If you missed the last one…
This post is brought to you by the Swords of Fire anthology series, with the fourth book due in 2026. Like the three previous collections, this one will feature four longer Sword & Sorcery adventures with one being a Sirtago & Poet tale set in a country much like Japan. This is by Jack Mackenzie, of course. There is also the next adventure of Bradik the Slayer by M. D. Jackson. One of the other two tales is a new Arthan the Bear Man story featuring giant spiders. For the previous anthologies, go here.
That last “What Others Think” post proved to be the most popular post for 2025! So why wouldn’t I do another 20? As before I rely on several people more than once. A shout out to John O’Neill and his excellent Black Gate website as well as MPorcius’s blog. Love these guys. I did try to mix it up though with different POVs, not always in agreement with my own judgments. What would be the point of that?
A word about my selections: I tried to include some proto-S&S with E. R. Eddison and Lord Dunsany, two writers who inspired all the Howards, Leibers, Carters, etc. that came later. I tried to include stuff from each decade between the 1950s and the 1980s, the real heydey of heroic fantasy publishing. Some books like Andre Norton’s Witch World begin like SF novels but the series quickly abandons these trappings for High Fantasy.
1. The Worm Ouroboros (1922) by E. R. Eddison
False Machine: “Where to even start? I found this to be an exceptional book. A work of the imagination alone, self-sustaining and self-excusing, an Ouroboros indeed, feeding mainly on itself it need ask no permission and make no explanations.” Read the Review
Fantasy Literature: “The Worm Ouroboros is a love-it-or-hate-it book. Mannered in its language, weird in so many ways, and chock-full of larger than life characters acting in ways that most people just don’t get. If you have a problem with something written in an archaic style, then you probably won’t get much out of The Worm Ouroboros, but if you like that kind of thing I think the book repays reading and is definitely worth it.” Read the Review
2.The Broken Sword (1954) by Poul Anderson
PC Bushi: “My feelings on this one are mixed. Of the three I’ve gotten to thus far, my favorite has been the High Crusade (which Gita just recently reviewed). The Broken Sword is a skillfully crafted example of what a fantasy story can be when a talented writer just lets loose and does what he wants. Goblins and dwarves? Of course. Christ plus a bunch of Norse gods? Sure. Throw in some Celtic godlings and crap while you’re at it! Cursed sword, changeling berserker, elf vs troll war, oodles of magic – get it all in! Why?! Because it’s fun and cool!!” Read the Review
Re-Enchantment of the World: “I’ve been called out to write a review of The Broken Sword. I accepted the challenge, although without much enthusiasm. You see, I’m not a fan of Moorcock, whether he fawns over Anderson’s book or not. For me his prose is the epitome of good intentions paving the road to hell. Or maybe a slightly less dramatic, but very accurate saying: when your best just isn’t good enough…” Read the Review
3. Witch World (1963) by Andre Norton
Black Gate (Fletcher Vredenburgh): “This isn’t merely an excercise in cross-promotion (it is that, just not only that), but also a chance to redress a failing in my reviews of Andre Norton’s Witch World books. Neither here at Black Gate nor back at my own site, Stuff I Like, have I ever actually written about the first book in the series, Witch World. Now that I’m a “special guest” on the just released episode of the Appendix N Book Club podcast about the book, I believe I have a responsibility to write it up, too.” Read the Review
Fantasy Faction: “In a recent article, I observed that, although there isn’t complete gender equality in fantasy today, female fantasy authors are too usual to need any comment. Similarly, it’s hardly unusual now to read a fantasy epic that focuses on character and relationships as much as action, or where power lies in the hands of women.” Read the Review
4. The Druid Stone by Simon Majors (Gardner F. Fox)
Fantasy Literature: ““You can’t judge a book by its cover.” We’ve all heard the saying before and know it to be true. Not that I’m demeaning the work of all the wonderful cover artists out there. Indeed, a good book with a beautifully decorative cover illustration makes for a treasure in any home, to be sure, and I’m nerdy enough to have my own favorite artists of such: Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Richard M. Powers, Virgil Finlay, James Bama … the list goes on and on…” Read the Review
Vintage Pop Fictions: “The Druid Stone is a novel of black magic by Gardner Francis Fox, using the pseudonym Simon Majors. It was published in 1967.” Read the Review
5. Swords of Lankhmar (1968) by Fritz Leiber
DMR (Brian Murphy): “The Fafhrd and Gray Mouser of the late 1960s and on are not the same dashing heroes we meet in the early days of Unknown. The pace of the stories slow considerably, their adventures turn inward, and the stories occur in smaller spaces, in particular the distant island Rime Isle, located out on the very rim of Nehwon.” Read the Review
Tales of Calamity & Triumph: “Permit me to fashion an image in your mind. Imagine yourself on the deck of an old galleon. The day is warm and bright, but misty. Massive canvas sails, held aloft on spire-like masts, bulge in the wind and carry you onward at a steady pace. You are among the crew, cleaning the deck or otherwise manning your station. Perhaps you’re spotting in the crow’s nest, or maybe you’re down in the hold keeping watch over the grain shipment being hauled on your ship. And not just your ship, for yours is but one of a small fleet of such trade vessels.” Read the Review
6. Conan of Cimmeria (1969) by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
Noor A Jahangir: “Conan the Cimmerian continues to capture the imaginations of readers 80 years after Robert Ervin Howard penned the first Conan story, The Phoenix on the Sword, in 1932. Since then, the iconic character of Conan has graced magazines, books, comic books, cartoons, television serials, video games and the big screen. This particular tome contains all of the original tales written by Howard and published in Weird Tales during his lifetime, including thirteen novelettes, three novellas and the novel The Hour of the Dragon.” Read the Review
Pulp&Dagger: “This is the second volume in the series of books originally published in the 60s by Lancer, then republished by Ace, which mixed the Robert E. Howard Conan stories with Conan pastiches by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, the purpose being to fill in the gaps between the “official” stories. For myself, I found the whole thing a little annoying (and cynically manipulative), giving readers no choice but to buy the pastiches with the originals. Basically, it was just a clever way of selling a bunch of de Camp and Carter stories which would never have gotten published otherwise. So there.” Read the Review
7. Quest of the Dark Lady (1969) by Quinn Reade (Ben Haas)
MPorcius: “Belmont must have had a genius art director or PR guy or something–I love the covers of their paperbacks. Remember how much I adored the gorgeous cover illustration of their Novelets of Science Fiction and how I admired their bombastic and misleading ad copy (“BOOK OF THE YEAR!”)?” Read the Review
Paperback Warrior: “Ben Haas (1926-1977) sold his first story to the pulps when he was 18 years of age. After serving as a Sergeant in the U.S. Army, and working in the steel industry, Haas became a full-time writer in 1961. He used pseudonyms like Thorne Douglas, Richard Meade, John Benteen, and William Kane. I’m familiar with the author’s western writing, but wanted to try something a little different from the author.” Read the Review
8. The Dreaming City (1972) by Michael Moorcock
PMPress: “More sword and sorcery. Last month I was asked to design a reprinting of the very first Elric story by Michael Moorcock, a standalone publication from Jayde Design intended to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Moorcock’s most popular character. The Dreaming City was published in issue 47 of Science Fantasy magazine in June 1961, following a request from the editor, John Carnell, for Moorcock to write a new series of fantasy stories. Over the next three years Science Fantasy published all ten of the novellas that established Elric’s character and his world, ending with Doomed Lord’s Passing in April 1964, the entry which saw Moorcock destroy his creation in a Boschian apocalyptic finale.” Read the Review
SF & Fantasy Remembrance: “Truth be told I feel almost the same way introducing Michael Moorcock as I did when I introduced H. P. Lovecraft, in that while my feelings on these men as writers is mixed, I have to admit their importance to genre writing (each in his own way) is immense. I get the irony is that Moorcock really dislikes Lovecraft (as both a writer and person) to the point of basically denying his influence on other writers, but… goddamnit, I couldn’t hold back on this for even a few more sentences.” Read the Review
9. Mention My Name In Atlantis (1972) by John Jakes
Metaphorsis Reviews: “I first encountered John Jakes through his brilliant Secrets of Stardeep, a first-rate young adult SFF story. Some time later, I found On Wheels a projection that’s still interesting in the US’ auto-focused culture. By that time, though, Jakes had gone on to his highly successful historical novels, and left SFF behind.” Read the Review
Teller of Weird Tales: “I read a lot last year. Book No. 51 was Mention My Name in Atlantis by John Jakes (Daw Books, 1972). Mr. Jakes’ book is a kind of mock epic. The lead character and narrator is a Falstaffian figure called Hoptor the Vintner. His sometimes sidekick is Conax the Chimerical, king of a land of barbarians. Mention My Name in Atlantis is also a satire and a parody, including of the typical heroic fantasy hero and pulp writing in general…” Read the Review
10. Over the Hills and Far Away (1974) by Lord Dunsany
Black Gate (John O’Neill):“Over the Hills and Far Away is my favorite Dunsany collection, and the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, edited by Lin Carter and published in 1974, is my favorite edition.” Read the Review
Fraser Sherman: “Over the Hills and Far Away was Ballantine Adult Fantasy‘s final Lord Dunsany collection (the line itself would put out only a couple more books before Ballantine became Del Rey Books and did away with it), and more varied than either At The Edge of the World or Beyond the Fields We Know. In addition to several of his secondary-world fantasies we have some set in London, a couple of Dunsany’s plays (he was better known in his lifetime as a playwright than a fantasist) and four of his stories about Jorkens, a clubman who trades outrageous tales for a free whiskey…” Read the Review
11. The Dream Lords A Plague of Nightmares (1975) by Adrian Cole
Black Gate (John O’Neill): “I don’t often hear of fantasy described as “In the tradition of Tolkien and Lovecraft!” Just seems like an odd mix to me. But that’s exactly how Adrian Cole’s first three novels, collectively known as The Dream Lords trilogy, are described.” Read the Review
PorPor Books: “While the cover art suggests that ‘A Plague of Nightmares’ is a fantasy / sword & sorcery adventure, in fact, the novel is science fiction with a heavy overlay of fantasy elements. So readers will encounter hovercraft, spaceships, ray guns, and robots, along with telepathy and occult phenomena.” Read the Review
12. The Dragon Lord (1978) by David Drake
Black Gate (Fletcher Vredenburgh): “One of the greatest incentives to start blogging about S&S was that it would force me to read more. For the three or four years before I started my blog, I was reading only a dozen or so books a year, instead of the fifty to sixty I had in the past. If I wanted to have something to write about, I would actually have to read. That part’s worked out very well for me.”Read the Review
The Silver Key: “Some twenty years before TheWarlord Chronicles, a grim and gritty take on the Arthurian mythos by historical fiction author Bernard Cornwell, David Drake’s The Dragon Lord (1978) covered the same war-torn ground, employing a similar historical Dark Ages realism in the telling. Imagine Arthur as a power-hungry, petulant warlord with a clubbed foot; Launcelot as a hulking Roman Gaul, arrogant and bullying; and Merlin a half-crazed sorcerer barely in control of his own overestimated powers of magic, and you have the basic flavor of Drake’s debut novel.” Read the Review
13. Night Winds (1978) by Karl Edward Wagner
Graeme’s Fantay Book Review: “In a world where Karl Edward Wagner’s ‘Kane’ books are long out of print (and going for quite obscene prices on Amazon etc, seriously, check it out…) I’ve been lucky enough to build up my collection through the awesome powers of the internet. Having only read ‘Dark Crusade’ (reviewed at the very beginning of this month and still superb reading even after all these years) I’m pretty excited at seeing how the other books measure up so you can expect to see reviews here on a fairly regular basis :o)” Read the Review
Live Journal: “I recently finished Karl Edward Wagner’s Nightwinds (NY: Warner Books, Inc.; 1978; July 1983 reprint; ISBN: 0-446-30812-9; mass market paperback; 286 pps.), a book of five short stories and one novella featuring Wagner’s left-handed, red-headed, red-bearded, ice-blue-eyed anti-hero Kane (yes, he’s the biblical Cain; his “killer eyes” are his mark)…” Read the Review
14. Sorcerer’s Son (1979) by Phyllis Eisenstein
Black Gate (John O’Neill): “I ran into my friend Phyllis Eisenstein at the Windy City Pulp & Paper Show here in Chicago over the weekend, and the first thing she said to me was, “I’m retired!” Read the Review
James Nicholl Reviews: “1979’s Sorcerer’s Son is the first volume of Phyllis Eisenstein’s secondary-universe fantasy series, Book of Elementals. Sorcerer’s Son is a coming-of-age novel.” Read the Review
15. Conan and the Spider God (1980) by L. Sprague de Camp
Assassin’s Hideout: “What crap book, by Howard’s no.1 fan – Mr. Sprague de camp. The poor guy just tried too hard. The whole book is just plain boring, the action is slow, the plot is…meh, and the Conan himself is not Conan at all…” Read the Review
Black Gate (Bob Byrne): “I’ve been in a bit of a Robert. E. Howard mood lately, so I re-read some of his Solomon Kane stories (fine stuff). But, as always, I gravitated back to Conan. And that inevitably led me to the pastiches. A quick count of the shelves produced 42 non-Howard Conan tales, excluding the de Camp/Carter books, of which I’m missing two or three, I think.” Read the Review
16. Thieves World #2: Tales From the Vulgar Unicorn (1980) edited by Robert Lynn Aspirin
Out of the World Reviews: “Thieves’ World returns with its second volume, Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn, offering readers another dive into the grim and perilous city of Sanctuary. Edited by Robert Lynn Asprin, this anthology builds on the foundation laid in the first book, presenting a new collection of stories by some of fantasy’s best-known authors. With its shared-world format and dark, morally ambiguous atmosphere, Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn deepens the intrigue and danger that define the city of thieves, assassins, and schemers.” Read the Review
The PorPor Books: “The lineup of contributors to ‘Vulgar’ includes some from the first volume: Robert Asprin; his wife at the time, Lynn Abbey; and Andrew J Offutt. There are a bevy of franchise newcomers, all of whom were established sci-fi and fantasy writers at the time of publication.” Read the Review
17. Tomoe Gozen (1981) by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Live Journal: “This fantasy trilogy consists of Tomoe Gozen (also published as The Disfavored Hero), The Golden Naginata, and Thousand Shrine Warrior. Sadly, they are all out of print, but you can find them from used booksellers or PaperbackSwap or BookMooch, and it’s well worth getting the complete set. It is my all-time favorite fantasy series. Not “favorite samurai series” or “favorite Japanese fantasy series” but favorite fantasy series period.” Read the Review
J. W. Wright: “In the realm of Naipon, an alternate Earth version of Japan, Gods, magic, monsters, and demons are as real as anything else. It is through a portal in the dreams of the people of Japan through the ages that the Japanese people have seen this alternate dimension similar to theirs, and believed they were seeing the unseen in Medieval Japan. In a way, because of overlapping dimensions in the multiverse, this is true. Enter the female samurai Tomoe Gozen, a once-heroic warrior fallen from grace when she was lured in by the powers of darkness. With everything she has, she tries to redeem herself of the dark stain of dishonor upon her name. This is her story…..” Read the Review
18. Conan the Babarian (Movie Novelization)(1982) by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
Bookbeard’s Blog: “The official film adaptation, this faithful rendition captures the brutality and violence of this classic. Bearing all the hallmarks of Robert E. Howard, the authors have recreated the character with an eye for detail and a deft touch.” Read the Review
Cinema Sentries: “The novel Conan the Barbarian by L. Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter is the official motion picture adaptation of the movie released starring Arnorld Schwartzenegger, directed by John Milius, and written by Milius and Oliver Stone. The character of Conan the Barbarian was created in the 1930s during the Golden Age of pulp fiction by Robert E. Howard…” Read the Review
19. Dilvish the Damned (1982) by Roger Zelazny
Black Gate (Fletcher Vredenburgh): “Dilvish, the Damned (1983), by Roger Zelazny, had been on my list of books and stories to avoid because of who recommended them. With this book, it was someone I played D&D with. In fact, he introduced me to the original D&D rules back in 1977 or ’78.” Read the Review
PC Bushi: “One of the things I enjoy most about old Appendix N work (and similarly classic and formational SFF) is that there’s so much “not Tolkien” fantasy to masticate. Don’t get me wrong – I love me some JRR hobbits and trolls, but I’ve gotten kind of worn out on today’s brand of knock-off Gandalfs and Legolas clones. Even when they’re Dark-Legolas.” Read the Review
20. Morlac: Quest of the Green Magician (1986) by Gary Alan Ruse
OZThoughts: “With Morlac – The Quest of the Green Magician, Alan Ruse has written what has to be the ultimate epic Fantasy saga. He manages to incorporate every form of fantasy with the possible exception of Vampires into the three stories that make up this ebook.” Read the Review
Phoebe Darqueling: “Hello sci-fi and fantasy book lovers! It’s time again to crawl inside an author’s brain to learn about the world they’ve created and how it came to be. Our guest today is Gary Ruse, and here’s a little background about him.” Read the Review/Interview
Conclusion
Doing this second pass I was surprised at how few reviews exist for some books. I had to abandon certain books because they only had one review. (I wanted two per.) Others had none at all. These are books that have been around since the 1960s and yet no one online has commented on them much, if at all. This is both sad and exciting. It’s sad because many paperback originals deserve more attention. The reality is that most paperbacks had a shelf life of less than three months unless they were good sellers. While The Sword of Shannara sold millions of copies, Kavin’s World by David Mason might have done a few thousand.
The exciting part is that there is plenty of material for blogs like Dark Worlds Quarterly to feature in future reviews. A retro review has both good and bad aspects. On the bad side, we lose the element of novelty that it had when newly printed and sold in a book store. On the plus side, historical perspective allows us to compare the work to a larger pool of material. For example my thoughts on Gardner F. Fox’s The Druid Stone are colored by his later work, especially his Kothar/Kyrik novels as well as the work of many others. Someone back in 1967 might have thought it wonderful or garbage. I quite like it in 2025. I might like it for its nostalgic quality, which a new reviewer could not. Either way, this is where we are.
Sword & Sorcery from RAGE machine Books
