I’m a big heavy metal fan and actually discovered Conan and Elric through the music I listen to. I grew to love the S&S genre as a whole over the years. I’m 27 and almost everyone I know my age doesn’t even know what sword and sorcery is, I wish it got more attention and appreciation. For those that love Elric, I would recommend the other Eternal Champion stories as well. Corum is awesome and Erekose does a good job of explaining how the inner workings of the multiverse function. I would also recommend Kane by Karl Edward Wagner Warrior Witch of Hel by Asa Drake Thongor by Lin Carter Tiger and Del by Jennifer Roberson Elak of Atlantis by Henry Kuttner Death Dealer by James Silke
Many thanks, very kind of you-please delve into the extensive backlist and watch older videos as this channel is slow growing and needs support. The main reason why you're enjoying it is that I'm a book trade professional, so I have an insider perspective developed over forty years -while there are some great SFF youtubers out there, few - of any- can boast of my longterm status as a book trade worker and author. Thanks again.
Thanks for this amazing video, with some friends we are starting a book club and we needed some S&S books, now we have them all. Without a doubt the BEST book content on the platform.
Thanks for the recommendations. I’m 23 (maybe I count as one of your younger viewers lol), but originally I was very invested in Lovecraft’s work because of how influential he is today and decided to do a deep dive into his work. Imagine my surprise when I went down a rabbit hole and found out about his friends Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard and sword and sorcery as a whole. I feel like this is the type of genre I’ve been looking for my whole life, so it’s a great pleasure to have found this video and gotten your wonderful recommendations and descriptions of these works. Can’t wait to get into them.
I'll keep them coming - I do wish more women would watch the channel, very pleased to have you here, I think a lot of younger female readers are missing the best stuff by sticking to their peer group.
Loved this. Will be working my way through these as and when I need to scratch the fantasy itch. Great insight to the books and authors rather than the tedious retelling of the plot you see elsewhere - loving your work. Cheers.
A great "Best of the Best" list, with historical overview as well. Thank you! It was very helpful. I picked up Leiber's "Swords against..." 1 & 2 as soon as it was done. Lots of info-treasure in this piece to mine!
Wow! I always thought SF stories were traditionally prudish. But apparently not Leiber. The Snow woman has a veritable sex-show in it, as well as using the c-word and other naughty words and actions. You must be a saucey fellow, Stephen!
So pleased you started with R.E. Howard. His lively Conan stories were what ignited my lifelong love of reading. They had a breezy yet visceral style and tone that was thrilling to experience - very different from modern-day high fantasy. There was also an element of the occult/horror which actually felt menacing and gave the plots an edge of suspense. By the way I really enjoy and appreciate the relaxed pace you take on this channel. It's nice to hear some historical and thematic context behind the works you discuss. Looking forward to trying the other authors I may have missed.
I always remember reading Elric.... Stormbringer on a school trip coach journey in the 80s. I just about finished the entire book within the journey. I love the artwork associated with moorcock and agree the titles are so inspiring. What a refreshing change from six months plodding through the shire....
You said it. 'Stormbringer' was my first Elric too, since it was the first full Elric novel, though the 'last' in the internal chronology. New readers struggle with stuff like this, but to me it's the essence of MM - law versus chaos and both are necessary.
I would definitely say that the Zothique stories by Clark Ashton Smith had a influence on Jack Vance's Dying Earth. The Dying Earth stories are brilliant.
I loved the wizard type characters from Vance's Dying Earth stories. They were so petty and base in their motivations and traits, that it gave a great level of character based humor to it. "Jubilaar the Magnificent wore a hat with more wizard stars on it than my own, to my birthday party! I must destroy him and enslave his family!!"
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I'm looking forward too it. I also like your bit about the brevity of sword-and-sorcery. Out of the Conan stories that Howard wrote, I think fifteen or so are novelette length. It's my favorite length. Very snappy, but still chunky enough to be a story rather that a quick scene like short stories.
Appendix N has gotten me reading a ton of books lately. I've read the first 2 books in the Lankhmar series, the first 2 Barsoon books, The first Elric story, and the first Corum book. That's in the last few months.
A truly inspiring video. Great insights. Helpful advice. Beautiful books. Thank you. I wish I'd had this advice 30 years ago but there you go. I found my way to some of these through trial and error. Now I'm going to read the ones I missed.
This was the kind of advice I was giving daily in the 1980s before the best stuff was swamped by an endless tide of ongoing series of enormous tedium and predictability. Glad you liked it.
I've been reading SF and fantasy since the early 70s and I am getting such a kick out of seeing the same editions of books I have owned, read and loved since then!
I'll be honest, I've only ever flicked through them. I met Ken Bulmer once (his usual byline), nice fellow and a British SF stalwart. I tend to avoid massive series like that due to the inevitability of resurgent formula. I cleave to pioneers when I'm in this mode and find short stories by the likes of the original S&S writers far more enjoyable than anything written after the 1960s, Moorcock, Harrison and Shea excepted. My interest in Fantasy is really in its historical relationship in authorship and publishing to SF. Once Del Rey got Brooks off the ground, it was pretty much Game Over for true S&S. Eventually it was co-opted into Tolkienesque High Fantasy by the likes of George R R Martin and Steven Erikson and became 'Grimdark', but it's simply not my thing. Fleet, hard, fast and in small doses does it for me and irregularly, I'm afraid!
A great video, fascinating. Like you I'm more of an SF reader, but I do appreciate good, literary fantasy. I have a NESFA edition of de Camp's time travel stories, Years In The Making.
Several people have mentioned Wagner. He never had much presence in the UK market, so isn't really part of my pantheon, but he arguably has a place among the greats.
My first Conan story I read was the Tower of the Elephant and I was astonished how imaginative Robert was. It's immensely tragic that he never got to see how much his work influenced people.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I want to thank you for introducing me to Jirel of Joiry. I'm a massive Red Sonja fan and I didn't know of C. L. Moore's existence.
@@doublestarships646 -Wow, Jirel is knid of tailor made for you then! Good News. Strongly recommend her Northwest Smith stories too, just sheer pulp genius!
Talk aboUt tiring.....I was cleaning the tub/shower while listening to this😂. Your vid was the proverbial "spoonful of sugar"! Outstanding video.... I bought the Conan collection by Gollanz.
This list of yours is like a summary of all my favourite writers. I began reading fiction not that long ago, around 2008 or so, but the first things I read were all the fantasy and sf masterworks by gollancz and that cemented what became my favourites. Jack Vance, M John Harrison, Le Guin, Leiber, these are among my favourite writers. A really solid list. I would have added Clark Ashton Smith and Roger Zelazny too.
I can't argue with that. You clearly have taste a cut above the average Fantasy reader- those Masterworks are Masterworks for many reasons, as you've probably divined. Trouble is, you read stuff this good and after that will struggle to find much in the genre that matches these seminal works.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Most of today's bloated fantasy trilogies I skip. I gravitate more towards SF and what they call New Weird, what Harrison, Mieville and Vandermeer were doing. The only fantasy mega-series that I thought was worth the investment, besides the first books of A Song of Ice and Fire, is the Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. Erikson really has a different approach to writing epic fantasy. He utilises literary techniques and essentially writes short stories which combine together to form big books. And he has a very strong thematic focus. I find his series a proud continuation of what fantasy is capable of, as an extension of Howard, Moorcock, Zelazny and Glen Cook. Other than that, most fantasy series make me tired just looking at the books in the store.
One of my favourite pre-Tolkien fantasy books is Clark Ashton Smith's _Zothique_ collection of short stories. CAS is, to me, the perfect balance of Howard and Lovecraft (with whom he was associated, of course).
Three authors that you mention I am very familiar with and are some of my favorite Robert E. Howard, Poul Anderson (Broken Sword), and Michael Moorecock. I have read a great deal of his work, Elric was my favorite character and I just got absorbed into the Elric series. Thank you for the detail in categorizing the different types of fantasy and sci fi. I can articulate what I am looking for.
Excellent choices. I have been a big R. E. Howard fan since the early 70s, and love most of the authors you present here. I took notes as you were speaking, and your top 10 appears to be a top 12 1/2 (which is fine by me): Vance, Lieber, Howard, Moore, DeCamp and Pratt, Anderson, Brunner, Moorcock, LeGuin, Harrison, Shea, Martin, and Zelazny (the 1/2 bonus). I was a bookseller starting back in 1974 for several years. What an interesting time for Fantasy. In America, Harrison was not as well known as he was/is in England. I just picked up the Viriconium a while ago, and am in the middle of the first book (so far, so good). I will keep your 'deconstruction' evaluation in mind as I read going forward. I will search your channel and see if you have more to say about this and on Harrison; but I would love to know more about how you think he was deconstructing Sword and Sorcery in the Viriconium (usually we think of deconstructionism as a method of critical analysis used by critics, and not used initially by authors as they write their works). A video on this would be interesting. I had come to the conclusion a while ago that rereading some of these authors would be a good use of my time. I have a copy of the del Ray edition of The Broken Sword which I need to track down and reread. I also enjoy planetary romance, and am planning on rereading the Mars series by E. R. Burroughs.
All good stuff you're naming there. I will be doing some specific things on M John, as I know him a little and I'm thinking about his role in the Science Fantasy debate: is it science or magic? Something on this coming next year...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Well, from what I have seen so far in the Viriconium, his prose is top notch, and his 'world' is certainly 'fantastic.' Swordsmen fighting alongside characters in mechanized body armor! I will look forward to this video from you as well. It reminds me (of course I am only partially into the first book) of planetary romance, in the sense that it takes place on what appears to be a different planet, with a combination of fantasy and science fiction elements.
Matt at Bookpilled is a good guy and then some. Stick with me, check out the backlist and get watching it and your knowledge will swell accordingly...more Fantasy to come, particularly classic S&S, Tolkien and Literary Fantasy.
Great selection! I have read at least some books of all the ones mentioned but two: Shea and Moore (I admittedly have never heard of her but it sounds very interesting). "The broken sword" is too dark to be my absolute favorite but it's a stunning book, far more atmospheric, darker and better written than what passed for "grimdark" in the last 25 years. (I had forgotten that this was so old, I thought it was from the late 60s). I also love Jack Vance, but I slightly prefer Lyonesse to Dying Earth, although it's less consistent. The first Lyonesse is by far the best,, the second starts well but end bizarrely and the last one has a very rushed ending because Vance's health was faiilng (but later recovered). It's less Sword & Sorcery, more high fantasy/medieval romance but has dark, twisted and funny elements as well.
Watch my latest video on collecting SF special editions and you'll see some lovely Vance books near the end. There is also a video about Moore on the channel posted last oct/nov but it focuses more on her SF.
Great video, i think you hit it square on about Elric and Moorcock’s great heroic fantasy, not just Elric, but he was amazing. I would definitely add Clark Ashton Smith, and while you are right that CL Moore is terrific and neglected, her husband, Henry Kuttner was also excellent, his Elak of Atlantis stories are very Conan and Kull like, The 2 Prince Raynor pulp tales are fun. Thanks for this very interesting and informative video.
that was my introduction to sword and sorcery fiction that particular Conan book! Tower Of The Elephant is my absolute fave Conan tale, I eventually discovered Michael Moorcock and Elric too
Thanks for this brilliant video! I've recently gotten into Robert E. Howard's Conan stories which are fantastic. As a teenager, I read Le Guinn, Tolkien, Feist, Pratchett, Gemmell, Goodkind, R.R. Martin but have missed a lot of the ones you mention here. Tried to read some contemporary fantasy like Brandon Sanderson but a lot of it feels poorly written, derivative, and samey which is a shame. Hey ho, now I've got your list to go through!
This is the well-written and influential stuff, Matt - I rarely feel the urge to go beyond these books when it comes to S&S, as time is better spent with genre SF between 1950 and 1990. Take care of yourself, friend.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I suspect you'll be pleased to hear I'm reading Ballard. Just finishing High Rise, might circle back and read Atrocity Exhibition and Crash after.
@@Bookpilled -'High Rise' is, as much as I like it, my least fave of the Urban Trilogy. 'Atrocity' is very, very hard New Wave and may be best left until you've read ' Vermilion Sands' and the 60s story collections. 'Crash' is ultimate Ballard, where the line between SF and mainstream is rubbed out - it' SF, but only in the way that contemporary technology has changed the psyches of the characters. Go slowly and thoughtfully, but as an admirer of Mishima, you'll get him.
interesting take. I am of similar age to you although my recommendations would be different. I totally agree about S&S be the original fantasy format and still love it. I don't hold to the view that only REH's Conan stories are worth reading. A lot of later pastiches of which I have many, were actually rather good, including those written by Robert Jordan. Good to hear a mention of Zelazny's 9 Princes and don't forget the stupendous Moorcock series The Eternal Champion.
My comment vanished🤔 Now the NSA knows I listen to Stephen while cleaning the tub😂. Great video. i bought the Gollanz Conan....and have several titles to add to the "buy it" list now!!
This has happened a few times recently, it is a recurrent youtube glitch that I find infuriating, sorry about that Mark-rcvd the Vonnegut last night, btw, lovely-THANKS SO MUCH!
I didn't realize Sutcliff did a Beowulf retelling, I'm going to have to find a copy! I love Sword & Sorcery, Leiber is probably my favorite, but Howard is close. I haven't read Saunders or Wagner yet though, so that could change. Great video (so far, didn't realize it was going to be so long)!
Yes, her Beowulf is very good indeed - obviously aimed at younger readers, but excellent as all her stuff is - the original title was 'The Dragon Slayer', but these days it's a handsome Puffin entitled simply 'Beowulf'. Glad you enjoyed the video, if you like Leiber, check out my video from around a month ago about Michael Shea.
It's a HUGE topic and have mentioned a few on the channel, but I will tackle this next year. The vast majority of great ones from the 'Modern Classic' period of Arthurian Fiction (70s and 80s) are out of print, but of course it goes way back as Literature to the early Medieval period....leave it with me.
I am under 40 and I am finally getting around to Robert E. Howard's Conan and I love it That lead me to your video here Thank You for recommending Elric of Melniboné Saga by Moorcock, The Swords Saga by Lieber and The Broken Sword by Anderson I am now addicted to reading these Sword & Sorcery stories Thank You for the post it helped guide me to a better reading experience
My pleasure. Check the Fantasy playlist on the channel and watch the video coming up on Sunday 25th February, where I unbox many Fantasy novels from decades ago.
LOVE Moorcock! Corum & Hawkmoon & "Warhound and The World's Pain". Great Fantasy/ S&S! There are new HC Collections -Super NICE! Give Mike your Money! I think the fastest way to explain Melnibonean Dragon Lords to the uninitiated these days is (sadly) by comparison with Targaryens. GRRM has always been clear about his influences & homages, just as Moorcock has been. Sapkowski. . . not so much. In fact Moorcock frequently cites "The Broken Sword". Fafhrd & Grey Mouser are SO good! Amazingly modern too - first story from 1936? !! It was SO fresh & lively & even had a little Clark Ashton Smith influence as well. Knight & Knave doesn't play well for today's kids. I need to re-read all of them. I still haven't gotten the Traveler in Black, and I NEED to dig deeper into J.M. Harrison! I *have* scored that omnibus with the cool clockwork cover. OMG Jack Vance is SO good! The 1st book is SO tasty, weird & detached - like chewing on breakfast cereal watching Thundar; and Cugel!! - never have I been SO interested in reading what happens next to a protagonist I don't really like. The master. There's a series of Elric books from 2008-2010 that reorganized the stories in publishing order with lots of extra material and it's a compleat Sh*t Show. Interesting for the enthusiast, but *terrible* for the reading- ESPECIALLY the reader NEW to any of this. Did I say Great Video? Can we have an in depth on each?
'The Broken Sword' is mentioned in the epigraph of one of the early Elric novels, can't think which one, that's why I read it early 80s, my fave S&S singleton of all time. GRRM obviously has a link to MM, though when I met him we discussed his debt to Zelazny, specifically 'Nine Princes In Amber' - obviously both Z and GRRM were thinking Machiavelli too. There are two earlier MM vids on the channel where I reveal my demy and royal format MM books, sans the Millennium set and some odds I which I need to film for a third MM collection vid. Agree re the new reader point, people really struggle with where to start, although I think Elric and Cornelius are the fulcrums of the Champion sequence, Hawkmoon is probably easier to start with, there being no later additions or major revisions to all seven books.
Great video so far! It's extremely insightful for me. This channel is amazing! Some of the Authors are familiar to me as my history teacher has been giving me a long list of reads to work my way through. Currently I am working my way through The Arthurian Legend (Mordred is so fascinating), some Icelandic Mythology, The Kalevala, The Arabian Nights, Matter of Rome and finally The Elder Edda. I'm also getting into Poetry too! I'm reading The Norton Anthology of Poetry, but I wondered if you had any good recommendations. I'm fairly new to Poetry but have been enjoying T.S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, John Keats and Wilfried Owen. However, my main interest is Tolkien. I've been reading everything about his life and I'm essentially just reading everything that he was interested in.
I'm keen on Arthurian material too, have read The Kalevala (but not for many years) - and the Prose Edda is one of my most beloved books of yore. I was looking through my Elder Edda only a few days ago, funnily enought. With poetry I tend to favour the Romantics- Poe, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, Blake.
Another excellent post. I know most of the books mentioned very well and wouldn't argue with any of your choices. Like you, I don't read much S and S any more, but I do read a lot of fantasy. You don't mention much about the work of writers like John Crowley, Tim Powers, James Blaylock, Gene Wolfe, Jo Walton, Avram Davidson, Elizabeth Hand, Lucius Shepard, who I would call fantasy writers even though they don't fall into traditional fantasy definition. I often have trouble explaining the sort of stuff I like to people who don't read fantasy. The nearest I can come to a definition is Literary Fantasy but this always sounds pretentious. Are these sort of books to your taste, and do you intend covering any in future? You did mention Gene Wolfe, but his body of work is so complex that it might take up a month of videos by itself.
I'll address this in a future video, but that's why I entitled this video Classic Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery. The term has become almost wholly identified with High Fantasy and S&S since the late seventies- before this it had a vague, less 'market-specific' feel. However, Fantasy is very, very broad by its very nature, same as realism is. I think Fantasy's defining characteristic is that (1) it allows the irrational and inexplicable (unlike Realism, which cannot do so) and (2) it is not separated from other fiction as SF is by use of a scientific novum, but is instead separated from SF and Realism by something anachronistic and or supernatural. SF relies on a consensual agreement that the post- enlightenment scientific worldview of nature and science as being the same thing, a paradigm which excludes the existence of the supernatural and inexplicable. Once science 'explains' these things, they are natural, not supernatural and they are therefore science, not magic. I talk about this in my 'elements of sf' videos. But I know what you mean - so say to people 'I like Fabulation - literary fantasy'. If they think in market sets, they won't get it anyway - I've had these conversations at work with customers for almost 40 years, daily. People make assumptions about content/form, based on screen representations and what is popular. Very frustrating, which is where reasoned argument and channels like this come in. I like all those writers you cite too, so I know what you mean. Glad you liked the video, many thanks!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Steve, is there some way you can give me your address without posting on a public forum. I need to send you that David Hutchinson book when I have read it. Or if you are coming to Hay I could do a quick hand-over. I promise not to disturb your serious book buying time!
This is the kind of video I love to see on youtube: passionate people sharing what they love. Speaking only for myself, I never considered Princess of Mars as separate from the Sword and Sorcery genre.
Many thanks. Lots more like this on this channel. 'Princess' never mentions magic or the supernatural- though Carter's means of travel to Mars is arguably disputable on this point, but you won't find many professional commentators and critics who'd say it's anything but SF- in fact, it's a founding text of the Planetary Romance subgenre, a broader usage which some newbies, not knowing the term and wanting to be more specific, have labelled Sword & Planet, a very inelegant designation.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I get what you're saying, but when I look at the framework for a sword and sorcery story, if you just place "science" in the same position as "magic," it all still fits. A lot of post-apocalyptic fantasy stories will do something similar, using psychic powers or science-magic-hybrids. But in the context of the story, it functions *as* magic, in the sense of facilitating the story without requiring explanation or logic. It's been some years since I read the Mars books, so I don't remember if Carter's transition to Barsoom was ever explained scientifically or if it works exactly like magic without being called magic. Planetary Romance is a fine name but it just strikes me that Planetary Romance, Sword and Sorcery, Science Fantasy etc are all extremely close subgenres, and they frequently dip into each other.
I enjoyed gather, darkness! By Leiber. Reads like a S&S but turns out to be SF. Haven’t liked much else but will try the fafrd and grey mouser books at some point.
Leiber can be patchy, especially the later stuff, but much of his early output-if read in context, particularly the Fantasy and Horror- is superb and massively influential.
Interested in your narrative of the fantasy trilogy from LOTR through Shannara to today, but I'm wondering where and if the Narnia books fit into all this, I'm not sure what the history of it's popularity is as a series.
Well, the Narnia books, being written for children though strong on Christian allegory don't really belong to a Genre Fantasy tradition as do the American Sword & Sorcery pioneers, also since they were published as novels first, not as magazine serials. There is, of course, a huge amount of Fantasy that doesn't fit into the popular usage (meaning Genre Fantasy, i.e. that which arose out of pulp magazines). Lewis belongs to a much broader tradition but I don't see him influencing S&S or High Fantasy- I also think Tolkien was the outsider, co-opted into the Genre bracket by publishers, who then used his 3 volume structure (again, imposed by publishers) as a tremplate. Of course, Tolkien and the US S&S people were all influenced by Dunsany, Eddison and William Morris, who were in turn inspired by Norse literature, so it enters Genre Fantasy from a long, old tradition...
Would have been a 13 not a 10 then, I reckon. Despite his quality, I don't think Wagner is critically canonical as the authors I covered - and in S&S, I'll admit I'm a real traditionalist, cleaving to the authors certain critics regard as seminal. I'm in that ball park as a critic, which is odd for me, as I usually kick against the pricks a bit.But then S&S is a very traditional form, requiring subtlety in subverting its defining symbolism- and for me it's the tradition, the anachronism, that I love, unlike in SF, where I always want to see the apple cart turned over against revisionist, conservative subgenres like Space Opera.
Not that I am debating your definitive list here, but I am curious if you've ever encountered the Kane stories by Karl Edward Wagner. They are dark, but very engaging.
Yes, I have - and I don't claim to be definitive, this is just my personal take, though I feel it relfects the critical consensus broadly- Wagner is far more popular in the USA than he is in Britain, where his publishing has been very intermittent (you're not the first to mention him to me, by the way, so maybe I should revisit him). Thanks for your comment!
I'm guessing I must be in the same age bracket as Mr Andrews, as I've read all of these! Re the title change of 'The Dying Earth' to 'Mazirian the Magician': I guess this is more consistent with the title of the fourth book in the series - ie 'Rhialto the Marvellous' (also worth checking out). One thing's for sure - 'Nift the Lean' doesn't get the love it deserves and might not be known at all if it hadn't won the World Fantasy Award that year. It's a stone-cold classic.
Yeah, Shea escaped most people even then. The WFA used to be a brilliant award as you could NEVER tell what would win it- lots of non-genre writers, Sword & Sorcery, SF, Magical Realism...it was a mark of quality. I'm 61, incidentally.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal You really couldn't! I'd never heard of Michael Shea until he won it, and subsequently read all the books in the sequence -which were good, but not as good as 'Nift the Lean'. I also reckon the book was an interesting example of an author transcending his own influences, what with Shea being such a big Vance fan (I turned 60 this year, btw).
Though it is high tragedy I love the imagery set forth in The Broken Sword and think it would make a great movie if properly done. The same for another fantasy by Poul Anderson; Three Hearts and Three Lions. I remember back in the eighties that a lot of people wanted David Bowie to play Elric of Melnibone' in a movie.
I just finished Jirel of Joiry. It was really good but took a while for me to get accustomed to being not much of a fantasy reader (I believe this was my second ever sword and sorcery read, a single Conan story being the first). C. L. Moore is a great writer ans I suspect that I will enjoy the North West of Earth more readily. I enjoyed his character in the Quest of the Starstone and the ending made me chuckle.
I think you will enjoy Northwest more- it's the colour, sensuality and sheer authentic pulp of these I love- these things were fresh then, not cliche- amazing!
That is a wonderful and very good video. I read modern fantasy as well, at least some of it. But i am with you as you said, most modern stuff is unnecessary bloated. And every so often i come back to my very favourite story, wich is beyond the black river from Howard. May be this is bcs it was the first sword and sorcery i've ever read, but this such a lively short story. Still love that one....
What a great video! Thank you very much. It is like a lesson from university about sword and sorcery. Greetings from Ukraine btw! Nine princes of amber just opened the books for me... and the Game of thrones I agree it is so perfect. I cannot find so great novel among other epic modern fantasy books. I didn’t like so much Abercrombie, Sanderson and Rothfuss.
You clearly have good taste -the S&S writers of today are nothing compared to their predecessors: Abercrombie has his moments, but I found reading a whole trilogy by him was enough and since then I've struggled to maintain interest in any contemporary S&S writers -one volume is enough before I quit! Hope you are Ok over there, may you, all your friends and family prevail against Putin! Best of luck, your forces and leader and people are so brave!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal completely agree! I finished “the first law” trilogy and do not understand, why Abercrombie is a king of so called grim dark? I even do not think the first law is grim dark, all main characters are not so bad at all. Thank you for support and good words about us and our country, Ukraine still stands because of great support from UK, USA, and other countries, we all very appreciate that. Without you, we would became the part of russia (again), and I really don’t want to live in Mordor :)
@@yelisieimurai Well, watch my video on 'Grimdark' to see what I think of that term! Remember, so many people around the world believe in Ukraine, its people and the right to independence. Take care!
I wish some publisher would give us mass market editions of Karl Edward wagners Kane novels and stories. Been waiting for years. Wish I’d picked them up when they weren’t going for big prices
What an amazing video!! Since I haven’t read any of these series yet, except Earthsea, which book would you recommend me picking up first after LOVING LeGuin?
Well, LeGuin's influence is more predominant over female authors than male ones-- although she is universally admired - and her sway begins to affect US female fantasy writers significantly by the mid to late 1970s. Contemporary Fantasy shows only a watered-down leGuin influence, inherited by today's writers via other writers and generally not directly from leGuin. I'd suggest the works of Patricia McKillip- such as 'The Forgotten Beasts of Eld' and Jane Yolen perhaps....and be aware that before 1977, there were still a significant number of singleton fantasies (whereas after this, they're pretty much all series- watch my video 'The Artificial Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977' to understand the commercial decisions and the publishing moment that resulted in the endless series and trilogy default of today). One of the main reasons you will not have encountered these series if you are under 35 or so is that they don't fit the model that arose in 1977, when the Tolkien template was applied to everything: the likes of Anderson, Leiber, Moorcock, Vance et al generally wrote for magazines, so most of their Sword & Sorcery sagas were short stories, only later fixed up into books - the paperback did not come to dominate genre publishing until the mid 1960s. Tolkien, writing one huge book that was then divided into three, was the outsider, not the norm. So today, the original S&S writers are virtually forgotten and their books are short and sometimes episodic- but they are more original, preceded today's pretenders by decades and are usually far better written. Enjoy your Fantasy journey, move into LeGuin's SF and watch more of the Fantasy on this channel to improve your knowledge- my book, '100 Must Read Fantasy Novels' is still available as an ebook on kindle and other e-formats.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal thank you very much!! I’ll definitely check out some of those recommendations, and thanks for sharing your knowledge it’s really fascinating!
Just discovered your channel and really like it. I just wonder if you have read The Knight and The Wizard by Gene Wolfe? If you like Broken Sword and I am sure as a si-fi fan you already know The Book of the New Sun by Wolfe, you might really enjoy those too. Cheers
I've been selling Gene Wolfe's books since 1984 and have been reading him on and off since the 1980s. I consider 'The Book of the New Sun' as SF- I will be covering him in upcoming videos and one of his rarest books is covered in my Kerosina video. Thanks for the compliment.
Having watched quite a few of your posts about SF and Fantasy, I would like to read comments on the 2 (Not 3) GORMENGHAST books. I have never read anything so good as these two books. But they were not SF or Fantasy. I'm not sure what they were. Yes I do...They were an absolute pleasure to read.
Which two- first and second? Be clearer and we'll see. I have mentioned them in my New Wave SF videos- mostly as asides to comments on Langdon Jones, who assembled the third book from fragments and in relation to the work of M John Harrison. if Peake's books are not Fantasy, what are they? They're not Realism, are they? They may not be S&S or 'High Fantasy', but they are Fantasy -they are set in an invented realm.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal The first two. I liberate them whenever I find them in charity shops and give them to anyone I meet who declares a love of great writing. No one has ever thanked me. Usually the subject is never brought up when I see them again. So I wondered what you followers think of them. Not fantasy in my opinion but they will surely appeal to some, if not all Fantasy lovers. These books are given high praise in both the Encyclopaedia of Fantasy AND the SF tome but the authors of those entries also seem to admit that they are something totally unique .
It's a gentle start to a series that half way through goes places no-one else does. Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, all the Dying Earth worlds, Viriconium is the most radical!
What!!, did anyone or anybody ever heard Lin Carter “Thongor “ Swords and Sorcery series or L. Sprague de Camp who did write some swords and sorcery or I’m the only fool to remember those authors, and besides that thank you bringing up subjects of Swords and sorcery “ fantasy is my favorite too, that another things)
For those looking for top notch Sword and Sorcery adventures, Karl Edward Wagner's Kane is an all time great. Norvell W Page's Hurricane John books Flame Winds and Sons of the Bear God are well worth reading. The Theives World shared universe are very good. Tempus Thales in my opinion being a top 5 S&S character. Lastly David Gemmell's Druss the Legend deserves way more attention than it gets. His Waylander and Skilgannon books also good.
SO many things!! One thing you touch tangentially was a difference I often harp on (sometimes incorrectly)- but from the other side! To MY perception as a US Book guy, the UK editions and their art appear to come and go, often being uninspired, or at least poor illustrations of the contents. Whereas the US editions art stayed more or less standardized for generations. Take Conan: The Lancer/Ace editions started coming out in the late 60's with Frazetta covers and kept those paintings until pretty recently (The decision to go all Trade PB) You've got a Conan in the thumbnail that looks like unsuccessful Van art - but the UK publishers and covers changed all the time - sometimes with AMAZING art (see your previous Bristol video's Ox-Fam visit's Burroughs Covers) even if it's not really illuminating the text. Likewise Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser Started coming out in Ace paperbacks in i968, but the editions we'd recognize were 1970's series with the suspiciously Frazetta like Jeff Jones cover art, until 1977's "Swords and Ice Magic" where Michael Whelan steps in to give snowy portraiture followed by Tom Canty's 1988 Cover to "The Knight and Knave of Swords". These cover illustrations remained the standard until the end of the century when White Wolf rendered the A formats "obsolete" with the release of 2 HC Omnibuses with some uncharacteristically uninspiring Mike Mignola art. Over here The Elric books were pretty standardized pretty early on, with the DAW series publication in 1972 & keeping those 6 standardized Michael Whelan covers into the 80's when they went to Berkley & got the Robert Gould covers they kept into the 2000's (until the near death of MassMarket pb). Once again, the White Wolf (Borealis) HC colections seem to have knocked the steam out of other editions. **Normally I'd agree that those standard 6 are the way to go for Moorcock, but in the past few months Tor's been dropping EXCELLENT, beautiful HC Omnibus editions with a color map, gorgeous covers, and 4 books to a collection!. These are corrected texts (WW f**ked up a lot of the typesetting, so He's gone over everything- but Mike agrees that you should shouldn't tinker with the old writing lest the tales' flavor suffer ) and MOST IMPORTANTLY IF YOU BUY THESE MIKE GETS A CUT - UNLIKE USED BOOKS- And he might be the only writer who's on your list who's still alive & could use people's money! And they're dropping an ALL NEW ELRIC book Dec 6th in matching HC Livery. "The Citadel of Forgotten Myths"
Moorcock's got an anecdote about the Psychedelic Elric Cover you showed : There's *some* weird reason those editions have the UK titles & story arrangements (something with shifting rights & rushing them out) but apparently the artist looked up "Albinism" & the definition mentioned that it primarily effects the Black population of African descent so he portrayed Elric as kinda Black/kinda Moorish & gave Zarozinia an EPIC Fro. Me? I dig the butterfly wings.
@@waltera13 -That Lancer edition is of course a US edition with a variant title and an abridged text. The reason why MMs pbk jackets in the UK, incidentally, is because MM was massively identified with 60s/70s counterculture over here. He lived in Ladbroke Grove. London's Haight-Ashbury, created Jerry Cornelius and performed/wrote with Hawkwind, Britain's premier acid rock band. In the late 70s punk song "How Much Longer?" by Alternative TV, a lyric runs '...they talk about Moorcock, the Floyd and Reading Festival,' illustrating the typical hippy in the UK. Good info re that cover, didn't know that !
Hi Walt - as I think I said in the video, the problem with trying to standardise the Elric jackets in the UK was to do with a different publisher holding the rights to 'Elric of Melnibone'. They had the same covers in the UK right throughout the 70s (see my reply to Walter A re why these designs stuck), also, UK publishers changed hands and went through corporate identity shifts more often in Britain than in the US in that time. What had been Panther became Granada and at that time, the editions were standardised into the titles/running order of internal chronology as I mentioned when Collins (now Harpercollins) bought Granada and rebranded it as Grafton. Since then - early to mid 80s - MM's work has gone through numerous revisions, retitlings and changes at different publishers, initially with Orion/Millennium/Gollancz in the UK (my third bookshop event with Mike was when the new 14 volume 'Eternal Champion' saga, with a Von Bek omnibus placed at the start of the sequence ). Personally, I hated the cover art on these editions, but purchased them all, despite owning many earlier variants. although there were revisions to some texts prior to this, at this point it became a regular thing. There was allegedly a falling out between MM and a key figure at Gollancz and the presentation, jacketing and marketing of his work in the UK since has been a shambles with the result that his commercial star here faded into near obscurity by the late 90s. While I sold tons of MM in the 80s, these days, because the jacketing is so poor, I virtually have to force people to buy them and kids today have no idea who MM is or how important his work is. My suggestion for a first reading for new readers is based on the fact that 'Fortress' and 'Revenge' are shoehorned into the chronology and that stylistically, they are a poor fit among the earlier texts both in terms of prose flavour and the identity politics tinged themes MM began using more broadly in the later Elric trilogy, which is why I excluded mention of these. If a reader goes with the 6 'original revisions' as they stood in the UK in the 80s, the clearest narrative emerges. Many readers struggle with MM as you know, because they are fixated on the idea of beginnings and endings and the EC cycle doesn't work that way, right ? I think reading those editions as I suggest delivers an anchoring start point for MM reading. However, I totally agree re the point that Mike makes nothing from second hand books - I've been saying to readers for decades that if a book is in print, you should buy it new if you respect a writer, otherwise they won't be able to keep earning and consequently writing. I've found that once people are hooked by MM, they upgrade almost as a reflex action. I haven't seen the Tor editions, but I am aware of them - and of course they are not available in the UK for copyright reasons, Gollancz still tragically holding rights here. As a result of this, I too would endorse current Tor editions so as you say, MM can make some money. I mention the new Elric novel in the video I posted around a month ago about forthcoming uk sff books - can't wait for it, personally - will be my Christmas read! Re the specifics of the art, funnily enough me and the Video Widow were discussing representations of Elric last night - I've always favoured Achilleos' painting of Elric used for the UK cover design of the hardcover of 'Elric at the end of time' , despite it not being an early depiction. Rodney Matthew's super-stylised and of course unrealistic take on Elric was also very, very ubiquitous over here and is another version I favour. The Elric I see in my head is often very, very different to some of the more Frazetta-esque variants out there - and I remember owning a Whelan illustrated 'Vanishing Tower' limited edition many years ago. Anyway, thanks for yr insightful and detailed comment, fully agree we need to see mm making some cash!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Caught your previous Elric plug. I was stoked! I totally agree with your points. Thank you for clarifying some of the company swallowing/rights specifics - I hope I didn't "Make you" write or repeat yourself. I understand that there was a bit that was beyond control, but in your vid you kept mentioning different images on previous (usually Gollancz) covers and it sparked what seemed like a recognition of a cultural divide, but from the opposite side as usual. I wasn't sure if you were aware HOW standardized our image of some of these had become! OK, Now I'm repeating. 😅 As an Anglophile & book hunter from the "before times" (even in a major US city) it was tricky to find A LOT of Moorcock books. It was YEARS before I could get all three Erekose books just to read! British editions were only found randomly & SO disconnected from everything I knew about him (circa 80's shopping) I understood the whole Jerry Cornelius thing (or *think* I do) but non representative psychedelic covers on S&S books? Wait, WHAT? When talking with other booksellers all over this country any of them would share in the joke about "Bad British Covers". Had a long informative written exchange with Mike about the Haberfield covers (he is SO gentle & kind I felt quite the heel for ever having pointed out their inadequacies as illustration) and not only what a good friend Bob was, but how EARNEST he was about them being allegorical and representative of the spiritual nature of the books (which he read.) I did NOT know of the Hippy ubiquity or level of cultural saturation there. Here he was well respected, but NEVER entry level. He was 2nd or 3rd tier geekery. AND NOBODY knows Hawkwind here except occasionally as a Motorhead footnote ("Lemmy's old band.) I feel that Bob Gould was probably best at capturing the "Internal World" of Elric. It was subtle (usually) but the emotions displayed were key. Probably because Bob was the only one illustrating his inner world! Look at Bane o/t B.S.: Zarozinia knows the truth. I *KNOW* the Whelan special edition you're talking about and it pains me too. When I talked to Whelan about his Elric rendering he admitted that he was pushed a little to make them more commercially viable, and his Elric of Melnibone cover (with the THIC Arms) was a bit rushed on a deadline & that he wanted to show another side of Elric with *his* "Elric at the End of Time" cover. The DAW was the only one I recall here in the States, { which BTW was there, in person, on a giant canvas- Elric emaciated, drawn, weak, soulful eyes in reverie - it was breathtaking.) Whelan's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser? Definative. Recognizable out of context! I totally agree about the later books having different styles & different focus. The "Dream Theif," or "Fortress of the Pearl " was about someone else & Elric served as framing device. Stick to the canonical 6 (Just ignore the unnecessary in book in each HC! ;) ) The HC is just easier & cheaper to find here. With 1.5K subscribers, are you sure where MOST of them are from? It is late.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Gosh, you've got me second guessing my own memory; I'm now unsure if Mike said that was the FACT of those covers, or his supposition. Trying to recall the presence of the word "probably" from more than 20 years ago. I *thought* that was his explanation.
It was a good age for fantasy, there was much less established genre convention, and authors felt free to unleash their boundless imaginations on unsuspecting readers. And on a much tighter page count, too. The change to a much more introspective fantasy in the 80s--and the consequently bloated page numbers that go along with that--has its downsides.
Yes, very true. You might want to watch my video 'The Artificial Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977' in which I delve into the whys of the 'bloat' phenomenon. Thanks for watching.
Fortress of the Pearl is quite different from the original 6 part saga. But it's so good I think it might actually be my favorite. Still need to read Revenge of the Rose and the trilogy.
I need to re-read 'Fortress', but I recall vividly not enjoying it that much on initial publication - and yes, of course it's different, it was written a long time after the earlier tales, when MM was in a more literary phase of S&S writing, characterised by 'The War Hound & The World's Pain' and 'City in the Autumn Stars', both very firm faves of mine.
Stephen, are you much a fan of Patricia McKillip? Curious if you've ever read her work. Not that she's Sword and Sorcery (or maybe she is in small part. I'm new to all this), but just curious as she's my roommate's favorite fantasy author.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Very nice. I've read some excerpts and I'm always struck by her prose. I just need to get around to finally reading some full works. She was close with Peter Beagle (who seems to also have been a huge admirer of her work) who I've very much enjoyed, so I'm sure I'll love her stuff.
I'm in the process of trying to write a fantasy book myself where could I get your book of the 100 best fantasy books? As reference material and it would help my process. I live in the United States I'm going to assume you're in Great Britain. Let me know if there's a website I can order it from or how you do that.
'100 Must Read Fantasy Novels' is now out of print in hard copy and has become quite collectable since I posted this video. It is still available as a kindle ebook from amazon on both sides of the atlantic and probably from the Bloomsbury/A&C Black website as a standard format ebook. I've just checked abebooks and ebay and no-one seems to be selling it secondhand anywahere currently, I'm afraid.
Yes, I believe that is so. Fantasy - or to narrow it down to what most people mean by that usage (Sword & Sorcery and its near indistinguishable sister High Fantasy)- is a form that relies on anachronism and tradition and it ceased to be innovative a long time ago (watch my video 'The Artificial Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977' which outlines the history of the commercial formularisation of those subgenres, from which they've never recovered since the publishing model is based on endless sequels written for commercial rather than artistic reasons). Fantasy in the broader sense is still alive and kicking. As for SF, as a Modernist genre, it hit problems when certain writers and audiences demanded a return to its lowest common denominator- the Space Opera - just as it was coming to terms with Postmodernism via Cyberpunk. SF ceased to evolve and be subject to periodic revolutions as it had done since the naming of the genre in 1925. Like almost every artform, SF slowed down as technology sped up. There's a lot about this on the channel. Doesn't mean I don't like contemporary SF- there are some good books about, still (you'll also find videos about these on the channel) but the reality is that innovation, essential for SF, slowed down to a crawl decades ago...
singletons fan here also. I give bonus marks for any great books under 200 pages! (see stig of the dump and most of penelope lively's output!) What a wonderful, richly researched and knowledgeable discussion. A great reading friend put me on to Howard and Vance and it changed my life, and outlook.
Hi Steve: I fear another attempted comment by me has gone straight to Zelazny's Dung Pits of Glyve. Which, I guess, some might argue is where it belongs..
I'm assuming you're not being ironic, here. If not, M John Harrison is probably the greatest living SF/Fantasy writer, having been active in both genres- and general fiction and criticism- since the mid 1960s. He was literary editor of 'New Worlds' magazine in the late 60s and by the 1980s was turning out the most elegant, sophisticated and strange stories in genre fiction - S&S, SF and Weird Fiction. He has never been popular in the USA, being a mould-breaker who is too arch for some tastes. His space opera 'Light' was described as "Brilliant" by Iain M Banks. There's an interview with him here on the channel in the SF author interviews playlist. If you've not heard of M John, I suggest you watch more of my Top 10 style videos as you will almost certainly encounter other writers you don't know who have long-established critical and commercial reputations.
Glad to hear it, caped crusader. Please subscribe and all that. Do watch the HUGE backlist, which anyone attempting to write anything will be able to mine for creative stimuli. Super-thanks tipping is a possibility if moved enough and minted enough to contribute. You're very welcome here.
You're very kind. I try and make it accessible and not be too academic - plus it's over a decade since I last guest lectured on SF and/or bookselling...
As someone that has read some of the Elric books in the new "Elric saga collection" (read saga vol 1 so far, which has, chronologically, the first four books in it, each books seems to consist of 3 or so smaller books). I don't think I've read books more influential on other fanatasy authors. Game of Thrones, the Witcher, Warhammer fantasy/40k it's all taking tons of inspiration from the Elric books. E.g. The famous chaos symbol from warhammer? Yeah, that's the symbol of the lords of Chaos in the Elric books. The dragon riding, sadistic mages called Targeryans? Basically the Melniboneans. The conjuncture of the Spheres? Yeah, Elric. etc etc. That said, the books are far from perfect. They are very pulpy. They read like you're watching a 60's/80's sword and sorcery TV show with all the cheap effects and sets etc. But to be fair, the sets are absolutely stunning and the good guy isn't always good. There is blood, some sex and gore. The good guy will sometimes just backstab other people to save his own skin etc. It's also very ... dramatic. Elric will throw himself to the ground and cry out in misery or pain because he failed or couldn't get the thing he wanted. Characters will often over react in their face expressions etc. Also, Elric is an idiot. There is no other way to put it. It makes absolutely zero sense for him to leave the throne to his cousin Yrrkoon. To leave Cymoril with him after what Yrrkoon does. No wonder he's obsessed with finding out if he's got free will or if the world he's in is superdeterministic, he can't stop making the absolute worst choices.
Yes, Elric is an eternal adolescent in many ways- it seems deliberate that MM wrote him this way, after all he once said 'I write for the audience I once was,'
Go to the channel page on a PC. Below the banner, at the top, where the channel description is, hit 'more' (which is in white). This will open a box that describes the channel and shows links to various sites where you can buy my work- be aware that '100 Must Read Fantasy Novels' is currently only available as an ebook. You can find my work at amazon throughout the English speaking world and the other sites mentioned in the links. Thanks.
If you haven't indulged, you owe yourself the Old Kingdom novels by Garth Nix. Nominally YA but probably my favorite series and I've been reading the stuff for over 60 years.
Well, have you read Moorcock? You'll find his style, messages and detail very, very different. Elric owes more to Poul Anderson's Skafloc- and then only to a degree. My video on Elric will come up tonight on the channel.
Yes, two black blades and trouble with inlaws,check. His larger mythos is outstanding,but it struck me as disingenuous to borrow for an author that he criticized so vociferously.
@@greenknightable I think you should read Anderson's 'The Broken Sword', published in the same year as 'Fellowship' and cited by MM as an influence over Elric. You have to remember that the elements of Tolkien you are referring too were already long part of the Genre Fantasy corpus - we're talking tropes, here- and Tolkien himself was influenced by previous users of them like Eddison, Morris, Dunsany and others going back to the Icelandic Sagas. The really important factor is the difference between Moorcock and Tolkien in Attitude- I'm always saying that 'Tolkien was the outsider,' in Genre Fantasy, as he did not come from the US pulp magazine Sword & Sorcery tradition. Moorcock took nothing from him, which you'll recognise if you read 'The Broken Sword'. It's just that Tolkien BECAME the mainstream from 1977 onwards when - after his final massive commercial success in the USA in the mid 1960s, by which time MM was well into writing the Elric stories - publishers like Lester Del Rey started commissioning Tolkien ripoffs. The 'High Fantasy' model of Tolkien, as opposed to the 'Sword & Sorcery' model of Robert E Howard did not become a big thing until the likes of Brooks, Donaldson and Eddings and their successors. Tolkien borrowed from othErs as much as MM did and the latter didn't need to borrow from JRRT as he worked on a different model.
I’m a big heavy metal fan and actually discovered Conan and Elric through the music I listen to. I grew to love the S&S genre as a whole over the years.
I’m 27 and almost everyone I know my age doesn’t even know what sword and sorcery is, I wish it got more attention and appreciation.
For those that love Elric, I would recommend the other Eternal Champion stories as well. Corum is awesome and Erekose does a good job of explaining how the inner workings of the multiverse function.
I would also recommend
Kane by Karl Edward Wagner
Warrior Witch of Hel by Asa Drake
Thongor by Lin Carter
Tiger and Del by Jennifer Roberson
Elak of Atlantis by Henry Kuttner
Death Dealer by James Silke
Kuttner - the greatest male author of the Golden Age. Try his wife's S&S stories, 'Joel of Joiry'. And her Northwest Smith stories are brilliant too.
This is rapidly becoming one of my favourite channels on the tube. Your breadth and depth of knowledge is remarkable. Thank you.
Many thanks, very kind of you-please delve into the extensive backlist and watch older videos as this channel is slow growing and needs support. The main reason why you're enjoying it is that I'm a book trade professional, so I have an insider perspective developed over forty years -while there are some great SFF youtubers out there, few - of any- can boast of my longterm status as a book trade worker and author. Thanks again.
Thanks for this amazing video, with some friends we are starting a book club and we needed some S&S books, now we have them all. Without a doubt the BEST book content on the platform.
Thanks. Watch my other Fanrasy vids for more context. There is a playlist here.
Thanks for the recommendations. I’m 23 (maybe I count as one of your younger viewers lol), but originally I was very invested in Lovecraft’s work because of how influential he is today and decided to do a deep dive into his work. Imagine my surprise when I went down a rabbit hole and found out about his friends Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard and sword and sorcery as a whole. I feel like this is the type of genre I’ve been looking for my whole life, so it’s a great pleasure to have found this video and gotten your wonderful recommendations and descriptions of these works. Can’t wait to get into them.
Thanks, hope you enjoy them - check out the Michael Shea video on the channel, reviews his Mythos Horror and other stuff.
I'm a young lady who loves sf and I have been craving your recommendations ! Thank you
I'll keep them coming - I do wish more women would watch the channel, very pleased to have you here, I think a lot of younger female readers are missing the best stuff by sticking to their peer group.
Fellow female reader !! ❤❤❤😃
Loved this. Will be working my way through these as and when I need to scratch the fantasy itch. Great insight to the books and authors rather than the tedious retelling of the plot you see elsewhere - loving your work. Cheers.
Thanks Barrie - my book on Fantasy goes into a lot more depth on the history etc, but these are my preferred texts.
A great "Best of the Best" list, with historical overview as well. Thank you! It was very helpful. I picked up Leiber's "Swords against..." 1 & 2 as soon as it was done. Lots of info-treasure in this piece to mine!
Wow! I always thought SF stories were traditionally prudish. But apparently not Leiber. The Snow woman has a veritable sex-show in it, as well as using the c-word and other naughty words and actions. You must be a saucey fellow, Stephen!
Being a complete 'beginner' to this genre a great video thanks for sharing your knowledge, thoughts and considerations.
So pleased you started with R.E. Howard. His lively Conan stories were what ignited my lifelong love of reading. They had a breezy yet visceral style and tone that was thrilling to experience - very different from modern-day high fantasy. There was also an element of the occult/horror which actually felt menacing and gave the plots an edge of suspense. By the way I really enjoy and appreciate the relaxed pace you take on this channel. It's nice to hear some historical and thematic context behind the works you discuss. Looking forward to trying the other authors I may have missed.
Yes, the eldritch elements of Conan always appealed to me too, fantastic stuff.
I always remember reading Elric.... Stormbringer on a school trip coach journey in the 80s. I just about finished the entire book within the journey. I love the artwork associated with moorcock and agree the titles are so inspiring. What a refreshing change from six months plodding through the shire....
You said it. 'Stormbringer' was my first Elric too, since it was the first full Elric novel, though the 'last' in the internal chronology. New readers struggle with stuff like this, but to me it's the essence of MM - law versus chaos and both are necessary.
I can’t tell you how happy this channel makes me.
Love watching and listening to your channel. Keep it going.
Many, many thanks for your Super-Thanks- a tip like this is very important to keep a small channel like this going and is much appreciated!
As a crusty old bloke, I approve this video.
As a crusty old bloke, I approve your comment! Thanks mate !
I’m a young bloke who loves classic sword and sorcery like Conan and Elric haha. I wish it got more attention.
😂😂😂😂😂
Thank you for your work. Superb stuff. My favourite channel on UA-cam.
That's very flattering, many thanks - please share my stuff on social media and spread the word, really appreciate your and everyone else's support!
I would definitely say that the Zothique stories by Clark Ashton Smith had a influence on Jack Vance's Dying Earth. The Dying Earth stories are brilliant.
Without doubt.
I loved the wizard type characters from Vance's Dying Earth stories. They were so petty and base in their motivations and traits, that it gave a great level of character based humor to it. "Jubilaar the Magnificent wore a hat with more wizard stars on it than my own, to my birthday party! I must destroy him and enslave his family!!"
@@earlpipe9713 -Yes, their very egocentricity, childishness and willingness to abuse power is rather amusing. So much for Gandalf, right?
Very good overview. Greatly enjoyed this. Few more books for my list.
Cheers Paul! These are all classics everyone should read to get a proper insight into the best S&S writing, happy reading...
I absolutely love this video. Your talk of the history of the pulps and all these books is great. Make more like this!
Thanks. There will be more coming soon on bestselling Fantasy of the mid 80s.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I'm looking forward too it. I also like your bit about the brevity of sword-and-sorcery. Out of the Conan stories that Howard wrote, I think fifteen or so are novelette length. It's my favorite length. Very snappy, but still chunky enough to be a story rather that a quick scene like short stories.
A fantastic and informative precis of some of the best fantasy of the 20th Century. I'm looking forward to more.
Many thanks Colin - keep watching!
Appendix N has gotten me reading a ton of books lately. I've read the first 2 books in the Lankhmar series, the first 2 Barsoon books, The first Elric story, and the first Corum book. That's in the last few months.
All great stuff.
I ordered The Broken Sword as soon as I reached the end. Chef's kiss to the knowledge in this video essay.
It's the real thing. The only things which are more authentically nordic are the Prose Edda and Beowulf themselves!
A truly inspiring video. Great insights. Helpful advice. Beautiful books. Thank you. I wish I'd had this advice 30 years ago but there you go. I found my way to some of these through trial and error. Now I'm going to read the ones I missed.
This was the kind of advice I was giving daily in the 1980s before the best stuff was swamped by an endless tide of ongoing series of enormous tedium and predictability. Glad you liked it.
I've been reading SF and fantasy since the early 70s and I am getting such a kick out of seeing the same editions of books I have owned, read and loved since then!
Wow finally I find a channel where the first book pulled out not only is the EXACT copy I own, but one I absolutely love!
Great recommendations, as a side note I would be really interested in getting your take on Kenneth bulmmers dray Prescot series
I'll be honest, I've only ever flicked through them. I met Ken Bulmer once (his usual byline), nice fellow and a British SF stalwart. I tend to avoid massive series like that due to the inevitability of resurgent formula. I cleave to pioneers when I'm in this mode and find short stories by the likes of the original S&S writers far more enjoyable than anything written after the 1960s, Moorcock, Harrison and Shea excepted. My interest in Fantasy is really in its historical relationship in authorship and publishing to SF. Once Del Rey got Brooks off the ground, it was pretty much Game Over for true S&S. Eventually it was co-opted into Tolkienesque High Fantasy by the likes of George R R Martin and Steven Erikson and became 'Grimdark', but it's simply not my thing. Fleet, hard, fast and in small doses does it for me and irregularly, I'm afraid!
A great video, fascinating. Like you I'm more of an SF reader, but I do appreciate good, literary fantasy. I have a NESFA edition of de Camp's time travel stories, Years In The Making.
I was looking at the NESFA about 2 days ago online.V nice - in the end, I bought the Van Vogt, love their books, always superb.
I first read Grendel way back in the 70s. What a wonderful book. You covered a lot of my favorite authors.
Many thanka!
Great video thoroughly enjoyed it. Any thoughts on Karl Edward Wagner's Kane books?
Several people have mentioned Wagner. He never had much presence in the UK market, so isn't really part of my pantheon, but he arguably has a place among the greats.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal No prob. Centipede are about to publish a set and Im contemplating whether I should splurge
My first Conan story I read was the Tower of the Elephant and I was astonished how imaginative Robert was. It's immensely tragic that he never got to see how much his work influenced people.
Agreed. He deserves all the kudos Tolkien gets, for he was the true progenitor of S&S. He'd have been proud, I'm sure.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I want to thank you for introducing me to Jirel of Joiry. I'm a massive Red Sonja fan and I didn't know of C. L. Moore's existence.
@@doublestarships646 -Wow, Jirel is knid of tailor made for you then! Good News. Strongly recommend her Northwest Smith stories too, just sheer pulp genius!
Talk aboUt tiring.....I was cleaning the tub/shower while listening to this😂. Your vid was the proverbial "spoonful of sugar"! Outstanding video.... I bought the Conan collection by Gollanz.
This list of yours is like a summary of all my favourite writers. I began reading fiction not that long ago, around 2008 or so, but the first things I read were all the fantasy and sf masterworks by gollancz and that cemented what became my favourites. Jack Vance, M John Harrison, Le Guin, Leiber, these are among my favourite writers. A really solid list. I would have added Clark Ashton Smith and Roger Zelazny too.
I can't argue with that. You clearly have taste a cut above the average Fantasy reader- those Masterworks are Masterworks for many reasons, as you've probably divined. Trouble is, you read stuff this good and after that will struggle to find much in the genre that matches these seminal works.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Most of today's bloated fantasy trilogies I skip. I gravitate more towards SF and what they call New Weird, what Harrison, Mieville and Vandermeer were doing. The only fantasy mega-series that I thought was worth the investment, besides the first books of A Song of Ice and Fire, is the Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. Erikson really has a different approach to writing epic fantasy. He utilises literary techniques and essentially writes short stories which combine together to form big books. And he has a very strong thematic focus. I find his series a proud continuation of what fantasy is capable of, as an extension of Howard, Moorcock, Zelazny and Glen Cook. Other than that, most fantasy series make me tired just looking at the books in the store.
One of my favourite pre-Tolkien fantasy books is Clark Ashton Smith's _Zothique_ collection of short stories. CAS is, to me, the perfect balance of Howard and Lovecraft (with whom he was associated, of course).
Yes, great stuff, not quite S&S but definitely a contributory founder.
Three authors that you mention I am very familiar with and are some of my favorite Robert E. Howard, Poul Anderson (Broken Sword), and Michael Moorecock. I have read a great deal of his work, Elric was my favorite character and I just got absorbed into the Elric series. Thank you for the detail in categorizing the different types of fantasy and sci fi. I can articulate what I am looking for.
For me, 'The Broken Sword' is THE key work of S&S- I discovered it through my Moorcock reading, as many do, I think.
Excellent choices. I have been a big R. E. Howard fan since the early 70s, and love most of the authors you present here. I took notes as you were speaking, and your top 10 appears to be a top 12 1/2 (which is fine by me): Vance, Lieber, Howard, Moore, DeCamp and Pratt, Anderson, Brunner, Moorcock, LeGuin, Harrison, Shea, Martin, and Zelazny (the 1/2 bonus). I was a bookseller starting back in 1974 for several years. What an interesting time for Fantasy. In America, Harrison was not as well known as he was/is in England. I just picked up the Viriconium a while ago, and am in the middle of the first book (so far, so good). I will keep your 'deconstruction' evaluation in mind as I read going forward. I will search your channel and see if you have more to say about this and on Harrison; but I would love to know more about how you think he was deconstructing Sword and Sorcery in the Viriconium (usually we think of deconstructionism as a method of critical analysis used by critics, and not used initially by authors as they write their works). A video on this would be interesting. I had come to the conclusion a while ago that rereading some of these authors would be a good use of my time. I have a copy of the del Ray edition of The Broken Sword which I need to track down and reread. I also enjoy planetary romance, and am planning on rereading the Mars series by E. R. Burroughs.
All good stuff you're naming there. I will be doing some specific things on M John, as I know him a little and I'm thinking about his role in the Science Fantasy debate: is it science or magic? Something on this coming next year...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Well, from what I have seen so far in the Viriconium, his prose is top notch, and his 'world' is certainly 'fantastic.' Swordsmen fighting alongside characters in mechanized body armor! I will look forward to this video from you as well. It reminds me (of course I am only partially into the first book) of planetary romance, in the sense that it takes place on what appears to be a different planet, with a combination of fantasy and science fiction elements.
Great to see the Viriconium Sequence on the list and getting its due. I’m not a fantasy reader at all, but absolutely adore those books.
Was sent in your direction by Bookpilled. Very interesting video, great background knowledge.
Matt at Bookpilled is a good guy and then some. Stick with me, check out the backlist and get watching it and your knowledge will swell accordingly...more Fantasy to come, particularly classic S&S, Tolkien and Literary Fantasy.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal cheers, will do, already catching up 👍
@@gbeat7941 -Thanks, hope you enjoy the rest of the channel!
Great selection! I have read at least some books of all the ones mentioned but two: Shea and Moore (I admittedly have never heard of her but it sounds very interesting). "The broken sword" is too dark to be my absolute favorite but it's a stunning book, far more atmospheric, darker and better written than what passed for "grimdark" in the last 25 years. (I had forgotten that this was so old, I thought it was from the late 60s).
I also love Jack Vance, but I slightly prefer Lyonesse to Dying Earth, although it's less consistent. The first Lyonesse is by far the best,, the second starts well but end bizarrely and the last one has a very rushed ending because Vance's health was faiilng (but later recovered). It's less Sword & Sorcery, more high fantasy/medieval romance but has dark, twisted and funny elements as well.
Watch my latest video on collecting SF special editions and you'll see some lovely Vance books near the end. There is also a video about Moore on the channel posted last oct/nov but it focuses more on her SF.
Great video, i think you hit it square on about Elric and Moorcock’s great heroic fantasy, not just Elric, but he was amazing. I would definitely add Clark Ashton Smith, and while you are right that CL Moore is terrific and neglected, her husband, Henry Kuttner was also excellent, his Elak of Atlantis stories are very Conan and Kull like, The 2 Prince Raynor pulp tales are fun. Thanks for this very interesting and informative video.
Cheers Gary, I think you're right on all counts. I will be talking about CAS in a future video, deifferent context. You can't beat the old S&S!
Excellent video, lots to chew on. Thank you!
I've been having a hard time finding old SFF stuff. Thank you for your videos!
Hundreds of videos here about Vintage SF- dive into the backlist!
that was my introduction to sword and sorcery fiction that particular Conan book! Tower Of The Elephant is my absolute fave Conan tale, I eventually discovered Michael Moorcock and Elric too
Thanks for this brilliant video! I've recently gotten into Robert E. Howard's Conan stories which are fantastic. As a teenager, I read Le Guinn, Tolkien, Feist, Pratchett, Gemmell, Goodkind, R.R. Martin but have missed a lot of the ones you mention here. Tried to read some contemporary fantasy like Brandon Sanderson but a lot of it feels poorly written, derivative, and samey which is a shame. Hey ho, now I've got your list to go through!
Glad you like it. Stick with the originals and you won't go far wrong, I say!
Great vid, Steve. Happy to find that I have a couple of these.
This is the well-written and influential stuff, Matt - I rarely feel the urge to go beyond these books when it comes to S&S, as time is better spent with genre SF between 1950 and 1990. Take care of yourself, friend.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I suspect you'll be pleased to hear I'm reading Ballard. Just finishing High Rise, might circle back and read Atrocity Exhibition and Crash after.
@@Bookpilled -'High Rise' is, as much as I like it, my least fave of the Urban Trilogy. 'Atrocity' is very, very hard New Wave and may be best left until you've read ' Vermilion Sands' and the 60s story collections. 'Crash' is ultimate Ballard, where the line between SF and mainstream is rubbed out - it' SF, but only in the way that contemporary technology has changed the psyches of the characters. Go slowly and thoughtfully, but as an admirer of Mishima, you'll get him.
interesting take. I am of similar age to you although my recommendations would be different. I totally agree about S&S be the original fantasy format and still love it. I don't hold to the view that only REH's Conan stories are worth reading. A lot of later pastiches of which I have many, were actually rather good, including those written by Robert Jordan. Good to hear a mention of Zelazny's 9 Princes and don't forget the stupendous Moorcock series The Eternal Champion.
Thanks. Would love to hear your choices. I am admittedly a S&S traditionalist, feeling that little after the 1970s is worth going near....
Thank you for this delightful video. Seems like I have some more reading to do.
Another video coming in a few weeks about Fantasy in the 1980s.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I'll be long forward to it
Brilliant video. Very informative. Thank you.
Thanks, you're very kind!
Epic video. So many books to read.
My comment vanished🤔 Now the NSA knows I listen to Stephen while cleaning the tub😂. Great video. i bought the Gollanz Conan....and have several titles to add to the "buy it" list now!!
This has happened a few times recently, it is a recurrent youtube glitch that I find infuriating, sorry about that Mark-rcvd the Vonnegut last night, btw, lovely-THANKS SO MUCH!
Glad it got there in good shape!!
I didn't realize Sutcliff did a Beowulf retelling, I'm going to have to find a copy! I love Sword & Sorcery, Leiber is probably my favorite, but Howard is close. I haven't read Saunders or Wagner yet though, so that could change. Great video (so far, didn't realize it was going to be so long)!
Yes, her Beowulf is very good indeed - obviously aimed at younger readers, but excellent as all her stuff is - the original title was 'The Dragon Slayer', but these days it's a handsome Puffin entitled simply 'Beowulf'. Glad you enjoyed the video, if you like Leiber, check out my video from around a month ago about Michael Shea.
"A thief, a slayer, a reaver."
The only way to describe Conan.
could you make a video about arthurian legends? they seem very interesting and i want to get an idea of the books and where to start
It's a HUGE topic and have mentioned a few on the channel, but I will tackle this next year. The vast majority of great ones from the 'Modern Classic' period of Arthurian Fiction (70s and 80s) are out of print, but of course it goes way back as Literature to the early Medieval period....leave it with me.
I am under 40 and I am finally getting around to Robert E. Howard's Conan and I love it
That lead me to your video here
Thank You for recommending Elric of Melniboné Saga by Moorcock, The Swords Saga by Lieber and The Broken Sword by Anderson
I am now addicted to reading these Sword & Sorcery stories
Thank You for the post it helped guide me to a better reading experience
My pleasure. Check the Fantasy playlist on the channel and watch the video coming up on Sunday 25th February, where I unbox many Fantasy novels from decades ago.
Good to see Brunner make an appearance
LOVE Moorcock! Corum & Hawkmoon & "Warhound and The World's Pain". Great Fantasy/ S&S! There are new HC Collections -Super NICE!
Give Mike your Money!
I think the fastest way to explain Melnibonean Dragon Lords to the uninitiated these days is (sadly) by comparison with Targaryens. GRRM has always been clear about his influences & homages, just as Moorcock has been. Sapkowski. . . not so much. In fact Moorcock frequently cites "The Broken Sword".
Fafhrd & Grey Mouser are SO good! Amazingly modern too - first story from 1936? !! It was SO fresh & lively & even had a little Clark Ashton Smith influence as well. Knight & Knave doesn't play well for today's kids. I need to re-read all of them.
I still haven't gotten the Traveler in Black, and I NEED to dig deeper into J.M. Harrison! I *have* scored that omnibus with the cool clockwork cover.
OMG Jack Vance is SO good! The 1st book is SO tasty, weird & detached - like chewing on breakfast cereal watching Thundar; and Cugel!! - never have I been SO interested in reading what happens next to a protagonist I don't really like. The master.
There's a series of Elric books from 2008-2010 that reorganized the stories in publishing order with lots of extra material and it's a compleat Sh*t Show.
Interesting for the enthusiast, but *terrible* for the reading- ESPECIALLY the reader NEW to any of this.
Did I say Great Video? Can we have an in depth on each?
'The Broken Sword' is mentioned in the epigraph of one of the early Elric novels, can't think which one, that's why I read it early 80s, my fave S&S singleton of all time. GRRM obviously has a link to MM, though when I met him we discussed his debt to Zelazny, specifically 'Nine Princes In Amber' - obviously both Z and GRRM were thinking Machiavelli too.
There are two earlier MM vids on the channel where I reveal my demy and royal format MM books, sans the Millennium set and some odds I which I need to film for a third MM collection vid.
Agree re the new reader point, people really struggle with where to start, although I think Elric and Cornelius are the fulcrums of the Champion sequence, Hawkmoon is probably easier to start with, there being no later additions or major revisions to all seven books.
Thank you for the recommendations !! I just found your channel!!
No problem, hope you enjoy more of the videos, another big Fantasy video coming in a few weeks time.
Great video so far! It's extremely insightful for me. This channel is amazing! Some of the Authors are familiar to me as my history teacher has been giving me a long list of reads to work my way through. Currently I am working my way through The Arthurian Legend (Mordred is so fascinating), some Icelandic Mythology, The Kalevala, The Arabian Nights, Matter of Rome and finally The Elder Edda.
I'm also getting into Poetry too! I'm reading The Norton Anthology of Poetry, but I wondered if you had any good recommendations. I'm fairly new to Poetry but have been enjoying T.S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, John Keats and Wilfried Owen.
However, my main interest is Tolkien. I've been reading everything about his life and I'm essentially just reading everything that he was interested in.
I'm keen on Arthurian material too, have read The Kalevala (but not for many years) - and the Prose Edda is one of my most beloved books of yore. I was looking through my Elder Edda only a few days ago, funnily enought.
With poetry I tend to favour the Romantics- Poe, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, Blake.
Another excellent post. I know most of the books mentioned very well and wouldn't argue with any of your choices. Like you, I don't read much S and S any more, but I do read a lot of fantasy. You don't mention much about the work of writers like John Crowley, Tim Powers, James Blaylock, Gene Wolfe, Jo Walton, Avram Davidson, Elizabeth Hand, Lucius Shepard, who I would call fantasy writers even though they don't fall into traditional fantasy definition. I often have trouble explaining the sort of stuff I like to people who don't read fantasy. The nearest I can come to a definition is Literary Fantasy but this always sounds pretentious. Are these sort of books to your taste, and do you intend covering any in future? You did mention Gene Wolfe, but his body of work is so complex that it might take up a month of videos by itself.
I'll address this in a future video, but that's why I entitled this video Classic Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery. The term has become almost wholly identified with High Fantasy and S&S since the late seventies- before this it had a vague, less 'market-specific' feel. However, Fantasy is very, very broad by its very nature, same as realism is. I think Fantasy's defining characteristic is that (1) it allows the irrational and inexplicable (unlike Realism, which cannot do so) and (2) it is not separated from other fiction as SF is by use of a scientific novum, but is instead separated from SF and Realism by something anachronistic and or supernatural. SF relies on a consensual agreement that the post- enlightenment scientific worldview of nature and science as being the same thing, a paradigm which excludes the existence of the supernatural and inexplicable. Once science 'explains' these things, they are natural, not supernatural and they are therefore science, not magic. I talk about this in my 'elements of sf' videos. But I know what you mean - so say to people 'I like Fabulation - literary fantasy'. If they think in market sets, they won't get it anyway - I've had these conversations at work with customers for almost 40 years, daily. People make assumptions about content/form, based on screen representations and what is popular. Very frustrating, which is where reasoned argument and channels like this come in.
I like all those writers you cite too, so I know what you mean. Glad you liked the video, many thanks!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Steve, is there some way you can give me your address without posting on a public forum. I need to send you that David Hutchinson book when I have read it. Or if you are coming to Hay I could do a quick hand-over. I promise not to disturb your serious book buying time!
@@allanlloyd3676 - look at the channel on a pc, go to the about page and there's a way of finding an email address for me there.
cheers!
This is the kind of video I love to see on youtube: passionate people sharing what they love.
Speaking only for myself, I never considered Princess of Mars as separate from the Sword and Sorcery genre.
Many thanks. Lots more like this on this channel. 'Princess' never mentions magic or the supernatural- though Carter's means of travel to Mars is arguably disputable on this point, but you won't find many professional commentators and critics who'd say it's anything but SF- in fact, it's a founding text of the Planetary Romance subgenre, a broader usage which some newbies, not knowing the term and wanting to be more specific, have labelled Sword & Planet, a very inelegant designation.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I get what you're saying, but when I look at the framework for a sword and sorcery story, if you just place "science" in the same position as "magic," it all still fits. A lot of post-apocalyptic fantasy stories will do something similar, using psychic powers or science-magic-hybrids. But in the context of the story, it functions *as* magic, in the sense of facilitating the story without requiring explanation or logic. It's been some years since I read the Mars books, so I don't remember if Carter's transition to Barsoom was ever explained scientifically or if it works exactly like magic without being called magic.
Planetary Romance is a fine name but it just strikes me that Planetary Romance, Sword and Sorcery, Science Fantasy etc are all extremely close subgenres, and they frequently dip into each other.
I enjoyed gather, darkness! By Leiber. Reads like a S&S but turns out to be SF. Haven’t liked much else but will try the fafrd and grey mouser books at some point.
Leiber can be patchy, especially the later stuff, but much of his early output-if read in context, particularly the Fantasy and Horror- is superb and massively influential.
Interested in your narrative of the fantasy trilogy from LOTR through Shannara to today, but I'm wondering where and if the Narnia books fit into all this, I'm not sure what the history of it's popularity is as a series.
Well, the Narnia books, being written for children though strong on Christian allegory don't really belong to a Genre Fantasy tradition as do the American Sword & Sorcery pioneers, also since they were published as novels first, not as magazine serials. There is, of course, a huge amount of Fantasy that doesn't fit into the popular usage (meaning Genre Fantasy, i.e. that which arose out of pulp magazines). Lewis belongs to a much broader tradition but I don't see him influencing S&S or High Fantasy- I also think Tolkien was the outsider, co-opted into the Genre bracket by publishers, who then used his 3 volume structure (again, imposed by publishers) as a tremplate.
Of course, Tolkien and the US S&S people were all influenced by Dunsany, Eddison and William Morris, who were in turn inspired by Norse literature, so it enters Genre Fantasy from a long, old tradition...
Great list, but I'm a little surprised that Karl Edward Wagner's Kane didn't make the list.
I don't know how deep he penetrated into the UK. He's VERY American in appeal.
Would have been a 13 not a 10 then, I reckon. Despite his quality, I don't think Wagner is critically canonical as the authors I covered - and in S&S, I'll admit I'm a real traditionalist, cleaving to the authors certain critics regard as seminal. I'm in that ball park as a critic, which is odd for me, as I usually kick against the pricks a bit.But then S&S is a very traditional form, requiring subtlety in subverting its defining symbolism- and for me it's the tradition, the anachronism, that I love, unlike in SF, where I always want to see the apple cart turned over against revisionist, conservative subgenres like Space Opera.
Not that I am debating your definitive list here, but I am curious if you've ever encountered the Kane stories by Karl Edward Wagner. They are dark, but very engaging.
Yes, I have - and I don't claim to be definitive, this is just my personal take, though I feel it relfects the critical consensus broadly- Wagner is far more popular in the USA than he is in Britain, where his publishing has been very intermittent (you're not the first to mention him to me, by the way, so maybe I should revisit him). Thanks for your comment!
I'm guessing I must be in the same age bracket as Mr Andrews, as I've read all of these! Re the title change of 'The Dying Earth' to 'Mazirian the Magician': I guess this is more consistent with the title of the fourth book in the series - ie 'Rhialto the Marvellous' (also worth checking out).
One thing's for sure - 'Nift the Lean' doesn't get the love it deserves and might not be known at all if it hadn't won the World Fantasy Award that year. It's a stone-cold classic.
Yeah, Shea escaped most people even then. The WFA used to be a brilliant award as you could NEVER tell what would win it- lots of non-genre writers, Sword & Sorcery, SF, Magical Realism...it was a mark of quality. I'm 61, incidentally.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal You really couldn't! I'd never heard of Michael Shea until he won it, and subsequently read all the books in the sequence -which were good, but not as good as 'Nift the Lean'. I also reckon the book was an interesting example of an author transcending his own influences, what with Shea being such a big Vance fan (I turned 60 this year, btw).
@@aonghusfallon8327 I've read about 6 Shea books and I included 'Nift' in my book '100 Must Read Fantasy Novels'.
Though it is high tragedy I love the imagery set forth in The Broken Sword and think it would make a great movie if properly done. The same for another fantasy by Poul Anderson; Three Hearts and Three Lions. I remember back in the eighties that a lot of people wanted David Bowie to play Elric of Melnibone' in a movie.
Yes, 'The Broken Sword' would make a great film- but the trouble is, the Studios with enough cash to fund it always think in very generic ways...
Very informative! Thank you
Luckily many of these have been translated into finnish by now 😉
Many more videos like this here on the channel, thank you too.
I just finished Jirel of Joiry. It was really good but took a while for me to get accustomed to being not much of a fantasy reader (I believe this was my second ever sword and sorcery read, a single Conan story being the first).
C. L. Moore is a great writer ans I suspect that I will enjoy the North West of Earth more readily.
I enjoyed his character in the Quest of the Starstone and the ending made me chuckle.
I think you will enjoy Northwest more- it's the colour, sensuality and sheer authentic pulp of these I love- these things were fresh then, not cliche- amazing!
That is a wonderful and very good video. I read modern fantasy as well, at least some of it. But i am with you as you said, most modern stuff is unnecessary bloated. And every so often i come back to my very favourite story, wich is beyond the black river from Howard. May be this is bcs it was the first sword and sorcery i've ever read, but this such a lively short story. Still love that one....
Yes, Howard has an arguably crude but sharply honed poetry that cannot be denied. Glad you liked the video.
What a great video! Thank you very much. It is like a lesson from university about sword and sorcery. Greetings from Ukraine btw!
Nine princes of amber just opened the books for me... and the Game of thrones I agree it is so perfect. I cannot find so great novel among other epic modern fantasy books. I didn’t like so much Abercrombie, Sanderson and Rothfuss.
You clearly have good taste -the S&S writers of today are nothing compared to their predecessors: Abercrombie has his moments, but I found reading a whole trilogy by him was enough and since then I've struggled to maintain interest in any contemporary S&S writers -one volume is enough before I quit! Hope you are Ok over there, may you, all your friends and family prevail against Putin! Best of luck, your forces and leader and people are so brave!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal completely agree! I finished “the first law” trilogy and do not understand, why Abercrombie is a king of so called grim dark? I even do not think the first law is grim dark, all main characters are not so bad at all.
Thank you for support and good words about us and our country, Ukraine still stands because of great support from UK, USA, and other countries, we all very appreciate that. Without you, we would became the part of russia (again), and I really don’t want to live in Mordor :)
@@yelisieimurai Well, watch my video on 'Grimdark' to see what I think of that term! Remember, so many people around the world believe in Ukraine, its people and the right to independence. Take care!
Did you ever get around to obtaining the first two Lyonesse novels?
Yes, but not in the condition I'd prefer, though I now have Underwood Miller signed numbered limited editions which I show in a more recent video.
I wish some publisher would give us mass market editions of Karl Edward wagners Kane novels and stories. Been waiting for years. Wish I’d picked them up when they weren’t going for big prices
Wagner never had much of a profile in the UK. His work does need reissue, completely agree.
So precious! Love it!
Glad you liked it. Plenty more fantasy nostalgia here.
What an amazing video!! Since I haven’t read any of these series yet, except Earthsea, which book would you recommend me picking up first after LOVING LeGuin?
Well, LeGuin's influence is more predominant over female authors than male ones-- although she is universally admired - and her sway begins to affect US female fantasy writers significantly by the mid to late 1970s. Contemporary Fantasy shows only a watered-down leGuin influence, inherited by today's writers via other writers and generally not directly from leGuin. I'd suggest the works of Patricia McKillip- such as 'The Forgotten Beasts of Eld' and Jane Yolen perhaps....and be aware that before 1977, there were still a significant number of singleton fantasies (whereas after this, they're pretty much all series- watch my video 'The Artificial Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977' to understand the commercial decisions and the publishing moment that resulted in the endless series and trilogy default of today).
One of the main reasons you will not have encountered these series if you are under 35 or so is that they don't fit the model that arose in 1977, when the Tolkien template was applied to everything: the likes of Anderson, Leiber, Moorcock, Vance et al generally wrote for magazines, so most of their Sword & Sorcery sagas were short stories, only later fixed up into books - the paperback did not come to dominate genre publishing until the mid 1960s. Tolkien, writing one huge book that was then divided into three, was the outsider, not the norm. So today, the original S&S writers are virtually forgotten and their books are short and sometimes episodic- but they are more original, preceded today's pretenders by decades and are usually far better written. Enjoy your Fantasy journey, move into LeGuin's SF and watch more of the Fantasy on this channel to improve your knowledge- my book, '100 Must Read Fantasy Novels' is still available as an ebook on kindle and other e-formats.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal thank you very much!! I’ll definitely check out some of those recommendations, and thanks for sharing your knowledge it’s really fascinating!
Just discovered your channel and really like it. I just wonder if you have read The Knight and The Wizard by Gene Wolfe? If you like Broken Sword and I am sure as a si-fi fan you already know The Book of the New Sun by Wolfe, you might really enjoy those too.
Cheers
I've been selling Gene Wolfe's books since 1984 and have been reading him on and off since the 1980s. I consider 'The Book of the New Sun' as SF- I will be covering him in upcoming videos and one of his rarest books is covered in my Kerosina video. Thanks for the compliment.
Having watched quite a few of your posts about SF and Fantasy, I would like to read comments on the 2 (Not 3) GORMENGHAST books.
I have never read anything so good as these two books.
But they were not SF or Fantasy.
I'm not sure what they were.
Yes I do...They were an absolute pleasure to read.
Which two- first and second? Be clearer and we'll see. I have mentioned them in my New Wave SF videos- mostly as asides to comments on Langdon Jones, who assembled the third book from fragments and in relation to the work of M John Harrison.
if Peake's books are not Fantasy, what are they? They're not Realism, are they? They may not be S&S or 'High Fantasy', but they are Fantasy -they are set in an invented realm.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal
The first two.
I liberate them whenever I find them in charity shops and give them to anyone I meet who declares a love of great writing.
No one has ever thanked me.
Usually the subject is never brought up when I see them again.
So I wondered what you followers think of them.
Not fantasy in my opinion but they will surely appeal to some, if not all Fantasy lovers.
These books are given high praise in both the Encyclopaedia of Fantasy AND the SF tome but the authors of those entries also seem to admit that they are something totally unique .
The Pastel City I had never heard of. Added to the TBR 👍
It's a gentle start to a series that half way through goes places no-one else does. Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, all the Dying Earth worlds, Viriconium is the most radical!
Ace had a nice edition of The Traveller in Black.
They did indeed, very handsome. The later Severn House hardcover is spiffing but simple, but super-uncommon.
I still have Michael Moorcock's Elric books. He and Tanith Lee influenced my own short stories.
What!!, did anyone or anybody ever heard Lin Carter “Thongor “ Swords and Sorcery series or L. Sprague de Camp who did write some swords and sorcery or I’m the only fool to remember those authors, and besides that thank you bringing up subjects of Swords and sorcery “ fantasy is my favorite too, that another things)
Remember them well, they were everywhere in the 1970s.
Earthsea changed my appreciation completely in my 30s when I encountered it.
For those looking for top notch Sword and Sorcery adventures, Karl Edward Wagner's Kane is an all time great. Norvell W Page's Hurricane John books Flame Winds and Sons of the Bear God are well worth reading. The Theives World shared universe are very good. Tempus Thales in my opinion being a top 5 S&S character. Lastly David Gemmell's Druss the Legend deserves way more attention than it gets. His Waylander and Skilgannon books also good.
SO many things!! One thing you touch tangentially was a difference I often harp on (sometimes incorrectly)- but from the other side!
To MY perception as a US Book guy, the UK editions and their art appear to come and go, often being uninspired, or at least poor illustrations of the contents. Whereas the US editions art stayed more or less standardized for generations.
Take Conan: The Lancer/Ace editions started coming out in the late 60's with Frazetta covers and kept those paintings until pretty recently (The decision to go all Trade PB) You've got a Conan in the thumbnail that looks like unsuccessful Van art - but the UK publishers and covers changed all the time - sometimes with AMAZING art (see your previous Bristol video's Ox-Fam visit's Burroughs Covers) even if it's not really illuminating the text.
Likewise Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser Started coming out in Ace paperbacks in i968, but the editions we'd recognize were 1970's series with the suspiciously Frazetta like Jeff Jones cover art, until 1977's "Swords and Ice Magic" where Michael Whelan steps in to give snowy portraiture followed by Tom Canty's 1988 Cover to "The Knight and Knave of Swords". These cover illustrations remained the standard until the end of the century when White Wolf rendered the A formats "obsolete" with the release of 2 HC Omnibuses with some uncharacteristically uninspiring Mike Mignola art.
Over here The Elric books were pretty standardized pretty early on, with the DAW series publication in 1972 & keeping those 6 standardized Michael Whelan covers into the 80's when they went to Berkley & got the Robert Gould covers they kept into the 2000's (until the near death of MassMarket pb). Once again, the White Wolf (Borealis) HC colections seem to have knocked the steam out of other editions.
**Normally I'd agree that those standard 6 are the way to go for Moorcock, but in the past few months Tor's been dropping EXCELLENT, beautiful HC Omnibus editions with a color map, gorgeous covers, and 4 books to a collection!. These are corrected texts (WW f**ked up a lot of the typesetting, so He's gone over everything- but Mike agrees that you should shouldn't tinker with the old writing lest the tales' flavor suffer ) and MOST IMPORTANTLY IF YOU BUY THESE MIKE GETS A CUT - UNLIKE USED BOOKS- And he might be the only writer who's on your list who's still alive & could use people's money!
And they're dropping an ALL NEW ELRIC book Dec 6th in matching HC Livery. "The Citadel of Forgotten Myths"
Moorcock's got an anecdote about the Psychedelic Elric Cover you showed : There's *some* weird reason those editions have the UK titles & story arrangements (something with shifting rights & rushing them out) but apparently the artist looked up "Albinism" & the definition mentioned that it primarily effects the Black population of African descent so he portrayed Elric as kinda Black/kinda Moorish & gave Zarozinia an EPIC Fro. Me? I dig the butterfly wings.
@@waltera13 -That Lancer edition is of course a US edition with a variant title and an abridged text. The reason why MMs pbk jackets in the UK, incidentally, is because MM was massively identified with 60s/70s counterculture over here. He lived in Ladbroke Grove. London's Haight-Ashbury, created Jerry Cornelius and performed/wrote with Hawkwind, Britain's premier acid rock band. In the late 70s punk song "How Much Longer?" by Alternative TV, a lyric runs '...they talk about Moorcock, the Floyd and Reading Festival,' illustrating the typical hippy in the UK. Good info re that cover, didn't know that !
Hi Walt - as I think I said in the video, the problem with trying to standardise the Elric jackets in the UK was to do with a different publisher holding the rights to 'Elric of Melnibone'. They had the same covers in the UK right throughout the 70s (see my reply to Walter A re why these designs stuck), also, UK publishers changed hands and went through corporate identity shifts more often in Britain than in the US in that time. What had been Panther became Granada and at that time, the editions were standardised into the titles/running order of internal chronology as I mentioned when Collins (now Harpercollins) bought Granada and rebranded it as Grafton.
Since then - early to mid 80s - MM's work has gone through numerous revisions, retitlings and changes at different publishers, initially with Orion/Millennium/Gollancz in the UK (my third bookshop event with Mike was when the new 14 volume 'Eternal Champion' saga, with a Von Bek omnibus placed at the start of the sequence ). Personally, I hated the cover art on these editions, but purchased them all, despite owning many earlier variants. although there were revisions to some texts prior to this, at this point it became a regular thing.
There was allegedly a falling out between MM and a key figure at Gollancz and the presentation, jacketing and marketing of his work in the UK since has been a shambles with the result that his commercial star here faded into near obscurity by the late 90s. While I sold tons of MM in the 80s, these days, because the jacketing is so poor, I virtually have to force people to buy them and kids today have no idea who MM is or how important his work is.
My suggestion for a first reading for new readers is based on the fact that 'Fortress' and 'Revenge' are shoehorned into the chronology and that stylistically, they are a poor fit among the earlier texts both in terms of prose flavour and the identity politics tinged themes MM began using more broadly in the later Elric trilogy, which is why I excluded mention of these. If a reader goes with the 6 'original revisions' as they stood in the UK in the 80s, the clearest narrative emerges. Many readers struggle with MM as you know, because they are fixated on the idea of beginnings and endings and the EC cycle doesn't work that way, right ? I think reading those editions as I suggest delivers an anchoring start point for MM reading.
However, I totally agree re the point that Mike makes nothing from second hand books - I've been saying to readers for decades that if a book is in print, you should buy it new if you respect a writer, otherwise they won't be able to keep earning and consequently writing. I've found that once people are hooked by MM, they upgrade almost as a reflex action. I haven't seen the Tor editions, but I am aware of them - and of course they are not available in the UK for copyright reasons, Gollancz still tragically holding rights here. As a result of this, I too would endorse current Tor editions so as you say, MM can make some money.
I mention the new Elric novel in the video I posted around a month ago about forthcoming uk sff books - can't wait for it, personally - will be my Christmas read!
Re the specifics of the art, funnily enough me and the Video Widow were discussing representations of Elric last night - I've always favoured Achilleos' painting of Elric used for the UK cover design of the hardcover of 'Elric at the end of time' , despite it not being an early depiction. Rodney Matthew's super-stylised and of course unrealistic take on Elric was also very, very ubiquitous over here and is another version I favour. The Elric I see in my head is often very, very different to some of the more Frazetta-esque variants out there - and I remember owning a Whelan illustrated 'Vanishing Tower' limited edition many years ago.
Anyway, thanks for yr insightful and detailed comment, fully agree we need to see mm making some cash!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Caught your previous Elric plug. I was stoked! I totally agree with your points. Thank you for clarifying some of the company swallowing/rights specifics - I hope I didn't "Make you" write or repeat yourself. I understand that there was a bit that was beyond control, but in your vid you kept mentioning different images on previous (usually Gollancz) covers and it sparked what seemed like a recognition of a cultural divide, but from the opposite side as usual. I wasn't sure if you were aware HOW standardized our image of some of these had become!
OK, Now I'm repeating. 😅
As an Anglophile & book hunter from the "before times" (even in a major US city) it was tricky to find A LOT of Moorcock books. It was YEARS before I could get all three Erekose books just to read! British editions were only found randomly & SO disconnected from everything I knew about him (circa 80's shopping) I understood the whole Jerry Cornelius thing (or *think* I do) but non representative psychedelic covers on S&S books? Wait, WHAT? When talking with other booksellers all over this country any of them would share in the joke about "Bad British Covers". Had a long informative written exchange with Mike about the Haberfield covers (he is SO gentle & kind I felt quite the heel for ever having pointed out their inadequacies as illustration) and not only what a good friend Bob was, but how EARNEST he was about them being allegorical and representative of the spiritual nature of the books (which he read.) I did NOT know of the Hippy ubiquity or level of cultural saturation there. Here he was well respected, but NEVER entry level. He was 2nd or 3rd tier geekery. AND NOBODY knows Hawkwind here except occasionally as a Motorhead footnote ("Lemmy's old band.)
I feel that Bob Gould was probably best at capturing the "Internal World" of Elric. It was subtle (usually) but the emotions displayed were key. Probably because Bob was the only one illustrating his inner world! Look at Bane o/t B.S.: Zarozinia knows the truth.
I *KNOW* the Whelan special edition you're talking about and it pains me too. When I talked to Whelan about his Elric rendering he admitted that he was pushed a little to make them more commercially viable, and his Elric of Melnibone cover (with the THIC Arms) was a bit rushed on a deadline & that he wanted to show another side of Elric with *his* "Elric at the End of Time" cover. The DAW was the only one I recall here in the States, { which BTW was there, in person, on a giant canvas- Elric emaciated, drawn, weak, soulful eyes in reverie - it was breathtaking.)
Whelan's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser? Definative. Recognizable out of context!
I totally agree about the later books having different styles & different focus. The "Dream Theif," or "Fortress of the Pearl " was about someone else & Elric served as framing device. Stick to the canonical 6 (Just ignore the unnecessary in book in each HC! ;) ) The HC is just easier & cheaper to find here. With 1.5K subscribers, are you sure where MOST of them are from?
It is late.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Gosh, you've got me second guessing my own memory; I'm now unsure if Mike said that was the FACT of those covers, or his supposition. Trying to recall the presence of the word "probably" from more than 20 years ago. I *thought* that was his explanation.
It was a good age for fantasy, there was much less established genre convention, and authors felt free to unleash their boundless imaginations on unsuspecting readers. And on a much tighter page count, too. The change to a much more introspective fantasy in the 80s--and the consequently bloated page numbers that go along with that--has its downsides.
Yes, very true. You might want to watch my video 'The Artificial Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977' in which I delve into the whys of the 'bloat' phenomenon. Thanks for watching.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Will do, thanks. Would be fun seeing you do some Arthurian book recommendations.
@@nerzenjaeger That is something I very much want to do, it's on my 'long list' of stuff to get to!
Very cool! Thank you
Pleasure. Watch my 'Artificial Fantasy Trilogy since 1977' video for a different take on this.
It's Lye-ber, not Lieber. Great video. Very interesting with great suggestions. Thanks.
You're not the first to mention my mispronunciation, old habit and I'm Welsh. Glad you liked it.
Bit disappointed there's nary a mention of David Gemmell here.
Pratts' Incompleat Enchanter seems a previously unknown must have for me. Cheers.
Fortress of the Pearl is quite different from the original 6 part saga. But it's so good I think it might actually be my favorite. Still need to read Revenge of the Rose and the trilogy.
I need to re-read 'Fortress', but I recall vividly not enjoying it that much on initial publication - and yes, of course it's different, it was written a long time after the earlier tales, when MM was in a more literary phase of S&S writing, characterised by 'The War Hound & The World's Pain' and 'City in the Autumn Stars', both very firm faves of mine.
Stephen, are you much a fan of Patricia McKillip? Curious if you've ever read her work. Not that she's Sword and Sorcery (or maybe she is in small part. I'm new to all this), but just curious as she's my roommate's favorite fantasy author.
Yes, she produced some elegant, sophisticated work, but have not read any of it for a long time!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Very nice. I've read some excerpts and I'm always struck by her prose. I just need to get around to finally reading some full works. She was close with Peter Beagle (who seems to also have been a huge admirer of her work) who I've very much enjoyed, so I'm sure I'll love her stuff.
I'm in the process of trying to write a fantasy book myself where could I get your book of the 100 best fantasy books? As reference material and it would help my process. I live in the United States I'm going to assume you're in Great Britain. Let me know if there's a website I can order it from or how you do that.
'100 Must Read Fantasy Novels' is now out of print in hard copy and has become quite collectable since I posted this video. It is still available as a kindle ebook from amazon on both sides of the atlantic and probably from the Bloomsbury/A&C Black website as a standard format ebook. I've just checked abebooks and ebay and no-one seems to be selling it secondhand anywahere currently, I'm afraid.
Great book knowledge aside, you, sir, have an awesome ASMR voice.
Cheers!
Many thanks. I'm never pleased with it personally, but am glad you like it.
I get the sense that Outlaw thinks the best SF and fantasy has already been done in the 20th century.
Yes, I believe that is so. Fantasy - or to narrow it down to what most people mean by that usage (Sword & Sorcery and its near indistinguishable sister High Fantasy)- is a form that relies on anachronism and tradition and it ceased to be innovative a long time ago (watch my video 'The Artificial Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977' which outlines the history of the commercial formularisation of those subgenres, from which they've never recovered since the publishing model is based on endless sequels written for commercial rather than artistic reasons). Fantasy in the broader sense is still alive and kicking.
As for SF, as a Modernist genre, it hit problems when certain writers and audiences demanded a return to its lowest common denominator- the Space Opera - just as it was coming to terms with Postmodernism via Cyberpunk. SF ceased to evolve and be subject to periodic revolutions as it had done since the naming of the genre in 1925. Like almost every artform, SF slowed down as technology sped up. There's a lot about this on the channel. Doesn't mean I don't like contemporary SF- there are some good books about, still (you'll also find videos about these on the channel) but the reality is that innovation, essential for SF, slowed down to a crawl decades ago...
singletons fan here also. I give bonus marks for any great books under 200 pages! (see stig of the dump and most of penelope lively's output!)
What a wonderful, richly researched and knowledgeable discussion. A great reading friend put me on to Howard and Vance and it changed my life, and outlook.
Another excellent video and I don’t read fantasy.
Well, you get past a certain date with S&S and there's no point! Glad you enjoyed it.
Hi Steve: I fear another attempted comment by me has gone straight to Zelazny's Dung Pits of Glyve. Which, I guess, some might argue is where it belongs..
I TOO have experienced mysterious disappearing comments. (Not today though)
It's weird. Sometimes I get notifications of comments, then when I click on 'em to look, they're not there. Must be a yt glitch. annoying!
It's weird. Sometimes I get notifications of comments, then when I click on 'em to look, they're not there. Must be a yt glitch. annoying!
When you started talking about an important female fantasy writer I thought you were going to talk about Tanith Lee!
Well, Tan did a bit of S&S too as you well know...she'd be in a top 15 easily.
M.John Harrison? I have never heard of him! I thought I've at least heard of all the sf authors.
I'm assuming you're not being ironic, here. If not, M John Harrison is probably the greatest living SF/Fantasy writer, having been active in both genres- and general fiction and criticism- since the mid 1960s. He was literary editor of 'New Worlds' magazine in the late 60s and by the 1980s was turning out the most elegant, sophisticated and strange stories in genre fiction - S&S, SF and Weird Fiction. He has never been popular in the USA, being a mould-breaker who is too arch for some tastes. His space opera 'Light' was described as "Brilliant" by Iain M Banks. There's an interview with him here on the channel in the SF author interviews playlist. If you've not heard of M John, I suggest you watch more of my Top 10 style videos as you will almost certainly encounter other writers you don't know who have long-established critical and commercial reputations.
Im doing research for a script and these are so fucking helpful
Glad to hear it, caped crusader. Please subscribe and all that. Do watch the HUGE backlist, which anyone attempting to write anything will be able to mine for creative stimuli. Super-thanks tipping is a possibility if moved enough and minted enough to contribute. You're very welcome here.
I felt like a college kid listening to a master professor... thx.
You're very kind. I try and make it accessible and not be too academic - plus it's over a decade since I last guest lectured on SF and/or bookselling...
As someone that has read some of the Elric books in the new "Elric saga collection" (read saga vol 1 so far, which has, chronologically, the first four books in it, each books seems to consist of 3 or so smaller books). I don't think I've read books more influential on other fanatasy authors. Game of Thrones, the Witcher, Warhammer fantasy/40k it's all taking tons of inspiration from the Elric books. E.g. The famous chaos symbol from warhammer? Yeah, that's the symbol of the lords of Chaos in the Elric books. The dragon riding, sadistic mages called Targeryans? Basically the Melniboneans. The conjuncture of the Spheres? Yeah, Elric. etc etc.
That said, the books are far from perfect. They are very pulpy. They read like you're watching a 60's/80's sword and sorcery TV show with all the cheap effects and sets etc. But to be fair, the sets are absolutely stunning and the good guy isn't always good. There is blood, some sex and gore. The good guy will sometimes just backstab other people to save his own skin etc. It's also very ... dramatic. Elric will throw himself to the ground and cry out in misery or pain because he failed or couldn't get the thing he wanted. Characters will often over react in their face expressions etc.
Also, Elric is an idiot. There is no other way to put it. It makes absolutely zero sense for him to leave the throne to his cousin Yrrkoon. To leave Cymoril with him after what Yrrkoon does. No wonder he's obsessed with finding out if he's got free will or if the world he's in is superdeterministic, he can't stop making the absolute worst choices.
Yes, Elric is an eternal adolescent in many ways- it seems deliberate that MM wrote him this way, after all he once said 'I write for the audience I once was,'
Where can I order your books?
Go to the channel page on a PC. Below the banner, at the top, where the channel description is, hit 'more' (which is in white). This will open a box that describes the channel and shows links to various sites where you can buy my work- be aware that '100 Must Read Fantasy Novels' is currently only available as an ebook. You can find my work at amazon throughout the English speaking world and the other sites mentioned in the links. Thanks.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Thank you
nice video
Many thanks. Do check out the other Fantasy videos here- there is a playlist and there will be more.
If you haven't indulged, you owe yourself the Old Kingdom novels by Garth Nix. Nominally YA but probably my favorite series and I've been reading the stuff for over 60 years.
I know Garth a little, but have only read some of his most recent books.
When you talk about Elric, all I can hear is Tolkien's Eol dark elf character being appropriated by Moorcock.
Well, have you read Moorcock? You'll find his style, messages and detail very, very different. Elric owes more to Poul Anderson's Skafloc- and then only to a degree. My video on Elric will come up tonight on the channel.
Yes, two black blades and trouble with inlaws,check. His larger mythos is outstanding,but it struck me as disingenuous to borrow for an author that he criticized so vociferously.
@@greenknightable I think you should read Anderson's 'The Broken Sword', published in the same year as 'Fellowship' and cited by MM as an influence over Elric. You have to remember that the elements of Tolkien you are referring too were already long part of the Genre Fantasy corpus - we're talking tropes, here- and Tolkien himself was influenced by previous users of them like Eddison, Morris, Dunsany and others going back to the Icelandic Sagas. The really important factor is the difference between Moorcock and Tolkien in Attitude- I'm always saying that 'Tolkien was the outsider,' in Genre Fantasy, as he did not come from the US pulp magazine Sword & Sorcery tradition. Moorcock took nothing from him, which you'll recognise if you read 'The Broken Sword'. It's just that Tolkien BECAME the mainstream from 1977 onwards when - after his final massive commercial success in the USA in the mid 1960s, by which time MM was well into writing the Elric stories - publishers like Lester Del Rey started commissioning Tolkien ripoffs. The 'High Fantasy' model of Tolkien, as opposed to the 'Sword & Sorcery' model of Robert E Howard did not become a big thing until the likes of Brooks, Donaldson and Eddings and their successors. Tolkien borrowed from othErs as much as MM did and the latter didn't need to borrow from JRRT as he worked on a different model.