discussion of sword and sorcery fantasy fiction

Check out my tribute to Conan the Barbarian! <3

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This may be off-topic, but I thought people might want to know that one of the Bittercon discussions for this weekend is monsters, a topic near and dear to most S&S readers' partly-squamous-and-partly-rugose hearts.

When I raised the topic of monsters in sword-and-sorcery on my blog a while ago, someone fairly objected that all my examples were from before 1970. This was actually deliberate on my part, but one of the reasons was that I couldn't think of many s&s monsters from the last generation or so. Is this just due to gaps in my reading, gaps in my memory, or are there really less monsters wandering our imaginary landscapes than there used to be? And, if so, why is that?

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Black Gate 12 is available as a single download, or in two smaller sections. Both versions are suitable for printing, and require a PDF reader (such as Adobe Acrobat).

What awaits you in Black Gate 12? An intrepid thief discovers far more than he bargained for in an ancient, spider-haunted city... Giliead and Ilias probe the disappearance of mining town in a godless canyon, in one of their earliest adventures together... Morlock the Maker returns to the corrupt city of Sarkunden to confront an old nemesis - and a puzzle with no possible solution... Dabir and Asim join forces for the first time, as they encounter dark sorceries in an long-sealed tomb... and Tumithak meets his greatest challenge as he pits his wits against a Shelk scheme to drive humanity back under the earth!

All this plus a free solitaire RPG game from Dark City Games, an editorial, letters, reviews, art - and a complete Knights of the Dinner Table strip! What are you waiting for? Try the free download today!

Howard

THE GAUNTLET THROWN

by Cheryl Dyson & Xina Marie Uhl


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Brydon's quest was simple. Borrow the fabled Gauntlet of Ven-Kerrick, bring it home to prove his worth, marry the princess, and ascend the throne.

He had planned for the dangerous terrain and Redolian assassins, but he did not count on slavers and werewolves.  He did not expect the Gauntlet to be missing, nor to find the Kerrick royal family murdered, and he definitely did not anticipate the distractions of a sultry thief and a rescued slave girl.  

Luckily, his worst enemy was there to help him out.


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Hi All,

My first post to the community. I'll keep it short and swe...well, OK, just short. (Unusual for me, I normally ramble on for ages).

Something Old

From 1971, so maybe not that old really. When I was a kid I read a fantastic proto-graphic novel that really fired my interest in the 'Sword-and-....' genre - namely, Blackmark by Gil Kane. Essentially, it's Conan in a post-apocalyptic setting, with faintly Arthurian overtones. Quite a few years later I ran a D&D campaign based loosely on the theme of this book. I recently rediscovered it and still found it a thoroughly enjoyable read after all these years. Needless to say, take your political correctness module offline when reading (if you happen to be equipped with such a thing).

Something Ancient

This is just a thought that occurred. Given the debate over what constitutes Sword and Sorcery, I would submit the following:

The Illiad = High Fantasy
The Odyssey = Sword and Sorcery

Discuss, if you will.

 Steve Tompkins is one of the truest scholars of sword-and-sorcery we have, rivaled by only a handful of others (Morgan Holmes, for instance, who has tracked down and read the obscurest of the obscure early sword-and-sorcery stories). Steve is also one of the most well-read individuals I've ever had the pleasure to meet, far beyond the confines of sword-and-sorcery; he's a brilliant guy and a a polished essayist whose work can be found gracing numerous venues, including some of the recent Robert E. Howard books from Del Rey and Bison.

I mention this all so that you'll have some perspective should you follow this link. Steve has posted a long, thoughtful look at modern sword-and-sorcery today over on Leo Grin's fine web log community for The Cimmerian. If you're interested in sword-and-sorcery you must go take a look. I can't vouch for everything Steven says (Gemmell, for instance, has so far left me cold no matter having tried three separate books, although so many people I respect declare him a good sword-and-sorcery writer that I will probably try again) but some of that comes down to taste. Then there's the fact that Steve mentions some modern novels I haven't read, and others I wouldn't be aware of but for him. His prognosis -- sword-and-sorcery novels are all around us and things are better than I sometimes fear. I'd love to be wrong on that subject, really I would. Now if only I could find out I'm wrong about sword-and-sorcery short fiction not being available. Is it, too, secretly all around us? 

Have any of you read the most recent books Steve mentions? What's your opinion of them? Do they work for you?

Howard

here are some "sword & science" comics in the review vein!

sword of the atom by jan strnad & gil kane.

okay, this was pretty great. so the atom is a super-hero who can shrink & control his mass. sometimes that makes him pretty great, other times, not so much. anyhow, the premise of sword of the atom is that atom's marriage falls apart, since he & his wife have been growing apart, each focused on their work. so the atom goes on a long trip, hoping that they will be able to work it out when he maybe comes back. along the way, he crashes, & shrinks, & then his shrinking belt breaks, leaving him stranded at six inches tall. then he finds a bunch of tiny yellow alien people to be conan the barbarian slash john carter of mars with. & a tiny princess in a chain mail bikini & everything. so a) this was totally awesome, since i like the pulps it is clearly drawing from. b) he totally fights miniature zombies & also, rides frogs. c) one time the atom says that lawns are "just something to keep the middle class too busy to overthrow the government." d) the one weak point is that like ten percent of it is re-cap; even just from the prior issue. fuck off with that!

d) okay, lets talk about girls. at first, the chainmail bikini wasn't the worst since the boys wear chainmail speedos, too. the princess is okay. she fights along side him without a "omg she fights?!?!" moment, it is just assumed. there is maybe a little too much "noble savage" going on, but really it is too weird to be a corrolary to any race relations. plus, i always like high tech slash low tech mixes. anyhow, later there are other pink people besides the atom? where did that come from? then eventually there is a scientist girl who wears some kind of robe & also tights, i.e. clothes. all of which was a little confusing, but okay. gil kane's art is pretty great though.

superman: the world of krypton by dc comics.

okay, first off. i like, i really, really like john barry's krypton from superman: the movie. for me, that is so alien, so beautiful, so utterly grand in scope. the fortress of solitude as the pyramid of crystals is the definative version, as far as i am concerned. it remains a big, mythic image in my mind. that said, i was looking forward to this, especially with the john carter looking looking cover. the first & bulkiest part of the book is a byrne/mignola kryptonian science-fantast tale! & it was actually really good. clones & mecha & moral lessons & everything you could want. that story was in the frame story of jor-el watching it, which was in the frame story of superman telling louis lane. the jor-el & lara story i didn't think was all that good; it was a little too heavy handed & lost the jor-el as authority figure, but it definately had moments. i think it is a matter of preference. after that, though, were a bunch of kryptonian fables! like, "here is why superman agrees with green arrow about pollution!" & even one about wasting water. actually, the drought one was pretty great. some of them were dated, but a lot of them were just fine examples of craft. very nice over-all; impressive art & story for big chunks of it.

 

To throw a little spice into this community (an idea penned by lemuriapress & thought i'd cut-n-paste some of the informal reviews of some sword & sorcery books i've read. as i finish a book i like to jot down some impressions, even just brief ones, to kind of keep a record of what i've read, how i felt about it. so, here we have, behind the cut: the john carter of mars series,

( books! about mars! )

You know with Lord of the Rings it is very easy to see it isn't Sword and Sorcery. But looking at The Hobbit it isn't so easy to see.

What in The Hobbit would you pick out as a point where in your mind it deviates from a Sword and Sorcery story?

So I was just pointed to this community by lemuriapress. I've been a fantasy reader for 24 years, and a professional RPG and fantasy fiction writer for 8. But while I'd read bits here and there (most of the Elric series, for instance, and some Fafhrd and Grey Mouser) over the course of those years, I've only gotten into S&S as a distinctive genre apart from "general fantasy" in the past few years. I've now read a great many of the major names--a lot of Howard's Conan and Solomon Kane, for instance, and a lot of Moorcock's non-Elric material. (I've read a lot of other "pulp" material, like Clark Ashton Smith and Lovecraft, but of course we're talking about S&S specifically here, so those don't really count so much.)

Anyway, this rambling mini-intro is by way of leading to my main question... Where, precisely, do you folks draw the line between "general fantasy" and "sword and sorcery"? Obviously, there's some pretty distinct demarcation. I don't think anyone would look at The Lord of the Rings and say it belongs in the same category as Conan, even if they are both fantasy in the broadest sense. But I'm looking for someone who can do a better job than I can of actually elucidating the difference, since right now I'm still in the "I know it when I see it, but I can't really describe it" phase.

(Note: I'm not looking for an "offical" or comprehensive definition. I know that's currently being discussed on other journals. I'm curious where various people draw the line as individuals.)

About a week ago I decided to read all of my multi-author sword and sorcery anthologies in an attempt to better understand the genre with an eye toward building a Planet Stories compilation featuring an entertaining sampling thereof.

Because I am a persnickety fuss about this sort of thing, I plan to start with the oldest book first and work my way through all of the anthologies, posting my thoughts here. I've read several of these stories before, but I've also acquired a lot of these books over the past two years and haven't even cracked them. I'm trying to go into each one fresh, and see where my modern reading sense takes me (as opposed to what I might have thought was cool when I was 12).

By posting the list of my multi-author anthologies here I hope to show that this is a project of significant magnitude. Add to this that there are surely "must-have" collections I will acquire along the way, and you can see that this obsession will clearly lead to madness. It's certainly going to take me a while.

Here are the books, in order of publication. To retain my sanity I am drawing the line at 1985, since that's about the time I started paying serious attention to fantasy and it's as good a place as any. A couple of anthologies slip past this deadline on account of the fact that I already own them, but I don't want to make this any worse than it already is.

THE ANTHOLOGIES

THE FANTASTIC SWORDSMEN, L. Sprague de Camp (Ed.). Pyramid Books, May 1967.

THE YOUNG MAGICIANS, Lin Carter (Ed.), Ballantine Books, October 1969.

THE MIGHTY SWORDSMEN, Hans Stefan Santesson (Ed.), Lancer Books, 1970.

WARLOCKS AND WARRIORS, L. Sprague de Camp (Ed.), Putnam, 1970.

NEW WORLDS FOR OLD, Lin Carter (Ed.), Ballantine Books, September 1971.

SWORDSMEN AND SUPERMEN, Donald M. Grant (?), Centaur Press, 1972.

FLASHING SWORDS! #2, Lin Carter (Ed.), Dell, 1974.

SAVAGE HEROES: TALES OF MAGICAL FANTASY, Michel Parry (Ed.), Taplinger Publishing Co., Inc., 1975.

LIN CARTER MASTER OF ADULT FANTASY PRESENTS THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY STORIES, Lin Carter (Ed.), DAW, 1975.

LIN CARTER PRESENTS THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY STORIES: 2, Lin Carter (Ed.), DAW, 1976.

SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS, Andrew J. Offutt (Ed.), Zebra Books, February 1977.

FLASHING SWORDS! #4: BARBARIANS AND BLACK MAGICIANS, Lin Carter (Ed.), Dell, 1977.

LIN CARTER PRESENTS THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY STORIES: 3, Lin Carter (Ed.), DAW, 1977.

SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS II, Andrew J. Offutt (Ed.), Zebra Books, September 1977.

SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS III, Andrew J. Offutt (Ed.), Zebra Books, 1978.

HEROIC FANTASY, Gerald W. Page & Hank Reinhardt (Ed.), DAW, 1979.

THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY STORIES: 7, Arthur W. Saha (Ed.), DAW, 1981.

FLASHING SWORDS! #5: DEMONS AND DAGGERS, Lin Carter (Ed.), Dell, 1981.

ECHOES OF VALOR, Karl Edward Wagner (Ed.), Tor, 1987.

ECHOES OF VALOR II, Karl Edward Wagner (Ed.), Tor, 1989.


THE HUNT LIST

THE GHOUL KEEPERS, Leo Margulies (Ed.), Pyramid Books, 196?.

SWORDS AND SORCERY, L. Sprague de Camp (Ed.), Pyramid Books, 1963.

THE SPELL OF SEVEN, L. Sprague de Camp (Ed.), Pyramid Books, 1965.

THE MIGHTY BARBARIANS, Hans Stefan Santesson (Ed.), Lancer Books, 197?.

This week's vacation trip to Whistler, British Columbia gave me the opportunity to get started with the very first book on the list:

THE FANTASTIC SWORDSMEN
Edited by L. Sprague de Camp
Pyramid Books, May 1967

The oldest multi-author anthology in my collection came by way of Abe Books when I was tracking down all of Henry Kuttner's Elak of Atlantis stories for the 2007 Planet Stories edition. L. Sprague de Camp comes with a lot of baggage for me, as I am not a fan of his Robert E. Howard pastiches and I thought his Lovecraft biography (which I read as a teenager) seemed to contain a somewhat disrespectful approach to the subject and his work. But I've forgiven Lin Carter of greater sins for his wisdom and influence as an editor, so I am willing to give de Camp the benefit of the doubt.

The book's cover boasts adventures by Conan, Elak, Brak, and Elric, which is as fitting a place as any to start my journey. I've read most of Howard's canonical Conan stories in the last decade, but it's been years since I read Moorcock's Elric and I've always avoided Brak because the character's author, John Jakes, went on to write historical romances about the Civil War that were adapted into 1980s television miniseries featuring the likes of Patrick Swayzee and Jonathan Frakes. Unlike the obscure Elak of Atlantis, Brak seemed to me a brazen Conan ripoff in the mold of Gardner F. Fox's Kothar. Fun in its own way, but not what I'm looking for. With eager expectations and unexplored territory in sight, I plunged ahead.

Read more on my personal Livejournal page.

What’s your favourite Michael Moorcock sword & sorcery novel or story?

And since most people are probably going to pick an Elric story - do you have any favourite non-Elric sword & sorcery tales by Moorcock?

And lastly, has there ever been an Elric movie? If not, why not?

Do you gave a special favourite among C. L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry stories? And if so, why do you like that particular story so much?

What was the first of Fritz Leiber's tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser that you read?

What's your favourite of these stories?

And have you read any of these stories recently?

And if someone were at some stage to decide to do a movie based on the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, who should play Fafhrd and who should play the Gray Mouser?

If they ever decided to do another Conan movie, who should play Conan?

And who should direct?

What was the first Conan story you read?

What’s your favourite Robert E. Howard Conan story? Why is it your favorite?

THE GAUNTLET THROWN

by Cheryl Dyson & Xina Marie Uhl


A Free Web Serial Beginning July 1, 2008

Brydon's quest was simple. Borrow the fabled Gauntlet of Ven-Kerrick, bring it home to prove his worth, marry the princess, and ascend the throne.

He had planned for the dangerous terrain and Redolian assassins, but he did not count on slavers and werewolves.  He did not expect the Gauntlet to be missing, nor to find the Kerrick royal family murdered, and he definitely did not anticipate the distractions of a sultry thief and a rescued slave girl.  

Luckily, his worst enemy was there to help him out.



To receive free chapters of the entire novel - one per week -  friend us or  join our newsletter here. 

I wasn't surprised when I heard that there was going to be a Solomon Kane movie. In fact I remember at San Diego ComicCon, during the Howard panel, the new owners of C.P.I. mentioned that movies would be in the future for many of Howard's works. 

There are many talented actors assigned to the cast. I'm a particular fan of James Purefoy, Jason Flemyng, & Peter Postlethwaite. 

I've also found a letter from the director regarding the film.

"A SHORT NOTE FROM THE WRITER AND DIRECTOR OF THE NEW SOLOMON KANE MOVIE

As some of you may know, a film based on Robert Howard's Solomon Kane character has recently been announced. Since I'm the writer and director of this upcoming movie I just wanted to drop a quick note to all the Howard and Kane fans out there who might be either delighted or horrified that a movie is in the making.

I know how I feel when a favourite book/game/comic is announced as a movie; I'm happy that someone has finally realised how great it is and always cynical that the collective "they" is going to screw it up somehow. This seems to happen more often than not but, regardless, I always start out optimistic. I hope you all do too on Kane.

Couple of things you should know that should set your collective minds at ease; firstly, the producers really do love Robert E. Howard and have been obsessive about trying to find the right story to introduce him to the wider film going world. Secondly, in me they have found a writer and director who loves the fantasy genre and wants be absolutely certain that I remain true to the essence of Solomon Kane. Certainly at this script stage, I'm sure I have something which really works and can't wait to get it before cameras.

For me Solomon Kane is perhaps Howard's most interesting and unusual character and for many reasons, possibly the hardest to bring to the screen. Kane's sheer sense of resolve and inner strength is a tremendous challenge to convey both for me as a director and for the actor I finally choose to cast as this iconic hero. The danger is that because of this strength and formality in his ways it could lead to a rather mannered and inaccessible hero and I'm trying to walk a fine line so that we can somehow understand him without softening him into some reflective and weakened 21st century version of a hero. I want to absolutely capture a hero who has unwavering faith in his mission and his ability to follow through -- personally, I miss "real" men in modern movies; taciturn, world weary and masculine heroes who are genuinely capable of doing what they promise. Kane, to me, is one such man and I'm determined to honour him.

What I thought I'd do with this first story, in what will hopefully become a series of films, is to back peddle a little bit from where Howard started us off with Kane and explore just why he is the man he is. So this first film is going to be an original tale of sorts. I had to create some sense of what could possibly drive a man such as Kane and I think you're all going to be really excited by what happens to him. Then, once we're up and running, it allows me the freedom to go on and tangle with some of Kane's other adventures.

Of course, the big question is, who will be Kane? Truth is, I don't know yet. The casting is so vital that I don't want to rush this. You can be sure that the person I finally cast will be able to embody the real essence of Kane. I need someone with a really predatory power and inner anger that can burst forth at just the right moments. Not many guys out there can do that so making that choice is going to be tricky.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm not going to make any wild promises about how wonderful the finished film will be -- there's far too much water yet to flow under that particular bridge - but I can assure you all that at least I'm starting this journey with the very best of intentions.

Oh yes, and as a little peek into some of the stuff I'm planning here's a concept art image of Kane battling a mob of ghoulish creatures. The artwork is by Greg Staples, who I'm sure some of you will know is one of the very best fantasy artists working today. 



Enjoy.

--Michael J Bassett

Watch the first Solomon Kane video diary: http://www.artistlog.com/Default.aspx?grm2id=263&tabid=462

Follow director Michael Bassett's video diaries of Solomon Kane and post your own vlogs...
Click Here: http://www.artistlog.com/michaelbassett"

SO WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHT ON THIS?

Cast and Movie Poster Below

	Jason Flemyng	...	Malachi
	Max von Sydow	...	Josiah Kane
	Rachel Hurd-Wood	...	Meredith Crowthorn
	James Purefoy	...	Solomon Kane
	Mackenzie Crook	...	Father Michael
	Pete Postlethwaite	...	William Crowthorn
	Alice Krige	...	Katherine Crowthorn