Two More Sword & Sorcery Anthologies: Savage Heroes edited by Eric Pendragon, and Heroic Fantasy, edited by Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt
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Savage Heroes (Star, February 1977). Cover by Les Edwards
A couple more Sword & Sorcery anthology reviews: first up is Savage Heroes (Subtitled Tales of Sorcery & Black Magic) (1977), from British Publisher Star, edited by Eric Pendragon and illustrated by the great Jim Pitts, who is still working today. The cover looks to have been done by Les Edwards, however.
It contains stories by C. L. Moore (Jirel), Henry Kuttner (Elak), Clark Ashton Smith, Clifford Ball, Ramsey Campbell, Daphne Castell, Karl Edward Wagner (Kane), David Drake, and Robert E. Howard. The REH tale is “The Temple of the Abomination,” a Cormac Mac Art tale.
[Click the images for savage versions.]
A solid collection, though probably not the absolute best stories by these authors. Drake’s “The Barrow Troll” is one of his better ones. I remember being disappointed a little in this collection because I had almost all these stories already in other collections.
Second up, Heroic Fantasy (1979), from DAW with a cover by Jad. Edited by Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt. A much thicker collection than Savage Heroes and it scratched an itch the other didn’t because it was all new heroic fantasy stories (at the time).
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Inside cover and introduction for Savage Heroes. Illustration by Jim Pitts
It contains:
“Sand Sister” by Andre Norton (Witch World)
“The Valley of the Sorrows” by Galad Elflandsson
“Ghoul’s-Head” by Donald J. Walsh, Jr.
“Astral Stray” by Adrian Cole (Voidal Tale)
“Blood in the Mist” by E. C. Tubb
“The Murderous Dove” by Tanith Lee
“Death in Jukun” by Charles R. Saunders (Imaro)
“The De Pertriche Ring” by H. Warner Munn
“The Hero Who Returned” by Gerald W. Page
“The Riddle of the Horn” by Darrell Schweitzer
“The Age of the Warrior” by Hank Reinhardt
“The Mistaken Oracle” by A. E. Silas
“Demonsong” by F. Paul Wilson
“The Seeker in the Fortress” by Manly Wade Wellman (Kardios tale)
It also contained three nonfiction essays, which I liked: Commentary on Swords and Swordplay, Commentary on Armor, and Commentary on Courage and Heroism, all by Hank Reinhardt.
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Heroic Fantasy (DAW Books, April 1979). Cover by Jad
This was my first introduction to Charles Saunders’ Imaro character and it was a dynamite story that made me an instant fan. I also particularly enjoyed the Gerald Page and Adrian Cole stories, but my favorite was E. C. Tubb’s tale. I’d read a lot of his Dumarest stories but this was Sword & Sorcery and I loved it. It was third in a series Tubb did about this character, “Malkar.”
The Malkar stories seem to have been gathered in print in 1999 in two volumes, Death God’s Doom and The Sleeping City, but the prices are pretty outrageous so I haven’t bought them. BTW, I thought the weakest story in the book was the ending tale by Manly Wade Wellman.
Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was A Sword and Planet Quiz. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.
I have both of these and yes, Heroic Fantasy is definitely a gem. And (re: Savage Heroes) yes, it was definitely an occupational hazard to buy an S&S anthology from the 70s or 80s and have it contain mostly or even entirely stories that you already had in other collections. Having said which, in the case of Savage Heroes I’ll allow it because it was a UK volume, so not really intended for this market.
As a collector I was and am glad to have the Savage Heroes. It’s cool. My disappointment was only as a reader who was starving for “new” S&S. The Heroic fantasy antho is still one of my favorite collections.
And honestly, even if there’s some overlap in the stories, it’s interesting to read the different anthologies to see how they group things together and how the stories play off of each other in different combinations.
Yes, true. Plus if it’s been a while since you read a story it can seem relatively fresh
Thanks for the article, Charles. As I was reading your synopsis of “Savage Heroes” I also wondered, ‘How many of these have I already read?’ Having read a fair share of the more popular anthologies from back in the day (Flashing Swords, in particular) and the works of the more popular authors – Jakes’ Brak stories, Moorcock’s Elric, Howard’s Conan and Mac Art, etc. There was a lot of crossover. I think I’ve come across “The Jademan’s Eyes” several times. Keep the articles coming – they are very enjoyable. I find myself wondering ‘What will Charles pull from his voluminous collection this week?’
lol. Thanks. Glad you are enjoying. When I pick up older anthologies I generally do a search of the contents to see what I have in the way of overlap. I make notes on index cards sometimes about what I’ve got elsewhere but I should get more organized in how I do that so it would be easier on me when I come back around to writing about the book.
After studying the TOC you show for Savage Heroes, I thought it sounded very familiar, as did the title. A search of my library turned up a copy of the 1980 Taplinger Publishing hardcover edition, but credited to Michel Parry. Copyright page shows it to be the first US HC edition of the Brit PB. Mine is missing the dustjacket, but the Jim Pitts interior illos are there, yet another thing your article stirred my memory with. I always liked this one, though for the life of me I can’t remember where or when I picked it up, but it was AGES ago… Notable as perhaps one of my earliest encounters with KEW’s Kane, and I always loved the illustrations (Pitts’ work in the W. Paul Ganley edition of Brian Lumley’s House of Cthulhu collection are also outstanding).
Jim Pitts did some really cool stuff indeed.
I wish my last name was Pendragon. 🙂
It’s rather cool.
We need more heroic fantasy and scifi. No pandering to everyone so it appeals to no one. No modern nihilism and moral ambiguity.
Strangely, I just finished reading Less than Zero, which illustrates the nihilism and moral ambiguity, or rather moral emptiness, and it has left a horrible taste in my mouth and disgust in my mind. So, it’s back to some good heroic fantasy for me to get that stuff out of my head.
Oof. What compelled you to read that? The movie left a bad taste for me that still lingers 30+ years on.
I mean I get it, we’re all curious about some, if not “great” then “seminal” works but as I’m getting older I am more convinced that some doors should remain closed.
I’ve had it for a long time at work but decided to bring some of those home and when I saw it, and that it was short sections, I though it would be a quick read. It was, but the ending was really upsetting, and far worse than the movie in fact.
It’s funny – I just realized how many similarities there are with that and Fight Club. Short reads. Famous movie adaptations. Nihilistic themes. Similarly-famous authors. Yet, I don’t come away as wholly disgusted by Fight Club.
I like Fight Club pretty well too. I think the difference that works for me is that the characters are trying to do something in Fight Club. They are “acting,” while the characters in Less than Zero are just drifting through life.