SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I've done a (not very thorough) research and found no discussion on the genre, at least in this folder. If so, this might be a good place for general discussion, beyond my specific interests. Fritz Leiber, who coined and advocated for the term, has been mentioned recently in another thread.

My familiarity with the genre is probably limited to a few Conan the Barbarian comic book series and I'd be curious to explore the field futher. I know it has strong and weak points, e.g. that it has been considered sexist, despite women's contribution to the genre in both pen and sword. I think the lack of world-ending threats and clear morals, wich are instead typical of high fantasy, can be an interesting premise.

I'm interested in the purely escapist nature of sword and sorcery, but also on its more conscious takes. I've recently seen (queer black author) Samuel R. Delany's Return to Nevèrÿon series called "postmodern sword and sorcery".

There are some books on the subject, but I haven’t seen the more recent, and those I know are long out of print. At least one book is on Hollywood versions: Barbarians at the Gates.

If you don’t know Howard directly, try one of three numerous Collected Conan and other Howard collections available as inexpensive Kindle books.

Howard was a compelling storyteller, which caught the eye of the sophisticated and erudite L. Sprague de Camp, who heralded the Conan revival of the 1960s.

Howard had a number of faults as a writer, such as thin characterisation. This helped him make a living in the pulp magazines of the Depression. He reused the same basic hero type with changes of name and environment. In fact at least sometimes he simply renamed the main character when a story featuring him didn’t sell to the main market, and he started a new series by selling it to a different magazine.

Howard himself was a bundle of contradictions. An early twentieth century Texan, he had no problem in agreeing that Black Africans were inherently uncivilized. But in his view, that might be a good thing, because Civilization was a corrupting influence, and inherently unstable anyway. As one of his characters remarks, “Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism will ultimately triumph.”

Given that he was looking at a world containing Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, he had a point.

Some of his characters were less Conanesque, however. He did a series about Solomon Kane, an Elizabethan Puritan encountering magic in Africa. An early illustrator missed the timeframe and put Kane in a nineteenth century Great White Hunter costume, complete with pith helmet, but using a sword.

Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Series definitely fits

Robin Hobb's The Farseer Trilogy fits and is by a female author
C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry is also good and features a female main character plus is written by a omen
Tad Williams's series Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is good


and here's a Goodreads listing of books in that category

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...

if you're looking for Howard books, you might want to consider the Delphi Collected Works. Burroughs also has a Collected Works that includes his Mars Series.

Ian wrote: "Howard himself was a bundle of contradictions. An early twentieth century Texan, he had no problem in agreeing that Black Africans were inherently uncivilized. But in his view, that might be a good..."

Robert E. Howard seemed influenced by theories on the cyclical decline of civilisations, such as those of Oswald Spengler. The timeframe of Spengler's notoriety would fit.

Thanks for the contributions!
The top of the list is dominated by Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber and Edgar Rice Burroughs. The episodic nature of pulp stories is a plus for me, as they can be read quickly and independently. That may be shrewd... Catherine Lucille Moore is further down the list; her Jirel of Joiry is apparently the ancestor of many redheaded warriors, from Red Sonja onward.
There's also a couple of authors that have been at the periphery of my radar for a long time, such as Roger Zelazny and Michael Moorcock. The Chronicles of Amber and the Elric saga should be explored. And there are many more besides, but I'll probably start with these names.

Unfortunately these lists are often imprecise, which is the complaint of every comment at the bottom. For instance, George R.R. Martin shows early on, though as an outsider I've always considered his cycle as high fantasy. On the other hand, I wonder whether something like Marlon James's ongoing Dark Star Trilogy might be considered contemporary sword and sorcery.

C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry is definitely worth reading. So is the rest of her work, separately and in collaboration with her husband, Henry Kuttner, who himself wrote some Sword and Sorcery stories, mostly about Elak of Atlantis.

Much of their collaborated work was published under the name of Lewis Padgett, who for a time was one of more popular authors in magazine science fiction. Confusingly, some solo work had the same pen name attached, and reprints sometimes attribute a collaboration to just one of them.

See Wikipedia for bibliography, including separate articles on Moore, Kuttner, and Lewis Padgett, plus the one on Elak of Atlantis.

L. Sprague de Camp wrote a whole lot of excellent fantasy, sometimes in collaboration with Fletcher Pratt.

One late series featured not a barbarian swordsman but a clockmaker, as the protagonist. These are included in the omnibus The Reluctant King. For some basic Sword and Sorcery in more or less the Conan mold, however, see his The Tritonian Ring.

His historical fiction evokes S&S tropes in more plausible settings, based on extensive research. The best place to start with these is probably The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate, with a hero who resembles not only Conan but Robert E. Howard. Perhaps also Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd, as he has a smaller but clever sidekick.

Another de Camp historical novel that resembles S&S is An Elephant for Aristotle, wherein Alexander the Great, withdrawing from India at the insistence of his army, gives a Thessalian cavalryman the task of escorting to Athens an elephant, as a gift for his old teacher, Aristotle.

Indian war elephants were brought to the Mediterranean after Alexander’s death, but so far as the surviving literature goes, no one bothered to report how they did it. De Camp fills in some of the gaps.

And to add to the suspense, Aristotle’s description of the elephant shows that he never saw one!

Some people have described L. Sprague de Camp as homophobic because of these historical novels. From time to time Greek characters show up with lisps and effete mannerisms, which is a homosexual stereotype. Nowadays this is at best cringe-inducing.

But it should be remembered that back in the late 1950s and early 1960, when de Camp was writing these, actually *saying* that a character was a homosexual was less likely to make it into print. De Camp was acknowledging a fact of Greek life that was often glossed over in popular fiction.

Mary Renault did it better a few years earlier, as in the Last of the Wine (1956), in which it is a major theme, but Dr Camp may have been accommodating his own publishers’ wishes.

Thanks again for the valuable insights.

I had C.L. Moore's wiki page open as I wrote the previous post. I singled out Jirel of Joiry as an obvious starting point in exploring her fiction from an S&S perspective, but that's obviously not the end of it.
L. Sprague de Camp is another name that came up even in a cursory research about the genre, as he was instrumental in the '60s revival (and reprinting Howard's Conan stories specifically); but his talent evidently spanned beyond the confines of the genre.

Creed wrote: "Harry Potter has sorcery and swords!"

This is an interesting point. There must be clearly more to sword and sorcery than blades and magic, as I've never once seen Harry Potter described as part of the genre. I'm not in the least interested in gatekeeping, but I do have an interest in understanding what it is we're talking about.

De Camp wrote some brilliant science fiction, and very good non-fiction. His The Ancient Engineers was picked up by MIT Press, apparently there was a demand for it as a textbook when it went out of print.

Every science fiction reader should be familiar with Lest Darkness Fall, a major example of time travel combined with realism.

Check out the Magician's Skull magazine. It is all about pulp fiction and sword & sorcery. It has a lot of information on the founders of the genre. You should find what you are looking for through them.
Tony

Sounds like a cool project.
Here's the 12 issues on Goodreads: Tales from the Magician's Skull Series.

On Red Sonja and Jirel: Howard had a character named Red Sonya of Rogatino in a piece of historical fiction, The Shadow of the Vulture, published in Magic Carpet magazine for January 1934 — see Wikipedia under the story title. The female Conan version was invented for comic books. (See Wikipedia article.

The Black God’s Kiss, the first story about Jirel, was published in Weird Tales for October 1934. It is also set in a different vaguely historical setting, so Moore may have picked up the earlier Howard story, and added the supernatural elements the made it suitable for Weird Tales. But she may have invented the character well before the publication dates.

Yes, I was thinking of the more recent comic book version, created for Marvel Comics and currently published by Dynamite Entertainment.

There are a couple of kindle editions of Jirel, one of them containing a crossover story involving amother of her characters, Northwest Smith, a space traveller who ran into mythological and otherwise creepy characters. He was introduced in her first published story, in Weird Tales, “Shambleau,” in 1933. It was an immediate hit, and still may be her best-known title.

The crossover story, “Quest of the Starstone,” written in collaboration with her husband, is in some of the Kindle editions of Jirel stories (use sample to check which), but is not part of the current Northwest Smith collection available on Kindle.

I would also suggest her science fiction “Judgement Night,” a unique treatment of galactic empires, which might have fantasy with a change of setting. And there is much more: a nice selection is in The Best of C. L. Moore, also a Kindle edition

I will mention Clark Ashton Smith, part of the Weird Tales group centered around H.P. Lovecraft, including Robert E. Howard. His stories are definitely on the creepy side, but in a lighter mood could have been Sword and Sorcery. It definitely is a precursor of Dark Fantasy. (I think L. Sprague de Camp remarked that “no one since Poe has so loved a well-rotted corpse.”

Smith wrote a number of series, in differing backgrounds, most of them collected and put in order by Lin Carter for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series in the 1970s. These are now hard to find, but there are recent collections, including Kindle editions.

Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories (also worth your time as a sword and sorcery variant), set in a far future Earth in which magic works, was probably suggested by Smith’s Zothique, the last continent, in the far future where, of course, magic works. But the stories are quite different.

There is in fact a Kindle edition of Zothique: The Final Cycle, which neatly replaces Carte’s Zothique collection. There are others in Kindle and/or paperback, some part of a Collected Fantasies project. A goo sample is in Penguin Classics: The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies. Do not bother with the Kindle edition offered with it: it just has the title story.

There is “Clark Ashton Smith: A Critical Guide to the Man and His Work,” now in a second edition I may get on Kindle: I have never seen a copy, so this is information not a recommendation.

Jennifer Roberson's Tiger & Del series would be another good one to try

Having brought up Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories, published in four volumes, three eventually retitled, I ought to list them.

1 The Dying Earth, aka Mazirian the Magician (1950)
2 The Eyes of the Overworld aka Cugel the Clever (1966)
3 Cugel’s Saga, aka Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight
(1983)
4 Rhialto the Marvellous (1984)

There is debate as to which of these are collections, fix-ups into novels, or simply episodic novels. The new title for The Dying Earth actually makes it seem more unified, by endorsing one character as central.

They can be found under the later titles in the omnibus “Tales of the Dying Earth” (2000), available in Kindle. There was a 1999 edition as “The Compleat Dying Earth.” See the Wikipedia article “The Dying Earth,” for contents and original publication data.The article includes mentions of sequels by others.

Wow, you two are on fire, Ian and Chessie!

Whether Vance’s Dying Earth stories are Heroic Fantasy is an interesting question.

They certainly aren’t *Sword* and Sorcery, unless one stretches the term.

And the Cugel stories are mostly unheroic: maybe a response to stories of Conan, and of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, as occasional thieves (among other occupations).

Maybe High Fantasy: some of the original stories from 1950 could count. And I suppose Rhialto the Magnificent might qualify. I would have to reread them before passing judgement.

But never mind the taxonomy. They are great stories, filled with brilliant ideas, and Vance’s dry sense of humour.

If nothing else, I learned from this conversation that people call it "Sword and Sorcery" instead of "Swords and Sorcery". I guess I have been saying it wrong for 40 years. :)

Bobby wrote: "If nothing else, I learned from this conversation that people call it "Sword and Sorcery" instead of "Swords and Sorcery". I guess I have been saying it wrong for 40 years. :)"

Well, maybe we could call it Swords & Sorceries as a sort of compromise :)

lolol

That sounds like the genre equivalent of saying "I'm going to Walmart's"

Sorry for the disappearance, I've been sick (among other things).

I think Jack Vance and surely Clark Ashton Smith came up on my early research into the subgenre, so it's good to have an outline of their works. On the other hand, I'm quite sure Jennifer Robertson didn't come up, so that's also a precious contribution.

Apart from the general scope of the discussion, for the time being I'm interest mainly in the (more or less) short stories rather than full-length novels. I've taken that opportunity to start reading, and partly listening, to Robert Howard's stories of the Hyborian age. I'm also keeping an ongoing commentary.

Karl Edward Wagner: The Kane Saga
one of the first modern Sword &Sorcery. very underrated author, imo

Ian wrote: "C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry is definitely worth reading. So is the rest of her work, separately and in collaboration with her husband, Henry Kuttner, who himself wrote some Sword and Sorcery storie..."


Black God's Kiss is a long-time ultra fav of mine, and not simply because it was an early S&S. I love Moore's writing in it. It's so lush and fluid. It's the kind of writing I wish I could pull off. Also, fun fact, Joiry is the origin of the J in my name CJ (I spell it Joirie because I have an Audre Lorde-esque aversion to y's in my name--the C is from another early SFF not relevant here)

I've been wondering how Joiry is pronounced, since the stories are set in medieval France. C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner are surely at the top of my list, as soon as I clear Howard's Conan stories.

Thanks for reviving the thread!

That would depend on a few things. Did Moore know the history of phonetic changes from Vulgar Latin to Old French? Maybe she didn't know it, and knew only modern French pronunciation. Or if she knew both, but figured most readers wouldn't know or care about Old French pronunciation, she might prefer to use the modern French pronunciation. Or it could be intended to be pronounced as Anglophone readers would say it.

Case 1: "dzeh-ree" or "zweh-ree", maybe "dzay-ree" /dzɛri/ or /zwɛri/ or /dʒeiri/
Cases 2 & 3: "zhwah-REE" /ʒwaʁi/
Case 4: "JOY-ree" /dʒoiɹi/

(I may have made mistakes with the IPA values. Also, I'm using the American R's IPA value.)