Sword & Sorcery – What’s In A Name?
Sword & Sorcery has become a term of derision since the 1980s. There are good reasons for this but much of that derision is out of ignorance. The barbarian baby has been thrown out with […]
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Sword & Planet
Discussions of what is and what is not Sword & Sorcery can be a thorny proposition. On the one hand S&S is largely no different than epic Fantasy (ala Tolkien) except in scope or tone. […]
POUL ANDERSON: THE INVISIBLE CLASSIC
Sometimes great books come and go, waiting for another chance to be discovered and given the place on our bookshelves they truly deserve. Sword & Sorcery is no exception. In 1951, Poul Anderson wrote what […]
L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP 2 HYBORIAN TIMES
As mentioned in an earlier post, L. Sprague de Camp attempted to turn Sword & Sorcery down a logical, Science Fictional route (ala John W. Campbell’s Unknown) with his Pusadian stories, but in this he […]
SWORD & SORCERY & J. R. R. TOLKIEN
In September 1937 an English Don named John Ronald Reuel Tolkien published a children’s book called The Hobbit. Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan, had been dead for fifteen months. In 1950 Gnome Press […]
PUSADIAN REWRITE: L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP 1
Two things happened in 1950. One: L. Sprague de Camp read his first Conan story. And two: L. Sprague de Camp would try to direct Sword & Sorcery down another track altogether. Those two don’t […]
CROM THE BARBARIAN: THE FIRST TRUE S&S COMIC
Comic strips were the only game in town in the 1930s but these strips were eventually collected into omnibuses that lead to the standard comic book. Heroic Fantasy was slow to appear in the “four-color […]
JACK VANCE: VISIONS OF A DYING EARTH
After the last few S&S works of the early 1940s, such as “Dragon Moon” by Henry Kuttner and the short-lived Unknown, Sword & Sorcery lost steam. With Robert E. Howard dead for five or more […]
NORVELL W. PAGE: WAN TENGRI – PRESTER JOHN
While Fritz Leiber was creating a boisterous style of Sword & Sorcery based upon E. R. Eddison and James Branch Cabell, Norvell W. Page wrote two novels that seem on the surface to be closer […]
FRITZ LEIBER: SWORD & SORCERY GROWS UP
In 1939 Farnsworth Wright began a move away from Sword & Sorcery. With Robert E. Howard dead, he no longer championed the dark fantasy tale, publishing Henry Kuttner’s Elak as the last. This meant that […]
SWORD & SORCERY BECOMES A SUB-GENRE: HENRY KUTTNER’S ELAK AND PRINCE RAYNOR
Henry Kuttner deserves our thanks. If things had been left to Clifford Ball, Sword & Sorcery would have fizzled out in the pages of Weird Tales. Ball, who we know very little about, was the […]
BLUE PENCILS AND BLOODY SWORDS: EDITORS OF S&S
It’s easy to discuss authors for their contributions are evident. You just have to read the stories. The great editors are harder to corral, for the editor’s job is one of selection, guidance, subjective acts […]
NOT QUITE SWORD & SORCERY: EARLY FANTASY
Robert E. Howard may have invented Sword & Sorcery with the first King Kull tale, but he was not the only author working with the raw materials of heroic fantasy. We have already mentioned C. […]
The James Allison Stories: Dreaming of the Past
Robert E. Howard produced several series: Solomon Kane, Kull of Valusia, Bran Mak Morn, and finally Conan the Cimmerian, all existing more or less in the same world at different times. In “Kings of the […]
Jirel of Joiry: Sword & Sorcery’s First Lady
Circumstance plays a part in history. It was inevitable that a woman would eventually try her hand at Sword & Sorcery. It’s our good fortune that C. L. Moore was writing for Weird Tales in […]
Conan the Cimmerian: Sword & Sorcery Superstar
When many people hear the words “Sword & Sorcery”, they immediately think of Conan. He might be Robert E. Howard’s original, or the L. Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter pastiche Conan, the Marvel Comics Conan of […]
Dark History: Bran Mak Morn
Robert E. Howard, more than anything, wanted to sell to Adventure Magazine. This publication of the Buttrick Co. was considered by many the best Pulp of all the hundreds of cheap magazines published between the […]
Of Shadows and Serpent – The First Sword & Sorcery Tale
When people think of 1929 they usually recall the Great Depression and “Black Tuesday” (October 29th). I prefer to think of it as the year Sword & Sorcery was born. For S&S, like its greatest […]
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