How (and why) I wrote Flame and Crimson

For those interested in the how and a little behind the why I wrote Flame and Crimson the following is a look behind the curtain.

I started giving serious thought to writing a book about the sword-and-sorcery subgenre in late 2012/early 2013. I love sword-and-sorcery fiction, and wanted to add a chapter of my own. I realized long ago after trying my hand at some short stories that shall never see the light of day that I’m not a fiction writer. I enjoy writing, but had not written anything book length and took that as a personal challenge. I also recognized there was a sizable hole in the critical literature: There hasn’t been any formal, book-length works analyzing or surveying on the genre itself.

I started with a brain-dump on paper of everything I would like to see in a non-fiction study of sword-and-sorcery. I still have this document; it’s basically nine pages of single-spaced list of bullet points. I canned many of these early ideas. For example, initially I thought I would include reviews of some of the best stories in the genre, but I came to realize that I myself don’t enjoy reading plot summaries. There is of course some of this in Flame and Crimson, but I don’t spend much space recapping individual stories. The focus instead is on its principal authors and their individual thematic and stylistic contributions to the genre.

I then began to cluster these ideas into a chronological narrative, then broke this up into a table of contents, with detailed bullet points under each chapter of what I needed to cover. Eventually, I put together a comprehensive but not sprawling outline that I could live with.

Then came the actual butt in seat writing, which started somewhere in late 2014. I had some weeks where I fit in 2-3 one-hour writing sessions or longer, followed by some weeks where I only managed a single pathetic hour, or none at all. But I persisted. I realized that if I wanted to increase my frequency of writing sessions and word count output that sacrifices elsewhere were necessary. So I stopped blogging (hence, the absence of posts on the Silver Key from 2013-2019). I stopped gaming. I stopped reading, for the most part, outside of sword-and-sorcery.

Basically I put on a football helmet and went to work.

Amra’s roar still echoes in the development of fantasy fiction

In his The Evolution of Modern Fantasy author Jamie Williamson makes a monster of a claim for the importance of the Lin Carter-edited Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series (BAFS). Prior to the BAFS, Williamson claims, the literary entity that we today widely recognize as “fantasy” did not exist. Many authors were writing fantastic tales of Faerie or blood and thunder prior to the BAFS (principal run 1969-1974), but none were consciously working in the confines of an established genre. No one talked about “the fantasy genre” like we do today; no authors proclaimed themselves “fantasy writers.”

But with the mass-market paperback publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings in the 1960s, the Lancer Conan Saga shortly thereafter, and the appearance of the BAFS and their famous unicorn colophon, “fantasy” became a thing. Says Williamson:

By 1974, then, a discrete genre, with a definition and a canon, had demonstrably emerged. Such a thing had not existed at all in 1960, and even in early 1969 it had consisted of a cross section of work appearing as a subbranch of science fiction (Sword and Sorcery) or as books for young readers, with a few titles presented as loosely “Tolkienian.”

(Note: I covered this in a little more detail on DMR Blog this past June on what would have been the late Carter’s 89th birthday).

In short, the BAFS collected disparate writers of fantastic material (Williamson uses the term “literary mavericks” which is apt) and published them in a mass-market paperback series, creating a story in of itself—the story of fantasy.

Let that sink in a moment. This was a landmark occurrence, and the BAFS, though they reportedly did not sell particularly well and dissolved as a series after the sale of Ballantine Books to Random House, remain an incredibly important artifact for historians, collectors, and genre fans. While I don’t think all of Carter’s choices were perfect, there is vast storehouse of great reading in the series. The Broken Sword. The King of Elfland’s Daughter. Zothique. The Well at the World’s End. The Night Land. And, prior to Carter’s term as editor, The Lord of the Rings, The Worm Ouroboros, and A Voyage to Arcturus.

So yeah, the BAFS were hugely important to the development of fantasy as we know it today. But I believe another, lesser-known publication shares equal footing in the development of fantasy fiction. 

I’m talking of course about Amra.

Sword-and-sorcery and the problem of Robert E. Howard

Equating sword-and-sorcery with Robert E. Howard, and Howard alone, is an easy path to start down, and a tempting one to follow to the end. One I had to be mindful of, and consciously revise my line of thinking many times, while writing Flame and Crimson.

How do you define a genre that nearly everyone agrees Howard created, and not just default to Howard = S&S?

If S&S is only Howard, and defined only by what he wrote, then it’s not a genre. It’s the works of a single man. Howard created sword-and-sorcery in the 1920s, but he did not consciously set out to do so. He was trying to tell entertaining stories of blood and thunder, and make a living. When he died in 1936 there were very few indications sword-and-sorcery would survive, let alone flourish. It had a lot more growing to do.

That got underway in earnest in 1939 when Fritz Leiber’s “Two Sought Adventure” appeared in Unknown. Leiber proved that sword-and-sorcery could be witty, and ironic, have different thematic concerns, and not take itself so seriously.

Heck, sword-and-sorcery was evolving during Howard’s lifetime. Leiber had conceived of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as far back as 1934 with significant input from his friend Harry Fischer. That same year C.L. Moore’s Black God’s Kiss appeared in Weird Tales, and proved that sword-and-sorcery could have the development of atmosphere as its principal objective, over action and plot.

If you’ll allow Clark Ashton Smith into the sword-and-sorcery pantheon (I do), Smith showed with stories like “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” (November 1931 Weird Tales) that sword-and-sorcery need not even be heroic, or require that its protagonists survive the adventure (“The Seven Geases”).

Defining sword-and-sorcery by Howard alone is like defining heavy metal by only Black Sabbath. Yes, Sabbath invented the genre, and many still consider them the best metal band of all time. But to leave out the innovations brought in by Judas Priest (twin guitars, leather), and Iron Maiden (operatic theatrics, and Eddie), or the heavy thrash and aggression of Metallica and Slayer, and today the likes of Amon Amarth or Blind Guardian, paints a very limited, incomplete picture of my favorite genre of music.

The term sword-and-sorcery wasn’t coined until 1961, some 25 years after Howard’s death. The early 60s were the beginning of a sword-and-sorcery renaissance. Leiber was finding his second wind and the outspoken, talented Michael Moorcock tossed a hand grenade into traditional conceptions of the genre. The fanzine Amra was just getting underway and various definitions and terminologies bandied about in its pages.

This was a major, interesting challenge with which I was faced when writing Flame and Crimson: How do I acknowledge Howard’s massive influence, but also recognize the contributions of subsequent authors and the divergent paths they blazed?

Sword-and-sorcery is today bigger and more expansive than “The Shadow Kingdom” and “The Phoenix on the Sword,” and that’s a good thing. Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword. Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. Karl Edward Wagner’s Bloodstone. L. Sprague de Camp’s The Tritonian Ring. Charles Saunders’ Imaro. All at some level influenced or inspired by the Howardian template, but also different. These authors had their own unique influences that inform their writing, and by extension broaden sword-and-sorcery and innovate on the Howardian template. I believe that the best post-Howard sword-and-sorcery authors acknowledge Howard’s formidable presence and influence, but also strove to be something different. The authors I chose to highlight in Flame and Crimson--Howard, Moore, Smith, Anderson, Leiber, Moorcock, Vance, a few others—had a blend of idiosyncratic influences, and as a result created works of lasting value. As sword-and-sorcery scholar Deuce Richardson once mentioned to me, too many authors in Howard’s wake put on Kabuki makeup, wearing the outer trappings of something they were not. You can’t say that about the likes of Smith, Leiber, Moorcock, Vance, Anderson, or Wagner. They helped create sword-and-sorcery as we know it today.

To be clear, I believe Howard is the greatest writer of the genre. He is definitely its beginning. But he is not the end. I don’t consider him sui generis.

On the other hand, if sword-and-sorcery becomes too expansive—whatever you want it to be—then it ceases to have meaning. If any book with a sword and/or a sorcerer is sword-and-sorcery, then we allow in The Mists of Avalon and Dragons of Autumn Twilight. For many readers that’s probably fine. But if you’re one of those people, Flame and Crimson isn’t for you. In it, I lay out what I believe the broad outlines and more rigid parameters of the genre are. I exclude certain works, while trying not to be overly rigid and exclusionary.

I tried to strike that fine balance. Genres can be maddeningly subjective and hard to pin down. Their lines will never be perfectly drawn. There will always be outliers, exceptions that defy the rule.

And that’s OK. This is art we’re talking about, not engineering.

Introducing Flame and Crimson: The rise, fall, and rebirth of sword-and-sorcery

Cover art of Flame and Crimson

"Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content."

--Robert E. Howard, "Queen of the Black Coast."

I have loved the sword-and-sorcery genre ever since I was a kid, going back at least some 35 years I’d warrant. If my memory is correct it began with a fortuitous find of a treasure-trove of The Savage Sword of Conan magazines, a story which I detailed here a while back on The Silver Key. Since then sword-and-sorcery has been a huge part of my reading life, informed my one-time obsession with Dungeons and Dragons and fantasy role-playing, and even led me to seek out some heavy metal bands that proudly fly the sword-and-sorcery banner.

So I figured, why not write a book on the subject?

I have, and the result is Flame and Crimson: The rise, fall, and rebirth of sword-and-sorcery. It’s due to be published at the end of the year by Pulp Hero Press.

Pulp Hero Press is so new it doesn’t even have a website yet. But it has published a handful titles of significant interest to fans of S&S, and Robert E. Howard in particular. These include Barbarian Life: A Literary Biography of Conan the Barbarian by Roy Thomas, Robert E. Howard: A Literary Biography by David C. Smith, Western Weirdness and Voodoo Vengeance by Fred Blosser, and Savage Scrolls: Scholarship from the Hyborian Age, also by Blosser.

Just this past Friday I sent the files over to the publisher, but there is more work to be done. I’ll be seeing them again post-edit. The plan is to have the book in circulation and available for purchase by early December.

I have a written a lot during my 46 years on the planet. D&D adventures and ridiculous made up stories I and my friends wrote for kicks. Essays and term papers. Spiral notebooks full of book reviews I hand wrote during the pre-internet days. I have worked for a daily newspaper and covered local news, town politics, and high school sports on deadline, including high school football for 22 years and counting. I’ve written for various fantasy websites and blogs, including a few hundred posts here at the Silver Key of course, as well as essays appearing in a handful of print journals. But I’ve never written anything long form. Until now.

Flame and Crimson was a ton of work, which I’ll detail in full later. Suffice to say it was a lot of research. I had many holes to fill in my reading, a lot of old books that I had to track down and buy. I was able to get a hold of the entire run of the REH/sword-and-sorcery fanzine Amra. I watched a lot of bad sword-and-sorcery films. Then it was outlining, and revising the outline. The table of contents underwent many revisions and changes. I wrote, and revised, and re-revised, and edited, and wrote some more. I started work on the book some six years ago but had to put it on hold for the better part of a year. But I never gave up hope. I spent more nights then I care to count plugging away on the computer, an hour here or there as time allowed. I’ve had some help along the way by an expert or two on the subject, better read than I. Finally, it’s (almost) fit to print.

Flame and Crimson is an academic study of the genre, heavily referenced and with a lengthy works cited (I see MLA citations in my sleep). Anyone who has looked under the hood of sword-and-sorcery has realized the dearth of good published material on the genre itself. Lin Carter’s Imaginary Worlds has a couple chapters on it. Some anthologies contain working definitions, but these are typically breezy and lightly sketched. You can find articles online easily enough, but in the main these are informal, subjective, and often well-intentioned, but misleading. Sword-and-sorcery as a term is still used to describe works as diverse as The Lord of the Rings, Forgotten Realms tie-in novels, and the Mists of Avalon.

Tom's return to sword-and-sorcery.

But while I wanted to add some degree of academic and critical rigor to the subgenre I didn’t want to write something dry and pedantic. One of my goals was to try and tell an exciting tale of non-fiction. Sword-and-sorcery has a story of its own to tell, of a confluence of pulp talent, a mercurial renaissance, a staggering commercial fall, and a second life in the popular culture. I wanted to write the kind of academic study that I’d want to read—informative, but also entertaining. I hope I have succeeded, or at least have written something that will provoke reactions, discussion, and get people interested in exploring my favorite subgenre of fantasy fiction.

I am super happy with the cover, which I’m revealing here for the first time. I’ve been detailing my experiences with veteran science fiction, fantasy, and sword-and-sorcery illustrator Tom Barber, and I’m pleased to say he has painted the cover of Flame and Crimson. I could not be more pleased with the work. It’s simple, stark, and evocative. Tom is a legend with a tremendous body of work, and I’m not sure I’m worthy of his talents.

I cannot even begin to describe how exhilarated I am to have written this book. And to soon be sharing it with you.

A meeting with Tom Barber, part 2

Barber in front of Toad Hall

During our first meeting at his Andover, NH home in August, Tom mentioned that several more of his paintings were in storage in a gallery in the neighboring city of Franklin. This past Labor Day weekend I was able to fold in a second trip to meet Tom at Toad Hall, a beautiful old brick commercial building in the heart of Franklin whose third floor houses many of his paintings.

The gallery opened to the public on June 5, 2015 with art and live music, but on this fine Saturday afternoon Tom had to let us in with a key, as the gallery has since shuttered its doors. A web page and a Facebook page speak to what it was, briefly—an attempt to bring some art and light into a run-down community, trying to shake off its image as a mill city that never recovered from the economic downturn of the 1970s. Toad Hall had big plans for this revitalization with the art gallery and a first floor restaurant and microbrewery, but these seem to have stalled out and construction on the restaurant has ceased.

But apparently revitalization efforts continue in New Hampshire’s smallest and poorest city, with a white water park in the works, and ground set to be broken.

But up on the sunlit third floor gallery Tom’s paintings were vibrant and powerful. Tom walked me through pictures of knights in renaissance armor, burning spacecraft, beautiful enchantresses, and scenes from Arizona where he lived for a short stretch in the 1980s. An image of King Lear brooding over his life as he looks into a rapidly fading sunset. Tom also showed me several conceptual pieces which I found particularly arresting, including this one (above, left) of a soul embracing and thus breaking free of the fear of death which looms over all our collective shoulders. There was also a wonderful image of a crusader silhouetted against the moon, still in need of some finishing touches. All of this is for sale by the way.

Some more interesting facts about Tom: The two artists that inspired him most were Monet and N.C. Wyeth. The latter is of course a hugely popular illustrator perhaps best known for his western art and his wonderful illustrations for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. You can see the clear influence of Wyeth in Tom’s work. Monet meanwhile I can see in his hazy interstellar art and images of the night sky. Tom’s agent once hosted a dinner in his apartment with Tom and a second guest named Fritz Leiber. He met legendary sword-and-sorcery artist Jeffrey Jones at a Boskone convention, and at another show displayed his art between Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury.

I can now say I’m one degree removed from these artistic legends, which is pretty cool.

During this meeting Tom also revealed the striking cover art he has created for my forthcoming book, Flame and Crimson: A history of sword-and-sorcery fiction. It’s awesome. I’ll post a picture of that shortly.

A meeting with Tom Barber, sword-and-sorcery legend

Barber with a press proof of Bane of Nightmares

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting a sword-and-sorcery legend: The talented Tom Barber, perhaps best known for his illustrations of Zebra paperbacks in the 1970s, including a Robert E. Howard title (Black Vulmea’s Vengeance), several Talbot Mundy reprints, and a trio of stunning covers for a Weird Tales paperback revival edited by the late great Lin Carter. Barber was a prolific fantasy and science fiction painter in the 70s and very early 80s, with credits on a wide range of paperback titles and magazines like Galileo and Amazing Science Fiction.  Here’s a great piece by Morgan Holmes focusing on his sword-and-sorcery work over on the Castalia House blog.

Tom has led an interesting life. He graduated from the Art Institute of Boston in 1967 and served as a Vietnam-era army medic in Germany from 1968-71, providing bedside care for some grievously wounded soldiers returning from the jungle. After an honorable discharge in 1971 he returned to the United States and began working as a full-time illustrator.

When I pulled into Tom’s driveway he was sitting in an Adirondack chair reading a Louis L’Amour paperback. Tom spent several years out in Arizona and the west is in his blood. You can see it in his incredible landscapes of towering red rocks, searing blue skies, and golden sands. Unfortunately at that time in his life he was in the throes of alcoholism. The war had left him with deep wounds, even though he wasn’t on the front lines. Tom was an imminent danger of succumbing to addiction before he was saved by a couple of Vietnam buddies who got him into a recovery program through the VA. He’s been clean and sober for years, and resumed painting in 2005.

Barber's studio

After exchanging a few pleasantries, he took me into his unattached studio, suitably dark and mysterious with a bleached cattle skull greeting entrants. Inside I was greeted by some stunning original oils adorning the walls, from stunning landscapes to raging storms to the deeps of space. Tom took me on a guided tour of his artwork, including original oils as well as a nice .ppt slideshow of all of his major art, many of which now sits in the hands of private buyers. I glimpsed a stack of Conan Dark Horse reprints, recently given to him by a friend. We talked a bit about Howard and sword-and-sorcery, but also about Harlan Ellison and Steven Pressfield’s superlative The War of Art, among other wide-ranging subjects.

Three of the most stunning paintings in his studio are quite personal in nature: One is a trio of Vietnam soldiers, the original of which is on permanent display at a Vet Center in White River Junction, VT. It’s a moving work of art, with two soldiers helping up a third wounded comrade. The other is a quartet of bikers, two of which are Vietnam vets. Tom told me that the guy on the left ran point for a year in the bush and survived the

ordeal with barely a scratch, and remains the most perceptive, aware person he’s ever known. Undoubtedly not a coincidence. The other guy to me looks like a lot like Karl Edward Wagner, though he’s not. Both helped Tom get sober in the mid-80s.

The third piece of art is a conceptual/symbolic work, a skull ripping free of a man in a straightjacket. Tom told me this a self-portrait, his own breaking loose of addictions and society’s pressures. It’s called (appropriately) Free At Last. He also showed me a press proof of Adrian Cole’s Bane of Nightmares, one of a couple Barber illustrated titles I have on my bookshelf. I bought a copy of his book What the f*** was that all about? The story of a warrior’s journey home, a fictitious account of a Vietnam Veteran’s struggles with addiction and reintegration to society that loosely mirrors Barber’s own struggles.

Free At Last

Tom was full of wisdom and is a true artist’s artist. I wish I had a tape recorder running, but I do remember a couple of his memorable bits of advice and storytelling: “Art that isn’t shared with the world is only half finished.” Of his decision to leave commercial art in the early 80s, the jobs were becoming the equivalent of “filling in a coloring book,” leaving little room for artistic license or interpretation. He seemed genuinely touched that I took such an interest in his work, and he likewise offered me many words of support for my upcoming work.

Tom is going to be illustrating the cover of Flame and Crimson: The rise, fall, and relevance of sword-and-sorcery. It’s my upcoming non-fiction study the sword-and-sorcery subgenre. I am humbled to be collaborating with an individual of his talents and resume. We met through Bob McLain, the publisher of Pulp Hero Press with whom I am under contract. Initially I was planning to come to the meeting with Tom to offer him some concrete ideas for the cover, but after hearing him talk about coloring books I’m glad I did not. Artists need creative freedom.

Tom gave me a pencil sketch and I’m super pleased with the early concept: Simple, stark, eye-catching, with a classic sword-and-sorcery feel. It definitely won’t be a lifeless Frank Frazetta clone. I can’t wait to see the finished product.

In addition to the art in his studio Tom has several (as many as 20-30) paintings in storage in a gallery in Franklin, NH. I’m heading back up to Andover next month and we’ve already made plans to head over to Franklin and look at the rest of his art. I can’t wait. Expect more photos and coverage.

Note: You can find Tom’s personal website here: http://tombarberart.com/.

Revival

It’s official, The Silver Key is coming out of retirement. “Rising from Ruins,” to quote the great Judas Priest.

So where have I been the last six years?

Still reading, still writing. Still thinking about sword-and-sorcery. Still enjoying heavy metal. In short, still living the dream.

There were a few reasons why I stopped writing this blog. I was burning the proverbial candle on both ends, with too many competing responsibilities. Maintaining the blog started to feel like a chore. Along with every other adult on the planet I have many obligations, mainly related to a full-time job, my home, and other responsibilities. Writing for a personal, unpaid, bit of electronic real estate of ruminations on fantasy books and music should not become weekly content churning. It started to feel that way toward the end.

I have not vanished from writing. Former Cimmerian site editor Deuce Richardson had managed to rope me into a few posts over at DMR Blog (publisher of the awesome Swords of Steel, among other sword-and-sorcery related fiction). Here’s a link to one of them here. I wrote a review for Skelos.

But principally I have been working on a book-length non-fiction project, one that has consumed most of my free writing time over the last 4-5 years. The principal writing is complete and I hope to have it published. I will explain in some upcoming posts.

If you enjoyed the material I posted here from roughly 2007-2013, I plan to bring more of the same. It may be weeks or longer in between posts. But I do feel the urge to do some writing again, and this will be the space. Although I’m on Facebook that’s not an option for my ramblings. Too many cat pics and kids’ sporting activities to compete with. I debated blowing this blog up and starting fresh somewhere else, but I think some of my old posts are OK reading. So I’m dusting off the older Blogger site and opening up shop a second time.

I hope this is not a false start. I don’t intend it to be.