The Sword & Sorcery appreciation thread

[ElectricBlue]

I'm really going to have to dig it out and read it again. I know its around in my bookcases somewhere.

I picked it up and read it when I was in high school and haven't tried again, but 15 years will probably put an entirely new perspective on it. I did read about his early death from Parkinsons, I think it was, which was sad. He had about 4 pages of a 4th novel finished - his wife finished it, from his notes partly, I think, and it was eventually published, but I've never read it.

I first read it at sixteen, the age Fuschia is when the story begins. She was my second literary crush - Susan from the Narnia stories being the first.

I've re-read the Gormenghast series every decade or so. I read Titus Alone by itself this last time for some reason, and found an article by China Mieville about the last book - Peake was one of his inspirations.

Titus Awakes was written by Maeve Peake, Mervyn's wife, and was published posthumously by their children, back in 2011 (the centenary of his birth). He was an accomplished artist, too. He illustrated the Alice books - those illustrations are superb.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

@StillStunned have to ask if you’re a fan of Piers Anthony and his Xanth stories?

 

[Wifetheif]

I am the proud owner of this quite rare paperback. Tara is a swordswoman who is incredibly beautiful, incredibly naive, and, most improbably, virginla throughout the novel. Tara retains her virginity despite being captured, stripped, and kept naked by a really perverted warlord. This is one smutty read. It also has content that really raises eyebroys today in that it is pro pedophilia, child Ra*e, and underage sex. You have never read anything like this. The promised sequel never appeared and Lin Carter rarely tackled erotica afterwards. NO my copy is NOT for sale!

 

[ChloeTzang]

I first read it at sixteen, the age Fuschia is when the story begins. She was my second literary crush - Susan from the Narnia stories being the first.

I've re-read the Gormenghast series every decade or so. I read Titus Alone by itself this last time for some reason, and found an article by China Mieville about the last book - Peake was one of his inspirations.

Titus Awakes was written by Maeve Peake, Mervyn's wife, and was published posthumously by their children, back in 2011 (the centenary of his birth). He was an accomplished artist, too. He illustrated the Alice books - those illustrations are superb.

I read just now about his work as an artist. I am definitely re-reading

As for Narnia - yes, they were my first real fantasy novels. Heinlein was my first sci-fi, and I still have my very first Heinlein book that I bought when I was 10 at a Library book sale. "Time for the Stars." My parents gave me Lord of the Rings for Christmas when was 11 or 12 and I read it cover to cover in 3 days non-stop! It was like a whole new world.....my brothers got the duct tape out - I was so excited I couldn't stop talking about it. LOL

 

[ChloeTzang]

I am the proud owner of this quite rare paperback. Tara is a swordswoman who is incredibly beautiful, incredibly naive, and, most improbably, virginla throughout the novel. Tara retains her virginity despite being captured, stripped, and kept naked by a really perverted warlord. This is one smutty read. It also has content that really raises eyebroys today in that it is pro pedophilia, child Ra*e, and underage sex. You have never read anything like this. The promised sequel never appeared and Lin Carter rarely tackled erotica afterwards. NO my copy is NOT for sale!
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You can read a "Tara" short story here. I hadn't come across these before but, well, a new twist on how to feed a vampire.....

https://archive.org/details/risque_stories_001_1984-03/page/n13/mode/2up

There were three "Tara" short stories published in Risque Stories as well as the single novel

https://sfandfantasy.co.uk/php/gallery0a.php?subsection=183

 

[Duleigh]

You can read a "Tara" short story here. I hadn't come across these before but, well, a new twist on how to feed a vampire.....

https://archive.org/details/risque_stories_001_1984-03/page/n13/mode/2up

That's amazing, I've read a lot of pulps and a hell of a lot of REH but I've never seen Risqué Stories.

 

[ChloeTzang]

That's amazing, I've read a lot of pulps and a hell of a lot of REH but I've never seen Risqué Stories.

Me neither. It seems there were one or two other "erotica" pulps too. A whole sub-genre I never heard of.

A little off topic but this is a fascinating article about one of the artists that did a lot of those erotic covers for pulp magazines like Weird Tales back in the 30's and 40's

https://eclecticladylandblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/14/pulp-pictures/

And I guess 100 years ago, instead of writing on Literotica, we'd all have been pounding them out for these pulp magazines

https://www.pulpmags.org/contexts/essays/history-of-girlie-pulps.html

 

[Wifetheif]

Those old pulp writers can teach us youngsters a lot of things if we pay attention. Walter B. Gibson turned out a Shadow novel every two weeks. He beat on his manual typewriter so hard that his fingertips blistered. Once they healed, two weeks later, he churned out another novel. Rinse and repeat for DECADES! Lester Dent, who wrote the Doc Savage novels was a writing machine he had more than a dozen typewriters scattered about his house. He would move from room to room working on storeis and novels in progress. As soon as a project was completed the typewriter was assigned a new project.
They could also deliver the spice. Check this out from Novel Page's Spider novel The Red Death Rain. The Spider, Richard Wentworth, learned that his main squeeze, the beautiful Nita Van Sloan had been kidnapped in the first chapter. Here they are reunited. The threat of beastiality is something no L.com writer could get away with but in the 1930s and 40s almost anything made its way past the censor.

“Look Spider”

Slowly Wentworth’s head came up again, heavily swung to the parted curtains. A shudder swept over him. Beyond that curtain were two small alcoves whose fronts were steel bars. Soft Yellow light flooded those cells. In one, a huge furry animal squatted like a man on the floor. It lifted its head and evil red eyes gleamed, lips snarled back from yellow fangs. The beast straightened, rising to its feet so that it stood with hunched formidable shoulders. Arboreal hands clutched the bars, and the fearful strength of the ting made them shake.

“An orangutan, the Mandarin explained softly. “He is easily as powerful as the gorilla and much more human. For instance, they have been known to carry off native women. The women die ultimately, of course, but in the meantime…”

Wentworth’s dull eyes had opened wide with incredulous staring. In the other cell was – Good God! It was Nita! Nita was standing, gripping the bars also. Her lovely body was nearly nude, clad in the filmy garments of a woman of the seraglio. Upon her body, a little jacket that was open its full length barely covers her exquisite breasts. Low on her hips was girdle with a jeweled clasp from it depended a silken skirt of such extraordinary weave that it scarcely seemed to exist. It enhanced the subtle curve of her hips, glorified the shapely white columns of her limbs. The glorious chestnut hair hung to her shoulders, and the yellow lights made fiery gleams among its curls. But on her face was such a mingling of joy and pain as would tear the heart. Her red lips were tremulous. She reached supplicant hands between the bars, her warm round arms petitioning.

WOW!

 

[Duleigh]

And I guess 100 years ago, instead of writing on Literotica, we'd all have been pounding them out for these pulp magazines

Yeah, back then the editor would make you use a masculine pen name so 'da guys' would read your work, something gritty and short like Dolf Fender. Then once established and picked up by a 'respectable' publisher you could use a more feminine pen name. Something silly like Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell. Who's going to believe you could make up something like Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell?

(Actually I read some of her stuff)

 

[rthnck]

First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are my favorites, stay the hell away from the third which came out years later, its just an awful money grab.

The Belgariad (5 book series) is excellent, but again, if you enjoyed it, don't go near the Mallorean follow up. It shits all over everything in the first

Guess Donaldson and Eddings created the new Hollywood formula of everything from the past should be treated like trash before Hollywood did.

ETA can't talk about this genre without Howard's Conan.

Donaldson is definitely high on my list with his world building in Covenant 1 and 2 (agree about 3). I also greatly enjoyed A Man Rides Through and Mirror of Her Dreams (closer to the sword and sorcery genre than Covenant) and the Forbidden Knowledge books are pretty terrific space fantasy

 

[StillStunned]

@StillStunned have to ask if you’re a fan of Piers Anthony and his Xanth stories?

Not really a fan. I read one, or maybe two, as a teenager, and quite honestly I only really liked the sex scenes.

Then again, as a teenager I was probably quite a snob about fantasy. I might appreciate them more now.

 

[Duleigh]

Then again, as a teenager I was probably quite a snob about fantasy.

Back in the days of my teens, fantasy was (I like to think) at its best. A Golden age of S&S. LOTR and the Silmarillion were still echoing through the literary world like a cannon shot, Anne McCaffery was filling the air with dragons, The Princess Bride and the Neverending Story were still in book form only. The authors what were on top of their game were gods. Ursula K. Le Guin, Roger Zeazny, Anne McCaffrey, Piers Anthony, Michael Moorecock, Patricia A. McKillip... it was a grand era. Steven King was still years away from jumping the shark, and good fantasy was written at a truly adult level.

And if you didn't like it, the grand masters were still there - Heinlein, Clark, Bradbury, Azimov... to me Robert E. Howard was a god among men. Back then there were graphic novels but we called them B&Ws because they were black and white comic books, and they featured classic fantasy stories: Conan the Barbarian, John Carter of Mars and my favorite: The Paladin.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Not really a fan. I read one, or maybe two, as a teenager, and quite honestly I only really liked the sex scenes.

Then again, as a teenager I was probably quite a snob about fantasy. I might appreciate them more now.

Just thought all the horrible puns would be right up your alley.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

Well, consistency is always a given in fiction. And like you say, it offers countless hooks.

But I don't think consistency should be used as a shortcut for characterisation. If you're going to say that all dwarves have beards, why is that? Do their beards function like a cat's whiskers, like in Artemis Fowl, to help the dwarf sense tremors underground? Or are dwarves actually made of stone, and their beards are lichens that grow on them?

And here you are adding detail to the world again.

I agree, frankly - the exceptions (usually! ) lead to the best stories. Conan's the best endurance fighter, Rincewind the worst wizzzard, etc. Breaking consistency - with explanation, like Conan's childhood slavery/abuse and Rincewind hosting one of the Eight Great Spells - allows for expansion. I can't think of a tale where everything comes from a completely consistent set of rules.

Then again, I'm currently unable to imagine a completely consistent set of rules without loopholes. *shrug*

The point I'm trying to make here, I guess, is that looking at the edges, probing the loopholes, is the vast bulk of tales.

 

[StillStunned]

Just thought all the horrible puns would be right up your alley.

It was so long ago that I don't really remember any puns. I've seen his punnish titles, but they never really tempted me to read more.

The point I'm trying to make here, I guess, is that looking at the edges, probing the loopholes, is the vast bulk of tales.

A large part of fiction is things that break the rules. But the rules have to make sense in the first place, and so does the reason for breaking them.