Blog Archives
s(Samuel) David Mason (1924-1974) was not a likely contender for producing a paperback barbarian series. He had a handful of stories in the late 50s for Infinity and Science Fiction Adventures. Gardner Fox had produced fiction in the 1940s (and comic strips) with elements of sword & sorcery. John Jakes’ Brak was in the digest […]
Michael Moorcock (b. 1939) is the Grand Master for sword & sorcery fiction today. To put it in perspective, it would be like having Robert E. Howard around in 1996. What started it all is Elric of Melnibone. Moorcock went into the genesis of the character in the essay “The Secret Life of Elric of […]
Gardner F. Fox (1911-1986) was a writer whose history that went back to the pulp magazines in the 1940s. He started in comic books in 1937, had his first pulp magazine story in Weird Tales in 1944. He had three stories in Weird Tales, ten in Planet Stories, one in Amazing Stories. Some of his […]
The first new barbarian fantasy hero of the 1960s was John Jakes’ Brak. John Jakes (1932-2023) got his start in the science fiction pulp magazines in 1950. He was in lower tier titles including Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Planet Stories, Imagination, If etc. He branched out into western fiction and crime fiction magazines through the […]
I take notice when a writer from another genre takes a stab at sword & sorcery. You had western writers Gordon D. Shirreffs, T. V. Olsen, and Philip Ketchum write interesting historicals that had a sword & sorcery vibe. Ben Haas who wrote the Fargo books as “John Benteen” wrote three sword & sorcery novels. […]