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| SFReader Forums > Book, Magazine, and eZine Publishers > Flashing Swords > REH Fans / Leiber Fans of S&S | Forum Quick Jump
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Supr
Neophyte
      
Date Joined Apr 2005
Total Posts : 107
| Posted 7/17/2005 8:00 AM (GMT -4) |   | I see that there are folks, to them the master of S&S is Leiber and those who do admire REH. People who do prefer REH tend more to Karl Wagner. They do prefer more violence in literature.
People who do like Leiber tend more to Tolkien and high fantasy. They do prefer more describings and introspectivity.
The reviewer from Tangent is always mentioning Leiber (also in her comments). Is that the reason she can't get Bruce Durhams story?
Another example: I've bought in Poland and am at the end at reading of Leibers story book. There is an introduction by a polish heroic fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski. He's writing that Leiber is creator of S&S and best man at all. He mentions REH only one time. In Sapkowskis opinion Howard wasn't so important for S&S.
My division is maybe oversimplicised, but... | | Back to Top | | |
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Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 7/17/2005 12:31 PM (GMT -4) | | Supr: I consider myself a fan of both Howard and Leiber, but if pressed to choose one or the other to take with me to a desert island, I would choose Leiber. Even so, I enjoyed Bruce's stories in Flashing Swords. They clearly belong more to the Howard camp than to the Leiber camp, but that's OK. Howard's strengths were strong plots, vivid storytelling and a compelling pace. Leiber's strengths were strong prose, subtle characterizations and a wide range of tone. Both writers shared the strength of a fertile imagination. I don't see any reason to divide the sword-and-sorcery fan base between the two authors, but I can see why some people would enjoy one of these guys while not really getting the other.
Whether that explains Tilton's reaction to Bruce's work, I don't know. I suspect she just felt like going on a rant and Bruce's story just got in the way. It doesn't really matter, though. what matters to me is A) I like sword and sorcery; B) Flashing Swords has created an outlet for sword and sorcery; and C) Bruce is among those who has proven himself capable of telling an entertaining sword and sorcery tale, and is likely to tell a few more.
Nothing any reveiwer says changes all that.
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble | | Back to Top | | |
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Supr
Neophyte
Date Joined Apr 2005
Total Posts : 107
| Posted 7/17/2005 12:57 PM (GMT -4) | | I think all Conan stories are perfect and no all Fahrid stories are perfect.
I do love REH but prefer Wagner than Leiber.
And some people I think doesn't value REH.
I lend to read REH,s Conan to my friendess, a candidate for doctor degree. All she felt during reading was agression - she told me that. Strange, I think.
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Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 7/17/2005 1:09 PM (GMT -4) | | Well, read "The Treasure of Tranicos" or "The Vale of Lost Women" again and tell me all Conan stories are perfect ...
Seriously, though, Leiber had some stinkers among the Fafhrd and Mouser stories as well. A few of them are not really stories at all, they're just incidents, and they feel half-formed to me, unfinished. But when he's on, he's on. I adore "The Howling Tower" and "Claws From The Night" and "Stardock," among many others. And the prose in "The Sadness of the Executioner" borders on poetry at times.
One measure to compare the two is the amount of variety. Howard's stuff rocks, and it entertains, but if I tried to read six or seven in a row they would all start to feel repetitive. Not so with Leiber. His stories vary a great deal, as does the language used to tell them.
Then again, I just read "The Tower of the Elephant" the other night, and was struck by how imaginative it was, and how different it is from many of the other Conan tales. So nothing I say here is meant to denigrate Conan or Howard, because I love that stuff, too. I'd just tip the scales for Leiber, if forced to choose.
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4491
| Posted 7/17/2005 1:38 PM (GMT -4) | | "When comaping a Hanza sword, you don't comape it to another Hanza sword, you compare it every other sword in the world that's not a Hanza sword"
Howard or Lieber? Giants, both of them and our fiction wouldn't be here without either one of them.
But REH suffers greatly from the time he wrote for and the brevity of his career. Given twenty more years in which to mature as a writer who knows? Fritz Lieber was a wonderful writer who had a long, full career over which his writing just got better and better. Who knows how Howard might have delt with the new opportunities change in the markets would have brought him? Had "Unknown" been available he might have written for it, with different results than he had when writting for "Weird Tales". Likewise if he had been around to write for Anthony Boucher's F&SF. Or for television, for that matter.
With the work as it stands Lieber has an edge. about thirty years worth, though for my money I take the collected Howard to that desert island.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
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Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 7/17/2005 2:05 PM (GMT -4) | | Good points, Mike. It is a shame we did not get to see what Howard might have become.
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble | | Back to Top | | |
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TRtheJ
Neophyte
Date Joined Apr 2005
Total Posts : 137
| Posted 7/17/2005 2:51 PM (GMT -4) | | I am a fan of Howard, Leiber, Wagner and Tolkien, but more the first three than the latter in that I prefer Sword and Sorcery over High Fantasy.
I think there is a definite confusion between what Howard created, Sword and Sorcery, and High Fantasy. Yes, the latter is a more descriptive and introspective genre in terms of wordage than the former. But if you pay attention, Howard's Conan stories are in fact descriptive and to a point introspective stories themselves, just not in so massive a wordage way as Tolkien wrote. Howard was a master wordsmith, so while the story moves fast, the reader is getting far more than just action and violence. It has amazed me how upon finishing a Conan novella I have always felt I'd read enough to fill a novel. | | Back to Top | | |
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TRtheJ
Neophyte
Date Joined Apr 2005
Total Posts : 137
| Posted 7/17/2005 2:59 PM (GMT -4) | | quote:
Originally posted by Red Viper
Well, read "The Treasure of Tranicos" or "The Vale of Lost Women" again and tell me all Conan stories are perfect ...
Robert E. Howard never wrote a story called The Treasure of Tranicos. He wrote a story entitled The Black Stranger, which I read some time ago in Wagner's Echoes of Valor trilogy and I remember it being a good story. The Treasure of Tranicos was a De Camp slaughter of an original Howard story.
As for The Vale of Lost Women, I heard and read all the charges against this story before reading it in the latest Conan books, and while the fact Conan is in some ways a secondary character, the story is pretty good as a story. | | Back to Top | | |
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Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 7/17/2005 3:38 PM (GMT -4) | | I'll have to look for "The Black Stranger." Thanks for the tip. Can't agree with you on "Vale of Lost Women." I thought it just boring; I felt like every step in it could be predicted. By the way, I didn't say the stories sucked -- I said they weren't perfect. "Tranicos" DOES suck -- but we'll stick that one on de Camp, not Howard, and I'll track down "The Black Stranger" and see how it measures up to Howard's gems.
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4491
| Posted 7/17/2005 5:43 PM (GMT -4) | | "The Vale of Lost Women" didn't suck but certainly isn't the sort of story that made Howard's reputation. I liked it and if I were to write and sell such a story now I'd not be too embarassed about it. I dare say our Howard would likely be happy enough with such a tale. Lord knows we've all read worse stories. Lord knows I've written worse stories.
The people who completed Howards work after his death were no better than the ones who completed the works of lovecraft. Most of both groups actually wrote better stuff when it was all theirs.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
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Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 7/17/2005 6:11 PM (GMT -4) | | Mike: I've written some that were LOTS worse than "Vale."
If we ever get marooned together, can I trade some of my Fafhrd and Mouser for some of your Conan? Just temporary trades, mind you ... I would willingly part from my Leiber books forever.
TRtheJ: I think the Conan paperback I have at home (I'm at work now, or I'd go check) credits "Tranicos" to Howard alone, rather than as a rewrite by de Camp. I wonder if that was a marketing ploy or an honest mistake? It certainly does not read like Howard's Conan stuff ... I recall a lot of un-Conanish dialogue and some almost foppish behavior on the part of our Cimmerian friend, although it's been ages since I read that one.
When a Conan mood is upon me, I tend to reach for "The Tower of the Elephant," or "A Witch Shall Be Born," or "Queen of the Black Coast," or "Shadows Over Zamboula" -- anything, really, except "Vale" and "Tranicos." I shall drink a bourbon to REH's memory and hope his ghost forgives me for blaming that one on him ... thanks for setting me straight!
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4491
| Posted 7/17/2005 7:05 PM (GMT -4) | | Steve,
A foppish cimmerian? Now that would be a great character for humorous S&S!
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com | | Back to Top | | |
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Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 7/17/2005 7:36 PM (GMT -4) | | Mike: A foppish Cimmerian might, indeed, be funny. I don't think I could pull that off, though ...
I've tried writing humerous S&S, and it is very difficult to pull off. A couple of the tales came out more standard fantasy than S&S, although at least one is definitely S&S.
Have you tried to do that? Write S&S that is funny, yet still S&S? I think it is a big challenge, but one worth pursuing. I haven't read the "Chicks in Chainmail" stuff, although I'm going to. Does it tend toward humor more so than other S&S?
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4491
| Posted 7/17/2005 8:24 PM (GMT -4) | | Steve,
Yes, "Chick's" as a series is humorous. It started life as series that poked fun at the pretentions of "Feminist" fantasy while featuring strong women protagonists who delt with the worlds they inhabited on their own terms. All of the stories in the series have a humorous slant, though I think they are also good fantasy and many are good S&S.
My own isn't what many would call Sword and Sorcery, though I think it fits a reasonably broad definition of the genre, all but the hard-boiled tone perhaps, that's hard to do, hard-boiled humor. My story had it's roots in a popular series of stories by L. Sprague DeCamp and Fletcher Pratt, later continued by others, "The Complete Enchanter". That was S&S when the first story came out but somehow wasn't any longer by the time the tales were gathered in book form. Something to do with the story settings which migrated from norse mythology to the world of Spencer's "Faerie Queen" and others. My story isn't so literate, my heroine (never named) is transported from earth to a world where magic works, a sort of generic pseudo medival fantasy world, to fight a duel for a desperate queen.
The follow up, which I'm still working on three years later, deals with the aftermath of those events. Among many other things it fills in; it gives the heroine a name.
I think the key to writing any kind of humor is to relax a bit and have fun writing it.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
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Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 7/17/2005 10:14 PM (GMT -4) | | Mike: Sounds good. I enjoyed the "Enchanter" stories. When I get my hands on "Chicks in Chainmail," I promise to read your tale first.
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble | | Back to Top | | |
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J Harper
Stablehand
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 39
| Posted 7/17/2005 10:31 PM (GMT -4) | | Treasure of Tranicos is indeed a de Campian rewrite of Howard, probably the worst he did, since he wrenched a fine, well-tuned plot all out of whack just to fit it into what he thought was the chronology of the 'Conan Saga'.
'The Black Stranger' is, I think, one of the better stories in the Conan series, and like 'Beyond the Black River' shows Howard's growing interest in the Western Frontier. Shame it got rejected by Wright. It's worth picking up _Echoes of Valor I_ for, or you can wait for _The Conquering Sword of Conan_ to come out this fall/winter.
I may comment a bit more on this thread later. Cheers.
Jeremy Harper
I am staunch and black and have one mood, and this - to defend my masters and their green earth.
Tintaggon
The Coming of the Sea by Lord Dunsany
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J Harper
Stablehand
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 39
| Posted 7/17/2005 10:34 PM (GMT -4) | | quote:
Originally posted by erazmus
Steve,
A foppish cimmerian? Now that would be a great character for humorous S&S!
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
Actually, there was an issue of Savage Sword in which Conan met a Cimmerian who had gone civilized, though the story was played straight, though I remember a little humor. Sophisitcate, polite, and deadly with a sword, this Cimmerian was interesting. The story hinted that this Cimmerian may had been Conan's long lost elder brother. Decent story for a later Savage Sword.
Cheers!
Jeremy Harper
I am staunch and black and have one mood, and this - to defend my masters and their green earth.
Tintaggon
The Coming of the Sea by Lord Dunsany
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Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 7/18/2005 6:44 AM (GMT -4) | | J: I'll get "The Black Stranger" with "Conquering Sword," then -- I planned to get that one anyway, so now I have another reason to hurry. Thanks for the heads up!
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4491
| Posted 7/18/2005 8:05 AM (GMT -4) | | Jeremy,
For as long as Savage Sword ran I'm sure they used about every devise you could put into a Conan story, more Conan has appeared within the graphic format than all the print formats by every writer who ever penned a pastiche.
I was just thinking of all the possibilities for a cimmerian to try to blend in with civalization, aping high manners, foppish clothings etc. and how many ways there are for him to get it wrong.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com | | Back to Top | | |
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J Harper
Stablehand
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 39
| Posted 7/18/2005 7:55 PM (GMT -4) | | quote:
Originally posted by erazmus
Jeremy,
For as long as Savage Sword ran I'm sure they used about every devise you could put into a Conan story, more Conan has appeared within the graphic format than all the print formats by every writer who ever penned a pastiche.
I was just thinking of all the possibilities for a cimmerian to try to blend in with civalization, aping high manners, foppish clothings etc. and how many ways there are for him to get it wrong.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
Oh, it's a great idea. Like I said, the story played with the concept in a straight adventure mode. I'm sure it'd be hilarious if skewed as a comedy.
Cheers,
Jeremy Harper
I am staunch and black and have one mood, and this - to defend my masters and their green earth.
Tintaggon
The Coming of the Sea by Lord Dunsany
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