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?
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?
