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

It's Sword & Soul time! This is for anything Charles R. Saunders wrote. Some of his books are difficult to track down, but they are worth it...and... he has been writing many short stories (those count too for Dossouyediscussion...so if you can't find the books, look into the anthologies he contributed for....list below).

We had a related group read in 2013 Imaro Groupread (link to that discussion)

Finding Books
There is at least one eBook version of Imaro available via Lulu...and ~$20USD version of most of his library; there are two pages.
1) The spotlight page for Charles R Saunders has most (link)
2) The page for Charles Saunders (no "R") has Dossouye available (link)

Imaro
The Quest for Cush
The Trail of Bohu
The Naama War

Dossouye: the Dancers of Mulukau
Dossouye




Short stories: From his website we have a list of Charles R. Saunders's short stories and the collection they appeared in:
http://www.reindeermotel.com/CHARLES/...

Some of the Imaro books are affordable and available, but some of the more recent one are not (via Amazon anyway).

For the later books, Lulu is best; Lulu usually has codes to save ~15% on orders (just search Lulu codes in google).

I have the first two Imaro books, and they are excellent S&S in the classic tradition.

From Sword and Soul guru Milton J. Davis, "Very Exciting News To Share" from Facebook this morning:

"A few years ago Charles Saunders shared with me an excellent story he wrote set in the world of Imaro titled 'The Return of Sundiata. Just recently he revealed to me that he has written a collection of such stories, tentatively titled 'Nyumbani Tales.' It is my honor and privilege to announce that I will be publishing this historic collection this year! Stay tuned for more details. Sword and Soul forever!"

News of new Saunders fiction is good news indeed!

I just received three books from Lulu.
First I search the internet for "lulu coupon codes"
Then I went to the links above (copy here again):
Finding Books
There is at least one eBook version of Imaro available via Lulu...and ~$20USD version of most of his library; there are two pages.
1) The spotlight page for Charles R Saunders has most (link)
2) The page for Charles Saunders (no "R") has Dossouye available (link)

Then I got books!


Only took a few days to arrive in the US. Much cheaper than trying to purchase the first releases.

Excellent!! I've never heard of Lulu until now.

Richard wrote: "Excellent!! I've never heard of Lulu until now."

Lulu is leading print-on-demand publisher. It's a good alternative for indie and small press to publish (instead of Creatspace which is solely for Amazon). Lulu can distribute to Apple/iTune and Barnes & Noble too. Many lulu offerings appear on Amazon but users will not be made aware of it (it depends how the author sets up the distribution).

In many cases, authors are reprinting their backlist this way (if they have the copyrights).

I've read somewhere that Charles Saunders changed some things in the newer reprints. Namely a war that had similarities to a conflict in Africa. Sorry I don't remember the details, but it is interesting that folks reading the old DAW editions will have slightly different material than someone reading an e-book. If I can get around to it I'll be reading the DAW editions.

S.E. wrote: " (instead of Creatspace which is solely for Amazon)"

Actually you get can get "expanded distribution" which goes further.

Lulu still is an viable alternative.

Mary, cool. My info was out of date.

I've just started Dossouye. She starts out riding a war-bull (buffalo)! Lots of sorcery creeping in from the get-go.

I'm late to start. I'm starting the 1981 DAW edition of Imaro today.
Maybe I'll read all three before the group read ends.

Just finished Dossouye. Good stuff. Review in
progress. Anyone else out there reading Saunders? Richard?

Review Posted: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Highlight: the 4th chapter was best.

“Yahimba’s Choice”: Tarusi (realized forms of mens’ fear of girls not getting circumcised) take center stage. Best story in the set. With Saunders already infusing black history into dark fantasy, with this collection he strived to go further by taking on a woman’s character. From the outset, I had in mind doing some type of Bechdel-Test (one measure of how well women are portrayed in movie scripts in relation to male dominance). For this, I mentally noted how much Dossouye was just a “chick-in-chainmail”; ie how often did her gender really play a role in the story and not just be easily replaced/switched for a male stand-in. Although female issues are mentioned throughout, it wasn’t until this chapter did Saunder’s hit his stride across the board: African culture & myths, Dossouye’s gender, and classic Sword & Sorcery (battles with supernatural) all synchronize.