Some notes on Tarnsman of Gor, Outlaw of Gor

A yoked Tarl Cabot beneath the
haughty gaze of Lara, Tatrix of
Tharna. Bondage! 

Daring admission: I am reading John Norman’s controversial Gor series and so far have enjoyed it, un-ironically. Tarnsman of Gor and Outlaw of Gor are entertaining sword-and-planet, with the latter ending on a cliff-hanger that has hooked me enough to want to seek out the third in the series, Priest-Kings of Gor.

Hold the pitchforks and torches for just a moment as I explain why.

Yes, they are a 100% unrepentant pastiche of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars. Tarnsman of Gor is a shameless clone of A Princess of Mars. You’ve got your strange interplanetary journey of the main character, Tarl Cabot, an excellent swordsman and general bad-ass back on earth. Tarl falls in love with a beautiful woman, saves the day, and at the end is sent back to a drab earth, left to pine for his love beyond the sun and dreaming of his eventual return.

The Gor series is of course more than little controversial. There are hints of the infamous S&M/dominance narrative creeping in after two books, and a few elements “problematic” for a 21^st century audience. Female slaves submit to men, and lose their autonomy, in a ritual that includes kneeling and placing their crossed wrists over their head. In general women in the Gor universe seem to spend an in ordinate amount of time cuffed, in chains, or asking to be whipped. Without question there is a weird undercurrent of what a healthy male/female relationship should look like, but in these early books it’s not so pronounced, and can be written off to Norman’s attempt at creating a unique, alien culture. There is no explicit sex, nothing (beyond ample violence, though this is largely stylized) to even warrant an “R” rating. From what I understand the series eventually goes entirely off the rails with S&M overwhelming the plot. But through two books at least these elements are (mostly) downplayed.

Is there better sword-and-planet to read? Absolutely. LeighBrackett is probably the best example of this sort of fiction, and of course you should go straight to the source and re-read Burroughs. Seek out Otis Adelbert Kline’s S&P, or Adrian Cole’s The Dream Lords Trilogy, for more examples. But honestly, the first two Gor novels are solid entertainment. Two books in and I find them to be entertaining, well-paced, with plenty of plot-twists and cliff hangers. Gor possesses an interesting alien culture. And Norman is a good writer. His style lacks a little of the Burroughsian/Howardian narrative drive, but it does the job, and in places is elevated, even inspiring.

If this makes me an awful person or just someone with unbelievably bad taste, so be it. I also think 80s metal is the pinnacle of music, so consider that in your evaluation.

1917 film review

Hell on Earth (but well done Hell).

1917 had been in my “to watch” queue for a long time (aka, floating around in the back of my mind), and last night I watched it with my older daughter, a self-described “film buff” who wanted to see what the hype was all about.

Two word review: Excellent film. It’s an intensely personal/soldier’s journey type of story, and also manages to convey the larger tragedy of the Great War. Outstanding costumes and set pieces, and deserving of its Academy Award for Best Cinematography. 1917 captures the enormous complexity/rat maze of the trenches in the latter stages of the war. It effectively juxtaposes the beautiful and relatively undisturbed green countryside of France existing behind the lines with the grotesque nightmare of no man’s land—massive shell holes collecting unimaginably polluted yellow water, ringed with corpses in various stages of decay, skulls and upthrust hands and filth. A little bit of Mordor.

Speaking of JRRT, a scene in which a young soldier (played by George MacKay) stumbles out of a corpse strewn river, on the verge of breaking, but is revived by the sound of Elf-like singing in the nearby woods, seems to me a bit of an homage to the professor.

It’s an engaging journey wrapped up in under two hours and I think it makes a great companion piece with Peter Jackson’s colorized documentary They Shall Not Grow Old (2018).

War films and the great stories build up a reserve of perspective on current situations. COVID-19 is scary. I’m worried about two parents in their 70s, one with a host of chronic illnesses including COPD, and my daughter who is still working part-time in a 62+ retirement community and putting herself at an elevated level of risk.

But when you think about men going over the top at the sound of the shrill brass whistle, with nothing but a cloth uniform between them and a machine gun bullet or shrapnel, present events are put into perspective.

More Flame and Crimson reviews, Victory or Valhalla!

For those that might not know him, David C. Smith is the author of several works of sword-and-sorcery from "back in the day," perhaps most notably Oron (1978) and its spinoffs, The Sorcerer's Shadow (1978), and a series of Red Sonja novels in collaboration with Richard Tierney. More recently he wrote Robert E. Howard: A Literary Biography (2018).

Needless to say I was so happy to find that David offered a very complimentary, well-written review of Flame and Crimson for the Black Gate website. Check it out here. David seemed to get a lot in particular out of the last chapter, "Why sword-and-sorcery." I put a lot of my heart and opinion into that chapter, more so than the rest of the book. I do agree with him that the book absolutely needs an index. I'll work on that for a future edition.

In David's piece was a link to the website of George Kelley, Friday's Forgotten Books, which also has a very kind review of F&C. Some interesting comments were generated from his review as well.

Finally, I also stumbled across a third review on Don Herron's personal website Up and Down These Mean Streets. Rediscovered: In the Annals of Sword-and-Sorcery is a review by guest contributor Brian Leno. Leno found that the book started slow for him and covered too much familiar ground (Leno is a longtime Howard-head, Howard essayist/critic, and sword-and-sorcery aficionado with multiple publishing credits). But he added that the book closed well for him in the latter chapters, a few editing gaffes aside, and made him want to read more.

I'm very happy with these reviews. Flame and Crimson is not a perfect book, as its my first, but I'm glad readers are finding a lot of value in it, are entertained by it, and are rethinking and revisiting their conceptions of sword-and-sorcery.

Finally, I wrote a lengthy review of the H. Rider Haggard classic The Wanderer's Necklace for DMR Blog. This one is highly recommended, and further evidence of the influence of Viking mythology/history on sword-and-sorcery. Haggard's oft-repeated Viking war cry of "Victory or Valhalla!" is apropos for the great struggle which we all find ourselves in the moment.

Kick some ass by staying home, and stay well.

COVID-19 diaries and Haggard’s The Wanderer’s Necklace

Yes my work desk is a bar. First world problem.

It has been an interesting last couple weeks living in the shadow of COVID-19. My company gave us the order to start working from home on Friday March 13, and save for a brief run into the office to grab my computer monitor and a couple power cords I’ve complied with that order.

This is a picture of my home office. Not a bad place to work, save for the fact that my basement is unheated. It’s quite nice for three seasons and blessedly cool in the summer, but the winter can be a challenge. It’s a lot warmer down here than the typical New England winter clime but a fair bit colder than most folks set their thermostat. With a heavy flannel shirt and often a winter hat, I’m good. I’ll supplement with a space heater as needed.

The biggest challenge I have faced is the loss of gym access. I have been a regular with the weights for my entire adult life. The timing of COVID-19 couldn’t have been worse. Back in December long before I knew of the coming pandemic I made the commitment to finally buy a home gym—rack, barbell, bench, weights. My plan was to sell off a bunch of old toys on Ebay, which have been sitting in boxed storage for decades but had some value (as it turns out, about $1,600 all said and done). I was about 90% done selling everything off and getting set to place an order when the virus hit.
If you’ve tried ordering anything from Rogue Fitness you’ll understand my pain. They are completely overwhelmed with backlogged orders. I placed my order for gym equipment on Tuesday, March 17 and it hasn’t budged. I’m doing the best I can with bodyweight exercises but it just ain’t the same as heavy iron.

Happily I have been making good progress on an H. Rider Haggard novel, The Wanderer’s Necklace (1914). This one is a classic romance in the old, pre-corrupted sense of the word. Olaf is an eighth-century Northman who is betrayed by his beautiful bride-to-be Iduna the Fair, resulting in bloody conflict. Olaf revolts against the bloodthirsty Pagan gods of the North and flees to Byzantium, where he rises in the ranks of the Byzantine Empress Irene, becoming a general in personal bodyguard. More romance ensues.

Prior to his betrayal Olaf had robbed a tomb at Iduna’s request, taking from the well-preserved corpse a fabled necklace and heavy bronze sword. The necklace is a prize beyond measure but also has a rumored curse that it will bring woe to its wearer. Thus far it has brought considerable ruin to Olaf and his circle of acquaintances. We’ll see in the next 200 pages or so the full extent of its curse.
The opening 100 pages alone have made this novel worth reading. Haggard is a skilled writer and his work describing a polar bear hunt is extraordinarily taut and well-done, fraught with ominous signs of danger and an eventual whirlwind of violence. Olaf is a reasonably well-drawn character and the plot moves apace. As a fan of “The Northern Thing” I was disappointed when the action switched from Jutland to Byzantium, but so far this one is highly recommended.

Zebra sword-and-sorcery...

It’s fascinating to me that Zebra Books retroactively claimed The Wanderer’s Necklace as sword-and-sorcery. Certainly all of the hallmarks are there: The book has some light fantastic elements grounded in a setting that is firmly historical, Olaf is an outsider and a fierce warrior when roused, etc. Plenty of action and reasonable amounts of swordplay. Haggard frames the book with a reincarnation device, as the unnamed “editor” is modern writer recalling a previous life when he once was Olaf and lived a life of adventure. Any fan of S&S will enjoy this one, methinks.

Stay healthy all, and I hope you're enjoying some good
reading of your own.

This, and that, and Black Gate

I haven't felt much like posting or writing these days. Coronavirus/COVID-19 has got me down, to the point where I'm expecting the arrival of zombie hordes. By day I work for a company that provides healthcare training, fortunately a blend of books and online resources and e-learning that provide some diverse income streams, but also several live events that are now very much in jeopardy (a big conference we have scheduled for Vegas in early May, after the MGM properties just announced that they are not accepting room reservations until May 1, is not looking good). That, and a heartbroken daughter in her senior year of high school who is (rightly) worried that her prom and graduation may be cancelled, has cast a bit of a pall over the Murphy household.

On the brighter side, Flame and Crimson got a couple good plugs, one direct and one indirect, over on Black Gate. I was a regular writer for that site circa 2010-2012, after the demise of The Cimmerian website, so it was nice to make an appearance there once again.

Here is a short, nice review by John O'Neill, An Exuberant Celebration of a Century of Fantasy: Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery by Brian Murphy

Today Black Gate posted my essay Sword-and-Sorcery and the Problem of Genre, a piece which details some of the difficulties I had to overcome while researching and writing the book. Readers of Flame and Crimson or general sword-and-sorcery fans may find it interesting.

I also heard from veteran sword-and-sorcery author Adrian Cole who left me a couple of nice messages about the book.

Anyways, I hope everyone remains healthy, and safe from the swirling contagion.

My surprise signed copy of L. Sprague de Camp's Time & Chance

Among the many books I had to track down and buy while researching Flame and Crimson was the L. Sprague de Camp autobiography Time & Chance.

I picked up a nice Donald M. Grant hardcover online at a reasonable price from a secondhand dealer whose name I no longer remember. When it came I was pleased to find it in excellent/near mint condition.

Sharp cover, eh? De Camp looking pretty dapper here.

My happiness turned to mild shock when I found this on the half-title page:

Holy shit!

Needless to say this was unexpected. I doubt the bookseller realized that both the author and his wife and editor Catherine Crook de Camp addressed it, to someone named "Sandy." Bonus points for anyone who knows who the mysterious Sandy may be.

As for the book itself, worth the read. De Camp is surprisingly self-deprecating, admitting on more than one occasion regarding the Lancer Conan Saga that he may not have been the best man for the job:

While I often write about things of long ago and far away, I do not share the illusion of Robert Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, that I should have been happier if born in some former era ... No, I am well pleased to have lived in my own century.

Anyway, it's nice to own a little bit of authentic de Camp on my bookshelf.

A belated farewell to Mark Shelton

During my many months and years away from this blog I missed several notable events that otherwise would have called for a post. One of those was the death of Mark Shelton in July 2018.

I was a (very) latecomer to Manilla Road, to my eternal regret. They were a rather fringe band compared to the likes of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeth, et. al., and as a result largely escaped my radar in the late 80s. It wasn't until the dawn of the internet age somewhere in the early 2000s that I first started getting acquainted with them.

These guys were sword-and-sorcery through-and-through, with lyrics straight out of the stories of Robert E. Howard. Witness songs like Necropolis:

The world is full of mysteries
That men have never seen before
Magic lives in all dynasties
The light of love shines ever more
In the crypt of Atlantean Kings
I found what I was looking for
Magic Trident of Valusia's Sea
I know it's like living inside a dream

And of course Queen of the Black Coast:

Take me back, across the sea

Of Vilayet, to my queen

No kingdom hers, but for the sea

A coastal curse, a pirate's dream

Manilla Road has a deep catalog of incredible songs, including the likes of the face melting "Flaming Metal Systems," the sinister "Crystal Logic" and the atmospheric "The Deluge" and "Mystification." Yes, the vocals sound a little like Skeletor on the microphone, but damn, it works. Shelton's guitar work is incredible--his riffs, and his writing, make these songs, and elevate them above a lot of other metal fare. 

Speaking of sword-and-sorcery, one of Shelton's collaborators, E.C. Hellwell, contributed the story "The Riddle Master" to DMR Books' Swords of Steel, a song which inspired Shelton to write a great Manilla Road track of the same name. Pretty cool.

Shelton died very early in the morning of July 27, 2018, shortly after after performing at the Headbangers Open Air Festival in Germany. He passed in the arms of his bandmate Bryan Patrick, like some fallen warrior of old on the battlefield. From the obit linked above:

"Last night I was able to hold Mark in my arms until the paramedics got there," vocalist Bryan Patrick says. "I comforted him. He felt no pain, folks. He went quick. He suffered a heart attack. The stage was very hot last night — a lot of smoke. I was even struggling for a moment. And there were a couple of moments where I checked on him to make sure he was okay, and he gave me the nod. 'Keep poundin', brother.' He went out on top."

I hope Mark is somewhere in Valhalla, plugged into an amp and cranking out "Road of Kings" before a headbanging hall of ale-sotted warriors who died that day on the battlefield, only to rise for a night of feasting and wenching. Peace brother.