Great essay especially the part about the idea of stakes being local, man that's such an interesting perspective. I really want to write an essay analysing this aspect of your essay. This was a brilliant piece!
I feel it tracks that Sword and Sorcery is local. There are always exceptions, but most of the stories I've read take place in a city, or a castle, or on a ship maybe. Occasionally Conan does travel the world in a single story, like in hour of the dragon, Queen of the Black Coast, or to a lesser extent, People of the black circle.
Still, Sword and Sorcery usually doesn't involve globe trotting. It's usually centered in one place at one time.
So far that’s generally been the rule with my own S&S stories, and a trend that I intend to keep to as it helps simplify and keep the stories more or less straightforward.
The first two books my father gave me as a child was Louis L'Amour's the Sackett Brand, and Robert E. Howard's Conan. Tell Sackett and Conan have a lot in common.
Oh, of course! If it sounded like I thought that, I didn't. I understand it's a big question. My reason for asking was so I could better understand your essay. It's provoked a lot of thought, for which I'm quite grateful!
The three volume set in Conan from Del Rey. There is also a one volume set for Solomon Kane and one for Kull. If Robert E Howards name is attached, it's the standard.
If you like really, really weird, Elric by Micheal Moorecock is your jam.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Lieber is some of the best, although his style leaves much to be desired (in my opinion).
I haven't read Imaro by Charles Saunders, but only because I can't find it. I hear it's excellent.
Jirel of Jorey is a female protagonist, by C.L. Moore.
For more modern sword and sorcery, look out for Savage Realms Monthly, DMR books, Eric Waag, Steve Dilks, Matt Johns, and the best modern writer, Howard Andrew Jones.
I’ve been recently getting into Pulp and adventure stories. Solomon Kane is a personal favorite of mine. Got the Del Rey collection of his adventures last year for my birthday and loved it.
For anyone enjoys adventure/treasure hunts check out Fire in the Tall Grass:
A day late in responding, but man that means a lot. Loved Neither Beg Nor Yield, especially the Samurai story. Freaking awesome collection. Maybe someday one of my stories will grace the pages of such an anthology. Not today, but maybe someday.
"Sword and Sorcery is local. Its stakes are personal, not global. Its heroes are more interested in fortune and glory, freedom, and getting out of the dungeon in one piece."
I respectfully disagree.
Look at the story title The God in the Bowl by R. E. Howard.
In it, Conan is to steal a gem-encrusted goblet from the house of Kallian Publico, a collector of rarities, for a snotty nobleman. He's caught by the security guard who summons the city watch. The watch investigates, certain not all is as it seems.
The God in the bowl is on the loose; it's already killed Kallian Publico.
The upshot is the purely local, the immediate setting and motivations. Beyond these motivations lay the greed of Kallian Publico who intercepted the bowl-shaped sarcophagus by chance/luck/fate and chose to open it, sealing his doom.
Yet behind KPs motivation lay even greater motivations: the war between a high priest of Set and Kalanthes of Hanumar, a priest of Ibis. What we have is an intersection of events that start with the priests of one cosmic deity taking a shot at a priest of a different cosmic deity. This war in heaven manifested itself in earthly terms in the form of the ancient sarcophagus, sent by one to the other. This is the cosmic level drawn down to the mundane by the caravan when they dump the sarcophagus on Kallian Publico.
KPs greed for what he thinks the ancient relic contains motivates him to open it.
The greed of the snotty nobleman motivates him to hire Conan to steal something from Kallian of great value, but in no way connected to the sarcophagus.
Conan's greed pushes him to take the heist on as a professional job.
The priestly warfare lends a cosmic scale of import to the mundane events of Conan's hired theft of an entirely different artifact. This is only touched on in the story as distant background to the robbery.
The hired Cimmerian housebreaker is then accused by the watch of the death of KP as well as theft, Conan carves up some watchmen, the god in the bowl makes its presence known, the not-dead-or-dying all flee, and Conan goes full Cuisinart on the thing's snaky ass.
He then flees after that.
I think that shows how a cosmic level of importance is often interwoven into purely Sword&Sorcery stories that are otherwise quite mundane and base in nature. I bet if you look again, you'll see this same cosmic-significance-in the-distance model at work in many S&S stories. R. E. Howard's tales often had this vast backdrop in play, though it is easily lost in spraying blood, gleaming gold, and jiggling heaving bosoms of the scantily clad hotties.
Valid points, although I still think my assertion stands. You are pointing to the background of the story, Conan, in the foreground, stumbles into those things and does not further involve himself when he flees. So that means the story is local and that Conan's concern is fortune, glory, freedom and getting out alive. Not to say your critique is misplaced, only that the story concerns itself with Conan's involvement and only with Conan's involvement.
Indeed, if there is a larger cosmic consequence, we are not shown it. But it is curious the sarcophagus turns up in the exact same time-frame he's hired for a heist. It has the feel of pawns making moves on a chessboard. Conan doesn't involve himself in much of the story; he stands and glowers at the watch until time comes to cuisinart them and the woman-headed snake. Conan is often more like Shardik; a force of nature growling and raging through the lives of ordinary men. In that respect, my argument is stronger. Conan is a force of the cosmos just as are the higher players. He does this in many of the stories.
Fun to think about. I agree: there's an ease of reading that goes with Sword & Sorcery stories. I don't recall the name of the story offhand, but Conan runs away from a failed coup in the jungle lands. He winds up hoofing it across the veldt only to be forced into a strange ancient temple. While he's there, slaver take shelter from the storms in the lower part of the structure. A hundred-headed, hundred-armed ghost manifests into a physical being and attacks the slavers. Brilliant stuff, how he wove together all the elements and the sickening horror of the thing as it materializes out of the darkness to rend and slay. Conan quite wisely stays out of the fight and runs away. At times, he seems more a tourist. At others, more like Shardik. And still other times he's fully involved. Curious way to rolll a character along.
First of all, I think you've done an excellent job and I enjoyed reading this piece. Thanks for sharing it!
Your definition of sword and sorcery, which I am deeply appreciative of, makes me wonder about genre in general; I've been given to understand that genre is a way of categorizing similar stories, not primarily as templates for other stories. Of course, similar stories will be, well, similar, but those similarities arise out of the composition, not the genre. At least, that's my perspective.
As for genre, man... I've thought about this at length. What the heck is genre? I don't think genre and setting are mutually exclusive, and yet we cannot exactly separate them. For instance, is a Western still a western if you place it in feudal Japan? Well, that's Yojimbo, a movie about a samurai that very much works as a western. So no, it's not a western in setting, but it is at heart.
LotR and Conan are both fantasy but they aren't exactly the same kind of story. Here they seem to share a setting, but they don't have too much in common after that.
And then there is the discussion of tropes. I'll discuss more about the tropes in sword and sorcery in an upcoming post, but for now, I can say that tropes, structures, and philosophy seem to be a huge part of the discussion.
Take Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, and Star Wars. All three are Sci-fi, but two of them concern themselves with philosophy and act as a metaphor for reality. Star Wars, however, is more like Lord of the Rings. It uses the hero's journey and features elaborate space battles and duels between good and evil.
So these discussions go deep. Is genre just setting? It's it a series of tropes? Does it only categorize types of stories or is it messier than that, for lack of a better word.
I think it includes those things, but also transcends them. It comes right back down to our notions of what a story is and what it's not. I think it can include story structure as well, but it feels really fluid.
Maybe that's a good way to think of it. Maybe genre is fluid? These are the kinds of questions I wrestle with so often, because High and Epic Fantasy seem to have clear definitions, but Sword and Sorcery can almost bleed in and out of other subgenres, and yet is definitely recognizable as it's own entity.
You are playing the role of Socratese, good sir, and I am Meno, and now we are asking the questions that lead to the truth.
Haha! Happy to play a part in a socratic dialogue. I hope I don't seem pedantic, but I really do wonder what you mean when you say genre. I completely understand that it is difficult to establish the meaning clearly, but what do you mean when you use it?
If I had to choose a definition off the cuff, without being able to think through it and clearly define it, I would say it is a method for broad categorization with the caveat that it is very messy and some things are harder to categorize than others, especially when things become more and more specific.
A great rallying cry to grab a sword and dive in! Sometimes I find Sword and Sorcery has this passion that some other stories are lacking, maybe is the closeness, the events are immediate, swift, and unburdened.
Recently I started to get back into the genre, finding so many I missed when I was young. Diving into Elric of Melniboné, transports me back to those fantastic worlds.
This was such a refreshing perspective! I’m into High Fantasy right now, so very much the idea of slow worldbuilding and story. But I’d love to dive into a book like this. Do you have a list of recommendations?
My loyalties are really split between Epic Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery. My first love in fantasy was Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. As usual with Zelazny, it's hard to classify. The best I can do is that Lord Corwin is a Sword and Sorcery protagonist in an Epic Fantasy world.
Only later did I come to grips with Robert E Howard, JRR Tolkien, and the rest.
Great essay especially the part about the idea of stakes being local, man that's such an interesting perspective. I really want to write an essay analysing this aspect of your essay. This was a brilliant piece!
I feel it tracks that Sword and Sorcery is local. There are always exceptions, but most of the stories I've read take place in a city, or a castle, or on a ship maybe. Occasionally Conan does travel the world in a single story, like in hour of the dragon, Queen of the Black Coast, or to a lesser extent, People of the black circle.
Still, Sword and Sorcery usually doesn't involve globe trotting. It's usually centered in one place at one time.
So far that’s generally been the rule with my own S&S stories, and a trend that I intend to keep to as it helps simplify and keep the stories more or less straightforward.
The first two books my father gave me as a child was Louis L'Amour's the Sackett Brand, and Robert E. Howard's Conan. Tell Sackett and Conan have a lot in common.
Your father raised you right! My dad also introduced me to Louis L'Amour!
Oh, of course! If it sounded like I thought that, I didn't. I understand it's a big question. My reason for asking was so I could better understand your essay. It's provoked a lot of thought, for which I'm quite grateful!
Absolutely!!
Excellent essay! I hope you like my Sword and Railgun works :)
Sword and railgun??? Color me intrigued!
This was a really great perspective and now I'm going to need your recommendations
I have SO MANY.
The three volume set in Conan from Del Rey. There is also a one volume set for Solomon Kane and one for Kull. If Robert E Howards name is attached, it's the standard.
If you like really, really weird, Elric by Micheal Moorecock is your jam.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Lieber is some of the best, although his style leaves much to be desired (in my opinion).
I haven't read Imaro by Charles Saunders, but only because I can't find it. I hear it's excellent.
Jirel of Jorey is a female protagonist, by C.L. Moore.
For more modern sword and sorcery, look out for Savage Realms Monthly, DMR books, Eric Waag, Steve Dilks, Matt Johns, and the best modern writer, Howard Andrew Jones.
This is greatly appreciate by present me but future me is cursing you for the loss of productivity I'm about to experience. This is amazing thank you!
Haha! I am not sorry I did this to your future self.
Yep, good summation. Just in case, here's some fun - hope you enjoy it )).
https://thomastheobald.substack.com/p/servant-of-empire-chapter-list
I’ve been recently getting into Pulp and adventure stories. Solomon Kane is a personal favorite of mine. Got the Del Rey collection of his adventures last year for my birthday and loved it.
For anyone enjoys adventure/treasure hunts check out Fire in the Tall Grass:
https://a.co/d/61q7YkH
L.S. Goozdich is a good friend of mine and I am so happy he released fire in the tall grass. Can't wait to read it.
Oh cool. I just finished it today. Well worth the price. Great article. 👍
Fun description and exploration of why S&S and its ilk are so enjoyable.
A day late in responding, but man that means a lot. Loved Neither Beg Nor Yield, especially the Samurai story. Freaking awesome collection. Maybe someday one of my stories will grace the pages of such an anthology. Not today, but maybe someday.
And in turn, THAT means a lot - thank you for reading the anthology and especially for loving it!
If people don't love it, they have issues.
"Sword and Sorcery is local. Its stakes are personal, not global. Its heroes are more interested in fortune and glory, freedom, and getting out of the dungeon in one piece."
I respectfully disagree.
Look at the story title The God in the Bowl by R. E. Howard.
In it, Conan is to steal a gem-encrusted goblet from the house of Kallian Publico, a collector of rarities, for a snotty nobleman. He's caught by the security guard who summons the city watch. The watch investigates, certain not all is as it seems.
The God in the bowl is on the loose; it's already killed Kallian Publico.
The upshot is the purely local, the immediate setting and motivations. Beyond these motivations lay the greed of Kallian Publico who intercepted the bowl-shaped sarcophagus by chance/luck/fate and chose to open it, sealing his doom.
Yet behind KPs motivation lay even greater motivations: the war between a high priest of Set and Kalanthes of Hanumar, a priest of Ibis. What we have is an intersection of events that start with the priests of one cosmic deity taking a shot at a priest of a different cosmic deity. This war in heaven manifested itself in earthly terms in the form of the ancient sarcophagus, sent by one to the other. This is the cosmic level drawn down to the mundane by the caravan when they dump the sarcophagus on Kallian Publico.
KPs greed for what he thinks the ancient relic contains motivates him to open it.
The greed of the snotty nobleman motivates him to hire Conan to steal something from Kallian of great value, but in no way connected to the sarcophagus.
Conan's greed pushes him to take the heist on as a professional job.
The priestly warfare lends a cosmic scale of import to the mundane events of Conan's hired theft of an entirely different artifact. This is only touched on in the story as distant background to the robbery.
The hired Cimmerian housebreaker is then accused by the watch of the death of KP as well as theft, Conan carves up some watchmen, the god in the bowl makes its presence known, the not-dead-or-dying all flee, and Conan goes full Cuisinart on the thing's snaky ass.
He then flees after that.
I think that shows how a cosmic level of importance is often interwoven into purely Sword&Sorcery stories that are otherwise quite mundane and base in nature. I bet if you look again, you'll see this same cosmic-significance-in the-distance model at work in many S&S stories. R. E. Howard's tales often had this vast backdrop in play, though it is easily lost in spraying blood, gleaming gold, and jiggling heaving bosoms of the scantily clad hotties.
Valid points, although I still think my assertion stands. You are pointing to the background of the story, Conan, in the foreground, stumbles into those things and does not further involve himself when he flees. So that means the story is local and that Conan's concern is fortune, glory, freedom and getting out alive. Not to say your critique is misplaced, only that the story concerns itself with Conan's involvement and only with Conan's involvement.
Indeed, if there is a larger cosmic consequence, we are not shown it. But it is curious the sarcophagus turns up in the exact same time-frame he's hired for a heist. It has the feel of pawns making moves on a chessboard. Conan doesn't involve himself in much of the story; he stands and glowers at the watch until time comes to cuisinart them and the woman-headed snake. Conan is often more like Shardik; a force of nature growling and raging through the lives of ordinary men. In that respect, my argument is stronger. Conan is a force of the cosmos just as are the higher players. He does this in many of the stories.
That's definitely an interpretation, and it's as valid as any. I love how endlessly discussable this stuff is.
Fun to think about. I agree: there's an ease of reading that goes with Sword & Sorcery stories. I don't recall the name of the story offhand, but Conan runs away from a failed coup in the jungle lands. He winds up hoofing it across the veldt only to be forced into a strange ancient temple. While he's there, slaver take shelter from the storms in the lower part of the structure. A hundred-headed, hundred-armed ghost manifests into a physical being and attacks the slavers. Brilliant stuff, how he wove together all the elements and the sickening horror of the thing as it materializes out of the darkness to rend and slay. Conan quite wisely stays out of the fight and runs away. At times, he seems more a tourist. At others, more like Shardik. And still other times he's fully involved. Curious way to rolll a character along.
Great write up man. I definitely learned something new today!
Happy to be of service!
As a longtime writer and reader of fantasy, I loved the way you broke this down. Thanks!!!
I am so happy you enjoyed it!
First of all, I think you've done an excellent job and I enjoyed reading this piece. Thanks for sharing it!
Your definition of sword and sorcery, which I am deeply appreciative of, makes me wonder about genre in general; I've been given to understand that genre is a way of categorizing similar stories, not primarily as templates for other stories. Of course, similar stories will be, well, similar, but those similarities arise out of the composition, not the genre. At least, that's my perspective.
What are your thoughts on the function of genre?
Thanks for the kind words!
As for genre, man... I've thought about this at length. What the heck is genre? I don't think genre and setting are mutually exclusive, and yet we cannot exactly separate them. For instance, is a Western still a western if you place it in feudal Japan? Well, that's Yojimbo, a movie about a samurai that very much works as a western. So no, it's not a western in setting, but it is at heart.
LotR and Conan are both fantasy but they aren't exactly the same kind of story. Here they seem to share a setting, but they don't have too much in common after that.
And then there is the discussion of tropes. I'll discuss more about the tropes in sword and sorcery in an upcoming post, but for now, I can say that tropes, structures, and philosophy seem to be a huge part of the discussion.
Take Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, and Star Wars. All three are Sci-fi, but two of them concern themselves with philosophy and act as a metaphor for reality. Star Wars, however, is more like Lord of the Rings. It uses the hero's journey and features elaborate space battles and duels between good and evil.
So these discussions go deep. Is genre just setting? It's it a series of tropes? Does it only categorize types of stories or is it messier than that, for lack of a better word.
Interesting. Do you think genre means setting and tropes then?
I think it includes those things, but also transcends them. It comes right back down to our notions of what a story is and what it's not. I think it can include story structure as well, but it feels really fluid.
Maybe that's a good way to think of it. Maybe genre is fluid? These are the kinds of questions I wrestle with so often, because High and Epic Fantasy seem to have clear definitions, but Sword and Sorcery can almost bleed in and out of other subgenres, and yet is definitely recognizable as it's own entity.
You are playing the role of Socratese, good sir, and I am Meno, and now we are asking the questions that lead to the truth.
Haha! Happy to play a part in a socratic dialogue. I hope I don't seem pedantic, but I really do wonder what you mean when you say genre. I completely understand that it is difficult to establish the meaning clearly, but what do you mean when you use it?
If I had to choose a definition off the cuff, without being able to think through it and clearly define it, I would say it is a method for broad categorization with the caveat that it is very messy and some things are harder to categorize than others, especially when things become more and more specific.
Nice, asked and answered. Thanks indulging my curiosity. Looking forward to more of your writing!
Nah, it's all good. Glad my little article is doing its job!
A great rallying cry to grab a sword and dive in! Sometimes I find Sword and Sorcery has this passion that some other stories are lacking, maybe is the closeness, the events are immediate, swift, and unburdened.
Recently I started to get back into the genre, finding so many I missed when I was young. Diving into Elric of Melniboné, transports me back to those fantastic worlds.
This was such a refreshing perspective! I’m into High Fantasy right now, so very much the idea of slow worldbuilding and story. But I’d love to dive into a book like this. Do you have a list of recommendations?
My loyalties are really split between Epic Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery. My first love in fantasy was Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. As usual with Zelazny, it's hard to classify. The best I can do is that Lord Corwin is a Sword and Sorcery protagonist in an Epic Fantasy world.
Only later did I come to grips with Robert E Howard, JRR Tolkien, and the rest.