The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo, Part II
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I Am a Barbarian by Edgar Rice Burrough (Ace Books, September 1975). Cover by Boris Vallejo
The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo , which I discussed in my post last week, contains three more paintings that became paperback covers that I own and well remember, although none of these are Sword & Planet covers.
First up we have I Am a Barbarian by Edgar Rice Burroughs, from Ace Books. If you discount his westerns, this is one of only two historical novels ERB wrote, the other being The Outlaw of Torn. Torn is my favorite of ERB’s standalone novels but Barbarian also ranks up there.
[Click the images for higher detail.]
I have no idea why it wasn’t published until after ERB’s death. It takes place in the reign of Caligula and features a barbarian slave named Britanicus who is captured as a youth and gets to see the grandeur and decadence of ancient Rome.
The second image here was used on the Ace paperback of Conan of Aquilonia.
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Conan of Aquilonia by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
(Ace Books, May 1977). Cover by Boris Vallejo
There was a time when I expressed a certain amount of disdain for this book. It’s about Conan but there’s nothing of Robert E. Howard in it.
It’s a collection of four entwined stories written by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter — a pastiche in other words. In retrospect, although this Conan isn’t like the one I loved by REH, the stories are entertaining.
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The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson (Del Rey/Ballantine, March 1977). Cover by Boris Vallejo
The third painting made the cover of an absolute masterpiece. Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword is one of my favorite novels of all time.
It’s the story of a human child named Skafloc, who is taken by elves as a babe and replaced with a changeling. The tale is grim and yet has a beautiful love story at its heart.
The prose is gorgeous and very reminiscent of the northern eddas.
It isn’t often mentioned as an influence on the fantasy field alongside Tolkien and Howard, but it deserves to be in my opinion.
Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.