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

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

I think it got a bit weird at the end (the four books that comprise Glittering Stone), but the initial trilogy and the first two Books of the South were absolutely top-of-the-line, and even slightly weird Black Company is much better than many other things out there.

Tor is doing a Black Company reread on their website and they currently have the eBook editions on sale -- the original The Black Company is $2.99, but more interestingly, the four omnibi (Chronicles of the Black Company et al.) are running in the $8-$9 range each. Fine, fine military fantasy with definite S&S overtones.

I'm now most of the way through The Snow Women (first story in Swords and Deviltry) and if nothing else, boy, he sure captured the feeling of COLD ...

And it's time to revisit Lankhmar for the first time in many, many years (well, aside from occasional reprinted stories in anthologies). Although as I'm starting from the beginning (Swords and Deviltry), I actually won't be in Lankhmar for quite a while.

Me, I quite enjoyed Hammer and the Blade and am looking forward to Discourse in Steel and (now that I've seen the title) Conversation in Blood and anything that may come after that.

Periklis wrote: "P.S. I'm adding the two "Mega Panel" podcasts to this thread. ..."

I knew we'd talked about it before ...

Love me some Burroughs. I finished Time and the Gods, which turned out to be essentially a continuation of The Gods of Pegana, at least in style, and started Shield of Sea and Space by Erin Hoffman, whom I was first introduced to on one of the SF Signal Sword & Sorcery Megapanel podcasts. (Along with you, Paul, for that matter ...)

Highly, highly recommend those podcasts -- they had some great discussion and introduced me to a number of fine authors.

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2012...

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2012...

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011...

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011...

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011...

Bruce wrote: "The following blog is an excellent source of S&S movies. You should check it out:

Sword Cinema"

A site with lots of fascinating information, if only the color scheme didn't make my eyeballs explode.

S.E. wrote: "Haven't watched the Deathstalker movies yet (in queue for this weekend), but I have graphed out the data from the Sword Cinema site Bruce had pointed me toward. Commentary on this on my blog: http..."

Interesting commentary. Personally, I think Momoa was the one thing they should have salvaged from the most recent Conan film -- it's kind of sad to think of what could have been if he'd been given a good (or even somewhat non-terrible) script.

I haven't revisited Lankhmar yet (after the Widdershins books by Ari Marmell I wanted a bit of a gap before going back to urban-setting thiefly S&S), but I've definitely hit some vintage stuff recently -- The Door to Saturn by Clark Ashton Smith and currently The Gods of Pegana by Lord Dunsany.

Periklis wrote: "Sounds great! Dunsany could also be considered Vintage S&S..."

Most definitely, although Pegana is less S&S than some of his later stories like "The Sword of Welleran." I've always loved his use of language, and he (together with Clark Ashton Smith and Jack Vance) does great invented names.

I finished Thief's Covenant and False Covenant, both by Ari Marmell, and both of which I quite enjoyed, and decided to go back a ways -- I have a Kindle compilation of Lord Dunsany's works, so I'm starting with The Gods of Pegana.

And I finished The Door to Saturn which did indeed have some vaguely Sword & Mythos stories in it -- both "The Door to Saturn" and "The Testament of Athammaus", part of his Hyperborea cycle, and "A Rendezvous in Averoigne" would probably count. As with all collections, it had high points and low points, but being that it was a Clark Ashton Smith collection, the really, really good stories more than made up for any clunkers.

And now for something completely different (since I just finished playing Dishonored and am in the mood for vaguely Victorian thieves) I'm about to start Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell.

S.E. wrote: "I recall liking Roar a lot (the few episodes that aired anyway); was never thrilled with cheesy Xena. Currently, I am Netflix-DVDing Games of Thrones (I am way behind...just starting Season 2). Good translation of the book. I like it better as a live-action soap opera rather than a huge book to read."

Yeah, Game of Thrones sets the bar quite high for any future TV adaptations. I do need to reread the books (well, reread 1-3 and read 4 & 5) at some point but I'll need to be willing to set aside a couple of months to get through them all.

As I think of it, of the movies listed in the original article, Krull is probably the one that intrigues me the most, just because while the movie itself was far from perfect, the world was more interesting & original than most.

I think of those three (Roar, Sinbad and Tarzan), Roar was definitely the highlight. I should check it out again now that it's on Netflix.

That Conan series came from the (mercifully) short-lived "let's cash in in Herc/Xena" bandwagon that also gave us a kind of terrible Sinbad series and a kind of terrible Tarzan series . And a young Heath Ledger in the kind of terrible Roar. Not a great track record.

Me, I still can't believe nobody has tried for a revival of Thundarr.

Phil wrote: "The pre-Hellboy(?) Mignola artwork throughout the Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser miniseries Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser was gorgeous, too. This series and a few random Conan Saga magazines were instrument..."

I think I might actually have the minseries somewhere in the many longboxes of comics stuffed into the closet ...

Oh, and just because I think they're cool:

Sean wrote: "Would Jack Vance's Cugel the Clever be an acceptable selection for the Vintage Sword and Sorcery part of this group read? I read the first one (Mazirian the Magician) in the Dying Earth series and..."

Speaking solely for myself, I'd say Cugel the Clever is always an acceptable read. And it definitely fits the criteria (pre-1970). In fact, I'd say it's arguably closer to sword & sorcery than the original Dying Earth.

V1 is actually more in the lines of origin stories, and I don't think it's necessarily his best work in the series. If you have V2 or V3 around, that might make a better jumping-in point, and you can go back to V1 later if you're so inclined.

For those of you whose preferences run that way, you can get the entire series electronically for $35 at http://www.baenebooks.com/s-200-fritz...

Which is probably how I'll be reading them, although I did love Mike Mignola's art in the White Wolf editions.