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

Sword and Planet: Our primary (only?) topic for May-June 2014 is Sword & Planet:

Most anything that crosses Sword & Sorcery with a Sci-Fi, planetary theme will be work. Anything from Edgar Rice Burroughs's Carter series, to Howard's Almuric...Leigh Brackett and C.J. Cherryh's works are fair game too, and even Charlse Gramlich's Swords of Talera: Book One of the Talera Cycle. Some are already talking about Gardner F. Fox's Warrior of Llarn.

Poul AndersonI reread the entire Barsoom series a couple years ago (around the time the movie came out) -- still some of my favorite books ever (well, the first eight or so, but out of eleven that's not a bad track record), and it's hard to believe that A Princess of Mars is more than a hundred years old.

Swordsmen in the Sky is an anthology that might be worth tracking down -- stories from Poul Anderson, Andre Norton, Leigh Brackett, Otis Adelbert Kline and Edmond Hamilton.

(Speaking of Kline -- I really wish someone would publish restored versions of his Mars and Venus books -- Planet Stories did a couple of them, but not the entire set.)

Ice Crown for Andre Norton

Did Poul Anderson do any actual planetary romances? He did full-blown fantasy, and a lot of space opera, but on planet adventure?

Mary wrote: "Did Poul Anderson do any actual planetary romances? He did full-blown fantasy, and a lot of space opera, but on planet adventure?"

I don't think he did anything novel-length, but did at least one or two shorter works -- "Swordsman of Lost Terra" is the story in the anthology I mentioned. And there was a piece in an anthology I read a couple of years back -- Swords Against Tomorrow. The story was "Demon Journey". At least one of the stories (Demon Journey) was originally published under a pseudonym.

I'm considering The Sword of Rhiannon, or one of the Morgaine Saga novels by .C.J. Cherryh. Probably the former as I have never read it, and that seems somewhat inexcusable.

I read the first of the Morgaine novels but none of the others.

May-June Groupread: Sword and Planet: Only one topic for the next two months, but it is big.

Discussion Link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...




Here is the banner! AllFrank Frazetta coverart of John Carter and Barsoom!
Thuvia, Maid of Mars / The Chessmen of Mars
A Princess of Mars
The Gods of Mars / The Warlord of Mars
The Mastermind of Mars and A Fighting Man of MarsTestament: The Life and Art of Frank Frazetta



Background elements from:

Burroughs's tales of Venus and his Moon trilogy would also qualify.

C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith stories feel pretty sword-and-planet, although Smith uses his trusty blaster, not a sword.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels are also more or less sword-and-planet, as are L. Sprague de Camp's books about the planet Krishna and Andre Norton's Witch World series.

My personal favorites are Burroughs and Brackett.

Not, I think, Witch World.

yes, the blurb on the back made it sound like it's on another planet, but that's the blurb, and that was because it was published in the days when fantasy was the poor stepchild and SF the big thing. It's pure fantasy.

Mind you, with the way she threw about psionics, it can be hard to tell.

Of course then there's her Dread Companion which manages to hit both the SF and fantasy genres.

I agree that Witch World has a fantasy vibe to it, but if it doesn't qualify as sword-and-planet (I think it does), than I would have to say that Brackett's work and Howard's "Almuric" don't, either. Their attempts to invoke any sort of science, even bogus pulp science, are desultory at best.

My favorite is Alan Burt Akers' Dray Prescott series. I went to that after Burroughs' Mars series.

I forgot about the Dray Prescott novels. Those are a lot of fun. It still bugs me that the last couple weren't published in English language editions (unless that's changed?)

Supposedly the last books are coming...

http://www.mushroom-ebooks.com/wordpr...

A number of the Prescot books that were originally published only in Germany have now been released in the US. Only 1-37 were originally published in the US and England. I know the following have been released since: I'm not sure if the ones listed as ebook only are still just ebooks. this list was made a while ago:

38. Scorpio Reborn (HB)
39. Scorpio Assassin (HB)
40. Scorpio Invasion (HB)
41. Scorpio Ablaze (Lpap)
42. Scorpio Drums (Lpap)
43. Scorpio Triumph Lpap)
44. Intrigue of Antares (ebook only)
45. Gangs of Antares (ebook only)

I bought the eBook English translations of #38 thru #45 back in 2008 or so. The ones I'm still waiting on are #46 thru #53.

The Sword of Rhiannon is one of my favorite of all Brackett's. A really nice "best-of" is Sea-Kings of Mars, which collects ALMOST all of her best short fiction. I'd have only traded out one or two lesser tales in there for one or two stronger. I suppose some of that comes to a matter of opinion. http://www.amazon.com/Kings-Otherword...

Howard wrote: "The Sword of Rhiannon is one of my favorite of all Brackett's. A really nice "best-of" is Sea-Kings of Mars, which collects ALMOST all of her best short fiction. I'd have only traded out one or two..."

Gollancz put out some really great collections in that Fantasy Masterworks imprint.

All, Wow I have a lot to learn about Sword and Planet. I have no idea about the Dray Prescott sereis (wiki link = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dray_Pre...)

And I have to confess that I have read little to none of Leigh Brackett. Howard was starting to educate me with his Blackgate post: http://www.blackgate.com/2012/07/04/l...

I like the excerpt there...and ice cream...so where do I or other Brackett-newbies start?

b>Getting Introduced to Leigh Brackett: Perhaps the crew here can suggest a good starting point for her books: The Sword of Rhiannon, or The Hounds of Skaith, or Sea-Kings of Mars...?

I'll just put this out here:

http://www.baenebooks.com/s-139-leigh...

My favorite Brackett stories are the adventures of her character Eric John Stark. If you read these, the ones set in our solar system come before the trilogy set on the planet Skaith.

I'm going to sample Robert Moore Williams' Zanthar series of S & P. I only heard about this recently. I have the whole series of four. The first one is Zanthar of Many Worlds

Maybe I'll read the first two Dray Presscott. A kind fellow gave them to me as a gift two years back. They're supposed to have a "Bracket" ish feel to them.

Joseph wrote: "I'll just put this out here:

http://www.baenebooks.com/s-139-leigh..."

Well, THAT's cool. Weird that they left one of the Stark short stories (the one on Venus) out of the Stark omnibus though, probably my favorite of the three Stark short stories. And why would they rename "Lorelie of the Red Mist" as "Swamps of Venus?" Blech.

A couple of years back now, ERBzine published an article on Sword and Planet fiction that I wrote and Steve Servello expanded. It lists a lot of Sword & Planet authors and books and so some might find it an interesting reference source. It's at this link: http://www.erbzine.com/mag35/3566.html

That's a beautifully thorough article Charles. Great review of Sword and Planet's history. Thanks for sharing.

S.E. wrote: "That's a beautifully thorough article Charles. Great review of Sword and Planet's history. Thanks for sharing."

Thanks, man!

Yep, great article!

Thanks, Joseph

After reading Charles' article, I was left thinking about Sword and Planet movies for some reason . I know Norman's Gor is available via Amazon ... And I rather liked Disney's John Carter ( I admit I have yet to read either books). Any comments about adaptations? Any more movies coming in the future ?

I saw the Gor movie years and years ago. It was pretty bad. I also liked the recent John Carter. There was another adaptation just before that came out with Tracy Lords as Dejah Thoris. I thought it was pretty awful as well. Flash Gordon is really very much a sword & planet epic and I liked it, even though it was cheesy as heck.

Charles wrote: "I saw the Gor movie years and years ago. It was pretty bad. I also liked the recent John Carter. There was another adaptation just before that came out with Tracy Lords as Dejah Thoris. I thought i..."

Big thumbs up for Flash Gordon here also. And there was an animated cartoon series back around 1980 that was surprisingly good. Well, the first season was surprisingly good. The second season, not so much.

Would Krull count?

Hi, everyone. I'm about 4/5ths of the way through Talbot Mundy's Tros saga. Only peripherally sword and sorcery (some Druids and various prophecies) but i'm really enjoying it. Quite a strong 'voice' with action, humor and pathos. Also, I haven't seen anyone else do this but i'm a struggling freelance artist with a Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery 'bent' and i'd like to show you all a link to my work: http://garymccluskey.carbonmade.com/
I'd love to hear what you have to say about it and I'm curious about your feelings on art's place in this ebook/ small publisher world. Thanks!
Gary

Krull! I liked that movie. I think it's more sword and sorcery than sword and planet though.

I recently read the first Tros book. It was enjoyable. I thought it was a slow for modern audiences but there's a lot of good stuff in it.

I like the art, btw. Nice book covers

Gary wrote: "..I'd love to hear what you have to say about it and I'm curious about your feelings on art's place in this ebook/ small publisher world. Thanks! ..."

Gary, nice coverart. Your curiosity about art's role in eBooks is a good one..one that deserves separate from this Sword-n-Planet one. Also, it might be nice to have a folder/thread in which the authors/editors/artists here can connect. We do not have a dedicated discussion area for networking of this type, but that would be good to try. Thanks for your input. Keep an eye out for some splinter threads.

Due to GR's post-outage email verification and related issues, I'm not currently able to add another, undated, edition of The Gods of Mars that I've had for many years. I'm not sure where I got it originally - possibly it was in a box of books my Dad bought at auction when I was a teenager. Anyway, it bears a repainted version of the 1920 cover and, according to Worldcat, this edition was published in 1953.

My copy is rather fragile and has some pages missing so I won't be reading it but I thought I would share the cover:

Greg wrote: "Due to GR's post-outage email verification and related issues, I'm not currently able to add another, undated, edition of The Gods of Mars that I've had for many years. I'm not sure w..."

Interesting ... I was going to complain about John Carter's hair color but then remembered he was probably wearing a Thern wig at the time. That's certainly not how I ever would've envisioned the Black Pirates of Mars, though.

The airship design is interesting but they don't really show enough of it to let me evaluate; I have to say that while I liked the designs in the John Carter movie well enough in the abstract, they were nothing like I envision when I read the book -- I always imagined something more like a floating WWI-era battleship but with really baroque upper works kind of like War Rocket Ajax in the Flash Gordon movie.

I've started reading Zanthar of the Many Worlds by Robert Moore Williams. Gotta say it's not impressing me so far. I put up a blog post about my initial impressions, http://charlesgramlich.blogspot.com

Charles wrote: "I've started reading Zanthar of the Many Worlds by Robert Moore Williams. Gotta say it's not impressing me so far. I put up a blog post about my initial impressions, http://charlesgramlich.blogspot..."

I'll save you some time: It doesn't improve.

Derek wrote: "Charles wrote: "I've started reading Zanthar of the Many Worlds by Robert Moore Williams. Gotta say it's not impressing me so far. I put up a blog post about my initial impressions, http://charlesg..."

Yep, I'm beginning to see that. :)

I intended to read Cherryh's "Well of Shiuan" to extend last Groupread's book (I read "Gate of Ivrel" finally)... But I got sucked into Charles' "sword of Talera". The Kindle sample was good, and I decided to just go with it. Morgainne will have to wait a bit.

I think I may re-read some John Carter books.

S.E. wrote: "I intended to read Cherryh's "Well of Shiuan" to extend last Groupread's book (I read "Gate of Ivrel" finally)... But I got sucked into Charles' "sword of Talera". The Kindle sample was good, and ..."

Hope you enjoy!

Mary wrote: "I think I may re-read some John Carter books."

Hard to go wrong there.

Charles wrote: "Mary wrote: "I think I may re-read some John Carter books."

Hard to go wrong there."

As long as you steer clear of John Carter of Mars (although it does have a great cover) and maybe Synthetic Men of Mars.

Yeah. He was wiser with Barsoom than with Tarzan: he shifted heroes and heroines. But there he lost his wisdom.

Mary wrote: "Yeah. He was wiser with Barsoom than with Tarzan: he shifted heroes and heroines. But there he lost his wisdom."

All of his series seemed to kind of run out of steam somewhere at the 60-75% mark.

the first three Barsoom books are definitely the cream of the crop