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

Any David C. Smith book (Red Sonja, for instance), but with the recent release (April 2020) of Tales of Attluma there is renewed interest in his Oron series of the same universe.

I've had the first Red Sonja book in my pile for a while, so I may go with that. I hadn't heard of his other series.

note that David C. Smith caught wind of this and plans to stop by sometime.

Good, I'd be curious to know how he and Richard Tierney split the writing duties on the Red Sonja books.

Hopefully Mr. Smith can share some details about the creation of Attluma and his involvement with various REH pastiche projects. This man has written a heck of a lot of S&S...

I would encourage anyone who wants to read David C. Smith (a good decision in any case) to consider _Robert E. Howard: A Literary Biography_. It sits happily upon my shelf next to Mark Finn’s _Blood & Thunder_.

Seconded, regarding REH: A Lit biography. Also, he and Tierney's Red Sonja book are so much better than they have any right being. I'm sure ACE was just looking to milk the cow and they turned in some really creative, interesting S&S.

One of the many anthologies I am picking at, _The Mighty Warriors_ edited by Robert M. Price, includes the short story “The Shadow of Dia-Sust” by David C. Smith.

It is the first Oron story written in a few decades. I have read _Oron_ and the sequel (the title of which escapes me at the moment). I own, but have never read the three prequel Oron stories. I’m not sure where this story fits into the timeline, obviously before _Oron_.

It was enjoyable. Oron has a destiny, something against the standards of S&S as I interpret the definition; however, it has some solid S&S chops. No spoilers, but the ss deals with vengeance (in a horrific manor at tale’s end) and plays with the concept of leadership.

Minor spoiler: Oron at story start is part of a mercenary group. The leader of which prefers to get rid of any which might challenge him in the future. Ironically, if not by choice, Oron performs the same act Latin the story

Damn autocorrect: last sentence should read Oron performs the same act later in the story

Clint, I like what you started discussing.... would be good to get a Oron publication list detailed, esp if short stories occur outside Attluma and the four books.

I read ORON when it was first published in 1980, and loved it! That novel added to my knowledge of how to write sword and sorcery, and thus it had a huge influence on me. What is weird is that there's an element in Dave's novel that closely resembled an element in a story I was working on at that time. Hhint: it has something to do with "hands.") Seeing as how Dave and I had both sold stories to Charles (Imaro) Saunders, it was easy to get in touch with Dave. We corresponded quite a lot for about 15 years, I visited him, he visited me, and then he and his wife moved to a suburb near me. We have been friends for 40 years, have collaborated on 2 screenplays, one novel, and a short story. I read some of the Attluma tales in very early draft form, and now I can read them in their revised and brand-new form, something I am very much looking forward to. Dave is one of the best: he knows his craft, he knows his genre, and he's a good guy, too. What he's taught me over the years is invaluable.

Joe! Glad you chimed in. You and David have a neat partnership. you both rock too.

Thank you, Seth! I also highly recommend Dave's brilliant "Bright Star." Part modern-day mystery, and part cinematic-historical fiction, about a fictional silent film actress. Dave knows his silent film history, and he expertly weaves the actress' career in around 1910, with real cinema facts.

Over the past few months I had tracked down the five original Attluma novels with the intention of reading them this summer, so finding this group read for July was too good a chance to pass up. I’ve loved David’s Red Sonja novels, so really looking forward to reading about Oron.

S.E. wrote: "note that David C. Smith caught wind of this and plans to stop by sometime."

Seth, I'm here! : )

S.E. wrote: "note that David C. Smith caught wind of this and plans to stop by sometime."

Apologies. I'm just getting used to replying on Goodreads. I'd hoped that I could reply individually, but this will do.

Regarding how Dick and I split the writing duties on the Sonjas, I wrote the first drafts and Dick the second/final drafts. This worked well on the earlier Bran Mak Morn novel we wrote, so we continued in that fashion.

The pastiches: those started when Kirby McCauley, my agent in the mid-70s, showed the MSS of ORON and THE SHADOW OF SORCERY to Zebra. Roberta Grossman wasn't sure about publishing a new author, but those stories convinced her to trust me to take a stab at a Bran Mak Morn novel (it was actually finished second) and the Terence Vulma novel, THE WITCH OF THE INDIES. Once those were underway, Kirby realized that Dick and I worked well together and approached Ace about having him and me write some Red Sonja novels based on the comic books. I really appreciate Gregory's comment that those books "are so much better than they have any right being." I put everything I had at the time into writing those first drafts; I really wanted to create a living, breathing character out of Sonja. That the books are still being read indicates that I must have done all right.

Clint, ORON was my first novel, and I learned a lot by writing it. I initially did not intend to write any further stories about him, but Zebra offered me a deal to write three more, so that's where the sequels come in. Those three sequels are in chronological order of his life; I thought when I wrote them that the last story in the third book (THE GHOST ARMY--Roberta Grossman's title, which I hate!) would take place before the opening of ORON. Years later, Bob Price asked me for an Oron story for his anthology, so I wrote DIA-SUST. Oron's a pretty mature young man in that, so maybe it comes after THE GHOST ARMY. Frankly, I write them according to the idea I get, but Oron is clearly becoming maturer. I say that because Bob has asked for another Oron story, and I have in mind what I intend to do. That's as far as I've taken the chronology. It's *kind of* like the way REH wrote the Conan stories, ie, the story idea comes first.

A note: Bob McLain at Pulp Hero Press intends to rerelase all five of the Zebra Attluman books. I've scanned them in and intend to start cleaning them up of typos and no doubt punching up some of the prose, but even though ORON is clearly an early work, Jason Ray Carney has convinced me that part of that novel's appeal is indeed that it is young, romantic, and energetic, so I won't change it too much.

Seth, the Attluman stories in the new anthology do indeed occur outside the Oron series. I talk about this in an interview at the end of TALES OF ATTLUMA. Basically, I wrote some fantasy short stories, then wrote ORON and came up with a milieu, Attluma, in which to set his story, and then decided that the short stories were part of that. But I did not start out with the idea of Attluma first; I was just writing stories.

Joe, thanks for the good words and for being a pal for 40 years. Forty-two years, if we count from 1978! Trust me, the learning process goes both ways; I have learned from you, too, my friend. We're creative people; we keep growing.

And thanks for mentioning BRIGHT STAR. You know how much I care about that book and what it means to me. It's my love letter to silent movies.

Thanks for your answers! Behind the scenes stories like this are interesting.

David, wow. Epic reply! Glad you stopped by. The opportunity to have a dialogue with you is incredible. I am about to jump into Tales of Attluma and will certainly take advantage of your presence. Thank you!

Free paperback of Oron: Mosutha's Magic (to someone I can ship to inexpensively so that probably means within the US).

Why? Years ago I tracked down the four books in the Oron series, and somehow bought two versions of Oron #3.
PM me with an address and I can send it someone in this groupread.

Just starting Tales of Attluma. I'm certainly a big fan of the Oron stories, which I think are a cut above the old Conan influenced works like Brak (John Jakes) and Kyrik and Kothar (Gardner Fox). Fox also wrote a two book S & P series that many don't know much about. Very John Carteresque and set on a planet called Llarn. They are Warrior of Llarn and Thief of Llarn.

Hey Charles! I just read the first story "Descale's Skull". What a blast. More horror than I expected, and it kept coming. I hope the sorcerer Descale or legends of him are approached later in the other tales.

These continue to be over the top dark. Like CAS but much easier to read.

I only got a few pages into Descale's Skull but the opening reminds me a fair amount of the start of Robert E. Howard's only Conan novel, "The Hour of the Dragon." Anyone else note that similarity?

By the way, though I've never had the fortune of meeting David C. Smith in person, he and I have corresponded some over the years. I became aware of him through my days in REHupa, the Robert E. Howard united press association and did some reviews of his work there, particularly The Witch of the Indies, which I much enjoyed. I did a review of that book for REHupa and that's how the first correspondence came about with David. Very glad to see him here!

Just finished Oron last night, and honestly, it’s one of the best sword and sorcery novels I’ve read in a long time. It grabs you and just pulls you along with it and never lets go.

David, I’ve got to agree with Jason Ray Carney, there’s just something about the writing style that is vibrant and fast paced and energetic. You can tell it’s a young voice, and that’s where part of the magic lies.

Charles, I’ve got a copy of Witch of the Indies that I bought years ago at a local used bookstore that was signed by David and given to Andrew Offutt. I’ve been meaning to read it forever, I may have to move it up the list

I gave Witch of the Indies 5 stars. Here's what I said, "An excellent book, one of the very best Howard Pastiches out there. It's not of Conan but of Black Vulmea. Lots of action and some bloody good fighting scenes." The review is up here, Pretty much all my reviews are, although I did a long review of this book for REHupa many years ago. I doubt I could find it now

Thanks. Sounds like I’ll definitely be moving it up the to be read list.

I'm checking in, friends. Charles, thanks for the five stars for The Witch of the Indies. Coincidentally, my wife just read it. She's wanted to for years and finally plopped down on the couch with it and enjoyed it immensely, she said. As good as any pirate movie she's seen. And Janine does not hold back the criticism of me when she feels I need it! : ) Also, regarding the opening of Descales' Skull, I read all the Howard I could back in the day (CAS and HPL, too), so I'm not surprised that the opening of Descales' Skull echoes REH. I can see that.

Derek, man, thanks for the honest, positive words about Oron. I gave it all I had in me when I wrote it. I was 21 years old! A kid! But I told Jason Ray Carney the other day that I really love this genre and take it seriously, and when I write it, I'm really inside that world, as if I've gone back in time. I'm there. That's what it feels like. I've said that it should feel as though I'm reporting what happens as it happens. I've used that term "reporting events" for the way Robert E. Howard creates such a sense of being right there so intensely as we read his fiction, and I seem to be that sort of writer, which may be why I reacted so strongly to Howard's fiction from the beginning. I sense that his genius as a poet had a lot to do with his writing that way (verse that is honest and immediate and emotional, reporting from the heart in the moment), as well as his appreciation of historical fiction, which can feel like reportage. (For me, that sense of immediacy no doubt comes from my love of movies, which also put us immediately and emotionally into the middle of things.)

To me, one of the key differences is that we're not feeling that the author is plotting a story but instead, as I said, is reporting events as they happen. Being totally absorbed in what is happening. Plotted fiction is fine; I enjoy stories with strong plots. Who doesn't? But the narrative is coming from the head and intellect rather than the heart and soul. Is it fair to say it that way? Classic pulp fiction is plotted fiction, and the writing is clean and sharp. A lot of the New Pulp is plotted, and I read lots of it. (Can I mention my friend Fred Adams as one of the best out there right now? He writes for Airship 27. And Joe Bonadonna's Dorgo stories? Head and heart evenly balanced!) Even the great short story writers--I'm now re-reading Winesburg, Ohio--we know that we are being told something by someone who's given the matter a lot of thought before putting the words down. Different approaches for different kinds of writers. I'll be quiet now! As you see, I tend to go on and on! I could talk about the craft forever!

Seth, that's the only appearance of Descales in any story of mine, and it was an early one, one of my first stories. It was originally in Space & Time way back in the day, Gordon Linzner's very respected and legendary zine. You'll find that the stories in Tales of Attluma are of a wide variety. Also, my title for that third Oron book was Reign, Sorcery! before Zebra changed it. That sentence shows up in story.

David wrote: "I'm checking in, friends. Charles, thanks for the five stars for The Witch of the Indies. Coincidentally, my wife just read it. She's wanted to for years and finally plopped down on the couch with ..."


Dave --- thanks for the kind words about Dorgo. I like what you said: "head and heart, evenly balanced." That's what I try to do. Plot first or characters first? For me, it depends on what my "characters" tell me what to do and how to do it. I try to write character-driven tales, but the plot, the action --- those are, of course, most essential elements.

Just finished the story, "Feasting Shadows." Good tale. Struck me that it could be tied into the tale "The Valley of the Worm" by REH. The "god creature" in the tale seems as if it could be another member of the same species as in "Valley."

Charles wrote: "Just finished the story, "Feasting Shadows." Good tale. Struck me that it could be tied into the tale "The Valley of the Worm" by REH. The "god creature" in the tale seems as if it could be another..."

Charles, you'll love the others. I just finished "Ithtidzik" (about 50% thru) and each tale seems to get darker and more varied than the previous. Overall, it leans more toward "sorcery"...than "swords" ... which I prefer.

Seth and Charles: have you read Dark of Heart yet? I read it in manuscript form years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Dave's very visual and "cinematic style" of writing - something I learned from him - lends the story an atmosphere, a milieu, reminiscent of King Kong 1933, only a lot more strange. Looking forward to reading it again, to discovering what changes, what more he added to the tale.

Joe wrote: "Seth and Charles: have you read Dark of Heart yet? I read it in manuscript form years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Dave's very visual and "cinematic style" of writing - something I learned from ..."

Yep, Dark of Heart was great. Captain Dathien is an interesting character, and the mission into the mountains does evoke a "monster movie" feeling. An impressive mix of Body and Lovecraftian horror mixed in as well, in addition to the flying demons.

Attluma is just saturated with wonderful horrors.

Yes - a staple of sword and sorcery, one of its tropes, is the combination of horror and adventure, which comes from REH. Heroic Fantasy, while it will often incorporate elements of horror and "the weird," is not as closely tied in with horror as sword & sorcery, IMHO.

Reading thru David C Smith's DMR interview....https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2019/8...

fascinating tidbits about his work and publication process

I copy an excerpt here that grabbed my attention: "The Red Sonja series is fantastic, although there is one scene in the first book, The Ring of Ikribu, that contains some rather out of place dialogue. When the cultists of Ikribu demand the Ring from Sonja, she calls them “assholes” and tells them to “get fucked.” Why was profanity included in that one scene and nowhere else in the series?
I didn’t write that and neither did Dick. In fact, he found a copy of the book on the racks first, in December 1981, and phoned me in anger to ask how the hell I’d managed to put anachronistic cuss words into those scenes. I ran out and found a copy of the book and saw it for myself".....

An interesting behind-the-scenes look, but I think it's fine this way. It's not anachronistic for it, unless English in general is anachronistic. That said, I'm sorry that it was added against the will of the authors.

The real tragedy is that some unidentified editor (or similar title) changed the tone of the book in a malicious way.

I'm really enjoying Attluma. After reading the two Akram tales I had to track down The Sorcerer's Shadow....found one on Abebooks.

Trying to compile the Chronological & Publication History of the Attluma Cycle (can I call it "Cycle"... ).
This is a DRAFT, for discussion. I hope David C. Smith reins me in.

24 stories and novelettes for Attluma (more coming?)
3 Oron novels
1 Akram novel

Chronological Story-Order, Key Characters, and the Publication date
0) Tales of Attluma 16 Short stories (2 Akram tales, 1 Dathien ) published 2020-Pulp Hero Press...cuts across all time, and include the "End"

1) Oron Novel 1/3: Reign, Sorcery! (ie, Oron: Mosutha's Magic Zebra #3 1982),
2) Oron Novel 2/3: Deathwolf, published as Zebra’s #4 (Oron No. 4: The Valley of Ogrum , 1982),
3) Collection (Oron focused): 5 short stories; aka Death in Asakad (Oron 5: The Ghost Army Zebra #5, 1983)
4 Short story (Oron): “The Shadow of Dia-Sust” appears in The Mighty Warriors, 2018)
5) Oron Novel 3/3: Oron (Zebra #1, 1978)
6) Akram Novel: The Shadow of Sorcery (Zebra #2, published as The Sorcerer's Shadow, 1982)
~7) 1 novella : Engor's Sword Arm ~1991 or 1994



Others to place in the above list (with help):
- 1 novelete : “Shadow-born Shadow-taken” in Azieran Adventures Presents Artifacts and Relics: Extreme Sorcery by Christopher Heath 2013, featured Dathien from Tales of Attluma’s “Dark of Heart”
- “Twin Scars,” which appears in Warlords, Warlocks & Witches, 2019

Joe wrote: "Seth and Charles: have you read Dark of Heart yet? I read it in manuscript form years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Dave's very visual and "cinematic style" of writing - something I learned from ..."

I just finished it. A unique story. The main character doesn't get anything he wants but the tale still feels complete and very real.

Finished Tales of Attluma. It's one of my favorite collections. The last several stories ramp up the demonic uprising (or retaking) of the island/continent. The End of Days finale is epic in scope, a sprawling battle with loads of mayhem and militant sorcery. I'm getting my thoughts together on a worthy review. The 16 tales were darker and more varied than I anticipated. Enjoyed every page.

Yesterday I read “Twin Scars”, in the DMR anthology _Warlords, Warlocks & Witches_. It was a fast paced S&S read. I think it’s first appearance was in WW&W, but I’m not sure. It may be set in Attluma, but the setting doesn’t matter. It was a ripping yarn. Enjoyed reading it.

Clint, who is the protagonist in Twin Scars? That story is the most recent published... I am curious who/what the focus is.

@S.E., Kellan, a young wandering mercenary trying to make his way to a grateful widow that gets wrapped up in a village war all for the mistake of wanting a drink of water.

Clint, ah new character then. Thx!

S.E. wrote: "Finished Tales of Attluma. It's one of my favorite collections. The last several stories ramp up the demonic uprising (or retaking) of the island/continent. The End of Days finale is epic in scope,..."

"The Ends of Days" tale, perhaps the final episode of the Attluma series, features a truly epic demon named Serenthal...and his/its history with the city of Surkad.

Can anyone comment on Serenthal's presence in the series? (David C. Smith)

Regarding the “get fucked” that was inserted into the first Sonja novel: the line that I wrote was something like this: “Sonja swore in three languages and four coastal dialects,” which I like a lot. It adds just a touch of humor, which works in that moment of such tension, but primarily it gives us insight into Sonja’s history and character. I don’t remember what we had instead of “assholes.” Maybe nothing.

Seth, you may find that Shadow is kind of a wild ride. It’s as dark as the two Akram stories in Tales of Attluma. Ted Rypel and I, back in the late 1970s, used to talk about how grim and cruelly realistic we made some of our stories and came up with the phrase “the dirty real” to distinguish what we were doing. For whatever it means, I do tend to gravitate toward grim, unsavory, and/or Gothic plots and characters.

I guess we might be able to refer to these Attluman stories as creating a story cycle. It’s not an exact fit for the definition because the stories don’t interact with each other in a strict sense, in terms of characters, say, but they do thematically and emotionally as they fulfill the long stretch of the history of Attluma. So I guess I just talked myself into that!

Seth, you have placed these stories into the same chronological order in which I envision them. Here’s my thinking: the island early on was controlled by demonic elements, creatures that, if not immortal, were present and could not easily be destroyed, only put down by heroes who were named the Na-Kha. So very early, things were horrible for all human beings until the ascendance of Taïsakul, the first Na-Kha. The demonic forces returned to their lairs underground or underwater but would seek to reassert themselves every thousand years or so. (I box myself in with that sort of fatalistic calendar and the idea of an ordained hero, but that’s what I came up with when I wrote Oron, and it’s not that out of line with some hero cycles.) After Taïsakul, humans start to retake the island and gradually develop settlements, towns, cities, and civilization. This goes on for thousands of years. Maybe there is one more successful attempt by the demons to assert themselves, maybe not. I think of this long stretch as moving from the primitive early stories (in Tales of Attluma, the ones that are kind of like folklore or legends, such as “Ithtidzik,” and those that are about marauders and barbarian tribes attacking cities…primitive stuff) to the period of Oron. By the time we get to Oron, we are maybe three-fifths or three-quarters into the history of Attluma. After Oron’s success in putting down Kossuth, we have another long interregnum of perhaps two thousand years or so, quite a stretch, of true civilization: grand empires, gleaming city-states, rich trade and exploration, and so on. The Shadow of Sorcery takes place, if I remember correctly, 500 years after the events of Oron. Akram lives for many years after he is cursed, perhaps a century, perhaps more. I think I allude to centuries in “The Return to Hell.” I’d have to check. Inevitably, however, the continent is going to come under attack again by the demonic forces, and that’s when we get into the events of “Engor’s Sword Arm” and, finally, “The End of Days.”

So for any of those stories that I haven’t firmly nailed down into a specific time period along this long arc, feel free to consider them as fitting in where you will. For me, many of them fit into that pre-Oron period, but because many of them also have a dark feeling to them, they seem to sit well, with that sense of foreboding, following the Akram period. Of the two Dathien stories, “Shadow-born, Shadow-taken” turns on the reality of the early gods, so that one ideally fits fairly early into this scheme. "Dark of Heart" is very dark, however, but I guess that allows it to fit in with the primitive early cities and city-states.

Sorry. This is a lot of talk about Attluma! Some of these thoughts I've just seriously considered while typing this. But the general arc of the history of Attluma has pretty much always been this way in the back of my mind. Thanks for your patience.

Richard wrote: "Thank you for sharing."

You and Ted were "Grim dark" ahead of your time. You both love cinema too! And hail from Northern Ohio (Cheers from me in southern OH).

I gravitate toward sorcerers protagonists (over swordsmen) so I look forward to The Sorcerer's Shadow

Thanks for all that. I will put together a guide in my reviews to help readers enter the Attluma/Oron adventures.

Not to be greedy and ask for more... but I will from David if he is still here. Can you reveal more about Serenthal? Does he only appear in End of Days?

David,

Thank you for the detailed replies! I am just finishing Tales right now (one story left to go) and my GOD what a great collection. The world doesn't really start to have a cohesive feel to it until midway -- as you explain in the notes -- but in tone, it does from page one! It deeply reminds me of CAS's Hyperborea, written in the tighter, more clipped style of the first S&S revival -- like a bridge between CAS and modern grimdark. I didn't expect the tales to be quite so dark, but loved the way they play out. The Dark Goddess and the Akram (did he appear in a novel?) stories have been my absolute favorites.

BTW, as a side note, I just wanted to say that you and Richard Tierney (whose Simon of Gitta tales are my favorite S&S short fiction since Howard, I think) made those Red Sonja novels so much more than they needed to be. I regret that it took me so long to get to reading them.

I hope we see a lot more fiction from you in the future!

Gregory, thanks for the kind words! They *are* appreciated. Dick and I take our s&s seriously and always have, so when we had the chance to write the Red Sonja novels, we kept the bar high. I'll tell you, what with the 40 years or so since they came out, the fact that they are still being enjoyed by s&s readers is incredibly gratifying. I was afraid for a while that they might get lost in the sea of muck, but not at all. Akram appears in the novel THE SHADOW OF SORCERY, by the way. I wrote that one after ORON and it's much darker than ORON. And I absolutely intend to continue writing. I'm at at the keyboard pretty much every day.

Mr Smith,

I too would like to thank you for taking time for us. It is a great treat. I looked forward to this group read as, too long ago, I enjoyed reading Oron and The Sorcerer’s Shadow. I acquired paperback copies of the Oron sequels (prequels) but have not read yet.

Yesterday evening, I read “The Man who Would be King” in the collection of the same name. It’s not S&S, but that is honestly the reason I picked it. I absolutely in entirety enjoyed reading _Robert E Howard: A Literary Biography_ so have experienced your writing outside S&S. It is great writing with great research and literary analysis. Your Howard book sets next to Mark Finn’s REH biography on my shelf. Consider that the honor in which it is intended.

If I can bother you for a question on “The Man Who Would Be King”:
it was a clever story of a writer struggling later in his career with success, or the lack of. Dan (protagonist) has had some success, but not the wild success of Stephen King (who appears in the story and is the King referred to in the title). In the story, Dan remanences of early “gotcha!” stories written in his youth, which comes full circle in an intentionally cheeky manner at story end. It is mostly a story of dealing with the things we actually fear (emphasis upon the “actually”). It also deals with envy, the idea well drying up, mistakes made and opportunities lost.

My question sir, it seems an autobiographical account with a dose of fiction. Am I reading too much into it?