Browsed by
Category: Books

The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt, Part II

The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt, Part II

Comments 0 Comment


Messenger of Zhuvastou (Berkley Medallion, March 1973). Cover by Jeff Jones

Part I of The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt is here.

I’ve read two unabashed Sword & Planet novels from Andrew J. Offutt, Messenger of Zhuvastou, and Chieftain of Andor. I thought I had a sequel to the Andor book in my TBR piles but on closer examination it’s the same book with a different title: Clansman of Andor.

Messenger of Zhuvastou features an Earthman named Moris Keniston, the son of a Senator, although this is on a future Earth where humans have begun to spread to the stars. He heads for a primitive, barbaric world called Hellene in search of Elaine Dixon, a woman he is in love with who has been taken there — either voluntarily or involuntarily. Since the planet is supposed to be left undisturbed by galactic civilization, Moris undergoes plastic surgery to make him fit in with the humanoid natives. We already know he has been an Olympic level athlete and is a trained fencer.

…

Read More Read More

In Defence of the “Romantasy Girlies”

In Defence of the “Romantasy Girlies”

Comments 2 comments
A typewriter with paper with the phrase “words have power” typed on it.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

So, once again I have entered the world of TikTok. This one is very old now, in the lightning fast news cycle that is that particular platform, so I’m rather behind the ball on commenting on it. For a few reasons for this. One, I’m old (ish. In internet terms, I mean). I simply cannot move at the speed TikTok seems to demand. Two, the one really got under my skin, despite not being one of the group targeted. So I wanted to take the time to calm down before approaching it. And third, I feel like I’ve covered this topic more than once, and I’m very annoyed that I feel compelled to tackle it once again. But here we are.

It is, of course, the weird, irritating, and erroneous snobbery between genres.

…

Read More Read More

The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt

The Sword and Planet of Andrew J. Offutt

Comments 7 comments


My Lord Barbarian (Del Rey, April 1977). Cover by Boris Vallejo

Andrew J. Offutt (1934 -2013) wrote a lot of books and I’m going to talk about him more as I go along. He wrote several Conan pastiches and a whole series of pastiches about Robert E. Howard’s character Cormac Mac Art. He also wrote porn or near porn in several genres under pseudonyms, which I’ll get around to. He has several S&P novels to his credit. Here’s one.

My Lord Barbarian was billed as a Sword and Planet novel, but it didn’t have much of the feel of such a novel to me. It was indeed set on another planet (several in fact), and the setting is S & P — an artificial solar system created by an advanced human civilization which has fallen into decay. Most worship “Siense” (Science) as a God now.

…

Read More Read More

Tor Doubles #34: Damon Knight’s Double Meaning and Rule Golden

Tor Doubles #34: Damon Knight’s Double Meaning and Rule Golden

Comments 1 comment
Cover for Double Meaning and Rule Golden by Wayne Barlow

Originally published in May 1991, Tor Double #34 includes two stories by Damon Knight that had previously appeared together (along with three other stories) in Knight’s 1979 collection Rule Golden and Other Stories, published by Avon. Although listed as Tor Double #34 on the copyright page, this volume was published the month before Tor Double #33, which was discussed last week.

Double Meaning was originally published in Startling Stories in January 1953. It was reprinted as one half of an Ace Double in 1965, appearing with the Damon Knight collection Off Center. When reprinted as an Ace Double, it was retitled The Rithian Terror. Over the years, it has been reprinted using both titles.

Knight tells the story of Thorne Spangler, an investigator for the intergalactic human empire. Based on Earth in the mid-twenty-sixth century, he is given the task of finding an enemy Rithian who has managed to make it to the home planet. The Rithians are an alien race who can disguise themselves as humans. A group of either were known to have landed on Earth, seven of whom have been killed, but the final one has gone missing.

Double Meaning is a buddy story, of sorts. Spangler is paired up with Jawj Pembun, an investigator from one of the human colonies who has more experience dealing with the Rithians than anybody on Earth. Spangler views Pembun as a hick and an amateur who refuses to investigate following protocol, instead going off on tangents and jumping to conclusions. The fact that Pembun is quickly proven right in most cases, only makes it harder for Spangler to accept the man or his methods. …

Read More Read More

Sci-Fi Dystopias We Should Learn From

Sci-Fi Dystopias We Should Learn From

Comments 0 Comment


Hardwired (Tor Books, June 1986). Cover by Luis Royo

Sci-fi has long been home to nightmarish views of the future as thrilling as they are frightening. The genre simply would not be the same without our post-apocalyptic wastelands.

But for every Handmaid’s Tale there’s a dystopian vision that doesn’t get the appreciation it deserves. Some have certainly sold millions of copies but are more recognized for drama or action as opposed to what they have to say about the challenges facing us tomorrow.  Here are several such examples that definitely deserve a bit more love from readers. Not for how epic or cool they are but for the underlying ideas their authors hoped we would absorb.

Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams

Hardwired is rightly celebrated for its contributions to cyberpunk. So much of the verbiage, flare, and aesthetic of the subgenre can be traced back to this relatively short novel. A future where the lines between man and machine are blurred? A ruined Earth? The illicit struggle to survive despite overwhelming odds? It’s all here, the ingredients many a choom would run with over the years.

…

Read More Read More

An Uplift Classic: Aldair by Neal Barrett, Jr.

An Uplift Classic: Aldair by Neal Barrett, Jr.

Comments 14 comments


Aldair in Albion and Aldair, Master of Ships (DAW Books, May 1976 and September 1977). Covers by Josh Kirby

My feature today is what I call an “honorary Sword & Planet series.” The Aldair series by Neal Barrett, Jr. (1929 – 2014) not only doesn’t have a human hero, but it’s set on Earth.

But it has the feel and charm and adventure that defines S&P fiction. It also has some great covers and illustrations by artists who worked on the Dray Prescot series. DAW did it right in those days. I just love their paperbacks of that time.

…

Read More Read More

What I’ve Been Reading: November, 2025

What I’ve Been Reading: November, 2025

Comments 12 comments

I continue to listen to audiobooks throughout my day, as evidenced by two What I’ve Been Listening To entries this month. With writing, gaming, and working daily (boooooo), actually sitting down and reading a book doesn’t happen like it used to. But I have been on a bit of an actual reading kick lately. And since I’ve recently told you what I’ve been listening to, watching, and playing, you might as well know what I’ve been reading, as well!

Kindle Unlimited remains a useful subscription, and I’ve been digging into some things on my Fire Tablet. I had a Nook for years, before switching over to a Fire (I didn’t really consider switching to a Kindle – that’s less versatile). After all these years, I still like owning a physical copy of a book: Fills out the shelves. But for digital, borrowing them with KU, or my library app, works totally fine.

So, let’s look at mix of print and digital books which I’ve been reading lately.

DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL – Matt Dinniman

I have looked down my nose at LitRPG since I heard about it a few years ago. I didn’t really understand what it was, but that didn’t stop me from having a condescending attitude towards it as some kind of cheap fantasy.

Having recently jumped yet again back into the amazing Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy world, I was in something of a humor mood. I was going to re-read Johny Nexus’ Game Night (see below). Somehow my (ir)rational thought processes convinced me to check out a LitRPG book. I did a little quick research, and Dungeon Crawler Carl (DCC) seemed to be about the most popular book in the entire genre. So, I borrowed it with Kindle Unlimited and read it.

…

Read More Read More

Tor Doubles #33: Mike Resnick’s Bwana and Bully!

Tor Doubles #33: Mike Resnick’s Bwana and Bully!

Comments 2 comments
Cover for Bwana and Bully!

As we move into the final month of reviews, there is a significant change in the format of the Tor Doubles. The series began with the proto-Tor Double of Keith Laumer’s The House in November and The Other Sky, but every volume since then has contained stories by two different authors.  However, three of the four final published volumes are single author books. This week looks at a volume with two stories by Mike Resnick, next week will be two stories by Damon Knight, and in three weeks, the final published volume contained two stories by Fritz Leiber. This volume was originally published in June 1991, which sharp eyed readers will note skips a month from last week’s volume. That is because Tor Doubles #33 and 34 were published in reverse numerical order, with this one published after the next one.

Bwana was an originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in January 1990. Between 1988 and 1996, Resnick wrote ten connected stories about the utopian planetoid Kirinyaga, eight of which earned him Hugo nominations, including two winners. Describing the entire series as a “Fable of Utopia,” each story followed a similar pattern.

…

Read More Read More

A Storm of Another Kind: Mother of Storms by John Barnes

A Storm of Another Kind: Mother of Storms by John Barnes

Comments 0 Comment


Mother of Storms (Tor Books, July 1994). Cover by Bob Eggleton

One of science fiction’s subgenres is that novel that emulates the style of bestsellers — bestsellers as they were before the fantastic genres became a big part of the cultural mainstream. Michael Crichton, for one, specialized in this type of writing, from The Andromeda Strain to Jurassic Park; but other writers take it up from time to time: Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in Lucifer’s Hammer, David Brin in Earth, and much more recently Andy Weir in The Martian and Harry Turtledove in Supervolcano.

Some markers are common in this sort of book: reduced use of expository passages, a more demotic prose style, a near future setting that’s easy to imagine, multiple viewpoints and a large cast of characters — and despite this, a much reduced presence of characters who have a detached, scientific view of the world. John Barnes’s Mother of Storms is a classic example of that kind of science fiction.

…

Read More Read More

The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo, Part II

The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo, Part II

Comments 4 comments


I Am a Barbarian by Edgar Rice Burrough (Ace Books, September 1975). Cover by Boris Vallejo

The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo , which I discussed in my post last week, contains three more paintings that became paperback covers that I own and well remember, although none of these are Sword & Planet covers.

First up we have I Am a Barbarian by Edgar Rice Burroughs, from Ace Books. If you discount his westerns, this is one of only two historical novels ERB wrote, the other being The Outlaw of Torn. Torn is my favorite of ERB’s standalone novels but Barbarian also ranks up there.

…

Read More Read More