Sword And Planet Recommendations

Apologies if this has been brought up before.

What I'm looking for, specifically, is stuff that's in the tradition of A Princess of Mars, Pirates of Venus, etc., but (with all due respect to the master) with plots that are, shall we say, a bit more BELIEVABLE than Edgar Rice Burroughs's.

As I look through the LT tag search results for Sword and Planet, I see a few authors other than Burroughs well represented. Lin Carter and L. Sprague deCamp each seem to have done quite a bit. I think the Otis Adelbert Kline books are actually set on Barsoom, but like Moorcock's Kane of Old Mars I haven't read these.

John Norman's Gor is clearly inspired by, and in some ways more "believable" than Barsoom; in that the surfeit of social and technical detail seems to try really hard to paper over the ideological grandstanding and blatant wish-fantasizing of the author.

Someone has tagged Wolfe's Book of the New Sun material, and likewise Vance's Dying Earth, but I think these belong in a somewhat different category (along with Smith's Zothique and..."Thundarr the Barbarian"!) of terrestrial SF set many civilizations into the future. What to call that?

While I haven't yet read any books by Burroughs, I was going to suggest Kane of Old Mars that was one of my favorite of the Eternal Champion series.

Karl Edward Wagner's Kane series (one novel, several short stories)

I'm not aware of much existing in this specific subgenre, maybe because swords and planets are generally an implausible combination, but in the "barbarian of the future" category I remember enjoying Sos the Rope by Piers Anthony.

You might also, I guess, consider Helliconia Spring by Brian Aldiss.

5 That reminds me, Earth is ours is a sort of post-apoc story where aliens invade earth and after a special weapon goes off reduces both sides to bronze age tech.

It occurs to me that Dune might be described as more realistic Sword and Planet.

Star Wars and its host of co-marketed space fantasy objects are of course less realistic.

There should be some Golden Age stuff we're overlooking. Maybe some C.L.Moore? Northwest Smith isn't a sword-slinger (he packs heat), but Judgment Night could make the cut.

Pern?

You might like to try C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith stories (unless actual swordplay is a prerequisite!). They're pulp stories from the 1930's with a protaganist who is a spaceship pilot and outlaw (think Han Solo) and his exploits in a colonized solar system full of strange creatures and cultures. I think Moore is one of the better pulp writers, but they are heavy on the fantastic - which may not match up with what you want in terms of believability.

ETA >7 paradoxosalpha: jinx!

I don't know if anything could be more believable than Barsoom but you might look at Glory Road by Heinlein. It is his take on Clarke's comment that any sufficiently advanced science in indistinguishable from magic. It is the first trench coat wearing sword carrying novel I can think of.

Leigh Brackett was about the best at planetary romance.

I just picked up Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordperson by George Alec Effinger, which might be a good change of pace for you.

Sorry, didn't see this dup post. I posted similar info on the Book Talk post

Wow - you guys are great! I really wasn't expecting so many responses, and certainly not so quickly. :)

@ paradoxosalpha: The only Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp stuff I've read is their Conan pastiches, which I didn't really care for, although I've heard that some of their other stuff is good, so perhaps I'll check that out. I don't know that the OAK stuff is actually set on ERB's Barsoom, although apparently it might as well be, the resemblance is so close. Haven't read Moorcock's Kane books, although I'm a big fan of his Elric books, so will have to check those out at some point.

(to be continued...)

Moorcock's Kane books are definitely worth a read. Carter's Callistinian books also fall into this category though not as well conceived...

Carter wrote a couple of planetary romance series. The Callisto books were pastiches of ERB's Barsoom series, but there's also the Green Star series. Mike Resnick had a go at it too - The Goddess of Ganymede and Pursuit on Ganymede.

Continuing...

@ paradoxosalpha: Actually own the 1st Gor book but have never read it, so will have to that a whirl.

The Wolfe/Vance/Clark Ashton Smith stuff you're talking about is usually grouped in with the "Dying Earth" subgenre (after the Vance collection of the same name, I believe). I really, really like it, especially CAS's Zothique tales.

@ BruceCoulson: Friends who are much more broadly read in genre fiction than I am have nothing but kind things to say about Karl Edward Wagner, so I will definitely be checking him out @ some point.

@ MyopicBookworm: Looking @ the info on both Sos the Rope & Helliconia Spring on LT & Amazon & both sound intriguing (and come up "will love" on LT's "Will you like it?" meter), so will have to check those out as well.

I'm seeing a lot of love for Moorcock's Kane books, so those will definitely be going on the 2011 TBR list.

>16 artturnerjr:

I sure agree to liking "Dying Earth" material. The Book of the New Sun is on my short to-be-reread list. The Dancers at End of Time is Moorcock's entry in that field, although it's farther from Sword and Planet style than the others mentioned so far.

Ian is right in #10 Leigh Brackett ins a good choice.

The first Gor book is readable but I would not bother with any of the others.

@16 Nooooooo. Don't read Gor. They're notoriously bad, full of dodgy sexual practices and misogyny.

Another one to look up is Alan Burt Akers, a pen-name of Ken Bulmer, and under which he wrote a huge sword and planet series - see here.

There are real-life Gorians. There is a subculture in the BDSM community who base their relationships/sex practices and life philosophies on stuff they read in the Gor series.

16:

I can heartily recommend Piers Anthony's 'Battle Circle' trilogy which includes SOS the Rope. AVON did a decent Mass Market Omnibus edition, and I believe Paizo Planet stories is now republishing at least the first book. Anthony is erratic, but these were written earlier in his career before he went downhill.

Yeah, I wasn't really recommending the Gor books in #2, but they are an undeniable feature of the subgenre, while inaugurating a sort of infra-sub-genre of their own. Of course, if you have one in hand, you can be your own judge. This review of a different book gives a good sense of how the Gor series turns out, although I think the reviewer is wrong about the etiology of the thing. I really suspect Norman increasingly wrote just the books he wanted to write over the 30-or-so volumes he cranked out.

John Varley's Titan, Wizard, Demon trilogy is fun.

Also consider Julian May's Pleistocene Saga.

Well, Norman got well paid for his series, so it's difficult to tell if he was writing what he wanted to write, or if the money was just too good to pass up. Norman wasn't the only SF author to pen porn for money; Andrew Offut made his living as a porn writer and eventually wrote a porn SF series, and even Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote a few pot-boilers to keep peanut butter and jelly on the table. So, money is, pardon the phrase, a powerful stimulant.

Not much has been written about 'space barbarians' after Burroughs, really. The High Crusade is possibly the best of the genre.

#24
Your mentioning The High Crusade made me remember two others, Ranks of Bronze and King Davids Spaceship

Huh. I forgot about Ranks of Bronze, and I have almost everything Drake wrote/writes.

Would you consider the Darkover Series by Marion Zimmer Bradley to be sword and planet books? They certainly used swords and they had sex and romance, just didn't show big muscles on the covers.

Interstellar Empire by John Brunner - a deliberate attempt to write a sword and planets novel that will work. Except it doesn't.

I haven't read them personally, so these aren't recommendations, but look into S.M. Stirling's Lords of Creation.

The first book, The Sky People has dinosaurs and sabretooths in the jungles of Venus. The sequel In the Courts of the Crimson Kings is Stirling's take on Barsoom.

24:

Yes Andy Offutt's softcore porn 'Spaceways' series written as John Cleve, he also wrote some historical crusader porn fiction as John Cleve, his Crusader series would no doubt result in Fatwahs were it still in print ;-)

Messenger of Zhuvastou by Andy Offutt is certainly Sword and planet. That one has plenty of heaving bosoms, but no porn.

John Normans day job was as a tenured professor in New York somewhere I believe ;-)

jseger, I once had a collection of Jets, Rockets and Spacemen, trading cards from Bowman, published in 1951 that had images of Venusian Sabre Toothed tigers and Dinosaurs, a Diplodocus, I believe tangled in the jungle vines.

#31 - I once had a collection of Jets, Rockets and Spacemen, trading cards from Bowman, published in 1951 that had images of Venusian Sabre Toothed tigers and Dinosaurs, a Diplodocus, I believe tangled in the jungle vines.

You mean these?





Maybe Stirling saw that same card set!

(Oh! In case you want to experience the nostalgia, I got those images here: http://98.130.146.204/jrs/jrs_main_page.html)

Not mentioned so far is the Virga series by Karl Schroeder, which has swords and retro-technology in abundance, as well as a swashbuckling plot with heroes and villains aplenty.

Planets though are unfortunately missing as Virga is a enormous balloon in space containing air and a declined human civilisation living on spinning structures and dependent on small artificial suns to grow food.

jseger, yes, those are they. I looked for them for a while on-line, but couldn't find them. Thanks for posting them. When I was a kid I collected the entire set, but since then it has blown to the four winds.

Aha! I just noticed that a close tag analog for "sword & planet" is planetary romance. The "Most Often Tagged" list includes Lord Valentine's Castle, and, yes, Silverberg's Majipoor books do qualify as more realistic Sword and Planet. It's been ages since I read them, but I really enjoyed them at the time.

Wolfling by Gordon Dickson, although I'm not sure it is really any more believable!

> #30

Ah, cosmicdolphin, you beat me to the mention of Messenger of Zhuvastou; I've always loved that Magnum books barbarian cover.

Which leaves me to mention Space Viking by H. Beam Piper and Star Guard by Andre Norton. It's been a while since I read them, but it seems to me the characters went around "strapped" with swords in science fiction settings.

37:

Yes the Magnum cover was excellent, when I came to re-buy the book after having lost my copy years earlier, I skipped copies that had the other cover, until I found the one with that exact barbarian image. Sometimes I think publishers have forgotten that a great cover will sell a book, especially when I see some of the terribly cruddy digital art covers out there.

The Fantasy Masterworks anthology of Leigh Brackett sword & planet material Sea Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories seems to have been recently remaindered. I just picked one up from a stack at a nearby Half-Price books. Looks great!

Simon R. Green's Deathstalker novels are pretty good.

I don't know if Janissaries by Jerry Pournell fits the bill.

Just a a brief follow-up from the OP - I was a new used bookstore in my neighborhood and came across an old DAW paperback copy of Moorcock's City of the Beast for 2 bucks, so naturally I snatched it up, & am going to start reading it as soon as I've finished the other books I'm working on.

I just picked up S.M. Stirling's Lords of Creation (2 books) and they're next on my list of reads - I'll report on them shortly...

david weber's prince rojer series would work, i think. the first three or so books anyway, before they get a spaceship. trapped on a planet and running out of ammo, so they resort to swords. maybe his safehold series, too.

and i would second Ranks of Bronze.

C J Cherryh's Morgaine saga might fit your definition.

Lord Valentine's Castle was great, but I've found my interest in the other Majipoor books dwindling after Chronicles, with total wrecks like Mountains, and others that were just sort of OK (King of Dreams).

Another update from the OP: am about 50 pp. into City of the Beast & am having a blast with it. Thanks again for the recommendation, folks. :)

PS Don't know how it got in there, but I am cracking up noticing that Abdul Alhazred is in the "Touchstone Authors" list. Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn! :D

Posted an extremely brief review of CITY OF THE BEAST at Amazon. Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3QHRO1KGVFUBL/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=...

There's a trailer out for the forthcoming John Carter of Mars film.

(46) I was going to suggest 40000 in Gehenna by the same author, how could I possibly overlook Morgaine?

Bad, bad, bad brain...must have had a short circuit...