Flame and Crimson headed to the printer

Behold the kick-ass cover of Flame and Crimson, mortals!

It’s done.

At 11:10 a.m. EST this morning I made a handful of cosmetic edits to the manuscript. Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery is back with Pulp Hero Press. In the next few days I anticipate the book will be available online at Amazon, B&N, and other fine retailers.

What can I say? I’m nervous. I’m exhilarated. And I’m glad it’s done. How well it is received is out of my control at this point, but I have accomplished something big that I set out to do. I’m pretty happy with the end product.

Here is a marketing description I put together for Bob McLain over at Pulp Hero Press:

Little did then-obscure Texas writer Robert E. Howard know that with the 1929 publication of “The Shadow Kingdom” in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, he had given birth to a new and vibrant subgenre of fantasy fiction.

Sword-and-sorcery went from pulp obscurity to mass-market paperback popularity before suffering a spectacular publishing collapse in the 1980s. But it lives on in the broader culture and today enjoys a second life in popular role-playing games, music, and films, and helped give birth to a new literary subgenre known as grimdark, popularized by the likes of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series.

Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery provides much needed definitions and critical rigor to this misunderstood fantasy subgenre. It traces its origins in the likes of historical fiction, to its birth in the pages of Weird Tales, to its flowering in the Frank Frazetta-illustrated Lancer Conan Saga series in the 1960s. It covers its “barbarian bust” beneath a heap of second-rate pastiche, a pack of colorful and wildly entertaining and awful sword-and-sorcery films, and popular culture second life in the likes of Dungeons & Dragons and the bombast of heavy metal music.

I think readers of this blog will very much enjoy it, as will historians of the fantasy genre. Maybe some die-hard fans of Manowar, too. But I’ve been telling my family and curious non-fantasy reading friends to steer well clear, with this analogy: My wife is a speech-language pathologist. Had she written a book about Asperger’s and speech therapy treatment, I’d be ecstatic for her.  Proud beyond measure, in fact. But I wouldn’t read it (maybe I’d give it a polite skim). I tried to make Flame and Crimson very readable, even fun, but it’s got 24 pages of Works Cited. It’s loaded with citations from the literature, quotations from Amra and The Dungeon Master's Guide, and my geeky analysis and interpretation.

More than that, it’s about a subgenre of fantasy fiction (not even a proper genre). We’re talking beyond niche, here.

But it’s a topic I believe will resonate with readers of The Silver Key. I hope you consider making it a very sword-and-sorcery Christmas and picking up a copy. More to come soon.

Michael Moorcock on the airwaves: New interview up on the Appendix N Book Club podcast

I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that one of the podcasts in my regular listening rotation, Appendix N Book Club, recently conducted an hour-plus long interview with Michael Moorcock.

Author of the Elric, Corum, and Hawkmoon stories, along with many other fantasy and science fiction titles including Gloriana and the non-fiction fantasy genre treatise Wizardry and Wild Romance, Moorcock is the only living author left on the famous Appendix N, a list of fantasy authors cited by Gary Gygax as principal influences upon the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game. Appendix N appears in the first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide, published in 1979.

Moorcock turns 80 years old on Dec. 18, and it was great to hear him sounding very hale and hearty. He was buoyant, ebullient, and enjoying the discussion.

I knew most of what was contained in the interview, but it made for a wonderful listen. It covered a wide range of topics, including Moorcock informally and casually allowing both Gygax/D&D and Chaosium to simultaneously use his settings and characters for their role playing games, with disastrous consequences (Chaosium threatened a lawsuit against D&D, and Moorcock was never fairly compensated for his work); his (very) early days as a writer and editor of an Edgar Rice Burroughs fanzine; a little about his exchanges with Fritz Leiber in the pages of Amra, and Leiber’s subsequent coining of the term “sword-and-sorcery”; his admiration of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories and general antipathy for Lovecraft’s works; the general lack of a viable fantasy market until the publication of the unauthorized J.R.R. Tolkien Ace paperbacks by Donald A. Wollheim; his dislike of The Lord of the Rings, which he places in the category of children’s fantasy literature, differentiating his own works as pulp-inspired; and his eclectic Elric influences including the opium cigarette smoking Zenith the Albino (“Pretty much Elric in a top hat and tails, really”). Moorcock reveals that of all his characters, Elric remains the closest to his heart. He has returned to the character again and again over his career, with death of the character no obstacle to penning subsequent stories.

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.”

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’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.

Remembering Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994)

Kane navigating his skeleton crew.

Sword-and-sorcery and horror are bedfellows. The former is fantasy infused with the grit of history, but also the chill hand of terrors terrestrial and otherworldly. Few writers bridged this gap so skillfully as Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994).

Today marks the 25^th anniversary of Wagner’s death. His untimely passing at 49 was a massive blow to my favorite subgenre. Wagner was one of sword-and-sorcery’s fiercest and most articulate champions, even if he didn’t like the term (1). Wagner championed Howard at a time when the massively popular Lancer/Ace Conan Saga was still at its zenith, and its heavy-handed editing and Conan pastiche was largely getting a pass. Wagner cut against the grain, arguing that Howard was a writer of literary merit whose works were worth preserving, not a property to exploit. That didn’t sit well with Conan Saga editor L. Sprague de Camp.

Wagner oversaw the publication of pure Howard in a three volume set published in 1977 by Berkley Medallion—The Hour of the Dragon, The People of the Black Circle, and Red Nails. The Berkley Conans restored Howard’s texts using the Weird Tales originals. Wagner had intended to publish all 21 Conan stories, but “contractual difficulties” ended the Berkleys after just three volumes. So we got just eight tales, plus Howard’s “The Hyborian Age” essay.

Wagner’s introductions and afterwords alone make tracking down the Berkleys worth the effort. Their presentation of the Conan stories—art, design, and of course, Wagner’s essays—remains a personal favorite of mine, even though I admit they have been supplanted by the Del Reys. I’m hoping one day to score copies with the Ken Kelly foldout posters intact. Mine were bought used and the posters were gone, probably adorning some young fan’s fake wood-paneled bedroom wall in the late 70s.

As the sun was setting on sword-and-sorcery (and his own life) Wagner edited Echoes of Valor, a three-volume series published by Tor with volumes appearing in 1987, 1989, and 1991. As its name implies Echoes of Valor served up classic pulp era sword-and-sorcery, some of it for the first time. Vol. 1 featured Robert E. Howard’s “The Black Stranger,” original appearance in the March 1953 Fantasy Magazine; Fritz Leiber’s “Adept’s Gambit,” which made its original appearance in the 1947 Arkham House collection Night’s Black Agents; and Henry Kuttner’s “Wet Magic,” first appearance in the February 1943 Unknown Worlds. Vol. 2 contained two versions of Howard’s “The Frost Giant’s Daughter,” as well as stories by C.L. Moore and Manly Wade Wellman, and a collaboration by Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury, “Lorelei of the Red Mist.” Vol. 3 included Howard’s “The Shadow of the Vulture” featuring Red Sonya, more stories by Kuttner and Wellman, and tales by Jack Williamson and the enigmatic Nictzin Dyalhis.

The Echoes of Valor versions of “The Black Stranger and “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” are noteworthy. The latter marked the first mass-market appearance of the story as Howard himself wrote it, unlike the heavy-handed de Camp edited version in the Lancer Conan Saga, while “The Black Stranger” was reproduced from a photocopy of the original manuscript, prior to Howard’s attempt to rewrite the rejected story as “Swords of the Red Brotherhood.” As with the Berkley Conans, Wagner’s introductions in Echoes of Valor are well-worth reading, and his enthusiasm and erudition for pulp fantasy shines through.

Wagner not only championed sword-and-sorcery but added a powerful verse with his stories of Kane. I consider Bloodstone (1975) a Rosetta Stone (no pun intended) for the sword-and-sorcery genre. If you want to understand what sword-and-sorcery is all about you could certainly start with “Ill Met in Lankhmar” or “Beyond the Black River” (both great options), or you could find a second-hand copy of this gonzo story of a lost city deep in the swamps, guarded by an army of frog-men, and the corruptive power of technology wrapped up a green and red stone possessed of alien intelligence. Sword-and-sorcery introduced the figure of the Outsider to fantasy, and Kane is very much a self-serving antagonist in Bloodstone, albeit compelling and relatable. I recommend any of the Kane stories, but in particular “Undertow,” “Lynortis Reprise,” “Sing a Last Song of Valdese,” “Reflections for the Winter of my Soul,” and Darkness Weaves.

Aside: It’s borderline criminal that the Kane stories have fallen out of print. Wagner’s books are increasingly harder to find and growing more expensive by the day on the second-hand market. Those sold out Centipede Press editions? If you can find one used, which is rare, the complete set will run you upwards of a thousand bucks. Midnight Sun alone (Nightshade Books) is fetching $135 and up, used, on Amazon. The Donald M. Grant Book of Kane will run you from $100 up to $300 on Abe Books. Apparently the Kane books are now available on Kindle, but since I have no interest in e-readers I don’t consider that a viable option. Fortunately I have my complete line of battered Warners. But this scarcity situation needs to be rectified by Wagner’s estate, pronto.

I wish I had the opportunity to meet Wagner at a bar at a convention, knock back a whiskey or five, and talk horror and dark fantasy long into the night. He knew these fields and he wasn’t afraid to express his opinion, articulately. He was a titan of horror, serving as editor of the yellow-spined DAW Year’s Best Horror anthology from 1979 until his death in 1994. For 15 years he was one of its most recognized and respected critics, and his work as an anthologizer ranks in my opinion right alongside the likes of Charles L. Grant and Stephen Jones. Wagner also wrote some incredible, enduring works of horror fiction, including “Sticks,” which won an August Derleth Award from The British Fantasy Society as the best short fiction of 1974. I think it’s top to bottom his most effective piece of fiction. I also highly recommend his incredibly atmospheric and creepy “Where The Summer Ends” from the Kirby McCauley edited Dark Forces.

With his pedigree in and deep passion for horror it’s no wonder that the Kane stories are eerily fantastic, infused with a Gothic sensibility, and at times skin crawling. For example, this passage from “Cold Light”:

An ingenious trap had cut down most of Kane’s forces, and he had fled westward into the ghost land of Demornte. Here his enemies would not follow, for the plague which had annihilated this nation was still held in utmost dread, and although it had struck this desert locked land nearly two decades before, still no one entered and no one left silent Demornte.

Dead Demornte. Demornte whose towns lie empty, whose farms are slowly returning to forest. Demornte where death has lain and life will no more linger. Land of death where only shadows move in empty cities, where the living are but a handful to the countless dead. Demornte where ghosts stalk silent streets in step with the living, where the living walk side by side with their ghosts. And a man must look closely to tell one from the other.

With a full three score years and ten I believe Wagner would have written more Kane stories. I believe he would have given us another S&S anthology, even though Echoes of Valor petered out and the appetite for such fiction was at its lowest ebb in the early 90s. He might have been involved with the Del Reys, penning some of the intros or afterwards for the series which has finally given us the full unadulterated measure of the likes of Kull, Conan, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn.

But it was not to be.

So, 25 years gone, and the world is poorer for his death. But those who know and love horror and sword-and-sorcery remember Karl Edward Wagner.

Notes

1. Wagner much preferred “epic fantasy” or “dark fantasy” to “sword-and-sorcery,” which he despised. He loved Howard, but hated his imitators. Here is Wagner from an interview appearing on East of Eden: “’Sword and sorcery’ conjures an image of yarns about girls in brass bras who are in constant danger of losing them, and mighty warriors with eighteen-foot-long swords killing wizards and monsters faster than thought. A sword fight every other page, kill a monster every other chapter, and rescue a girl at the end—there’s your sword and sorcery yarn.”