“That was an age to live in!” he breathed hoarsely. “An age of heroes!”
Kane somberly rose to his feet. “A great race, a heroic age—it’s true,” he acknowledged softly. “But I think the last of its heroes has passed.”

— Karl Edward Wagner, “Two Suns Setting,” Night Winds

If you’re a fan of sword-and-sorcery, you’ve probably asked yourself the same questions as I have.

Where is our Road to Middle-Earth? Our Hammer of the Gods? Our The Western Canon? In short, where are all the critical studies of our favorite genre?

OK, we’ve got something. We’ve got a couple chapters in Lin Carter’s Imaginary Worlds. The better part of a chapter in Jamie Williamson’s The Evolution of Modern Fantasy. Some discussion of its principal authors in L. Sprague de Camp’s Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (the chapter “Conan’s Compeers” in particular is helpful). A good essay by Jeff Shanks in Gary Hoppenstand’s collection Critical Insights: Pulp Fiction of the 1920s and 1930s (“History, Horror, and Heroic Fantasy: Robert E. Howard and the Creation of the Sword-and-Sorcery Subgenre”). Another helpful essay by Morgan Holmes in The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales (“Gothic to Cosmic: Sword-and-Sorcery Fiction in Weird Tales”). Some reasonably sketched introductions in the prefaces of Flashing Swords #1, Swords & Dark Magic, and The Sword and Sorcery Anthology. Don Herron has done some good work gumshoeing sword-and-sorcery in the likes of the defunct Cimmerian journal, and The Dark Barbarian.

But for a subgenre of fantasy that spanned some 60 years in its heyday—approximately from Robert. E. Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom” (1929) through the end of the 1980s or thereabouts—and upon whose proud ruins was built George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and the grimdark novels that are all the rage today—we have surprisingly little.

Sword-and-sorcery deserves better. The subgenre did not appear out of nowhere and without cause. It offers alternatives to fantasy doorstoppers, those ponderous epic quests to save The Land that I have very little patience for these days. It is an expression of barbarism—the unconquerable, undeniable spirit of it, at least—and an acknowledgement that barbarism is part of what makes humanity, well, humanity. It’s a unique expression of our desire for personal freedom, to explore new frontiers, and to resist the mantles of stifling custom and conformity.

And most of all, it’s entertaining as hell.

Sword-and-sorcery slipped its pulp and paperback mediums and permeated the popular culture, spawning music, movies, role playing games, comics, and videogames. Directly or indirectly sword-and-sorcery delivered unto long haired metalheads beloved bands like Manilla Road, Manowar, and Blind Guardian. We got Dungeons & Dragons mostly from it, and its seminal authors Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, Howard, Poul Anderson, and Michael Moorcock (despite what J.R.R. Tolkien adherents, of which I am one, will tell you). We got the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian, which is a great sword-and-sorcery film and a wonderful representation of the genre, if not a particularly accurate representation of the literary character. We got a lot of really bad B grade and straight to video flicks too, albeit ones that are fun to watch and mock, and remain interesting cultural artifacts.

Given this rich legacy, where are the studies telling what it is, where it came from? What its best works are, its canon (and its Conan)? Where is the story of sword-and-sorcery, telling us why it rose to such prominence in the 1960s, then fell in a crashing heap the ground in the late 80s, like Yara’s tower crumbling into shining shards?

We’ve got a few really good collections of critical essays on Howard—the likes of The Dark Barbarian and Conan Meets the Academy—but these are on its creator, not the subgenre he spawned. The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales is a good step in the right direction and a wonderful series of essays on the greatest pulp magazine ever, but not sword-and-sorcery focused, specifically. For that matter, where are all the biographies? Again we’ve got Howard pretty well covered with Dark Valley Destiny and Blood & Thunder and now David C. Smith’s Robert E. Howard: A Literary Biography, but what about Karl Edward Wagner, Michael Moorcock, Henry Kuttner? We’re lacking something definitive on Clark Ashton Smith, similar to what S.T. Joshi did for H.P. Lovecraft. Jack Vance is overdue for a biography, too.

There is of course some awesome work being done online by historians, scholars, and fans, available to the patient searcher. I’d be quite remiss to not mention the Forefathers of Sword and Sorcery series right here on DMR Blog by Deuce Richardson (who I hope one day gathers all his material and publishes it between covers). Morgan Holmes over at Castalia House has for decades been chronicling sword-and-sorcery, longer than anyone I’m aware of. G.W. Thomas’ Dark Worlds Quarterly is a wonderful publication and probably the best starting point for what sword-and-sorcery is all about. On January 2 of this year Thomas published an extremely helpful “A Brief History of Sword & Sorcery,” which I recommend checking out. Fletcher A. Vredenburgh’s Swords & Sorcery: A Blog, has published dozens of illuminating reviews. Black Gate has published a good many pieces as well. I also recommend joining the Facebook group Pulp Sword and Sorcery. You also must check out the writings of the late, great Steve Tompkins, who left the circles of this world far too early but left an indelible legacy while he was here. You can find his inspiring essays on sword-and-sorcery and heroic fantasy over on The Cimmerian website.

You can now get sword-and-sorcery discussion on the airwaves, too. Recently the podcast Rogues in the House has started up a sword-and-sorcery focused show, joining The Cromcast, which has branched out from Howard alone to cover authors like Fritz Leiber and Lin Carter.

But we should have more, a lot more, by now. I thought we had something with Skelos (what happened to that promising publication?). Reportedly The Dark Man is coming back, and will expand its critical focus beyond Howard to pulp fiction and early sword-and-sorcery.

What’s missing is a coherent narrative. A story of the subgenre, how it’s defined, and where it came from. How it was birthed, how it survived in the lean early years when Weird Tales folded and science fiction was in its ascendancy. How it rose to its greatest heights in the 1960s and 70s, then crumpled under its own bloated barbarian bulk, along with the vagaries of publishing and the changing culture.

I hope I have rectified this, in some small measure, with my new book Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery (Pulp Hero Press). I have loved the sword-and-sorcery genre since childhood, going back at least some 35 years I’d warrant. If my memory is correct it began with a fortuitous find of a treasure-trove of The Savage Sword of Conan magazines, a story which I detailed here a while back on my personal blog The Silver Key. Since then sword-and-sorcery has been a huge part of my reading life, informed my one-time obsession with Dungeons and Dragons and fantasy role-playing, and even led me to seek out some heavy metal bands that proudly fly the sword-and-sorcery banner.

So I figured, why not write a book on the subject?

Flame and Crimson is an academic study of the genre, principally on its literary antecedents and key contributors. It’s heavily referenced with a lengthy works cited. I wanted to publish something authoritative and not (solely) opinion-based, that readers could use as a springboard for further research or pleasant Saturday afternoon internet searches. I also wanted to take my best shot at a coherent definition. “Sword-and-sorcery” is still used to describe works as diverse as The Lord of the Rings, Forgotten Realms tie-in novels, and the Mists of Avalon. It needs a good working definition, and a proper grounding in the historical fiction, weird horror, and older branches of literature from which it was birthed.

But while I wanted to add some degree of academic and critical rigor to the subgenre I didn’t want to write something dry and pedantic. One of my goals was to try and tell an exciting tale of non-fiction. Sword-and-sorcery has a story of its own to tell, of a confluence of pulp talent, a mercurial renaissance, a staggering commercial fall, and a second life in the popular culture. I wanted to write the kind of academic study that I’d want to read—informative, but also entertaining. I hope I have succeeded, or at least have written something that will provoke reactions, discussion, and get people interested in exploring my favorite subgenre.

This is not a definitive work (as if there ever could be one, on any subject. No one should be so arrogant). I couldn’t cover every aspect of the subgenre, every author, or every pop culture spinoff. I had to make choices in what direction I wanted to take the book, if I ever wanted to complete it. I consider Flame and Crimson a voice in the conversation. I hope many more voices, and studies, follow. The field deserves it.

Let’s get it going.