“Who am I? Who is my father? Where is my mother? Why do death and demons follow me wherever I go?” – Imaro in The Quest for Cush Charles R. Saunders, the originator of Sword & Soul, passed away May this year (2020, Greg Mele covered a tribute for Black Gate). Saunders is most known for his Imaro tales chronicling an African-inspired “Conan the Barbarian” on the fictional continent of Nyumbani. Saunders also wrote of a heroine named Dossouye (separate series), amongst…
Imaro: The Naama War Charles R. Saunders (Sword & Soul Media, 2009) Here we have the long-awaited fourth volume in the “Imaro” series of sword-and-sorcery novels set in a fictional fantasy Africa. Imaro: The Naama War brings to a conclusion the many character arcs and plotlines that have built through Imaro (1981; revised 2006), Imaro 2: The Quest for Cush (1984; revised 2008), and Imaro: The Trail of Bohu (1985; revised 2009). The third book (which was the first written…
Back when Black Gate‘s editor John O’Neill lived in Ottawa in the early 80s, he was a member of a small SF fan club. His first meeting featured a reading from the editor of an excellent local fanzine, Stardock, who had just completed his first novel. The author was Charles Saunders, the novel was Imaro, and the reading he never forgot. DAW released the first three Imaro novels between 1981 and 1985, then dropped the series for reasons arising from textbook bad…
Imaro: The Trail of Bohu Charles R. Saunders Sword & Soul Media (217 pages, $20.00, January 2009) Fans of Sword & Sorcery and Heroic Fantasy had reason to rejoice as 2009 kicked-off with a big release from one of the genre’s master storytellers. No, it wasn’t a new Elric novel, nor a previously undiscovered Fafhrd and Gray Mouser short. And not a book by one of those other famous names, Howard, Vance, Gemmell, or Wagner, either. It was Imaro: The…
A Review by Ryan Harvey Copyright 2007 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. Imaro 2: The Quest for Cush by Charles Saunders Night Shade Books (214 pages, May 2007, $14.95) Let’s put the lie to a hackneyed advertising slogan: you do get a second chance to make a first impression. Imaro offers the proof. Charles Saunders’s sword-and-sorcery hero didn’t make a good first impression in paperback publishing during his inaugural go-round in the early 1980s. DAW Books released Imaro…
A Look at Current Fantasy Books Copyright 2007 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien Houghton Mifflin [313 pages, April 2007, $26.00] Reviewed by Ryan Harvey A common misconception about the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien often used by critics within the genre is that his work offers “reassurances,” a bucolic and cozy English country professor’s view of the world using those adorable Hobbits. Where this view comes from, I…
Imaro ranks among the all-time great fantasy heroes, a warrior stalking through a fantasticated, prehistoric Africa brimming with sword-and-sorcery pleasures. The character’s creator, Charles Saunders, is legendary in the field as the first black author to make a splash in the genre, ingeniously playing off of the work and headlong style of past masters like Robert E. Howard while creating a startling new fantasy world with all the quasi-historical verisimilitude of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The result is sui generis, a brilliant…
They say there is no water in the City of Lies. They say there are no heroes in the City of Lies. They say there are no friends beyond the City of Lies. But would you believe what they say in the City of Lies? In the City of Lies, they cut out your tongue when you turn thirteen, to appease the terrifying Ajungo Empire and make sure it continues sending water. Tutu will be thirteen in three days, but…
Heroic Fantasy (DAW, 1979). Cover by Jad If you were a sword & sorcery fan in the 70s and 80s, there wasn’t a lot to get excited about. Lin Carter’s Flashing Swords anthologies. Andrew J. Offutt’s Swords Against Darkness, naturally. And the occasional Conan pastiche and Lancer paperback. And there was Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt’s one-shot anthology Heroic Fantasy, which came out of nowhere, never had a sequel, but was packed with terrific original stories by Charles Saunders,…
There is a swell of community growing around Sword & Sorcery (S&S) fiction. At least on the amateur and semi-professional level, there are a wealth of markets to enjoy and submit to, including (a partial list in alphabetical order): DMR books, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Parallel Universe Publications, Pulp Hero Press, Rogue Blades, Swords and Sorcery Magazine, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Weirdbook. and Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of S&S. As the ranks of authors, readers, and platforms grow, members are gathering across platforms such as…