NekroRider’s Comments (group member since Feb 17, 2019)

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

Eric wrote: "So, when I started talking about my own book, Denithor the Librarian, I started referring to it first as High Fantasy, but then also as Sword and Sorcery after a while. Initially, ..."

Im not sure which article you read, but these there is an abundance of people who seem to think that s&s is simply fantasy that involves warriors and magic users. That is not it's definition, and there is a reason why s&s is especially distinct from epic fantasy. Harry Potter is epic fantasy and is essentially the anti-thesis of what s&s is.

There have been threads in this sub in the past that have sought to define it. But I think what most fans of the sub-genre can probably agree on is that s&s heroes are in some way morally grey/amoral or "tragic" heroes. They are typically adventurers, mercenaries, wanderers of some kind who fight for their own purposes rather than "the greater good." Also, s&s heroes don't tend to be magic users. There are some exceptions (Elric is the main one), but in general magic tends to be antagonistic in s&s.

Next, s&s tends to be episodic and focused on individual adventures or quests, they aren't epics like LotR or Harry Potter leading to a final main conflict or good vs evil fight. While an s&s hero might fight against a threat to the greater world, they usually find themselves fighting that threat for a personal reason. Also, the threat is usually resolved over the course of a story/novella/short book.

There are other factors, but those are the main ones imo. Once you start to make things too "broad" you lose the point of having a sub-genre to begin with. Obviously boundaries can blur, but it will never get broad enough to include fantasy that is essentially it's opposite.

One example that might help is the Witcher books. The Last Wish is very much sword & sorcery while the main saga books from Blood of Elves to Lady of the Lake are mostly epic fantasy.

Reread The Last Wish and just finished Season of Storms for the first time and loved that it felt more s&s again. Now rereading Sword of Destiny.

While I did mostly like the main Witcher saga, my favourites were always the early books + BoF, and now reading SoS and rereading The Last Wish and SoD remind me of how great it would have be if the Witcher series had retained its monster-hunting/Geralt on the road adventuring s&s vibes instead of morphing into epic fantasy.

Richard wrote: "Aton



The first 20 pages are filled with violence, cannibalism, and sex. The reviews on GR genuinely didn't like it, while those on Amazon did. Certainly no..."

Lol it's kind of funny, Aton was a book that me and my cousin were both obsessed with in middle school (somewhere in the vicinity of 11-13 years old) and we both read it multiple times. We had found a falling apart copy on our grandparents bookshelf, no clue who's it was originally or how it got there (my grandparents did not really read English books, so not theirs) but we read it I don't know how many times. I get the impression I wouldnt like it if I read it today, but middle school me was very into it 🤣

Joseph wrote: "Yeah, that was the thing that surprised me most about the series -- Geralt didn't get nearly as much screen time as you'd expect, and in several of the books he wasn't even really the focus."

I'd go as far as to say that he isn't the focus in most of the saga proper, sadly. One of the reasons The Last Wish and Baptism of Fire are my favourite Witcher books. Because of the Geralt focus and what that focus brings with it. For me that's the main reason Baptism of Fire was so good, mostly about Geralt and his traveling companions (who are themselves more interesting than Yennifer, Ciri etc imo). Wish I liked Ciri's character better but truth is I started finding her obnoxious the minute she came into contact with Yennifer and Triss :s

Read the entire Witcher series two years ago I believe (except for Season of Storms). The Last Wish and Baptism of Fire were definitely my favourites. Also enjoyed Blood of Elves a lot. The rest I found decent enough except for the last book in the series, Lady of the Lake, which was definitely my least favourite and a bit of a struggle to get through. I wish I could find more books with the same vibe as the Last Wish though...may just have to reread it!

I just finished A Demon in the Desert today, only 200 pages so sped through it quite fast. Rated it 3.5/5 stars, quite enjoyable read. It had very much a side quest video game RPG vibe that I really enjoyed and reminded me a bit of The Last Wish (first Witcher book) in that respect. For gamers if you can think of side quests in games like Fable, Skyrim etc where you can choose to investigate a haunting or strange monster/supernatural activities at a farm or in a town, it has that sort of atmosphere to it. Personally I enjoyed that a lot, plus the humour was definitely up my alley as well.

Curious if anyone else around here has read and enjoyed the Grimluk Demon Hunter books?

Anyway continuing with the second book Demon Haunted