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

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

I need to read, or reread, so much Zelazny.

Cindy wrote: "I just found a couple of Tarzan books that I didn't have, so I am looking forward to reading those."

Which ones?

I read Kate Elliott's Buried Heart (concluding her Court of Fives trilogy) and a couple of associated novellas, and am just starting The Company by K.J. Parker.

Mary wrote: "Lord Dunsany. Not all of his work -- neither The King of Elfland's Daughter nor The Charwoman's Shadow are S&S precursors -- and even his short stories are ..."

Speaking of favorite writers I need to revisit soon ...

(And if you want to sample him with one relatively S&S precursor story, I'd recommend The Sword of Welleran. Conveniently, here's a link to the collection on Gutenberg.org -- it's the first story in the collection.)

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1...

Welcome! And Lamb is great; I've read three of those Bison collections, and need to get around to the rest sooner rather than later.

I'll second recommendations of Burroughs and Haggard -- Haggard also wrote some great historical adventure novels, like Eric Brighteyes, which I just read for our Viking-themed group read. And there's also Talbot Mundy, most especially his Tros Of Samothrace series.

And Rafael Sabatini probably factors in there somewhere as well, although I admit I haven't actually read any of his stuff yet.

I know I read the Green Star books at some point. I always have kind of a complicated relation with Lin Carter's fiction -- I appreciate that he's always very up-front about what he's trying to do and which author(s) he's trying to be influenced by, but his track record is kind of hit-or-miss.

Still, they're generally fun, quick reads; and I'll always be eternally grateful for the work he did as an editor.

For myself, I'm not entirely sure if it counts as sword & planet, but I just started reading Barrington J. Bayley's Star Winds probably for the first time since I was in high school. Or maybe college.

Finished Eric Brighteyes, which was a fine and rousing tale of adventure that I heartily recommend.

Why yes, this does indeed seem relevant to my interests ...

And I'm about to set sail with Eric Brighteyes, which I've somehow never quite read before despite being a big fan of all things H. Rider Haggard.

Dean wrote: "Thanks! It actually looks pretty good!"

You're welcome! I remember watching the movie on TV when I was young & visiting my grandparents, and then not having any idea what it was for another, oh, 35 years until I happened to stumble across it somewhere or other.

Here's the trailer for the movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYgQo...

Jack wrote: "Good suggestions, thanks everyone. I'm reading The Long Ships right now and am enjoying it. I also plan to read War of the Gods by Poul Anderson."

I read The Long Ships a few years ago and really enjoyed it. I also (with reservations) recommend the movie, although it bears only a passing resemblance to the book ...

Since I'm currently on a bit of a H. Rider Haggard kick, I could probably do worse than Eric Brighteyes.

For those of you who read graphic novels, I definitely recommend Northlanders by Brian Wood and various others -- The Anglo-Saxon Saga is the first big collection.

I'm torn -- it's been a while since I read John Carter, but on the other hand I just recently picked up Ray Cummings' Tama books. And there's always Almuric waiting for me ...

It's amazing (not to say embarrassing) how little I know about that part of the world ... Time to pull some of those Harold Lamb nonfiction titles off of the shelf ...

Also, this is the copy of the movie that I purchased.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...

As I said, the subtitles are a bit shonky, but it's probably the best way to see the movie right now, at least in the US.

S.E. wrote: "Actually, Russia emerged from the "Rus" vikings... ..."

Ah! That would probably explain the title, then ... :)

One interesting thing about it: Despite the titles, it has relatively few actual Vikings in it ... The main characters are all Russian, although they do recruit some Swedes to help with the fighting. (IIRC, there are a few bits where you see Russian subtitles onscreen -- some of those are situations where the spoken dialogue is actually in Swedish or some other non-Russian language.)

But yeah, the visuals were amazing.

Last night I watched the Russian movie Viking. I probably need to watch it again to form a stronger opinion about it, but it certainly was lavish, at least. Just hoping that it gets a better release here in the US -- I got a DVD from Amazon that I suspect was at least somewhat sketchy, and the subtitles were ... not great.

A trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciT1M...

Not quite sure what's in my queue, but after I finish The Witchwood Crown (should be sometime in the next couple of days), I'll be ready for something a lot shorter.

As far as Zelazny goes, I also recommend some of his shorter/standalone works -- Jack of Shadows and Dilvish, the Damned in particular.