Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion

Just came back from Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore with Kyrik Fights the Demon World & Kyrik and the Wizard's Sword (both by Gardner F. Fox) and Pathless Trail by Arthur O. Friel (which is probably more associational, but it was part of Centaur's Time-Lost series along with books by Howard and Mundy, amongst others).

So what have you picked up recently that's cool?

A good selection!
As I'm trying to finish books I've been reading for months, I only bought comics & graphic novels lately.
Of S&S interest is the, monthly, humourous S&S series Rogues!. Also the hardcover compilation os two european S&S graphic novels, translated in english as Armies, which I have yet to read...

I've got the Fox books and the O. Friel. Pretty good. Wish I'd read them when I was younger, though.

I got about 40 new books over the weekend that are either sword & sorcery, sword & planet, or close relatives to the two. :P When I get them all organized I'll put up a list of my finds.

I'm jealous of you, Michael.

And after finding two of the Kyrik books I had to also lay hands on Kyrik: Warlock Warrior and Kyrik and the Lost Queen. Although for those I totally cheated and went to Amazon.

Yeah, Kyrik! I got half of my Kothars from Amazon and all of my Kyriks. I'm excited to read those.

I got to take a trip to visit some friends in Philly this weekend and they have some sweet used book stores down there. Picked up everything at either $2 or $3 a book. Amazon kills you on the shipping, so I was trying to get what I could in Philly.

Supposedly NYC is even better for used books so I need to go take a look some time.

Picked up a nice stack of 19 books today at the local used bookstore. Some of the authors were Eric Van Lustbader, H Beam Piper, Alan Burt Akers, Kenneth Bulmer, Leigh Brackett, Harold Lamb, Lin Carter, Jane Gaskell .... Has anybody read Ursus of Ultima Thule by Avram Davidson? Found it on a random pass of the shelf and was like huh what the heck. Now to get them all entered on Goodreads fun fun.

Cripes...my to-read pile is huge, but I got hooked in Half Price books anyway. I didn't go as crazy as Aaron and Michael. But I did get some old Andre Norton (Woo-hoo to another Ohio fantasy author, since she hails from Cleveland!). I have not read her Witch World, and now I am prepared to try some):
1968 Sorceress of the Witch World
1965 Thress against the Witch World
1971 High Sorcery

Well...and one more..
1971 Conan the Buccaneer (Frazetta cover..only 45cents)

That Conan is a very nice find! I need to read the witch world series too. Had some of them a long time ago but I think I traded them so have to get them again.

Half Price books is the Satan of the book world, tempting me to spend far more money on books than I have available.

Charles wrote: "Every bookstore ever is the Satan of the book world, tempting me to spend far more money on books than I have available."

Fixed that for you.

Oh, and I got my copy of Deepest, Darkest Eden: New Tales of Hyperborea, which probably needs to move ahead in the queue.

Joseph wrote: "Charles wrote: "Every bookstore ever is the Satan of the book world, tempting me to spend far more money on books than I have available."

Fixed that for you."

Ain't that the truth!!

Ooh, what is this strange demon to trade all my filthy lucre for delicious books? :D

Aye tis true

I collect them far faster than I can read them! I also find I use far too much time reading about books than actually reading the books themselves... damn you, Internet!

I've pretty much stopped going to bookstores (not that any around NYC are really worth it anymore). I don't have the room to buy as indiscriminately as I used to and Amazon kindle and used options keep me going. I do sort of miss the old bookstore roadtrips my friends and I used to take. So it goes.

There is nothing like spending a few hours in a musty, poorly lit used bookstore searching for a hidden gem buried deep amongst the glorious trash paperbacks of yesteryear. Soon, that may all be gone. You can get pretty much any old book your heart desires with the click of a mouse- but where's the fun in that? Before I am gone, the used book store will be no more, and I will miss them!

Used to be a wonderful used bookstore in New Orleans called Kaboom Books. I got so many of my SF/fantasy titles from there. But they closed up after Hurricane Katrina and we've had nothing like it since.

Absolutely, the hunt was fun. Slowly, though, all the places worth stalking thru closed up or migrated online. I can still remember the day I found Morlock Night after searching high and low for two years. That it's not that good doesn't detract from that moment I found it tucked at the back of a double row of paperbacks on the top shelf. No more.

Yeah the hunt is definitely at times more fun than the reading. Spent more time than I would like to think about poking around used bookstore shelves. Fortunately out here there are still a couple nice ones to frequent. It will be a sad day if they disappear. Getting them online is just to ridiculously expensive unless you go on ebay and buy in bulk.

For years part of my weekly routine was stopping at Uncle Hugo's and/or Dreamhaven to see if they had any Ballantine Adult Fantasy titles I hadn't seen before. Eventually, when I was down to just one or two that I was missing, I went ahead and ordered them off of alibris or abebooks or something which, on the one hand, lacks the romance, but on the other hand, I now have a complete BAF. So there are pluses and minuses.

I have done the same on a few occasions when I have finally gotten tired of looking in the bookstores. Sometimes you just have to do it, in fact lately I have done it quite a bit lol!

S.wagenaar wrote: "There is nothing like spending a few hours in a musty, poorly lit used bookstore searching for a hidden gem buried deep amongst the glorious trash paperbacks of yesteryear. Soon, that may all be go..."

As will I - there was a real gem in my area years back, but long gone. The best of the breed have a pet dog or cat that competes for your attention with the books...

I went down to a couple local bookshops, and picked up a few books. Unfotunately I couldn't find any Charles Saunders or Gardner Fox, but I did finally manage to find a John Jakes Brak novel. Do the Brak novels have to be read in order?

Here's the score:
Cormac MacArt: Sword of the Gael
Demon In The Mirror
The Compleat Enchanter
The Quest of Kadji
Sword Of The Demon
When The Idols Walked
Witch World

Not Sword & Sorcery
Orsinian Tales
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Martian Chronicles
Christine Free!
Ender's Game
As well as a Franklin Library edition of Henry James Seven Tales.

Quest of Kadji is fairly standard but not bad. I really liked Witch World. In fact, enjoyed very much the first four or so books in that series. Offutt's Cormac stuff is pretty good too. Have not read the Compleat Enchanter

I like Offutt's Cormac. It's not Howard, but still a good read. I have them all, and the ones co-written with Keith Taylor are the best. Taylor is one of the best S&S writers out there; he deserves much greater acclaim than he has gotten from fantasy in general. Hunt his work down.

The Brak novels have some very loose continuity in that there's a semi-recurring bad guy introduced in the first story, but I don't think it's anything to worry about. They're almost entirely self-contained.