Robin Marx's Writing Repository

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The Adventures of Luther Arkwright The Airlords of Han Aliens Omnibus, Vol. 1 Aliens Omnibus, Vol. 2 Aliens Omnibus, Vol. 3 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay The Angel of Darkness The Angel of Indian Lake Armageddon 2419 A.D. At Drake's Command Bait The Ballad of Black Tom Baptism of Fire Barbary Slave Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All Bedbugs Before You Sleep: Three Horrors Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence Between Two Fires Blackbirds The Blade Itself Blood of Elves Blue Estate Volume 1 The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' A Book of Blades: Volume II The Book of Cthulhu The Book of Taltos The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore Boys in the Valley The Boys, Volume 1: The Name of the Game Brak the Barbarian / Mark of the Demons Bridge of Birds Bulfinch's Mythology The Burrowers Beneath Cadaver in Chief Callisto Captain Vorpatril's Alliance Chapter and Verse – New Order, Joy Division and Me The Chronicles of Solomon Kane The City of Marble and Blood Clown in a Cornfield The Cocktail Waitress Coldbrook The Collected Fiction, Vol. 1: The Boats of the “Glen Carrig” and Other Nautical Adventures The Collected Fiction, Vol. 2: The House on the Borderland and Other Works The Collected Fiction, Vol. 3: The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea Conan – Blood of the Serpent Conan the Barbarian – Free Comic Book Day 2023 Conan the Barbarian – Free Comic Book Day 2024: Battle of the Black Stone Conan the Barbarian – Free Comic Book Day 2025: Scourge of the Serpent Conan the Barbarian #1 Conan the Barbarian #2 Conan the Barbarian #4 Conan the Barbarian #5 Conan the Barbarian #6 Conan the Barbarian #7 Conan the Barbarian #8 Conan the Barbarian #9 Conan the Barbarian #10 Conan the Barbarian #11 Conan the Barbarian #12 Conan the Barbarian #13 Conan the Barbarian #14 Conan the Barbarian #15 Conan the Barbarian #16 Conan the Barbarian #17 Conan the Barbarian #18 Conan the Barbarian #19 Conan the Barbarian #20 Conan the Barbarian #21 Conan the Barbarian #22 Conan the Barbarian #23 Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone #1 Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone #2 Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone #3 Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone #4 Conan: City of the Dead Conan: Lord of the Mount The Conspiracy Against the Human Race Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century Contra Amatores Mundi: A Gothic Fantasy The Corpse-Rat King Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert “Believe It or Not!” Ripley The Czar of Fear Dark Dreams of Nilztiria Deadhouse Gates The Deep Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy Die By the Sword The Disfavored Hero Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan Don't Fear the Reaper The Doom of Odin The Door to Saturn Eight Million Gods Eight Skilled Gentlemen Elak of Atlantis: Four Stories Elric at the End of Time The End of the Story The Eye of Sounnu Fast Forward Final Girls The Final Solution Free: The Future of a Radical Price Frolic on the Amaranthyn Gardens of the Moon Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen Gentlemen of the Road The Ghost Pirates Gloriana Gothic The Graveyard Book The Graveyard Shift Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology Guardian of the Dawn A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club Hag of the Hills The Hammer and the Blade A Head Full of Ghosts Heart of Darkness Heart-Shaped Box Helen's Daimones He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Minicomic Collection Volume 1 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Minicomic Collection Volume 2 Horrorstör Hurled Headlong Flaming The Imago Sequence and Other Stories The Infernal Bargain and Other Stories I Was a Teenage Slasher Japanese Colour Prints John the Balladeer Junkyard Leopard The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy Killer The Kingdom of Shadows Lady of the Lake The Land of Terror The Leopard Mask The Life and Tryals of the Gentleman Pirate, Major Stede Bonnet Life on a Mediaeval Barony: A Picture of a Typical Feudal Community in the Thirteenth Century Looking Glass Sound Lord of a Shattered Land Lords of Dyscrasia Maeve Fly Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way The Man of Bronze The Man Who Shook the Earth Marvel 1602 The Master Mind of Mars Meg: Origins Men of Bronze Michael Moorcock's Multiverse Midnight Sun: The Complete Stories of Kane My Best Friend's Exorcism My Life as a White Trash Zombie The Mysteries of Pittsburgh Neither Beg Nor Yield: Stories with S&S Attitude The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: A Field Guide to Japanese Yokai Night's Master Nothing But Blackened Teeth number9dream The Obanaax: And Other Tales of Heroes and Horrors Old Man's War Old Moon Quarterly: Volume 3, Winter 2023 Old Moon Quarterly: Volume 5, Summer 2023 Old Moon Quarterly: Volume 7, Summer 2024 The Only Good Indians: A Novel Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction Peepland The Phantom City Pimp: The Story of My Life The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism The Polar Treasure / Pirate of the Pacific The Punisher, Vol. 1: In the Beginning The Punisher, Vol. 2: Kitchen Irish Quest of the Spider Rakehell: Issue 1 Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery Record Play Pause The Red Skull Red Sonja: Consumed Remember Why You Fear Me: The Best Dark Fiction of Robert Shearman Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form The Ritual Roadside Picnic Rocketeer Adventures Volume 1 The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart Saga, Vol. 1 The Sargasso Ogre The Savage Sword of Conan #1 The Savage Sword of Conan #2 The Savage Sword of Conan #3 The Savage Sword of Conan #4 The Savage Sword of Conan #5 The Scarlet Gospels Season of Storms Secret Operative K-13 Shared World Siddhartha Skallagrim – In The Vales Of Pagarna Sleepless, Burning Life Solomon Kane Volume 2: Death's Black Riders Some Fruits of Solitude The Son of Tarzan So Nude, So Dead Spawn of Dyscrasia Starfish Stealer of Flesh The Story of the Stone Substance: Inside New Order Survivor Song Sword Sisters: A Red Reaper Novel Swords Against Death Swords and Deviltry Tales From The Magician’s Skull – No. 10 Tales From The Magician’s Skull – No. 11 Thieves' World: First Blood The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet Thunder on the Battlefield: Sword The Tick People The Time of Contempt The Tokaido Road: A Novel of Feudal Japan The Toughest Mile To Walk on Worlds The Tower of Swallows Travellers' Rest The Troop Twilight of the Gods Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division The Urth of the New Sun Valen the Outcast Vol. 1: Abomination Valen the Outcast Vol. 2: Death Eternal Vampirella Archives Volume One The Vessel The Viking Gael Saga The Viscount and the Witch The Warlock of Firetop Mountain Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris Volume 1 – The Colossus of Mars Warm Bodies Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse The Waters of Eternity We Are All Completely Fine Werewolves in Their Youth When Gravity Fails Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Sword and Sorcery Issue One The White Darkness Winterfair Gifts Witch of the Four Winds / When the Idols Walked Witchblade Origins, Volume 1 Wizardry and Wild Romance: A Study of Epic Fantasy Wizzywig: Portrait of a Serial Hacker Woman of the Woods The World Without Us Wraithbound Wrath of the White Tigress: A Tale of Pawan Kor The Yellow Wall-Paper Yoshitoshi's Women: The Woodblock-Print Series Fuzoku Sanjuniso


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Articles

An Interview with Stephen Graham Jones


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Born in Spain and raised in the United States, Robin Marx has lived in Japan since 2001. He works in the video game industry, handling localization and international licensing. In addition to over a dozen video games, his writing has appeared in a number of role-playing game supplements, New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine, Grimdark Magazine, and Old Moon Quarterly. He lives with his wife and daughter.

You can link up with Robin over at Mastodon or Bluesky.

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I've enjoyed writing for as long as I can remember, but keeping to a regular schedule has been difficult for me.

During my university years I was a member of an online Amateur Press Association for my favorite tabletop roleplaying game, and that occasionally led to some officially published work in supplements for that RPG. I also wrote several capsule reviews of music and books for the gothic subculture magazine Carpe Noctem. Unfortunately, the magazine ceased publication in 2000, before any of my work saw print.

Immediately after graduation in 2001, I emigrated to Japan, where I remain today. Getting established in a new country and job absorbed much of my time and mental bandwidth, and apart from extensive personal journals my creative writing ground to a halt. I took on occasional freelance Japanese-English translation projects and unsuccessfully attempted NaNoWriMo twice. Years passed, I changed careers, started a family, and my non-work-related writing continued to languish. “Write more” was an annually failed New Year's resolution.

In summer 2021 I joined a small Discord server dedicated to Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Pulp Sword and Sorcery. Rubbing virtual shoulders with both fans and creators of my favorite subgenre of fantasy literature was creatively invigorating. Being able to directly interact with many of my favorite indie authors, artists, and podcasters was inspiring, and it sparked in me a desire to participate more actively in the scene. I began sharing my Goodreads book reviews, and the reactions were encouraging.

In the year since I joined, the Whetstone Tavern had grown and become a hotbed of creativity. Writers, editors, artists, and podcasters cross-pollinated. Not only did enthusiasm blossom for Whetstone, the amateur zine the Discord had been created to support, new creative projects began to take root as well.

In mid-2022, I was contacted by a fellow member of the Discord, an author I had previously reviewed on Goodreads, asking “Have you ever had an interest in writing book reviews...for a magazine?” Similarly fired up by conversations on the Whetstone Discord, Oliver Brackenbury was preparing to launch issue #0 of New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine. Excited by the opportunity to move from cheerleading the new mini renaissance in sword & sorcery from the sidelines to actually contributing to it in my own small way, I leapt at the chance.

The free pilot issue of New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine was released in October 2022. Buoyed by the experience of my book review's publication, I decided to stick with it. I answered a call for reviewers from Grimdark Magazine, where the bulk of my output to date has appeared. I've also been published in subsequent issues of New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine, Old Moon Quarterly, and occasionally elsewhere.

Two years have passed since I took up writing again, and I have more than 50 reviews under my belt and more on the way. While I'm most happy to have readers encounter my work through the magazines and blogs that publish me (support small presses!), I now have enough of a body of work distributed across various venues that it seems useful to create a central repository of my reviews. As publisher's exclusivity periods expire I will archive my reviews here.

Sword & Sorcery fiction in the tradition of Robert E. Howard's Conan, Michael Moorcock's Elric, and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser is my primary interest, but readers can expect to find reviews of other varieties of fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction as well.

There's a lot of exciting fiction out there, and much of it doesn't get the recognition it deserves. I hope I can help you discover your next favorite book!

Acknowledgements and Attributions

The Social Image used for this blog is a detail from The Library, a painting by Johann Hamza (1850 – 1927). This artwork is in the public domain.

The Favicon Books – 1f4da.png by twemoji is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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