Can the genre ever move on from Robert E. Howard's Conan? How can writers possibly innovate within this narrow fantasy subgenre? Is the sword and sorcery barbarian facing his last stand?
I would like to call your attention to my work, Rytius Records, in which I reimagine and recontextualize both savage barbarity (swords, no sorcery) and cyberpunk dystopia. https://www.newdithyrambia.net/s/rytius-records
Thanks so much for flagging that link! Damn, the essay was there when I posted. Not sure what happened. Anyway, have fixed now. Resources on Charles Saunders remain frustratingly thin on the ground, which is crazy considering the guy's standing within the genre. So glad you enjoyed the piece otherwise.
I’m late to this one. Howard’s seminal IP is now public domain in the UK and will be in the US in 2028. Although Tencent, via Funcom, own the rights I don’t think they can defend them for much longer.
There’s been a Conan series in the works for a long time, I suspect this too could be under threat though for the same reasons; open season at Chez Cimmeria.
I wrote a short story, it’s been bothering me that nobody wants to pick up old man King Conan with Schwarzenegger for a limited run series just out of pure nostalgia. It’s worked for other franchises.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens once the bedrock-text of the genre becomes public domain. Cheers for the link to your story. Have saved that for a later read.
Loved this piece. I think Samuel R Delany’s Neveryona sequence always deserves a mention in these conversations, because it is astonishing in its own right and because it is a basically endless sandbox for a more experimental (and much more explicitly gay) version of S&S. There’s a lot to say about those books, not least their tormented publication history.
Thanks Alec. His turn to fantasy writing coincides with him becoming an academic, so the Neveryona stories are both effective sword and sorcery stories and satires of academic commentary on the same. They can feel a bit offputting as you get a great slab of Jacques Derrida or something like that at the start of the story—but then it turns out he’s using that arcane theory language in the same way that Howard uses arcane curses. It’s pretty cool, if you like that sort of thing, and makes the case that sword and sorcery can explore our longings for origin stories in culture more generally. Delany claims that one of the stories is among the first literary representations of the AIDS crisis as well—dunno if he’s right about that but it’s fascinating how his contemporary New York City runs up against the genre tropes. Anyways, I’m an enthusiast as you can tell so don’t mean to derail the discussion here.
Great piece, Alec. It's funny, but I had been watching the new Reacher series last night, then as I started reading your piece, I was thinking how similar Conan and Reacher are in spirit. And then you made the same point! Obviously there's an archetype there in need of expression!
As society becomes more (and more) industrial/mechanical, more people will crave simpler times. We are products of nature, and as such, we are Luddites at heart. The fact that the youth are now referring to the Unabomber as 'Uncle Ted' says a great deal...
There’s a similar back-to-basics yearning in the notion of liminal spaces, I think. It’s horrifying to be trapped in an infinite maze of rooms, but also nice to get a bit of peace and quiet. :D
Catching up with some of your writing, Alec, and I just wanted to say that this is one of the most entertaining and engaging articles I've read on Substack - or anywhere else for that matter! The only trouble is it's sent me down a rabbit hole of other fascinating stuff on your site. Well, it's a wonderful labyrinth to get lost in! Looking forward to future articles...
Hahaha! That is so kind of you to say, T.K.! :D There's plenty there, so dig in. Hoping to offer audio versions some time next year, so people can listen on the go. Best of luck with your own projects!
Just read your Black Beth one. AMAZING. What an insight into making a character your own. I was (am) a huge 2000AD fan so I'd love to try my hand at Rogue Trooper etc! Keep up the great work
Thanks again, T.K. So kind. Really hope these help. I've been flinging these things into the void for a few years now. Really great to hear folks are getting something out of my ramblings. :D
The reason Robert E. Howard's Conan resonates is because it came directly from the writer's soul. Read his letters and you will see this clearly. This is why 99% of Conan stories written by someone else (even capable writers) just ring hollow. I think S & S as a genre can prosper if the writers take the same approach as Howard without aping him.
Sheesh. Thought this’d be a nice quick read over breakfast. Now I’ve got a dozen different articles and rabbit holes into which I’ll disappear all week! Thanks!
PS As per your thesis here, I’d venture there’s ways of escaping the S&S pitfalls via RPGs although their lack of novel or fiction support since their high water mark in the early 90s mutes that potential.
Haha! Glad to be of service, Steven. :D And yeah, I didn't even go into where S&S can go with RPGs, whose narratives are not only boundless, but also unique to the personalities of the players.
A lot of the “gatekeeper complaints” are an answer to an attitude that older stories or IP are not merely old-hat or full of now-overdone tropes, but so problematic that they should be buried (it gets even more toxic when it’s tied to demographics, such as treating a work as trash because a straight white male wrote it.) You see it with classic IP in particular; many new installments are deliberately made to upset older fans and “fix” an IP the new owners consider “broken.”
**That said,** I agree with your post. Genres do need to change to stay fresh; we can’t be writing the same thing all day every day. I do not oppose publications that seek to evolve beyond the foundations established by Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber; rather, I don’t think that older work and classic authors should be treated as problematic poison, even if you’re not fond of them and believe them to fall short. You did well to make a case for the older work, and I do believe that there is room for everyone since it’s not like Sword & Sorcery is tied to any one publication.
Absolutely, there's room for everyone! If you want experimental genre-blending there's that, if you want old school there's that too. Nothing needs to be denigrated because if you don't like it no-one's nailing you to a chair and forcing you to read it Clockwork Orange-style. As in every single genre out there - from horror to detective stories to romance and everything else, there's plenty of troublesome stuff in sword and sorcery's history, but there's also been amazing writers who've provided counters to those excesses - and been better remembered. Thanks for reading, Rawle!
I really enjoyed this article. As an aspiring S&S writer it was encouraging and interesting to see that the genre still has legs, so to speak, and can still offer a variation on loincloth clad barbarians smacking each other with great axes. I guess I should crack on with writing my damn story next.
I think the key to understanding Sword & Sorcery above all else is that there must be that innate sense of "FUN." Dangerous word, that! Lol. People balk at the power fantasy, but that really is part of the appeal. You're taken to another world, a more ancient time, and are afforded the luxury of exploring those more primeval instincts and ideas without the intellectual pretensions and overdosing self-awareness of modern writing.
Personally, I view gatekeeper concerns with diversity as the result of mainstream entertainment coupling explicitly implemented diversity with poorly articulated political messaging. Not allegory or subtle metaphor, but blunt-force, surface-level, boilerplate commentary that often sucks the life (and the fun) out of the genres it touches. It doesn't matter what is being said after a certain point, because any overt commentary of this nature tends to clash horribly with the stories it is foisted upon.
In Sword & Sorcery, writers should give up all their pretensions and allow themselves the luxury of intuition. After all, these are heroes who act on intuition, on gut feelings melded with cunning and raw physical prowess. Regardless of their race or gender or what have you, any deeper value in this genre should not be constructed, but should arrive of its own accord, if it even arrives at all. The story should accomplish everything it sets out to do on the surface before it goes beyond it, as that is the secret to Howard's genius. He delivers crowd-pleasing pulp entertainment, but further reads become enriching experiences as you savor the touches of worldbuilding and character throughout.
If you can write for the pulps, you can write for Sword & Sorcery. And once you can learn to write for the pulps, to write for the adventuresome spirit and savagery of the genre, then it's time to explore further. To quote the evergreen Martin Scorsese: "Study the old masters, enrich your palette, expand the canvas."
Indeed, one of the pleasures of sword and sorcery is its unselfconsciousness. REH, for example, wrote utterly without fear and with total conviction. Thanks for the re-stack, Jacob.
I never much cared for Conan, the character. I read the stories for the world in which Conan lived...dire ancient sorcerous places, strange artifacts, high strangeness, hot broads, and a world that was full to the brim with fascinating potential. I viewed Conan as rather like Shardik; he's this force of nature that shows up and wrecks things.
Many of RE Howard's tales (perhaps later cooked up by Lin Carter and L. Sprague DeCamp) don't fully center on the Cimmerian murder hobo...they follow other characters into plots in which Shardikonan blunders in and clobbers That Which Needed Clobberin'. I found those tales to be better, more interesting. Political intrigues make for good plots when set in a time and culture where in political rivals will kill each other rather than pretend to be opposed and cooperate closely behind closed doors. Just consider the Gunpowder Plot...killing someone by packing his basement with blackpowder is just an awesome what to put the whack on your enemy(ies).
Heroquest!
I would like to call your attention to my work, Rytius Records, in which I reimagine and recontextualize both savage barbarity (swords, no sorcery) and cyberpunk dystopia. https://www.newdithyrambia.net/s/rytius-records
You link to Charles Saunders piece goes to a spam website. Just a heads up.
Also this was very informative. I always thought sword and sorcery were knights and magic. So this was instructive.
I will have to add some titles to my TBR.
Thanks so much for flagging that link! Damn, the essay was there when I posted. Not sure what happened. Anyway, have fixed now. Resources on Charles Saunders remain frustratingly thin on the ground, which is crazy considering the guy's standing within the genre. So glad you enjoyed the piece otherwise.
I’m late to this one. Howard’s seminal IP is now public domain in the UK and will be in the US in 2028. Although Tencent, via Funcom, own the rights I don’t think they can defend them for much longer.
There’s been a Conan series in the works for a long time, I suspect this too could be under threat though for the same reasons; open season at Chez Cimmeria.
I wrote a short story, it’s been bothering me that nobody wants to pick up old man King Conan with Schwarzenegger for a limited run series just out of pure nostalgia. It’s worked for other franchises.
https://microdosingfiction.substack.com/p/the-days-of-high-adventure
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens once the bedrock-text of the genre becomes public domain. Cheers for the link to your story. Have saved that for a later read.
Loved this piece. I think Samuel R Delany’s Neveryona sequence always deserves a mention in these conversations, because it is astonishing in its own right and because it is a basically endless sandbox for a more experimental (and much more explicitly gay) version of S&S. There’s a lot to say about those books, not least their tormented publication history.
Thanks, Mat! I was not aware of Delany's fantasy. I always thought of him as a SF guy. Thanks so much for the tip!
Thanks Alec. His turn to fantasy writing coincides with him becoming an academic, so the Neveryona stories are both effective sword and sorcery stories and satires of academic commentary on the same. They can feel a bit offputting as you get a great slab of Jacques Derrida or something like that at the start of the story—but then it turns out he’s using that arcane theory language in the same way that Howard uses arcane curses. It’s pretty cool, if you like that sort of thing, and makes the case that sword and sorcery can explore our longings for origin stories in culture more generally. Delany claims that one of the stories is among the first literary representations of the AIDS crisis as well—dunno if he’s right about that but it’s fascinating how his contemporary New York City runs up against the genre tropes. Anyways, I’m an enthusiast as you can tell so don’t mean to derail the discussion here.
Not at all, Mat. This all sounds great!
Unbelievably good article. I am absolutely inspired and informed.
That’s really great to hear, Lawrence! Thank you!
Great piece, Alec. It's funny, but I had been watching the new Reacher series last night, then as I started reading your piece, I was thinking how similar Conan and Reacher are in spirit. And then you made the same point! Obviously there's an archetype there in need of expression!
It did evolve. Lightsabers and Jedi, anyone? Bueller. Bueller. Bueller. Has anyone seen Bueller?
As society becomes more (and more) industrial/mechanical, more people will crave simpler times. We are products of nature, and as such, we are Luddites at heart. The fact that the youth are now referring to the Unabomber as 'Uncle Ted' says a great deal...
There’s a similar back-to-basics yearning in the notion of liminal spaces, I think. It’s horrifying to be trapped in an infinite maze of rooms, but also nice to get a bit of peace and quiet. :D
Catching up with some of your writing, Alec, and I just wanted to say that this is one of the most entertaining and engaging articles I've read on Substack - or anywhere else for that matter! The only trouble is it's sent me down a rabbit hole of other fascinating stuff on your site. Well, it's a wonderful labyrinth to get lost in! Looking forward to future articles...
Hahaha! That is so kind of you to say, T.K.! :D There's plenty there, so dig in. Hoping to offer audio versions some time next year, so people can listen on the go. Best of luck with your own projects!
Just read your Black Beth one. AMAZING. What an insight into making a character your own. I was (am) a huge 2000AD fan so I'd love to try my hand at Rogue Trooper etc! Keep up the great work
Thanks again, T.K. So kind. Really hope these help. I've been flinging these things into the void for a few years now. Really great to hear folks are getting something out of my ramblings. :D
The reason Robert E. Howard's Conan resonates is because it came directly from the writer's soul. Read his letters and you will see this clearly. This is why 99% of Conan stories written by someone else (even capable writers) just ring hollow. I think S & S as a genre can prosper if the writers take the same approach as Howard without aping him.
Absolutely! It's all about bringing something unique and fresh to what's already there. Thanks for reading, Niko!
Sheesh. Thought this’d be a nice quick read over breakfast. Now I’ve got a dozen different articles and rabbit holes into which I’ll disappear all week! Thanks!
PS As per your thesis here, I’d venture there’s ways of escaping the S&S pitfalls via RPGs although their lack of novel or fiction support since their high water mark in the early 90s mutes that potential.
Haha! Glad to be of service, Steven. :D And yeah, I didn't even go into where S&S can go with RPGs, whose narratives are not only boundless, but also unique to the personalities of the players.
A lot of the “gatekeeper complaints” are an answer to an attitude that older stories or IP are not merely old-hat or full of now-overdone tropes, but so problematic that they should be buried (it gets even more toxic when it’s tied to demographics, such as treating a work as trash because a straight white male wrote it.) You see it with classic IP in particular; many new installments are deliberately made to upset older fans and “fix” an IP the new owners consider “broken.”
**That said,** I agree with your post. Genres do need to change to stay fresh; we can’t be writing the same thing all day every day. I do not oppose publications that seek to evolve beyond the foundations established by Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber; rather, I don’t think that older work and classic authors should be treated as problematic poison, even if you’re not fond of them and believe them to fall short. You did well to make a case for the older work, and I do believe that there is room for everyone since it’s not like Sword & Sorcery is tied to any one publication.
Absolutely, there's room for everyone! If you want experimental genre-blending there's that, if you want old school there's that too. Nothing needs to be denigrated because if you don't like it no-one's nailing you to a chair and forcing you to read it Clockwork Orange-style. As in every single genre out there - from horror to detective stories to romance and everything else, there's plenty of troublesome stuff in sword and sorcery's history, but there's also been amazing writers who've provided counters to those excesses - and been better remembered. Thanks for reading, Rawle!
And thanks for being willing to talk, Alex.
Sure thing!
I really enjoyed this article. As an aspiring S&S writer it was encouraging and interesting to see that the genre still has legs, so to speak, and can still offer a variation on loincloth clad barbarians smacking each other with great axes. I guess I should crack on with writing my damn story next.
Thanks so much, Charlotte. The genre does indeed have legs. Great big muscular ones!! Now get on and write that story. Wishing ye all the best!
I think the key to understanding Sword & Sorcery above all else is that there must be that innate sense of "FUN." Dangerous word, that! Lol. People balk at the power fantasy, but that really is part of the appeal. You're taken to another world, a more ancient time, and are afforded the luxury of exploring those more primeval instincts and ideas without the intellectual pretensions and overdosing self-awareness of modern writing.
Personally, I view gatekeeper concerns with diversity as the result of mainstream entertainment coupling explicitly implemented diversity with poorly articulated political messaging. Not allegory or subtle metaphor, but blunt-force, surface-level, boilerplate commentary that often sucks the life (and the fun) out of the genres it touches. It doesn't matter what is being said after a certain point, because any overt commentary of this nature tends to clash horribly with the stories it is foisted upon.
In Sword & Sorcery, writers should give up all their pretensions and allow themselves the luxury of intuition. After all, these are heroes who act on intuition, on gut feelings melded with cunning and raw physical prowess. Regardless of their race or gender or what have you, any deeper value in this genre should not be constructed, but should arrive of its own accord, if it even arrives at all. The story should accomplish everything it sets out to do on the surface before it goes beyond it, as that is the secret to Howard's genius. He delivers crowd-pleasing pulp entertainment, but further reads become enriching experiences as you savor the touches of worldbuilding and character throughout.
If you can write for the pulps, you can write for Sword & Sorcery. And once you can learn to write for the pulps, to write for the adventuresome spirit and savagery of the genre, then it's time to explore further. To quote the evergreen Martin Scorsese: "Study the old masters, enrich your palette, expand the canvas."
Indeed, one of the pleasures of sword and sorcery is its unselfconsciousness. REH, for example, wrote utterly without fear and with total conviction. Thanks for the re-stack, Jacob.
I never much cared for Conan, the character. I read the stories for the world in which Conan lived...dire ancient sorcerous places, strange artifacts, high strangeness, hot broads, and a world that was full to the brim with fascinating potential. I viewed Conan as rather like Shardik; he's this force of nature that shows up and wrecks things.
Many of RE Howard's tales (perhaps later cooked up by Lin Carter and L. Sprague DeCamp) don't fully center on the Cimmerian murder hobo...they follow other characters into plots in which Shardikonan blunders in and clobbers That Which Needed Clobberin'. I found those tales to be better, more interesting. Political intrigues make for good plots when set in a time and culture where in political rivals will kill each other rather than pretend to be opposed and cooperate closely behind closed doors. Just consider the Gunpowder Plot...killing someone by packing his basement with blackpowder is just an awesome what to put the whack on your enemy(ies).
Shardik's a really interesting comparison! Gotta get round to reading Adams's Watership Down. The original movie is one of my all-time faves!