Todd: And we’re back! Thanks to everyone who commented on our previous post, Five Forgotten Swordsmen and Swordswomen of Fantasy! In our constant quest to improve ourselves through shorter titles, this one is called Five Classic Sword-and-Planet Sagas.
Howard: Sword-and-planet is one of my favorite genres. It is a field of unfettered imagination, and the men and women who wrote it were concerned chiefly with story and giving free rein to their imaginations. I think that makes it a unique form of fantasy, even in a body of literature that generally prides itself on imagination.
Todd: In many ways, sword-and-planet mixes the best of science fiction and fantasy. Donald A. Wollheim is believed to have created the term “Sword-and-Planet” in the ‘60s, likely for his classic ACE anthology Swordsmen in the Sky (1964). But the genre’s roots are much older than that, and even today its most famous proponent is Edgar Rice Burroughs, who created the mold for what we think of as sword-and-planet stories with the very first John Carter novel, A Princess of Mars, way back in 1912.
Sword-and-planet and space fantasy were popular in the pulps in the 1930s, and one of the greatest SF pulps mags of all time, Planet Stories, made a specialty of it. Over the next few decades dozens of writers experimented with it, including Otis Adelbert Kline, Leigh Brackett, Robert E. Howard, Poul Anderson, Michael Moorcock, Lin Carter, Jack Vance, and Alan Burt Akers. In this piece, Howard and I are going to discuss the best S&P novels and series you’ve probably never heard of. And also Rocket Robin Hood.
Howard: No cartoons.
Todd: Right, absolutely. No cartoons. Except for Rocket Robin Hood.
Howard: Sometimes you cause me actual physical pain.
Todd: I’m going to kick it off with the Dray Prescot tales by Alan Burt Akers.
Howard: Why him?
Todd: Because he published FIFTY-TWO novels in the series, and anything that survived in the market that long deserves a look, at the very least, in my book.
Howard: I have to admit that while I’ve been curious about this series, I’ve never read it. I’ve never actually seen the first few books in the wild, or I might have attempted it early on. I always see later volumes.
Todd: It’s true the Dray Prescot novels didn’t win any awards. They were written by well-known British SF writer Kenneth Bulmer under the Akers pseudonym, in rather obvious imitation of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
In fact, like a lot of early sword-and-planet, the whole set-up is a fairly obvious copy of the John Carter novels. But Akers gives them a British spin: Instead of a Confederate soldier transported to Mars, the series features Dray Prescot, an officer in Horatio Nelson’s navy, mysteriously transported to the planet Kregen, where he becomes an agent of the secretive Savanti. Like the John Carter novels, they’re narrated in first person, “as told to Alan Burt Akers.”
Although it hewed pretty closely to the planetary romance formula set down by Burroughs, as the series progressed more sword-and-sorcery elements were introduced, with magic taking a bigger role. Some of the later books were clearly attempting to cash in on the Dungeons & Dragons craze of the early ‘80s, particularly #27, Mazes of Scorpio (1982), which is basically one long dungeon crawl.
Howard: So, inquiring minds want to know: Does a 52-book series sustain quality throughout its run? What’s the story, oh learned one? Are they ALL good? Or just the first few?
Todd: How the hell should I know? I haven’t read all of the damned things. But they move fast, and Bulmer/Akers had a flair for setting and fast action. Today they’d be marketed as Young Adult, and they certainly have that feel. I bought them as a teenager off the spinner racks of my local supermarket; they were just the right length, and the DAW covers were terrific. They featured cover and interior art by top-notch artists like Michael Whelan, Ken Kelly, Richard Hescox, Clyde Caldwell, Tim Kirk, Josh Kirby, and Jack Gaughan.
The series sold well enough that used copies are still pretty easy to find. The first 37 volumes were published by DAW between 1972 and 1988; the series was then cancelled in the U.S. But its popularity in Germany encouraged Bulmer to write another 15 novels, which were translated into German.
The entire series—all 52 novels!—has been reprinted in a series of affordable omnibus volumes by Bladud Books, under the title “The Saga of Dray Prescot.” Each fat volume contains four of the original slender paperbacks. Volumes 11-15 include the non-DAW novels, published in English for the first time.
Howard: What makes them worth a look today?
Todd: There were plenty of touches that admittedly went over my head 30 years ago, but which I appreciate today. For example, the planet Kregen orbits the star Antares, which is sometimes mistaken for Mars in the sky (“Antares” means “like Mars”). It’s a clever nod to Burroughs. On the flip side, during his travels Prescot learns of the faraway continent of “Gah,” a place of perverse customs –an obvious slam at John Norman’s Gor series. Bulmer was a clever writer in lots of ways.
Anyway, Dray Prescot is sort of a guilty pleasure. He still has lots of fans today, but I’m not expecting a Dray Prescot renaissance any time soon.
As a genre, sword-and-planet is filled with guilty pleasures, really.
Howard: While we’re on the topic of guilty pleasures, I want to talk about one of my own: Lin Carter’s Callisto novels. Like Akers, the eight Callisto books wouldn’t exist without Edgar Rice Burrough’s Mars books.
Todd: Probably nothing on this list would exist without John Carter of Mars.
Howard: Absolutely. Technically the Mars books had a few predecessors, but none of them have had even a fraction of the impact and influence of John Carter, whose success really launched the genre.
Todd: We could spend a while discussing the true roots of sword-and-planet, like Percy Greg’s Across the Zodiac (1880) and Edwin Lester Arnold’s Gulliver of Mars (1905), or even the popular writers of the ‘20s and ‘30s, like Ralph Milne Farley (The Radio Man, 1924) and Otis Adelbert Kline (Planet of Peril, 1929), but they’re mostly of historical interest these days.
Howard: Right. Given that the ONLY sword-and-planet series most people know is John Carter of Mars, and that’s it’s one of the few you can find on your own, rather than discussing it, I’ve elected instead to focus on the Callisto books, the creations of Lin Carter. Even Lin himself would have told you that they’re derivative.
Todd: From what I understand, they’d probably be considered fan fiction today.
Howard: Nothing wrong with fan fiction, my friend. Carter almost made a career of it—he did quite a bit of pastiche writing. He was derivative by design and intention, and he loved Burroughs, mixing a little bit of Burroughsian style into much of his adventure fiction. I like him best as an editor who sincerely enjoyed older fantasy and loved to share that knowledge in welcoming and informative essays. But I also enjoy some of his short fiction, and a handful of his novels, the best of which was probably Lost World of Time.
Todd: You are going to actually TELL US about the Callisto books at some point, right?
Howard: Getting impatient? Well, I thought they were a lot of fun when I read them twenty years ago. They were popcorn reads, with melodrama and cliffhangers and all the things that Carter loved about Burroughs. They’re not supposed to be original, so don’t wander into them looking for fresh takes.
Todd: In fairness, Burroughs wasn’t particularly original either. It’s pretty clear that the aforementioned Edwin Lester Arnold’s novel Gulliver of Mars, published seven years before A Princess of Mars, was a significant influence. Both feature military men transported to Mars who have lengthy adventures and end up falling in love with a Martian princess.
Howard: Fair point. If you want to read more stories about an intrepid warrior from our world thrust into an alien environment, you could do a lot worse than the Callisto books. And while we’re discussing originality, it’s worth noting that while Burroughs tended to use the same kidnap plot over and again, the Callisto novels are more varied.
Todd: This is the series where Lin Carter puts himself into one of the books, isn’t it?
Howard: Yes! Like Akers, Lin Carter took a cue from Burroughs and pretended he wasn’t really the author, but merely the person conveying information that the TRUE author relayed about his adventures. Until the sixth book, that is, when Lin Carter himself ventures through the same portal as John Dark, renamed by the people of Callisto as Jandar (Jandar of Callisto is the first novel in the series). When Carter passes through he becomes known as “Lankar of Callisto.”
Todd: This is sounding more and more like straight-up fan fiction.
Howard: Well, you have to get into the spirit of the novels. And it was the seventies.
Todd: Okay, time to switch gears. I want to talk about a sword-and-planet series that I think DOES hold up well today: Jack Vance’s magnificent Planet of Adventure novels: City of the Chasch, Servants of the Wankh, The Dirdir, and The Pnume.
Howard: Great choice. I confess that I’ve only read Callisto once, and I stopped after book six (there are eight in total). But when it comes to The Planet of Adventure series, I’ve read then all twice, and will probably read them again. I know they were originally published as separate novels, but I first found the series in an omnibus that contains all four books.
Todd: The Orb collection? Yeah, that’s a great volume—published in 1993, and STILL IN PRINT, 26 years later! That should tell you something about the longevity of this series.
Howard: Vance’s world- and society-building is always, well, phenomenal, but sometimes he can get lost in the creation and focus less on the plot or the characters. In this series, though, he really channels the adventure, right from the start.
Todd: Agreed. The series kicks off with a bang: scout ships sent to investigate a mysterious distress signal crash-land on the planet Tschai, stranding lone survivor Adam Reith on an unknown world. For the next four books Reith takes on challenge after challenge in his relentless quest to return to Earth. First he attempts to repair his ship, then steal a new one, then build one, and finally he must escape the clutches of the insect-like Pnume.
Howard: I’ve heard some people refer to the main character as flat, but he’s a lot more interesting to me than many of other Vance’s characters. He’s clever and full of surprises. He drives the action and has to constantly think on his feet and invent his way out of challenging situations. Unlike Cugel the Clever, he’s also a warrior and man of honor.
Todd: What I remember most is the rich mixture of alien civilizations and strange societies Reith finds himself in. There’s the hundred-thousand-year-old culture of the reptilian Chasch, the multi-gendered feline Dirdir, the insectoid Pnume with their ten million years of history, the predatory Phung, the human client-races differentiated by selective breeding, and more… Reith constantly has to navigate their complex wars, alliances, religions, and bizarre and mysterious customs. It’s classic Vance.
Howard: Two books in the series, Servants of the Wankh and The Pnume, feature exciting sea voyages that read more like epic fantasy than science fiction. When Vance hit his stride, there really was no one like him.
Todd: That’s for sure.
Howard: For the next item on our list, I want to return to one of my favorite writers, the incomparable Leigh Brackett. Those in the know might assume I’m getting ready to talk about Eric John Stark (whom we mentioned in our LAST column), and the trilogy of books that sent Stark out of our own solar system and onto the dying planet of Skaith.
The Skaith trilogy is pretty cool, and because one of my two older sisters happened to think they were nifty, they’re the first sword-and-planet books I ever read. But you know what? I happen to like Brackett’s The Sword of Rhiannon, aka The Sea-Kings of Mars, even better.
Todd: You’re not fooling anybody. You’re trying to jam two books onto the list. Just pick a book, dude.
Howard: Maybe. But look, if you’re only going to read one sword-and-planet by Leigh Brackett (I can’t imagine WHY you’d read just one, but whatever) I’d make it The Sword of Rhiannon. It’s appeared under both titles over the years, most famously in 1953 when it was printed as an ACE double with Robert E. Howard’s one and only Conan full-length novel, The Hour of the Dragon.
Todd: I have that book!
Howard: Knowing you and your obsession with vintage paperbacks, you probably have multiple copies. I hope you’ve read at least one of them.
Todd: I don’t want to take them out of the mylar.
Howard: You’re hopeless.
Brackett is justly called the Queen of Space Opera, but sometimes her space opera has elements of sword-and-planet, and vice versa. A lot of sub-genres are blurry at the edges. She grew up reading Burroughs and took some of her tales to a swampy Venus that was a little like Burroughs’ Amtor, but mostly she sent them to Mars.
And what a stunning, lonely, haunted Mars it is, one that should be better known. That lady could conjure prose magic. Our hero Carse is sent stumbling through a gateway into the distant Martian past, before it was a dying desert world. There are sea kingdoms, and a wicked and beautiful warrior woman, and brave heroes and stunning scenery and an overarching mystery and menace. It’s compact but powerful, and goes down like a heady wine.
Someday you need to explain to me why Leigh Brackett isn’t more celebrated. Mal Reynolds, Han Solo—she was writing characters like them decades before anyone else, and long before those two ever appeared on screen.
Todd: She was writing Han Solo after Lucas created him, too. One of the last things she wrote was the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back.
Howard: Yes, and unfortunately that’s where a lot of modern name recognition of Brackett begins and ends. If people dig deeper, they’ll find a wealth of wonderful adventures that flowed from her typewriter.
Todd: Before we discuss our last selection, I do want to mention some things we’ve skipped, like Edmond Hamiton’s Kaldar tales, Michael Moorcock’s Kane of Old Mars, and even Robert E. Howard’s Almuric. More recently, George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois produced two very fine anthologies of retro-SF with sword-and-planet themes, Old Mars and Old Venus. There’s plenty of great stuff out there; I encourage our readers to read widely to see what appeals to them.
Howard: Now who’s trying to jam a bunch of books unto the list?
Todd: I want to close with some words about probably the greatest sword-and-planet epic of all time, the saga whose creator was a huge fan of Planet Stories and the stories of Leigh Brackett especially, and who single-handedly made it cool to mix starships and laser swords. I’m speaking, of course, of George Lucas and Star Wars.
Howard: Wait, what?
Todd: Star Wars is such an industry on its own today that people think of it as its own thing. But back in 1977, people were excitedly calling it Space Fantasy and drawing parallels with Buck Rogers and early sci-fi adventure serials. It may well be the purest sword-and-planet tale ever created.
Howard: Wait, wait. Star Wars is a space opera. I know I said earlier that there is some blurriness on the edge of any genre, or sub-genre, but come on. If we’re going to discuss visual media and Star Wars, then we have to discuss the original Star Trek, which, as everyone knows, is far superior to Star Wars.
Todd: That makes no sense. There are no swords in Star Trek! There are barely any lasers.
Howard: That’s because it has phasers, which are way cooler. But it’s space opera—and so is Star Wars, although it has a few sword-and-planet characteristics.
Todd: A FEW? It has a space princess, for God’s sake. And space wizards and laser-sword battles, and storm troopers who ride dinosaurs.
Howard: I don’t think I’m being too pedantic here—mostly Star Wars is about interplanetary journeys and spaceships and all that, and while sword-and-planet may have those things in the background, in the foreground the protagonists are struggling along with swords and riding weird beasts and dealing with ancient-level technology. If they have a blaster, then they probably only have a few shots left. The genre is basically sword-and-sorcery with a faint science fiction overlay. If we don’t put up some sign posts on the border then we might as well start talking about C.L. Moore’s Northwest Smith, and on and on…
Todd: “[I]n the foreground the protagonists are struggling along with swords and riding weird beasts and dealing with ancient-level technology…” That’s a perfect description of Star Wars right there, my friend.
Howard: All right, since you’ve clearly lost your mind; I’ll choose the last selection: Philip José Farmer’s World of Tiers series.
Todd: Fine.
Howard: I have mixed feelings about World of Tiers. In my experience, Farmer’s series’ often started out strong and then ran out of steam, and I think this one definitely did. But the first two or three of the six novels are pretty cool, and one of them, at least, was a huge inspiration to Roger Zelazny, and led directly to one of my favorite fantasy series, The Chronicles of Amber.
Todd: I’ll have to take your word for it; I never read the later books. Still, Tiers is not a bad choice. The premise is that our world and universe aren’t actually working as we understand them, and are part of one of many pocket universes where supremely powerful individuals come to play. That sounds pretty Amber-y, but are you saying that there’s one book in the series that was more important to Zelazny than the others?
Howard: The second one, The Gates of Creation, has even more direct Amber parallels. The superpowered main character has to team up with a bunch of his relatives (who are also superpowered), and he can’t be sure whom to trust. It has a lot more going on than the other books, and if I ever re-read any of them, it will be that one. I read The World of Tiers after The Chronicles of Amber, and I immediately recognized the themes Zelazny had picked up on. It’s a very different kind of planetary adventure, and much more original in conception, as well as being more influential, than anything on this list after Burroughs.
Todd: And Star Wars, naturally.
Howard: Stop already.
Todd: You stop.
Howard: I respect World of Tiers and even like aspects of the books, although I’ve never felt strongly compelled to revisit them, as I’ve done time and again with Brackett. One ugly moment in a later book stuck in my craw so badly that it’s eclipsed all my pleasant memories of the fun escapist fare of the first few novels. Even given that this was an earlier time, Farmer’s depiction of a rape survivor was jaw-droppingly obtuse. I mean, it bugged me even as a teenager who knew next to nothing about sex.
Todd: Elaborate, please.
Howard: Here’s the thing — for the most part this genre is light adventure fare. When it’s not, the authors usually let us know early on.
Todd: Dude. I meant, elaborate on being a teenage boy who knew nothing about sex.
Howard: We’re usually dealing with frying pan-into-the-fire-style plotting, villains who might as well be twirling their mustaches, etc. I don’t turn to sword-and-planet for heavy themes. In one of the Tiers books, though, the female protagonist is raped. Later on she forgives the man who did it with a metaphorical shrug because apparently he didn’t know any better and didn’t mean anything by it and everyone just moves on. I kept reading along myself, but I barely recall anything else in that book apart from my stunned reaction.
Todd: Holy crap!
Howard: Exactly. You know that I spend a lot of time reading fiction that was published even earlier than this. I’m usually the first person to jump up and remind people that we should try to be aware of the time and place where a piece was written, and the attitudes common to the writer’s social class, etc. (without letting them off the hook for problematic choices), but this wasn’t typical in late ’60s fiction I’ve read and it sure wasn’t cool in the earlier fiction which it frankly imitates. First, when you’re writing light stories, this kind of heavy stuff doesn’t add realism, it just reads like a turd in the punchbowl. Second, if you’re going to have terrible thing happen, then you have to have characters face the consequences.
Todd: That’s appalling. I would’ve expected Farmer to know better.
Howard: Me too. I can’t explain it. The whole sequence just shows a complete lack of any kind of understanding… You know what, I’m done. I feel icky just having talked about it.
Todd: OK then. Big provisional recommendation for World of Tiers. Like, we recommend you don’t read it.
Howard: No, I’m not that knee-jerk. I still recommend the first two or three books. There’s genuine imaginative power in them, and they’re part of the genre conversation that ultimately produced The Chronicles of Amber. After that, even without the ickiness, it began to feel like Farmer’s interest dropped off and he was just spinning the series out for contractual obligations.
Todd: All right. To summarize, we’re split on World of Tiers, and also Star Wars. You have no opinion on Dray Prescot, and I didn’t weigh in on the Callisto books.
Howard: Yes.
Todd: But we both enthusiastically recommend Vance’s Planet of Adventure, and the entire sword-and-planet catalog of Leigh Brackett.
Howard: Absolutely.
Todd: And though we agree that it’s definitely not sword-and-planet, we both enjoying working in a mention of the original Star Trek whenever possible.
Howard: Naturally.
Todd: And we agree that Rocket Robin Hood is the summit of animated sword-and-planet.
Howard: I knew this would go off the rails eventually.
Todd: Hear me out. Rocket Robin Hood was a Canadian animated series produced by Krantz Films between 1966 and 1969, the same time Star Trek was on the air. For millions of Canadian kids growing up in the ‘70s—and a few lucky young Americans with decent TV reception—Rocket Robin Hood was the pinnacle of afternoon programming.
Howard: Let’s just get this over with. Go ahead. Get it out of your system.
Todd: Rocket Robin Hood and his Merry Men hide out on New Sherwood Forest Asteroid in “the astonishing year 3000.” They square off against the Sheriff of N.O.T.T, the incompetent lawman of the National Outer-space Terrestrial Territories, and his sinister master Prince John. It’s a classic retelling of all the great tales of Robin Hood, with jet-packs, spaceships, and electro-quarterstaffs.
And it is pure, undiluted sword-and-planet, with a great soundtrack inspired by Old English ballads. You can still song-along on YouTube!
Howard: All done?
Todd: Thank you.
Howard: To wrap up, I’d like to say that we might have gone on and on here with recommendations—once we get going, it can be hard to know where to draw the line. We tried to keep our focus on lesser-known or more influential works in the genre, filtered through our own experience, though I’m sure there are plenty of other great examples to talk about. We thought we should wrap things up before this turns into a book-length treatise—especially once Todd starts talking about Canadian cartoons.
Todd: Yeah, I think that brings us to a close. We’d love to hear how crazy we are for neglecting your favorite sword-and-planet series in the comments—please shout out below!
Howard Andrew Jones’ novel Upon the Flight of the Queen, the second book in the Ring-Sworn Trilogy, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in November.
Todd McAulty’s first novel The Robots of Gotham was published by John Joseph Adams Books in June of last year.
Interesting! Unlike the forgotten swordfighter article, I do find these to be fairly obscure. I’ve read pretty extensively from the authors on this list (excepting Dray Prescot [I even know the theme song for Rocket Robin Hood!]) but had no idea about their sword and planet work outside of Brackett.
TBH, between Barsoom and Amtor, my sword and planet appetite is pretty well satisfied. They are already stuffed enough with princesses-to-be-rescued, strange beasts, barbarian peoples, magican technologies, and sandal-clad melodrama for my entire library.
Not that I’m the owner of nitpicking.com or anything, but “Antares” means “rival of Ares”, not “like Ares”.
“(“Antares” means “like Mars”)”
Not quite — it means “rivaling Mars” (“Ant” as in “anti-“), because it’s a “competing” red light in the sky.
And Star Wars is absolutely sword-and-planet, or at least a pastiche of it. Star Wars only exists because Dino DeLaurentiis wouldn’t let Lucas direct his Flash Gordon movie. It may borrow elements of space opera (Lucas was influenced by Star Trek too, as evidenced by the consciously similar-sounding title), but that’s not its core identity. It tells us right up front — “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” — that it’s a fairy tale at heart.
Just recently read (listened) to Farmer’s GREEN ODYSSEY, which definitely had some prototype ideas he later put into Tiers and Riverworld.
De Camp’s Viagens Interplanetarias novels are also fun Sword and Planet goodness.
I admit I haven’t read any of Lin Carter’s Callisto books, but I did read all five (six?) of his Green Star books, which are also very, very Burroughs in set-up, although the world is more Venusian than Martian — completely overgrown with giant trees, giant insects, etc., etc.
As far as sword & planet cartoons, I have to mention Blackstar from the early 80s, about a US astronaut who got flang to another world; although the less said about the Trobbits (kind of combining the worst characteristics of the Seven Dwarfs and the Smurfs) who accompanied him on his adventures, the better.
Tempted to try to include Mike Grell’s Warlord in the discussion, even though technically it’s a hollow earth story. But the adventures have a real sword & planet vibe to them.
@5/hoopmanjh: Nice to hear a nod to Blackstar, which was essentially Filmation Associates’ prototype for the more successful He-Man franchise a couple of years later — and shared some conceptual and stylistic DNA with Filmation’s excellent Flash Gordon series from two years earlier (even recycling much of FG’s stock music). I agree the Trobbits were not that great, but Blackstar’s dragon steed Warlock was awesome.
I think that Stasheff’s “Warlock of Gramarye” books can easily fall into this category. There are 12 books in the main sequence, 10 in the follow-on “Rogue Wizard” series concentrating on the eldest son’s adventures and 4 in a second spin-off concentrating on the rest of the children. The best thing is that the books’ quality doesn’t fall off nearly as badly as some of the examples listed above.
Then there’s his “Wizard in Rhyme” series consisting of 8 books about a parallel Earth stuck in Medieval time which the protagonist discovers by translating a spell.
Both series use the “Sword and Planet” tropes in fresh ways.
#5 and #6 I have fond memories of the first seasons of both Black Star and Flash Gordon, although I wonder how they’d hold up today? Even as a kid I remember thinking that after the first year they had dumbed both series’ down.
Of course, I didn’t really want to talk film or television, but Todd just HAD to bring up Rocket Robin Hood..
#3 I certainly see some of the sword-and-planet trappings in Star Wars, but I also see interplanetary space trips and dogfighting space craft and so on. When I think sword-and-planet I usually think about a hero or band of heroes stuck on the one planet and getting by with pretty primitive weapons, for the most part, and I don’t think about the aforementioned.
I hadn’t planned on talking Star Wars to start with, since I thought we’d just be talking about the printed page. Todd cheated, again!
Wouldn’t Marion Zimmer-Bradley’s Darkover novels also fit into this sci-fi / high-fantasy crossover as well?
#4 I saw that you’d mentioned reading that one, Paul. How does it hold up? It’s not one I’m familiar with.
@8 — The first season of Flash Gordon actually holds up relatively well. The second season (where they dropped the continuing story, split each episode into two ten-minute standalone stories, and introduced a flying pink baby dragon) is pretty much unwatchable.
Blackstar I think only had one 13-episode season. At least some episodes had some decent writers involved, though — Michael Reaves and Marc Scott Zicree.
I’m also tempted to bring up Pirates of Dark Water, which doesn’t have any explicit sword & planet trappings, but has the same kind of vibe.
Unrelatedly, I really need to read more Leigh Brackett, although a lot of her stories struck me as more noir & planet than sword & planet. This is not a complaint.
Mention should perhaps be made of Otis Adelbert Kline, who was arguably the earliest writer to achieve widespread success with Burroughs homages of this type.
@12 Loved Pirates of Darkwater back in the day. I really wished they had finished that one.
As for Flash, yes, that terrible pink dragon… ye Gods. It ruined the show. I had misremembered Blackstar. Maybe some episodes were noticeably better and I assumed they were different seasons.
Brackett was great, whatever exactly it was she was writing!
@8/howard: Flash Gordon was, sadly, very much dumbed down after its first season. The first season, in fact, was largely adapted from their older-skewing 1979 feature film, Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All — a much better Flash Gordon movie than the DeLaurentiis one, but sadly only aired once in 1982 and never released on video in the US because the DeLaurentiis film monopolizes the release rights. The first season basically retold and expanded the movie’s storyline over a full season structured like the classic serials, with cliffhangers and everything, although it cut a lot of the more adult stuff from the movie, redrew much of the animation to put the characters in standardized costumes (making it easier to intercut with new material), and recast all the voice roles besides Flash and Dale. So it wasn’t as adult as the movie, but it still had some intense moments and gorgeous (for TV) animation. But the second season was much more kiddified, with two short standalone segments per episode and a constant focus on a “cute” baby-dragon sidekick.
As for comment #9, I think the essence of sword-and-planet is that it transposes sword-and-sorcery fantasy tropes to an outer space setting, and that’s the very essence of what Star Wars is all about, regardless of the number of planets visited. I mean, you’ve got literal sword-wielding knights with magic powers fighting an evil sorceror in black armor and a cape. Sure, it’s a mashup of sword-and-planet and space opera, but it’s also a mashup of samurai movies, Westerns, WWII movies, drag-racing movies, etc. It’s basically a pastiche of all of George Lucas’s favorite genres at once. But Lucas himself has always called it space fantasy rather than science fiction.
Great piece–and I especially loved the comments about Jack Vance.
@12/hoopmanjh: The Pirates of Dark Water was okay, but I preferred its original 5-episode miniseries version, which was just called Dark Water and was a bit more mature and sophisticated than the remainder of the series (also it had the redoubtable Roddy McDowall as the comic-relief character Nidler, who was redubbed by Frank Welker for the ongoing series). But that was more of a standard high fantasy series than a space fantasy or sword-and-planet premise. Its world was described in the narration as an alien planet, but it was more just an alternate fantasy world like that of Avatar: The Last Airbender, with no human characters or space travel involved.
@17 You clearly know your way around the series far better than I do. I always wondered why the animation quality and writing had grown less sophisticated. And you’re right, it’s certainly not sword and planet. It was a lot of fun, though, and I would really have liked to have seen how the original writers were going to wrap it up.
@18 I wasn’t aware of the history of The Flash Gordon cartoon, and that certainly explains why some of the animation was gorgeous. I have a vague memory of catching the movie on television at some point when I was in my early teens and thinking someone had edited down the series!
As for Star Wars, you’re surely right that it’s a mishmash of a bunch of things that Lucas loved. And it surely has some sword-and-planet in there. Perhaps I AM pedantic, but it doesn’t feel like pure enough sword-and-planet to me to meet the full definition. If I were to use Star Wars as a genre defining example Iwould think it muddied the discussion rather than clarifying it.
Does Stirling’s Venus-in-a-loincloth The Sky People and the sequel In the Courts of the Crimson King count? You could view it as hard-SF that uses the “one premise” rule (and it’s a BIG one); but everything that follows is well thought out from evolutionary and economic standpoints. On the other hand, it puts one hero in a loincloth and gives him a rifle (with very little ammo), a dinosaur to ride and a cave princess to woo; while the other hero fights with a crystalline sword (because metal is too scarce), gets captured by a megalomaniac, the fate of the world is decided by a chess match, and he also woos a princess (in hiding).
@20 Thomas, I remember wanting to read these very much and even grabbing the first one for my TBR pile… and there my knowledge ends. It certainly SOUNDS like the same kind of thing! Maybe I’ll get around to it soonish.
I believe the animated Flash Gordon movie may be available on YouTube — I did watch it there sometime in the past few years. Would love to see it get a proper release. (As long as I’m dreaming, I’d also like a proper release of Hearts & Armour, an Italian kind of Excalibur wannabe based on Orlando Furioso.)
FWIW, I’ve read the first 37 of the Dray Prescot series and it is strongest through the first 14. The series is organized into cycles of 3-6 books which have an overall plot arc and often focus on a particular section of the world with its culture and creatures. The level of prose and action is maintained through the series, so if you’re just looking for pulp they are all fine.
@22 Quality work deserves to be treated well. It’s always sad when it is neglected. I have only ever heard of Hearts & Armour. Don’t know anything about it, alas.
@23 Thanks for the additional info, Mark. I was just asking a friend about the Dumarest saga and whether it held up through all 33. I discovered just recently that the first two are pretty fun.
Disco-era and old print runs were huge by modern standards, which really improves the odds of finding works from that period. Well, in general. I’ve had bad luck finding some examples (England Swings SF, to be specific. Heard about it for most of my life, have never seen a physical copy.)
@19/howard: You must’ve seen the Flash Gordon movie on August 21, 1982, because that was the only time it ever aired on US television. These days, the only way to see it in the US is from the YouTube rip hoopmanjh mentioned, which IIRC is from a Japanese home video release (though it’s in English).
The movie and series share a lot of footage, but the movie has a lot of material unique to it that was too adult for Saturday mornings, like the opening sequence in bombed-out WWII Poland, or the revelation that Ming has made a deal to supply weapons to Hitler, or Thun’s line about the seven Hells of Mongo. The TV series skips over the whole opening sequence and begins in medias res with Flash, Dale, and Zarkov already in the rocket approaching Mongo (and already in their Mongo attire, due to the redrawn animation).
Fun fact: The Filmation Flash Gordon movie was written by Samuel A. Peeples, the writer of Star Trek‘s second pilot.
“Perhaps I AM pedantic, but it doesn’t feel like pure enough sword-and-planet to me to meet the full definition. If I were to use Star Wars as a genre defining example Iwould think it muddied the discussion rather than clarifying it.”
That’s a fair point. Still, it’s the closest thing that the general public is well-acquainted with, so it can be useful as a starting example.
I suppose it’s not strictly planets, but Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber seems to move along some of these same lines. Depending on the shadow Corwin deals with, it can vary quite a lot from mundane Earth. Certainly Corwin is pretty handy with swordfighting as well.
There just aren’t any rocket ships :D
@27 That would be about right! It was late summer, and I was finishing junior high, and my folks were surprised that I didn’t want to go out to eat w them to a restaurant I rather liked and was choosing instead to stay and watch a cartoon!
I didn’t recall that about the “Where No Man Has Gone Before” author, although it sounds familiar to me now that you mention it.
@28 I LOVE Amber and Corwin the way some people dig LoTR… but I just can’t quite try to shoehorn Amber into this discussion. Amber is a huge influence on a lot of my own work. Todd and I talked some about Corwin and Benedict in our last column.
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In terms of Antares: “like Ares (i.e. Mars)” is a reasonable way to read the name. The Greek preposition/prefix αντί includes ideas of substitution and equivalence along with opposition, so you have adjectives like ἀντίθεος applied to Homeric heroes, not because they are opposed to gods but because they are godlike. (I know; I know: I am That Guy.)
@@@@@ everyone
Overall, this piece and the comments were a blast to read.
Howard @@@@@9
I’ve always thought of STAR WARS as a sword-and-planet series, but maybe you’re right, Howard, and it at least overlaps with another kind of story–the sword-and-spaceship kind. That might make a pretty good column topic: there’s stuff like Brunner’s INTERSTELLAR EMPIRE or Herbert’s DUNE or the early Flandry stories by Poul Anderson… (My chicken-hearted auto-correct tried to change that heroic writer’s first name to “Poultries”.)
There was a Twitter thread I saw recently where someone was bemoaning the fact that the term “planetary romance” has kind of fallen out of favor (mostly because these days people misinterpret the “romance” part). I suggested sword & planet as an alternative, but it does seem like a more specific term — I think planetary romance could also encompass things like, yes, Dune, and Vance’s Emphyrio or his Alastor books.
@32 I didn’t see that, but I’m sympathetic with the point. Planetary Romance is a useful term. So is sword-and-sorcery, although that term’s use has either been broadened to include ANY fantasy with swords, or simplified to mean only fiction with sweaty barbarians hacking upon one another. I’ve been trying to talk about itsintended definition to a large audience for years and frequently feel like I’m shouting into the wind…
@31 That’s a good idea, James. There are some good old stories in that category.
I just read the first two Dumarest stories and was wondering what category those would fall in. Is the category “stuff I lik” too vague, do you suppose?
The 1984 movie Krull might be described as Rocket Robin Hood, but not stupid. You got laser-wielding alien invaders on horseback and heroes on flying sky-horses. And Liam Neeson. I highly recommend it.
@1/vinsentient — “TBH, between Barsoom and Amtor, my sword and planet appetite is pretty well satisfied. They are already stuffed enough with princesses-to-be-rescued, strange beasts, barbarian peoples, magican technologies, and sandal-clad melodrama for my entire library.”
Oh, fair enough. Sword-and-Planet is a niche genre, for sure. I’m always on the lookout for new examples, because it’s a genre I find constantly inventive and fun.
It also jettisons so much of what I find unreadable about a lot of modern science fiction (and especially hard science fiction): a sheen of faux realism. Or scientific realism purely for the sake of realism, a fixation which gets in the way of the story. At least Sword-and-Planet is up-front about its prejudices — Realism? Who needs it!! I find that both refreshing and liberating.
@3/ChristopherLBennett — “And Star Wars is absolutely sword-and-planet, or at least a pastiche of it. Star Wars only exists because Dino DeLaurentiis wouldn’t let Lucas direct his Flash Gordon movie.”
I’m glad that we agree on… wait, what? Is that bit about Lucas wanting to direct FLASH GORDON true?? (*dashes off to confirm*)
HOLY COW! It is true! At least according to Dale Russel’s bio SKYWALKING, which is a (very) credible reference. How did I not know that story before? It explains so much! Thanks for filling in a gaping hole in my understanding of Modern Civilization.
@7/ Jessica — “I think that Stasheff’s “Warlock of Gramarye” books can easily fall into this category… Then there’s his “Wizard in Rhyme” series.. Both series use the “Sword and Planet” tropes in fresh ways.”
Thanks for the tip! I have to admit I’m unfamiliar with these books. What makes them fresh?
@10/Tom Tjarks — “Wouldn’t Marion Zimmer-Bradley’s Darkover novels also fit into this sci-fi / high-fantasy crossover as well?”
Maybe, but I think it’s a stretch. My understanding of the Darkover books is that they’re on the high-science end of the spectrum, which maybe makes them more space opera? I don’t know, Howard strictly enforces the space opera/sword-and-planet boundary; I find it best not to question it.
This is mostly speculative for me, however. I’ve never read the DARKOVER books. And I probably won’t, to be honest.
@13/Russell — “Mention should perhaps be made of Otis Adelbert Kline, who was arguably the earliest writer to achieve widespread success with Burroughs homages of this type.”
Glad to see someone giving Kline some love! His VENUS and MARS novels were quite popular in the 1920s and 30s, and Don Wollheim kept them in print at ACE in the 1960s.
Kline wasn’t a very strong writer, however. Certainly not in the category of Burroughs or Brackett. I think it’s unlikely he’d appeal to most modern readers.
@15/ChristopherLBennett — “I think the essence of sword-and-planet is that it transposes sword-and-sorcery fantasy tropes to an outer space setting, and that’s the very essence of what Star Wars is all about, regardless of the number of planets visited. I mean, you’ve got literal sword-wielding knights with magic powers fighting an evil sorceror in black armor and a cape.”
Preach, brother!!
@16/Hector — “Great piece–and I especially loved the comments about Jack Vance.”
Thanks Hector! Sword-and-Planet hasn’t produced many writers who have survived. That’s one of the many reasons we celebrate Jack Vance.
It’s probably more solidly space opera, but I’ll toss Keith Laumer’s “Galactic Odyssey” out there. Homeless kid ends up with space princess through long series of painful misadventures across multiple planets and some sword play.
Howard @34: “Stuff I like” works for me. (And Fletcher Vredenburgh.) I think swords-and-spaceships is close enough to sword-and-planet to have a lot of overlap. I do like the Dumarest and Dray Prescott books that I’ve read. But when I finish one I never feel like “Man, I have to start the next one!” Whereas I’ve had several nervous breakdowns because I couldn’t find the next installment of the Amber series in the midst of a compulsive reread.
Vance was a master of this genre. His Big Planet books are a couple more examples.
James Blish had a stab at the genre in The Warriors of Day. I thought it was interesting, but something less than a must-read.
Re Kline: I can’t say I loved his Venus books, but I did really like The Swordsman of Mars.
And when talking about sword-and-planet, we should never forget that sword-and-plant epic, Houseplants of Gor.
Not books or movies or TV shows, my favorite sword-and-planet epic is the Phantasy Star series of video games for the Sega Master System and the Sega Genesis.
I have a that Japanese bootleg of that FLASH GORDON: THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF ALL and it has so much nice stuff that the series is missing. The bombing of Warsaw by stukas in the beginning, which is later echoed in the destruction of Vultan’s flying City of the Hawkmen, the slow reveal of Ming and what he means, it’s just a superior product.
As long as we’re on the subject of animated Sword and Planet, STARCHASER: LEGEND OF THE ORIN has a lot of the tropes, like the Star Wars films it is trying to cash in on. A lot of people, me included, have fond memories of it, even if there are some head-scratchers such as when the Han Solo wannabe adjusts a non-cooperative buxom female robot by putting her across his knee and opening a panel on her buttocks to “fix” her (for years I thought I’d hallucinated that scene but it really happened as it turns out). You can find it streaming on Amazon.
I consider Keith Laumer’s Retief stories Sword and Planet-lite. There are even several nods to sorcery, like in the one where he’s trying to prevent a war with the lobster guys (Hatracks?) and one of their combat drugs speed him up so much it essentially stops time for a bit.
Great article, thanks for taking the time to do this guys.
Does the 80s animated series Thundarr the Barbarian have a place in this discussion? Or is it something else?
@47/Christopher_Rowe: I didn’t watch Thundarr much (I was a Filmation kid, not as fond of Hanna-Barbera), but it was technically on post-apocalyptic Earth, albeit an apocalypse that unleashed magic. The narration described it as a world of “savagery, super-science, and sorcery,” so I guess it’s a mix of Conan-type stuff and more sci-fi stuff. Not sure you can call it sword-and-planet when it’s on our planet, though.
Fair enough ChristopherLBennett. What about He-man and She-ra then? Or is that pure secondary world fantasy (I never watched them but I know it was set on another planet and there was some super-science stuff)?
@39 (and @10) — I think the Darkover books can qualify as “Sword and Planet”. Only the first couple (chronologically) really mention much real science (these are Darkover Landfall and Rescue Run, if memory serves.) The rest is just magic and psi. I read them all when I was a teenager, up through the latest at that time, probably The Heritage of Hastur (a Hugo nominee), and they were fun enough. There’s an early MZB novel (Falcons of Narabedla?) which she later reworked into one of her Darkover novels, and that novel by itself is even more clearly Sword and Planet.
As for precursors to Burroughs, I read Gulliver of Mars a year or two ago. It’s a very clear influence on Burroughs, and it has its points, but in the end it’s easy to see why ERB became a big deal and ELA (Edwin Lester Arnold) is forgotten.
The stories in Planet Stories always struck me as things that would have been pure Sword and Sorcery had they been published later, but in the early ’50s the magazines mostly wanted stuff with at least a Science Fictiony veneer, so they added a mention of how they got to the planet via spaceship or something.
And, finally, “Sea Kings of Mars” is a great choice — maybe my single favorite Sword and Planet story, and of course you all will want to read the original version in the crumbling pages of the June 1949 Thrilling Wonder, just as I have! (Actually, as far as I know, that version is identical, or mostly so, to the later printings.)
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Rich Horton
@49/Christopher_Rowe: Yeah, sure, I’d say so. He-Man was set on Eternia, a world in a universe on the other side of a black hole (He-Man’s mother was an Earth astronaut with the same basic backstory as John Blackstar, while his father was the king of Eternia). It had high technology and magic coexisting. She-Ra, meanwhile, was set in a parallel universe on the planet Etheria, which was basically a pure fantasy world of magic and nature that had been conquered by high-tech invaders called the Horde, so there was a more clear-cut magic-vs.-technology theme there, with the good guys fighting for nature and the bad guys being industrial, polluting, stripping the land for resources, etc.
Although the Netflix She-Ra reboot isn’t quite so binary, since a lot of the “magic” artifacts on its Etheria, including She-Ra’s sword, are “First Ones tech,” relics of a long-gone, technologically advanced founding civilization with Clarke’s Third Law in effect.
@26/James Davis Nicoll – “Disco-era and old print runs were huge by modern standards, which really improves the odds of finding works from that period.”
Very true. Vintage SF and Fantasy paperbacks (by which I mean loosely anything from the 20th Century) remain very inexpensive. 99.9% of it costs less than the price of a new paperback.
I think that may be (in part) due to a glut on the market. Used bookstores across the country have been steadily closing for the past 20 years, and dumping inventory on eBay. The same with older collectors as they pass away and their heirs put their collections up for sale. That may continue for awhile, but somehow I doubt that in 20 years you’ll be able to buy 50+ unread 80s paperbacks for less than a 50 cents a copy, the way I can today.
The other side of the coin is, as you imply, modern print runs are much smaller than they were in the 70s and 80s. As a collector, it makes we wonder if today’s paperbacks will be rare and very valuable in 30 years, instead of the stuff from the 20th Century I’ve been hoarding in my basement? Probably!
“Well, in general. I’ve had bad luck finding some examples (England Swings SF, to be specific. Heard about it for most of my life, have never seen a physical copy.)”
That’s a hard one, indeed. I bought a copy any years ago in Canada, which probably has a lot more British paperbacks knocking around in used bookstores.
Todd McAulty @38 (and later)
The Warlock In Spite of Himself was written in the 70’s, when ESP/psionics/etc were legitimate SF topics, so that’s the basis of the “magic” in the story. The Swords come about because the planet the Hero is visiting is a deliberately technologically regressed lost colony. Founded by members of the SCA and Ren Faire types.
It also has time travel and an epileptic robot horse. Lots of fun, decent worldbuilding and the first couple of sequels were OK, but they got old in a hurry.
My favorite used bookstore, Hole in the Wall in Falls Church Virginia, which I had been buying from since 1980, closed in August. They specialized in SF. Half my bookshelves are from there.
Poul Anderson also wrote some pretty great sword & planet stories early on, including “Swordsmen of Lost Terra” in Wollheim’s Swordsmen in the Sky anthology.
I know I’d read Brackett before this, but the story that really sunk its hooks into me was “Enchantress of Venus”, which I encountered in Margulies & Friend’s Giant Anthology of Science Fiction (which I learned about from an article on a certain website), which story opened with Eric John Stark sailing his thin-hulled metal boat across a sea of crimson vapors.
Kind of an edge case, but there was also Alfred Coppel’s “The Rebel of Valkyr”, which I encountered in Brian Aldiss’ Galactic Empires, vol. 1 (and which was later expanded to four short novels, but I think I prefer the original story), which is set in a future in which nobody remembers how the starships actually work, so they just ride their horses into the hold, push the button to fly to another planet, and lay siege to somebody’s Dark Ages-style hilltop keep.
@54/hoopmanjh: I was just thinking of bringing up Poul Anderson, but I was thinking of his SF stories where characters like Falkayn or Flandry would visit an alien planet in a medieval stage so he could basically write historical fiction under the guise of SF. I think Fire Time (not in the League/Empire universe) was one of those, with the aliens being centauroid so they were horse and rider at the same time. I’m not sure if those would qualify as sword-and-planet, though.
H Beam Piper’s Paratime stories, at least the Lord Kalvan ones, are sort-of this. Being more alternate universe stories. All the planets are Earth.
@43 I read a ton of Laumer back in the day, but this one escaped me. I quite liked some of the early Retief and his parallel Earth stories.
@ 27/ ChristopherLBennett — “Fun fact: The Filmation Flash Gordon movie was written by Samuel A. Peeples, the writer of Star Trek‘s second pilot.”
Holy cow!! “Where No Man Has Gone Before” is one of the great Trek episodes (certainly one of the greatest early ones, anyway). I had no idea there was a Flash Gordon connection.
This is exactly the kind of nerd info this column thrives on. Thank you for your vital contribution!
@31/James Enge – “…it at least overlaps with another kind of story–the sword-and-spaceship kind. That might make a pretty good column topic: there’s stuff like Brunner’s INTERSTELLAR EMPIRE or Herbert’s DUNE or the early Flandry stories by Poul Anderson…”
@34/Howard Andrew Jones – “That’s a good idea, James. There are some good old stories in that category.”
First: Hey James!
Second: Hmm… maybe? I love the find of fiction that (I think?) you’re describing, the sort of space adventure that has a foot in both camps. The whole reason we have genres at all is so that folks like me can find the find the kind of stuff we really love. And if there were a section in the bookstores labeled SWORD-AND-SPACESHIP, I would definitely head for it! But I think maybe we’re carving the genre up into smaller and smaller chunks that are getting harder to define.
Maybe that just means I’m not the guy to write that one? Cause I’d definitely read that article, if you and Howard wrote it!
@45/ JasonD – “Not books or movies or TV shows, my favorite sword-and-planet epic is the Phantasy Star series of video games for the Sega Master System and the Sega Genesis.”
THANK YOU. Sword-and-Planet is well represented in classic video games, but the Phantasy Star series is probably the pinnacle. I played them exclusively on the Genesis, but there are other systems.
We could do a whole SERIES on classic Sword-and-Planet video games, if Howard didn’t suck at them.
@38
They feel fresh to me because there’s no ‘humans are superior’ nonsense which Burroughs and the rest played with. They also admit that while the narrative is biased in favour of the protagonist’s democratic system of government, the antagonists (in the Warlock books time-travelling Marxists) have some good points which the Good Guys really need to address. There’s also more emphasis on negotiation than just knocking your opponents over the head, and a smattering of some pretty good humour.
The Wizard in Rhyme books are less like this, but still there’s a decent feeling of optimism even though Stasheff felt the need to push Catholicism a little too much in the later books.
@35/Almuric — “The 1984 movie Krull might be described as Rocket Robin Hood, but not stupid.”
Mmm, maybe a little stupid. I didn’t see the Rocket Robin Hood connection before, but in hindsight, I think you’re right. It’s about a band of outlaws rescuing a princess on a faraway planet, so the bones are right. But it’s a C-grade movie, at best. Whether that makes it better than Rocket Robin Hood is debatable.
@46/ E.E. Knight — “I consider Keith Laumer’s Retief stories Sword and Planet-lite.”
Ooooo, I can see that. Yeah, Retief was a master swordsman AND quick with a blaster, and there were plenty of strange beasts (usually at the diplomatic reception), AND loads of action. It checks all the boxes for me.
“Great article, thanks for taking the time to do this guys.”
Glad you enjoyed it!
@50/ Ecbatan — “I read Gulliver of Mars a year or two ago. It’s a very clear influence on Burroughs, and it has its points, but in the end it’s easy to see why ERB became a big deal and ELA (Edwin Lester Arnold) is forgotten.”
Once again Rich, you are brave enough to venture where I have not dared. Thanks for undertaking that hazardous journey and reporting back.
““Sea Kings of Mars” is a great choice — maybe my single favorite Sword and Planet story,”
Howard, we should have wrapped up with “Five Greatest S&P Stories.” And “Sea Kings of Mars” definitely would have been on it! (Although my favorite Brackett tale is “The Last Days of Shandakor,” and that might have bumped it off.)
@62/Todd: I think Krull is underrated. I first saw it sometime in the 2000s, I think, on DVD. It wasn’t a brilliant movie, but not many ’80s fantasy films were. Maybe it’s just that I had low expectations going in, but I found it entertaining. It stars Kenneth Marshall, whom Star Trek fans know as Eddington from Deep Space Nine, and he’s a surprisingly effective fantasy hero.
I loved all the Burroughs books when I was a teen! Not only the Barsoom books, but the Pelucidar series, the Carson of Venus series, and all the singles he wrote. I’m familar with some of these recommendations, but others are new to me. I just checked out the Dray Prescot series and found the big river is selling the omnibus book for Kindle at very reasonable prices (so I bought the first book to check them out!).
I’ve read a few of Lin Carters books in the past, although the Green Star and World’s End series are the only one’s I remember off hand. I don’t recall the Callisto books, though, so I may have to search them out.
Like one of the authors, I love Vance’s Planet of Adventure series and have read them more than once. Exciting action and some interesting (IMO at least) characters. I loved the concept of the humans bred by the various alien races to be more like them. I think my last reread was just last year, but now I’m tempted to jump into them again.
Farmer and Brackett are familiar to me by name and reputation, but I’m not sure if I ever read anything by either author? I may need to correct that oversight in the near future.
Great article!
Great essay. Thanks for this.
How about Piers Anthony “Battle Circle” trilogy?
No princess and no “fantasy” as such but I think it fits the mold for everything else.
You didn’t mention L Sprague deCamp Viagens Interplanetarias Series. Pure sword and planet. I’d second the excellence of Jack Vance. Lin Carter’s books are hugely fun. Many of his other books have that sci-fi-fantasy merge. I have that edition of the Sword of Rhiannon
Since we’re talking serials here, I would like to mention the “Bride of Chaotica” episode of ST:VOYAGER. Stars Captain Janeway as Queen Arachnia. The holographic doctor as President of Earth had the tagline ‘my performance was…unimpeachable’–given the episode was broadcast the night before Bill Clinton’s acquittal in the Senate, we had some feels there.
And since someone mentioned Star Wars, I must mention the best costume ever for this Halloween–Darth Vader, with a lace collar holding a gavel–who could it be but Ruth Vader Ginsburg?
Hey guys,
I want to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed your articles. I read most of the authors mentioned here back in the ’60’s and `’70’s and this has brought back memories to this 71 year old fantasy and sf reader.
Thank you.
Two examples of sword and planet creations are the franchises that are titled “Masters of the Universe” and “ThunderCats”.