Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion

Quentin wrote: "Hi everyone! Fellow sword and sorcery reader here, glad to join a group of like minded people! I am an author as well, but haven't ventured too far into the Sword and Sorcery genre, at least not ye..."

Welcome Quentin. You are indeed with like company, being an action/horror reader/author.

Ashe wrote: "Nobody trust Quentin, he's a rapscallion. Always up to no good."

Ashe, are you saying Quentin is a goblin-lover?

Welcome, Quentin

S.E. wrote: "Ashe wrote: "Nobody trust Quentin, he's a rapscallion. Always up to no good."

Ashe, are you saying Quentin is a goblin-lover?"

Man, you write one Goblin Gangbang book and you're branded forever!

Thanks Charles and S.E.

Hey I like Orcs as long as nobody does something silly with them like put them in an Old West setting. Oh, hey Ashe, I didn't see you there O.O lol (I kid, I kid)

Welcome to the group, Quentin. I guess you can be forgiven that one goblin indiscretion. ;)

Hi and Thanks Greg lol

Welcome Quentin

HI Mark, thanks!

See, look at him, nothin but trouble! Up to his eyeballs in shenanigans!

Ashe wrote: "See, look at him, nothin but trouble! Up to his eyeballs in shenanigans!"

Yeah I have been guilty of shenanigans in the past, I have to admit..in the interest of full disclosure and all o.o

Well, at least you're honest about it. That's the important part.

Hello everyone.

I don't normally post in the 'introduction' threads but I've lurked for a while and recently engaged in a discussion on another thread that I realised could be taken as being deliberately provocative. It's not. I'm not.

I'm in my mid-thirties, I'm Cornish and I've always loved books. It took me a long time to discover swords and sorcery but it has a claim right now on being my favourite genre, usurping historic adventure novels by putting those elements of high fantasy that I loved as a boy into a grittier, bleaker setting.

I may continue to lurk or I may now show up on here more often, who knows. I will always write honestly though and hope that my candidness doesn't wind people up the wrong way.

Welcome Lee, I think you fit well here. Lurk or chat as you see fit.

S.E. wrote: "Welcome Lee, I think you fit well here. Lurk or chat as you see fit."

Cheers.

Welcome to the group, Lee! it's good to see another archaeologist (although I haven't done any fieldwork in quite a while).

Greg wrote: "Welcome to the group, Lee! it's good to see another archaeologist (although I haven't done any fieldwork in quite a while)."

Nice to meet you Greg. Nearly a year since I last did any fieldwork either - I'm missing it!

Lee wrote: "Greg wrote: "Welcome to the group, Lee! it's good to see another archaeologist (although I haven't done any fieldwork in quite a while)."

Nice to meet you Greg. Nearly a year since I last did any ..."

I'm only tenuously an archaeologist - I teach a class to college forestry students and mainly write theoretical archaeology and history. But the dream to go back to fieldwork one day is there!

Greg wrote: "Lee wrote: "Greg wrote: "Welcome to the group, Lee! it's good to see another archaeologist (although I haven't done any fieldwork in quite a while)."

Nice to meet you Greg. Nearly a year since I l..."

That actually sounds like a great job. We can all dream though, right?

Hello - Another Englishman here... I read nothing but science fiction and fantasy in the 1970s but somehow got misled into other genres after that. About 10 years ago I started to rediscover all the things I used to love as well as some of the new wave of authors.

I'm here because I saw Charles and Seth talking about the "Clonan" reading group on facebook.

I recently re-read all of the Conan and Elric stories and I have the Thongor books somewhere. I'm looking forward to joining the converstations here.

- Jon

Welcome Jon!

Lee wrote: "That actually sounds like a great job. We can all dream though, right? "

It has its moments, including a field trip visiting a protected Bronze Age complex on a mountainside and an earthen-banked enclosure surrounded by a forestry plantation. Are you still working in archaeology (albeit without the fieldwork)?

Hi Jon!

Greg wrote: Are you still working in archaeology (albeit without the fieldwork)?"

'Trying to' might be the best answer. In that I'm still working but not currently getting paid.

Lee wrote: "Hi Jon!

Greg wrote: Are you still working in archaeology (albeit without the fieldwork)?"

'Trying to' might be the best answer. In that I'm still working but not currently getting paid."

Most of my work now is taken up by my role as a college equality officer - not something I ever set out to be but it can be rewarding to help people who are bullied or discriminated against. The post came up at a time when courses were being cut and teaching hours reduced, but since I'd already served as a branch equality officer in my union, I thought I'd give it ago (and have been in the post for a number of years now).

Greg wrote: "Most of my work now is taken up by my role as a college equality officer - not something I ever set out to be but it can be rewarding to help people who are bullied or discriminated against. The post came up at a time when courses were being cut..."

That's a familiar story. It's good that you had other skills and experiences that you could use, even if it wasn't what you'd intended, and even better that you're doing something that you find rewarding. There are few things worse than an unsatisfying job. That's partly why I made the idiotic decision to enter archaeology in the first place.

The cut-backs in archaeology (and therefore construction and higher education) have been big in the UK and in Ireland. The sector's been slow to recover as well (what is it now, eight years?) although there are signs that the sector's just beginning to grow again.

Hi everyone.

I write stories with S&S and noir elements, and blather about such things on my blog. What I like about S&S is the sense you get that the characters have the freedom to act as they will, without being driven to some predetermined, moralistic end. By day I'm a university math prof, but I'm a taxonomist at heart, and enjoy thinking about genre and subgenre divisions.

My blog has links to my short stories. If you like those, you can check out my new novel, Dragonfly.

Mmm, no fate but what we make characters are best characters.

Welcome Raphael!

Welcome Raphael! Does maths figure in any of your stories?

Hi Raphael.

@ Greg: Yes, it does, but not very prominently. Somehow, no one seems to want to buy my stories that do feature math prominently. Go figure.

Well Met, All!

I'm Will and I am a new Indie YA S&S author. I Wrote my first book to get my children interested in tabletop gaming and interested in the genre.

I hope to get a chance to interact with everyone and I love the recommendations I see on the book shelves. I am always looking for new sources of inspiration!

Take care,
Will

Heir Of The Blood King

Hi Everybody,
First time joining a group in GoodReads.

My favorite genre would be High and Dark fantasy.

Hoping for some good time and some nice interesting conversations.

welcome Tahmid

Welcome to the group Tahmid

Tahmid, welcome. Please feel welcome to steer and particiapte the next group read discussions:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/8...

Jack wrote: "Greetings all. This group is the first I have joined on Goodreads. After looking at the bookshelf and reviews by members of the groups, I think I will enjoy the discussions and discovering new auth..."

Welcome Jack!

WElcome!

Welcome to the group, Jack!

Greetings, all!

As far as guilty reading pleasures go, sword and sorcery may be my number one! I think what kindled it was growing up with the combination of Conan cartoons and the HeroQuest tabletop game - anyone remember that?

Nowadays I get by without either swords or sorcery in my daily work, but I still read about them both. Lately, I've begun reading my way through the Salvatore series about Drizzt, which I think should qualify as S&S?

I am also writing a series of dark fantasy stories that are being published at Amazon. Feel free to check them out. However, I am primarily here to make friends and hear your reading tips!

Jon wrote: "Greetings, all!"
Welcome Jon, you are a fine addition to a group of like minded author/readers. I was more into Talisman back in the day, but Heroquest looks good. BTW of board games, I just backed a cool "Zombicide: Black Plague" board game due out in Dec; so RPG board games are on my mind.

Check out all the discussions, from the groupreads (Tanith Lee and Solomon Kane for next two months), to networking, etc.

Thanks for the nice welcome! I never did try Talisman, but "Zombicide" sounds very cool. Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out. Nowadays I only have the time and opportunity to play RPGs on my computer, but it would be great to have a go at "Zombicide".

And thanks for your discussion tips. I'm looking forward to be better acquainted with this group.

Jon wrote: "Greetings, all!

As far as guilty reading pleasures go, sword and sorcery may be my number one! I think what kindled it was growing up with the combination of Conan cartoons and the HeroQuest tabletop game - anyone remember that?"

Welcome to the group, Jon! I still have my box of the HeroQuest game - and wrote a scenario for it back in the '90s.

S.E. wrote: "Jon wrote: "Greetings, all!"
Welcome Jon, you are a fine addition to a group of like minded author/readers. I was more into Talisman back in the day, but Heroquest looks good. BTW of board games, I just backed a cool "Zombicide: Black Plague" board game due out in Dec; so RPG board games are on my mind."

Never played Talisman - do you still have the game? And Zombicide sounds like fun!

Hey Greg, and thanks for the welcome! So you still have a copy, Greg? That's incredible. I think I lost mine more than 20 years ago. Are your scenario up on one of the HeroQuest sites? Would be great to check it out!

Same to you Jack, thanks for the greeting! I never played those games, but thanks for the tip. Dark Tower sounds faintly familiar though, but it may just remind me of some book I read.

Who needs guilty pleasures, am I right?

Ashe wrote: "Who needs guilty pleasures, am I right?"

Why do guilty pleasurea always seem better than the non-guilty ones? :P

Jon wrote: "Hey Greg, and thanks for the welcome! So you still have a copy, Greg? That's incredible. I think I lost mine more than 20 years ago. Are your scenario up on one of the HeroQuest sites? Would be gre..."

I was more into AD&D so I didn't play HQ all that much (other role-players tended to look down on it!). However, I got my copy of the game at cost price from an employee of the manufacturer so that was a good start.

There are various versions of my scenario ("Inn of Chaos") online - all of them bootlegs - including unofficial translations into French, German and Portuguese, and a fan-made mod for Neverwinter Nights! It's not a major dungeon crawl, nor especially challenging, but I think people like it because it can be played in a single gaming session and as an 'encounter' between campaigns. Nonetheless, some players have fitted it into an overall HQ chronology to relate it to other official and unofficial scenarios but I never intended to situate it within any 'historic' period of the game. I'm not complaining about that btw - it just wasn't how I conceived the scenario.

I dunno, man. Guilty pleasures just seem unnecessary. Why feel guilty about liking something?

Ashe wrote: "I dunno, man. Guilty pleasures just seem unnecessary. Why feel guilty about liking something?"

You have a point there. I guess you might have a guilty pleasure if, say, you drank a friend's beer while they were in the toilet. But then if you were going to do that in the first place, you probably wouldn't really feel guilty....

Greg, that's funny.

Exactly! Don't drink your friend's beer. That's rude.

Watch out Ashe, Greg is drinking your beer