Tachyon Announces Contents of The Sword & Sorcery Anthology
Our friend Jacob Weisman at Tachyon Publications has announced the contents of his long-awaited new book, The Sword & Sorcery Anthology.
The 432-page trade paperback will contain classic tales of S&S from Robert E. Howard, George R.R. Martin, Fritz Leiber, C.L. Moore, Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, Karl Edward Wagner, Poul Anderson, David Drake, and others — including an original tale from Nift the Lean author Michael Shea:
Terrifying barbarians, cunning mages, and daring heroes run rampant through these exceptional classics of the exciting sword & sorcery genre. From Robert E. Howard to Jane Yolen, this fast-paced anthology is a chronological gathering of influential, inventive, and entertaining fantasy adventure stories. In “Tower of the Elephant,” Conan takes up jewel thievery but, as is his wont, proves far better with his sword. “The Flamer Bringers” finds anti-hero Elric infiltrating a band of bloodthirsty mercenaries and outwitting a powerful sorcerer. “Become a Warrior” is the unexpected tale of a child who loses all she holds dear, only to gain unforeseen power and unlikely revenge. Further entries come from early sword & sorcery legends such as Jack Vance and Catherine Louise (who wrote as C. L.) Moore, the next wave of talents including Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock, and modern trendsetters like Karl Edward Wagner and David Drake. An original story from Michael Shea rounds out this essential anthology, which will particularly appeal to fans of action-oriented fantasy titles such as The Lord of the Rings and the Song of Fire and Ice series.
The Sword & Sorcery Anthology is edited by David G. Hartwell and Jacob Weisman. It will be released on June 1, 2012 by Tachyon Publications, and priced at $15.95. Read complete details here.
That looks nice!
That description makes me inexpressibly happy. And it’s nice to see Tachyon do a project that might make it onto the shelves at B&N.
I think I bought Tachyon’s The Secret History of Fantasy and The Urban Fantasy Anthology at B&N!
Perhaps I’m being daft, but the list of authors on the front is a bit weird. It seems to be based vaguely chronologically, but Martin is put in front of authors who died before he started writing. It gives a misleading impression of Martin’s pre-eminence in the genre ahead of the likes of Howard, Vance, Moorcock, Leiber and Anderson. Sure, Martin’s famous at the moment, but putting his name there seems like pretty transparent shilling on his current popularity.
I could argue about the description of “The Tower of the Elephant” completely selling the story short, but perhaps that’ll make the story even more pleasantly surprising to new readers.
True, but if George’s name at the top gets someone to read Howard, Moore, Leiber, Vance, Moorcock, Anderson, or Wagner for the first time, it’s probably worth it.
Al Harron –
I appreciate your loyalty to Howard, Vance, Leiber, Anderson, + Moorcock.
Each of those dudes are colossal.
However this has unsung C.L. Moore, David Drake and…AND…Karl Edward Wagner.
Howard/Moore/Leiber/Vance/Anderson/Moorcock/WAGNER together at last!
They could have a fucking J.K. Rowling ‘sword + sorcery’ story in there and this couldn’t suck.
Hi Al — good to see you posting on the blog.
> Sure, Martin’s famous at the moment, but putting his name there seems like pretty transparent
> shilling on his current popularity.
Well, yeah. You don’t splash names all over cover art in order to indicate relative artistic influence. You do it to sell books.
And strictly from a marketing point of view, the name GEORGE R.R. MARTIN sells more books in 2012 than ROBERT E. HOWARD. It sells more books than all but a small handful of the best selling authors in the world, at the moment.
GRRM is near (or at) the peak of his popularity — he was named the USA TODAY author of the year just two weeks ago.
I understand it may offend your sense of the history of the genre Al, but you can’t argue with the business logic.
hey Al good to see you here… do you know something worst than the overrating (although is a good narrator) of George RR Martin? the absolute fanatic and intolerant attitude of his fans at least in Spain, you can’t do the small critic to his works
and about the anthology add the names and stories of Glen Cook, Charles R Saunders and David Gemmell and you should have a more complete anthology with almost all of the writers of the genre
[…] Anthology is published by Tachyon Publications, and priced at $15.95. More complete details are here, and the complete Tables of Contents is […]
[…] and priced at $15.95 for the print version and $10.95 in digital format. More complete details are here, and the complete Tables of Contents is […]