Back on the Sword & Sorcery Vision Quest

[lemuriapress]

Back in July of last year I engaged in an ambitious project I dubbed The Sword & Sorcery Vision Quest, in which I would read through all of my multi-author sword & sorcery anthologies in an effort to better understand the genre with an eye toward building an entertaining Planet Stories anthology on the subject

Comments

[richgreen01]

I really liked Thieves World too - I think I read the first two or three collections. Recently, I picked up a copy of the first one again with the cover you've shown here at a book crossing. I need to reread it soon...

[freeport_pirate]

When I was in 8th grade, I had a writing assignment that required me to describe something. I happened to be reading the first Thieves' World book, with the indeed excellent picture you've posted here. So I wrote a description of that piece of art. Amusingly enough, I recently unearthed this assignment while going through a box of old papers. Didn't realize I still had it.

[lemuriapress]

Sounds like a GREAT blog post!

The people demand the writing of Pramas as a 15-year-old!

Encore! Encore!

[coraxery]

The first few books were good, but even as a young reader I remember being disappointed with some author's treatment of some of the signature characters.

I wonder how many D&D characters with stars on their foreheads were spawned by that first book's cover?

[lemuriapress]

Yeah, probably a lot.

[princeofcairo]

I remember reading the Thieves' World stuff back in college, but it came along too late for Uncritical Love to take hold. Even at the time, I decided it was methadone for Lankhmar. I must have liked it well enough to read more than one book in the series, but I didn't bring the books with me to Chicago when I moved, and I didn't bother to rescue them from the storage unit (which, regardless of what you've heard from my Mom, was not "completely full of your books and games") before my Mom got rid of it, which says something.

[lemuriapress]

Yeah. I love the phrase "Methadone for Lankhmar."

In this way I'd call Gary Gygax's Greyhawk "hillbilly heroin for Lankhmar."

Still, it's better than being sober. :)

[princeofcairo]

mollpeartree once described Florida-crime-novelist Lawrence Shames as "a liter of vodka when the methadone clinic is closed," which is the equivalent of your Greyhawk ref, I think.

[lemuriapress]

Sounds so.

[sirurza]

I'm glad you brought this up. My local scifi/fantasy convention (ICon) is coming up and there's a few old book sellers that that I'm sure will have those oldies from that photo. I intend to check some of them out if they have them. :)