Tag: Essay
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Sonja, Sex, and the Armour Bra
A few thoughts on Gail Simone’s Red Sonja: Consumed by Bryn Hammond in Issue 156, January 2025 [this essay has spoilers only for the sex scenes] In Sword & Sorcery, I crave grungy women of the barbarian type: women as convincingly uncivilized as Conan. Red Sonja – blustery, crude, smelly – certainly has potential to…
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Let This Be The Hour When We Draw Maps Together
by Jonathan Olfert in Issue 154, November 2024 It brings me great satisfaction to assert that swords-and-sorcery maps are in vogue. Examples abound, albeit with room to grow. Howard Andrew Jones’ Hanuvar books come with robust and detailed maps of the Dervan Empire and fallen Volanus. Scott Oden’s monumental The Doom of Odin opens with…
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Why Did It Have To Be Snakes? Sword & Sorcery’s Dislike of Snakes
by G. W. Thomas in Issue 152, September 2024 SNAKES ARE PULP Let’s be fair right from the start and admit: Pulp fiction, all Pulp fiction hates snakes. The old Detective story in the style of Sax Rohmer had evil and invisible enemies strike with poisonous animals. An asp in your bed and the underworld…
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A Told Tale by an Idiot: Westley v. Inigo versus Dumbledore v. Voldemort
by Norman Grey, Esq. in Issue 151, August 2024 William Shakespeare was a profound psychologist and, perhaps, the greatest wordsmith the human family has yet produced; but like any sage, he had to get our attention before he could speak his wisdom. It’s entirely possible that we would not remember him today if the average…
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At the Sign of the Prancing Pony, or, Is This the Place to Start Our Adventure
by G. W. Thomas in Issue 128, September 2022 Every fantasy role-playing adventure, many sword & sorcery tales, any number of heroic fantasy comics, all seem to begin in a tavern in an inn. It is one of the traditional tropes of heroic fantasy, right? I have to wonder where this traditional starting point originated.…
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On the Ocean Wave: How Sea Voyages in Fantasy Can Provide Both Threats and Opportunities
by John C. Adams in Issue 112, May 2021 Poor roads and the danger of coming under attack from robbers or worse when travelling overland can make a journey by boat seem the natural way to journey afar, but in the fantasy universe the ocean waves can harbour equally fearsome enemies. The sagas of Viking…