Space Opera vs Sword & Planet: Flash Gordon

Space Opera vs Sword & Planet: Flash Gordon

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Flash Gordon is sometimes labeled Sword & Planet fiction. It meets quite a few of the characteristics. It has an Earthman, Flash, ending up on a strange world where he engages in battles with strange monsters and weird humanoid aliens, including winged men, bird riders, lion men, and others. However, it fails the S&P test on one major feature, the primary weapon used. When Flash is first challenged, if at all possible, he reaches for a ray gun rather than a sword.

John Carter, Dray Prescot, Jandar of Callisto, and Ruenn Maclang of Talera reach for a sword. For this reason, since “sword” is the very first word in Sword & Planet, I tend to classify the Flash Gordon stories as Space Opera and put them in a category of S&P adjacent. It’s a matter of taste, of course. I tend to be a splitter rather than a lumper, which means I tend to separate genres along narrower lines than some other folks. The images I’ve posted today, downloaded as public domain or as stills from the movie, illustrate this feature of the Flash stories.

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Merlin: A Retrospective

Merlin: A Retrospective

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Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

I have been rewatching a few things as I move through this last part of 2025. I’m not sure why I’m feeling nostalgic, but I am. Part of that rewatch is BBC’s Merlin. I watched this as it aired, all the way back in 2008. I adored it then, and I adore it now. No doubt, part of the adoration now is very much tied to how much I loved it as I was discovering the series for the first time. A not insignificant part, however, is because this show is just good.

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By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Arthurian Elements In the Conan Canon – Part II

By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Arthurian Elements In the Conan Canon – Part II

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It’s installment three of Cimmerian September, and I’m going back to Spring of 2018 for today’s post. But it’s not a reprint (Hey: I think people should read last week’s essay on “Rogues in the House”!

I took a fantasy template developed by John Teehan, citing Arthurian elements to be found in almost any fantasy work. Well, at least one element can be, anyways. I applied the principles to the first four Conan stories: “Phoenix on the Sword,” “Frost Giant’s Daughter,” “The God in the Bowl,” and “The Tower of the Elephant.” You can click on this link to see that three of the four scored pretty low.

Well, we’re gonna look at the next three Conan stories: “The Scarlet Citadel,” Queen of the Black Coast,” Black Colossus,” and Iron Shadows in the Moon.”

So, let’s see how the stories shape up.

John Teehan, in The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy: Volume One, challenges the reader to think of their favorite contemporary fantasy novels. And we’re talking Tolkien-onwards here, not just the past few years. Then he gives a list and says it would be difficult to think of a book that didn’t have any of the five themes on the list. He is making the point that the Arthurian legend, largely brought to popular culture by Thomas Malory, was an interweaving of those five themes. High fantasy epics like David Eddings’ Belgariad still follow this path.

I immediately thought about Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales and how they didn’t really emulate this pattern. Or so it seemed to me. My friend Deuce Richardson immediately pointed out two stories that did significantly incorporate these elements. So, I decided to start at the beginning and take a good look at “The Phoenix on the Sword”: then, do a less detailed survey of the following stories.

This time around, we’ll give “The Scarlet Citadel extra attention, then move on to the other two.

So, here we go!

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Launching Battleborn: An Interview with Editor Sean C.W. Korsgaard

Launching Battleborn: An Interview with Editor Sean C.W. Korsgaard

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Deep in the underground tunnels of Black Gate’s vast Indiana Annex, I sat down with Sean CW Korsgaard and we embarked on a lively chat about his upcoming S&S magazine, Battleborn – what it is, where it’s headed, and how S&S fits into our contemporary literary landscape. The Indiegogo to jump-start Battleborn closes on September 30th, so read on to see if you’d like to join in on the action. 

Why start a new Sword & Sorcery magazine in 2025? Are you worried about competition from other S&S magazines? And what sets Battleborn apart?

First, we are very fortunate that after decades of being in the doldrums, sword-and-sorcery is seeing a genuine renaissance. We have the biggest group of talented writers the genre has seen since the 1970s. There’s an entire market starved for heroic, action focused fantasy, and we are building Battleborn on that! …

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Foreign Bodies, Part I

Foreign Bodies, Part I

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Clementina (Crudofilms, December 7, 2017)

A new, twenty-film watch-a-thon, this time looking at horror films from around the world. The rules are the same — they must be films I haven’t seen before, and they must be free to stream.

With a bit of luck, this new watch project will feature a lot more quality films as I unearth horror from around the globe. With that said…

Clementina – Argentina (2017)

I’m starting this new 20-film watch-a-thon with this masterful exploration of the trauma associated with domestic violence.

The true horror in this film from Jimena Monteoliva is the understanding that domestic violence in Argentina has escalated, with the perpetrators often escaping justice by fleeing the region.

The film begins with Juana, played with extraordinary rawness and vulnerability by Cecilia Cartasegna, lying curled up on the floor in a pool of her own blood, clutching her pregnant belly. We soon learn she has lost the baby, and her neighbour saw her husband, Mateo, running from the apartment.

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Tor Doubles #23: Norman Spinrad’s Riding the Torch and Joan D. Vinge’s Tin Soldier

Tor Doubles #23: Norman Spinrad’s Riding the Torch and Joan D. Vinge’s Tin Soldier

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Cover for Riding the Torch by Wayne Barlowe
Cover for Tin Soldier by Ron Walotsky

Both stories published in this volume originally appeared in 1974, with Joan D. Vinge’s Tin Soldier appearing in April and Norman Spinrad’s Riding the Torch appearing four months later.

Tin Soldier was originally published in Orbit 14, edited by Damon Knight and published by Harper and Row. The story was also Vinge’s debut story.

Among Vinge’s best known works is her Hugo and Locus Award winning novel The Snow Queen, which was also nominated for the Nebula, the Ditmar, and the coveted Balrog. That novel took its inspiration from the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Vinge’s first story, The Tin Soldier, looks to the same source, taking its title from Andersen’s “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” a fact referenced in the story.

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The Best Short SF: Asimov’s Science Fiction 2024

The Best Short SF: Asimov’s Science Fiction 2024

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Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, November-December 2024. Cover by John Sumrow

I recently posted a few reviews of stories from the Asimov’s Readers’ Award finalists for 2024 (that’s for the awards given in 2025), but I must be an eccentric reader, because my favorites usually diverge quite noticeably from the finalists.

So without further ado, here are some other 2024 stories from Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine that I liked.

“Death Benefits,” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

From Asimov’s SF, November/December 2024

My choice in the novella category was a new tale by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Most of the story is told from the viewpoint of a “people verifier,” a sort of private investigator who is hired by the loved ones of presumably deceased or displaced individuals against the backdrop of an interplanetary war.

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A Bloody Good Time for Young and Old: Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales

A Bloody Good Time for Young and Old: Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales

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These days, deciding what to get depressed about is like visiting a fabulous smorgasbord where the presentation is first-class and every delicious dish is cooked to perfection. Hmmm… what shall I have today? Let’s see… a generous spoonful of climate-change anxiety is guaranteed to make a good appetizer. Now let’s have some sides… umm… a little state of the economy worry is always tasty, and… where are they hiding it? Oh! There it is — it’s just not a meal without a steaming portion of AI apocalypticism. And now for the main course. Well, we all know that there’s nothing as filling as… er, let’s just stop there, shall we?

For myself, I tend to go in for the more exotic entrees. For instance, one of my favorites is a heaping plateful of “dammit, kids just don’t read comic books as much as they did when I was their age!” Though it might not be enough for a whole meal, it is something that I frequently find myself chewing on.

It’s true, too — in my role as a fourth-grade teacher, I spend every day in the company of elementary-age children, and I can attest that actual comic books play almost no role in their lives, certainly compared with the space those gaudy booklets took up in my life — and my bedroom closet — when I was a child.

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The Sword & Planet of Leigh Brackett

The Sword & Planet of Leigh Brackett

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The Secret of Sinharat and People of the Talisman (Ace Double M-101, 1964). Covers by Ed Emshwiller

Leigh Brackett (1915 – 1978) is my favorite from among the second generation of Sword & Planet writers (S&P). Many people I meet recognize her name from her association with Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, for which she wrote the initial script. Or for the script to The Big Sleep, which she also wrote. Or, for several western movies she wrote the scripts for.

Those don’t mean anything to me, though. I know her from her Space Opera and S&P books, particularly the series featuring Eric John Stark.

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By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Rogues in the House

By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Rogues in the House

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We’re rolling through Cimmerian September here at Black Gate. Well, on Monday mornings we sure are! I was fortunate enough to be asked to do some Youtube panels for the Robert E. Howard Foundation folks this month. And we had a great time talking about the first Del Rey Conan volume – The Coming of Conan – in the first one.

I got to give my thoughts on “Rogues in the House,” which was my Hither Came Conan title. That had been a mid-level Conan story for me. But it moved up the ranks after I finished my essay project. So, with some tweaks, here’s my take on a pretty cool story. And HOW was this six years ago??

When I was pitching this series to folks, I was using the title, The Best of Conan. I didn’t come up with Hither Came Conan for about eight months, I think. Yeah, I know… The idea behind the series came from an essay in my first (and so far, only) Nero Wolfe Newsletter. The plan for 3 Good Reasons is to look at a story and list three reasons why it’s the ‘best’ Wolfe story. And I toss in one ‘bad’ reason why it’s not. And finish it off with some quotes.

So, I’m going to take a somewhat different tack from those who have come before me (I doubt I could have measured up, anyways) and pick out two elements that make this story one of Howard’s best accounts of the mighty-thewed Cimmerian. Then, throw a curveball from the Wolfe approach and highlight a few items worthy of note.

OUR STORY

Obviously, you need to read this story, but here’s a Cliff’s Notes version: Nabonidus, the Red Priest, is the real power in this unnamed Corinthian city. He gives a golden cask to Murilo, a young aristocrat. And inside the cask is a human ear (remind you of Sherlock Holmes? It should.). We learn a little later on that Murillo has been selling state secrets, and the ear is from a clerk he had dealings with. The jig is up!

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