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

Periklis wrote: ""The Kencyr are a group of three races sworn to the service of the Three-Faced God and bound together by him to fight Perimal Darkness, a warping force of chaos and evil sweeping over the planes of..."

You're welcome

It's not sword & sorcery, but I'm reading The Well at the World's End, Volume I by William Morris, which is arguably a precursor. (I decided it was time to dip back into the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series for a few books. Although now that I've read the Lin Carter introduction in my paperback, I'm awfully tempted to pick it up on Kindle.)

Just starting Shadow of the Wolf, book 1 of the Berserker series by Chris Carlsen. I ordered the complete trilogy for $30 shipped, which is actually not bad. Book 3 is the hardest to find, often listing for over $80. All three are in nearly new condition; I can't tell if they have ever been opened! Anyway, only 26 pages in, and is it brutal. Starts with a young Viking warrior enjoying his first taste of violent combat, and it just gets darker, blood-besotted and raw! Main character gets turned into a "Berserker" by Odin, and then thinks really wild. Hope to post a complete review when finish it.

S.wagenaar wrote: "Just starting Shadow of the Wolf, book 1 of the Berserker series by Chris Carlsen. I ordered the complete trilogy for $30 shipped, which is actually not bad. Book 3 is the hardest to find, often li..."

I am freaking jealous! I'm just too cheap to spring for them these days.

Well, boss says no more books for a while! Not a bad thing though, as I have huge pile of books to read- I buy them way faster than I can read them.

I just finished Gardner Fox's Kothar of the Magic Sword which was pretty sexist and sort of stupid and kind of awesome all at the same time, like an 80s sword-and-sorcery movie.

Howard wrote: "I just finished Gardner Fox's Kothar of the Magic Sword which was pretty sexist and sort of stupid and kind of awesome all at the same time, like an 80s sword-and-sorcery movie."

If Wildside or someone ever does a reprint, that needs to be the cover blurb.

Here's an in-depth review of it from just a few weeks ago, over at TOR: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/08/adva...

I have all five of them, but had only read the first. I grabbed the second to read on a plane ride, and it was just about the right length. Am I the only one out here who misses shorter books? One that, when read, feels like you've experienced a movie rather than endured a mini-series that isn't quite over?

Howard wrote: "Am I the only one out here who misses shorter books? One that, when read, feels like you've experienced a movie rather than endured a mini-series that isn't quite over?"

That's probably why I read a lot of OOP books these days. There's a place for longer work, and some that I can appreciate, but I really prefer the shorter reads, especially in light of having less and less leisure time in which to do it. If I'm struggling between infrequent spurts of reading to remember what went on in the 300-400 pages before, it becomes more like work and less like fun. That's probably why I tend to write shorter as well.

Anyway, your blurb has certainly peaked my interest in Kothar! (There is a mandatory exclamation mark at after the name, right)?

Kothar probably deserves one. Tell you what, Jason, I was wondering what to blog about later this week -- I'll try to give a little more low-down on the mighty Kothar. Although, given my schedule, it might be next week before I can do him justice.

I'm actually in the middle of going through the Kothar books myself. I got into him this summer. Yeah, you definitely need to take him with a grain of salt. :P I'm working on "Magic Sword" at the moment. I also have Kyrik following Kothar, and I have slightly higher hopes for him.

I've heard from John Hocking that Kyrik is a little better, and that the first of the Llarn books is perhaps slightly highly caliber still.

I'm curious to see how Kothar, Brak, and Thongor stand up to one another. The Brak stories were okay but a little wooden. Kothar has great narrative drive and some fine descriptions but I think the plot was made up as Fox went. Some of the Thongor short stories were pretty good for what they were, but the novels I tried left me a little cold. I thought I'd give 'em all another shot.

I have Llarn, and I've also heard those are better. I do have quite a few Thongors to go through as well, no Brak as of yet. I need more time to read all my books!

I know what you mean! I'm trying to take more time for them these days.

Just finished reading/reviewing Swords and Sorcery Magazine and Beneath Ceaseless Skies for October over at Black Gate (http://www.blackgate.com/2013/11/05/o...). Nothing of heroic fantasy in BCS but it's sure one well done magazine.
Bookwise, I'm just starting Deepest, Darkest Eden: New Tales of Hyperborea. This is one I've been looking forward to.

Thanks to Bill Ward, I just started his The Last of His Kind and Other Stories collection. It's part of three e-book anthologies he recently released. The other two (also of Sword & Sorcery interest) are Heartless Gao Walks Number Nine Hell and Other Stories and Mightier than the Sword and Other Stories.

Hi! So I was going through the voting process at the Goodreads Awards thing and that is when I noticed I have not read a single fantasy novel that was actually PUBLISHED in 2013 so I have nothing I can enter in there! ARGH! Oh, I've read all the stuff we've read together but its all classic... noooo! I want to vote!

Sean wrote: "Hi! So I was going through the voting process at the Goodreads Awards thing and that is when I noticed I have not read a single fantasy novel that was actually PUBLISHED in 2013 so I have nothing ..."

Ha, ha, I felt the same way. Almost everything on my bookshelf is like 30-50 years old. :P

Far be it from me to toot my own horn, but you COULD try a modern Arabian sword-and-sorcery from a guy schooled in the old writers we all seem to love here, say, The Desert of Souls or its standalone sequel The Bones of the Old Ones. If memory serves, they had a fair number of good reviews...

I've got a few modern ones on my list. I want to read S.E.'s Lords of Dyscrasia and Throne of the Crescent Moon also caught my eye, but I could certainly throw you in the mix. Keeping in mind it is a BIG mix. :O

Thanks for adding it to the pile, Michael!

No problem. :)

Just reading Anne Lyle's Alchemist of Souls. Not S&S but not far off it!

I've got Hadon of Ancient Opar by Phillip Jose Farmer open, and I like what I see so far. Also looking at Tarzan and the Lost Empire (I got 'em all!) and the third Berserker novel, The Horned Warrior. Got a hankering to read Almuric by Robert E Howard, and I can see Bloodstone by Karl Edward Wagner just begging for a re-read. Gotta get at it!

I'm most of the way through Golden Cities, Far from the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. It's not technically S&S, but many of the stories do include both swords and sorcerers ...

I remember really enjoying Hadon of Ancient Opar and being quite frustrated that I couldn't find the sequel... then being quite disappointed when, years later, I finally tracked it down. I don'd know if that's because I was much older when I read it, or if the second just wasn't as good.

I loved Golden Cities, Far, and all of those Ballantine Adult Fantasy anthologies. I held onto them even after I sold off most of the rest of the set.

Golden Cities, Far is the reason I have a copy of Amadis of Gaul: A Novel of Chivalry of the 14th Century Presumably First Written in Spanish (Studies in Romance Languages on my shelf.

And I finished Golden Cities, Far and am starting something much closer to S&S -- The Time of Contempt, the most recent of Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher novels to be translated into English.

Just devoured Bill Ward's The Last of His Kind and Other Stories. First discovered him via Rogue Blade's fine anthologies. Really enjoyed these hellish duels to the death.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

And I finished The Time of Contempt(traveling today, so lots of reading time) and decided it was about darned time I sank my teeth into James Enge's Morlock books, beginning with the short story Travellers' Rest and the novel Blood of Ambrose.

I had no idea Bill had his own collection out, and I consider the guy a friend. I'll have to pick it up. He's not only a talented writer, but a really nice guy.

Ditto James Enge, although I don't think I was unaware of his particular doings. I need to make time to read his two latest, which have been staring at me from the bookshelf for months now.

The Rose and the Thorn by Michael J. Sullivan. Half way through and loving it. Brilliant author.

Just finished Jhereg and really liked it. Reviewing it at Black Gate today. Next, back to the stories in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Swords and Sorcery Magazine. And The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All.

Brust's Dragaera books seem almost but not quite like sword & sorcery to me, but I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts.

I thought The Beautiful Thing that Awaits Us All was very good, if a little front-loaded.

Gateway: Pioche

Phil wrote: "Brust's Dragaera books seem almost but not quite like sword & sorcery to me, but I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts.

I thought The Beautiful Thing that Awaits Us All was very goo..."

I agree. They're not quite S&S (though I think the Gray Mouser would feel at home in Dragaera), but they're not quite straight fantasy either.

Continuing with James Enge -- I finished This Crooked Way and went immediately into The Wolf Age. Excellent stuff that deserves more attention.

Another Bill Ward anothology distracted me from my proper to-read list. He just released 3 anthologies. This round I was taken in with Mightier than the Sword and Other Stories. I really like his dark, short stories.

I finished up Enge's initial Morlock trilogy (excellent stuff; highly recommended) and moved on to Lost Covenant by Ari Marmell, which has been entertaining as heck so far (as were the first two installments).

Finished the excellent Hrolf Kraki's Sagathe other day and am finally finishing the also excellent Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel. Just bought/downloaded the much anticipated (well, by me at least) Griots: Sisters of the Spear.

I'll take that "excellent" assessment of my second Deathwind Trilogy installment, THE SOUL WITHIN THE STEEL, with pride and offer you my respectful bow in gratitude, Fletcher!

When you get around to it, prepare yourself for possibly the longest, most character-centric battle in the genre's history, in Book 3. I hope you enjoy it, as well.

My humblest thanks...

My dear friend and colleague's---Joe Bonadonna's---presence in the new GRIOTS is also reason enough to anticipate a fine anthology.

Good purchase!

T.c. wrote: "I'll take that "excellent" assessment of my second Deathwind Trilogy installment, THE SOUL WITHIN THE STEEL, with pride and offer you my respectful bow in gratitude, Fletcher!

When you get around ..."
You're quite welcome! I'm hoping to get to #3 quickly. The thing that I'm intrigued by is the large amount of time spent with Gonji just thinking and talking and that I'm never bored. It's a testament to how well you know Gonji and inhabit his skull.

Joe Bonadonna's the reason I bought it as quickly as I did - he was the first writer in the book to post it was out.

I'm a very character-oriented writer, in both prose fiction and screenplays. I learned early on that if I couldn't invest myself in the world of fictional characters I'd read, as a living experience with genuine immediacy and sense of reality, then I either wouldn't finish reading those books or would instantly forget them.

Characters' experience of the narrative is EVERYTHING. And they need to make YOU empathize with those experiences. And it can take not only some skillful planning, but also a little space for roundness of character-building, in order to bring them into that semblance of uncanny, actual life that makes the reader feel as if the story were really happening. We're talking sensory details...emotional history...absorbing interior monologue...conflicting points of view---many techniques, which can, of course, easily be overdone.

But even when character is formed adroitly, not all readers feel as strongly about that. Some don't appreciate the sort of depth of character you note and respond to favorably in GONJI. When I've received negative reviews over the years, they've often cited that very depth of character as a problem. This, despite the attention to action set-pieces you, as a reader, could cite. (And at a certain point in Book 3, the story becomes like multiple lives desperately striving to survive in the midst of a colossal series of explosions.)

I've always attributed this to a more "modern" reading sensibility that's been shaped by shorter attention spans encouraged by visual media and gamer-culture.

Neither side is categorically right or wrong, to be fair. Pop-culture changes over time.

Maybe in the future, narrative fiction will become stripped down to summary, outline form---? At least for pop-fictional genres.

But thank you again, Fletcher, for sounding off favorably about the GONJI series. I consider myself fortunate every time my work finds its way into the attentions of readers like you, for whom they were hopefully intended.

I finished Lost Covenant by Ari Marmell, which definitely had S&S elements, read Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan, which most definitely did not (although I enjoyed it immensely), and am now reading Seven Kings and then Seven Sorcerers, both by John R. Fultz, and which I think would be of high interest to anyone in this group. They're not S&S per se but they're epic fantasy that has its roots much more in Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith than in Tolkien.

Joseph wrote: "...am now reading Seven Kings and then Seven Sorcerers, both by John R. Fultz, a..."

An epic version of CAS sounds interesting. Your reviews are upping Fultz's books on my to-read pile.

Phil Emery writes poetic, dark Sword & Sworcery (he reminds me of CAS), and his The Shadow Cycles caught my eye. I hope to squeeze that in before the "Heroine" group reads.

Also, I just wrapped up A Road of Blood and Slaughter, which I recommend to Kane & Conan fans who like large amounts of military action.

Fultz is definitely worth your attention.

Myself, I decided to finish out the year with some Star Wars books, beginning with Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories. They have (laser) swords and (space) sorcery, right?

I'm about halfway in to "Swords and Deviltry" by Fritz Leiber. The start was a bit slow but once we go to Gray Mouser it really picked up. I hope to finish it in a day or two and move on to G.L. Moore.

Beyond Sanctuary and The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. I am not sure what next, probably some historical fiction.:)

Reading The Relentless Ones and the House of Shadows. So far so good! Then hopefully get in some of the Red Sonja series byDavid C. Smithfor the group read.