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Post by deuce on Nov 4, 2018 12:47:20 GMT -5
Dave Ritzlin at DMR Books is taking open submissions for the first time ever: dmrbooks.com/submissions/Get your tales of bloody adventure in by November 30th!
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Post by deuce on Nov 7, 2018 2:43:56 GMT -5
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Nov 7, 2018 13:28:06 GMT -5
I for one was very glad to find this offering. I had put together an eclectic collection of various publications which served as my 'Dyalhis collection', but it was very incomplete. My collection is still incomplete, but with the addition of this very attractive little paperback (whose dimensions are quaint, reminding one of the classic old Avons in size) I now have 3 more Dyalhis tales I didn't have before. I've yet to read all of these, as I wish to savor them. The Sapphire Goddess by DMR is missing one story I have called, For Wounding – Retaliation, which I obtained in a copy of Tales of Magic and Mystery by Wildside Press. The DMR offering, however, is focused on the fantasy and Science Fiction of Dyalhis, and in this respect, is complete, as the missing stories are Western/Crime tales, from what I glean. The cover is from Feb issue of Weird Tales, by Margaret Brundage. It's interesting to note that, although his output is very small in comparison to his Weird Tales peers, he was very fortunate to land as the cover story for over half of his submissions. For a guy who has only 13 known stories, that's pretty remarkable. This collection by DMR Books is the only physical book form collection of Dyalhis that I know of that has been successfully launched. When I spoke to him in 2017, Stephen Haffner of Haffner Press mentioned doing a complete collection of Dyalhis which may still be in planning. To boot, there is an old mention that I came upon years ago called, The Nictzin Dyalhis Portfolio, which was never realized. On the Portfolio, it was said on Bear Alley's Dyalhis page: "...a collection of his work is due from Battered Silicon press under the title The Nictzin Dyalhis Portfolio edited by George A. Vanderburgh and Robert Bleiler." I discovered mention of that project here. There is also an Amazon Kindle collection which has only a handful of stories: The Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK. If I were to pick one, I'd def go with the DMR Books offering as it is much more complete. The Megapack does, however, have one story missing in The Sapphire Goddess collection, that being, For Wounding - Retaliation, mentioned above. It is the UnderWorld Magazine stories that are the Holy Grails for the Dyalhis collector, from what I understand. I, on occasion, will take a wild hair and look for the issues in which Dyalhis appeared. I've never found one for sale yet.
My copy of The DMR Books collection - The Sapphire Goddess
Misc original appearances of Dyalhis
For those with a copy of the paperback, Echoes of Valor III, you're already off to a good start on a Dyalhis collection. It has 3 of his yarns, plus an article by Sam Moscowitz titled, Nictzin Dyalhis: Mysterious Master of Fantasy. Happy collecting, all . . .
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Post by deuce on Nov 14, 2018 9:43:43 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Nov 21, 2018 8:35:07 GMT -5
I get the email newsletter of S&S/Warhammer author, William King. There's usually something cool in each letter, so I thought I'd share some of the more interesting excerpts. Here's one: How to Build a Universe
When I was young and wanted to be a writer, I knew exactly what kind I wanted to be. My models were Michael Moorcock and Andre Norton and Robert E Howard, builders of massive, interconnected universes, places where cycles of stories bled into each other, and become part of history and even cosmology.
It gave me a thrill every time I saw Arioch mentioned in Corum and knew he was also part of Elric’s saga. The references to the Patrol and the Forerunners in Norton’s work made me feel as if I was in on some great secret. And I was fascinated by the way all of the histories in Howard’s worlds built one on top of the other and even connected outwards to the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. Unfortunately fifteen year old me had no idea how to go about doing these things. It was not easy finishing a short story let alone linking them all together.
Years later, I got a clue. I read an article by Larry Niven telling how he built the Known Space universe more or less by accident. Connections emerged among the short stories as he was writing them, and before he knew it he had a future history. He used facts established in one tale to become the background of another. There had been no great plan, just opportunities seized. If it seemed a less grand method of building a universe, it also seemed more doable.
My first novels were tie-ins set in somebody else’s universe and those did not require much world-building on my part either. I did get some experience in the art as a developer for Games Workshop and other companies. It helped some. Still when it came to building my own fictional cosmos I went with the Larry Niven model. I am still using it to this very day. Here’s an example of how.
Uran Ultar, the demon mentioned in the short story Spider God, first appeared in Death’s Angels, book one of the Terrarch series, available here free. The mercenary heroes fight their way into the lost city of the Ultari and confront a manifestation of the great demon itself. Along the way, they battle its worshippers who have used their alien biotechnological magic to transform humans into a slave race of living weapons. It set the template for the Lovecraftian horrors that were to follow.
The Ultari reappeared in Weaver of Shadow, the third Kormak book, where the degenerate remains of a colony are allied with the sinister invading dark elves. This story was partially inspired by Mirkwood from the Hobbit and the nasty talking spiders there. I wanted something similar and the Ultari were already there in the back of my mind so I used them. They fitted into the lore I had been developing. More to the point I did not have to reinvent the wheel. I already had masses of detail about them, and hopefully, long-term readers would get the same kick from recognising them that I used to with Moorcock’s demon gods.
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Post by deuce on Nov 24, 2018 10:46:48 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Nov 25, 2018 2:05:36 GMT -5
Dave Ritzlin at DMR Books is taking open submissions for the first time ever: dmrbooks.com/submissions/Get your tales of bloody adventure in by November 30th! There are still 5 days left to submit a sword and sorcery tale to DMR Books. Just remember that it doesn't matter if you submitted the first or last story this November, it's the quality of that tale which will determine whether it's accepted. So, if you've been on the fence, get it in there! Here's the link: dmrbooks.com/submissions/As always, when it comes to submitting a story to any editor in any genre, read the guidelines carefully.
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Post by deuce on Dec 8, 2018 12:22:36 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Dec 14, 2018 2:19:08 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Dec 15, 2018 18:29:16 GMT -5
I for one was very glad to find this offering. I had put together an eclectic collection of various publications which served as my 'Dyalhis collection', but it was very incomplete. My collection is still incomplete, but with the addition of this very attractive little paperback (whose dimensions are quaint, reminding one of the classic old Avons in size) I now have 3 more Dyalhis tales I didn't have before. I've yet to read all of these, as I wish to savor them. ...
My copy of The DMR Books collection - The Sapphire Goddess (...)
For those with a copy of the paperback, Echoes of Valor III, you're already off to a good start on a Dyalhis collection. It has 3 of his yarns, plus an article by Sam Moscowitz titled, Nictzin Dyalhis: Mysterious Master of Fantasy. Happy collecting, all . . . Damn! That's some serious collecting there, Chris. I've got the Echoes of Valor edition. Still need to buy the DMR book.
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Dec 18, 2018 12:05:33 GMT -5
I had put together an eclectic collection of various publications which served as my 'Dyalhis collection', but it was very incomplete... Damn! That's some serious collecting there, Chris. I've got the Echoes of Valor edition. Still need to buy the DMR book. Deuce, you ain't lying -- I put together this photo of what consisted as my Dyalhis collection for years prior to the DMR edition. You can tell by the labeling how highly I rate D. Ritzlin's work. For posterity, I'll add the data where I've kept track of what I'd found and what I was missing. I updated it after the DMR edition was added. There is a bit of cross-over when you throw Echos of Valor into the mix - you'll note it has two stories that I already had in Leo Margulies' Weird Tales, and Wollheim's The Avon Fantasy Reader.
"Who Keep the Desert Law" (Adventure, 20 Oct 1922) "For Wounding – Retaliation" (Adventure, 20 Nov 1922) - Can be Found in: Tales of Magic and Mystery "When the Green Star Waned" (Weird Tales, Apr 1925) - Can be Found in: Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors "The Eternal Conflict" (Weird Tales, Oct 1925) - Can be Found in: Weird Tales Replica October, 1925 from Radio Archives "He Refused to Stay Dead", with Eric Marston (Ghost Stories, Apr 1927) - Can be Found in: The Sapphire Goddess DMR Books "The Dark Lore" (Weird Tales, Oct 1927) - Can be Found in: The Sapphire Goddess DMR Books "The Oath of Hul Jok" (Weird Tales, Sep 1928) - Can be Found in: The Sapphire Goddess DMR Books "The Red Witch" (Weird Tales, Apr 1932) - Can be Found in: Echoes of Valor III, Karl Edward Wagner "The Whirling Machete" (Underworld Magazine, Dec 1933) "The Sapphire Goddess" (Weird Tales, Feb 1934; as The Sapphire Siren ) - Can be Found in: The Avon Fantasy Reader, Donald A. Wollheim "Gangland’s Judas" (Complete Underworld Novelettes, Aug 1934) "The Sea-Witch" (Weird Tales, Dec 1937) - Can be Found in: Weird Tales, Leo Margulies "Heart of Atlantan" (Weird Tales, Sep 1940) - Can be Found in: The Magic of Atlantis, Lin Carter "Nictzin Dyalhis: Mysterious Master of Fantasy" (by Sam Moskowitz) - Can be Found in: Echoes of Valor III, Karl Edward Wagner
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Post by deuce on Dec 20, 2018 12:05:58 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Dec 25, 2018 1:48:44 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Dec 29, 2018 2:20:31 GMT -5
DMR Books is having a sale on EVERYTHING through the 31st to make room for next year's inventory. That includes shirts, patches, books--the whole store. Grab this stuff now! dmrbooks.storenvy.com/Dave Ritzlin at DMR Books has some very cool announcements pertaining to 2019. One of them has to do with Manly Wade Wellman's S&S hero, Kardios: dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2018/12/27/a-look-to-the-future
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Post by deuce on Dec 30, 2018 21:35:09 GMT -5
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