The Problem of the Invincible Warrior: Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer by James Silke
James Silke (1931 – ) is something of a renaissance man in the arts. He’s a visual artist and prose writer, a set and costume designer, photographer, and comic book guy. Most people who I meet recognize him as a comic artist/writer, although I’ve never read any of his graphic stuff.
I’ve seen a few of the movies he’s worked on, including King Solomon’s Mines and The Barbarians. My only experience with Silke’s writing is the four Sword & Sorcery books in the Frank Frazetta Death Dealer series.
These are:
1 Prisoner of the Horned Helmet (February 1988)
2 Lords of Destruction (January 1989)
3 Tooth and Claw (November 1989)
4 Plague of Knives (June 1990)
There’s also a book called Rise of the Death Dealer, with a Frazetta Cover (shown below), but I’ve never seen a physical copy, and from what I understand it’s not a 5th book in the series. According to Fantastic Fiction, it’s an omnibus volume that collects the first two books. Fantastic Fiction has been pretty accurate in my experience.
As far as I understand, Frazetta provided the Death Dealer character and the covers and Silke wrote stories about the warrior, including an origin story in Prisoner of the Horned Helmet. I don’t know whether Frazetta offered any story ideas but the prose is Silke.
The series features a character named Gath of Baal, a young but powerful warrior at the beginning of the series, who acquires a horned helmet imbued with great sorcery. He doesn’t realize that once he puts it on he’ll become its prisoner and will become the Death Dealer.
I enjoyed the series quite a lot. There are some strong visuals and some bloody, gory fights. The prose is serviceable but not outstanding. There are some very modern phrasings that occasionally threw me out of the story. I was hoping for more Robert E. Howard style poetic prose but didn’t get it.
The pacing is not as fast as it could have been either, mainly because the books are too long. Cutting fifty pages out of each of these volumes would have really helped. At some point I’ll also talk about the “problem” of the invincible warrior and how it diminishes tension in a tale.
Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods? and the Pseudoscience Bestsellers of the 1970s. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.
I remember them fondly, mostly for the setting in the lush Mediterranean basin, vivid descriptions, and interesting array of sorcery. Plus, huge Frazetta fan. Duh.
I greatly prefer this Death Dealer to Darkwolf in the Fire & Ice movie, even though, as far as I know, Frazetta was much more involved in that movie than in this series..
It seemed to me that Death Dealer was kind of a further development of Darkwolf. I like both, though Death Dealer is a fantastic concept. I liked the books although I felt they were a little longer than necessary.
I feel like you started the write a longer article, ran out of steam or time, and ended by promising the article you set out to write in a follow-up. It’s fine to bring up “the problem of the invincible warrior” in the title, but if you don’t actually expound on it in the text, it might have been better to have used a different title and saved this one for the piece in which you do. Still, decent introdutcion to the series.
I didn’t give it that title. I just called it James Silke. I will write a post about that concept specifically at some point and probably call it: The Invincible Warrior in Fantasy.”
Hi Charles, have you read the gráfica novels and comics of the character???
Hi Charles, have you read the graphic novels and comics of the character???
Only a few. I got the Danzig one and have talked about it over at the Swords & Planet page. But I haven’t made any specific effort to pick up the comics.
I remember these fondly. L read the first three way back early 1990s then book four years later when I discovered its existence and located a copy. I think you are correct with Rise of the Death Dealer, recalling trying to find a copy but then giving up when I found it was an omnibus of the first two.
The concept was excellent. I have long been a fan of ancient civilisations before recorded history, “Know o prince etc”. The prose, I can’t be sure, would need to re-read and keep an eye out. I vaguely recall book three dragging, could have just been me with series fatigue or could be Charles is spot on that a little stricter editing may have helped the pace.
Dislikes: The whole hanging out with the group of entertainers. It was okay for a bit in book one but wore a bit thin. Same for the main enemy. Sure nothing wrong with a reappearance but ja, mix it up a bit. Lastly the fact James Silke hasn’t written a book five addressing my aforementioned dislikes. I think he has talent, really described the setting well, crated a believable character and should write more.
In terms of Death Dealer, think he first appeared on a Molly Hatchet album. Not sure if Mr Frazetta was commissioned to do that specifically or if the band or record company reached out and he was like “well I have this concept I have been working on…”
Looking forward to the invincible warrior article Charles, you will have plenty source material to chose from. I do think Gath was balanced, perhaps more so than Conan, in that he took plenty strain and nothing was a walk in the park for him as I recall. Then again maybe I need to re-read these.
Passing note, the Grafton cover of Tooth and Claw I have has a decidedly green cast to it. Same picture I think just the tint is altered.
I take my photos with my phone and I’m not the best photographer. I’ve noted myself that different photos of the same book sometimes have a different tint. I know Death Dealer did appear on a Molly Hatchet album. I still have my albums from the band with Frazetta images on them. It was cool to see them at those larger sizes back in the day. Comparing Gath and Conan will be difficult because we have so many versions of Conan from comics, movies, pastiches. I would probably use only REH’s original stories of Conan and he’s quite a bit less invincible there than in many pastiches. Of course, Karl Wagner’s Kane will be in the discussion, as well as many of the early “Clonan” types such as Brak, Kothar, Kyrik. like you say, though, plenty of material, which makes the writing of that invincible warrior piece difficult
Too true! In such a herculean task one would need to stick to REH Conan as maybe a benchmark and explicitly exclude the pastiches. Don’t forget Thongor if Lemuria😀 I don’t envy you, will look forward to the comments from the stalwarts as much as the article itself!
What you have done is made me start toying with the idea of doing a rare – for me – re-read of these books. Uncool as I have hundreds of unread books waiting.
I had the first 2 or 3 of those books and I used as tender at used book store years ago. I kick myself for that.
I’ve found I can’t get rid of anything because at some point I’m going to write about it.