black water, a banshee’s wail, satyrs dancing deep into the night, a sorrowful wight guarding forgotten bones, a phantom piper, the relentless Black Hound, dancing skeletons, the mysterious Widow of Hollow Hill... and other things perhaps better left unnamed until you meet them yourself.

    ~~~

    Musically, I wanted this one to feel like dark fantasy folk from an older world — fiddle, pipes, acoustic strings, drums, haunting voices, crooked melodies, and the sort of songs you might hear by the fireside in a lonely tavern after someone has barred the door for the night.

    ~~~

    And just in time for October.

    ~~~

    Ready to enter the mist?

    Visit the official Monsters in the Mist page to hear samples from all 13 tracks, learn more about the album, listen on SoundCloud, or download your own enhanced copy from Gumroad.

    ~~~

    Just remember: once you step off the old road, not everything in the mist wants you to find your way back . . .

    Enter the Mist . . .

• Now we move from “Mists” to “Mazes” . . . A Collider exclusive: “Jim Henson’s Fantasy Classic Officially Unveils 90th Birthday Collectible”

  • “Labyrinth is one of those films that has only become more beloved with time, and Ludo represents so much of what makes the film special,” said Joshua Viola, Bit Bot co-owner. “There’s something immediately endearing about him, but he’s also an incredible example of the creature artistry that defined Jim Henson’s work. We wanted to create something that feels faithful to the character and gives fans a chance to have a little piece of that magic in their own collection.”

  • Better start practicing the Ludo voice! (You know you hear it in your head, too)

• Speaking of . . . comes a LEGO Ideas you can vote for to get created: Labyrinth (1986)

• And since we’re already in the mood . . . “Jim Henson’s Labyrinth The Illustrated Novelization”

  • Enter the labyrinth in this illustrated novelization of the classic film that will transport you to a world where nothing is what it seems . . .

    Labyrinth Illustrated on Amazon

  • Or perhaps this instead:

    • Labyrinth: The Graphic Novel (Jim Henson’s Labyrinth)

      

      Labyrinth Graphic Novel on Amazon

      (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)

• Ok. I get it. Labyrinth masks and books aren’t your thing . . . but what about brand new Magic the Gathering cards? Check out these cheeky goblins from the upcoming MTG SECRET LAIR: Corn Maze Superdrop

  • I don’t tend to do the Secret Lair drops much anymore since it’s so competitive (and frustrating) to successfully purchase these sets, but I don’t want to discourage you. If I could just do the promo card (above) I would make it happen, though.

    

    

    

• Enough of Labyrinths. This listicle is probably one of the best I’ve come across for sword & sorcery movie fans: 10 Greatest Sword & Sorcery Fantasy Movies Of All Time, Ranked

  • Honestly, all 10 of these would make the top of my list (although one in particular that I loved as a kid didn’t stand the test of time as well as the others. Can you guess which one?)

• Did you know The Legend Of King Arthur Inspired A Failed Modern Day CBS Sitcom?

  • This almost sounds familiar, but I just don’t think I have any recollection of it. Anyone else?

    

• What’s old is new again . . . and again. That’s the curse of when there are badass warriors worthy of emulation. Hoping that modern messaging doesn’t ruin this too bad, here’s screenrant discussing: “Recasting Xena: Warrior Princess For 2026: All 8 Main Characters”

• Video game TV series adaptations for fantasy can be hit or miss these days. I actually loved the Warcraft movie, for instance. Now Prime Video is teaming up with Battlestar Galactica’s Ronald D. Moore for the Amazon adaptation of God of War.

  • Here’s to hoping not only that it’s good, but that it will last for more than season or two before getting cancelled!

    

• Speaking of Video Game to TV series adaptations, let’s go WAY back to 1989. To a little-known Sega game called “Golden Axe”. Fast forward to today, slap on some humor and animation and Paramount+ brings you . . . well, Golden Axe!

  • Not gonna lie, this looks pretty fun. (But full disclosure, I also really liked the humor in Krapoplis!)

• Who doesn’t like a good costume? They not only transform you into totally different beings but help channel their raw power and confidence into your own psyche. Game of Thrones had some pretty awesome costumes (regardless of what you think about the season finale). But all we ever got to see was them in costume. Ever wonder . . . “What All The Game of Thrones Actors Look Like, Sans the Wigs and Armor”

  

• One last listicle I thought was interesting. From Collider, “8 Forgotten Fantasy Shows That Have Aged Like Fine Wine”

  • I honestly hadn’t watched 2-7 in this list, but 1 and 8 are 2 of my all-time favorite shows . . . both of which cancelled too early.

• Switching out our remotes for our paintbrushes (or really just our eyes), let’s see some fantasy art news. This particular article from Amazing Stories in 2014 did a neat bit on Walter Velez, famous for his super-fun covers on Robert Aspirin’s MythAdventures book series. The Artful Collector: Where Are They Now? Spotlight on Artist Walter Velez

  

  

• Francesca Baerald, fantasy cartographer extraordinaire (Dragon Age, Warcraft, Octopath Traveler, Diablo, Dungeons & Dragons) has just released her UNBOUND Artbook Kickstarter Teaser. This book combines hundreds of her sumptuously detailed hand-painted maps.

  • Francesca’s Kickstarter is now live! www.kickstarter.com/projects/spiridon/unbound

    

• I love it when fantasy fans indulge in their creativity. I also love the Legend of Zelda. If you do too, you’ll want to check out Phillip Summers’ Beautiful Hand-Drawn Guide to The Legend of Zelda featured by Jason Kottke.

  

• I’m always excited when Luke Eidenschink releases more of his artwork. Check out Luke’s latest badass fantasy ink illustration on Kickstarter!

  • 

Hey, did you know Rediscovered Realms had the pleasure of interviewing Luke and featuring a ton of his masterpieces?

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Luke Eidenschink: Epic Fantasy Artist Ad Victoriam

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Fantasy Ink (by Eidenschink)

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• Here’s a cool YT video featuring the phenomenal interior fantasy illustrations of Boris Vallejo from the book, “The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo” (1978) and the second book, “Boris: Boris Vallejo Early Masterpieces: Anatomy, Oil Painting & Fantasy Art Secrets!

  • 

• From the Frazetta Girls comes this inside sneak-peak view of the brand new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles . . . featuring a whole area dedicated to their grandfather, Frank Frazetta!

  • Not only is the building (and story behind it) amazing, I have never seen a Frazetta painting inperson - this video is the next best thing. Books and prints just don’t do justice to seeing the originals on the wall, framed and lit to perfection. The vibrant colors alone shocked my sensibilities.

  • (And who knew that George Lucas has been privately collecting original Frazettas over the decades?!!!)

• Moving from appreciating fantasy art to crafting cool fantasy stuff, you have to see this video from Nerdforge: “I Built a Table with a World Inside”

• Too cheery for you? Want a more atmospheric fantasy creation appropriate to the season? Perhaps this song and dark video “Belladonna” by FAUN will scratch that itch!

  • “Hecate is the queen of all witches. Her realm is known as the „garden of hecate“. Since she was closely associated with plant lore the term „garden of Hecate“ was also used for the plants of the nightshade family. Here in our song a wanderer is lured by three witches into this garden.”

    

• Too dark? How about a little flagellating righteousness in a world of vampires and other dark creatures? Konami now has Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse available for pre-order.

  • 

• Coming out of the fires of hell and moving into the fires of Mount Doom, you have to see some of the crazy fun Lord of the Rings treasures Weta Workshop has been forging in the shadows!

  • 

    

  • AND if you have just a little more cash to spare . . .

    

    

• Want to see how the craftsmen of Weta Workshop created some of the most iconic props from the Lord of the Rings movies? Here are 2 you won’t want to miss:

• Maria Popova is one of the most erudite humanist writer-philosophers I have ever encountered. I highly recommend her blog, www.TheMarginalian.org to anyone who often finds themselves asking the big questions in life - but I can especially recommend to this audience her article, “J.R.R. Tolkien on How to Fall in Love with Life”

• Speaking of writing, or game making for that matter, there is a ton of material that can be adopted from the ancient past . . . including the Gnostics. Check out “Fantasy Writers Should Study Gnosticism” to create better creation myths.

A couple of related Rediscovered Realms editions for fantasy writers and game masters/makers:

Breverton’s Phantasmagoria: A Compendium of Monsters, Myths and Legends

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5 Ancient Signs & Symbols to Steal for Your Fantasy World

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• Myths, myths, myths. So many. But I don’t mind, do you? Have you ever wondered: “What Is the Origin of the Phoenix Myth?”. This History channel article has you covered.

  • “The enduring myth of a bird reborn from its ashes spans cultures, religions and millennia.”

• We talk a lot about dungeons in Rediscovered Realms. Usually due to quests and treasure, but what about real dungeons? Were they real? What were they like beyond the popular imagination? Check out this fascinating article from medievalists.net, “The Medieval Dungeon Myth”

  • “Dark underground cells, rusting chains and prisoners abandoned beneath a castle have become familiar images of the Middle Ages. But how much of the medieval dungeon is genuine history, and how much was created by later writers, tourists and popular entertainment?”

    

• Just when you think modern game companies have the market cornered on cool dice, a 2,000 year-old 1d6 made of bone was discovered during a Roman dig (BBC article)

  • I don’t know about you, but I love its design (probably due to the weathering) and would totally roll this bone as part of my kit!

• Beyond myth, from the collective past of humans, we also have fairy tales. But did you ever wonder “How Fairy Tales Nurture the Creative Self” according to pscyhology?

  • Novelist Dale Kushner has entertained a lifelong fascination with the psyche. In her recent book, Wild Freedom, she notes that we can learn from fairy tales and other ancient stories handed down to us over the centuries. They present a record of universal human challenges—fear, jealousy, abandonment, betrayal—and offer a map to navigating these collective struggles. When all seems lost, we can find ourselves through stories.”

  • I’ll share one Q&A with Dale from this Psychology Today article that I found pretty meaningful:

    • How can self-enchantment encourage us to embark on our own journeys of self-discovery?
      Self-enchantment is the willingness to view one's life as a meaningful story rather than a collection of isolated events. Fairy tales invite us to see ourselves as protagonists capable of growth, courage, and transformation. By embracing imagination, curiosity, and symbolic thinking, we become more open to unexpected possibilities and hidden dimensions of experience. Self-enchantment encourages us to follow the call toward deeper self-knowledge, trusting that the challenges we encounter may be part of a larger journey toward wholeness. Like the heroes of fairy tales, we learn that the path through uncertainty often leads to wisdom, freedom, and renewal.

• Let’s switch to a bit of tabletop RPG news. Here’s a fun listicle from CBR: “9 Best Dungeons & Dragons Adventures Set In Forgotten Realms”

  • Even though it appears some of the items in the list are source material rather than adventures, still interesting nonetheless.

• Ever wonder: “Which D&D is better? B/X or BECMI?”

  • From “Dungeons & Dragons Treasure” YT channel: “In this video I talk about the differences between the Moldvay Basic set and the Mentzer "Red Box" basic set, and what I like about each.”

• And from “Dungeon Craft”: “D&D is over. These ENNIE Winning RPGs are the future.”

  • “Professor DM explores standout titles from this year's ENNIE Awards to analyze current trends in the tabletop role-playing game industry. The review highlights diverse systems, from narrative-focused frameworks to innovative solo experiences, showcasing the creative range of independent developers pushing beyond traditional gaming boundaries.”

• And in Gamebooks, “NevsBookChannel” is reading EVERY original Fighting Fantasy adventure gamebook and highlighting them on his YT channel. This video: “FF5 - City of Thieves”

• Oh, and one other piece of D&D news I almost forgot: Ghostfire Gaming and White Wolf have joined forces to invite you into a World of Darkness with Vampire: The Masquerade - Bound by Blood, now available on D&D Beyond!

  

• If you do embark on any of those dark journeys, you’ll probably want to keep a good light source with you. Well, what’s cooler than having your very own Wizard’s Light from EldenCraft - A fantasy staff lamp you can take with you on your adventures and stick it in its base for more mundane tasks.

  • Here’s their Kickstarter page. Only 13 days left: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1016675060/wizards-light-a-staff-lamp-that-brings-magic-to-your-space

    

• Winner of the random draw for this brand new set of “Book Slayer” bookmarks (from the “DECIDE MY FATE II: My Next Fantasy Read” edition) is Dan O’Donnell!

  • Congratulations, Dan! I’ll reach out over email to arrange delivery.

  • (BTW: Dan has an excellent Substack most readers here would enjoy with original fantasy micro-fiction and analysis on books, music, TV, and movies from Stephen King to Lord of the Rings. Checkout Dans Deliberations

    

UNTIL THE NEXT RUMOUR...

And there we have it, Adventurers — another month’s worth of fantasy treasures, rumours, relics, rabbit holes, and assorted strangeness successfully smuggled past the castle guards.

From labyrinths, Golden Axes, and fantasy artwork to ancient myths, Roman dice, forgotten dungeons, dark RPGs, and wizard staffs, there’s still an awful lot of weird and wonderful stuff happening out there if you know where to look.

Fortunately, The Phantasy Snitch has eyes everywhere. 👁️👁️

Until next time, Rumour-Hungry Adventurers...

Keep the Adventure Going Strong!

WAIT... IS THAT MIST?

In case you mist, err, “missed” the big news above, my new dark fantasy folk album Tales of Adventure: Monsters in the Mist has arrived.

13 tracks. Old roads. Dark forests. Things moving in the fog.

🎧 Listen to samples and learn more here 👇

Enter the Mist . . .

💬Tavern Talk

❓Of all the fantasy news, relics, projects, and oddities in this month’s Snitch, what sent you down the biggest rabbit hole?

❓Labyrinth is still going strong 40 years later. What fantasy movie from your younger days still has that same kind of magic for you?

❓If you could own one original piece of fantasy artwork by any artist, living or dead, whose would you choose?

❓A 2,000-year-old Roman bone die somehow survived long enough for us to admire it. What piece of your own gaming or fantasy collection would you want some bewildered archaeologist to dig up 2,000 years from now?

Leave a comment

Your next piece of fantasy fun is calling.

“Remember to check out the Rediscovered Realms Amazon Storefront for the most epic gift-giving ideas for those important adventurers in your life (including yourself 🗡)” - Brodryk (Shopkeep)

(As an Amazon1 Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)

You are not only brave, but a Generous Adventurer whose love of Discovery, Imagination & Fun transcends our mere mortal coils . . .

🗡Buy me a Sword+1 (or☕...)

. . . and for that, I thank you!

Do you love heroic fantasy gamebooks like me? Consider signing up to be informed when I launch my very 1st one!

FOLLOW ALONG!

(Featuring artwork from Clyde Caldwell & Luke Eidenschink!)

Imagine walking into a newsstand in the summer of 1985.

Tina Turner and Mel Gibson are battling in and Beyond Thunderdome.

Rambo is going back to Vietnam.

A bunch of kids from Astoria are about to hunt for One-Eyed Willy’s treasure.

Two young actors named River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke are climbing aboard a homemade spaceship.

James Bond is heading out for A View to a Kill.

Sting is playing Frankenstein.

And a 21-year-old Danish model named Brigitte Nielsen is about to swing a sword across movie screens as Red Sonja.

Meanwhile, buried among the magazine’s Coming Attractions are tantalizing little glimpses of movies still somewhere over the horizon: Top Gun. The Princess Bride. Young Sherlock Holmes. Enemy Mine. Even a proposed sequel to The Terminator.

And one peculiar little movie about a teenager traveling back to 1955...

Back to the Future.

None of these movies are classics yet.

Some haven’t even been made.

Because it’s 1985.

And all of this is still the future.

Adventurers, I found us a time machine (and no, unfortunately, it’s not a DeLorean)

This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

Buckle up . . . the Time Machine is Leaving the Gate

Our time machine happened to only cost $2.95 (in 1985 dollars. That’s about $3,000,000 in 2026 inflation-adjusted dollars.)

This is the July/August 1985 issue of Mediascene Prevue — a gloriously oversized blast of movie hype, interviews, behind-the-scenes photography and “Coming Attractions” from an era when some of the biggest adventure movies of our childhoods were still waiting in the wings.

And just look at that cover.

Mel Gibson. Clint Eastwood. Sylvester Stallone. Tina Turner. Sting. Roger Moore. Chevy Chase...

And planted right in the middle with sword drawn:

Brigitte Nielsen as Red Sonja.

I recently cracked open this 40-plus-year-old magazine and realized I wasn’t simply looking at an old movie magazine.

I was looking at 1985’s idea of the future.

So today we’re going back.

Coming Attractions . . . from 1985

And here’s where this old magazine becomes a time capsule.

Tucked into four unassuming pages is a snapshot of Hollywood’s future as it looked in the summer of 1985.

Some of the names are now cultural landmarks.

Others changed dramatically before reaching theaters.

Some took years to materialize.

And a few wandered off into that mysterious realm where unmade movies go to die.

Reading it forty-one years later is like finding somebody’s old map of the future — complete with roads that were built, roads that changed direction, and roads that never existed at all.

And boy, did I recognize more than a few names while wandering through these four pages! There’s Back to the Future, The Jewel of the Nile, King Solomon’s Mines, Commando, The Clan of the Cave Bear, Top Gun, Young Sherlock Holmes, Enemy Mine, and even The Princess Bride — mentioned here while William Goldman was still working on the screenplay!

Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories was on the horizon, too.

And then there are the wonderfully strange glimpses of roads Hollywood might have taken: a proposed Terminator II years before the sequel we eventually got, along with projects that would change titles, change hands, take years to materialize — or never make it to the screen at all.

Reading it now feels less like a list of upcoming movies and more like stumbling across Hollywood’s rough draft of the future.

🪦 LOST IN DEVELOPMENT

I remember buying and reading Battlefield Earth back in the late 80s. The cover of my copy was badged with “Soon to be a major motion picture!”. Maybe this Polonsky version was meant to be that movie.

Unfortunately, we never got to see that version . . . and even more unfortunately had to experience Travolta’s Travesty 15 years later.

🔮 1985 HAS NO IDEA...
...that this little Robert Zemeckis & Spielberg movie about a teenager traveling back to 1955 is about to become one of the defining movies of all cinema history.

Adventure was EVERYWHERE!

Mad Max. Explorers. The Goonies. Rambo. A View to a Kill. The Bride.

The visual argument almost makes itself: look how many wildly different kinds of adventure were occupying the same cultural space.

Kids building a spaceship.

Kids hunting pirate treasure.

Freaky little kids living alone in the desert.

Rambo returning to Vietnam.

James Bond scrambling across glaciers.

Frankenstein reinvented with Sting.

Sword-and-sorcery warriors running amok in leather and chainmail with little else.

But damn, was it glorious!

Anyone remember Grace Jones in Conan the Destroyer (1984)?

Or how about Tanya Roberts from Sheena (1984) and as Kiri in The Beastmaster (1982)?

Fun Fact: Tanya Roberts served as the inspiration for Lee MacLeod’s Huntress illustration! Read the full interview with Lee here: Lee MacLeod: Art, Ads & Avatars

Goonies was probably THE biggest inspiration for compelling kids to go on their own adventures (and seeking treasure!) for our entire generation. Attics were scoured for maps and artifacts, random holes were dug in the ground, metal detectors made the Christmas wishlist for several years running, jerky friends were kept long past their expiration date, abandoned buildings were eyed with lustful curiosity, and janky gadgets were constructed to assist in the entire process.

The following statement will prove how powerful the spell this movie cast on us and how sacred it was . . . we never even thought once about making crude jokes about the name “One-eyed Willy”. 👁️

And now, for our feature presentation . . .

Scarlet Fury. Blood Vengeance. Crimson Steel.

⚔️ AND THEN THERE WAS RED SONJA...

And now we arrive at the movie that landed pre-Flavor-Flav Brigitte Nielsen squarely in the middle of this issue.

Red Sonja was not destined to join Back to the Future among 1985’s universally beloved classics.

I don’t care.

I liked it.

It had swords. Sorcery. Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a definitely-not-Conan barbarian named Kalidor. Sandahl Bergman as an evil queen. Ridiculous costumes. Ancient temples. Talismans. Sword fights.

And 21-year-old Brigitte Nielsen looked every inch the larger-than-life beautiful fantasy warrior that the 80s demanded.

Sometimes that’s enough.

Here’s the complete interview with close-ups of the text for a better reading experience:

Back to the Future . . .Our Future

And with that, we close the pages on Brigitte Nielsen and Red Sonja and take one last look around 1985 before climbing back into the time machine.

There’s something strangely magical about seeing all of this before history and critics had decided what any of it meant.

The Goonies wasn’t yet a Gen X touchstone. River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke were just kids making Explorers. Rambo was heading back into action. James Bond was still Roger Moore, hanging tight with Tanya Roberts & Grace Jones. Brigitte Nielsen, at 21 years old, was preparing to make her movie debut with sword in hand.

And Mad Max was battling Beyond Thunderdome with Tina Turner as his nemesis.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in these pages, Hollywood’s future was taking shape in little paragraphs and tantalizing announcements.

No classics yet. No cult films. No box-office bombs. No nostalgia.

Just Coming Attractions.

Some would become movies we’d quote for the next forty years. Some would stumble. Some would change beyond recognition. Others would never escape Hollywood’s dungeon at all.

And somewhere in the summer of 1985, a kid could pick up this magazine, admire Brigitte Nielsen in totally-realistic-armor warrior-mode, flip past Rambo, Goonies, spaceships, secret agents and coming adventures...

...and wonder what all of it was going to be like.

That’s what I love most about this old magazine. For a few pages, we get to forget what happened next and experience these movies the way someone did in the summer of 1985:

. . . as adventures still waiting to happen.

But I suppose we’ve lingered in 1985 long enough.

So, reluctantly, we must climb back into our time machine, set the dial for 2026 or whatever other year you come from, and leave behind a summer when the future was filled with Goonies, badass warriors, secret agents, time-travelling automobiles, genius detectives & scientists, gentle-hearted giants, road warriors, hot-shot jet pilots, alien best-friends ... and who knew what else waiting just beyond the marquee.

Until next time, Adventurers...

Keep the Adventure Going Strong!

(...and a word of 1980s advice to any who find themselves on the other side of any upcoming apocolypses: “two men enter, one man leaves".”)

💬Tavern Talk

❓What 1985 movie would YOU go back in time to see on opening night?

❓Did you see Red Sonja (1985) — and do you have any affection for it now?

❓What upcoming movie from your childhood do you remember being absolutely obsessed with before it finally came out?

Leave a comment

Your next piece of fantasy fun is calling.

“Remember to check out the Rediscovered Realms Amazon Storefront for the most epic gift-giving ideas for those important adventurers in your life (including yourself 🗡)” - Brodryk (Shopkeep)

(As an Amazon Associate1 I earn from qualifying purchases)

If you liked this Rediscovered Realms edition, you’ll LOVE:

Gen X Chronicles: 16 Adventure Movies That Made Growing Up Awesome

You are not only brave, but a Generous Adventurer whose love of Discovery, Imagination & Fun transcends our mere mortal coils . . .

🗡Buy me a Sword +1 (or ☕...)

. . . and for that, I thank you!

Do you love heroic fantasy gamebooks like me? Consider signing up to be informed when I launch my very 1st one!

FOLLOW ALONG!

(Featuring artwork from Clyde Caldwell & Luke Eidenschink!)

Adventurers, today we’re stepping through the deadly gray mist and into one of the strangest places old-school Dungeons & Dragons ever sent us.

X2: Castle Amber (Château d’Amberville) was designed by Tom Moldvay for the D&D Expert Set and published by TSR in 1981. But this isn’t your typical dungeon crawl.

Behind its mad Amber family, bizarre encounters, medieval-French fantasy, and general atmosphere of what in the Nine Hells is going on here? lurks another fantasy legend: Clark Ashton Smith.

Much of the adventure draws inspiration from Smith’s Averoigne stories — a cycle of weird tales set in an imaginary, sorcery-haunted version of medieval France. Castle Amber eventually sends its adventurers there themselves.

And accompanying all that glorious weirdness is exactly what we’re here for today:

. . . the ART

So grab a torch, Adventurers. The mist has already closed in behind us...

This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

THROUGH THE MISTS TO AVEROIGNE

🏰 Welcome to Château d’Amberville

Published in 1981, X2: Castle Amber was the second adventure designed for use with the D&D Expert Set. Tom Moldvay’s adventure strands the characters inside the mansion of the bizarre Amber family, surrounded by a deadly gray mist. Escape eventually leads beyond the château and into Averoigne, the fictional medieval-French setting created by weird-fiction author Clark Ashton Smith.

Smith’s influence wasn’t hidden, either. The original module gives special thanks for the use of his Averoigne stories as inspiration and even includes a bibliography pointing DMs toward stories including “The Enchantress of Sylaire,” “The Colossus of Ylourgne,” “The Beast of Averoigne,” “The Holiness of Azédarac,” and others.

🎨 The Artists Behind the Amber

The module credits artwork to Jim Holloway, Harry Quinn, Jim Roslof, Stephen D. Sullivan, and Erol Otus, with Otus responsible for that wonderfully bizarre front cover.

THE SECRET KEY TO YOUR QUEST (Shhhh!)

THE MAD HOUSE OF AMBER

CHARTING THE CHÂTEAU

THE WEIRDNESS ENCASED IN AMBER