If you missed the last one…
This post is brought to you by Jack Mackenzie’s Blades & Alchemy. This is the first in a two-volume set that collects the stories of Sirtago & Poet, two popular rogues from the Swords of Fire anthologies. These eight stories feature the heir apparent of the throne of Trigasso and his shy friend, Poet, as they meet magic and monsters on their travels. Sirtago is a brute of man, missing one side of his face, but a scrapper and a lover, while his pal, Poet gets the difficult job of keeping the swagging hero alive. This first volume include “Pieces in the Game” wherein adventures in the desert lead to a confrontation with a goddess, and not a nice one!
Continuing our series of Sword & Sorcery Firsts we are technically still in the Pulp Era until 1954 or so a few of the following happened in a Pulp magazine. The Digests take over shortly thereafter. Fantasy Fiction as a whole, whether it is S&S or not, has faded from much of the magazines, being replaced by Science Fiction. In some cases, S&S tales take on a Sci-Fi look to become Sword & Planet. Poul Anderson, who will be very important in this decade, wrote several of them. Writers like L. Sprague de Camp continue to write Fantasy in the John W. Campbell/Unknown mode and for a short time it looks like real Fantasy may disappear. The 1950s were not kind to Fantasy readers, but some great things happened in this decade though many won’t be appreciated until the 1970s.
First CAS Descended Fiction
The Dying Earth (1950) by Jack Vance was the first work to use Clark Ashton Smith and his Zothique setting as inspiration. We are all familiar with the Howard/Conan inspired S&S but this book, which was a collection of short stories, is the first to look to another of the Big Three of Weird Tales. (H. P. Lovecraft was the other one, and his legacy as a Fantasy writer, with the Dreamlands stories, will resurface too. For more on that, go here.) Vance, like many writers at this time, is caught between writing SF and other forms of imaginative fiction. The Dying Earth, set in a world of the far future, filled with magicians and magic, goes against this trend. Of the six tales, only “Liane the Wayfarer” was published in a magazine. It appeared as “The Loom of Darkness” in Worlds Beyond, December 1950 edited by Damon Knight. That being said, most of these stories would be reprinted many times in later decades. Vance wrote a classic that thumbed its nose at Science Fiction and honored the memory of Clark Ashton Smith and his vision of a far future where magic returns after all the machines.
First Sword & Sorcery Comic book
“Crom the Barbarian: “The Spider God of Akka” in Avon’s Strange Worlds #1, November 1950 was the first of three episodes in the life and times of Crom. Written by Gardner F. Fox, this short series of adventures is the first true Sword & Sorcery comic. There were adventure comics that hinted at what might be, like the popular Prince Valiant comic strip that began in 1937. (This was less than a year after the death of Robert E. Howard, so the comic had no influence on REH. I suspect he would have loved it though.) Joe Kubert tried something similar with Son of Sinbad in February 1950 but the feel isn’t quite right. More Douglas Fairbanks than REH. Fox, who would write several S&S series later, captures many elements that will resurface in later comics like Conan the Barbarian, such as the warrior sent on a mission by a devious wizard.We also get giant spiders, giant snakes and giant humans. For more on this comic, go here.
First Conan in Hard Cover
Conan the Conqueror (1950) was the first in a line of Conan hard covers from Gnome Press. This was the book that added this title to Howard’s one novel, The Hour of the Dragon. The book contained a Hyborian Age map by David A. Kyle. In paperback, the book would keep this title and get a cover by Frank Frazetta. The book was included in an ACE Double along with Leigh Brackett’s The Sword of Rhiannon. (Talk about a great double-bill!) Another important thing this book did was it was given to L. Sprague de Camp by Fletcher Pratt. Pratt had been asked to review it but didn’t like it. De Camp felt differently and soon attached himself to Gnome Press as Howard’s editor. This was the moment when LSD began the rewrites, the finishing of incomplete stories and years later, pastiching entirely new tales of Conan along with Lin Carter. Some critics felt it also inspired his novel The Tritonian Ring, but more of that below.
First JWC Descended S&S since Unknown
The Tritonian Ring (1951) by L. Sprague de Camp (Two Complete Science Adventure, Winter 1951) was the Pulp publication of L. Sprague de Camp’s first Sword & Sorcery novel. Up to now, LSD was considered one of John W. Campbell’s Golden Age writers at Astounding Science Fiction. (De Camp wrote such classics as Lest Darkness Fall (1941), the Harold Shea stories and The Land of Unreason (1942) with Fletcher Pratt.) But it is here that de Camp establishes himself as a dual S&S personality, editing and co-writing Conan and producing books like the first Pusad adventure. Fans are of two minds on this. Some feel that de Camp had an August Derleth-like role of insuring that Howard’s work would be appreciated after REH’s death, and others feel LSD hijacked the canon and used it for his own gain. The truth is probably somewhere in between. De Camp had ideas, largely formed with John W. Campbell, about how Fantasy should be closer to Science Fiction. The Tritonian Ring certainly shows this, though I can’t see how it is a mere copy of The Hour of the Dragon, as some feel. The plot seems much more like John W. Campbell’s “The Elder Gods” (Unknown, October 1939). Granted, Howard’s novel features less magic than I would have liked, since he was hoping to sell it to Adventure, not Weird Tales. No matter how you feel about LSD’s involvement, he did go on to produce more Pusad tales as well as fun series like the Novaria novels and establish the first S&S anthologies.
First New Conan story since 1936
“The God in the Bowl” (Space Science Fiction, September 1952) by Robert E. Howard was the first of the lost tales of Conan to resurface. Perhaps thanks to L. Sprague de Camp. Again, it was not easy to find places to publish Sword & Sorcery so many of these posthumous publications appeared in low-paying SF magazines. Later Hans Steffan Santesson would publish more in Fantastic Universe. It would become a familiar thing to see Howard and Conan stories appear in anthologies and magazines (even The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, if you can imagine!) along with another name, L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, Gerald W. Page and others. The first hints of the 1960s and 1970s can be seen here in 1952.
First Mythological S&S
Two important novels were published in 1954. Neither had an immediate effect on Fantasy publishing. Both would matter later on. These were The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson and The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien. Both books use mythology, one Norse, the other imaginary though descended from Norse and Celtic myths, to bolster a tale of elves, warriors, gods and magic. The Broken Sword gained no notice and sunk from view. Anderson wanted to tell a tale from his cultural background. Satisfied with this for now, he went back to Science Fiction. His other Fantasy of 1954 was the better received Three Hearts And Three Lions. Tolkien published his long-awaited sequel to The Hobbit from 1937. The next two volumes in The Lord of the Rings followed shortly after. It is hard to believe that critics were split, with W. H. Auden praising the work and Edmund Wilson despising it. (Ed hates everything.) Either way, both books cooled on the publishing back burner for a decade or more. Donald A. Wollheim’s unauthorized paperback in 1965 would change everything. The Broken Sword would have to wait until 1973 and Lin Carter’s Ballantine Fantasy Series. Poul Anderson would return to the world of Skafloc in The Merman’s Children (1979) and other books.
First S&S Parody
“The Barbarian” (F&SF, May 1956) by Poul Anderson was in many ways the first parody of Robert E. Howard’s Conan. It should be no surprise it was Anderson who wrote it. And it should be no surprise it appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Anderson had penned real S&S in The Broken Sword and plenty of quasi-S&S tales for Planet Stories, disguising them as Sword & Planet. Fantasy & Science Fiction would offer both sides when it came to critiques of any form of fantastic literature. Later in the 1960s, they would publish Damon Knight’s scathing appraisal of Lovecraft “The Tedious Mr. Lovecraft” (F&SF, August 1960) but also J. Vernon Shea’s adoring summation of HPL (F&SF, May 1966). Well, “The Barbarian” certainly feels similar. Cronkheit the Barbarian and the Hybolic Age by Howard Roberts does not seem kind but the tale is actually one of comeuppance and not really a total tear-down of REH. Future parodies would be far less forgiving. The story appeared in The Best of Poul Anderson (1976) so I guess SF fans think it’s one of his better ones. I wrote my own parody (forgive me) here.
First Thieves’ World story/character
Anderson obviously did not give up on S&S, as he would write “The Valor of Cappen Varra”(Fantastic Universe, January 1957) which is a fun tale of a warrior with little bravery who takes on a she-troll. What makes this story so important is that Cappen Varra would be co-opted into the Thieves’ World shared world edited by Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey in 1979. The tone of this adventure seeps into some of the stories produced for the anthologies. Shared Worlds would be big business in the 1980s but this character sat for twenty-two years waiting to return. Poul’s participation in the Thieves’ World project helped to see it happen, bringing some bid name credit to the scheme. For more on the Cappen Varra stories, go here.
First Conan Fan Fiction
“Conan the Victorious” (aka “The Return of Conan”) (Fantastic Universe, September 1957) by Bjorn Nyberg and L. Sprague de Camp is another one of those tipping point moments. Up until 1957, all Conan tales had most or all Robert E. Howard material in them. With this tale, we begin the pastiching of the Cimmerian. L. Sprague de Camp, looking for more unfinished tales or outlines, came across Bjorn Nyberg’s Conan fan fiction and saw a chance to expand the canon. Revising the short novel, it would later form the heart of Lancer’s Conan the Avenger (1968). Nyborg would have two more stories, “The People of the Summit” and The Star of Khorala” in Conan the Swordsman (1978). Purists saw this as the beginning of the decline but the pastiches have their fans too. I, personally, enjoy them for what they are, not as good as any Howard story, but see them as the spirit of Sword & Sorcery stretching beyond the pages of Weird Tales magazine. The Nyberg pieces struck me as weak, which I fault LSD for, since he could have improved them in his editing.
First S&S film
The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) starring Kerwin Mathews was the first true Sword & Sorcery film. You can make a case for early pictures like The Thief of Baghdad (1924), which Robert E. Howard admired greatly. There were other films before 1958 (go here if you want a list) but it is the coming of Ray Harryhausen that makes this film different. Monsters are such a part of S&S that Sword & Sandal pics like Hercules with Steve Reeves just don’t compare. And the monsters of Ray Harryhausen are classic. Granted, this film, and the ones after, use mythological backgrounds, the feel is still S&S, having plenty of action and swordplay along with great beasts and fearsome enemies. True heroic fantasy cinema has arrived!
Conclusion
The 1950s seems like such a desert for Fantasy but it was an incubation period, allowing certain creators time to develop, to wonder about the possibilities of heroic fantasy in a time that wanted time machines and robots. These writers, from Jack Vance to Ray Harryhausen all wanted to explore the fantastic in a way that Robert E. Howard would have understood. Whether it was the “Northern Thing” of Tolkien or the Pulp energy “Crom the Barbarian”, Sword & Sorcery did not expire between 1950 and 1959.
Next time…the 1960s when things really explode!
Sword & Sorcery from RAGE machine Books
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