Could use some advice for a post-apocalyptic sword and sorcery series I'm currently writing

[J.W.]

So I'm currently working on writing a sword and sorcery story series set in a post-apocalyptic far-future Earth that has been plunged back to a dark age after a future war with evil robotic overlords that actually unite themselves with a malevolent alien power and become darksome deities with biological forms. A pizza delivery girl gets thrown through a portal through time in the early '90s and becomes the main hero in that world. I'm thinking it will be sort of a cross between Red Sonja and Thundarr the Barbarian. What post-apocalyptic fantasy/sword and sorcery stories do you recommend I read to help inspire me. I've read Fred Saberhagen's "The Empire of the East" Series that has this sort of setting, but that's about it. What else would you recommend? I know that Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" Series and Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" have to be pretty much a given and must-reads.

[Richard]

Armageddon's Children
Any Shannara book after the first trilogy.
example The Scions of Shannara
The Sunset Warrior
Any Robert Adams Horseclans books
example The Coming of the Horseclans
The Blessing Papers
Ice Prophet

[Richard]

Wolf in Shadow
Pure Blood
The Vagrant
The Islander
Days of Glory
The Book of Shai
The Breaking of Northwall

I might have missed a few, but these are just a few that fit the bill from my collection.

[J.W.]

Thank you for the recommendations. I have a couple of the Horseclan books so far and also the Jon Shannow Trilogy by David Gemmell, the Sunset Warrior Series by Eric Van Lustbader and the Pelbar Cycle by Paul O. Williams out of the ones you listed. The Ice Prophet Series always looked quite appetizing to me. The Shannara Series, or anything that Terry Brooks wrote for that matter, I'm highly suspicious of. I tried to read the Sword of Shannara and about barfed because it was pound for pound a carbon copy of LOTR.. I'm not saying that as some snooty Tolkien elitist that thinks that Tolkien is the pinnacle and everything else is crap; it literally IS a ripoff of LOTR right down to the Battle of Helm's Deep ubder another name. Does it get any better, and if so, where should I start and what should I avoid of his?

[Richard]

Terry Brooks never gets any better. It become repetitive, and written by the same formula every single time afterward. My only favorites from the whole saga were the Heritage of Shannara series, and it was written as a four book series. Everything after was a trilogy. First King of Shannara was another I enjoyed. It's a prequel the Sword but only one character carries over into Sword.

I haven't read all the books I have listed. The Islander by John Maddox Roberts was enjoyable. The Sunset Warrior series was good too. So was Ice Prophet. But everyone has different tastes.

[J.W.]

Yeah, The Islander is another good-looking one.

[Mary]

Leigh Brackett's The Ginger Star and the rest of the trilogy

Though if you're doing a pizza delivery girl -- is this intended to be comic?

[J.W.]

Not at all