Back in the early ’80s, a number of “barbarian movies” came out hot on the heels of John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian, and were considered shameless rip-offs. Of the lot, three remain today with a sort of cult status, to share the dubious title of “best of the crop”. And in fact one of the three was not a Conan rip-off at all, as it came out one year before the John Milius movie. We’ll save that for last, and tonight (hey, it’s night here as I write this) we start with the one that is arguably the best of the three – the one that was so rushed, it hit the theaters before Conan.
And yes, I mean Albert Pyun’s The Sword and the Sorcerer, from 1982. Dig that poster…
I have just learned that Lawrence DiTillio, better known to many of us as Larry DiTillio, passed away yesterday at the age of 79, after a long illness.
DiTillio was a writer for television, the man who wrote the Saturday morning cartoons He-Man & the Masters of the Universe and She-Ra, among other dozens of titles. He also worked on Babylon 5 and a number of other series. In this role, he touched the lives of millions of kids the whole world over.
But to me, and to many others, DiTillio was the game designer of The Masks of Nyarlathotep, the colossal campaign for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. Considered by many the War and Peace of roleplaying, Masks of Nyarlathotep changed the way in which roleplaying campaign were designed. It coupled a complex, non-linear plot with such an incredible amount of historical detail and invention that made the experience of playing it an absolute delight and, in many ways, a life-changing experience.
Larry DiTillio was the man whose story about a dark plot for the downfall of humanity had me and my friends sitting around a table every Saturday afternoon or Thursday night for two years. He did contribute to make us what we are. He will be missed.
I have just posted the tenth Odds and Ends to my Five Bucks Brigade patrons. This week, a biography of Julius Caesar written by one of the fathers of spy fiction, a treasure trove of curious facts on films courtesy of the BBC, two stories by Algernon Blackwood… narrated by Algernon Blackwood, a big pile of cookbooks and a recipe app. Plus a few free ebooks. Because it’s good to be my Patrons.
Tell me if this sounds familiar: a bunch of strangers from all walks of life are thrown together by mysterious events and find themselves stranded on a mysterious volcanic island. They are not alone, there’s monsters and other survivors in the trees, and an underground compound filled with strange tech, a self-destruct mechanism and what else. The main characters have different skills and backgrounds – there’s a doctor, a criminal, a fat nerdy guy, a bald savvy guy, a sportsman, a businessman etc – and they have to find a way to work together to survive, solve the mystery of the island and go back home. We get flashbacks of the characters’ previous lives, and the first season ends on a massive cliffhanger.
And it’s not Lost. It’s a strange, derivative but cool animated series produced in China, and based on a comic book. It’s called Mi Yu Xing Zhe, or Uncharted Walker in English. It was aired early in 2018 and it is not half bad.
I was never big on superhero comics. Back when I was a kid I retrieved a big stack of Nembo Kid that had belonged to my uncle, from the attic in my grandmother’s house. For the uninitiated, Nembo Kid was the Italian name of Superman in the ’50s – and the magazine printed a number of stories featuring Superman (and various Superboy and Supergirl stories), Batman and the Flash. I was seven or eight, it was good fun.
I’ve been asked, on Twitter of all places, about my most precious book. I gave a quick-and-easy answer, because it was a game and Twitter is not a place for complex discussions, but I also thought it would be a good idea for a post on Karavansara.
And the point is, of course, defining “precious”. Are we talking about the monetary value of the thing, or are we talking something more subtle, like personal value, affection, memories? Let me see…
Today marks the 150th birthday of British writer Algernon Blackwood, one of the great authors of supernatural fiction, whose work influenced the likes of William HopeHodgson, H.P. Lovecraft, C.A. Smith, Ramsey Campbell and many others.
Born in 1869, Blackwood was a member of the Golden Dawn, and had a versed interest in matters mystical and supernatural
My fundamental interest, I suppose, is signs and proofs of other powers that lie hidden in us all; the extension, in other words, of human faculty. So many of my stories, therefore, deal with extension of consciousness; speculative and imaginative treatment of possibilities outside our normal range of consciousness…. Also, all that happens in our universe is natural; under Law; but an extension of our so limited normal consciousness can reveal new, extra-ordinary powers etc., and the word “supernatural” seems the best word for treating these in fiction. I believe it possible for our consciousness to change and grow, and that with this change we may become aware of a new universe. A “change” in consciousness, in its type, I mean, is something more than a mere extension of what we already possess and know.
Algernon Blackwood
Today, Algernon Blackwood is remembered chiefly for his short story The Willows, that is considered a classic of weird fiction, The Wendigo, that is the definitive story about this creature from Native American folklore, and for the John Silence stories featuring an early occult detective. All these, and a lot more, can be found on the pages of Project Gutenberg.
To me, Blackwood will forever remain the author of The Valley of the Beasts, another story based on Native American folklore and one that caused me quite a scare when I was about ten or eleven years old.
Blackwood died in 1951, and here is something from 1949, when he related one of his strange stories, on film. Enjoy! (and lookout – as the opening card says, this is for adult audiences)
Karavansara 