Swords Against Tomorrow in Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"

May 23, 2021 Richard rated it liked it

Shelves: anthologies, sword-and-sorcery, vintage-sff

I've searched for this anthology in the wild for many years with no luck. Then lo and behold, someone in a FB group I follow had one for sale. This copy is very worn, not worn out; just about perfectly worn. It came to me from Wisconsin, but boasts a store stamp of The Book Rack in Lubbock, TX. The Book Rack also stamped the price, which is half of the cover price of $.39! Man those were the days to find used books! I gave about 10x that amount(which is still fantastic). Near as I can tell The B ...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Joseph rated it liked it

Relatively brief anthology that gave a pleasant afternoon's reading. The first story (a relatively obscure sword & sorcery/planetary romance piece by Poul Anderson called Demon Journey (original title: Witch of the Demon Sea)) was definitely the highlight and is probably worth tracking the anthology down for. There were also solid stories by Leigh Brackett and Fritz Leiber and passable efforts by Lin Carter and John Jakes. ...more

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Jul 23, 2015 Derek rated it liked it

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

I am coming to conclude that "style", in terms of writing, is what is left when everything inessential has been removed, and is not what has been added as a layer to the essence. I don't think Lin Carter ever grasped that. His writing is chock full of artificial structures and embellishments that appear glued to the surface rather than baked in to the material. Little things like random sentences reversing subject and object. Like a too-profuse littering of colons and semicolons (sometimes withi I am coming to conclude that "style", in terms of writing, is what is left when everything inessential has been removed, and is not what has been added as a layer to the essence. I don't think Lin Carter ever grasped that. His writing is chock full of artificial structures and embellishments that appear glued to the surface rather than baked in to the material. Little things like random sentences reversing subject and object. Like a too-profuse littering of colons and semicolons (sometimes within a single sentence). Like descriptive words coming in lists of three. Like paragraphs packed a little too full and not precisely chosen for effect.

(Compare, of course, to "Bazaar of the Bizarre", also collected in this volume for your convenience. For all its 'style', I can not point to a single extraneous or misplaced word or image. It fits together like a beautifully jeweled jigsaw puzzle, and conveys so much sheer story in relatively few pages.)

It is fascinating to see Carter take something as relatively fresh as stepping away from his usual Howardian/Burroughsian character archetype and plot tropes--Kellory is a scarred man and frustrated warrior driven to warlockry out of vengeance against the Thungoda horde--and make the same old mistakes. The usual nubile girl whose character traits are being a princess, falling out of her clothes, thinking picayune thoughts, and being inexplicably attracted to repellent men. A lackadaisical approach to story events (view spoiler). In short, he finds an interesting character at the intersection of Elric of Melnibone and Solomon Kane, and surrounds him with the usual. Still, I remain curious about the full book, Kellory the Warlock.

On the Brak the Barbarian front, in "Devils in the Walls", it is good to know that Brak is better served by the short story format. Despite the briefness of the tale, however, it does include yet another senseless pony death. (view spoiler)

"Bazaar of the Bizarre" is excellent, of course, as is the oddly-chosen "Citadel of Lost Ships". "Demon Journey" is blunted by attempts at a scientific basis--magic as mesmerism, gunpowder, etc.--and by an artificially uplifting ending that relies on a convenient heel face turn by the love interest.
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