Archives: Sword-and-Sorcery

Swords Against Death Re-Read: “The Jewels in the Forest”

Bill Ward and I  are re-reading a book from Fritz Leiber’s famous Lankhmar series, Swords Against Death. We hope you’ll pick up a copy and join us. This week we tackled the second tale in the volume, “The Jewels in the Forest.”

Howard: Coming upon “The Jewels in the Forest” for the first time in a quarter century was like sitting down at a warm campfire to hear a favorite tale. I recalled the gist of the events, but it didn’t keep me from enjoying the story all the way through. I was soon swept up into the adventure. It didn’t matter that I recalled the bones of the plot; the mystery beguiled me. 

Swords Against Death Re-Read: “The Circle Curse”

In the coming weeks Bill Ward and I  are re-reading a book from Fritz Leiber’s famous Lankhmar series, Swords Against Death. We hope you’ll pick up a copy and join us. This week we tackled the first tale in the volume. “The Circle Curse” is really more of a prologue than a proper story.

Howard: When I first read “The Circle Curse” I was 14 or 15 years old and it left me wanting. So wanting that I probably would have stopped reading the book if the story hadn’t been so short. I had opened Swords Against Death expecting to be transported into adventure, and what I got in “The Circle Curse” was more the summary of several adventures, a whole lot of wandering, and a little moping. I loved the rest of the book and re-read it multiple times, but I have never, ever revisited this first story until now.

If you’re not already familiar with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser this is a cold start. It doesn’t really tell a proper story, it just fills in the gaps between what happened between “Ill Met in Lankhmar” and the collection of tales here. And that’s perfectly fine, I suppose, if you’re reading them in sequence. Maybe readers need something to tell them what happened between adventures. I would have preferred a few more tales to tell me rather than this summary, but even creative geniuses don’t always give you what you want.

On Conan and Writing

Following on a great post by Fletcher Vredenburgh about Karl Edward Wagner’s Bran Mak Morn novel (over at Black Gate), I decided to update my own post on Conan pastiche. I’ve read, or tried to read, a lot more imitation Conan since I wrote the document and thought it high time to update the thing.

My own writing proceeds apace. Onward and upward. It looks like final changes are finished on my next Pathfinder novel, coming this fall (through Tor!).

I’m not sure when For the Killing of Kings will be released through Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s, but it’s looking more and more like it will be this coming winter. First, though, I have to finish this revision. I’m shooting to have that draft complete by the end of April. On a long trip recently I started reworking the outline for the second book and am so excited with it I’m having to restrain myself from jumping into work on it right now.

Swords Against Death Re-Read: Introduction

In the coming weeks Bill Ward and I  are going to re-read a book from Fritz Leiber’s famous Lankhmar series, Swords Against Death. We hope you’ll pick up a copy and join us. This week, so that you’ll have a little time to get on board, we’re just providing an overview.

Howard: Mid-way through junior high I’d read a whole lot of science fiction but very few fantasy books and no sword-and-sorcery. I’d been playing a whole lot of Dungeons & Dragons, though, and one day I read the famed Appendix N and decided to explore its recommended fantasy reading.

Unfortunately, when I went to the library it proved woefully empty of nearly everything on the list. The used bookstore ended up being my salvation, although, owing to chance, all they had that first day was one Fritz Leiber book, which meant I didn’t actually read Robert E. Howard — sword-and-sorcery’s originator — until I was well into my twenties.

Bill: This closely parallels my own experience, and it was D&D that introduced me to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser long before I ever read any of their stories. Books were just hard to find, even if you knew what you were looking for. I didn’t get to Conan until I was thirty, and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser sometime after that! My luck was to find Elric in my late teens and early twenties, probably because they were all being reprinted and the old Daws also seemed easy to find at the only used bookstore I knew about at the time.

Robert E. Howard’s Birthday

Under the Hood with Robert E. Howard

I remain in the literary salt mines this week, so I’m reprinting an article I wrote for Black Gate back in 2012.

When I tell people what a great writer Robert E. Howard was, a lot of them don’t seem to believe me. If they only know him through depictions of Conan or, worse, rip-offs, then they think Howard’s writing is all about a dull guy in a loin cloth fighting monsters and lots of straining bosoms. It’s not that Robert E. Howard thought himself above describing a lithesome waist or a wilting beauty, especially if he needed to make a quick buck, it’s just that there’s a lot more going on in a Conan story than his imitators took away.

It’s easy to pull some samples of great action writing from Robert E. Howard. I’ve done it before, and I could easily do it again here. Only a handful of writers can approach him in that field, and almost none are his equal.

He was also a master of headlong, driving pace. That can be hard to showcase without insisting you read an entire story, so today I want to show readers who seem unaware of his work (or those who are uninterested) a few more reasons why those of us in the know revere him so highly.

Here in one of his historical stories, ”Lord of Samarcand,” is the Scotsman, or Frank, as the easterners call any from Europe, Donald MacDeesa, riding to the court of Tamarlane the Great. See how swiftly, how easily, Howard conjures the scene in all its splendor with just a few well-chosen words, as though he’s panning a camera as MacDeesa rides.

Day of Discovery

As most of my regular visitors probably know, I released an e-book that collected many of my Dabir and Asim stories a couple of years ago. E-books don’t generally receive the same level of interest, promotion, or reviews as printed books (unless lightning strikes) so I was surprised and pleased when I discovered a new review of The Waters of Eternity had gone up over at Dear Author.

I’ve been hard at work on other books and other tales, but Dabir and Asim are near and dear to my heart, as you could probably guess. It’s been a real pleasure to see a new story about them become available in Kaiju Rising, and between that and this new review (and the fact that I’m often thinking about their further adventures even while in the midst of some other writing), I was inspired to dig through my Dabir and Asim folder this morning and look at a few odds and ends.

Fafhrd in the Mail

It’s been a busy, productive week, with some nice surprises.

First, I wanted to point everyone to the new contest on my site to win a free copy of one of my books, and, potentially, a free copy of books by many other authors. Go take a look!

Next, I wanted to share a surprise that appeared in my mail the other day. I think I mentioned that I have been greedily reading through a long list of hardboiled fiction recommended by my friend John Chris Hocking. I sold off a parcel of comics and books via e-bay and my friend Wayne of Wayne’s Books to fund my hard boiled exploration. (A lot of this stuff can’t be found in libraries, and has been out of print since the ’40s or ’50s. It’s hard to come by except through used book sites like AddAll).

So I wasn’t startled Tuesday when I had packages in the mail. I opened each one, eager to see what lay lie within, and lo and behold, out of the blue Scott Lynch had sent me a stack of DC Fafhrd and  Gray Mouser comics. For those of you not in the know, DC had a brief run of these in the early ’70s. Being the huge Lankhmar fan that I am, I have been curious about them for ages, but never thought to see one, much less hold or own one. Now, thanks to Scott’s generous gift, I’ve got almost the whole series. Have I mentioned he’s just a cool cat and one of my favorite people?

Primeval Thule

I haven’t signed up for as many kickstarters in the last few months, primarily because I haven’t had any big book checks in the last few months. (That’s the nature of publishing — feast or famine, usually with emphasis on the latter.) But one of the ones I DID sign on for was Primeval Thule, and I drop by the web site every now and then to see how it’s coming along.

It sounds like exactly the kind of campaign world I’d want to set a game in or write a story about. This morning I visited the work-in-progress to see if there were any new updates and discovered the tentative TOC. Check out the titles of the cities alone, which just breathes of evocative world building: “Kal-Zinan, City of the Iron Gate” or “Lands of the Long Shadow.” That’s the stuff. I’m really looking forward to this one.

Of Conan and Thieves

I don’t think I’ll ever get more than 48 pages in to Poul Anderson’s Conan the Rebel. Notwithstanding the fact I respect Anderson and have enjoyed a number of his other books, I have no intention of reading further. In those 48 pages of rather small type Conan has only appeared a handful of times, and he’s never actually done anything apart from listening to people talk. There’s been a lot of action, but always with characters to whom the reader has just been introduced. It’s pretty much been a reminder of things NOT to do while trying to tell a dramatic tale. Narratively I’m bored. Because I have a stack of other books, and less time and patience than I used to have, I am sad to say that this one’s being set aside.