A review by mdpenguin
The Sword & Sorcery Anthology, by David Drake, Joanna Russ, Jane Yolen, Michael Shea, Poul Anderson, Michael Moorcock, David G. Hartwell, Robert E. Howard, Rachel Pollack, Michael Swanwick, Ramsey Campbell, Gene Wolfe, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Fritz Leiber, Jacob Weisman, C.L. Moore, Charles R. Saunders, George R.R. Martin, Karl Edward Wagner, Glen Cook, Jeffrey Ford
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I don't remember why I decided to review each story individually. I usually don't, but since there are some novellas in here, maybe it makes sense. I think that if you averaged out the individual stories, they would round up to 4 stars, but I think that the anthology itself deserves a solid 4 for bringing together such a good variety of what the genre has to offer and presenting it fairly effectively. It loses a star because I think that a few of these are derived from broader fantasy series of which they aren't particularly good representations. That's not to say that they aren't good, just that I don't know that you can read one and know for sure if you'd want to read the series of stories it's a part of.
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The Tower of the Elephant – Robert E. Howard – Better than I ever expected from a Conan story. There were great, purple passages and then stuff would be pretty straight forward. I don't really understand why Conan had to toss away his tunic and run around most of the story in just a loin cloth, but whatever. (3 stars)
The Black God's Kiss – C. L. Moore – Kind of surreal, kind of interesting, but I felt it dragged a bit. It felt fresher than something from the 1930's, though. I looked it up and Jirel is apparently has a series about her and I'd be curious to read some of the others that have a bit more action, even if this one didn't really suit me. (3 stars)
The Unholy Grail – Fritz Leiber – This would have been interesting if there were more to it than cruelty. As it was, it served kind of like a portrait of cruelty creating itself and its own undoing. If it were longer with more of the characters' lives before the mentor's death then the characters might have meant something to me and I might have liked it more. Saying that, though, I've read some of Leiber's works before and I'm not sure that he would have shaped them into characters that I could care about anyway. (3 stars)
The Tale of Hauk – Poul Anderson – Given the title, I'd have expected it to focus a lot more on Hauk. Mostly it's about his father. It's not bad at all, but it took a long time to get to the actual conflict of the story and that was a very small part of it. I'd probably enjoy a novel about Hauk over the period covered in the book that focuses on his adventures as a merchant. I also suspect that I'd have enjoyed it just as much if it had steered clear of archaic language, which didn't really add anything to the telling of the story. (3.5 stars)
The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams – Michael Moorcock – I read a couple of the Erekosë books out of curiosity but this was the first of the Elric stories that I've read. It was way less brooding than I'd have expected and even a little funny thanks to the involvement of a cat. I suspect that most of the stories are a lot darker, though. Still, it was a fun read. (4 stars)
The Adventuress – Joanna Russ – I don't entirely know how I feel about this one. It's fairly clever but it's really not terribly much more than that. I kind of feel like it tried too hard to be interesting and, though I like the inversion of gender roles is good, I don't think that it does that great of a job of expressing anything by doing so and I felt that the ending effectively subverted any feminist ideas expressed in the rest of the story. I know that this is the beginning of a series of stories about Alyx and it's possible that the others develop the character and her adventures in a more interesting way but, even though it was kind of a fun read, this particular story doesn't leave me terribly curious about it. (3 stars)
Gimmile's Songs – Charles R. Saunders – This was both fun and charming with a couple of nice battles thrown in for good measure. It was a remarkably robust world described in such a short narrative, too. (4.5 stars)
Undertow – Karl Edward Wagner – I honestly wasn't impressed with this until it got to the end. It felt a little artificial to me, as though the author was writing more because he felt he could write something like the stories he had enjoyed than because he had his own story to tell. But it ultimately came to be a decent tale. I suspect that I'd find more direct tales about Kane to be more interesting, though. (3.5 stars)
The Stages of the God – Ramsey Campbell (as Montgomery Comfort) – This was short and good. A king escaping a coup finds power to protect him and realizes that he must improve himself to be worthy to wield it to take back his land and, thus, becomes a thing of legend. (4 stars)
The Barrow Troll – David Drake – This was good up to the end. If it had committed more clearly and directly to where trolls come from then I think it would have been stronger. (3.5 stars)
Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat – Glen Cook – This was really good. It was like a classic western (very Shane-ish) interpreted by Kurosawa to give it depth and set at the decline of a magical version of the Golden Horde at its peak. (5 stars)
Epistle from Lebanoi – Michael Shea – I didn't really enjoy this much, but I also didn't exactly dislike it. The story isn't bad, but I didn't particularly enjoy the narrator's perspective or character. And the whole thing felt a little hollow, somehow. It's possible that there's a context for this in some broader series that would make me enjoy it more, but without that it was merely ok. (2 stars)
Become a Warrior – Jane Yolen – This was a slow boil and delightfully satisfying in a rather gruesome way. (5 stars)
The Red Guild – Rachel Pollack – A bit surreal and a bit tragic and strangely gripping even when I didn't think I was that into the story. (4.5 stars)
Six from Atlantis – Gene Wolfe – This was an odd fragment of a story. I found it somehow more evocative than interesting. (2.5 stars)
The Sea Troll's Daughter – Caitlín R. Kiernan – I learned two lessons from this: 1) if you kill a monster for the bounty, be sure to get an easily identifiable trophy or nobody will believe you; and 2) don't leave slain monsters out unrefrigerated too long. This was a fun and funny read. (4.5 stars)
The Coral Heart – Jeffrey Ford – Good but also a little...eh. The basic story is really good but I didn't particularly like the characters enough to care about the development of the relationships nor the conflicts. (3.5 stars)
Path of the Dragon – George R. R. Martin – Apparently this is basically the chapters featuring Daenerys from the third book from the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Having never read the series, this definitely feels like an excerpt: it's readable without any background but it's obvious that there is a lot more going on than the reader can pick up from the story itself. She's a good character and I like the general story, but the lack of context left it feeling kind of overdone and certain things felt a bit extraneous. (3.5 stars)
The Year of the Three Monarchs – Michael Swanwick – This was pretty clever and had a nice bit of implicit silliness to it that I thought came out well, though I felt that the third monarch could have wrapped up better. (3.5 stars)
______________
The Tower of the Elephant – Robert E. Howard – Better than I ever expected from a Conan story. There were great, purple passages and then stuff would be pretty straight forward. I don't really understand why Conan had to toss away his tunic and run around most of the story in just a loin cloth, but whatever. (3 stars)
The Black God's Kiss – C. L. Moore – Kind of surreal, kind of interesting, but I felt it dragged a bit. It felt fresher than something from the 1930's, though. I looked it up and Jirel is apparently has a series about her and I'd be curious to read some of the others that have a bit more action, even if this one didn't really suit me. (3 stars)
The Unholy Grail – Fritz Leiber – This would have been interesting if there were more to it than cruelty. As it was, it served kind of like a portrait of cruelty creating itself and its own undoing. If it were longer with more of the characters' lives before the mentor's death then the characters might have meant something to me and I might have liked it more. Saying that, though, I've read some of Leiber's works before and I'm not sure that he would have shaped them into characters that I could care about anyway. (3 stars)
The Tale of Hauk – Poul Anderson – Given the title, I'd have expected it to focus a lot more on Hauk. Mostly it's about his father. It's not bad at all, but it took a long time to get to the actual conflict of the story and that was a very small part of it. I'd probably enjoy a novel about Hauk over the period covered in the book that focuses on his adventures as a merchant. I also suspect that I'd have enjoyed it just as much if it had steered clear of archaic language, which didn't really add anything to the telling of the story. (3.5 stars)
The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams – Michael Moorcock – I read a couple of the Erekosë books out of curiosity but this was the first of the Elric stories that I've read. It was way less brooding than I'd have expected and even a little funny thanks to the involvement of a cat. I suspect that most of the stories are a lot darker, though. Still, it was a fun read. (4 stars)
The Adventuress – Joanna Russ – I don't entirely know how I feel about this one. It's fairly clever but it's really not terribly much more than that. I kind of feel like it tried too hard to be interesting and, though I like the inversion of gender roles is good, I don't think that it does that great of a job of expressing anything by doing so and I felt that the ending effectively subverted any feminist ideas expressed in the rest of the story. I know that this is the beginning of a series of stories about Alyx and it's possible that the others develop the character and her adventures in a more interesting way but, even though it was kind of a fun read, this particular story doesn't leave me terribly curious about it. (3 stars)
Gimmile's Songs – Charles R. Saunders – This was both fun and charming with a couple of nice battles thrown in for good measure. It was a remarkably robust world described in such a short narrative, too. (4.5 stars)
Undertow – Karl Edward Wagner – I honestly wasn't impressed with this until it got to the end. It felt a little artificial to me, as though the author was writing more because he felt he could write something like the stories he had enjoyed than because he had his own story to tell. But it ultimately came to be a decent tale. I suspect that I'd find more direct tales about Kane to be more interesting, though. (3.5 stars)
The Stages of the God – Ramsey Campbell (as Montgomery Comfort) – This was short and good. A king escaping a coup finds power to protect him and realizes that he must improve himself to be worthy to wield it to take back his land and, thus, becomes a thing of legend. (4 stars)
The Barrow Troll – David Drake – This was good up to the end. If it had committed more clearly and directly to where trolls come from then I think it would have been stronger. (3.5 stars)
Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat – Glen Cook – This was really good. It was like a classic western (very Shane-ish) interpreted by Kurosawa to give it depth and set at the decline of a magical version of the Golden Horde at its peak. (5 stars)
Epistle from Lebanoi – Michael Shea – I didn't really enjoy this much, but I also didn't exactly dislike it. The story isn't bad, but I didn't particularly enjoy the narrator's perspective or character. And the whole thing felt a little hollow, somehow. It's possible that there's a context for this in some broader series that would make me enjoy it more, but without that it was merely ok. (2 stars)
Become a Warrior – Jane Yolen – This was a slow boil and delightfully satisfying in a rather gruesome way. (5 stars)
The Red Guild – Rachel Pollack – A bit surreal and a bit tragic and strangely gripping even when I didn't think I was that into the story. (4.5 stars)
Six from Atlantis – Gene Wolfe – This was an odd fragment of a story. I found it somehow more evocative than interesting. (2.5 stars)
The Sea Troll's Daughter – Caitlín R. Kiernan – I learned two lessons from this: 1) if you kill a monster for the bounty, be sure to get an easily identifiable trophy or nobody will believe you; and 2) don't leave slain monsters out unrefrigerated too long. This was a fun and funny read. (4.5 stars)
The Coral Heart – Jeffrey Ford – Good but also a little...eh. The basic story is really good but I didn't particularly like the characters enough to care about the development of the relationships nor the conflicts. (3.5 stars)
Path of the Dragon – George R. R. Martin – Apparently this is basically the chapters featuring Daenerys from the third book from the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Having never read the series, this definitely feels like an excerpt: it's readable without any background but it's obvious that there is a lot more going on than the reader can pick up from the story itself. She's a good character and I like the general story, but the lack of context left it feeling kind of overdone and certain things felt a bit extraneous. (3.5 stars)
The Year of the Three Monarchs – Michael Swanwick – This was pretty clever and had a nice bit of implicit silliness to it that I thought came out well, though I felt that the third monarch could have wrapped up better. (3.5 stars)