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A section of a ruined, ancient stone street with an underground section also visible in front of three distant stepped pyramids, under a cloudy, mysterious, afternoon-like sky. The painting is by Les Edwards.

Earthdawn, the awesome #ttrpg could be described as Fallout meets D&D.

Earthdawn used to share its in-game timeline with that of Shadowrun, until licensing made them go their separate ways. It was first published in 1993.

Your people survived a magical apocalypse in "dungeons". Now you emerge.

Such a great poem! A few years ago, I scanned my 1926 copy for the Internet Archive and transcribed it to Wikisource, since the online library copies were a bit hard to read. A future BookWormSat topic is 20th-century poetry, and I may use this poem for my post.

You're very welcome! I read this amazing story in a huge 2012 anthology called The Weird edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. It turns out that the VanderMeers have also released a collection with more of Leena Krohn's work translated to English! I will be reading that soon for sure.

In this scene, the narrator has just recited a happy memory for the Queen Bee, who uses memories as sustenance. She will now pass judgement on whether the memory is acceptable: "And, dumbfounded by the superabundance of my life, I fell silent, and waited for the rap of the golden gavel. 'Accepted,' the bass of the Queen Bee rang out, and I saw a veiled smile spread over her face as if something inexpressibly sweet had just dripped on to her palate. In such a way my memory, too, although stolen, was added to her collection, to the great store of honey which was the basis of her economy, to the honeycombs from which she drew her happiness and her hospitality and which no thief would ever empty."

#WyrdWednesday

Tainaron: Mail From Another City (1985) by Finnish author Leena Krohn. Translated into English by Hilda Hawkins. A collection of thirty letters, each a beautifully written philosophical vignette, sent by a human who is living in and exploring a city of anthropomorphic insects.

One of my CAS favorites. The patricide battle is quite a combination of humor and gore. Even Esrit the vampiric demon-weasel shows up to join in 😄 And the end of the story is kind of sweet, in a morbid, Klarkash-Tonian way.

YouTube video by PatakaisseTV Percussion Workshop - Les Nuits Cajun & Zydeco SAULIEU 2012

I discovered Cajun music festival videos around 2010 and have many favorites. There's always dancing too, even at a community workshop like this. I've seen the man and woman who are dancing here in a lot of festival videos 👍Here is the second song in this set.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4_2...

The Merman's Children, which also takes place in northern Europe during the time when modern society and religion is replacing Faerie.

Some related but non-Norse stories like Conan the Rebel and several sword-and-planet novellas.

I need to read The King of Ys someday too.

Very interesting blog post!

The Broken Sword is a favorite of mine. Valgard was a fascinating and in some ways tragic warrior in that story too, along with Skafloc. We see the effect on both of the changelings' lives as they discover who they are.

YouTube video by I. Zurutuza The Magnetic Fields - You And Me And The Moon

That was a good one!

Today I'm listening to The Magnetic Fields while I eat lunch, and this album has a very nice track with a six-word title.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZXL...

Cover art by Marcel Laverdet for The Dragon Masters and Other Stories (Spatterlight Press, 2016). This collection reprints three novellas — The Dragon Masters, The Last Castle, and The Miracle Workers. A soldier rides a ferocious dinosaur-like creature. A variety of other such creatures are around him. He carries a gun in one hand, has a sword in his belt, and is wearing a cloak and an elaborate helmet.

#WyrdWednesday

The Dragon Masters (1962) by Jack Vance. This novella was set in a human space colony that used reptilian aliens to create armies of genetically enhanced dinosaurs.

the floppy guy | Shop Home Fine Art Print Browse Home Fine Art Prints on thefloppyguy

I am starting to make prints of my work available, starting with this one. Open to requests! 🌈💾 #floppydiskart

The CA Smith Circle Conference

I was delighted to find that sessions from the Smith Circle conference a few weeks ago are available on YouTube, since I was not there. I will enjoy watching those. I also recommend the documentary The Emperor of Dreams from 2018.

www.youtube.com/@TheCASmithC...

Brian LeBlanc’s amazing cover at for MAGNIFICENT EXILES—coming in February!

IN AN OLD TOWN GARDEN Shut from the clamor of the street By an old wall with lichen grown, It holds apart from jar and fret A peace and beauty all its own. The freshness of the springtime rains And dews of morning linger here; It holds the glow of summer noons And ripest twilights of the year. Above its bloom the evening stars Look down at closing of the day, And in its sweet and shady walks Winds spent with roaming love to stray, Upgathering to themselves the breath Of wide-blown roses white and red, The spice of musk and lavender Along its winding alleys shed. Outside are shadeless, troubled streets And souls that quest for gold and gain, Lips that have long forgot to smile And hearts that burn and ache with pain. But here is all the sweet of dreams, The grace of prayer, the boon of rest, The spirit of old songs and loves Dwells in this garden blossom-blest. Here would I linger for a space, And walk herein with memory; The world will pass me as it may And hope will minister to me.

#BookWormSat
Gardens

In an Old Town Garden (1916) by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

MURDER HOUSE Abandoned is the house, abandoned and deserted, but the ghosts have both invited other ghosts to enter there. Ghostly hands are on the knocker, ghostly faces at the window, and a wind that sounds like footsteps hurries up and down the stair. Wild and overgrown, the lilacs crowd and peer between the shutters, burrs and nettles, rank and evil, press against the kitchen door.

Now there's company in plenty on that lonely, lonely hillside for two ghosts, who by death's mercy need know loneliness no more.

#PhantomsFriday

Murder House (1949) by Elizabeth Coatsworth. First published in her collection The Creaking Stair.

Good luck and safe travels to you.

Very interesting, nicely done!

BTW, you did get the pronunciation of Dunsany's name right, as dun-SANE-ee. I once heard S. T. Joshi confirm that the family pronounces it that way.

This poem mixes in a few different mythological creatures. It also uses the monotheistic spelling, whereas his works are usually polytheistic "god" or "gods". If Howard had had a chance to revise and publish it, I wonder if he would have made the theme a little more consistent. Still, I like it!

The Bell of Morni There's a bell that hangs in a hidden cave Under the heathered hills That knew the tramp of the Roman feet And the clash of the Pictish bills. It has not rung for a thousand years, To waken the sleeping trolls, But God defend the sons of men When the bell of the Morni tolls. For its rope is caught in the hinge of hell, And its clapper is forged of doom, And all the dead men under the sea Await for its sullen boom.

It did not glow in an earthly fire, Or clang to a mortal's sledge; The hands that cast it grope in the night Through the reeds at the fen-pool's edge. It is laden with dooms of a thousand years, It waits in the silence stark, With grinning dwarves and the faceless things That crawl in the working dark. And it waits the Hand that shall wake its voice, When the hills shall break with fright, To call the dead men into the day, And the living into the Night.

#WyrdWednesday

The spooky prophesy of The Bell of Morni by Robert E. Howard. Untitled draft. Origin of assigned title unknown. Now associated with Howard's fictionalized Pictish stories. This text is from Collected Poetry V2 (REH Foundation Press, 2008).

I have a complete set of his poetry. The Last Oblivion (2002) is a great subset. Collections of his stories that use properly restored Night Shade versions of text, arranged by setting, have been published by Hippocampus Press recently. You might like Zothique. CAS and HPL were long-time pen pals.

Great question, and very thorough and informative link!

Clark Ashton Smith also translated most of the poems to prose rough drafts, but only converted a few to finished, polished verse. He switched to writing short stories before he could finish them, probably because he needed to make money.

I believe that the cover of the Neely hardback on the right was painted by Chambers himself. It was reused on the cover of the 2015 Stark House Supernatural Classics collection that includes part of The King in Yellow and The Mystery of Choice.

An illustration by W. Heath Robinson shows a person holding a walking stick and basket and looking up at a darkened house. THE OLD STONE HOUSE Nothing on the grey roof, nothing on the brown, Only a little greening where the rain drips down; Nobody at the window, nobody at the door, Only a little hollow which a foot once wore; But still I tread on tiptoe, still tiptoe on I go, Past nettles, porch, and weedy well, for oh, I know A friendless face is peering, and a clear still eye Peeps closely through the casement as my step goes by.

#PhantomsFriday

The Old Stone House (1913) by Walter de la Mare. This text is from a 1925 Henry Holt reprint.

Art credit in alt text.

That is a good one. And it makes for an interesting comparison with the earlier The Doom That Came to Sarnath, another doomed site beside the water. Instead of huge city, Dunsany writing style, and horror-from-space angle, we get a small Gothic village and ancient Greek magic. Both are good stuff!

Very cool that you worked on it!

BTW, I searched YouTube for Talk Soup Thanksgiving and found your turkey skit!! I don't know if you also appeared later in the same episode or if that's available. It's Talk Soup Thanksgiving Special - 11/27/97 at 6:56 mark, in case you want to save it 👍

You're in for a treat then, for both Innsmouth and Haunter 👍

Robert Blake in The Haunter of the Dark was loosely based on Robert Bloch. Then Bloch wrote The Shambler From the Stars, where a Lovecraft-like character accidentally summons a creature that deflates him like a balloon 😦 All in good fun! 😄 You might have read it in the Opener of the Way collection.

Great choice of story too! Looking forward to seeing the illustrations.

Poor ol' Robert Bloch...er..Robert Blake. Bloch got his revenge though with The Shambler From the Stars 😄

You're very welcome! I enjoy cover art too.

Cover art by Donato Giancola shows a sorcerer casting a spell, with many tomes around him.

#BookWormSat
Fantasy worlds

Fantasy of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History (2001) by Randy Broecker. This is a very good history of 20th-century fantasy stories. Illustrated with 250+ book and magazine covers. Includes many subgenres.