The Classics of Sword & Sorcery Fantasy Literature 

I've read Howard and Moorcock. I was introduced to both authors when I was in grade school. I have been re-reading their stories over the years.

I contacted the publisher who holds the rights to Wagner’s work, and they are in the process of rereleasing his Kane stories, which currently are expensive and hard to come by in good condition, if anyone’s interested.

The fact that Karl Wagner's Kane books haven't been rereleased in modern editions is criminal.

There is FANTASTIC Fafherd and Grey Mouser comic book drawn by Mike MIgnola! WONDERFUL ART

Great King Liam has created the greatest video of all! All hail his wisdom and his might!

Its really cool that we can totally see your love for these books shining through while you lay out the characters. Im sold!

I’ve been a huge fan of Robert E Howard, Michael Moorcock, and Fritz Leiber since the late 1980s. I just recently this last January read Poul Anderson’s book, “The Broken Sword” I really enjoyed how it incorporated aspects of Norse and Irish mythology in the narrative. It also has forbidden love with the main protagonist and his biological sister. Great choices for Sword and Sorcery.

Thank you so much for pushing and spreading the word of sword and sorcery, you're voice is being heard by young readers, wanting to delve the wizard that yearns for knowledge and experience!

Keep the Sword & Sorcery coming! Love it! I’d love to see you show off all the books you have in this genre. Howard’s my favorite but I love almost all the authors you mentioned. Would enjoy some deeper dives into prose, characterization, world building and style between all those authors. Keep up the good work!

Tanith Lee - an excellent author. Gene Wolfe also.

Love your informative video, which brought back memories. I started reading S&S in the 1970s. Howard, Smith, Leiber, Vance, Moorcock, Dunsany, I read them all. Smith has remained a firm favorite because of his amazing (verbal) imagination. You're doing an excellent job. Kudos!

Ooh Imaro. I'm so happy someone mentioned this book. I really enjoyed the first book and the character. Took me forever to find the second book but wasn't enjoying it as much. Still need to finish it.

Leiber is my number one. Forgotten (?) by a lot of younger folk. ❤❤

The Death Dealer books by James Silke are fun, but gory.

One of the great later sword and sorcery series that a lot of people forget is the Theives World series of books it is a shared universe with stories written by a number of different authors all taking place for the most part in the city of Sactuary. It consists of 12 anthologies, and I believe 4 or 5 novels.

Heard the name Clark Ashton Smith but never read any of his work. This needs to change, sounds right up my alley.

I absolutely love Howard's stories, particularly his Conan stories. The Hour of the Dragon is fantastic. His Great Game stories (El Borak, etc.) are also epic tales. If I had to list my favorite author of all time, it would be Howard. Clark Ashton Smith is heavily underrated and sadly forgotten by most. He creates such bizarre and interesting worlds and creatures. I really like his Zothique stories.

CAS is my favorite so far. Read Lovecraft and Howard but Smith has such originality and mystic wonder in his writings that is unmatched. You read sentences that no other author could write. I hope to write like him, his philosophical outlook of taking the imagination outward instead of inward in morbid introspection helped him create those stories. Huge inspiration for DD when I DM as well. ❤

‘The Knight,’ ‘Soldier of the Mist,’ and ‘Soldier of Arete’ all by Gene Wolfe

I can't say I care for them, but before he started doing sprawling American historical melodramas, John Jakes wrote a series of S&S stories about Brak the Barbarian.

Perfect list. That is the essential. And my god, I love Kane so much.

Face in the Frost by Bellairs, Last Unicorn by Beagle, Red Moon, Black Mountain by Chant, Incomplete Enchanter by DeCamp

I would consider many of the stories in the Thieves' World anthologies to be S&S also.

I would not call Amber Sword and Sorcery but I agree that it is a must read 🙂

This was really great Liam! Thanks for doing this video. I’ve been wanting a good overview of where to start with classic S & S.

This was great! I've read a lot of these, especially the original masters, but it's good to know there are a few out there I've yet to get to. Thanks!

Holy crap Vecna . . . I never realized.

If anyone wants to try Tanith Lee, I could recommend her fairy tales in Red As Blood. They included a new story in the thirtieth anniversary reprint.

E. R. Eddison's "The Worm Ourboros" is a pretty good pre-Howard sword and sorcery / sword and planet story---IF you can adapt your brain to the pseudo-fifteenth-century writing style.

I'm hoping to read Fritz Leiber this next year! Thanks for making this.

Oh my, Howard or Lieber. It's a hard choice, but I suppose I'll have to say Lieber. I've read all of Conan except the novel and I just finished Swords Against Wizardry just recently. I love Sword and Sorcery. Thanks for the video. I've been watching for a while now.

Huge Lovecraft, REH, Zelazny, and Moorcock fan. Couple of good books that might fit the bill that I stumbled upon years ago are John Gardner’s Grendel (retelling of Beowulf from the monster’s PoV), and the true tales of Grettir from around 800 AD. He’s an Icelandic Viking outlaw.

That Vance cover looks like John Berkey. Love his stuff.

Read almost all of the big three, thanks for the secondary recommendations...never heard of Imaro before.

Excellent thumbnail!

Good video as always Liam. While I haven't read as much sword and sorcery as I would like, I think that it's an oft overlooked subgenre in fantasy, and I wish that wasn't the case. Keep it up!

For fun I checked The Dark Eidolon against Brian Murphy's definition. It hits all seven points!

Great presentation...glad you did it.

I still have to get my hands on Ashton-Smith.

I'd reccomend the Gotrek and Felix series by a few authors. For Clark Ashton Smith the 5 volume "complete Fantasies" set from Nightshade is great. You may also like the Throngor series by Lin Carter and mayber the Kothar the Barbarian books by Lin Carter, but those are sort of dollar-store Conan.

An informative video and perfectly timed for me as I've recently been introduced to the genre with Brackett, Shea and Moore. Having read the first Nifft the Lean book I'd love to hear your thoughts on it but as you say, its ridiculously hard to find. I'm really looking forward to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser now that i have them all.

Wow - terrific video! How on Earth did you keep it under 20 minutes?

I'm confused: Edgar Rice Burroughs published the John Carter, Warlord of Mars (Conan before Conan existed) character 20 years before Robert E. Howard in the story Princess of Mars. Why isn't he even mentioned in this list? Robert E. Howard probably grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Bit late to the party. But I enjoyed this video. I’m definitely going to check out C.L. Moore’s work.

Great List. Just went and ordered a used copy of Harpy's Flight.

Clifford Ball (only a handful of stories you can find in Weird Tales post-REH's passing, Henry Kuttner (C.L.Moore's spouse), and Gardner Fox (Kothar)

Latro is awesome

While not strictly S&S, you might like "The World of Tiers" series by Philip Jose Farmer. Instead of sorcery it has godlike science that modern humans must defeat using wit, cunning, and strength. I was really into it in the '60s during my S&S period. I have no idea how hard to find the books might be now. A prolific author of this century in the Fantasy realm is Lois McMaster Bujold, who has won four Hugo awards. "Paladin of Souls" is quite good and led me to buy more of her work. Lastly, Ann Leckie has one novel, "The Raven Tower" and several shorts in her own fantasy world. Leckie is also a Hugo winner, for sci-fi. She is a current working author who is worth your time to sample. If you are into the Marvel comic books, I have a box of Conan and Krull I am willing to part with. 😎 Shameless plug.

Great video. I’ve been wanting to read Charles Saunders, but as you pointed out, he can be hard to find. Can you suggest any other African-inspired fantasy? (Besides Marlon James)

Check out the "Grey Maiden" stories by Howden Smith. In them the primary character is a sword.

Really cool video. You mentioned Latro and Nifft the Lean, which makes me think you’re an Old Moon Quarterly fan (the magazine recommends those as “weird S&S” books). If u are an OM reader, I’d love to know your thoughts on it, especially on Graham Thomas Wilcox’s stories!

I'm loving sword & sorcery lately. I managed to track down a copy of Nifft the Lean; looking forward to that. Wolfe's Soldier novels (Soldier of the Mist etc.) don't strike me as particularly sword & sorcery. I think The Book of the New Sun has more prominent S&S elements than Soldier does.

If we think of them as pillars of weird fiction, Howard is of a very Doric order, Lovecraft of an Ionic, and Smith of a Corinthian one? Or, perhaps, Howard's more stripped-bare, Spartan style contrasts with the Neoclassicist style of Lovecraft & the lapidary style of Smith....

For me the first two books in the Witcher series is Sword and Sorcery. There great short stories. But then in book 3 and onward it's more your typical epic fantasy.

Gurthang of Turin Turambar is the black sword! Actually both are inspired by the finnish folk tale of Kullervo.

"Dilvish the Damned" is great. Don't put it off. And, the Ladro series by Gene Wolfe ("Soldier in the Mist") is superb.

Quag Keep. The Guardians of the Flame. 0:59

Thanks for the note on how to pronounce 'Leiber'.

Would you consider Reymond Feist's books as sword & sorcery or high fantasy ?

Cool video bro! But you have to correct the first two and the last time stamps... Their names are "Moorcock", "Leiber" and "Hobb"...

Who are the people in the thumbnail?

Howard is the best. He stands only behind Tolkien in general Fantasy. Sword and Sorcery he rules, Leiber and Moorcook aren’t even close. Poul Anderson comes close here and there.

Just out of curiosity, when you were talking about Imaro and you said he's like Tarzan, actually black Tarzan, are you just distinguishing a difference between the two or are you claiming Tarzen should have been black, instead of a white man? Cause in the original story, he's a white European. I hate to bring it up, but it's been bugging how to interpret that. Could you shed some light on that? Thank you.

The Latro stories are Historical Fantasy not sword and sorcery. There probably is a S&S influence there though. Wolfe being a fan of Howard, Leiber, Smith and Vance.

Try Jennifer Roberson’s first book.

I've read Robin Hobb. Wasn't impressed. Everyone I know was telling me how amazing she was. How talented. Blah. Blah. Blah. Nope. Ursula LeGuin. Now THERE'S a good female fantasy author. Clark Ashton Smith. He's pretty impressive, too. But Robin Hobb is terribad. Oh and Robert E. Howard? Yawn. He spent PAGES of the Conan novels I read describing Conan's muscular boobs but only one paragraph about the Lich he was trying to kill. He had a really cool mummy in one story, but dude only had a few lines. In the classic "show don't tell"....Howard did the opposite. He told us in a brief paragraph that Conan did a thing, then would wax eloquent for endless paragraphs about Conan's massive chest boobies. I mean, COME ON! Howard was the epitome of "excellent ideas, terrible execution."