Flashing Swords! #2, 4, & 5 (Science Fiction Book Club, September 1973, May 1977,
and December 1981). Covers by Frank Frazetta, Gary Viskupic, and Ron Miller

It’s time to take a look at another Sword & Sorcery anthology series I really love: Flashing Swords, edited by Lin Carter. It is second in my affections only to the Swords Against Darkness 5-book series edited by Andy Offutt that I wrote about here last year.

Flashing Swords! came out of the group known as SAGA, which stood for the Swordsmen and Sorcerers Guild of America, a group in the 1970s and 80s that included almost all the elite S&S writers of the age.

They were an informal group but Lin Carter was the closest thing they had to a leader. Under his editorship, five outstanding anthologies of works from their members appeared, all new stories, not reprints. As shown in the pictures below, I have the volumes from Dell paperbacks, as they were originally released, and three from Nelson Doubleday in hardback (above), as they were offered by the Science Fiction Book Club.

[Click the images for flash versions.]

Flashing Swords #1 (Dell, July 1973). Cover by Frank Frazetta

Flashing Swords #1 (1973) has 4 longish stories by Leiber, Vance, Anderson and Carter. All were strong and this is probably the strongest of all the volumes. Anderson’s story, “The Merman’s Children,” is the best, and Carter’s story, “The Higher Heresies of Oolimar,” is one of his strongest ever.

The cover was an awesome Frazetta, one of my favorites of his paintings behind his Kane and Death Dealer art. The volume was dedicated appropriately to Robert E. Howard.

Flashing Swords! #2 (Dell, April 1974). Cover by Frank Frazetta

Flashing Swords #2 (1973) is dedicated to Henry Kuttner. It had four more long stories, by L. Sprague de Camp (with whom Carter had a long history), Michael Moorcock, Andre Norton, and John Jakes.

Moorcock’s story, “The Jade Man’s Eyes,” was of Elric, and Jakes’ story, “Ghouls Garden,” was about his character Brak. I’ll talk more about both authors eventually here but both these tales were very good and I particularly loved the Brak story, which made me seek out more of the tales.

Flashing Swords #1 & 2, UK editions (Mayflower, 1974 and February 1975). Covers by Bruce Pennington

The hardback has a great Frazetta cover, but have a look, too, at the paperback cover from Mayflower books (above), which I found online. I like that one even better than the Frazetta I think, although that sounds almost blasphemous.

Bruce Pennington did it and I wish I had that edition.

Flashing Swords! #3: Wizards and Warriors (Dell, August 1976). Cover by Don Maitz

Flashing Swords #3 (1976) bore a subtitle, Warriors and Wizards. It was dedicated to Clifford Ball. This was the weakest of the five volumes, although still good. It had stories by de Camp, Fritz Leiber, Andre Norton, Carter, and Avram Davidson.

The Leiber story, “The Frost Montreme” — Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser — was the strongest. Don Maitz is the cover artist. It’s good, but a bit less barbaric than I like. Very Renaissance looking.

Flashing Swords! #4: Barbarians and Black Magicians (Dell, November 1977). Cover by Don Maitz

Flashing Swords #4 (1977) is subtitled Barbarians and Black Magicians. This one is dedicated to Norvell Page, who I’ll be covering here. Stories by Vance, Anderson, Jakes (Brak; Storm in a Bottle), Katherine Kurtz, and Moorcock (Elric; “the Lands Beyond the World”).

This one is as strong as the original volume, and I like the hardback cover by Gary Viskupik. It also has some cool interior illos by Rick Bryant. The paperback cover, which I found online, is by Don Maitz again and looks like an Elric representation.

Flashing Swords! #5: Demons and Daggers (Dell, December 1981). Cover by Rich Corben

Flashing Swords #5 (1981) is subtitled Demons and Daggers. No dedication. It has a cool wraparound cover by Ron Miller, although it’s my least favorite of the series. The Dell paperback has a cover by Richard Corben.

Includes stories by Roger Zelazny (a Dilvish tale), C. J. Cherryh, Diane Duane, Tanith Lee, and the first humorous story in the series by Craig Shaw Gardner. I didn’t think it was as strong as #1, #2, or #4, but somewhat better than #3.

Flashing Swords! #1 & 2 (Science Fiction Book Club, April and September 1973). Covers by Frank Frazetta

In 2020, Robert Price, Lin Carter’s literary executor, revived the series as Lin Carter’s Flashing Swords. There have been two volumes published, although the first one created a minor storm of controversy over the introduction by Price. I have not yet bought or read these two volumes.

I’ve also included above the hardcover covers for volumes 1 and 2 (above), both by Frazetta.

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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 Sword & Sorcery on a Post-Apocalyptic Earth: Blackmark by Gil Kane.