Joseph’s Comments (group member since Oct 24, 2012)

Joseph’s comments from the Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" group.

Yep, I quite liked The Sword & Sorcery Anthology, and along the same lines I'd also recommend Paula Guran's Swords Against Darkness (not to be confused with the Offutt anthologies of the same name).

EDIT: And which has just three stories overlapping with the Hartwell anthology.

Ron wrote: "Tales of the Vulgar Unicorn."

Man, I read SO MANY Thieves' World books back in the day. I should revisit the series one of these years.

Mine arrived too. Yep, love those endpapers with the dungeon maps in the old "don't photocopy me" blue & white.

Started King's Dragon because it was just time to sink into a great big epic fantasy series.

Yeah, it definitely doesn't make sense without context.

That is nice! I've read the piece, but just the version included in his short story collection. I was into Donaldson & Covenant back when I was young; someday I should go back and read the new set he wrote a while back.

TBH, the reason I'll probably be stopping with book 1 is because my copies of the revised later volumes would be hard to get my hands on -- I own them, but they're currently in a box [waves hands vaguely] somewhere, ever since I had to pack up a bunch of my books when we were doing renovations on my building.

EDIT: And the first book I'm reading on my Kindle.

Started Imaro yesterday -- great stuff! I'm reading the Night Shade version; I know I read the original DAW paperbacks some years ago, but right now I couldn't tell you what was changed.

And a fun discussion it was!

I started The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso.

Now ('tis the season) I'm starting Night Shift for the first time in about 30 years. At some point, I should reread the Dark Tower books, which are about as close as King has ever come to S&S.

To clarify, this is the cover on my original paperback copy:



I've seen pictures of the Sanjulian cover



and it does look much nicer. I have a number of other Sanjulian covers in my collection, including



and

Richard wrote: "@ Joseph
I really enjoyed The Dragon Waiting !"

It's totally not what I was expecting (mostly because I had no idea what it was about and my original 1980s-vintage paperback had a terrible generic mass-market fantasy cover), but I'm loving every page of it.

And now onto The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford -- they finally resolved the rights tangle around his books and are bringing them back into print after far, far too long.

And finished Bran Mak Morn: Legion From The Shadows and it's a shame it's out of print because that might be the best Howard pastiche I've ever read.

Something seasonal (and it's upcoming on an episode of the Appendix N Podcast): The Dunwich Horror and Others by H.P. Lovecraft.

If they do two GOOD seasons and cancel it, that'll still be better than any number of 1990s TV Conan seasons.

And finished Conan: The Road of Kings (it was fairly short -- I'd estimate not a whole lot longer than Hour of the Dragon) and moving on to Bran Mak Morn: Legion From The Shadows.

I haven't read them myself (yet), but I understand Joe Abercrombie does that kind of thing from time to time -- Red Country is essentially a western, e.g.

I reread the Kane books a couple of years ago, so this time around I'm going to be reading Wagner's Howard pastiches -- just started Conan: The Road of Kings, and am planning to follow it with Bran Mak Morn: Legion From The Shadows.