Ten Reasons Why Sword & Sorcery…

Here are ten reasons to read or write Sword & Sorcery? Why bother? Isn’t heroic fantasy just an over-worked Pulp convention that Robert E. Howard invented, others repeated, and finally bad direct-to-video movies drove a stake through its heart? If that is what you think, you are missing out…

I could pontificate on the subject (I will save my comments for last) but here are some experts and their thoughts…

L. Sprague de Camp (1963)

The purpose of these stories is neither to teach the problems of the steel industry, nor to expose the defects in our foreign-aid program, nor yet to air the problems of the housewife. It is to entertain. These stories combine the color, gore, and action of the costume novel with the atavistic terrors and delights of the fairy tale. They furnish the purest fun to be found in fiction today. Heroic fantasy is escape reading in which you escape clear out of the real universe. But, come to think of it, these tales are not a  bit more “unreal” than any of the hundreds of whodunnits wherein, after the stupid cops have fallen over their own big feet, the brilliant amateur—a private detective, a newspaper reporter, or a little old lady—steps in and solves the crime. (Swords and Sorcery: Stories of Heroic Fantasy)

Lin Carter (1973)

We call a story Sword & Sorcery when it is an action tale, derived from the traditions of the pulp magazine adventure story, set in a land or age or world of the author’s invention— a milieu in which magic actually works and the gods are real —and a story, moreover, which pits a stalwart warrior in direct conflict with the forces of supernatural evil…Howard, you see, had done something that no one had ever quite done before . . . and this, unless it be a self-defeating experiment, like the prose of James Joyce or the poetry of Ezra Pound, which are too inimitable and too completely personal ever to be successfully imitated, much less continued by other hands . . . this sort of thing, I say, makes other writers eager to try their hand at this new variety of fiction. (Flashing Swords #1)

Andrew J. Offutt (1977)

Some of us call it heroic fantasy. Some call it epic fantasy, although the two aren’t always synonymous. Some call it sword and sorcery, a phrase invented by a practitioner named Fritz Leiber. There is usually a fantasy element, and there is usually a hero (bearing in mind that “hero” isn’t a sexist word — only “heroine” is!). So — heroic fantasy: hf…It can be said to appeal to all ages, though thousands and thousands of people above age twenty are closet fans of hf. Either you’re crazy about it, can’t resist it, or think it’s nonsense — or pretend to. It hardly ever gets good reviews, because high adventure fiction in which the mood is not existential futilism and the good guy usually prevails (without federal aid) isn’t lit’rature. You know, Literature: like… Homer, or The Three Musketeers, which has outlived all the parasites who, as “critics,” sneered at that novel and its creator, Dumas. (Swords Against Darkness #1)

Jessica Amanda Salmonson (1983)

“Many critics of heroic fantasy have held weaknesses such as these against the field, ignoring the sparks of genius that abound and are increasing. Heroic fantasy has been denounced as backward-looking (while science fiction is forward-looking), yet our scientists look to the stars named for ancient gods and heroes, and there can never be a fiction or a populace with any imagination about the future if they lack an imagination about the past. We are rooted both directions in time; our imagination is not bound totally by scientific principle, no more than it is totally shackled by religious principle, or superstition, or politics, or anything. The plain truth is that the finest stories throughout and before recorded history have been heroic fantasies; many of the finest stories yet to be written will be heroic fantasies also. It can’t be judged by the lowest common denominator and dismissed out of hand, except through prejudice and ignorance. Nor can the devotees of the fiction fail to acknowledge flaws and refuse to ask for better. (Heroic Visions)

Marion Zimmer Bradley (1984)

The special sub-genre of fantasy known as “sword and sorcery” has been the last to be integrated between man and woman. Until recently, this bastion of male-dominated adventure fiction was the last stronghold of the brawny male hero; women were the reward or the incitement for his adventures, but never shared them. Woman, in sword-and-sorcery fiction, when not a mere ‘screaming maiden” to be rescued from dragons, dangers and doom-laden Evil Wizards, remained strictly offstage, emerging now and again to reward the hero with her dower kingdom and a chaste kiss…But women read fantasy too, and we get tired of identifying with male heroes. Many of us wanted our own adventures, in the manner of Jirel of Joiry, creation of old-time fantasy writer C.L. Moore. (Sword & Sorceress #1)

David G. Hartwell (1988)

Good and evil are clearly manifest in fantasy literature ordinarily. The fantasy takes place in a world wherein moral coordinates are clear and distinct, in a moral landscape wherein moral qualities are most often embodied in major characters other than the central character (who is usually at first portrayed as an everyman, a fairly ordinary person of no particular consequence in the world). But the central character becomes a crucial figure in a struggle between good and evil, in which evil is initially strong and dominant but in the end loses because of the innate superiority of the forces of good and due to the actions and choices of the central character….We should note that the subdivision of fantasy known as Sword and Sorcery or Heroic Fantasy (typified by Conan the Barbarian) operates on quite different but still strict moral coordinates. In an amoral world, the hero triumphs over evil because he is strong and clever, but does not change the world essentially, or its moral balance. (Masterpieces of Fantasy & Enchantment)

Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan (2010)

Sword and sorcery. The name says it all. Action meets magic. If high fantasy is about vast armies divided along the lines of obvious good versus ultimate evil, epic struggles to vanquish dark lords bent on world domination, then sword and sorcery is its antithesis. Smaller-scale character pieces, often starring morally compromised protagonists, whose heroism involves little more than trying to save their own skins from a trap they themselves blundered into in search of spoils. Sword and sorcery is where fantasy fiction meets the western, with its emphasis on traveling swordsmen wandering into an exotic setting and finding themselves thrust into unanticipated conflicts there. As high fantasy concerns itself with warring nations and final battles, sword and sorcery focuses on personal battles, fought in the back alleys of exotic cities, in the secret chambers of strange temples, in the depths of dark dungeons. If high fantasy is a child of The Iliad, then sword and sorcery is a product of The Odyssey.(Swords & Dark Magic)

Peter S. Beagle (2010)

I have written elsewhere that there was a time when all literature was fantasy…Even the best and most ambitious of post-Tolkien multi-volume epics inevitably miss that air of great art being first born of terror and ignorance. Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and the Popol Vuh were all created in darkness….But I read a lot less fantasy than I used to in those days. Without wishing to offend, or to name names, Gresham’s Law applies in popular art, as in economics: the bad, or the mediocre, drives out the good, if only because there’s so much more of it produced that the good goes either unrecognized, unpublished, or in time unproduced. (The Secret History of Fantasy)

Scott H. Andrews (2014)

Enter the current fantasy short-fiction movement, with its nuanced focus on character and its eye for diverse takes on archetypes and portrayal of traditionally under-represented cultures and perspectives. The short-fiction format provides the current fantasist with a compact and intensified space in which to present, explore, deconstruct or subvert. The prevalence of these archetypes across human culture provides a rich panoply of warrior and wizard traditions to examine; to use to recast the predominant forms or offer under-represented ones, while at once reveling in the enduring allure that makes these archetypes yet resonant. (The Mammoth Book of Warriors and Wizardry)

G. W. Thomas (2021)

We have arrived at a good place in the 21st century. Heroic fantasy, call it Sword & Sorcery or any other label, being good or bad isn’t the focus any longer. Fantasy, Science Fiction, even the Western, are genres. What the author chooses to say within those genres is the where the critics now look. Is the author using the conventions of a genre to say something new, different, controversial, or merely repeating age-old formulas in a way that is unique to their voice? The success of The Lord of the Rings films, Game of Thrones on television, piles of bestselling novels, proves Fantasy is a money-maker. But it is easy to forget with all those greenbacks, that there is something more here. Fantasy is telling stories readers/viewers want to experience. If Sword & Sorcery were truly the dried up old turd some critics think it is, then why hasn’t it blown away with all the rest of the 20th Century’s trash? (Introduction to upcoming Swords of Fire 2)

If this little collection of opinions has got you thinking about the great Sword & Sorcery anthologies of the past, look here for more… If you like to here professional writers on the subject check out this podcast…