|
|
|
|
|
| SFReader Forums > Writing > On Writing > The most epic sword duels in fantasy--need suggestions | Forum Quick Jump
|
 | 
tchernabyelo
Acolyte
      
Date Joined Oct 2006
Total Posts : 434
| Posted 4/11/2008 5:46 AM (GMT -4) |   | Outside fantasy, but read the duel between Lymond and his brother in "The Game Of Kings" by Dorothy Dunnett. Probably the best I've ever read.
Brian Dolton
Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex #25 "Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"What The Heart Bears" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"Above The Clouds" - Paper Blossoms, Sharpened Steel (forthcoming)
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals Feb-Apr 08
"The Last Arrow Of Liang Xi" - Darwin's Evolutions (forthcoming)
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"Call Centre" - Necrotic Tissue #1
"When Winter Came" - ASIM #32
"Cold Fire" - Flashing Swords #9
"St. Saviour And The Devil's Dandy" - Flashing Swords (forthcoming) | | Back to Top | | |
|
Nik
Adept
Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 774
| Posted 4/11/2008 12:31 PM (GMT -4) | | R. A. Salvatore describes sword duels very well. His battles with Artemis Entreri are some of the best I've read. I'd say it's the one area in which Salvatore truly stands out and it helps you ignore Drizzt's constant brooding and the not-so-subtle insertions of political statements.
This is from my experience with the first 10 books or so--I haven't gone beyond those in his series.
Nicholas Ian Hawkins
Forthcoming
"Knowledge and Dust," in Magic & Mechanica, from Ricasso Press, Spring 2008
Published
"What Heroes Leave Behind," in Return of the Sword, Flashing Swords Press, March 2008
"The Weald Maiden's Will," in Every Day Fiction, March 5, 2008
"Relativity," in FLASHSHOT, September 28, 2007
Visit my website, Trampler of Beautiful Phrases, at nihawkins.wordpress.com | | Back to Top | | |
|
darkbow
Rabbit lord
Date Joined Oct 2005
Total Posts : 1647
| Posted 4/11/2008 1:12 PM (GMT -4) | | | | |
|
Nik
Adept
Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 774
| Posted 4/11/2008 1:15 PM (GMT -4) | | darkbow said...
What, nomention for Dumas or Sabbatini?
There is now.
EDIT: If you had to recommend one Dumas book, Ty, which would it be?
Nicholas Ian Hawkins
Forthcoming
"Knowledge and Dust," in Magic & Mechanica, from Ricasso Press, Spring 2008
Published
"What Heroes Leave Behind," in Return of the Sword, Flashing Swords Press, March 2008
"The Weald Maiden's Will," in Every Day Fiction, March 5, 2008
"Relativity," in FLASHSHOT, September 28, 2007
Visit my website, Trampler of Beautiful Phrases, at nihawkins.wordpress.com | | Back to Top | | |
|
Nik
Adept
Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 774
| Posted 4/11/2008 1:23 PM (GMT -4) | | If we're including movies, what did you all think of the Hector-Achilles showdown in the recent version of Troy? I thought that was pretty well done cinematically (though my knowledge of true Greek hand-to-hand combat is not great). And if we're not including movies, just ignore this post. I'll try to think of more authors.
Nicholas Ian Hawkins
Forthcoming
"Knowledge and Dust," in Magic & Mechanica, from Ricasso Press, Spring 2008
Published
"What Heroes Leave Behind," in Return of the Sword, Flashing Swords Press, March 2008
"The Weald Maiden's Will," in Every Day Fiction, March 5, 2008
"Relativity," in FLASHSHOT, September 28, 2007
Visit my website, Trampler of Beautiful Phrases, at nihawkins.wordpress.com | | Back to Top | | |
|
MichaelEhart
Sage
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 2324
| Posted 4/11/2008 6:00 PM (GMT -4) | | The fight between Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the Corsican Twins, the marvelous choreography of the fight between Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone in Zorro.
Raphael Sabatini's best fight scene has to be the fight on empty floor of the tower in St. Martin's Summer.
Click here to buy my book!
The Servant of the Manthycore from DEP
Illustrated by Rachel Marks, with an introduction by Michael Moorcock
Read me in 2008!
"Without Napier" Every Day Fiction, April 9
"Night of Shadows, Night of Knives" Magic and Mechanica, Ricasso Press, Spring 2008
"To Destroy All Flesh" Return of the Sword, Flashing Swords Press, Spring 2008
"Only His Name" Every Day Fiction, March 30
"An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" They Are Not What They Seem, Janrae Frank, ed., TBA
"The First Trial of Jermaish the King" Flashing Swords #10, May 2008
Still in print!
"The Stars by Law Forbidden" Unparalleled Journeys II, Journey Books, 2007
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, Tenoka Press, 2007
| | Back to Top | | |
|
James Enge
Maker
Date Joined Jan 2006
Total Posts : 208
| Posted 4/11/2008 6:57 PM (GMT -4) | | I seem to remember there's some good fencing in Sabatini's Master-at-Arms and Scaramouche. (No fandangoes!) The fighting scenes in Fraser's Flashman books are always great, but they usually hinge on the "hero" being more cowardly than anyone else (and hence surviving to tell the tale).
Epic swordfights: Aeneas vs. Turnus at the end of Vergil's Aeneid, Ruggiero vs. Rodomonte at the end of of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. The Homeric hero Diomedes fights a lot of people in books 5 & 6 of the Iliad, but maybe it's more like a killing spree than a series of duels. There's a great if inconclusive duel in book 3 of the Iliad where Paris gets soundly thumped by Menelaus.
Knight fights: there's the story of Balin and Balan in Malory's Morte d'Arthur. And it might not be any use to you, but there's a comic battle between Sir Pellinore and Sir Grummore in White's The Sword and the Stone which is worth reading.
There's a great duel between the Scar Gordon, the hero of Heinlein's Glory Road, and an antagonist referred to simply as the Never Born. It's in the part of the book that doesn't suck. (Heinlein was pretty hit and miss from Stranger... onward, in my view.)
Which reminds me--sort of between books and movies, there are some great swordfights in Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, but they're (naturally) very stagy. I will not even mention here the Richard Lester Musketeers movies, surely the greatest of film swashbucklers.
James Enge
http://jamesenge.com/
"A Covenant with Death" in Flashing Swords
"The Lawless Hours" in Black Gate 11
"The Gordian Stone" in Every Day Fiction
"The Red Worm's Way" forthcoming in Return of the Sword
"Payment in Full" forthcoming in Black Gate | | Back to Top | | |
|
crystalwizard
Forum Moderator
Date Joined Nov 2006
Total Posts : 4748
| Posted 4/12/2008 3:02 AM (GMT -4) | | | | |
|
darkbow
Rabbit lord
Date Joined Oct 2005
Total Posts : 1647
| Posted 4/12/2008 4:33 AM (GMT -4) | | Concerning Dumas, my favorite book is "The Three Musketeers." Monte Cristo comes close, as does Twenty Years, but I've always loved "The Three Musketeers" because of its wide take on emotions and humanity in general ... love, hate, anger, joy ... you name it, it's in there someplace ... comedy, tragedy, war, peace ... everything. The movie versions tend to focus on only part of the tale, leaving out much, too much.
And I guess I'm the only person on the planet who can't stand Salvatore's combat scenes. I think the man's a pretty good writer, and I know he gets tons of praise for his fight scenes, but I just don't get it. For one thing, I usually end up lost by the second or third graph because characters are always flipping all over the place and twisting weapons around and whatnot in ways I just find completely unrealistic outside of a magical explanation (such as Bob's Highwayman character).
Second, I just don't think that many fight scenes are going to last that long. In my limited experience, fights are over fairly quick. But, even if a duel or such could last a good long while, not every single combat should be that long.
Guess I'm the only one.
"Steven Spielberg and The Magic Box" upcoming at The Ranfurly Review.
"Peter Piker the Pankin Man" upcoming at Big Pulp
"Zombie Tears" at Tales of the Zombie War
"Walking Between the Rain" at Every Day Fiction
"Beneath a Persian Sun" upcoming in Carnivah House's "Infinity Swords" anthology
"Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" in "The Return of the Sword" anthology
"Hot Off the Press" Ray Gun Revival #25, 2007
www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com
http://radiodarkbow.blogspot.com Two songs a day, every day. | | Back to Top | | |
|
crystalwizard
Forum Moderator
Date Joined Nov 2006
Total Posts : 4748
| Posted 4/12/2008 4:45 AM (GMT -4) | | | | |
|
MichaelEhart
Sage
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 2324
| Posted 4/12/2008 3:17 PM (GMT -4) | | Yes, PB's fight was wonderful, choreographed (I think) by Fred Cavens, who worked on some of Flynn's fights.
Click here to buy my book!
The Servant of the Manthycore from DEP
Illustrated by Rachel Marks, with an introduction by Michael Moorcock
Read me in 2008!
"Without Napier" Every Day Fiction, April 9
"Night of Shadows, Night of Knives" Magic and Mechanica, Ricasso Press, Spring 2008
"To Destroy All Flesh" Return of the Sword, Flashing Swords Press, Spring 2008
"Only His Name" Every Day Fiction, March 30
"An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" They Are Not What They Seem, Janrae Frank, ed., TBA
"The First Trial of Jermaish the King" Flashing Swords #10, May 2008
Still in print!
"The Stars by Law Forbidden" Unparalleled Journeys II, Journey Books, 2007
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, Tenoka Press, 2007
| | Back to Top | | |
| | |