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?
Overall, good article, I think though the leading question is answered by a wider look at the genre. It was always adaptive.
Thunder the Barbarian is more S&S than anything else, and yet it is high tech post apocalypse.
Brian Lumley calls his work Howard inspired more than Lovecraft inspired despite being set in Lovecraft's worlds and using his characters, not Howard's. I this this also shows that S&S can work in novel length, Spawn of the Winds and In the Moons of Borea for example.
While Conan is the breakout celebrity, the genre has gone interesting places, and still have a core of creators who are non-stop taking the ideas and running with them. Especially in the gaming world. Many ttrpg products are S&S over high fantasy.
Manga hasn't discovered S&S, but will eventually and that will be a wild ride when it happens.
So, I think the genre has always been adaptive, and will continue to be so. It's not dying.
Cheers, Gavin. Yeah, apologies for the grabby title. No way is the genre dying. As you say, there’s too much innovation going on. I think it’s just that the genre presents authors with a very upfront challenge: to innovate, to ask how are you going to make this different from everything that’s come before it? Maybe because (like Cyberpunk), S&S’s remit is quite focused. Have you read the manga Berserk? I’ve only read Vol. One, but that’s very S&S, I think.
I read some of it. My problem with it is the translators are terrible. But yes it definitely hits a lot of the core themes of magic as dangerous, and corrupting, survival vs winning, etc. the thing is lacks is the freedom side. The people who oppose the sorcerer kings corrupted civilization side. Don't need to be barbaric as such, but need more freedom. So I see it as a deep dive into what goes on inside the sorcery faction of sword and sorcery.
Many of the gaming products are guides on how to tell your own story. They each have theirs, but they give you tools to do it differently. Finding ways to stand out is actually not hard. Certainly easier than in super hero genre or urban fantasy or horror.
This one starts with how to structure eras of your world’s past, with examples, giving your sorcery faction a face and history and your sword faction a relationship to place. Then goes into the nature of quests (plots for novel writers) and since corruption is a theme some quests are “spawners” which can spread, some unlock etc. all again, linked to place. This is one great way that it makes the genre different. Conan is of Cimmeria, not Stygia. Conan the Stygian or Hebridean would be a totally different person.
This one is a how to for emerging worlds, let the story shape itself, pvp battlefield conflict. But all S&S themed. Explore and be surprised by the answers you find. Will never be the same because different people take it different paths.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/204202/ an often forgotten product from TSR. Deep dive into each culture where they portray themselves as correct and the other side as wrong. Be the sorcerer king and hold back the crumbling of your society and keep the barbarians at bay, or be the barbarian and hold back the undead hordes and wicked honorless people who despoil your lands.
Much more like Lumley and Thundarr, this has tech, aliens and robots. And instructions on how to make your story fit the themes and use the tools to go your own direction.
I could keep going, there's more. But you could take any of these and five people could write five utterly unrelated stories and worlds from the same one starting point. With the whole field of s&s open the options are even broader.
RPGs are so useful in this regard, right? I got my first ideas about story structure, not from any screenwriting book but from the Ghostbusters RPG by West End Games! They had this whole page in the Ghostmaster’s Guide that explained the overall shape and pace of a story. Completely changed my perspective!
Just discovered you and this substack. Some of what you write eerily echoes what I write in my book Arcane Arts and Cold Steel: Writing Sword-and-Sorcery Fiction. Its just came out. I have been writing s&s myself since 1971; I am now a cranky old fart with millions of words behind me. The book gives a bit of history of the genre but mainly surveys the current crop of writers who are writing wonderful stories, literate, complex, splendid. I keep the discussion to short stories and novellas because, as you say, the genre works best at those lengths. We agree that the genre is cousin to Westerns and noir. If of interest, the link to the book is here: https://www.amazon.com/Arcane-Arts-Steel-Sword-Sorcery/dp/1683903579 It's already gotten some positive reviews. My only mild disagreement with you is the notion that we must mainstream s&s. Doing so would kill it. Novels, yes (I've written many myself), but I feel the genre should retain at least some dark dignity and stay away from agents and editors who cannot comprehend its essence of old ballads and lays, roughneck individualism, earthiness, and genuineness. I don't think it can be mainstreamed, anyway: its appeal is not to that sweet spot appreciated by successful mainstream authors, even those who appeal to Reacher fans, for example. The genre is a really singular animal. If s&s becomes, somehow, impossibly, a genre of multi-volume corporate crapfests, lots of exploiters will make money, but the outsider heart of it will be gone. It's Depression-era fiction, basically, not technowiz garbage for the masses. It's such a unique blend of many sensibilities. But I could be wrong.
Wow! David, I’m a huge admirer! Thanks so much for reading and taking the time to comment. I’ve just this second ordered 'Arcane Arts', and have added a link within the essay above. Hope this help brings some more readers your way…
I certainly don’t think we MUST mainstream S&S. I think just that some kind of crossover hit might help bring new readers into the genre, which 'The Witcher' game/TV show might have done, but doesn’t seem have achieved quite the cultural cache. I think S&S thrives on the kind of individuality and weirdness that tends to be killed stone-dead the minute it achieves franchise-hood. (However, I do think the Conan properties are proving a heartening exception with their comics and RPG, perhaps because they have genuinely imaginative talents like Matthew John and Jim Zub working on their projects.)
I think you hit the nail on the head, David, when you say, ‘the outsider heart of it will be gone’! In that sense, the genre NEEDS to be in margins/marginalised. I guess it’s the equivalent of a rock band losing their edge once they become millionaires and now have nothing else to rail against/sing about.
Once again, David, thank you so much for reading. Hope you’re keeping safe and well.
What a amazing article! Articles like this that make me feel blessed for have found Substack. This one is by far one of the most informative and provocative articles that I have read in a while, and my writer's brain is already bursting with those ideias. Thank you so much for this wonderful piece!
Thanks so much, Lucas! I'm so glad you got something out of it. I'm actually writing another, more craft-focused piece on sword and sorcery right now. Hoping to get it out by the end of the week...
Yeah, I think there's a thing called New Sword & Sorcery, and Joe Abercrombie touches upon that subject (he even has an article about it on his page). The formula has definitely changed, and it's not the barbarian type anymore.
While my favourite ever S&S authors are M. Moorcock (for all the weirdness and acid trips), and F. Leiber, the new S&S is more like Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, and sometimes even Steven Erikson, who carry it forward in many places.
Late to this game but I don't care. Great article. I didn't grow up reading S&S, but I did grow up in the 80s. The classic S&S movies have stuck with me and I think are responsible for generally weird reading tastes for a kid, like Clive Barker. I didn't get to the books until a few years ago when I realized I kinda detest modern fantasy (modern fiction writing generally). But S&S made reading fun again. It didn't feel weighed down by character interiority or a need to say something. It's just fun, and yet I can't help but feel there are greater depths.
One of the lessons I take from S&S vs modern fantasy is a better balance between plot and character. I get so bored with reading character thoughts. Just do the thing and if your character was well-drawn from the start, I don't need their thoughts to explain their actions. I do wonder if more readers are thinking the same way when I hear calls for shorter stand-alone novels.
As for the genre itself: I think the modern proponents are doing a good job. It doesn't require wholesale reimagining either, but, as you say, engaging with the themes in a critical way for our own times. We can't but help update when we approach that way. That's what I'm trying to do.
Thanks, BD! I think there's definitely something to be said for readers craving something lighter and which requires less of a reading commitment. And S&S certainly scratches that kind of fantasy itch. Best of luck with your Shadowvaster project!
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.
Overall, good article, I think though the leading question is answered by a wider look at the genre. It was always adaptive.
Thunder the Barbarian is more S&S than anything else, and yet it is high tech post apocalypse.
Brian Lumley calls his work Howard inspired more than Lovecraft inspired despite being set in Lovecraft's worlds and using his characters, not Howard's. I this this also shows that S&S can work in novel length, Spawn of the Winds and In the Moons of Borea for example.
While Conan is the breakout celebrity, the genre has gone interesting places, and still have a core of creators who are non-stop taking the ideas and running with them. Especially in the gaming world. Many ttrpg products are S&S over high fantasy.
Manga hasn't discovered S&S, but will eventually and that will be a wild ride when it happens.
So, I think the genre has always been adaptive, and will continue to be so. It's not dying.
Cheers, Gavin. Yeah, apologies for the grabby title. No way is the genre dying. As you say, there’s too much innovation going on. I think it’s just that the genre presents authors with a very upfront challenge: to innovate, to ask how are you going to make this different from everything that’s come before it? Maybe because (like Cyberpunk), S&S’s remit is quite focused. Have you read the manga Berserk? I’ve only read Vol. One, but that’s very S&S, I think.
I read some of it. My problem with it is the translators are terrible. But yes it definitely hits a lot of the core themes of magic as dangerous, and corrupting, survival vs winning, etc. the thing is lacks is the freedom side. The people who oppose the sorcerer kings corrupted civilization side. Don't need to be barbaric as such, but need more freedom. So I see it as a deep dive into what goes on inside the sorcery faction of sword and sorcery.
Many of the gaming products are guides on how to tell your own story. They each have theirs, but they give you tools to do it differently. Finding ways to stand out is actually not hard. Certainly easier than in super hero genre or urban fantasy or horror.
Examples: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/385190/cora-s-guide-to-dinosaurs?__cf_chl_f_tk=kjp8hs03Ab0lapZMrufvd8Z7Ahq9bPG3Hi3b6J4AtJs-1783442075-1.0.1.1-UY.zhZ8Pht8g.jNrfuaZDGpIfau4wm71iQEi3Lv6_.8
This one starts with how to structure eras of your world’s past, with examples, giving your sorcery faction a face and history and your sword faction a relationship to place. Then goes into the nature of quests (plots for novel writers) and since corruption is a theme some quests are “spawners” which can spread, some unlock etc. all again, linked to place. This is one great way that it makes the genre different. Conan is of Cimmeria, not Stygia. Conan the Stygian or Hebridean would be a totally different person.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/541947/
This one is a how to for emerging worlds, let the story shape itself, pvp battlefield conflict. But all S&S themed. Explore and be surprised by the answers you find. Will never be the same because different people take it different paths.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/204202/ an often forgotten product from TSR. Deep dive into each culture where they portray themselves as correct and the other side as wrong. Be the sorcerer king and hold back the crumbling of your society and keep the barbarians at bay, or be the barbarian and hold back the undead hordes and wicked honorless people who despoil your lands.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/234726/
Much more like Lumley and Thundarr, this has tech, aliens and robots. And instructions on how to make your story fit the themes and use the tools to go your own direction.
I could keep going, there's more. But you could take any of these and five people could write five utterly unrelated stories and worlds from the same one starting point. With the whole field of s&s open the options are even broader.
RPGs are so useful in this regard, right? I got my first ideas about story structure, not from any screenwriting book but from the Ghostbusters RPG by West End Games! They had this whole page in the Ghostmaster’s Guide that explained the overall shape and pace of a story. Completely changed my perspective!
Just discovered you and this substack. Some of what you write eerily echoes what I write in my book Arcane Arts and Cold Steel: Writing Sword-and-Sorcery Fiction. Its just came out. I have been writing s&s myself since 1971; I am now a cranky old fart with millions of words behind me. The book gives a bit of history of the genre but mainly surveys the current crop of writers who are writing wonderful stories, literate, complex, splendid. I keep the discussion to short stories and novellas because, as you say, the genre works best at those lengths. We agree that the genre is cousin to Westerns and noir. If of interest, the link to the book is here: https://www.amazon.com/Arcane-Arts-Steel-Sword-Sorcery/dp/1683903579 It's already gotten some positive reviews. My only mild disagreement with you is the notion that we must mainstream s&s. Doing so would kill it. Novels, yes (I've written many myself), but I feel the genre should retain at least some dark dignity and stay away from agents and editors who cannot comprehend its essence of old ballads and lays, roughneck individualism, earthiness, and genuineness. I don't think it can be mainstreamed, anyway: its appeal is not to that sweet spot appreciated by successful mainstream authors, even those who appeal to Reacher fans, for example. The genre is a really singular animal. If s&s becomes, somehow, impossibly, a genre of multi-volume corporate crapfests, lots of exploiters will make money, but the outsider heart of it will be gone. It's Depression-era fiction, basically, not technowiz garbage for the masses. It's such a unique blend of many sensibilities. But I could be wrong.
Wow! David, I’m a huge admirer! Thanks so much for reading and taking the time to comment. I’ve just this second ordered 'Arcane Arts', and have added a link within the essay above. Hope this help brings some more readers your way…
I certainly don’t think we MUST mainstream S&S. I think just that some kind of crossover hit might help bring new readers into the genre, which 'The Witcher' game/TV show might have done, but doesn’t seem have achieved quite the cultural cache. I think S&S thrives on the kind of individuality and weirdness that tends to be killed stone-dead the minute it achieves franchise-hood. (However, I do think the Conan properties are proving a heartening exception with their comics and RPG, perhaps because they have genuinely imaginative talents like Matthew John and Jim Zub working on their projects.)
I think you hit the nail on the head, David, when you say, ‘the outsider heart of it will be gone’! In that sense, the genre NEEDS to be in margins/marginalised. I guess it’s the equivalent of a rock band losing their edge once they become millionaires and now have nothing else to rail against/sing about.
Once again, David, thank you so much for reading. Hope you’re keeping safe and well.
What a amazing article! Articles like this that make me feel blessed for have found Substack. This one is by far one of the most informative and provocative articles that I have read in a while, and my writer's brain is already bursting with those ideias. Thank you so much for this wonderful piece!
Thanks so much, Lucas! I'm so glad you got something out of it. I'm actually writing another, more craft-focused piece on sword and sorcery right now. Hoping to get it out by the end of the week...
Yeah, I think there's a thing called New Sword & Sorcery, and Joe Abercrombie touches upon that subject (he even has an article about it on his page). The formula has definitely changed, and it's not the barbarian type anymore.
While my favourite ever S&S authors are M. Moorcock (for all the weirdness and acid trips), and F. Leiber, the new S&S is more like Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, and sometimes even Steven Erikson, who carry it forward in many places.
Cheers, Mac! Will have to check out that Abercrombie piece.
Late to this game but I don't care. Great article. I didn't grow up reading S&S, but I did grow up in the 80s. The classic S&S movies have stuck with me and I think are responsible for generally weird reading tastes for a kid, like Clive Barker. I didn't get to the books until a few years ago when I realized I kinda detest modern fantasy (modern fiction writing generally). But S&S made reading fun again. It didn't feel weighed down by character interiority or a need to say something. It's just fun, and yet I can't help but feel there are greater depths.
One of the lessons I take from S&S vs modern fantasy is a better balance between plot and character. I get so bored with reading character thoughts. Just do the thing and if your character was well-drawn from the start, I don't need their thoughts to explain their actions. I do wonder if more readers are thinking the same way when I hear calls for shorter stand-alone novels.
As for the genre itself: I think the modern proponents are doing a good job. It doesn't require wholesale reimagining either, but, as you say, engaging with the themes in a critical way for our own times. We can't but help update when we approach that way. That's what I'm trying to do.
https://bdallen.substack.com/p/index-shadowvaster-in-minkrinath?r=2penkp
Thanks, BD! I think there's definitely something to be said for readers craving something lighter and which requires less of a reading commitment. And S&S certainly scratches that kind of fantasy itch. Best of luck with your Shadowvaster project!
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!