A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
Latest Kindle read: Peter the Brazen (1919) by George F. Worts.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
I received an advance copy of the Elizabeth Breck mystery DOUBLE TAKE. It is the second book in her Madison Kelly P.I. series and it is fantastic! I wrote my review over on Goodreads and shared the link with the author. She was pretty happy with what I wrote and messaged me to say so. She retweeted the link and I found out that my review is the first one that has been done for the October releasing title.
Beth Hart - Fire On The Floor CD Review
Beth Hart February 23rd, 2017 Boston, MA Concert Review
"I can't complain. I got to be Jim Morrison for the first half of my life, and Ward Cleaver for the second half." - Warren Zevon.
New books: The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour: Volume 3 (2005) by the great western writer.
Tomorrow, I'll be reading on my Kindle The Heckler (1960), the twelfth 87th Precinct series novel by Ed McBain.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
A few years back, I bought an artbook, showing off fantasy illustrations by the great Boris Vallejo. One of the paintings really captured my imagination, and that was titled "Nubian Warrior":
(I took the liberty of censoring a bit of side boob for this message board. If you want to see the uncensored version, it's very easy to find online, just search "Boris Vallejo Nubian Warrior")
Now, the reason it stimulated me so much was the idea of Sword & Sorcery based on black African cultures and myths. I really hadn't encountered a lot of fantasy fiction based on such concepts. Most of the genre is based on European myths, there is some based on ancient Egyptian culture (mostly European and Euro-American horror fiction), with the closest maybe being the Arabian fairy tales and legends like Aladin or Sinbad.
So, I did some research, knowing Boris probably did the painting as a commissioned illustration. I'm still not a hundred percent sure about it, but I think now that it was most likely done for a series of African-based Sword & Sorcery stories around the hero Imaro, written by Charles R. Saunders. From what I found out in my research, this was exactly the kind of fiction I had imagined from the painting. Saunders was a black American writer and fantasy fan and enthusiast of African history and cultures, who created the character of Imaro and his world of Nyumbani in response to the racist stereotypes of black people used in fantasy fiction like Tarzan or Conan. Originally written as short stories published in fanzines of the 1970s, Saunders collected five of the stories for publishing as a novel simply titled "Imaro" for DAW Books in 1981, followed by two sequels, "The Quest for Cush" and "The Trail of Bohu".
Now, my enthusiasm got a big damper when I realized the books are out of print. Even a new edition of the first two novels from 2009 is only available through the secondary market. Now, for E-Book enthusiasts, the series is available in that form. Personally, I never really got into E-Books, and currently don't even have a portable device on which to read them on.
Recently, I finally found an afordable copy of the 2009 version of the first novel:
and this week started reading it. And thus far, this is an amazing read. Saunders not only is capable of presenting his world in a fascinating way, but is also quite talented as to creating suspense and action prose. So much so that I'm now even more on the hunt for the other books in the series, as well as keeping an eye out for any other stories Saunders has written. And I'm kind of wondering why this series isn't a bigger deal. And I kind of decided I needed to spread the word, because this totally deserves to be a bigger deal.
At least, in its niche, Saunders has inspired a new subgenre of Sword & Soul fiction. Sadly, Saunders passed away last year. He did manage to do a couple more novels and stories set in the world of Nyumbani, though.
I finished reading the Daniel Silva thriller THE CELLIST. I got a copy of the finished book early and will be reviewing it for Mystery Scene magazine.
Beth Hart - Fire On The Floor CD Review
Beth Hart February 23rd, 2017 Boston, MA Concert Review
"I can't complain. I got to be Jim Morrison for the first half of my life, and Ward Cleaver for the second half." - Warren Zevon.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
It's a Boris piece, after all.
I wouldn't have made the effort to put a black bar over the sensitive area, but I also didn't want to break any forum rules. I also posted that on another message board which is funded through Google Ads, and they'd actually get in trouble with Google Ads had I posted the uncensored image.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
The Essential Ginsberg, by, you guessed right, Allen Ginsberg
"The Batman is Gotham City. I will watch him. Study him. And when I know him and why he does not kill, I will know this city. And then Gotham will be MINE!"-BANE
"We're monsters, buddy. Plain and simple. I don't dress it up with fancy names like mutant or post-human; men were born crueler than Apes and we were born crueler than men. It's just the natural order of things"-ULTIMATE SABRETOOTH
I finished reading the R.G. Belsky mystery novel The Last Scoop.
Beth Hart - Fire On The Floor CD Review
Beth Hart February 23rd, 2017 Boston, MA Concert Review
"I can't complain. I got to be Jim Morrison for the first half of my life, and Ward Cleaver for the second half." - Warren Zevon.
Latest kindle book: Maria: Or, The Wrongs of Woman (1798) by the pioneer feminist and grandmother of the Frankenstein Monster. Mary Wollstonecraft.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
I'm finishing up a re-read of Dune through Children of Dune (almost done with Children of Dune) and reading the books after that because I never read them before.
I am thinking of taking a break though, and reading something else I've never read.
Wheel of Time!
Thoughts on that? I have not had a great track record with modern fantasy lately (probably because I've been reading Japanese historical fiction & fantasy and ASoFaI bombed out for me near the end of book 3). Anything I should know past this?
I'm also leaning towards Red Rising.
Last edited by BeastieRunner; 07-02-2021 at 12:39 PM.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
In the Night Room by Peter Straub
Watching television is not an activity.
Newest Kindle eBook: The Brighter Buccaneer (1933), the tenth Simon Templar/Saint book by Leslie Charteris.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?