Sifting Through a Sword-and-Sorcery Definition

Latest mini-essay is now up on Goodman Games/blog of Tales from the Magician's Skull.

The metaphor of sword-and-sorcery as a sifter came to me while cutting the grass. I wish I could say it was a more profound process but that's it. The drone of the John Deere is apparently my muse.

It's frankly not possible to create a definitive, unassailable list of sword-and-sorcery authors or stories. Nor is it advisable. Trying to do so is not only a fruitless endeavor, but ultimately unhealthy for the process of art. I love the rush of enthusiasm when someone sends me a link to a new comic book or animated film and writes, "dude, check this out, it's SO sword-and-sorcery!" Most who are familiar with the subgenre will know what this sentiment means; whether it ultimately qualifies is always going to be subjective, and in the eye of the beholder. As I argue in the linked essay, it all depends on how fine your definition of S&S is, and what you will allow to pass through your personal sifter, or be caught and held.

I've already seen a comment on Facebook in my response to my essay that "all labels are stupid," which is rather ill thought-out. I wonder what this same person would say if I slapped a mustard label on his ketchup and he proceeded to pour it over his hot dog (who adds ketchup to a hot dog?). Labels have a purpose; broadly they get us where we need to be, and ultimately we decide if we want Heinz or Hunt's or French's or whatever. Your mileage may vary, of course.

The problem with reviews

I get asked for book reviews, with some amount of frequency.

I don’t blame anyone for asking me, or asking others, to review their book. Now that I’m an author I empathize with that sentiment, quite deeply. All authors want and need readers, and reviewers. More than money, or at least on equal footing, writers crave readers who enjoy their work. They seek validation that their work is good, and connects with a reader on some emotional level. And most want others to write about their book.

But please know that when I get your email, it makes me wince, and hurt a little inside, as reviews present many problems to the reviewer. Here are a few:

They’re a huge time commitment. Reviewing a book requires you to read the book (you better read it; “reviewing” a book because you know the author is unethical), and read it closer than you might if you were reading for pure enjoyment. Then comes the writing. To write a review of any substance requires some degree of planning, and thought, and care. You can certainly go the route of a four-five sentence capsule of what you liked about a book, and there is a place for those, particularly on Amazon. But I think careful reviewing is an art form. An honest review should do more than breezily sketch the plot and end with “I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Robert E. Howard.” A good, earnest review should teach you something new about the book, or the genre, and place the author in a community of like authors. There should be some indication of the style and manner in which the story is told. In short, a good review is itself an art form, and takes time to craft properly.

Related to the above, reading something new must always close other doors, possibly to something better. Years ago I wrote a post for Black Gate on the problem of the glut of fantasy in the market. An intractable problem facing new writers is the weight of history, and the hundreds of thousands of authors that have gone before them. In my middle age is it apparent that I will NEVER be able to read all the books I want to. Right now I’m barely managing a book a week, which puts me at 52 books a year. At age 48, I might have another 40 years of life in me, if I’m lucky… that’s a little over 2,000 books, at best. A sobering thought. My time is finite and I want to spend it well. Should I read a new book by an unknown author, or should I read the Poul Anderson and Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock titles I haven’t gotten to yet? Or re-read a beloved old classic?

The moral quandary of reviewing bad books, or books you don’t enjoy. What if you don’t like a book, either one you’ve sought out, or one you’ve been asked to review? Do you write the review, or say nothing? Do you write a (semi) dishonest review, focusing perhaps on a few things you found OK, while leaving out your valid critiques? I still think of this brilliant review of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind, a highly regarded book which I detested. Like a surgeon Adam Roberts dissects his problems with that book, comparing it unfavorably with The Children of Hurin, released at the same time by the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. Roberts’ review is perhaps a little arch in places but it’s not mean-spirited. I find it illuminating, with much to teach us about the potent spell good fantasy can place on the reader, and the importance of being taken out of the modern world. Some might object to this line of criticism. If you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything at all. I do believe there is a time and place for that sentiment, but I also believe that good critique serves a valuable function. The problem is that I don’t think most authors want to hear it. And I’m not sure I want to write it, as I don’t like hurting anyone’s feelings.

...

Now that I’ve spent some considerable digital ink expressing my deep reservations of the book review enterprise, believe it or not I do want to do more reviews of new works—as I am able. I want to support the sword-and-sorcery community, and there are many worthy publications and authors and titles that deserve the exposure and the commentary. I’ll mix them in as I can.

What sword-and-sorcery needs

I've been seeing some promising signs of a modern day sword-and-sorcery revival, with a growing number of small publishers putting out new works or collections of reprinted works from the old masters. Digital and print magazines are springing up (Tales from the Magician's Skull, etc.), and there's some good scholarship going on in certain corners (DMR, The Dark Man, etc.). All encouraging, and maybe there's a kernel here that will grow.

But sword-and-sorcery is still a niche within a niche. If it's ever going to reach its former heights it needs a lot of help.

Here's what I think sword-and-sorcery needs in order to flourish once again.

1. More readers. We are now seeing many small outlets for S&S fiction crop up, but nothing resembling real commercial markets. It needs to get mainstream, with a larger audience, and more paying consumers to create a viable market for writers and artists. Morgan Holmes once said something along the lines of, what is needed is the modern equivalent of the mass-market S&S paperback of the 1960s and 70s--cheap, eye-catching covers, with good, simple, page-turning stories to back up the packaging. With wide distribution, although times have changed. Printing costs are higher and the days of the drugstore wire-spinning racks have gone, replaced by the online juggernaut Amazon.

2. Good authors. From what I have read there are a few talented modern S&S authors working in the genre today, but who will be our next Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, or Jack Vance? There are a few modern bestselling fantasy authors that I dig--Joe Abercrombie and George R.R. Martin come to mind. Could we see them or their equivalent attempt an S&S splash?

3. A cohesive community, perhaps organized around a fanzine. Guys like Jason Ray Carney are building this right now, with the likes of Whetstone, an amateur magazine that also has a Discord group. I belong to several good Facebook groups, and there are some reasonably well-trafficked Reddit groups and the like. You've got the Swords of REH Proboards and a few other hangouts for the diehards. But it all feels very disparate. Sword-and-sorcery lacks a common gathering space and watering hole, like Amra used to serve. Leo Grin's now defunct Cimmerian journal is the type of publication I'm thinking of.

4. Some type of award, a recognition of excellence for authors and publishers and the like. The closest we had were the Gemmell Awards, which recently died off. I'd love to see a "sword-and-sorcery" category at the Hugos or the Locus Awards but I'm not holding my breath. 

5. A crossover hit, probably a film (or a video game). There's a lot of debate over whether these types of media foster readers, but an actual good sword-and-sorcery film (if such a thing were possible) that garnered a lot of good press, and led some mainstream journalists and bloggers to take the time to point the way to the fiction, could spur new interest and new blood. A wildly popular video game may have the same effect. I don't think comics are popular enough these days to spur the level of interest we saw with Conan the Barbarian in 1970.

We will never see the likes of 1968 again but I do think we could experience a third S&S renaissance, if we could make a few of these happen.

Should readers of pulp sword-and-sorcery be worried about McElligot's Pool?

What are we to do with books from a bygone era that contain stereotypes or racist or sexist attitudes deemed harmful today?

I was admittedly a bit dismayed to read the news that some of Dr. Seuss’ books have been removed from circulation. And a little abashed. As little as 10-12 years ago I read the likes of If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, and And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street, to my now teenage daughters. These were not the annoying, cloying, sing-song rhyme-y likes of The Cat in the Hat or One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, but narratives about children exploring the wider world, and returning enriched from their adventures. They loved them, and so did I.

Now these have been pulled from the shelves by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, never to be published again.

Certainly it’s their prerogative, and of course they have every right to do so. But I now ask myself, was I a bad father for having read my kids these books? Further, do I remain a person of questionable character because of the kind of books I still read and enjoy today?

I’d be lying if I said I was not at least somewhat worried about the future of old pulp literature and classic sword-and-sorcery.

I’m not a publishing libertarian. I don’t think anyone should be able to publish whatever they want. Certainly new books that lead a reader to the conclusion that the Jewish race must be exterminated, or that children can and should be exploited, have no business being published. The question of to publish or not publish is a spectrum, and at the extreme end certainly almost all would agree that some books should never see the light of day.

But what about a book that contains a stereotyped image among an otherwise fun, harmless story about a kid using his imagination to weave a story about the wonders that may lie beneath the waters of an ordinary pond in a hayfield? McElligot’s Pool offers a meaningful metaphor about the power of the imagination. Are the presence of “Eskimo Fish from Beyond Hudson Bay” sufficient cause for its cancellation? Because if so, then perhaps Ballantine/Del Rey should stop publishing The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, which contains “The Frost Giant’s Daughter” and “The Vale of Lost Women,” as well as The Conquering Sword of Conan, which contains the likes of “Man-Eaters of Zamboula.” All of which have been criticized for containing offensive material.

Canceling Howard would of course be terrible. I’m not a fan of clichés but certainly the old saying “throwing the baby out with the bath water” applies. You toss out “Man-Eaters of Zamboula” and you lose amazing passages, like the iconic trial of strength between Conan and Baal-pteor:

Conan's low laugh was merciless as the ring of steel.

"You fool!" he all but whispered. "I think you never saw a man from the West before. Did you deem yourself strong, because you were able to twist the heads off civilized folk, poor weaklings with muscles like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a wild Cimmerian bull before you call yourself strong. I did that, before I was a full-grown man—like this!"

And with a savage wrench he twisted Baal-pteor's head around until the ghastly face leered over the left shoulder, and the vertebrae snapped like a rotten branch.

You may say of this post, "apples to oranges." And you may be right. Dr. Seuss wrote children’s books, and Howard’s stories are for adults. Adults can read with historical context, but children cannot, and therefore it’s not worth leaving the images in Dr. Seuss’ books. Fair enough. Besides, most of his catalog remains intact. Few are likely to miss these relatively obscure titles, and it’s just easier to get rid of them (and less costly to hire an artist to re-do the images, and reprint books that might not be selling well to begin with). 

But put enough pressure on a publisher of adult fiction, and they too will be faced with such a choice.

You might argue, “well, it’s Del Rey’s right to stop publishing Howard, and someone else can publish the Conan stories.” But it’s not that simple. What if the current publisher holds the exclusive rights, and then opts to sit on them, rather than surrender them?

Or, in a more sinister fashion, what if another publisher picks them up—a publisher with a name, and a family. Does that mean that this publisher is therefore a racist, by association? And fit to be ruined in the public sphere?

Or, what if the current atmosphere of shaming and fear continues to escalate, leading to only a disreputable publisher willing to pick up the Howard stories? Couldn’t that further damage Howard’s reputation, by association?

It’s not an easy issue.

My current proposal is to put a warning label on the cover, and let the reader decide. “This book, written in 1933, contains caricatures and stereotypes that readers may find offensive. They are preserved for the sake of artistic integrity and historical accuracy. Proceed with caution.” Similar to what the record labels did in the 80s with the “Parental Advisory/Explicit Content” stickers. 

Except we’d need something more concise, snappier, than what I’ve suggested. “Warning: Old Pulp” might do it.

I’m probably worrying over nothing. Sword-and-sorcery is a niche within a niche, not taught in schools, unknown to most readers, unknown even to many who read fantasy. But I can’t help but worry, just a bit, about the future of these old stories I still hold dear.

Postscript: I hesitated to write this post, as I recognize and acknowledge that your opinions may well be very different than mine. I acknowledge that some will find Howard or Burroughs’ words, or Seuss’ images, deeply offensive and harmful. I cringe at them as well. I don’t defend them, and I certainly don’t celebrate them. But I recognize them as of their time, and I believe that the larger art within which they are contained is very much worthy of preservation, and continued reading and enjoyment. And continued discussion. Let’s have the discussion whether they are works of art, and works worthy of preservation. I would also ask you to think about what is lost when you stop publishing old books because some part of them is offensive by our modern, enlightened standards. I think that decision exacts a higher toll than you might realize.

Some ramblings on old school tastes in music, reading

Now that's old school.

I was glancing at my bookshelves recently, as I’m wont to do when I’m in between books and scanning for the next title … or if it’s just Tuesday. And it struck me that my reading tastes are rooted firmly in the past.

My top shelf has got the collected works of Rudyard Kipling, Rafael Sabatini’s Scaramouche, and several books by E.R. Eddison and Poul Anderson. The next shelf down are the Lancer Conan Saga, Karl Edward’s Kane, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Not exactly George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, or John Scalzi. Any of which I could be into, but am really not, even if some day I do plan to finish A Song of Ice and Fire, if Martin ever gets around to it.

I do take comfort in the fact that I’m not alone. An adherent of Anglo-Saxon literature and Icelandic Saga, J.R.R. Tolkien was of the mind that anything after the Canterbury Tales was (mostly) not worth his time. I’m glad I’m not that extreme, or else I never would have discovered The Lord of the Rings or “Beyond the Black River.” But, in another sense I’m quite like Tolkien, my eyes cast ever backwards at the literature of a lost age. We’ll never have another golden age of sword-and-sorcery, when drugstores carried Conan the Buccaneer on their wire spinners and Thundarr the Barbarian thundered through living rooms on Saturday mornings. But that doesn’t mean I’ve moved on from those glory days. Today my drugstore is Abe Books and Ebay, where I hunt down old copies of Pursuit on Ganymede and Raven 5: A Time of Dying. And I know there are many others like me, based on what I’ve seen in the Facebook groups I belong to.

My tastes in reading are analogous to my tastes in music, which is likewise the music of my youth. My favorite bands are Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, KISS, Rush, and AC/DC. Some of these guys are still writing new material—some of it damned good—but mostly they are associated with their heyday in the 70s and 80s. If you’re a fan, you’re ancient history, pal.

I would not say I’m a hopeless case, irrevocably trapped in the past. I can and do enjoy some new stuff. Battle Beast, a young Finnish metal band for example, caught my attention, and now have muscled their way into my playlist alongside the likes of Blind Guardian and Pantera. I like Joe Abercrombie, including the likes of The Heroes (2011). At this very moment I’m reading and enjoying Brian Keene’s The Lost Level (2015), which just came out in the last decade.

But on some level even these “new” finds are anachronistic, often deliberately so, which continues to prove my point that I like old shit. For example, The Lost Level is a clear homage to the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar series. Battle Beast is an unabashed throwback to the 80s. It should come as no surprise that the band draws inspiration for its sound and lyrics from that era. Even in the new stuff I consume, I’m drawn inevitably to older forms of expression.

I do wonder: Do we develop our tastes during a formative time in our lives and become part of us forever? Does some biochemical process shape our malleable brains between the ages of 8-18, and permanently alter our mental wiring? Musician and musicologist Nolan Gasser offers some answers along those lines, arguing that the music you listened to as a youth placed you within a culture that formed part of your identity:

“I actually use the term ‘intraculture’ to describe cultures that take place within a culture,” he explains, likening them to subgenres of music. “A lot of it has to do with where you grew up and what kind of musical influences are in the air, but we participate in so many subcultures of affinity, just based on what we like. Intracultures provide us with access to music just because you’re a part of a group, and that group means something to you.”

“Music becomes that stake in the ground — ‘this is who I am,’” says Gasser. “But at the same time, the music people listened to at an early age becomes their native home comfort music. When they grow up, that music will be part of who they are, tied in with memories and growing up. All of these powers are why music is so important to us.”

There is no doubt that heavy metal had its own culture and ethos, one that I participated in, and on some level still do. I may be indistinguishable from your average everyday middle-aged middle class dude, but I have a metal spirit in me, an anti-authoritarian streak and a pride in having tastes that are harsher than the mainstream, even anathema in some quarters. I’m sure that’s part of the reason why I maintain such an enduring loyalty for these bands.

Interesting is my lack of nostalgia in other areas—I enjoy the latest psychology and self-help books, for example. I delight in the latest and greatest beer from new breweries (Heady Topper is way better than Pabst Blue Ribbon). I’ve come to enjoy podcasts as a new medium for consuming information and entertainment, even though I still prefer the printed page over e-books.

It’s really only certain forms of art, in particular music and fantasy literature, where my preferences clearly lie with works pre-1990.

Another possible explanation: Were the authors and musicians of my youth simply better at their craft? Were these subgenres—heavy metal and sword-and-sorcery—more widely practiced because they were more lucrative, or more creatively vital, and hence attracted more and greater talent, producing better art than we see today? Perhaps. Some authors can and did make a living writing for Weird Tales back in the day, and of course many metal acts made a fortune in the 80s. Artists don’t enjoy the same market realities today. The bar to writing and publishing stories and music is easier than ever, but I don’t believe it’s as easy to make a living at either these days.

Who knows. Be it a matter of identity and cultural imprinting, or idiosyncratic tastes, it’s hard to say why I enjoy the old shit. All I know that is that heavy metal and Tolkien and sword-and-sorcery were my obsessions then, remain so today, and likely always will be.

Bloodstone and The Lord of the Rings post up on DMR blog

During a recent re-read of Karl Edward Wagner's Bloodstone I was struck by what appears to be some parallels and similarities to certain scenes in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I started jotting down a few notes, and that became this 3,500 or so word essay over at DMR Blog. Check it out if you're interested.

For the record, I don't know for certain if KEW read LOTR prior to Bloodstone, and if he hadn’t that renders the observations in my essay entirely coincidental. There are many folks who knew Wagner personally who might be able to shed more light on this subject. But with all three volumes of LOTR available by 1956, and drafts of Bloodstone dating back to the early 60s before it was finally published in 1975, its possible KEW read it. The timing works out.

I don't think Bloodstone owes much to LOTR at all, and I don't think Karl was particularly influenced by it, other than riffing off certain scenes, sequences, and perhaps the nature of the ring. Regardless, this was a fun one to write.

Masculinity in S&S? It’s complicated

Sword and sorcery is strongly masculine and appeals to men. We can see this same ethos in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies of the 1980s and early 90s. Take a look at this scene from Predator and ask yourself what it plays to.

The most manly handshake ever, bar none.

And then ask yourself, is this cool? Is it OK to like this? My answer is an emphatic hell yes. Men who read S&S tend to like fictional depictions of violence and strength. As I’ve said elsewhere, dynamism, power, and muscular strength are among the elements that draw me to the work of Frank Frazetta, for example.

Make no mistake: I love this stuff. I was drawn to it as a kid, and inspired to pick up weights to try to look like my heroes of the comics and silver screen. Today I continue to champion and defend it. I push back, hard, against censorious critics who want this type of fiction memory-holed. You can pry my sword-and-sorcery from my cold, dead fingers. There’s a reason I and if I daresay the broader “we” are drawn to tales featuring swordplay, bloodletting, and fast-paced action. These stories tap into the same psychological wellsprings and biological impulses that help explain our love for professional football, boxing, and strongman sports.

Sword-and-sorcery is loaded with beefcake and masculine heroes. Here is a typical description of Conan, from “The Devil in Iron”:

As the first tinge of dawn reddened the sea, a small boat with a solitary occupant approached the cliffs. The man in the boat was a picturesque figure. A crimson scarf was knotted about his head; his wide silk breeches, of flaming hue, were upheld by a broad sash which likewise supported a scimitar in a shagreen scabbard. His gilt-worked leather boots suggested the horseman rather than the seaman, but he handled his boat with skill. Through his widely open silk shirt showed his broad muscular breast, burned brown by the sun.

The muscles of his heavy bronzed arms rippled as he pulled the oars with an almost feline ease of motion. A fierce vitality that was evident in each feature and motion set him apart from common men; yet his expression was neither savage nor somber; though the smoldering blue eyes hinted at ferocity easily wakened.

I’ll stick my neck out a bit, risk the critical axe of politically correct criticism, and say that as a result of its emphasis on violence and power, sword-and-sorcery appeals to boys and men, in far larger quantities than women.

But like life, art, and politics, even sword-and-sorcery is not this simple.

Of sword-and-sorcery, politics, and the Flashing Swords that wasn't

I'm not naive, and I'm aware that politics leeches into all walks of life, art included. Consciously or subconsciously, ones religious beliefs, political affiliation, or sexual leanings make their way in.

But please for the love of God keep your overt political rants out of my fantasy. It's lazy and I don't like it.

I tried very hard to stay away from politics in Flame and Crimson and restrict my analysis to S&S as an art form, along with the artists, broad themes and conventions, and publishing facts and figures. For many reasons, one of which was made evident today.

Editor Robert Price could have and should have used this opportunity as editor of Flashing Swords 6 to talk about Lin Carter's legacy, the importance of the previous 5 Flashing Swords anthologies, and introduce some hard working new authors to a new readership. Instead he chose to pen an ugly, divisive, political screed, one that will win no one over to his side and is guaranteed to alienate more than than 90% of the book's intended audience. That includes anyone who identifies as a liberal, or a progressive, would prefer to live and let live, is female, or who has a daughter. Or frankly, has a brain.

Sword-and-sorcery appeals to strength, wish-fulfillment, acknowledges our species' fascination with violence, and celebrates self-determination. The subgenre has a history of muscular dudes lording over mounds of corpses, often with a scantily clad female clinging to their muscular thigh. I'm on record as saying I'm OK with all of this--its gorgeous art, I'm a sucker for all things retro, and moreover it's a product of its time. I also think that its OK to like stories about kicking ass, and getting the girl, and carving out one's path from street level thief to King of Aquilonia.

But I think these old S&S tropes can be successfully re-imagined for a modern audience. The anthology Heroic Visions (1983, so not exactly yesterday) for example was based around the thematic concept of strength, whether male or female, mental or physical, and proved that S&S could result in powerful new stories that did not require a muscular barbarian in a loincloth to prop them up.

For the record I don't like censorship. I don't like the implication that, because I enjoy Conan or Kane, I must be a misogynist. When I read old stories that contain casual generational racism or sexism, I apply historical context and move on. I wish more people would do the same.

But Price's introduction is poor, confusing, laughable, completely out of place, diminishes and tarnishes sword-and-sorcery, and has no business kicking off and celebrating what should be a nice relaunch of an old beloved series. We've got to do better. The genre that also gave us C.L. Moore, and Leigh Brackett, and powerful heroines like Valeria and Jirel of Joiry, deserves better.

Feel free to hit me up here or over email with your thoughts or comments. But don't expect more politics on the blog.

Some commentary on Lin Carter

Yesterday would have been the 90th birthday of the late Lin Carter (1930-1988). I took the opportunity with the prompting of the gents over at DMR publishing to write an essay commemorating the occasion. The angle I chose was his contributions as a pioneering historian of fantasy.

I don't agree with everything Carter had to say about sword-and-sorcery, and get into a few of them at DMR. Check it out here if you're interested. But I also think Carter deserves praise for his work as essentially the first person to offer a coherent history of fantasy with his Imaginary Worlds (1973), published during his tenure as editor of the great Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. The dude loved fantasy and told a cohesive story about how it came to be, and some of the itches it scratches in our collective humanity.

One of these days I'll have to do some more exploration of my thoughts on pastiche fiction. It's complicated. But some days you just want to read some Thongor.

Sword-and-sorcery: A divergent path of the hero’s journey

Hey, this hero is made up of a thousand
faces... I see what they did there.

The following are some ramblings and observations conceived after a recent reading of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces. I’m not sure if I believe the ideas I’m advancing. I’m no Campbell scholar. Just presenting some thoughts here for commentary/disagreement/dismissal. Have at it.

Among the claims I make in Flame and Crimson is that sword-and-sorcery offers a sandbox in which to explore themes alternative to mainstream/high fantasy. The latter often closely follows the “hero’s journey” as described by Joseph Campbell in his classic 1949 study The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Sword-and-sorcery I am positing here offers an alternative exit ramp.

To set the stage a bit: Campbell (1904-87) was a teacher, lecturer, author, and editor who achieved fame with his compelling theory that mythologies the world round—ancient Greek, African, Native American, Northern European, occidental and oriental, and more or less everything in between—share striking similarities and patterns, including their use of the hero’s journey. The journey entails three major stages—Departure, Initiation, and Return—defined by familiar hallmarks and tropes like The Call to Adventure (which the hero may initially refuse), Dragon-Battle (symbolic of the fierce guardian the hero must overcome), and Whale’s Belly (our hero is swallowed, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively,  in a near death experience). The hero undergoes a supreme ordeal to obtain a reward, then re-emerges from the kingdom of dream and returns with a boon that restores the world. It’s a work that builds on the theories of Carl Jung, including the collective unconscious.

How does traditional sword-and-sorcery fit into this model? There is some significant overlap. We see calls to adventure in S&S, journeys into dark pits and underworlds. We see magical aid, from time to time. And plenty of battles against fearsome monsters and wizards. Robert E. Howard’s “The Scarlet Citadel” fits this mold very well, with Conan heeding the call to adventure (taking the bait on a trap set by plotters to steal his kingship, but riding out to heed that call). Captured, he is imprisoned in a dark hell-like underworld, swallowed if you will, and battles a giant serpent. He is offered magical aid by Pelias the wise wizard in the form of a flying mount. And he returns to lay waste to his enemies and would-be usurpers on the battlefield.

But I would argue that sword-and-sorcery diverges with the hero’s journey, often sharply, in the return, and what a return portends. Sword-and-sorcery heroes return (though not always, particularly in the works of Clark Ashton Smith, where they often die ignominiously). But when they do return, typically they do not bring with them a boon that restores the world. In fact, they usually refuse to return or reintegrate to society, and occasionally bring radical upheaval or destruction home with him.

Of White Dwarf magazine and ruminations on genre fiction

By the Sacred Jockstrap of Robert E. Howard!

Since writing Flame and Crimson I seem to have become hyper-aware of the term “sword-and-sorcery.” It’s everywhere man, sometimes in places where I would not expect it.

Recently I’ve felt a role-playing itch resurface and have been having some fun unboxing a bunch of my old games, supplements, and magazines, enjoying the ensuing waves of nostalgia and wonder. Thumbing through them I’m struck by how often the term “sword-and-sorcery” appears, or makes its presence felt.

For example, a glance at White Dwarf--the UK-based monthly role playing magazine that still holds a very special place in my heart, even though it has morphed into a miniatures magazine—uses the term in the very first Ian Livingstone editorial in issue no. 1 (June/July 1977):

D&D was the first (and still is the best) commercially produced game based on a Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery theme. This together with the ingenious concept of ‘role-playing,’ opened up new horizons in games playing.

So here we have the editor not only mentioning sword-and-sorcery fiction, but distinguishing it as something separate from “fantasy.”

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’s endgame: James Silke’s Prisoner of the Horned Helmet

Bring it on, Kitzakk Hordes

He was a massive horned demon of black metal and sinew graced by golden light, drinking air and holding the bridge with booted feet as if all the elements were personal possessions. The helmet had transformed him. He was death, and he had never felt so alive.

--James Silke, Prisoner of the Horned Helmet

                               

Why did sword-and-sorcery die off in the late 80s? I believe you can place the blame on a number of factors: Publishers were turning in increasing numbers to high fantasy, in particular anything that could be marketed as a trilogy. Oversaturation, with quantity outstripping quality. A glut of bad Conan pastiche. “Clonans” including the likes of Kothar, Brak, and Thongor, coupled with the Bantam and Tor tales featuring pale replicas of the Cimmerian himself, turned sword-and-sorcery into the genre of Conan, but not the good stuff written by Robert E. Howard.

The genre had painted itself into a corner, had become too self-aware and too narrowly focused. If sword-and-sorcery is only about muscular barbarians killing giant snakes and shagging women, there is only one direction to go. More muscles, piled on muscles. Snakes big enough to feed on elephants. Women ever more buxom and promiscuous.

All that pretty much describes Prisoner of the Horned Helmet. Pubbed at the end of a decade marked by excess (1988, Tor Books) that’s what it delivers. It is emblematic of the height of the ridiculous barbarian cliché that dominated the covers and later the content of so many books published from the 60s through the 80s, and later a string of mostly unbearable sword-and-sorcery films. It is one of the last examples of a major publisher putting its weight behind a work of pure sword-and-sorcery. I believe it marks the fall of the genre. This is a somewhat arbitrary claim, as sword-and-sorcery never truly died, and some titles including the likes of Echoes of Valor were published into the early 90s. But after Prisoner of the Horned Helmet standalone sword-and-sorcery novels were pretty much a thing of the past.

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.

Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian: A review

Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian (McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 2013) offers a broad selection of essays on Conan, but not just the Conan of Robert E. Howard’s stories. It covers Conan in all his various forms, from the original Weird Tales barbarian, to the hulking brute of the Schwarzenegger film, to the various computer generated avatars in the Age of Conan computer game. In this way it differs greatly from its predecessors The Dark Barbarian and The Barbaric Triumph, which reserve their analysis for Howard and Howard’s stories alone.

This book will, I suspect, set many Howard fans’ teeth on edge. It opens with an unapologetic defense of the L. Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter-edited Lancer/Ace Conan paperbacks, positing that without these books Conan and Robert E. Howard would be all but forgotten today. Writes editor Jonas Prida, “The problem of de Camp’s decision to re-order the chronology and list himself on Tales of Conan’s cover as one of the authors has been alluded to, but what must also be admitted is that without the controlling hand of de Camp, both Conan and Howard may have gone the way of Kull, relegated to footnote status in investigations into fellow Weird Tales’ contributor H.P. Lovecraft.” Now I personally have no issue with placing the DeCamp/Carter pastiches, or even the Conan films and videogames, under the academic microscope; far from it, I think it’s an interesting and worthy exercise. However Prida seems to think that the root of De Camp-ian resentment is purists defending the Conan canon, but I disagree: What draws the ire of many Howard fans is De Camp’s often mean-spirited assessment of Howard the man in these books’ introductions and elsewhere.

In addition, Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian trumpets itself as a trailblazer in what Prida describes as a limited field of traditional literary analysis (“The first scholarly investigation of Conan,” according to a blurb on the back cover). Though it tips a cap to Mark Finn’s Blood and Thunder and Glenn Lord’s The Last Celt, Prida has apparently either not heard of The Dark Barbarian and The Barbaric Triumph or does not consider them "scholarly," as these fail to garner a mention in the preface.

Ah well, some troubling early signs aside, on to the contents.

Happy birthday to JRR Tolkien; jeers to Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman is another notable fantasy author who, alongside the likes of Michael Moorcock and Richard Morgan, has grossly missed the mark in his appraisal of The Lord of the Rings. Listening to this recent Geeks Guide to the Galaxy podcast I was dumbfounded not only by Pullman’s ignorance of The Lord of the Rings, but the gall he exhibits throwing around opinions on a work he admittedly read only once—and as a teenager. “I’ve tried to read it since, but I was unsuccessful,” Pullman says in the interview (note: the Tolkien portion starts around the 17:10 mark; its only a two minute segment or so of the interview). Admitting this fact should automatically invalidate any opinions you have on The Lord of the Rings. I was forced to read Moby Dick in high school. Had that been the only time I read it, and 40 years passed, how much would my opinions on the book matter? None, right?

But since Pullman is a big-time successful author, in the eyes of some we must take him seriously. So I’m taking this opportunity on what would be Tolkien’s 121^st birthday to show just much how much he gets wrong.

Some thoughts on the purpose of fantasy fiction

The author of another blog I discovered recently, Everything is Nice, recently chose to describe a quote by George R.R. Martin as representative of everything wrong with commercial fantasy fiction. I happen to like the quote quite a bit (you can find Martin reading it aloud in its entirety here), and asked why he felt that way.

Martin (who happens to be the author of the blog, not the actual George RR Martin) responded that:

It plays into the artificial and embarrassing Us versus Them divide that is sadly all too common within the genre community. Beyond the stupidity of jamming his thumb on the scales and simply assigning high status words to the thing Martin likes, however, is the amusing contradiction that those high status words have to come from reality. As Sam says, you certainly couldn't get a bloody steak in reality, could you? At the most basic level, if Martin can't write movingly or beautifully about the strip malls of Burbank (and I'm certainly prepared to believe he can't) then he has no business writing anything. He is basically saying he has no eye, no ear, no empathy. And that is why it is speaks to the problem of commercial fantasy in general.

To which I replied:

I understand what you mean, Martin. Fantasy can certainly be applicable to reality, as Tolkien once wrote. But I guess I would differ with you that Martin’s quote represents everything wrong with commercial fantasy.

What if the “them” in your “us vs. them” comparison is our world, not some particular piece of it? Martin is creating through his imagination another world that never was and never could be, but I would argue that this exercise is nevertheless of worth as it demonstrates our ability as humans to dream and to create. Imagination is something we as humans do, and its fruits (even the otherworldly ones) are thus part of the “real” human condition.

Do you think there is ever a place for other worlds, or must all fiction, even heroic fantasy, engage with our own world? Much of reality does suck, unfortunately; are we ever allowed even brief escape in the pages of a book?

I think Martin’s quote highlights something fantasy can do and strives to do, even if much of it is pedestrian and falls short in the attempt.

Just as a sidenote, I think it’s rather ironic that Martin of all fantasy writers would have chosen this quote, given that by far and away his most popular creation, A Song of Ice and Fire, is quite grim and dark and shares much more common with gritty historical reality (the bloody War of the Roses) than fantasy.

I'm hoping that there will be more debate to come, but what do you think? What function does fantasy serve,  if it isn't set in or applicable to our own world?