Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion

Stand Against the Light: Eclipse Must Win! or Die! by George Phillies

Viking Adventure

A little thing called The Fellowship of the Ring

Jason wrote: "A little thing called The Fellowship of the Ring"

Never heard of it. Is it recent?

Derek wrote: "Jason wrote: "A little thing called The Fellowship of the Ring"

Never heard of it. Is it recent?"

No idea. It might be a new YA or something. Dystopian maybe?

Derek wrote: "Jason wrote: "A little thing called The Fellowship of the Ring"

Never heard of it. Is it recent?"

I heard it's a rip off of Terry Brooks.

Al wrote: "I heard it's a rip off of Terry Brooks."

Of course Brooks is just ripping off Dennis McKiernan.

Fate of the Free Lands by Jack Campbell

The Rue of Hope

A Sorcerer of Atlantis

Reading -

Listening to

Markus by David Odle
Wizards sent out by the Vatican battle vampires in a modern setting.

The Promised Neverland

The Bull Chief by Chris Carlson (Robert Holdstock).

Mira's Last Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold

@ Jason R. Koivu sounds interesting!

Just finished Master Assassins Here's what I thought of it: I came to this book through a very strong recommendation by Mark Lawrence and I can see why. The writing is a level above most fantasy authors with elegant phrasing and a poetic flow at times. The two main characters are very well-developed - Mektu is highly annoying at times, but he is supposed to be. The duel timeline narrative slowed the pace for me at times, and while the information imparted in the flashbacks proved important, I did wonder if it could have been delivered more succinctly. Just short of 5 stars

S.wagenaar wrote: "The Bull Chief by Chris Carlson (Robert Holdstock)."
Enjoy it, I sure am.

Reading

Listening to

Finally finishing up this trilogy:

The Warlord of Mars

Decided to do a dive into Appendix N with Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East. (I read some number of the Swords and Lost Swords books back in high school, but at that point I didn't realize they were continuations of an earlier trilogy.)

Swords of Fire 2

I started Assassin's Apprentice last night

And, having finished Empire of the East, I went to something completely different: Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, which I read multiple times in high school & maybe college, but haven't picked up in probably 30+ years. And I'm liking it!

Joseph wrote: "And, having finished Empire of the East, I went to something completely different: Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, which I read multiple times in high school & maybe college, b..."

The Hornblower series is good, solid adventure-story fun!

Jason wrote: "The Hornblower series is good, solid adventure-story fun!"

Yep! It doesn't scale the heights of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books, but it's also, dare I say, quite a bit more accessible. (But now I'm reminded that I need to reread Aubrey/Maturin one of these decades.)

A brief digression: A couple of years ago I was visiting my childhood hometown and stopped by the public library. This is a new library -- they tore down the one I remember back in about 1995 and built a brand new building; admittedly much nicer, but I still miss the weird old building I used to go to. Anyway, I was wandering through the shelves and I found two books that were the same physical copies I used to check out when I was young; one of them was The Indomitable Hornblower: Commodore Hornblower, Lord Hornblower & Hornblower in the West Indies.

Joseph wrote: "Jason wrote: "The Hornblower series is good, solid adventure-story fun!"

Yep! It doesn't scale the heights of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books, but it's also, dare I say, quite..."

Last time I visited "home," I stopped by the town's new library and had a similar experience to yours. It's a nice and very useful modern building with plenty of space and activity rooms...however, lol...I liked the cranky old brick building with bad lighting and the dungeon-like basement. There wasn't even a sour-faced old fart shushing anyone at the new place!

Our library was fascinating because (although I didn't know this when I was young) it had started life about a hundred years ago as a little Carnegie library; and then in the late 60s they'd wrapped and entirely hidden that Carnegie core inside a very 60s steel & glass structure, so the interior had all of these weird stairways and half-levels and things that only started to make sense when you understood the history.

Joseph wrote: "Our library was fascinating because (although I didn't know this when I was young) it had started life about a hundred years ago as a little Carnegie library; and then in the late 60s they'd wrappe..."

That is cool!

Just wrapped up A Sorcerer of Atlantis: with A Prince in the Kingdom of Ghosts. Not bad, especially if you like Leiber and/or some humor in your S&S. The publication history in this may be interesting for those readers wanting more Brimm and Snoori tales.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

.

I started reading these new weekly series called The Hunter Guild: Red Hood,The Elusive Samurai and Neru way of the martial artist.

Still sailing through the Hornblower books, now up to Hornblower and the Atropos

Reading Later

(Almost )Listening to The Only Good Indians

I mention this Joni Mitchell bio here in a fantasy group only because I discovered in the book that she wrote about LotR in some of her early songs. She did so perhaps a little more subtly than Zeppelin did on "Ramble On," but it's there in the lyrics.

Against Three Lands by George Phillies

Just finished reading the second of the Witcher novels, The Time of Contempt, which I reviewed here. I liked it a lot, even though it was much more epic and political than the earlier, more sword & sorcery-styled short stories.

Next I'm going to take a bit of a break from fantasy and read some stuff from the Hard Case Crime imprint.

I'm nearing the end of my Hornblowing -- just started Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, the final book in the series (well, there's also a collection of random Hornblower short stories that I've never read before, so that will really be the end of my reading; but this book is the end of his story).

Continuing my LotR reread with Tolkien's The Two Towers.

Just finished "Last Stand at Papago Wells" by Louis L'Amour. It is short (174 pages in large print) and tense. It's the story of a group of assorted western types who come together by chance when Apaches start raiding in southern Arizona. It's more the story of how the group comes together - or not - when in danger than a traditional cowboys and indians tale.

Highly recommend it - it's a very fun read.

The Scarlet Skull

Finished Hornblower and am revisiting my all-time favorite fictional world, Tekumel, with The Man of Gold by M.A.R. Barker.

Finished Flamesong (sequel to The Man of Gold) and started Foundation since the TV series drops ... is it Friday?

(I'm just going to read the original Foundation trilogy, though -- none of the prequels or sequels or the other Asimov books that got retconned into the series.)

The Apothecary Diaries 03 by Natsu Hyuuga

The Use of Medieval Weaponry by Eric Rowe.

Rowe was, and I perhaps still is, a D&D player who felt like the game's combat mechanics were lacking. So he did it a deep dive into medieval fighting techniques. So far, this is full of very specific detail regarding the weapons of the era and how they were used. Might be of interest to S&S types, if they're looking for in depth analysis on the topic.

Cloak of Blades by Jonathan Moeller

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. I was never one to usually go all out on hyped up books and this one certainly was but whatever...this has been fantastic and much more than I was expecting, a sort of pseudo gothic S&S Space Opera mix. Really cool.

Sojourn, the third book in Salvatore's dark elf series.

Gateway to Fiction by C. Chancy

I'm one of those who reads more than one thing at once

The following in prep for November...
Big Magic by Eliabeth Gilbert
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

CAS stories
The Averoigne Legacy

Two thumbs up for "War of Art"
It's a great motivator for writing, or any creative work.