Red Nails by Robert E. Howard. Lightning wizard wand!
Hideous atomic skull!
Dinosaur dragon!
I've started a big project at Tor.com reading Gygax's "Appendix N." That is the list of books Gary Gygax listed as the inspiration for Dungeons & Dragons. My partner in crime in the re-read-- or in many cases, "read"-- is
Tim, comic book wizard extraordinaire. Some we're doing together, some we're splitting up. Anyhow, so that is one reason I haven't been posting book reviews as much lately, since they've been being put into the can to be revealed later. We've even got a cool name for it, & a cool logo: "Advanced Readings in Dungeons & Dragons