A good old friend of mine, Randy Griffin, wrote to say he was enjoying this blog and wondered if I would post a list of books, places to start for someone wanting to get into sword & sorcery.
Absolutely. The core, of course, is Robert E. Howard, who mixed the historical fiction of people like Dumas and Sabatini with the weird fiction of Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany and maybe even Eddison's THE WORM OUROBOROS to create characters like King Kull and Conan the Cimmerian. Add humor and you've got Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser (all those stories are good, though my favorite remains the one full-length novel, THE SWORDS OF LANKHMAR, reviewed earlier.)
To me, Moorcock rounds out the basic triumvirate of essential Sword & Sorcery authors, though others might disagree. Elric of Melnibone, Moorcock's anti-Conan, is unavoidable. (I'm actually a big fan of Dorian Hawkmoon as well, having just reread the series recently.)
Just reading those three will keep you busy forever, but there are plenty of other places to go. Having championed Lin Carter, I'll have to cast a vote for his Thongor, a mix of Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Henry Kuttner's ELAK OF ATLANTIS stories, and C.L. Moore's JIREL OF JOIRY, have been collected numerous times and are great.
I have been on a Karl Edward Wagner kick lately; his Kane is the main evolution in the S&S hero I can think of following Conan, F&tGM, and Elric. Wagner called his stuff "acid gothic" and claimed not to have been influence by Howard; whatever the case, I'm digging it. (NIGHT WINDS -- novellas -- is a winner; I'm halfway thru DARK CRUSADE, which is so-so so far, and haven't read BLOODSTONE yet, though it's perched right here by my elbow.)
All the above is just the tip of the iceberg. You'll have to dig around and figure out what you like. I loved James Enge's BLOOD OF AMBROSE and can't wait for payday so I can order the sequel (one more week!) And I can't pass on mentioning two favorites, Tim Powers' THE DRAWING OF THE DARK and P.C. Hodgell's GOD STALK, which is set in my second favorite fantasy city ever, Tai-Tastigon (second only of course to Leiber's Lankhmar.)
In my to-be-read stack? Charles Saunders' IMARO; David Gemmell's LEGEND; George R.R. Martin's A GAME OF THRONES; and a couple of Warhammer omnibuses that looked pretty good, Nathan Long's BLACKHEARTS and C.L. Werner's MATHIAS THULMANN: WITCH HUNTER. (I am a big Solomon Kane fan, and just saw Vincent Price in "Witch Finder," aka "The Conquerer Worm," so I can see where Werner's headed with this one!)
Anyway, that's it. Any suggestions out there? Randy, does that help?
About Me
- Don
- I teach English at a great state university in Arkansas: formerly a newspaperman, cab driver, cook, teacher, single father of one remarkable son, und so weiter. Writing a space opera at the moment.
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5 comments:
to me, Howard, Wagner and Gemmell are the best of the S&S writers. Jirel of Joiry definitely. For Moorcock, I always liked the Castle Brass books best. Thongor didn't do a lot for me but I read them certainly. I like to think of my Taleran books as Sword & Planet with a Sword & Sorcery sensibility, meaning they are essentially S & P in genre but more bloody and gory like good S & S.
I read the Hawkmoon books then went to order the Castle Brass anthology but it was a million bucks, so I have held off on that one. Maybe a cheap copy later. Just finished Wagner's DARK CRUSADE, which turned out better than I thought it would. Going thru the library to get a copy of that expensive collection of the Kane short stories. About to re-read Jirel for the first time since I was about 17. Also the Kuttner Elak stories, which I haven't read all of. A press called Planet Stories has published a bunch of those, incl. Howard's ALMURIC, Moorcock's KANE OF MARS, even Gary Gygax' novels!
Some good observations and suggestions on all accounts. I would toss in Clark Ashton Smith into the mix, especially his Hyperborean Cycle of tales. Not in the "flashing blade" school of sword & sorcery, but Smith had a knack for building a dark weird atmosphere that seizes the imagination. Also, I think the Thieves' World series is an overlooked gem (mainly the first handful of books in the series) that offers a lot for those looking for gritty S&S tales.
_Dark Crusade_ was my first Wagner but I got more out of _Bloodstone_. That novel has the most satisfying battle scene (act, really) I can recall reading.
Smith is great for sword and sorcery and all kinds of things. Love him the most out of the three although Lovecraft bears another read as it's been about 11 years.
Love Smith the most out of the "Big Three," I mean.