Flashing Swords! #1 in Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"

Mar 03, 2015 Derek rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sword-and-sorcery, lin-carter-you-nut

So what we have here is three excellent stories by masters of the genre, each reprinted and readily available. If you've never read them, you should. You'd only want this version if you don't want to commit to full collections, or in the case of "The Merman's Children", the full novelization. But you will want to commit to the full versions.

Leiber's witty Fahfrd and Gray Mouser story sees the heroes somewhat from outside and is playful without going overboard.

Vance's Dying Earth story is a perfe So what we have here is three excellent stories by masters of the genre, each reprinted and readily available. If you've never read them, you should. You'd only want this version if you don't want to commit to full collections, or in the case of "The Merman's Children", the full novelization. But you will want to commit to the full versions.

Leiber's witty Fahfrd and Gray Mouser story sees the heroes somewhat from outside and is playful without going overboard.

Vance's Dying Earth story is a perfect display of perfectly amoral wizards, with a beautiful and perfectly cynical ending.

Anderson's story weaves Christian belief with mythology--expanding from legend, I think--and deeply realizes both aspects.

And then there's Lin Carter's contribution, which dangles off like a scab held on by a few hairs, and is the only one never reprinted elsewhere. Let's talk about that one.

I was surprised to see that it is an early Kylix story, a fragment of some future Almaric novel that never quite happened, set on the planet Thoorana Zephrondus in a system containing other planets that Carter would use for other stories. The adventures are same-old-same-old, but I found myself drawn to the setting and concept.

The Eternal Gods are defeated and withdraw from commerce with men, but have recruited Almaric and made him near-immortal / half-god / periodically-recharged to do their bidding toward some cryptic goal. The language they use suggests that they may be technological entities and not divine ones. This is reminiscent of his Gondwane series crossed with a line of writing--cosmic fantasy--that he plucked at for years without producing anything novel-sized or particularly lasting.

It is undercut early on by its random-weird-word-generator naming and Significant Word Capitalization, and soon falls into an overplayed farcical tone that includes the same annoying habit that plagued The Wizard of Zao: the narrator dips into first person to address the reader directly.

Throughout all of this, I kept thinking of what he had written in the introduction to his own story, regarding his sword and sorcery output: "This sort of thing is very easy to write, and fun to write, too, and [...] I am content to continue adding a new volume to the [Thongor] Saga yearly, at least for the foreseeable future." I imagine one of the other writers choking on his coffee upon reading that. ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Jul 18, 2008 Charles rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

First in this 5 book series of heroic fantasy anthologies. I enjoyed this whole series and this was one of the stronger entries. It's got a Poul Anderson story, and Carter's story here is one of the better ones he wrote. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review