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

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

Derek wrote: "I wonder if they considered At The Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time to not be "industrial" civilizations, or if they overlooked these works."

I was wondering the same thing. But given that the earliest example they could find dates from 1970 or so, I'm guessing they didn't of a whole lot of research in that regard ...

Yes, that'd be a good excuse for me to continue my project of (very slowly) trying to read pretty much everything he wrote; although I think the next one or two in my queue are non-fantastical.

Yes, that de Camp anthology was first-rate! Check out his others (Swords and Sorcery, The Spell of Seven and Warlocks and Warriors) if you get a chance -- the four of them together give a pretty solid foundation in classic S&S.

And personally I'd say the Bard novel would qualify if you read it and discuss it here -- we don't tend to be real sticklers about things … :)

Alliance Rising: The Hinder Stars I. Which is, of course, not remotely S&S, but it's pretty great nonetheless.

Finished Weirdbook 31, which was good, but the stories were mostly in more of a dark fantasy/horror vein, so I might see if I can work another (more properly S&S) anthology into my schedule later this year.

I did actually finish Fire & Blood with time to spare before Alliance Rising: The Hinder Stars I drops next week, so I'm starting Weirdbook 31 for my anthology.

Well, given that we have Old Man Conan (the old King Conan series) already, we know that he makes it to a ripe, old age, so I expect this'll be a Legend-style last hurrah for him.

That's one that's also been on my shelf for a while, but I don't think I ever quite got around to it. Someday ...

This also seems like it'd be an ideal format for, say, an Elric game.

For no good reason, I picked up a copy of Conan (PS3 game from 2007 or so). So far it's kind of playing like a second-rate God of War clone, but I'm having a pleasant time lopping off various limbs & heads & the like.

Finished Blackdog on the way home from my parents' this morning (my brother was driving, I hasten to add) and started Fire & Blood.

S.E. wrote: "Tough to read during the Dec holiday/end of yr chaos, but I keep trudging thru The King of Elfland’s daughter.

Flowery prose and run on sentences work better in short fiction; love the imagery, bu..."

Yeah, I love Dunsany's short fiction but only like his novels.

OK, all done with Barsoom, so next up will be Blackdog by K.V. Johansen, a book that's been in my TBR pile for entirely too long.

S.E. wrote: "Joseph, are you managing to pull off an entire series (re)read?"

Yep -- all eleven books (well, aside from the first half of John Carter of Mars). Which I should qualify by pointing out that they're relatively short by contemporary standards -- per the timer on my Kindle, they were taking an average of maybe two hours per title. This is one of those series where once I start, I won't be stopping until I reach the end.

The end is nigh -- after reading Llana of Gathol in something approaching one sitting, I am starting John Carter of Mars, the last of Edgar Rice Burroughs's books about, well, John Carter of Mars.

(And I admit that I'm cheating a bit -- I'm skipping entirely over the first novella in the book, the execrable and ghost-written "John Carter and the Giant of Mars" and only reading the second, "Skeleton Men of Jupiter".)

Mary wrote: "I think Burroughs did better with the idea in The Monster Men -- which is not sword and planet."

I wouldn't be surprised. I think I read that one, but if so it was many, many years ago.

Synthetic Men isn't the worst book in the series by a long shot -- that honor goes squarely to John Carter of Mars -- but it's almost certainly second worst.

Time for Synthetic Men of Mars, which is not the greatest book in the series, but which actually kind of prefigures a lot of 1950s monster/horror movies.

S.E. wrote: "Joseph, those are great suggestions. We had a Vance read a longtime ago, but we are due for more.

I was thinking of “overlooked authors” or obscure ones. Clifford Ball?"

Yep, that'd be a good one too -- maybe Nictzin Dyalhis, or even Henry Kuttner would qualify these days.

Have we done Dying Earth yet? Not just Vance, of course, but there's also Zothique, Hodgson's Night Land, Carter's Gondwane, Wolfe's Urth ...

Finished A Fighting Man of Mars and it might be my favorite outside of the original trilogy -- it's the one where Burroughs plays most against expectations, and has some truly grotesque (human) villains and some surprisingly dark bits.

Next up: Swords of Mars.