Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion
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What are you currently reading?
S.E. wrote: "Thx to my daughter, Ive become a fan of anime/manga like Deathnote and Attack on Titan (especially the latter). Note sure what to take from this pirate Luffy thing :)"Death Note is quite a good series - haven't read any of the Attack on Titan one yet!
By the way, here's a little, um, humour from Ryuk. ;)
Just yesterday I started Deathworms of Kratos by Richard Avery. This is part of a four book series called the Expendables; which seems more adventure than science fiction. An enjoyable read thus far!
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By the way, here's a little, um, humour from Ryuk. ;) ..."
Greg, you have to read/see/play Attack on Titan (Koei made a game out of it). The horror aficionado in you must!
And apple-pen Ryuk! I already seen that. Glad I knew he had an apple fetish to help make the connection. Funny stuff.
"Thief Who Wasn't There (Amra Thetys series #4)" by Michael McClung. Fun, fun, fun s&s run-n-gun...if s&s had guns...how 'bout run-n-stun...or run-n-cut 'em down till they're done!?anyway, read this series, try reading it for free: http://amzn.to/2incwHl
S.E. wrote: "Greg wrote: "Death Note is quite a good series - haven't read any of the Attack on Titan one yet!By the way, here's a little, um, humour from Ryuk. ;) ..."
Greg, you have to read/see/play Attack..."
Yeah, I'm amazed Ryuk didn't eat it! :O
I will investigate Attack on Titan in due course! :)
The Lion of Cairo by Scott Oden. It's been a while, due for a re-read, and just because...
Currently reading All These Shiny Worlds: The 2016 ImmerseOrDie Anthology. Immerse or Die is a blog where Jefferson Smith starts reading an indie book during his 40 minute workout. If he's still immersed after these 40 minutes, it's a keeper.He started bringing out story bundles of the best books he found, and to promote it, he asked the writers of these books to give him his best short stories to create a (free!) anthology to promote the bundle. (See http://creativityhacker.ca/immerse-or... for a download)
So far it's a nice mix of sf & fantasy. Not much S&S so far, but I'd say the story by Christopher Ruz would be well reserved by most people here.
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Joseph wrote: "And I finished The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe (Kij Johnson's response to Lovecraft's Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath) and saw the trailer for the second season of Hap ..."Check out other books by Joe R Lansdale as well if you haven't read any yet. The Bottoms, Edge of Dark Water, The Thicket are all 5 star books in my opinion. I watched the first season of Hap and Leonard and bought "Savage Season" as well but haven't started it yet.
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I read a bunch of Lansdale (including the first four or five Hap & Leonard books) about 15-20 years ago when I first discovered him. Yeah, he's great. Mostly he's more what I'd call genre-adjacent, writing crime & suspense stuff, but he's done some straight-up horror and at least a few books that kind of straddle the line between horror & fantasy -- The Drive-In series, for example, or Zeppelins West. And didn't he do a Tarzan novel?
Yes he did a Tarzan novel that is part of the canon and authorized by Burroughs heirs. I have it but have not read it yet. It is named Tarzan's Lost Adventure and was based on an incomplete fragment that ERB started. He wrote another one too I think. I think it is a YA novel.
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And I think Hap & Leonard are definitely spiritual kin to Fafrhd & the Gray Mouser.
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Joseph, I admit to failing to finish the The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath three times. Part of me is driven to learn more about Pickman's ghouls (Pickman's Model) who appear again.... but this is the only Lovecraft work I can't finish. I didn't know about the "missing women" perspective until your post here. I will look into The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe . Thx for sharing.
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TBH, I didn't know about the "missing women" problem either, until I started seeing some articles when Vellitt Boe was coming out. And now at some point I want to go back and reread Kadath, just to confirm.
FWIW, I think Vellitt Boe would work perfectly well as a standalone story even if you're not familiar with the original.
I am currently reading Red Blade From the East by T.C. Rypel.
Jack wrote: "Starting to read Swordsmen in the Sky, which, based on the title, should be a good Sword & Planet collection. Stories by Poul Anderson, Edmond Hamilton, Leigh Brackett, Andre Norton,..."Not a bad story in the anthology. I particularly like Hamilton's "Kaldar,World of Antares".
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I know I have that one and am pretty sure I read it at some point.
Has there ever been a collection of Poul Anderson's old sword & sorcery/sword & planet stuff? I keep finding it in these anthologies, but that's about it.
Joseph wrote: "Howie wrote: "Jack wrote: "Starting to read Swordsmen in the Sky, which, based on the title, should be a good Sword & Planet collection. Stories by Poul Anderson, Edmond Hamilton, Le..."Joseph, not that I am aware of. The Poul Anderson story featured in Swordsmen in the Sky isn't really even a sword and planet story as I understand the genre, but it still is an awesome read!
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Welcome to Howie! Great to have join. Lots of Rypel/Gonji fans are about.
We have group reads every two months (two topics in parallel). Every January one topic is Anthologies! So I'll try to steer the cool discussion on Poul Anderson and Swordsmen in the Sky over there:
Link=
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I am currently reading Gonji Deathwind of Vedun. Just missing the group read by a few months, I have the pleasure of digging into this series. It took me this long to run down the books because used bookstores have all but disappeared in my part of the country. I have numerous titles with the Zebra Books logo on the spine, but sadly I have never come across this author or series. Well, let's begin!
Much obliged, Richard, to hear that you've found the GONJI series.There are many reasons why you've never heard of my epic heroic-fantasy series, despite their having sold upwards of 150,000 copies (series total) during their Zebra Books run in the 1980s. It's a curious creation/publishing history, all explained in detail in the "GONJI Odyssey" essay in the forever-coming-soon new Gonji volume, DARK VENTURES, from my current publisher, Wildside/Borgo Press. (It should be out anytime, as my proof corrections were turned in quite a while ago. But it's a small publisher with a limited staff that specializes in reprints of o.p. books like mine were.)
You can follow progress on the "Gonji Fictional Character" FB page and, sometimes, on my own (as "Ted Rypel").
Wildside has re-issued all the five extant series books in recent years. That's really the edition to seek out. I've tweaked them and restored text arbitrarily cut by Zebra back in the day. Plus the titles can get confusing, since most reverted to my originals (another issue addressed in the "Odyssey" essay) and one title actually jumped books.
But if you're reading the old Zebra "DEATHWIND OF VEDUN," that's the first book of the series-opening trilogy, though that title turns up on the THIRD book in the authorized new Wildside editions. (The Wildside title is RED BLADE FROM THE EAST.) So don't be thrown off.
Also, the Wildside PAPER editions of the "Deathwind Trilogy" books reproduce the helpful territorial map from the Zebra books, while they left them off the KINDLEs. You can easily find it in the pix on the Gonji page.
Thanks again!
Ted, thank you for all the background information about your series. I'll certainly keep an eye out for that upcoming Gonji, Dark Ventures from Wildside Press. Are all of the re-releases of your previous books through them as well? I think it's awesome they are putting a lot of OOP Sword and Sorcery books back out there.
Well, that's Wildside's compact--reprinting o.p. sf/fantasy titles that had been published traditionally and whose rights have reverted to their authors. DARK VENTURES, as well as the coming Gonji origin novel, BORN OF FLAME AND STEEL, are exceptions that they sometimes contract for, with series or authors who carry something of a built-in core readership. They generally don't do NEW books.
Yes, all five of the old Zebra Books GONJI titles are in print (and Kindle) from Wildside. Very handsome trade paperback editions, on the print versions. The sequence and new titling is as follows:
1) RED BLADE FROM THE EAST (ex-DEATHWIND OF VEDUN)
2) THE SOUL WITHIN THE STEEL (ex-SAMURAI STEEL)
3) DEATHWIND OF VEDUN (ex-SAMURAI COMBAT)
4) FORTRESS OF LOST WORLDS (same)
5) A HUNGERING OF WOLVES (ex-KNIGHTS OF WONDER)
As you can see, Zebra was aiming at mainstream men's-adventure with their titling, back in the '80s, virtually ignoring the heroic-fantasy grounding of the series and hoping to attract the heavy readership of Asian adventure tales at the time (they advertised Gonji as "The exciting Japanese epic for the millions who thrilled to SHOGUN, TAI-PAN and SHIBUMI"---!).
Link up with the "Gonji Fictional Character" Facebook page, my "T.C. Rypel Author Page" at Amazon, and my regular "Ted Rypel" FB page for some more on Gonji---release updates, covers of various editions, artwork, trivia, etc.
Thanks again for the interest.
I can really see what you mean about how Zebra marketed the series. From looking at the books I assumed the story was more Eastern in story and seting, especially with the oriental dragons on the covers. The covers of the re-releases are awesome and seem geared more to the subject matter.
Hah! You've exploded a can of worms in my mind---that old Zebra Books, carefully crafted marketing misrepresentation is at the heart of my "GONJI Odyssey" essay in DARK VENTURES. There I FINALLY get to codify the series' history and have a published document I can point to instead of answering the countless questions, over 30-odd years, about why nobody's ever heard of Gonji!It was a double-edged sword: The books sold very well and brought in royalties for years; yet few in the fantasy community for which they were written found them! I had to contact fantasy booksellers personally to clue them in that they needed my books in their catalogs. At bookstore signings I'd frequently find the books displayed in Mainstream Fiction, or Historical, and have to get them moved to SF/Fantasy.
Those Chinese dragons on the Zebra covers---at first impressive, with their gold-leaf embossing---eventually drove me to distraction. NOTHING in the five extant books takes place in Japan, except for back-story reminiscences by Gonji. Nowhere does Gonji wear traditional Japanese armor (just weaponry). And the German-language editions of Gonji show nothing BUT traditional armor on the covers---it's maddening!
(I myself was forced to select a cover for THE SOUL WITHIN THE STEEL at Wildside which also displays Japanese armor; but that was a matter of expediency at the time. And all my whining about it gets rendered moot anyway when BORN OF FLAME AND STEEL comes out. That one happens EXCLUSIVELY in an alt-world version of 16th-century Japan. But it's rife with kaiju and a looming interdimensional apocalypse, so even THAT won't be anything like Akira Kurosawa!)
At the Gonji FB page, you can check out all those covers in the Photos. The audio book for RED BLADE FROM THE EAST was a commissioned painting, so it's at least scene-specific. As was the cover for DARK VENTURES. And though the cover for BORN hasn't even been commissioned yet, I can assure that at least that one will look like FANTASY!
Glad you like the covers for the Wildside/Borgo Press re-issues. I got lucky. Wildside's fairly small and has an art budget that reflects it. They sent me to sites with tons of fantasy art they'd be willing to "rent," most of it junk and totally inappropriate. Then they suggested I look at the portfolio of Serbian artist Dusan Kostic, and I was able to find all those covers there. Nice work. And four of the five are at least arguably suggestive of what's between the covers. I just don't like the second one much.
I worked most closely with artist-filmmaker Larry Blamire on the cover for DARK VENTURES. We conferred pretty intensely in order to try to do something like a definitive Gonji (whose parents are a samurai and neo-Viking shieldmaiden: Japanese and Norwegian). Larry nailed it pretty well. Some artists have also rendered a few of their favorite Gonji monsters. That handful of works can be found on the Gonji page.
You've got me babbling pretty volubly about Gonji again. Best I drop it here. Way too much to say about this character and series that have occupied huge chunks of my creative life.
Always willing to answer any queries, though. Thanks again for the enthusiasm. Makes all the work seem worthwhile.
S.E. wrote: "Howie wrote: "Joseph wrote: "Howie wrote: "Jack wrote: "Starting to read Swordsmen in the Sky, which, based on the title, should be a good Sword & Planet collection. Stories by Poul ..."Thanks S.E.! I would love to take part in a discussion on Swordsmen in the Sky if you guys do it.
Staying busy with writing I haven't managed to finish Red Blade From the East yet, but what I have read is awesome!
Wow, I'm flattered, Howie, thank you!Hope it finishes well. But that's just the set-up book for the escalating tensions and violence, through THE SOUL WITHIN THE STEEL, that will culminate in one of the longest sustained battles you've ever seen, by the third and climactic book.
It's the characters...readers who love these books all become invested in multiple characters in Gonji's militia.
And then there's Simon...
T.C. wrote: "Wow, I'm flattered, Howie, thank you!Hope it finishes well. But that's just the set-up book for the escalating tensions and violence, through THE SOUL WITHIN THE STEEL, that will culminate in one..."
The cool thing I have gathered from what I have read of this first book so far is that your work isn't derivative, but it still is sword- and-sorcery. You extended the tradition of s & s, but didn't wreck it trying to do something ridiculous with it.
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Howie, it's like reining in cats here, lol.
You and are others reading Swordsmen in the Sky (Jack and Joseph...more?). You all can discuss it now. It would be cleaner to discuss it in the Anthology groupread thread (link below), but often times discussions spill over into other threads (ie this one being Currently Reading). Any discussion is good though.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Lots of great GONJI discussions too. Further/longer discussion on these may be better managed in the Groupread folder from last Fall: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Thanks, Howie. At the time I was just trying to do something based on what was stirring in my imagination---favorite time periods, character inventions and themes---that I wasn't finding elsewhere, and which could be filtered through the unlimited possibilities of a unified fantasy system. In Gonji's case, that took the form of the historical Earth we might recognize but one in which creatures of myth and powers manipulated by sorcery also existed but changed in form or were banished, over time. And that was combined with a central myth I created for a different cycle of never-published stories, in which our Earth is part of a system of concentric worlds, like nesting dolls, which can be interdimensionally accessed by adepts.
That leads to all kinds of unexpected complications, because the worlds have all been exploited by elusive controlling entities that can unleash hellish invasions. Gonji is a sort of rebellious "corrective measure" marked by Destiny to oppose their tyranny.
A lot of readers have seemed to take to Gonji because of that "familiar but different" feel. More than one reviewer has remarked that there's nothing quite like the series, in developing narrative. I hope that's good, ultimately.
S.E. wrote: "Howie wrote: "S.E. wrote: "Howie wrote: "Joseph wrote: "Howie wrote: "Jack wrote: "Starting to read Swordsmen in the Sky, which, based on the title, should be a good Sword & Planet c..."S.E. Thanks! I think I got it now!
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Review = https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Reading Appendix N: A Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons, The Gods of Mars by Burroughs, and In a Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner. Wagner's horror stories are fantastic, easily on par with his Kane stories. I'm really impressed with the essays in Appendix N. I don't always agree with the author, but he's done a great job of dissecting the books listed in Gygax's Appendix N and showing their influence on D&D. Good stuff, and recommended.
Just finished The Diamond Age: or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, not that on topic.Awesome, but flawed.
Now reading some issues of Beneath Ceaseless Skies till I decide which book to pick up next.
While I'm not reading any Sword & Sorcery fiction, I am reading some non-fiction books as research for an S&S setting I'm working on. My world is based loosely on the Connecticut Valley, specifically on the paleontology of the Valley (yes, we have fossils in Connecticut, though they're primarily dinosaur footprints). So right now I'm reading Great Day Trips In The Connecticut Valley Of The Dinosaurs and Dinosaurs of the East Coast
John wrote: "While I'm not reading any Sword & Sorcery fiction, I am reading some non-fiction books as research for an S&S setting I'm working on. My world is based loosely on the Connecticut Valley, specifical..."That sounds very interesting, John! Do let us know when we can read the results.
Am I correct in thinking there also is a fascinating history surrounding the first few generations of paleontologists? I remember reading about some quite interesting characters on plaques at the British Natural History Museum.
I haven't read any fantasy in a while, but I'm actually thinking of rereading Robert Jordan. Last time I read him I was a child, and I fell off somewhere around book four or five, but I remember thoroughly enjoying it.
Ha, Robert Jordan's series was the one that broke my habit of just reading big fantasy series. Just before part 6 came out I reread the first books. Big mistake! When quickly rereading all the small annoyances became big.. All the tugging on braids!
Bool two or three actually felt like getting close to the ending... oops
I managed to avoid these neverending series for a while. Sadly I fell into the trap again with Game of Thrones and Name of the Wind. Gotta love series with stand alone novels.
Sorry for the rant!
Peter wrote: "Ha, Robert Jordan's series was the one that broke my habit of just reading big fantasy series. Just before part 6 came out I reread the first books. Big mistake! When quickly rereading all the smal..."I completely agree! As I see it, one of the major problems with the fantasy genre these days is the trend that everything has to be at least a trilogy or preferably a multivolume series where every single book is at least 700 pages.
I can count on one hand how many 700+ pages fantasy books I have read that could justify that page count. On the other hand, the amount of fantasy books I've read that have suffered from being far too long... (looking at you, A Dance with Dragons).
One of the last fantasy novels I read was Kazuo Ishiguro's brilliant The Buried Giant, which is full of genuinely surprising and stimulating ideas that takes the genre, at least as I know it, into new directions. For instance, its main protagonists are an elderly couple, it goes to great lengths to downplay violence as a narrative force, and it raises some very interesting questions about the place and power of myth. And best of all, Ishiguro accomplishes all this in just about 300 pages, and there is absolutely no need for a sequel.
Anyway, off to start rereading Robert Jordan then! See you in 2027 :)
Keeping it short, I just finished Charles A. Gramlich's Mage, Maze, Demon. It is a story about a barbarian named Bryle. Narrowly escaping a massive forest fire, Bryle seeks refuge in cave and encounters a blind sorcerer who sends the barbarian on a mission into a maze. The tale is written in present tense, which I initially found distracting, but after a few pages I was rolling right along with the action. I found Gramlich's tale enjoyable and I will be picking up more of his stuff.
I just finished the first two novelettes in the Elephant and the Macaw sword & sorcery series (The Fortuitous Meeting and A Parlous Battle).It's entertaining, and promising, but I'm not really hooked yet.
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(Relatedly, am I the only one who keeps backing books & magazines & anthologies on Kickstarter and almost never gets around to actually reading them?)
Just finished Charles Allen Gramlich's third book in the Talera Series "Witch of Talera" a Sword & Planet series. Never a dull moment in this well written series!
Also finished "Dead on the Bones" by Joe R Lansdale a few days ago. A new anthology of pulp type short stories written with Burroughs, Howard, and other pulpsters in mind. There are Two Sword & Planet stories, a Sci Fi story and also a Weird Western with a reluctant Solomon Kane type old west protagonist, and the title story which is a southern horror tale in the vein of Robert E Howard, et al.
Michael wrote: "Also finished "Dead on the Bones" by Joe R Lansdale a few days ago. A new anthology of pulp type short stories written with Burroughs, Howard, and other pulpsters in mind. There are Two Sword & Pla..."This sounds incredible. Thanks for sharing!
Richard wrote: "Michael wrote: "Also finished "Dead on the Bones" by Joe R Lansdale a few days ago. A new anthology of pulp type short stories written with Burroughs, Howard, and other pulpsters in mind. There are..."It is great.
There is even a Tarzan story. Highly recommended.
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I have a couple of the Hap and Leonard books but haven't read them yet. I watched the first season of the TV show.
Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"
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Am I the only one who kind of wants to see Captain Jack Sparrow meet Monkey D. Luffy?"
Although I've read a fair bit of manga I haven't seen much anime. And once you read a bit of manga the right to left thing isn't really a problem, though it is weird at first.
And seeing a meeting with Luffy and Sparrow would be entertaining - I'm sure Luffy would want him to join his crew. ;)