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Crafting Sword & Planet: Swords of Talera and Other Tales by Charles Gramlich

Crafting Sword & Planet: Swords of Talera and Other Tales by Charles Gramlich

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Strange Worlds, edited by Jeff Doten, containing the Sword & Planet tale “God’s Dream” by Charles Gramlich (CreateSpace, September 26, 2011). Cover by Jeff Doten

In 1998, my first novel Swords of Talera ran as a four-part serial in Startling Science Stories. It won the “Reader’s Choice” award for each issue it appeared in. The pleasure of having the book first published that way was sweet — the same way that Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, and Robert E. Howard had much of their stuff published.

After I’d finished Swords of Talera in 1983, I’d started a sequel called Wings over Talera but only wrote the first two chapters. My grad school work was intensifying and it seemed silly to write a second book in a series when the first book hadn’t even been submitted to any publishers. After Swords sold, though, I immediately set to work on the sequel. It was published as a four-part serial in Alien Worlds: Beyond Space and Time, a sister mag to Startling Science Stories.

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The Lure of the Basilisk – 80’s Fantasy with a Cool Cover

The Lure of the Basilisk – 80’s Fantasy with a Cool Cover

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Dus_BasiliskI was recently talking online about how in the eighties and nineties we bought fantasy books because we liked the cover. And the pic I included was The Lure of the Basilisk, which kicked off the adventures of Garth the Overman. It’s been ten years since I wrote about that, back in the days of The Public life of Sherlock Holmes. So here’s a revisit of to a pretty cool fantasy series that you should check out, if you never have. 

The eighties was full of epic fantasy series’ by the likes of David Eddings, Raymond Feist, Stephen R. Donaldson, Terry Brooks and Katherine Kurtz, to name a few. While many remain giants in the history of the genre, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote a largely forgotten series: The Lords of Dus.

Watt-Evans has written quite a bit of fantasy, science fiction and horror and is probably best known for his Ethshar series. Ethshar was created as a role-playing game world and he ended up writing many novels and short stories using the setting. The Misenchanted Sword is my favorite Ethshar novel.

Watt-Evans had flunked out of Princeton’s architectural school and had to wait a year before he could re-apply. He had heard (the possibly apocryphal story) that Larry Niven started his career by deciding to write for one year and if he sold something, continue on: if he didn’t, he’d give it up. Watt-Evans decided to do the same and wrote a slew of short stories, selling one.

He did go back to school, but he wrote a novel (The Cyborg and the Sorcerer) on a summer break and after two years of college, gave it up to make a living with the typewriter (as a writer, not a typewriter salesman).

Influenced by Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock and Lin Carter’s anthologies (Flashing Swords, anyone?), he was ready to spin a fantasy saga featuring a non-human (but less effete than a Melnibonian) hero. Thus, the race of overmen.

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The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part V: Lin Carter

The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part V: Lin Carter

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Lin Carter’s Under the Green Sun series (DAW Books)

I consider Edgar Rice Burroughs and Otis Adelbert Kline to be the first generation of Sword & Planet authors. Probably most widely known among the second generation — whether rightly or wrongly — is Lin Carter. Carter was an enthusiastic fellow who loved all things fantasy, including S&P and Sword & Sorcery. He promoted the genres, edited many collections of fantasy stories, and was a tremendously prolific author himself.

I’ve read 41 books by him and still have about a dozen on my TBR shelves. And that’s NOT counting the Conan books he was associated with. He was everywhere when I was growing up and our small town library had more books by him than by ERB himself.

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The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part IV: Dray Prescot by Alan Burt Akers

The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part IV: Dray Prescot by Alan Burt Akers

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Dray Prescot #17-24, all from DAW: Captive Scorpio (1978), Golden Scorpio (1978),  A Life for Kregen (1979), A Sword for Kregen (1979), A Fortune for Kregen (1979), A Victory for Kregen (1980), Beasts of Antares (1980), and Rebel of Antares (1980). Covers by Josh Kirby (#17-18), Richard Hescox (#19-23), and Ken Kelly (#24)

Not only is the Dray Prescot series the longest running Sword & Planet series ever published in English, but it’s also consistently of a high quality. There are quite a few volumes that — for me—rival any of Edgar Rice Burrough’s Barsoom books. Certainly, these two series are my all-time favorites, and together make up the primary influence on my own Sword & Planet series, the five books of the Talera series by Charles Allen Gramlich (Gotta get those “three” names in there.) I’ve posted about the Talera books before, but back to Kenneth Bulmer (who wrote the Prescot series as ‘Alan Burt Akers’) and Dray Prescot now.

I’ve never been one to put a lot of emphasis on covers, but the Bladud books, all five compendiums containing the last fifteen novels, have the same cover image with just a change in the color of the dust jacket. This made me long for the original DAW publications where each vibrant cover was tied directly to the book it illustrated.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Kirby O’Donnell and The Bloodstained God (REH)

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Kirby O’Donnell and The Bloodstained God (REH)

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

 

It can’t be a Summer of Pulp without some Robert E. Howard now, can it? Heck no!!! The looong shadow cast by my buddy Dave Hardy, with his two terrific essays on El Borak, still prevents me from tackling ‘The Swift.’

However, I am comfortable continuing to blaze my own trail regarding the similar, but different, Kirby O’Donnell.

I wrote about “Gold from Tartary,” and “Swords of Shahrazar,” in prior summers. Which just leaves the third, long-unpublished, “The Trail of the Bloodstained God.” Now having tackled this one, I’m sure there’s a Steve Clarney post (“The Fire of Asshurbanipal”) somewhere down the road.

In my first two essays, I explained how the second O’Donnell story, “Swords of Shahrazar,” found print first, in the October, 1934 issue of Top-Notch magazine. It was a direct sequel to “Gold from Tartary,” which appeared four months later in the January, 1935 issue of Thrilling Adventures. It’s quite likely that many people did not read “Swords,” then “Gold” shortly thereafter. But it certainly would seem odd to do so.

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The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part III: Michael Moorcock, Michael Resnick, and Robert E. Howard

The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part III: Michael Moorcock, Michael Resnick, and Robert E. Howard

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The Warrior of Mars trilogy by Michael Moorcock: Warriors of Mars (DAW, January 1979), Blades of Mars (as by Edward P. Bradbury; Lancer, 1966), and Barbarians of Mars (DAW, March 1979). Covers by Richard Hescox, Gray Morrow, and Richard Hescox

Quite a few writers who went on to bigger names in other genres wrote some of their earliest books in Sword & Planet. Michael Moorcock was one of these. He’s mostly known for his Elric series. Elric is a kind of anti-Conan. But in 1964, at around the age of 25, he wrote three Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiches set on Mars. In the introduction to a later release of these books he mentioned his early infatuation with ERB, and that after the publication of the first Elric book he was asked by another publisher to do a fantasy series for them.

He offered several possible author names and titles, and the books were published in 1965 under the name Edward Powys Bradbury as Warriors of Mars, Blades of Mars, and Barbarians of Mars. Later they were republished as City of the Beast, Lord of the Spiders, and Masters of the Pit under his own name. The hero is an earthman named Michael Kane and the adventures are very ERBian.

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What I’ve Been Reading: June 2025

What I’ve Been Reading: June 2025

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Last week, I talked about the most recent audiobooks I’ve been listening to. After enjoying the Egil & Nix short story, two more Thieves World books, and finishing The Black Company again, I wanted more S&S. I have a Kothar book, but it’s an AI voice. Meh. So, I am listening to volume one of the Elric saga. Which I have read many times. Man – those stories are still terrific.

I’ve been watching a lot of movies and shows lately, so that’s probably gonna be a post soon. And I’ve been working on Fortnite levels. But I have also been sitting down with some books when I can. So away we go.

SEA OF GREED– Clive Cussler and Graham Brown

I used to stay up into the wee hours, devouring Clive Cussler and Robert Ludlum books. THOSE were page turners. Cussler ‘handed off’ his various series’ and seemed to be a franchise manager, rather than a writer. But they were still good (with one exception). Then he passed, so the lines are definitely just the work of the current authors.

I never did the Tom Clancy technical stuff, but I really like The Oregon Files. And I’m okay with Isaac Bell, though after the first one, I liked the concept more than the actual books. I’ve barely tried the Fargo series – meh. And I quit reading Dirk Pitt because Cussler gave it to his son (named Dirk) and he’s a bad writer. I read the first two and quit. Life’s too short to read bad books written through nepotism (Anne Hillerman is the poster child for this).

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The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part II: John Norman

The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part II: John Norman

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The first six books in the Gor series, all from Ballantine Books: Tarnsman of Gor, Outlaw of Gor, Priest-Kings of Gor, and Nomads of Gor (all 1976), Assassin of Gor (1970), and Raiders of Gor (1976). Covers by Boris Vallejo (#1-4 and 6) and Gino D’Achille (#5)

Read Part I of this series, Don Wollheim, Edwin L. Arnold, and Otis Adelbert Kline.

The most controversial of the second generation of Sword & Planet authors was certainly John Norman, which is the pseudonym for author John Lange, a philosophy professor. The first book, Tarnsman of Gor, was published in 1966 and then generally one a year until a break after 1988. There are a total of 37 books at last count but I’ve only personally read up to #23 and don’t own the rest.

From this series, I first read book 2, Outlaw of Gor, which has the main character, Tarl Cabot, enslaved. He must lead a revolt to free himself and other prisoners. Strangely enough, given the later reputation of this series, I found this book in my small town library in Arkansas, in the Bible Belt. That should tell you that the early books in this series were pretty standard fantasy. I found the book quite well written and enjoyable, and began to seek out more. (It was quite a few years until I was able to mail order a copy of Book 1.)

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What I’ve Been Listening To: June, 2025

What I’ve Been Listening To: June, 2025

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I continue to listen to audiobooks daily. I frequently drift off to sleep with a fifteen minute timer on. The BBC radio plays of the two Dirk Gently novels are regular late night listens. So is the terrific Marx Brothers homage, Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. It was originally done by the Marxes themselves. BBC radio made a new version in 1990 and I frigging LOVE it.

Since I often have an audiobook on while I’m doing other things, I re-listen to things; or listen to books I’ve already read. It works great for me. I get some through my library app, but I mostly use Audible.

Here are some recent listens.

LEE GOLDBERG’S EVE RONIN

In the most recent What I’ve Been Listening To, I talked about Goldberg’s ‘buddy cop’ series featuring Sharpe & Walker. They are arson investigators in LA, and book one was pretty good. I just got the audiobook for number two, and I’m thrilled it crosses over with Lee’s Eve Ronin series. Even more thrilled that Nicol Zanzarella is doing Eve again – she’s terrific!!

The books are part of Kindle Unlimited, and number six is coming out later this year. I re-listened to all five in less than a week. Eve and her partner Duncan are a terrific buddy cop pair. Eve rose to fame when she was off duty and subdued a drunken action movie star who was smacking around his girlfriend in a parking lot. The video went viral on the Net and she parlayed it into a big promotion.

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The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part I: Don Wollheim, Edwin L. Arnold, and Otis Adelbert Kline

The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet, Part I: Don Wollheim, Edwin L. Arnold, and Otis Adelbert Kline

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Swordsmen in the Sky (Ace, 1964). Cover by Frank Frazetta

Swordsmen in the Sky, edited by Donald Wollheim

If our genre has a holy grail to find, this would be it. I read this collection as a kid. Found it in our local library. And loved every single story in there. Took me a while to find a copy as an adult but it’s one of my pride and joys.

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