This post is brought to you by Bearshirt #5 The Beacon House and Other Stories by G. W. Thomas. The six short stories in this collection are about Arthan the bear-man when he was only seventeen years old. Unlike most young men his days are filled with werewolves, giant worms, bat creatures, tentacular beasties falling from the sky, prehistoric birds, plant men and a race of scientists and their weird mechanical servants. All of these stories come from decades of reading Sword & Sorcery, epic fantasy and all manner of Horror and strange adventures. Some of the books below helped inspire moments in the life of someone smarter than the average bear (man). I have focused on individual novels and collections rather than entire series.
In several posts I have given my opinion on various Sword & Sorcery novels. But the Internet is a big place and there are many others who have their take on these books. So today I will let them speak for themselves. I don’t always agree, but that’s the beauty of criticism. I see one thing. You see another. I can’t claim to have read all of these, but I can say I plan to read them all. (Some may complain that I have included books like The Sword of Shannara because they are “Epic Fantasy” not Sword & Sorcery, but some of us don’t see much of a difference.)
1. The Dying Earth (1950) by Jack Vance
The Little Red Reviewer: “In preparation for Vintage month, a friend lent me Vance’s Tales of the Dying Earth, a beautiful volume that includes the four novels of the Dying Earth series: The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel’s Saga and Rialto the Magnificent. For this review, I’ll only be discussing the first book, The Dying Earth, originally published in 1950. Hopefully I’ll eventually have time to read the other three novels in this volume.” Read the Review.
Speculiction: “Before I knew anything about anything (some would argue that is still the case), I read that Jack Vance was a hidden gem of yesteryear science fiction and fantasy. Seeking out his best, all fingers pointed to Tales of the Dying Earth—what I thought was a loooong novel, but turned out to be a collection of short stories and novels…” Read the Review.
2. The Tritonian Ring (1951) by L. Sprague de Camp
Black Gate/Fletcher Vredenburgh “Lyon Sprague de Camp’s first published story was “The Isolinguals” in 1937. During the 1930s and 40s he became a significant author, writing dozens of stories and numerous novels. His time travel novel Lest Darkness Fall (1939) is considered a classic and is still read today. Alongside such genre standard bearers as Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, he is considered one of the authors responsible for bringing greater sophistication to science fiction…” Read the Review.
spraguedecampfan: “In 1950, author Fletcher Pratt, who often collaborated with L. Sprague de Camp, gave de Camp a copy of Gnome Press’s Conan the Conqueror (a retitled version of Robert E. Howard’s The Hour of the Dragon.) According to de Camp, “Pratt thought little of Conan the Conqueror, holding it weak on internal logic…” Read the Review.
3. Thongor of Lemuria (1965) by Lin Carter
Erica Frank: “ACE Books is practically synonymous with “science fiction,” but they also put out quite a bit of fantasy (for instance, most of the works of Andre Norton). The newest addition to their stable of fantasy authors is Lin Carter. His first foray into book-length (barely) work is, shall we say, ambitious…” Read the Review.
MPorcius: “Back in July, I bought a stack of Lin Carter paperbacks in West Virginia, animated by low prices and Jeff Jones and Frank Frazetta covers. (I’ve already read one of these, The Black Star, and blogged about it in September.) Five of these books have “Thongor” in their titles, but I didn’t actually buy the first Thongor novel on that day…” Read the Review.
4. Conan the Freebooter (1967) by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
Glorious Trash: “I had a tough time with this third volume of Conan. In fact I read it over a year ago, but at the time I found myself skimming the collected stories, to the point that when I “finished” the book I didn’t have any idea how to review it! So I waited a while until getting back to the series, only to find my interest again sagging at times…” Read review here.
Pulp&Dagger/D. K. Latta: “This is one of the original Lancer books (volume #3, but actually the 7th to be printed), reprinted in the ’70s by Ace (Sphere in England) in the set of anthologies which tried to publish all the Howard Conan stories in chronological order. “Gaps” in the chronology were filled in either with unfinished fragments completed by De Camp and Lin Carter, or with non-Conan (but still Howard) stories rewritten as Conan yarns…” Read the Review.
5. Brak the Barbarian (1968) by John Jakes
Black Gate/Fletcher Vredenbugh: “For people of a certain age (the pushing-fifty crowd) John Jakes is probably best known for The Kent Family Chronicles, his massive series of massive books about American history and the mini-series made from the first one, The Bastard. Hearing that title said out loud on TV was a pretty shocking thing for us kids back in 1978…” Read the Review.
Library of Doom: “I’m not a massive fantasy fan. I have dipped my toes in occasionally. When I worked at Waterstones book shop I realized there was so much of it!!! I like Sword and Sorcery movies, some of the Conan stuff, and I enjoyed John Carpenter from Mars ( film and books Sword and Planet I believe these are called! Joe Abercrombie’s grimdark stuff and didn’t like Game of Thrones ( yes, we exist). So, I found some of these Brak novels very cheap and thought, why not? The covers are always pretty good and I’m a sucker for that…” Read the Review.
6. Blade #1: The Bronze Axe (1969) by Jeffrey Lord (Manning Lee Stokes)
Welcome to Dimension X: “It’s called “The Bronze Axe,” by Jeffrey Lord, and guess what: there’s a dude on the cover swinging an axe which might well be bronze. Truth in advertising! Also on the cover, a young lady who may or may not be wearing underwear… we’re off to a strong start here.” Read the review here.
Rough Edges/James Reasoner: “I’ve written before about what I call front porch books—the sort of book I read when I was a teenager, sitting in a lawn chair in the shade of my parents’ front porch on summer days when it was too hot to play baseball.” Read the review here.
7. Kothar #1: Kothar Barbarian Swordsman (1967) by Gardner F. Fox
Rough Edges/James Reasoner: “I must have read hundreds of comic books written by Gardner Fox when I was growing up, but at that time I had no idea he was also a novelist. The only books by him that I read were his sexy spy novels in the Lady From L.U.S.T. series, which he wrote as Rod Gray…” Read the Review.
Appendix N Book Club: “…The Kothar stories are presented with economy, craft, and imagination, so it’s not surprising that they stood out to Gary Gygax amidst all of the other derivative swords and sorcery in print at the time…” Listen to the Review.
8. The Broken Lands (1968) by Fred Saberhagen
Black Gate/Fletcher Vredenburgh: “I wonder if Fred Saberhagen suspected that his short 1968 novel, The Broken Lands, was laying the groundwork for a series that would ultimately run 15 volumes…” Read the Review.
9. Ursus of Ultima Thule (1973) by Avram Davidson
Strange at Ecbatan/Rich Horton: “Avram Davidson is one of my favorite writers, and I have up to now read almost all of his SF/Fantasy novels. (Though for all I know Seth Davis is set to publish some more — he’s already put out at least one previously unpublished non-SF novel, Beer! Beer! Beer!.) But there were two I hadn’t got to — Ursus of Ultima Thule (1973) and Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty (1988, with Grania Davis.)…” Read the Review.
10. Bloodstone (1975) by Karl Edward Wagner
Black Gate/Connor Gormley: “I love used book shops. And when I say love, I damn well mean love; anything that offers me a Kane Book for less than a pound is pretty much saying ‘I do’ in my book. You just can’t buy that kind of passion, unless you happen to offer me a Kane book for under a…. oh, never mind!” Read the Review.
Jennifer Hallmark: “One of the best feelings for a secondhand book lover like myself is finding an obscure novel in a genre not usually read, by an author not known and it turns out to be a doorway to worlds never dreamed of…” Read the Review.
11. The Coming of the Horseclans (1975) by Robert Adams
Hub Pages/Seth Tomko: “Set on the Atlantic coast in the twenty-seventh century A.D., the world struggles with lawlessness, barbarism, perpetual violence, and minimal technology since a series of unspecified cataclysmic events destroyed civilization over six hundred years ago. Into this vacuum comes Milo of Morai who unites the warlike horseclan nomads and leads them on a prophesied trek to a new homeland…” Read the Review.
Fantasy Literature/Greg Hersom: “After two centuries, the undying High Lord Milo Morai has returned to the Horseclans to lead them to their prophesied destiny. First they must conquer their enemies and the Witchmen — pre-holocaust scientists who have continued living by transplanting their minds into stolen bodies…” Read the Review.
12. Kyrik: Warlock Warrior (1975) by Gardner F. Fox
Castalia House: “Compared to Gardener Fox’s other Conan knockoff,¹ this one is actually pretty good. Instead of a collection of episodic stories, this book serves up a complete short novel. Instead of taking place in the far future on a distant world, this tale is set in a mythical past…” Read the Review.
Glorious Trash: “I picked this one up a few years ago when I was on a sword and sorcery kick; the typically-great Ken Barr cover drew me right in. Barr has always been my favorite of these ‘70s cover artists, and as ever his art completely captures the subject matter. ” Read review here.
13. The Magic Goes Away (1976) by Larry Niven
Black Gate/Fletcher Vredenburgh: “A swordsman battled a sorcerer once upon a time. In that age such battles were frequent. A natural antipathy exists between swordsmen and sorcerers, as between cats and small birds, or between rats and men…” Read the Review.
B0B’s Books: “Nobody puts Mirandee in the Corner…” Watch the Review.
14. The Sword of Shannara (1977) by Terry Brooks
Black Gate/Fletcher Vredenburgh: “In 1977 when I was eleven, I, along with hundreds of thousands of others, was part of the group that yelled “Shut up!” For us it didn’t matter that chunks of Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara read like he’d simply xeroxed The Lord of the Rings, sped it up, and stripped out the hard parts, songs, and poetry. So what if the Skullbearers bore an uncanny resemblance to the Ring Wraiths and the city of Tyrsis to the city of Minas Tirith?” Read the Review.
Dial H For Houston: “Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. So in ye olden Fantasy Land of Elves and Dwarves and such, a mysterious wizard recruits a young man of the humblest of origins to go on a great quest. This quest is of the utmost importance, centering around an ancient magical artifact of great power that will cause untold destruction if it falls into the wrong hands…” Read the Review.
15. Tark and the Golden Tide (1977) by Colum MacConnell
Castalia House: “Leisure Books became the prime publisher of sword & sorcery paperbacks in the mid-1970s as Paperback Library was bought out by Warner and Lancer Books went bankrupt. Some of the players at Lancer went on to found Zebra Books that also became a major publisher of sword & sorcery.” Read review here.
16. Warlord of Ghandor (1977) by Del Dowdell
PorPor Books: “It’s 1649 and Robert Dowdall, an Irish noble and adventurer, is preparing to lead the Clans of Ireland in an effort to oppose the landing of Oliver Cromwell and the English army. The eve before the battle that would come to be known as the siege of Drogheda, Dowdall stumbles upon a strange portal hidden in the evening mist. Stepping through the portal, he arrives on the planet of Ghandor.” Read the Review.
Schlock Value: “Oh, DAW Books, you never fail to fill my heart with joy. Sure, sometimes that joy comes from knowing I won’t ever have to read a book again, and such is the case with Warlord of Ghandor.” Read the review here.
17. Tales of Neveryon (1979) by Samuel R. Delany
Kara’s Reviews: “If you have read any Samuel R. Delany, you know he is a complex dude, and even his simplest stories are complex in some way. Tales of Nevèrÿon is no exception. Largely branded sword-and-sorcery, it’s actually an attempt to deconstruct this subgenre and provide commentary on the relationship between capitalism and slavery. And, for bonus points, if you read closely enough you start to see patterns and echoes from some of his other work, including Triton and Dhalgren…” Read the Review.
Reactormag/Jo Walton: “It was published in 1979, but because of the vagaries of British publishing I didn’t see it until 1988, and I had to check the date twice because it feels to me to belong a decade later. It’s interesting to consider that this book was written (1979!) so early in the first boom of fantasy as a marketing genre—Judy-Lynn Del Rey, seeing the success of The Lord of the Rings had deliberately published Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara in 1977 to capitalize on the idea of fantasy trilogies, and suddenly fantasy out of nowhere was a big thing…” Read the Review.
18. Conan the Rebel (1980) by Poul Anderson
Frank Ormond: “I have covered the Conan stories I most wanted to cover over months, maybe years…However, after Howard’s death there were several authors who contributed to the mythos. Given that I have read and reviewed many of Poul Anderson’s work on this blog, it is worth reviewing his sole addition to the Conan universe…” Read the Review.
spraguedecampfan: “Conan the Rebel by Poul Anderson was published by Bantam Books in 1980. This was the sixth book in the Bantam Conan series. The first printing featured a foldout cover by Bob Larkin. This novel features both Conan and Belit. The story takes place during the events of Robert E. Howard’s “Queen of the Black Coast”…” Read the Review.
19. The Changing Land (1981) by Roger Zelazny
Paper Kingdom/Michael Channing: “This book has great promise. The setting is intriguing, the main character is cool and interesting, the action is well paced. It vaults high but lands badly, twists its ankle, and limps away embarrassed.” Read the Review.
Where There Had been Darkness: “I liked the original collection of Dilvish stories, but I figured that’s all I was going to see of him. It wasn’t my favorite of Zelazny’s worlds, but I didn’t hate it like I did Lord Demon or A Farce to be Reckoned With. I gave it a B- on the page with all my rankings…” Read the Review.
20. Raven #1: Swordmistress of Chaos (1987) by Richard Kirk (Robert Holdstock)
Glorious Trash: “First published in the UK in 1978, Raven ultimately ran for five volumes; “Richard Kirk” was in reality two British writers: Robert Holdstock and Angus Wells. In 1987 the series was brought over to these shores, with awesome covers by Royo (and faithful to titular character Raven’s armor, believe it or not!)…” Read the Review
Stuff I Like: ” There are five Raven books by house author Richard Kirk (at times Angus Wells or Robert Holdstock or both. Despite starring a heroine plucked from the slave pits and tutored in all styles of killing, I suspect the target audience for these books was a male one…” Read the Review.
Conclusion
I will admit I don’t spend enough time shouting out about others online. Take Black Gate for instance, (or DMR, Castalia House or Parallel Universe Publications or a dozen others). John O’Neil has done a great job of offering a wide number of voices on SF/F/H. He and all his writers deserve all the praise they get. Today’s post is a round-up but it is also a chance to feature some of the bloggers I enjoy. I am usually too busy falling down my own rabbit holes to see what others do, so this kind of post is a nice chance to stop and appreciate. I hope if you aren’t familiar with some of these bloggers that I have given you a heads up.
Sword & Sorcery from RAGE m a c h i n e
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