S.E.’s Comments (group member since Nov 01, 2012)

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

Any Sword & Sorcery that has inspirations from Egypt or fantasy versions of it (i.e. REH's Stygia) are fair game. Lot's of good possibilities here, as supporting discussion revealed (thanks to Stan, Joseph, and Jack for guiding that).



Servant of the Jackal God: The Tales of Kamose, Archpriest of Anubis

The Mask of the Sorcerer by Darrell Schweitzer, and the sequel Sekenre: The Book of the Sorcerer

The Scroll of Thoth: Simon Magus and the Great Old Ones: Twelve Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

Stygia: The Hour of the Dragon or Conan, Vol. 8: Black Colossus

As well as Warhammer's take on Egypt: Nagash the Sorcerer

T.C. Rypel's Gonji series: The initial Zebra books of the 1980’s essential split one long novel into a trilogy (I suspect the split was arbitrary). T.C. Rypel’s 1980 series has been released in a more complete forms (more books, eBooks, audiobooks). The newer releases from Borgo Press seem to have maintained this split.
Books 1-3 are the original trilogy:
1) Gonji: Red Blade from the East: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book One
2) Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel
3) Gonji: Deathwind of Vedun: The Deathwind Triology, Book Three
4) Gonji: Fortress of Lost Worlds
5) Gonji: A Hungering of Wolves

Guardian Sword and Sorcery Article

Saw this link posted on "The International Robert E Howard Fan Association" Facebook page. Not too revealing, but an interesting read.

Aaron wrote: "Hit up the local used bookstore the other day and found me a few beauties! Ylana Of Callisto, Giant of World's End, Heroic Visions which contains the fir..."

Nice haul!

S.wagenaar wrote: "Good review. Within the context of a '30's pulp adventure tale, I did not find it terribly heavy on the misogyny. I have read far worse within the pages of 70's men's adventure novels, to be sure! ..."

The female pirate Valeria (from Red Nails) seemed to get better treatment. It has been a while since I read Red Nails, but it is one of my favorites of REH. I guess I was surprised not to see a female confidant/ally that was not as strong as Valeria (or Belit, from Queen of the Black Coast).

I agree that much of today's fantasy is over-padded. So much so, I struggle with even bothering to crack open the large tomes (which lead to other large tomes in a series). I am probably missing out on some good stuff. I think is a fear of commitment :).

Just finished and posted my review of The Hour of the Dragon. Good stuff made better with a Map and Karl Edward Wagner's essays.

I was surprised how misogynistic this was, however. I had to roll my eyes a lot.

Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Seems like this may be the basis for the next Arnold movie of Conan (to be called Conan the Conqueror ...or King Conan). I could see that going really well.... or really poorly.

S.wagenaar wrote: "Actually, pastiche books based on Robert E Howard characters would be a cool idea for a group read. There are actually quite a few out there..."

Agreed. Pastiche Howard will be a future topic.

It would be a nice evolution of the Clonan topic.

S.wagenaar wrote: "Not sure. I don't read comics anymore. Black Colossus is a story by Howard that mostly takes place in Shem, but involves a Stygian prince. I don't believe there are any Howard tales that take place..."
My main motivation is to try and find a few themes for a groupread by reading the tea-leaves/response in the poll....and make a banner from appropriate material.

From the discussions and Poll, it seems an "Egypt" theme and "Gonji" theme will be winners. Shem would arguably count as half of "Egypt" inspired S&S, just as much as Stygia is.

I wasn't sure if the 15 folks voting for the Stygia-theme really wanted to read Black Colossus specifically. Would help me construct a banner if anyone had expectations.

Am curious... Lots and of folks voted for "Conan__Vol__8_Black_Colossus or any REH Stygia"

Were folks interested in the actual comic?

What does "any Stygia" mean to those here?

Steve, congrats! That sounds like a fun read. I'm still hooked on the Faceless Sons and was hoping you had more :).

Missing Chapter 20; It is interesting to learn about the possible missing 4,000 word episode that was to be Ch.20 of this book.

Wagner left the numbering of the chapters consistent with the numbering as printed in Weird Tales (#20 is skipped); the original manuscript sent to Denis Archer has 4,000 more words (Pawling & Ness imprint) has 75,000 words. That edition never made it to press, but Weird Tales published the novel in serial form...and it had only 71,000 words.

That noted, the story seems consistent, so there is no obvious loss in plot.

~40% through; despite a dark and interesting set of intro chapters... the subsequent the misogyny and high-frequency-chance-encounters/saves is distracting.

minor-spoilers below...

Adventurous stuff for sure, but our "wilderness-bred", panther-stalking hero trips in a curtain while attacking his major foe...a man who he had coincidentally come across while escaping from a prison...released by a foreign fan-girl [the only woman character so far, and she happens to be a concubine] who has secretly been waiting for him to be captured and was the only one to know where he was other than the guards... WTH?

I appreciate the Karl Wagner afterword/essay that explains that this novel was written hastily to push it into a British market, but the chaotic, accumulating silliness is making this seem more like a campy, Kevin Sorbo "Hercules" show than gritty-sword-and-sorcery.

Nice haul!

Thanks S.wagenaar, your comments help me get hooked enough to purchase.

In any event.... I got the poll done too:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Great... I am supposed to be making a poll....but I went ahead and just bought a book :)

Servant of the Jackal God: The Tales of Kamose, Archpriest of Anubis


.... ok back to making a poll....

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword – Comic-Con Trailer - Official Warner Bros. UK

This looks really good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Cso...

Joseph wrote: "Yep! And I'd say that we found enough that it can at least be voted on as a potential topic ..."

I like that so much, I am thinking of have "Egypt themed" topics as one...then votes for the second.

Joseph wrote: "Ha! Great minds!"

Oh I forgot The Mask of the Sorcerer. That's a great one!

Nice simultaneous post, Joseph!

Joseph wrote: "That's the problem -- I like the idea, but don't know if anything actually exists ... :) I'll have to investigate."



The Scroll of Thoth: Simon Magus and the Great Old Ones: Twelve Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

I think Stygia would count too. Conan, Vol. 8: Black Colossus

As well as Warhammer's take on Egypt: Nagash the Sorcerer



Servant of the Jackal God: The Tales of Kamose, Archpriest of Anubis


..perhaps other Sword and Sandal too....

Joseph I like that.... Name some possible books?