"I'm just here to bring you culture." Thank you! Leiber: I think you're right about his S&S tales being not read so much today as they should be. Glad you mentioned Imaro. These are really excellent. I haven't read anything by David Gemmel, but I keep hearing that he's very good and respected.
When I was a kid DAW published a great anthology called Amazons, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, which focuses on women in S&S. It includes a story by Saunders, as well as other great stories by writers who should not be forgotten, including a very early work by the author who later became much more famous as Robin Hobb. The book includes a bibliography of works which are still worth reading for fans of the genre, including Joanna Russ, Elizabeth A. Lynn, C.J. Cherryh, and Tanith Lee. Salmonson herself wrote a series about an Asian-inspired fantasy setting. I recommend the book - the stories are great, and it shows how influential S&S has been in the whole fantasy scene.
When it comes to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. Howard Chaykin and Mike Mignola’s comic book adaption. When it comes to Elric check out Titan books The Michael Moorcock library and the four Blondel comic book adaptions. Lastly the Dark Horse collection of DC’s collection of the early seventies adaptions.
One writer I think should be on your list is TANITH LEE. She wrote some great sword and sorcery, horror and science fiction disguised as sword and sorcery.
Lin Carter's stories are very derivative even within this genre where the books and stories tend to be pretty similar to each other, but you read Lin Carter because he loved this stuff so devotedly, perhaps he loved it more than anybody else ever did. He's the guy who went around telling everybody how great these stories are and for his efforts and enthusiasm alone he deserves to be there among the giants, pastiche, controversies and all.
I was surprised to hear of the controversy about him. His Thongor series introduced me to sword and sorcery for the first time. So i thought he was a great s&s writer in all.
Thank you for this video. Even though I’ve heard of (though not necessarily read) everyone except the last three, it’s nice to see a good rundown of the must-read authors of my favorite genre.
Love this genre, Mike. Will definitely get to some of the stuff I haven't read, after I finish getting to the other stuff I havent read from your other vids! Just started MR James. My edition started with Lovecraft's famous essay on weird fiction ... which was looooooong, but informative. Keep 'em comin!
Moorcock also wrote his own Mars series , very similar to Burroughs but not a ripoff, under the pseudonym Edward P. Bradbury (around 1966): Warriors of Mars, Blades of Mars, and Barbarians of Mars. I have only read the first one and I really enjoyed it. As soon as I find the second (I have the third), I will finish the series. Recommended.
New fan of yours Michael. Got new authors to explore from this. I've read all of Gemmell and was an incredible and entertaining author. My favorite character was Waylander from Gemmell but there was something for everyone there that likes Sword and or Sorcery. Huge fan of Kane Series and who hasn't read R E Howard. Conan was great as was most of his stuff but I was pleasantly surprised by his cowboy novels that were downright funny !
Thank you for mentioning Charles Saunders now considered the Father of Sword and Soul . A fan actually tracked him down in Canada to get him to reprint the Imaro series . Please keep in mind the DAW paperback book one of Imaro has an entire large section expunged in later reprints at the request of Mr Saunders . My understanding is that he felt the expunged section was too close to the actual Rwanda genocide .
Interesting you bring up Leiber after mentioning “Kull “ . Apparently back in the 60’s Leiber was approached to continue the Kull series . He turned it down to focus on gathering up and publishing the Nehwon series . Concerning Wagner and Kane …. Well hopefully good news .. it seems that Baen books might be re-reprinting the Kane series , so keep your fingers and toes crossed.
Some great recommendations, and some I’ve never heard of. I’ve been on the fence about Fritz Leiber. I have the first two Elric collections, and I’m going to start them next year.
Coincidentally, I was looking for more s&s books since I had a good haul at a bookstore I visited the other day. Thankfully, I have a wise book reviewer to show me the good stuff! Also, in case you’re curious, I found books 1-5 of Thongor (just in time for this video!), the Leigh Brackett’s Eric John Stark trilogy, Time Slave and Gor books 1-3 and 5 by John Norman, Ancient My Enemy by Gordon R. Dickson, and Tarzan books 7, 10, and 12 This month is really great for my paperback collection!
For a long time I've greatly appreciated Liam, you, and David Wiley as people I could discuss Appendix N writers and characters with in the video comments, etc. Great book recommendations, as always. I'm intrigued you didn't call it a "starter kit" like some of your other recent videos. Peace.
Cool. Jumped into Conan after viewing a few of your Robert E. Howard videos. Having a good time so far and it's been fun tracking the lancer books down(wanted to try Conan stories chronologically). Been eyeing some of the other authors on this list particularly Karl Edward Wagner but being relatively new to fantasy I figured it best to start with Howard. Great video!
Excellent video. I read a little bit of sword and sorcery last you for FFS and I enjoyed the Howard and Lieber stories I read. I need to read more of them, as well as Michael Moorcock. Also, the Kane series sounds absolutely incredible.
I don't know how long I been watching book tubers but I rarely try the many recommendations because of the thick book and multi-volume that people devour today when it comes to sword and sorcery stuff. I am realizing watching this that pretty much graphic novels and horror are what I have picked up based on recommendations which was one of the things I turned to book tube to stop doing. Between this and the last sci-fi vid I am seeing lots of interesting stuff that can hopefully fit in once I finish the things on my current tbr along with Edge. Thanks Michael!
Despite some flaws, I am enjoying the 'Sunset Warrior' series by Eric Van Lustbader. Lustbader is known for his contemporary thrillers and his 'Ninja' series, but this series were his first books and his dip into sword and sorcery.
Man I remmember the Ninja novels my dad had in his book shelf I read them when I was around 13 to 14 yo and its erotisim shocked me. I certainly squeezed and yanked the goose a lot reading about Nicholas Linnear antics in the bedroom.
The most egregious omission must be Henry Kuttner's Elak of Atlantis; a series ably continued in recent years by Adrian Cole, who also gave us his excellent Voidal trilogy of books.
Thanks for this. I've been meaning to read more S&S for years. I read some of the Elric books a while ago, and I love listening to the album _The Armor of Ire_ by the band Eternal Champion.
If I somehow ever become famous or influential I’m gonna mention your channel in every interview and make sure you have millions of subscribers . I watch quite a few book tubers , but you are hands down the best sir . I raise my chalice of mead and battle axes to you and tip my horned helmet .
Thongor was fun, Carter said it was his combination of John Carter of Mars and Conan, and it does capture those books. Great video, Michael, i would also add Elak of Atlantis, the first book i published under my Gryphon Books imprint way back in 1985. I have read all the books you mentioned, except the Leibers, don’t know why, and the Gemell , Legend, which i am looking forward to reading soon. Thanks for the fun video, was like a walk down s&s memory lane.
I’ve read just about everything Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock have written. These guys are metal as hell. Some other sword and sorcery series I’ve enjoyed are… Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Gotrek and Felix Tiger and Del Kane Legend of Drizzt Drenai Saga Vampire Hunter D Warrior Witch of Hel Jirel of Joiry Claymore and Berserk manga also scratch the same itch for me.
Geez, don’t scare me like that! Happy to see you again. - This batch of books are really great recommendations! We need the Eternal Champion to reappear on Earth! I’ve added Imaro to my TBR.
Sorry. I had to take my old dog, Pumpsie, to the emergency vet clinic early this morning and was there for hours. Turns out she has vestibular syndrome and is very dizzy.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Oh no! That can be very scary if you haven’t had a dog who’s been through it before! Sending hugs for Pumpsie! 🤗 Hope she feels better soon.
Brian Lumley's Tarra H'Rossak series is one of the best S&S series I have ever read. I should also recommend The Tritonian Ring by de Camp--it is hilarious and filled with adventure and intrigue. I would also be remiss if I didn't toss in Kuttner's Elak of Atlantis series--humurous and plenty of daring-do (the great Adrian Cole has written a follow-up series which I am getting ready to read about Elak as King!)
I've never heard of sword and sorcery before but these books seem pretty cool. I might check some of these out as swordfighting is something I find really cool and enjoy.
Great video! Assume you’re doing a separate one on John Norman? Looks like the Saunders books aren’t available on kindle over here which sucks. I read a story of his in an anthology recently and really liked it.
I'm making a list of fiction to get through, and I've added several of these to the list now. I wanted to mention The Night Lands, by Hodgson. I don't know if it strictly qualifies as S&S, but if Carpenter can make the list, why not. I've not yet red The Night Land myself, but the novelty of something that bizarre/sci-fi being written in 1912 is sufficient enough to fascinate me.
John Norman’s Gor series. They were of questionable literary quality, but he managed to write a LOT of books in the series. I only mention them because they were one of the first fantasy series I ever read.
Hopefully Wiskey will suffice - I'll put it in a horn though. :D Found a complete Jirel of Joiry the other day, so I'm excited to give fem-forties-fantasy-pulp a try - it's only 5 shorts, so it'll be quite manageable. I never heard of Imaro or Charles Saunders - here I was thinking Rage of Dragons and Black Leopard, Red Wolf was something new, but I guess it's just their rapid success that's new. Seems Saunders was able to finish a 30 years later cliffhanger with a book 4 in 2009, and some Imaro short stories shortly before his death, so hopefully people are noticing him.
Great stuff. I recently finished Legend and was thinking throughout the video that it definitely needed a shoutout ;) Can you believe I haven't read a single Conan novel? I think I was scarred by the Arnold movie. I may have to remedy this.
I've never read either but characters Jongor by Robert Moore Williams and Kyrik by Gardner F. Fox come to mind. I think I have some of these volumes but I have other S & S queued up to read first. Thanks for the review.
in Brazil we also have great stories of sword and sorcery the ones I remember are, the black dog of clonthaf, the swordsman of coal and Brakan. I hope all these stories and many more are published around the world.
I think sword & sorcery in general is pretty hit or miss, and I tend to attribute that to short stories sometimes being difficult to immerse yourself in. By the time you get accustomed to the characters and setting, the story is already over. That's been my recurring issue anyway, but I still love Conan, and Solomon Kane has inspired my own stories (I'm a writer btw). I know "The Witcher" is a ripoff of Elric of Melnibone, but I did enjoy the short story collection "The Last Wish", mainly because it was Gerald thrown into European fairy tales, and that was fun. Some of the old D&D novels are pretty underrated in my opinion, with "Azure Bonds" and "Elfshadow" both being pretty good. Older D&D kinda walks the line between high fantasy and sword & sorcery since the inspiration was much more the latter but became the former overtime. Great video as always. This channel has pretty much been my gateway to a lot of classic pulp.
I completely disagree that the Witcher series is a ripoff of Elric, though I will completely concede that the author took clear inspiration from Moorcock's work (despite denying it). When it comes to Elric and Geralt, aside from some very surface level details such as Geralt clearly being visually lifted from Elric (though the similarities only go so far as having white hair and using swords), the two characters are nothing alike in any way whatsoever in regards to their appearance, personality, and character. I would say the only egregious copies from Moorcock are Geralt sometimes being referred to as the White Wolf, which is just a nickname he gets because he belongs to the Wolf School of Witchers and his hair is white from mutations he received as a child in training, and the Conjunction of Spheres, which in the Witcher novels is event only mentioned a handful of times and is just window dressing, so it's easy to give it a pass. The two works as a whole are so demonstrably different from each other that it's hard to even compare the two apart from the very surface level details that are easily picked apart when the text is actually read - Elric is an epic, high fantasy, sword and sorcery saga while the Witcher is a very grounded, realistic and character driven story (where Geralt isn't even the "main character"). I didn't mean to suddenly jump in out of nowhere and write a thesis defending the books, but it does irk me when people make that claim when just reading the books disproves it entirely (unless one goes in with a bias to try and prove it's a ripoff, which at that point any detail will appear to be plagiarism). If you enjoyed The Last Wish then give Sword of Destiny a read. It's the second short story collection that starts off with fun romps through eastern European fairy tales and ends with some real exploration of the characters in the world, and leads into the novels (which are a bit more dry at the start, but still a solid read, albeit not very sword and sorcery and more just straight pulp - Baptism of Fire and Season of Storms are just fun shenanigans). As much as I do enjoy the Witcher books I would not compare them to Elric, which isn't to say the Witcher is poorly written. The Elric Saga is a masterclass of sword and sorcery and Moorcock's writing is pure elegance that should be experienced by any who enjoy fantasy, and very few works can compare to it. I don't whether people would consider them sword and sorcery, but the original Dragonlance Trilogy of D&D books is a fun romp, though I feel that's mostly because it just feels like you're reading a group's D&D campaign. I highly recommend them to anyone that just wants fun, light reading with a fantasy flair
@@lbpews9919couldn‘t agree more with what you said about Elric vs The Witcher. While the inspiration Elric had on Geralt is clear with certain details, the works as a whole are simply too different to call it a knock-off. Sucks though that Sapkowski seems to get defensive on this topic.
So far I think this is my favorite video of yours, Michael! Sword and sorcery is also my favorite genre and it’s just awesome to see someone give it the acknowledgment it deserves when there are so many who do not. Just curious, but do you by chance listen to any heavy metal at all? I ask because so much of the music is based on sword and sorcery.
I would say that Vance was more a general fantasy writer than one in the specific sword and sorcery subgenre, but I guess the border between those two are sometimes blurry. I wouldn't have called Elric sword and sorcery either, truth to be told. They seem to me quite the traditional fantasy. Dying earth tough, and yeah, specifically the two Cugel books, are a must.
Interestingly the book trader I go to says Micheal moorcock lived upstairs at his old house..and he’d hear him typing away on his type writer…. I’m currently reading leibers swords and devilry.
I was hoping you would mention Fritz Leiber! I love those stories so much. A more modern author is Joe Abercrombie. _The Blade Itself_ feels spawned, wholly formed, from Sword and Sorcery.
I think one of the things that makes Steven Erikson’s Malazan series so different from other epic fantasy is that it reads like tight sword and sorcery expanded to its’ most epic proportions. I believe you had started reading the series and I’d be curious to know if you agree. Aside from that, modern fantasy seems sadly lacking in S&S, unfortunately.
C S Friedman's cold fire trilogy might be good for a sword and sorcery fan. It is set in a world that could be Altair from Forbidden Planet but 20 generations later and instead of a machine that makes psychic energy solid it is various forms of energy fields produced by the planet. In order to survive on a planet where random thoughts shape reality the society has regressed back to a medieval model controlled by a central church. The church members are as devote as any but the reason for the church rather than religion is instead to create a universally accepted narrative so as to set the nature of reality on the planet. Due to thought affecting reality in this world machines and mechanical devices are all but non existant as thinking something might fail is enough to make it fail. One of the interesting things is also the fact the main hostile alien species in the series did not exist as intelligent beings before the humans arrived and in fact the planet had no sentient life at all. It was the humans fear of hostile intelligent life that warped the animals into what was feared by the colonists. They even have a church leader who was changed by a demon and bound to it even though the idea of the demon was invented by that church leader while making the religion. There is a good deal of sorcery in the series as well in the form of individuals harnessing this power for their own ends. You follow a brother Paul type monk in the series the standard good guy outsider on the hero's journey but instead of the hero and their companions fighting the big bad dark lord at the end the dark lord is his traveling companion and one of the protagonists of the story.
It's a fun genre which few, if any, authors seem to be writing nowadays. Any theories as to why? Scrolling through the S&S bestsellers in the Kindle Store you'll see a lot of self-published stuff, which is fine, but pretty much all of it would not qualify as S&S. Are today's S&S authors being crowded out by miscategorized non-S&S books?
The trend in fantasy has definitely gone to the epic, gigantic, high fantasy books that have done so well in the wake of Game of Thrones. S&S definitely seems to get less respect or interest.
If anyone has ever been fifteen and in a used book store, with a pocket full of change, they have read some of these books. I just now picked up The Best of C.L. Moore with a pink sticker that says $.25. I aways wonder how you know so much.
Great list. I"d recommend all these authors but I also think they are wildly uneven in quality. REH and C.L. Moore are probably the most consistent. Fritz Leiber wrote some stories as good as any one you could name (and I mean anyone) and some that were awful. I'd recommend Swords against Death as one of the strongest S&S collections, but his final Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser story "Mouser goes Below" was just awful. So you have to take the good with the bad. That said the good is very good.
Can't argue with any of your recommendations, such a great group of authors. Moorcock coined the contemporary meaning of the word multiverse, so came before DC's version, though they did ask him to come up with an explanation for their multiverse at one point. Wagner also did a Kane/Elric crossover.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 I'm just starting the 4th. Nice adventure/sword & sorcery with just a pinch of humor. BTW have you read any Ed Brubaker. His crime stuff is great. Got me reading comics again after decades.
If we’re giving a lot of weight to influence on the genre, I think Margaret Weis & Tracey Hickman would need to be included on a S&S list like this. Not as old as some of these others, but certainly pre-dated a lot by first hitting the scene in the mid-1980’s with their first DragonLance novels. Like them or not, it’s hard to deny their influence on S&S, with the DragonLance universe alone racking up nearly 200 books and roping in countless authors. Plus, their books are just plain fun 😊
Sadly the Kane books are quite difficult to find cheaply. The Mouser and Imaro series sound interesting. Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series (the first 3 anyway) are pretty good but he's getting cancelled, so you better read it before it gets difficult to find.
Do the Gor novels by John Norman qualify as S&S? I read a bunch of those 35-40 years ago . I enjoyed them , but, they did get seriously knocked as being feminist. Probably rightly so , but, beyond that they were a lot of fun to read.
I get the impression that today’s fantasy readers don’t go for books with covers depicting barrel-chested heroes with bloodied swords. It’s too intimidating. 😂 They prefer “strong female characters” and their clever friends who go on a quest together and no ever gets their skull split to the teeth. 😂
