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

Sword & Planet: for example... Thundar: Man of Two Worlds or Swords of Talera or Transit to Scorpio (Dray Prescot, #1)

For a change in pace -- a female transportee to a planet primarily ruled by matriarchies...

Well, I'm biased. of course, but I like the Talera book. I've read all of these.

Banners of the Sa'Yen



I really enjoyed this one. The POV is an indigenous person who befriends the 'starman'. Left open at the end, sadly no follow up.

Ice Crown by Andre Norton is an interesting novel on the borders of this. Action, adventure, superscience magic -- more regular science than most (but not much).

The Swords of Zinjaban is the penultimate book in L. Sprague de Camp's Planet Krishna series, and for me it's the funniest.

The Planet Krishna series doesn't get mentioned often when S&P is brought up, so I'd like to share my love for these. They're all light-hearted, satirical romps full of De Camp's warmly cock-eyed characterization, punctuated by swashbuckling action, and the setting is a colorful sendup of India and the culture shock of East Meets West.

In Swords of Zinjaban, Earthman-turned-permanent resident of Krishna Fergus Reith is a tour guide hired to aid a Hollywood crew in filming a period adventure set on that medieval planet. Complicating Reith's work are his ex-wife Alicia who's part of the film crew, the director, who fantasizes about becoming Attila the Hun, prudish missionaries, a fanatical 'cultural preservationist,' and a nomad warlord and his invading army.

The ensuing hijinks are hilarious, and there's action enough to satisfy the 'sword' part of the genre, as Reith survives ambushes and duels by dint of skill and a little help from the feisty Alicia.

In the Courts of the Crimson Kings is simply a love letter to the sword and planet genre, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, and sf fandom as a whole, done gosh-dang right.

Its opening scene is a shoutout to Golden Age SF’s greats: a bunch of SF authors are chilling after a convention over a TV set, which is tuned in to NASA’s live broadcast of the first Martian lander. Said lander immediately starts showing evidence of intelligent life on the planet, and ends up captured by Martian traders or pirates. I had fun trying to identify each of the personalities featured, as Stirling refers to all of them by first name or nickname only. It also helps ground Stirling’s backdrop for the story: it’s an alternate history.

The story proper deals with a Terran archaeological expedition to the Deep Beyond, the driest and most desolate part of Mars. The viewpoint character is archaeologist Jeremy Wainman, chosen from thousands of applicants for the Mars program not only for his academic credentials but his being “a near Olympic level fencer” and tall enough to be respected by the very tall and caste-bound Martians.

They depart for the Deep Beyond on a sailing ship that skims over the sands, captained by lady mercenary Teyud za-Zhalt. She’s more than she lets on at first, though, causing their mission to be dogged with intrigues and pirates. They accidentally activate an ancient artifact that might’ve been made by an alien Sauron, and it all ends in an epic game of Martian chess where the pieces are live people and captures are made only after bloody swordplay.

All throughout, Stirling maintains a nice balance between paying homage to the giants who’ve gone before, specially Burroughs, while weaving a fast-paced swashbuckling tale with very modern appeal.

There’s of course a princess of Mars in the story – except she very early on shows she’s her own person and very capable of kicking Earthling ass. Wainman the near-Olympic level fencer loses practice bout after practice bout to her, and she ends up being the rescuer instead of the rescuee at the end. However, Earth makes its contribution in the form of an Italian rapier trick, which saves Teyud’s bacon at just the right moment.

The environment of Stirling’s Mars is infused with as much romance as Brackett’s and Burroughs’ versions, but with nice attempts to align it closer to the Mars NASA’s revealed through the 70s onward. There are no naked princesses prancing around, as Stirling’s Mars is colder than Siberia, and he often calls out how harsh the environment is for the Terrans on the expedition. Even the hero, who grew up in the mountains of New Mexico, has to stop for breath a few times in Mars’ thinner air.

I also liked how Stirling rationalized Martian fauna – mostly avian or dinosauroid, all with a generous gloss of superior biotech gone bonkers. The phororhacid mounts of the desert nomads can talk, and there’s an attack of desert carnivores like Jurassic Park’s velociraptors but with Stone Age weapons of their own making. Flying avians dominate the planet, as Stirling posits the combination of aridity and low gravity as favoring the flight-capable way more than Earth did. It was also fun to learn that Mars’ air is sustained by atmosphere plants – not Burroughs’ super-science factory, but a literal desert plant.

And the biotech can get really bonkers too, as in what for me is the coolest scene in the book: 'At first Jeremy thought the ceiling was merely blotched. Then it began to move, rippling. Eyes blinked open, huge and crimson. ” Feral engines! ” the hybrid shouted ...'

Just started Swordsmen from the Stars, a collection of three early (1950s) sword & planet adventure stories by Poul Anderson. I know I've read at least one or two (or maybe all three) of these before in various anthologies, but it's nice to have them all in a single collection.

Whee!!! I just learned that the Scout's Honor series has new books. Now I just have to figure out if Scout's Training is Sword & Planet.

The first books were clear: planet that had lost contact and regressed. Even the characters from galactic society were stuck at the tech level. But then they got back into contact.