The Barbarian Age was not a remote time after the fall of Rome but the years 1968 to 1981 or so. Beginning with the Lancer Edition of Conan and ending with Flashing Swords #5. There were books published after 1981, but between shared worlds, Conan films, Heavy Metal comics, AD&D books and many other forms of S&S, the Barbarian Book Business had pretty much diffused into other forms of popular culture. After 1981, only DAW was still publishing S&S regularly with the works of Michael Moorcock, Tanith Lee and the Sword & Sorceress anthologies. Fantasy had turned away from S&S and would not embrace it openly again for decades.
One of the big names during this time was John Jakes. Not because he would create the Kent Family Chronicles in 1974 and an entirely new paperback marketing niche. No, before the American Revolution and fat bestsellers was the Age of the Barbarian, and Brak. Brak was Conan reborn. Jakes never made any bones about that. In the introduction to the first Brak novel (collection really) he wrote:
It was in the role of dedicated Conan fan that I wrote the first Brak tale, “Devils in the Walls”. In spirit, anyway, the story was a Howard pastiche, and I have acknowledged the fact more than once. Still, as literary characters often do, Brak soon took on a distinctive life of his own. Sometimes the changes in his personality, story to story and book to book, surprised even me.
Fantastic Stories Stage
This was the first of three stages that Jakes and Brak would pass through, The Fantastic Stage, for in the pages of Fantastic Stories, Jakes would spin his pastiches. These were the best of the Brak stories, feeling freshest, most Howardian. Editor, Cele Goldsmith (later Lalli) was instrumental in promoting S&S in the early 1960s. She brought Fritz Leiber out of retirement, getting him to pen the very best of his Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories for Fantastic. She also encouraged new writers like Roger Zelazny and John Jakes.
“Devils in the Walls” (Fantastic Stories, May 1963)
Brak is purchased from a slave trader by a beautiful woman who wants him to sneak into a haunted palace and retrieve a fortune in lost gold. Having no choice, Brak enters the ruin, fights the possessed leopards who dwell there about then destroys the curse through the power of the Nestorian god and the walls fall, covering the treasure. He escapes, his bargain completed.
Jakes uses the now cliché plot line of the hero who is sent on an errand. See “Rogues in the House” by Robert E. Howard, “Spawn of Dagon”by Henry Kuttner and “Thieves of Zangabal by Lin Carter”. This may be the first non-Howard S&S story I ever read. For years I thought Jakes’ work inferior to other writers (because Brak is so Conan-esque) but have recently re-discovered how good and influential they (some of them) are.
“Witch of the Four Winds” (Fantastic Stories, November-December 1963)
Brak the Barbarian: When Idols Walked (Fantastic Stories, August-September 1964)
Brak begins as a galley slave in the Gord invasion fleet. He witnesses the Gord witch, Ilona, attack a rival fleet from Prince Rodar’s city, using illusionary monsters. Only when another sorcerer shows up is she defeated. Their ship is sunk but not before Brak kills the general and sees Ilona memorizing his face with hatred.
Brak is wounded and washed ashore. He is nursed to health by Saria, daughter of Phonicios, head of the Merchant’s Guild in Rodar’s city (which annoyingly has no name!) Brak attaches himself to Phonicios’ household in thanks. He goes with Phonicios to try and talk to Prince Rodar’s regent, Mustaf ben Medi about Ilona and the Gords. They are turned away. On the return home Phonicios is assaulted by Huz al Hussayn, a merchant thrown out of the guild. He attacks them with magic, the spirit of a strangling murderer named Yem. Brak forces the ghost away. The shadow-strangler has killed some members of the guild already.
And so Brak is emerged in a battle between two wizards that will involve giant killer statues before the end.
Of the Brak tales, the three serials seem to me to be the most satisfying because they weren’t cobbled together from shorter pieces. This novel doesn’t mention Yob-Haggoth or the Nestorians which Jakes added later. Jakes ‘ choice of names seems a little questionable today. The characters with Arabic or Celtic names are evil or inept (Huz al Hussayn, Mustaf ben Medi, Ilona) while the good guys have Romanesue names (Phonicios, Calix, Rodar).
“The Girl in the Gem” (Fantastic, January 1965)
Brak is getting drunk in Tyros when he is attacked by a squad of dwarves. They don’t hurt him and mysteriously disappear. When the guards show up and find stolen housewares, Brak realizes he has been framed. The guards take him to Princess Marjana, who tells him he has been framed and will do a job for her or be hung by his heels. Brak knows when he’s beat so he agrees to go into the old section of Great Tyros recently risen from the sea by an earthquake. He is to free Marjana’s younger sister from a mystical gem that hangs in the old throne room. Marjana ties her scarf to Brak’s scabbard as a symbol of her blessing. The sunken city is guarded by a terrible monster called the Hellarms. Brak goes to the slimy old city, seeing a giant yellow eye that he believes is the monster. He goes on and finds the girl in the gem and smashes it. A tale of sisterly rivalry, it doesn’t end well for one of them.
One of the better Brak tales, though similar to “Devils in the Walls”, with the barbarian being forced to act for an evil woman.
“The Pillars of Chamblor” (Fantastic Stories, March 1965)
“The Silk of Shaitan” (Fantastic Stories, April 1965)
Paperback Stage
The second stage was the Paperback stage. With the success of The Lord of the Rings at Ballantine and the Conan books at Lancer, everybody was creating paperback collections as fast as possible. It was at this time Leiber, following in L. Sprague de Camp’s shoes with the Conan stories, created the Swords collection, placing the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser tales into chronological order. Jakes was no exception, compiling the Brak tales into five books over 14 years. Filling in the gaps, Jakes wrote some new tales to bracket the old ones, with the first (chronologically speaking) Brak tale “The Unspeakable Shrine” showing how he met the evil sorcerer Septegundus, and set off on his quest for golden Khurdisan. These tales are serviceable if not quite as fun as the Fantastic stories though the novel The Mark of the Demons is one of Jakes’s best.
“The Unspeakable Shrine” (Brak the Barbarian,1968)
“Flame-Face” (Brak the Barbarian,1968)
“The Barge of Souls” (Brak the Barbarian,1968)
“The Mirror of Wizardry” (Worlds of Fantasy #1, 1968)
Brak has escaped from Lord Magnus and is heading through the Mountains of Smoke. He comes across a beautiful woman being attacked by living rocks. The rocks kill his pony but Brak saves the woman and they find a cave to rest in. There he discovers she has a secret and a powerful lord and his wizard are chasing her. Brak sees the wizard when his ghostly reflection appears and zaps him.
The woman’s name is Nari. Her father was a magician who knew of a lost treasure in the mountains and hid the map in a tattoo on Nari’s back, then hid it with a spell. Nari grew up in the streets until she was old enough to seek the treasure. She did this by telling Lord Garr about the map. Garr is the bastard brother of the king of Gilgamarsh and wants to raise an army and take the throne. For this he needs Valonicus, the wizard who has revealed half of the map on Nari’s back before she escaped. Nari has fled because Garr had promised to make her queen but in truth wants only the treasure. Once again Brak gets caught up with wizards and politics.
Pretty standard Brakian fare. The scene in which Brak endures the spell and breaks free seemed long to me. Perhaps this is because barbarian vs. freeze spell has become such a cliche (that it wasn’t in 1968) that the modern reader has to keep a little perspective about it. This story appeared before even the first issue of Conan the Barbarian comics.
Brak the Barbarian: The Mark of the Demons (1969)
Interregnum
A Brak Interregnum comes after 1969. Jakes would spend his time on some other S&S projects, namely The Last Magicians (1969), which shows a much darker, less Howardian form of Fantasy. Jakes was stretching, seeing how he could do S&S more in his own style. He followed this with Mention My Name In Atlantis (1972), an openly satirical play on Barbarian fiction. In this book he uses Conax the brainless barbarian to poke fun at S&S as well as the current fade for UFOs. His dedication for the book read:
To the memory of the real Robert E. Howard who has been kept spinning in his grave for the last decade by the new antics of his favorite character’s overactive ghost, not to mention his busy and admiring imitators.
From these words we can see Jakes is not attacking Howard or the original Conan but the many imitators that worked during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Perhaps he perceived that his work along with his friends in SAGA (Sword and Sorcery Guild of America, including L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter) had dulled the blade of S&S a little.
Before writing the final Brak tales, and before the explosion of bestsellers in historical fiction, Jakes spent part of a year writing comics for Marvel. He wrote a few Conan comics as well as a Brak tale just for the comics, “Spell of the Dragon”. Drawn by Dan Atkins, Val Mayerik and Joe Sinnott, it appeared in Chamber of Chills #2 (January 1973) and then as a reprint in Savage Tales #5 (July 1974). Savage Tales would also do an adaptation of “The Unspeakable Shrine” in issue #7 (November 1974) and #8 (January 1975). Adapted by Doug Moench, it was drawn by Steve Gan.
Flashing Swords Stage
1974, saw the final stage in Brak’s career. This was the Flashing Swords Stage. The last two stories Jakes wrote for Flashing Swords read like filler. These lackluster tales fill gaps between older stories and are pale beside the best of the Fantastic Stories tales. Perhaps part of the problem was these were novellas of 15,000 words with plots that did not warrant such length.
“Ghoul’s Garden” Flashing Swords #2 (1974)
Brak saves a young dancer, Shana, and a Nestorian monk named Friar Hektor, from a witch’s apple, a man-eating tree. Brak destroys the tree by throwing a boulder down its gullet. Shana is fleeing a wizard named Pom, a weird dwarf, who desired her after her last performance. Pom claims he wants to take Shana to a secret magical garden. One night they find a cottage and a pleasant woodcutter named Yan. Brak is suspicious. During a rainstorm, Yan reveals himself to be Pom, who zaps Brak and his sword with fire before fleeing with Shana into his magical garden, which is in a piece of cloth. Hektor follows by mistake. Once Brak revives he too goes into the magical garden by stepping on the edge of the cloth. There he faces both wizardly magic and strange bird creatures. Only his wits save him in the end.
One of the last two Brak stories after a five year hiatus. About this time John was making it big with his Kent Family Chronicles and he waved S&S goodbye after 1977. This may not be so tragic when you consider how much less inspired the last two stories are compared to the earlier ones. Jakes was probably glad to move on. Perhaps more interesting than the stories in this book is the cover of Flashing Swords #2, which was Frank Frazetta’s first painting of the Death Dealer, an S&S character he would develop in the 1990s. The Witch’s Apple (See the painting at the top. Frank Frazetta painted that scene for the Book Club hard cover edition ) is an obvious homage to Tolkien’s Old Man Willow. .
“Brak in Chains” aka “Storm in a Bottle” Flashing Swords #4 (1977)
Brak is brought in chains to the city of Lord Magnus the Worldbreaker. He is to be conscripted into the the army. Brak is chained to a cart along with the Children of the Smoke, herdsmen who are enemies of the reining lord. Brak throws a fuss and only when Captain Xeraph, the officer in charge of his caravan, steps in does he calm down a little. The caravan is moving up a street lined with identical statues symbolizing Lord Magnus the Worldbreaker. The Worldbreaker is a general who suffered a great tragedy in his youth, when his lady was murdered by a rapist, one of Magnus’s trusted officers. The man escaped but not without being wounded by Magnus with a spear. Since then he has ruled with a cruel iron fist. The people of the city are suffering under a curse, for a burning sun bakes the city and drains the reservoirs. A mob attacks the cart, thinking Brak is a bad omen. He breaks free, climbing onto a statue in flight. A weird magical event takes place, causing the rows of statues to turn blood-red from their feet slowly rising up. This illusion is broken by Brak swinging his chains. Brak is taken to see Lord Magnus to account for his blasphemy (striking a statue of the lord). More magic and politics follow.
An unusual Brak story in that Brak plays detective to find out why the city has not had any rain. Because of this there aren’t any real monsters and not that many fights either. This story is chronologically the last Brak story though it takes place before “The Mirror of Wizardry”. Jakes went back to write about Lord Magnus, only mentioned in other tale nine years earlier. The story was renamed “Brak in Chains” for the reprint collection The Fortunes of Brak, a title that gives away less of the magical mystery.
The Fortunes of Brak (1980)
In recent years, after the huge success of Jakes’s historical fiction (including the North & South TV movies), Jakes has spoken once again about Brak. In a video to promote the Brak ebooks, he talks about the final Brak tale, the one where he finally arrives at Khurdisan. He says he has the plot outline for that tale in his safe. “Yes, he does reach his destination, but not in the way you’d expect.” (Open road Media, 2012). For more: click here.
We can only guess if there will be a fourth Brak stage. I would love to see new Brak stories (I want that BRAK IS BAK bumper sticker too.) being published. Perhaps in a most ironic way, someone may pastiche John Jakes, writing new Brak adventures “because there aren’t enough of them”. Wait and see.
More art by Douglas Beekman
That was great, thanks for sharing on Brak.