In 1998, my first novel Swords of Talera ran as a four-part serial in Startling Science Stories. It won the “Reader’s Choice” award for each issue it appeared in. The pleasure of having the book first published that way was sweet — the same way that Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, and Robert E. Howard had much of their stuff published.

After I’d finished Swords of Talera in 1983, I’d started a sequel called Wings over Talera but only wrote the first two chapters. My grad school work was intensifying and it seemed silly to write a second book in a series when the first book hadn’t even been submitted to any publishers. After Swords sold, though, I immediately set to work on the sequel. It was published as a four-part serial in Alien Worlds: Beyond Space and Time, a sister mag to Startling Science Stories.

Startling Science Stories, January-March 1999, containing the last three installments
of Swords of Talera by Charles Gramlich. March cover by Ron Wilber, others unknown

The magazine group were interested in more so I started the third book, called Witch of Talera. I was about halfway through it when my wife got very sick and all my writing went on hold.

By the time I got back to Witch of Talera, several years later, the husband and wife team who ran both those magazines, Tom and Virginia Johnson, had retired. A friend of mine named Charles Nuetzel (who’d also written S&P fiction) recommended me to a publisher named Robert Reginald.

I sent all three books to Robert and he immediately offered me contracts through his Borgo Press, which eventually became an imprint of Wildside Press, owned and operated by writer John Betancourt.

The Lost Empire of Sol, edited by Jason M. Waltz and Fletcher Vredenburgh, containing “A Sand-Ship
of Mars” by Charles Gramlich (Rogue Blades Entertainment, February 14, 2021). Cover by M. D. Jackson

After finishing Swords of Talera in 1983, I dreamt of writing as many Talera books as Ken Bulmer wrote about Kregen. I’m sixty-six now so that’ll never happen. But, I did later write two more books in the series to draw it to a close and explain the biggest mysteries about Talera. Wildside published them as Wraith of Talera and Gods of Talera.

I don’t know I’ll ever write more, although I still love the setting and characters. And I’ve written a few other S&P short stories, which appeared in the anthologies shown above. Strange Worlds is fully illustrated by Jeff Doten, a talented Canadian artist; Scott Oden Presents: The Lost Empire of Sol was edited by Jason M. Waltz and Fletcher Vredenburgh, and published through Jason’s excellent publishing house Rogue Blades Entertainment.

Another one of my Sword & Planet tales — featuring old John Carter himself — is available in ebook only from Amazon. It’s called The Machineries of Mars.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for Black Gate was Part VI of The Fundamentals of Sword & Planet.