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

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

Continuing with James Enge -- I finished This Crooked Way and went immediately into The Wolf Age. Excellent stuff that deserves more attention.

New one to me also, but I did own a bunch of the Ganley editions of Lumley's Titus Crow and Dreamlands books. If you read it I'll be curious to hear what you think.

And I finished The Time of Contempt(traveling today, so lots of reading time) and decided it was about darned time I sank my teeth into James Enge's Morlock books, beginning with the short story Travellers' Rest and the novel Blood of Ambrose.

And I finished Golden Cities, Far and am starting something much closer to S&S -- The Time of Contempt, the most recent of Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher novels to be translated into English.

Golden Cities, Far is the reason I have a copy of Amadis of Gaul: A Novel of Chivalry of the 14th Century Presumably First Written in Spanish (Studies in Romance Languages on my shelf.

I'm most of the way through Golden Cities, Far from the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. It's not technically S&S, but many of the stories do include both swords and sorcerers ...

And now (speaking of chronology), I'm imagining an alternate world in which Kane was part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. Lin Carter would have gone through and painstakingly deduced the correct chronological order from internal clues, all of which would have been laid out in his introductions to each volume. Plus he would've drawn a map or two.

And covers by Gervaise Gaillardo, of course. Which would've given the books an entirely different tone ...

Phil wrote: "My review of recent sword & sorcery ebook The Stealer of Flesh by William King:

The first book in the Kormak Saga, Stealer of Flesh consists of four linked sword & sorcery novellas. While there is..."

I've read a fair bit of King -- he got his start doing Warhammer tie-in fiction (Gotrek & Felix: The First Omnibus et al.) and has also self-published a number of his own eBooks. I particularly enjoyed Sky Pirates, which read like a Warhammer/Barsoom mash-up. Fun stuff.

Howard wrote: "I'm reading Tanith Lee's DEATH'S MASTER right now..."

Lee's Flat Earth books are really something special.

Howard wrote: "I just finished the third Kothar book a few days ago... and I don't think I can read any more of these in a row. Ye Gods, but they're brainless. I'm reading something with some lyricism and charact..."

Yes, there most definitely are limits.

As far as reading order goes, yes, there is some kind of internal chronology, but it's mostly subtle -- Kane is immortal, and the books/stories are mostly from widely scattered episodes of his life. One book may be set in a city that in another book is referred to as an ancient ruin.

(There are also a couple of short stories set in modern times, although they're not in the original paperbacks.)

For the most part, you're OK taking them in whatever order you find them.

Howard wrote: "I just finished Gardner Fox's Kothar of the Magic Sword which was pretty sexist and sort of stupid and kind of awesome all at the same time, like an 80s sword-and-sorcery movie."

If Wildside or someone ever does a reprint, that needs to be the cover blurb.

Those Peter Valentine Timlett have been sitting on my shelf unread for, um, 30 years plus or minus? Have you read the first? If so, what did you think?

All four of the other ones you listed I've read & enjoyed, although in some cases it was a looooong time ago ...

It's not sword & sorcery, but I'm reading The Well at the World's End, Volume I by William Morris, which is arguably a precursor. (I decided it was time to dip back into the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series for a few books. Although now that I've read the Lin Carter introduction in my paperback, I'm awfully tempted to pick it up on Kindle.)

Fletcher wrote: "Thanks! She's such an insufficiently recognized writer. ..."

I was thrilled when I discovered the Hypatia edition of Seeker's Mask, and then when she got picked up by Meisha Merlin; I'm happier now that she's with Baen just because they seem likelier to not just vanish in a wisp of bankrupt smoke.

Fletcher wrote: "Finished reading God Stalk by P.C. Hodgell the other day and reviewed it for Black Gate (http://www.blackgate.com/2013/10/15/g...) I can't recommend this one enough. The sequel..."

Great review!

Peter wrote: "Now that is a truly excellent cover for a book, far far better than the cover art of that particular one that I own."

My original copy was , which I don't think is too bad.

The sad thing is that when I eventually reread the book, I'll probably go with the Kindle edition because the print version is just too darned big.

And yes, S.E., that's a great cover (and I'm also in the Cover B camp after checking the site).

Speaking of lovely, lovely covers ...

Dan wrote: "The adventuring party changed fantasy forever. I think fantasy, not just D&D, would have evolved quite a bit differently if Gygax hadn't included the LOTR races.

For more about the early days of ..."

I need to read that book. And I think it was kind of a perfect storm of two things that changed fantasy -- the Tolkien races in D&D, and the big push Lester Del Rey gave to Sword of Shannara, the first true (or at least the first hugely successful) LotR clone.