The Kyrik novels by Gardner F. Fox (Leisure Books, 1975-1976)

I’m getting ready to embark on a series of posts about Philip Jose Farmer, but got distracted looking through my shelves and decided to throw in a post about the Sword & Sorcery work of Gardner F. Fox, who I mentioned here a while back for his two book S&P series set on the planet Llarn.

While my small hometown library didn’t have anything by Robert E. Howard, they had various books claiming to be “In the tradition of Conan.” That’s how I found out about Howard. The first “In the tradition” book I read was Kyrik: Warlock Warrior by Fox, from Leisure Books, 1975. The cover was candy to a starving teen. By Ken Barr (although I didn’t know it at the time), the cover showed a muscled barbarian swordsman astride a pterodactyl with a nearly naked green-haired beauty beside him. My imagination ignited. And when I started reading it, I loved it even more.

The story begins with a sorceress searching for a statue, which turns out to be an ensorcelled Kyrik. She brings him back to life and mayhem ensues. There was tremendous promise in this book, of a character who was not only a warrior but a warlock as well. But there were no more books. Or so I thought.

Our library didn’t have any more Kyrik but many years later I found there were 3 other books, which I bought. As a much older adult, they didn’t ensorcell me as much as the first one, and I thought Fox missed an opportunity because in the later books he forgets about Kyrik’s warlock powers and leaves him as just another barbarian. (I’ve often wondered if Karl Wagner’s concept of Kane — also a warrior and a wizard — might not have been influenced by Kyrik, although I never got to ask him before he died.)

The Trail of Bohu (DAW, October 1985). Cover by James Gurney

The other Kyrik books are all from Leisure.

Kyrik Fights the Demon World, 1975. (Cover by Ken Barr)
Kyrik and the Wizard’s Sword, 1976. (Cover by Marcus Boas)
Kyrik and the Lost Queen, 1976. (Cover by Ken Barr). My second favorite cover in the series, and it looks almost like an inspiration for a much later S&S cover on a book by Charles Saunders called The Trail of Bohu (shown above).

While my library had only one Kyrik book, it had two of another Gardner Fox series called Kothar, the first two listed below. Although I liked the first Kyrik best, I generally liked the Kothar series better. Kothar is a more lively character, more like Conan in his gigantic mirths.

The Kothar novels (Belmont and Tower Books, 1969-1970). Covers by Jeff Jones

Below are the five books in order of publication. All had excellent Jeff Jones covers. This series was completed before Fox started with Kyrik.

Kothar Barbarian Swordsman, 1969, Belmont, a collection of 3 short stories
Kothar of the Magic Sword, 1969, Modern Promotions
Kothar and the Demon Queen, 1969, Tower Books
Kothar and the Conjurer’s Curse, 1970, Belmont
Kothar and the Wizard Slayer, 1970, Belmont

As soon as the Kyrik books were done, Fox launched another S&S series about a character named Niall. These were short stories published over a number of years, although they were later collected in an anthology called Niall of the Far Travels. I have this collection in ebook with a generic cover, which I picked up just a few years ago and read.

Niall of the Far Travels Collected (Gardner Francis Fox Library, October 2017))

I enjoyed the Niall stories. They flashed me back to my youth reading Kothar and Kyrik. However, they’re not Fox’s best work. They seemed a bit perfunctory, as if Fox was mostly going through the motions. The stories are,

“Shadow of a Demon”
“Beyond the Wizard Fog”
“The Stolen Sacrifice”
“The Thing from the Tomb”
“The Eyes of Mavis Deval”
“The Cube from Beyond”
“The Cup of Golden Death”
“Out of the Eons”
“The Lure of the Golden Godling”
“The Coming of the Sword”

Strangely, the last tale in the collection was chronologically the first and might have been better at the beginning. Except for the first one, each tale has the blond, northern barbarian at odds with witches, sorcerers, and demons, but with a twist in that he has his own demon lover to protect him.

This might have been OK for a story or two, but it weakened most stories to me because Niall didn’t really do a lot on his own. He always had magical help to get him out of hot spots. For this reason, I much preferred Fox’s older stories about Kyrik and Kothar. I am aware that some people like the Niall stories best of all but I just can’t agree.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for Black Gate was review of the Dire Planet series by Joel Jenkins.