Well, I recently read The Quest of Kadji, and in doing some research on him (reading the Wikipedia entry), I was reminded that he edited the Flashing Swords anthologies, two of which I bought in 2014 (along with the volumes of the Agents of T.E.R.R.A. series, The Golden Goddess Gambit and The Emerald Elephant Gambit, both of which I have also read this year, which means I’m clearly catching up on my reading from the last decade, slowly). Given that I’d read a Carter original, I thought perhaps no time would be better to read these anthologies which I’ve passed over many times in the past.
When I bought The Quest of Kadji in 2018, Friar said, “Carter worked in the same vein as ERB, in many cases to a degree of homage that rose to pastiche.” In the introduction to this book, Carter uses the word pastiche, which can just mean that it’s a conscious imitation like an homage. But the word has come to take on a more purple prose definition since then. I also said, “I did read some of John Jakes’ Brak stories, though.” in the comments, which is amusing given that this book has a Brak story in it.
Carter explains that he is part of a small group of sword-and-sorcery writers with some twee name, and he has started anthologizing some of their works. Strangely enough, I ended up with the even numbers of the series which filled the 1970s.
This book includes:
- “The Rug and the Bull” by L. Sprague de Camp which features a group of travellers similar to Gypsies who try to sell a flying carpet to a king.
- “The Jade Man’s Eyes” by Michael Moorcock wherein Elric is enlisted to travel West to his homeland in search of the ancient fabled city of his people, but disasted befalls the expedition as it often does when Elric is involved. You know, I might have heard the name Elric in my youth, probably on BBSes when the material was fresh, but I have not read any of the related novels. I’ve read The Black Corridor and An Alien Heat twenty years ago, and they put me off on the Moorcock. But the Elric stories might be interestinger.
- “Toads of Grimmerdale” by Andre Norton wherein a woman seeking revenge for her ravishing and impregnation at the hand of an invading army’s man asks help of unholy creatures only to learn that she might have marked the wrong man for revenge.
- “Ghoul’s Garden” wherein Brak the barbarian encounters a woman and a cleric travelling and finds that a man pursuing the woman has a rug which contains its own dark world in the embroidery.
At 200 pages, it’s not a long read, but it does require some context-switching between each story. It might help, I suppose, if I were versed in the sword-and-sorcery of the era, as they’re all part of pre-established worlds.
But I do agree that sword-and-sorcery comes best in short stories or novellas (as these anthologies contain). Too much world building would bog things down. Too bad that all genres (and modern representatives therein) did not learn the lesson. People want to read quick escapes, not plunge into hundreds of pages of world building. Or, probably, I’m speaking for myself, more a fan of Hemingway than Faulkner.
