fantasy

H.P. Lovecraft and the Inconceivable Terror

15. March 2023 Harald Sack

On March 15, 1937, Howard Philips Lovecraft – better known as H.P. Lovecraft – author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction, passed away. He is renown as the originator of the Cthulhu Mythos story cycle and the Necronomicon, a fictional magical textbook of rites and forbidden lore. My first acquaintance with the weird literary fiction of H.P. Lovecraft dates back to my schooldays, when hanging…

literature

Clark Ashton Smith – The Last of the Great Romantics

13. January 2021 Harald Sack

On January 13, 1893, self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter Clark Ashton Smith was born. Smith achieved recognition as author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Ambrose Bierce, Joaquin Miller, Sterling, Nora May French, and remembered as “The Last of the Great Romantics” and “The Bard of Auburn“. Together with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft Smith was…

literature

C.S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia

29. November 2019 Harald Sack

On November 29, 1898, English novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, and Christian apologist Clive Staples Lewis aka C.S. Lewis was born. He was a close friend of J.R.R. Tolkien and is best known for his fictional work, especially The Chronicles of Narnia. Actually, since his childhood days, was was usually referred to as ‘Jack’ and not ‘Clive’. “I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it…

literature

J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter Phenomenon

31. July 2019 Harald Sack

It is the best selling book series ever in history. A fantastic story stretching over seven books of a boy, growing up in between the two worlds of ordinary people – the muggles – and the wizards and witches. It’s about the old story of fighting of good against evil. And as the books sold over 400 million copies world wide, almost nobody could escape the news and the story behind the…

literature

The Fantastic Stories of E. T. A. Hoffmann

24. January 2019 Harald Sack

On January 24, 1776, German author Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was born. Hoffmann’s stories highly influenced 19th-century literature, and he is one of the major authors of the Romantic movement. “Ha there is something divine about art, for art, my Lord, is not really both the art of which one speaks so much, but it arises rather only from all that one calls art! “ — E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Devil’s…

literature

One Ring to Rule Them All – J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings

29. July 2018 Harald Sack

On July 29, 1954, the first volume of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy story ‘The Lord of the Rings‘ was published. Ever since it has cast a spell over generations of readers. The Lord of the Rings has become one of the most popular books of the last century. But, who was this Oxford professor for Anglo-Saxon and why in the world did he come up with this terrific and rather unusual piece of writing?…

literature

The Fantastic and Visionary Worlds of Leo Perutz

2. November 2016 Harald Sack

On November 2, 1882, Austrian novelist and mathematician Leo Perutz was born. Perutz was a mathematician who formulated an algebraic equation which is named after him and worked as a statistician for an insurance company. He is best known as author of fantasy novels, which gained the admiration of Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Ian Fleming, Karl Edward Wagner and Graham Greene. Early Life and Education Leo Perutz was born in Prague,…