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

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

Charles wrote: "A lot of my friends like "Beyond the Black River" better and it is certainly a very original conception, but I like the tropes of fantasy, the ruined, verdigrised cities, the surviving remnants of once proud peoples."

I'm kind of conflicted -- I think Black River may be my favorite Conan story, but it's not necessarily a good example of a Conan story, if you know what I mean. Red Nails fits the bill much better.

Just finished, in The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard, "The House of Arabu", which was a particularly fine horror/sword & sorcery story set in ancient Mesopotamia or somewhere in that region. Too bad Pyrrhas didn't become a recurring character -- his history, as sketched out in the story, seems to have taken him across most of the ancient world.

I'm currently not quite 100 pages into The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard which won't have a ton of sword & sorcery proper, but which does include at least a few Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn stories.

Finished Baptism of Fire, the most recent Witcher novel to be translated into English. I'm definitely enjoying the series -- nicely grim & sardonic Eastern European feel to them -- but be warned that this book is mostly kind of a middle section in a longer narrative.

And for the next group read I'm starting The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard because that's the next Del Rey collection I haven't read yet.

I'm thinking Swords-sans-sorcery might be a good choice for a future group read ...

Dave wrote: "I really like the Del Rey Howard collections. I have seven of them in print and another in ebook and they are all very well done."

I'm still at least slightly sad that we're not going to see his entire output collected in uniform Del Rey editions. But between them, the REH Foundation and Bison, that probably puts pretty much everything out there in one form or another.

Favorite Conan story might be Beyond the Black River, although it's pretty atypical and my answer may change from day to day.

And having said that, I think I might actually like Kull a tiny bit better than Conan.

Also, fabulous banner! (Which surprises me not in the least.)

Sounds like an excellent excuse to move on to the next Del Rey book (Horror Stories) and/or one of the REH Foundation titles.

I have the first half dozen or so Prescot books on my shelf. Someday ...

As for Gor, I remember trying to read the first book many years ago but not being able to make much headway. It's possible that I already had a negative impression of the series from reading a scathing review of a later book in Dragon Magazine or some such.

(As an aside, there was a time back in the 1980s when I was discovering all manner of great authors from book reviews in the pages of Dragon -- C.J. Cherryh is the first one that springs to mind.)

My TBR pile:

http://eduscapes.com/history/contempo...

OK, finished Caesar Dies. It wasn't great, but was a pleasant diversion. Next up, something brand-spanking-new: Veil of the Deserters by Jeff Salyards.

I'm honestly not sure if I've read it before or not -- if I did it was years and years ago. I've read the Complete Tros of Samothrace and King of the Khyber Rifles and maybe a Jimgrim book or two? and have enjoyed pretty much all of it.

And something a bit more S&S-related: I just wrapped up Douglas Hulick's Sworn in Steel, which I'd recommend, and started Caesar Dies by Talbot Mundy.

Interesting list. I'm not sure if I entirely buy Dune as sword & planet, but the rest look to be pretty solid.

This was my first serious dive into Brackett and I really enjoyed it; I'll definitely be going back for more at some point.

In retrospect I'd have to agree. But I'm going to count it anyway ... :)

Finished Martian Quest: The Early Brackett. I think there were only one or two swords in the entire book -- heat-guns were much more common -- but boy, were those some good stories. Not so much sword-and-planet as noir-and-planet.

Phil wrote: "Alan Dean Foster's novelizations (Total Recall and Alien in my case) were a great way for curious kids to enjoy R-rated movies."

Yep. Alien and Outland for me. Plus his Black Hole and Star Trek: The Motion Picture novelizations. And I actually read a fair amount of his original fiction back in the day. Midworld was always a favorite.

Fletcher wrote: "I'm really curious how this one turns out. I have a real soft spot for the movie and respect for Alan Dean Foster."

I'll also be curious -- the movie always seemed to just be scratching the surface of a potentially interesting setting.