Sword and Sorcery, Volume 1: Amethyst by Christy Marx, Aaron Lopresti (Illustrations), Various (Illustrations)

Sword of Sorcery, Vol. 1: Amethyst by Christy Marx
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have to admit that the cover made me pass this by a few times because the cover looks like a Barbie-theme graphic novel. Don't get me wrong. I went through a huge Barbie doll phase. I still have a collection of Barbie dolls. But I never got into the Barbie merchandise and have no desire to read a Barbie graphic novel or watch a Barbie movie. I really wish the cover wasn't so bubble gum-looking.

Nevertheless, I decided to check this out. It's actually not bad. It's definitely sword and sorcery. I like the genre, and I think it was done quite well. The whole idea of Amethyst as a seventeen-year-old who comes into her heritage as a powerful princess of another kingdom is pretty cool. I like that each kingdom represents a different precious gem. However, one of my issues with the way Amethyst is drawn is Amy looks like just her mother and aunt. It was only possible to tell them apart based on what they were wearing. I think there was more variation in the other kingdoms, thankfully. While I wasn't loving the whole Barbie verisimilitude, the action and magic was actually pretty cool.

Talking about strange bedfellows. Amethyst is paired with Beowulf and Stalker, which are both very violent and more male-oriented sword and sorcery tales. It was a bit of a rough transition, probably moreso for readers who don't jump back and forth between male and female-oriented fiction.

Beowulf was kind of a cool update on the old tale. Instead of it being the original Beowulf, it's about a genetically engineered warrior of the same name, created by the Basilisk (who I know about from reading The Suicide Squad series). There is a link between Grendel and Beowulf because of Basilisk. Beowulf isn't strictly likable, but he definitely is good at killing monsters. I would read more of these stories.

Stalker is about an ancient warrior king who makes an unwise deal with Lucifer that comes back to bite him in the rear. He goes on a mission to get revenge in return. It was the darkest story. Readers who like horror action will enjoy it.

Overall, pretty good. If the cover makes you want to avoid it, I say give this a try.

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The Hammer and the Blade by Paul S. Kemp

The Hammer and the Blade by Paul S. Kemp
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

The Hammer and the Blade is fun sword and sorcery adventure. Kemp has done something interesting here. This book is quite low brow in its use of vulgar descriptions: constantly describing puking and spitting and other bodily functions. Yet in contrast, I had to look up a lot of words when I read this, for apparently Kemp has quite a vocabulary. Maybe he was trying to prove that just because someone has a potty mouth doesn't mean they lack intelligence.

As far as a buddy story, this one succeeds on that level. Egil and Nix are tight. We don't get to find out how they met, and they are quite different. But that doesn't stop them from being very good friends who watch each others' backs and fight at each others' sides. Egil is a hulking man, who uses two hammers and a crowbar as his weapons. He wears a tattoo of an eye on his head, a symbol of the Momentary God. He is reflective and tends towards somberness. Nix is smaller, the body and persona of a thief. He reminds me of the trickster archetype. He is quick and sly, and fond of sharp, slender blades. He grew up in the slums, and part of him doesn't want to leave that behind. It's a huge part of his identity. He doubts that he possesses any sense of morality, but the quest he undertakes in this book will prove whether that's true.

While sword and sorcery can tend towards sexism, Kemp seems to want to subvert this. While most of the main characters are not women, there are more than a few secondary female characters that show a lot of depth and the complexity of the female gender. Nix and Egil are forced to reexamine their views of women and how women should be treated continually throughout this story. I really enjoyed this aspect of this novel. Yes, I am a woman, so it makes sense that this would be a crucial aspect for me. But I like to think that men can also be dismayed at how women can be sidelined, maligned, and abused in most cultures, simply because they are women. I am glad to see that Kemp seems to struggle with this as well.

The action/adventure part of the equation is well done. Plenty of fighting and escapades. Tomb robbing and escaping mystical booby traps. Lots of demon and creature fighting, and some fights between characters of the human persuasion. Some of the scenes got a little gory, but I guess that's to be expected in a sword and sorcery romp. While I didn't like some of the vulgar descriptions, I didn't think Kemp went over the top with the violence.

As far as the sorcery, that was definitely a strong aspect of this novel. One of the characters is a sorcerer whose family has a dark pact with demons for their power. And I do mean dark. This storyline becomes a very prominent thread that place Egil and Nix at some crucial moments of defining who their identities are as people and where they draw their line in the sand. As I read it, I marveled at the extremes people go to obtain and keep power, and usually they end up making someone pick up the tab for their actions and ill-gotten gains. Definitely the case in this book. Glad we had some unlikely heroes around to try to make things right.

I didn't rate this book higher because it was just too vulgar for my tastes. I felt like this was a hindrance for me to dive deeper since I just can't stand vulgarity. It's a personal taste thing here. There were other things to like about this novel, such as the fantasy world-building and the humor and camaraderie between Egil and Nix and a few other characters. It was a fairly entertaining novel despite the fact that the vulgarity was off-putting. I will probably continue this series.

Overall rating: 3.5/5.0 stars.


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Elric: The Stealer of Souls by Michael Moorcock

Elric: The Stealer of Souls by Michael Moorcock


My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
I took a journey into the world of darkness, and I am surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Being me, I tend to embark on new adventures in an atypical fashion. Such is my introduction to sword and sorcery fantasy. I read one Conan story prior to reading Elric: The Stealer of Souls (written by L. Sprague de Camp in an anthology). And I started reading The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane as my first official story written by Robert E. Howard, who is probably one of the founding fathers of this genre (if not the founding father), so it's interesting that one of my first protagonists to read in this genre is more of an anti-Conan. He's not big and muscled. He's slender and physically frail. He cries, he whines, and he does a lot of moping. I'm not really surprised that this worked for me. I love flawed characters in fiction. I love characters with a weakness to them. I think they mirror reality much more than perfect ones do. In my life, I have been haunted by a fear of failure, and I can identify with a character who does feel like he doesn't measure up and sometimes feels like a screw-up, right or wrong. While I don't enjoy depressing literature at all, I like a good genre story that shows a character who is never going to be perfect and get everything right. That's Elric in a nutshell.

A few years ago, I had heard about Elric, and I was intrigued when I read that he was considered the burned-out rock star of heroic fantasy, with his dependence on drugs. Okay, part of me was repulsed at the drug-dependence part. I'm glad I read the story all the same. Elric has had to take herbs because of the inherent frailty of his constitution due to his inherited albinism. That is a minor part of the stories in this book. Really, his more dangerous and much more harrowing dependence is on the vampiric sword Stormbringer. Let me tell you, I never thought I'd hate an inaminate object the way I hate the sword. I imagine poor Elric feels the same way, but fifty-thousand times worse. You see, Stormbringer is evil. It enjoys being used to kill, whether the victim is good or bad. When it kills, it sucks the soul out of its victim, and part of that energy goes to Elric (who uses it to keep his vitality), and part remains in the sword. Stormbring will actually direct itself to deliver killing blows to friends and allies of Elric. Elric is by no means a good person, but he does have friends (and a lover) that he would not wish to betray, and some of the fall to the sword, inadvertently. However, being deprived and away from the sword for a prolonged period brings on a loss of vitality that eventually would be fatal to Elric. Thus he cannot rid himself of this 'hellwrought' blade. Elric has this on his conscience, and also broods the loss of his love and his kingdom. Yes, Elric is very much a brooder.

I found these stories to be very imaginative, and often brutal and dark. The elements of dark sorcery were chilling, yet enthralling. When Elric would say the words of dark spells that were passed down from his sorcerous, maleficient ancestors, my eyes were glued to the page. He encounters dark beasts from a person's imagination or nightmares gone to hell. And he has to fight for his life and that of his friends. I could imagine how vivid some of those scenes would look on a movie screen. Yet I was taken out of my own reality and to the ancient, fallen worlds that Elric travels through. Some of his journeys in this book are motivated by self-interest, and some out of the greater good. However, blood will be shed along the way, both from the virtuous and the wicked.

I like the way Mr. Moorcock mingled some familiar elements of fantasy with things he could have only dreamed up in his mind. I also appreciated the way these stories are a little bit horror, tragic drama, and fantasy all combined together. The tragedy rests in the fact that Elric is a man who is doomed to follow a dark destiny, and being around him too long can be bad for a person's health. One other very much appreciate element is the multiculturalism of his stories. There are characters of various types and races, and they are not described in a way that is bigoted and demeaning, which is common with some of the older pulp fiction (even Mr. Howard, who's writing I admire except for this aspect). There is some degree of philosphy and mysticism that could tend to go over one's head (myself included). I recommend just reading the stories. If you catch some of it, by all means. But a deep understanding of the balance between Law and Chaos is not required to enjoy these stories.

If I could mention a couple of quibbles I had, it would be that women are poorly characterized in these stories. What I mean is they don't come off as being very deep and meaningful. In some of Mr. Moorcock's writing included, he admits to this fact. The women that come in and out of the stories (and Elric's life) serve mainly as plot points. While this is fantasy with a male lead character, I would hope to see a little more depth in the females featured, some of which are quite pivotal in the story and in Elric's development as a character. My other quibble is that the death of some fairly important characters is treated in a somewhat anticlimactic fashion. I realize that in this world, death is an everyday, harsh reality. Yet, I expected there to be a little more pomp and circumstance in the demise of some very important, and somewhat important characters. Those are small issues with the overall writing that I had. Otherwise, I would say that for what it is, this is near perfect storytelling. There is a tendency to be melodramatic, but come on, it's heroic fantasy. Drama is important (in the same way it's a crucial element in Harlequin Presents novels).

Being a neophyte to the sword and sorcery genre (and high fantasy overall, other than some brief forays as a young reader), I may not be the best source of advice. However, I am of the opinion that if you are about to embark on a foray into heroic fantasy, you should read this book. It wasn't boring, although it might be hard to keep up with the odd names and the storylines at times. Personally, I found this to be a book that you read in spurts. This is a collection of short stories and a novella, so it lends itself to that type of reading. In the reading of this story, will find a hero-villain within the pages of this book like no other, one who will keep your interest, inspire pity and sometimes frustration, and one who will linger in you mind long past the point at which you close the book.

Rating 4.5/5.0 Stars

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