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

Lots of Scott Oden fans here, and his sequel to A Gathering of Ravens called Twilight of the Gods was just released!

Men of Bronze, Memnon, The Lion of Cairo are all fair game! Even his Conan pastiche in the Marvel Comics.

I can’t wait for my copy of Twilight of the Gods to arrive!

I only wish I could get Scott Oden to sign it and the others I have written by him.

Richard wrote: "I can’t wait for my copy of Twilight of the Gods to arrive!
I only wish I could get Scott Oden to sign it and the others I have written by him."

Althougth the Kindle doesn't feel as a good as a paperback/hardcover, it arrived instantly on Feb 18th!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lol

Just got my copy yesterday. I wish it was signed by Scott too. Maybe I’ll have to ship him my copy/copies and get them all signed! I’m hoping to read Twilight of the Gods and Lion of Cairo over the two months. Lion doesn’t get the attention it deserves, as it was marketed as historical fiction, but it was definitely historical S&S/fantasy. The straight historical fiction reader didn’t want to read fantasy, and fantasy readers were completely unaware it existed.

I'm with you on this group read fellows. I have Men of Bronze in paperback and A Gathering of Ravens in Hardcover, sitting on my shelves for way to long....

Periklis, great to hear from you! Which one will you start with?

I'm just going to lurk in the corner and try not to feel too self-conscious . . . :)

Scott wrote: "I'm just going to lurk in the corner and try not to feel too self-conscious . . . :)"

Welcome Scott! Glad to have you lurking. lol.

Getting a head start with Men of Bronze, which is bodes to be a cracking good read.

Excellent choice, Joseph! It's not quite as polished as later books, but some folks count this as a bonus.

It was a tough decision, but in the end the ancient Egyptian setting was what sold me.

I've often wondered why there isn't more ancient Egyptian action/adventure fiction. The 6th century BC is a *great* setting, and one of the more evocative of traditional fantasy worlds. The Persians are encroaching, the Greeks are bracing for war and hiring themselves out as mercenaries, the Egyptians are seeking to reclaim their lost glory. Rome is a series of hill-top villages, the Phoenicians command the seas, and the proverbial richest man in Antiquity (Croesus of Lydia) has started coining money for the first time. There's oracles and magic and gods aplenty . . .

I might have to revisit that setting :)

I was incredibly disappointed when the Scorpion King movie pretty much abandoned all of the Egyptian stuff from Mummy Returns to become just a bog-standard generic sword & sorcery film.

Scott wrote: "I've often wondered why there isn't more ancient Egyptian action/adventure fiction. The 6th century BC is a *great* setting, and one of the more evocative of traditional fantasy worlds. The Persian..."

Scott, I've only read your A Gathering of Ravens, and your Marvel Conan pastiche so far.

I'm curious about your approach to using alchemy (ancient chemistry/magic originating from Egypt).
I love reading, and writing, about "alchemical magic." Does that play a role in any sorcery you present in your other novels?

There's a scene with a touch of alchemy in Twilight of the Gods. Otherwise, I've not really delved too deeply into that one. My magic is generally "of the moment", meaning I don't think about it too far ahead. I generally decide if a scene needs magic on the fly: in The Lion of Cairo, I needed to impart info to the villain, so I chose magic as the means of transmission; in AGoR, I wanted to get Grimnir from point A to point B, and thus the Ash-Road was born. Its chaotic nature was a bit of an afterthought. I might dabble in alchemy for Doom of Odin, which is set in a period of marked magical decline.

Joseph wrote: "I was incredibly disappointed when the Scorpion King movie pretty much abandoned all of the Egyptian stuff from Mummy Returns to become just a bog-standard generic sword & sorcery film."

Me too! I was hoping for something better.

"I might have to re visit that setting."

Well, some of us would love that, for sure! Whether as historical fiction or historical fantasy.

I’m starting Twilight of the Gods today. I’ve read it as a beta reader during the early writing phase, but this will be my first complete read as a novel. Onward!

Had to finish some Clifford Ball.... now I'm headed into the Twilight...

Good luck, guys! :)

Wow, chapter one of Twilight of the Gods is a blood-soaked duel between Christianity and Vikingdom!

Each paragraph is rich with meaning. Heck, it is almost easy to get engrossed in the battle and overlook that the duel resonates the title of the book.

Check it out online if you haven't already purchased: Excerpt of the first few chapters on the publishers/MacMillian's website - link

I very much like that first chapter, and it’s also a tip of the hat to Robert E Howard’s Frost Giant’s Daughter (if I’m wrong, please correct me Scott!). I find that every chapter is dripping with detail and intricate descriptions, but done in a manner that doesn’t feel like filler. The narrative keeps pushing forward but the rich descriptions fill one’s mind with a clear picture of setting and mood. You can smell the woodsmoke, feel the damp and chilly air, or hear the clash of steel on steel. Good stuff!

Yep, that would be my "Frost Giant's Daughter" homage. Little known fact: I'm contractually obligated to include at least three REH references per book (my wife wishes to add: "No he's not!").

Actual little known fact: I had a horrible case of writer's block in 2018. The book was supposed to be something else -- similar in tone to Karl Edward Wagner's "Cold Light" -- but it had a fatal flaw: get the villan within arm's length of Grimnir and the book was done. So, I dithered and moped. Finally, I resorted to my old practice of rewriting REH to spur my own creativity. This was the product of that exercise. Some elements were added later, after I'd written the first third, but the visuals and the action . . . that was me boot-strapping my way out of despair.

Well sir, it worked!

Sweet. I did not know the Frost Giant inspiration... that makes the chapter even better.

Chapter 11; Malice-Striker! What an amazing creature. I'm generally bored by 'dragons', but Scott's interpretation of the Wyrm of Nordic myth is awesome! One of my favourite parts of the novel.

Ah, Chapter 11 :) That one was a bear to write . . .

Just got to Ch11. Very impressive. Grimnir's backstory rolls right into the Nailed God vs. Odin conflict; a really tight story for an epic plot.

Disa is a wonderful heroine caught in the middle of an impending apocalypse/Ragnarok.

And the prose is beautiful and intellectual, even when it concerns bloody, corpse-smeared "dwarven (dvergar)/orken" halls.

I sensed some echoes of Tolkien... which could actually be call-outs to JRR's linguistics and/or dragon rampages of mountain fortresses (this is fresh on my mind since we happen to have the concurrent Tolkien groupread, and Twilight of the Gods has the same grandeur evoked in the The Children of Húrin)... or Oden simply drew from Norse legends--it is clear Oden knows a lot more about ancient myths than me.

At risk of raising spoilers... and since he is lurking around, I'd love to hear influences for Malice-Striker's roll in Ch 11 (ie invading the Hall of the Nine Fathers, the jewel of Orkahaugr).

So, part of the framework of the whole series is, what we know as Norse myth is VERY different from the "reality" of it. What humans know of Thor and Odin and Asgardr and the whole Northern Thing comes primarily from the work of Snorri Sturluson -- a Christian writing the myths of his people. What Grimnir knows of it comes from personal experience and the first-hand accounts of his uncle, Gifr. These two views, Snorri's and Grimnir's, aren't copacetic. They don't jibe.

In Grimnir's worldview, Odin bears some resemblance to Tolkien's Morgoth -- a figure of fear and oppression to the kaunar. And like Morgoth, Odin has some mighty weapons at his disposal, Malice-Striker among them. Rather than a typical western dragon with flaming breath and flight, I opted to make Malice-Striker more like Fafnir from the Völsunga saga: flightless, poison-breathed, two legs rather than four. He's a wyrm. In Norse myth, Níðhöggr (Malice-Striker's Norse name) has a very specific function. He gnaws the roots of Yggðrasil. In Grimnir's worldview, he is Odin's attack dog.

The tale of Raðbolg (so named because I wanted to work in a Tolkien-sounding Orc name -- this is "Radbug" in Old Norse) and Níðhöggr is meant to be a skewed retelling of Sigurd and Fafnir . . .

I just finished reading the Conan pastiche. I saved it up until all 12 parts were finished. I started reading them as the comic came out, but 3 to 4 weeks between 3 page entries was too long of a wait for me.

However, having all 36 pages available, it was a fun read and well done pastiche. Based upon the strength of it, I look forward to reading more Oden.

Well if you are still on the fence about trying out Scott Oden, I post an epic review of this Twilight of the Gods on Blackgate.

Of course, I call out this group and especially S. Wagenaar. Fun read. Can't wait for the Doom of Odin...

Review on BlackGate.com.

It'll take me a day or two to get that into a Goodread's version of a review.

Anyhow, while writing the article I pieced together the Beowulf call-outs/inspirations, with Grimnir being the king of the Geats, and a monster haunting them. Would enjoy cornering Scott Oden on that. Scott can you comment on Beowulf inspirations?

Let me preface my comment with this: the whole series is based upon the notion of "what if Norse and Anglo-Saxon history, myth, and literature were ALL wrong? Not vastly wrong, just with rather sharp differences between what was known and what was told? And what if Grimnir was the only creature alive who knew the truth?"

History is written by the victors, of course. And Grimnir's folk lost. They became boogeymen; goblins that creep along the baseboards and steal food. As Christianity swelled, they ebbed. This is a theme we see in JRRT, with the diminishment of Elves.

The backstory behind AGoR -- the murder of Grimnir's brother at the hands of Bjarki, who was serving Hroarr at the time -- is a call-out to Beowulf. Hrungnir is nicknamed "Grendel"; Hroarr is the Old Norse name for Hrothgar, and "Bjarki" is the Norse equivalent of "Beowulf". And, as you've seen, I continue the trope in TotG: Grimnir leads a band of Geats, as their de facto king; there is a monster in the wings, waiting. But, I've leavened the Beowulf imagery with elements of Norse Ragnarok -- from descriptions of the unrelenting winter to the trembling of the earth to the conflagration at the end that calls forth the monster. But, like everything else, the Ragnarok references are different, twisted from the way they appear in the Eddas.

The Doom of Odin will mirror the last chapter of Beowulf . . .

Scott wrote: "Let me preface my comment with this: the whole series is based upon the notion of "what if Norse and Anglo-Saxon history, myth, and literature were ALL wrong? Not vastly wrong, just with rather sha..."

Wow, thanks Scott. There is a ton packed in that response. I missed the depth of Beowulf connections. You certainly succeeded in making a believable world/history that blends your own lore with fragments of Norse myths, Christianity, etc. Looking forward to Doom.

*Writes faster*

Coming up on the end of this group read . . . so, any opinions, questions, comments, or gripes? Anything you'd like to see more of from me? Inquiring authors want to know, and all that . . .

I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I say “MORE BERSERKER SHENANIGANS!!” Or maybe not. I leave it to the others to say their piece. You know what I think...😎

Honestly looking forward to Doom of Oden. No gripes. The mix of deep lore and intense combat.... fun characters...do all that again.

oops Odin. lol

Freudian slip much?

Thanks for participating, Scott! And I'll definitely be adding more books to my (infinitely expansible) TBR pile as a result of this.

Check out this epic interview of Scott Oden by member Greg Mele on BlackGate.com.

Neverwhens, Where History and Fantasy Collide: Of Orks and Orkney

Learn more about Oden and his talent for meshing history with fantasy.

my favorite excerpt: "I’m looking for color, texture, sound, and smell. I employ a technique called parallel research, by which I fill in the sensory blanks of the past with similar information from a related source.

For example, When writing Men of Bronze, I relied heavily on Gustave Flaubert’s journal of his trip to Egypt (Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour, 1979) for local color. It was more than a travel journal, though… it was Egypt through the eyes of a poet, and it told me everything from the color of the Nile on a sunny afternoon to the way the sun looks as it sets through a dust storm; the sounds and smells of Cairo’s streets found their way into my descriptions of ancient Memphis.

It’s these little details that sell the fiction..."