Showing titles in Sword & Sorcery

It was a time of legend, as the last shadows of the mighty Roman conqueror faded from the captured Isle of Britain. Meanwhile, across a vast sea, bloody war shattered a peace that had flourished for 2,000 years in the doomed kingdom of Atlantis. This is the remarkable adventure of Charis, the courageous princess from Atlantis who escapes the terrible devastation of her land, and of the fabled seer and druid prince Taliesin, singer at the dawn of the age. It is a story of an incomparable love that joins two astonishing worlds....

On the wall before him, in the dimness of the room, a great circular screen glowed opaquely, awaiting his touch: a doorway into time and space, a doorway to beauty and deadly peril and everything that made livable for him a life that had, perhaps, gone on too long. The shadows leaped backward into three-dimensional vividness that wavered for a moment and then sharpened into focus upon a desert landscape under a vivid crimson sky.

Castle Joiry had been taken. The heavy boots of invaders rang in the hallways, and the arching ceiling echoed back the clash of falling swords. Still struggling violently, Joiry's commander was brought before the conqueror. Standing tall, armor running red with blood, Jirel of Joiry refused to surrender her home and vowed to her enemy that his victory would cost him his life, and more. That very night, Joiry's lady crept by secret ways to the castle's deepest dungeon.

In the ancient city of Lankhmar, two men forge a friendship in battle. The red-haired barbarian Fafhrd left the snowy reaches of Nehwon looking for a new life, while the Gray Mouser, apprentice magician, fled after finding his master dead. These bawdy brothers-in-arms cement a friendship that leads them through the wilds of Nehwon facing thieves, wizards, princesses, and the depths of their desires and fears.

In Swords Against Wizardry, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, sent by a witch on a foolhardy journey, return to the icy reaches of the north in search of dubious treasure. There, they are seduced by the glittering attractions of an ice woman, who brings them with her to her shadowy lair.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser journey from the ancient city of Lankhmar, searching for a little adventure and debauchery to ease their broken hearts. When a stranger challenges them to find and fight Death on the Bleak Shore, they battle demonic birds, living mountains, and evil monks on the way to their heroic fate.

In Swords and Ice Magic, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser have traveled the width and breadth of the land of Nehwon in search of adventure and fortune. Now lost at sea, their ship drawn out on the Great Equatorial Current, their journey brings them to Rime Isle, a tragic island populated by vagabonds and wanderers.

In Swords in the Mist, lean times in Lankhmar force brothers-in-arms Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser to part ways. Only after a joust of wits and swords do the friends join together again, stealing the ship the Black Treasurer and sailing round and through The Claws. Fighting sea kings, curses and seven-eyed wizards, the pair set out on their heroic wanderings through the wilds of Nehwon.

In The Swords of Lankhmar, a plague of rats overruns the capital city and glittering gem of the land of Nehwon. Commissioned to guard a ship of grain from the cursed rodents, brother-in-arms Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser soon discover the plague has progressed to a fatal point. Mustering the strength of sorcery, they descend into the depths of Lankhmar and rise to battle in order to save the soul of the ill-fated city.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser's journeys have taken them from one side of Nehwon to the other, facing life-risking peril at every turn. Now, in a set of stories that feature the adventurers on their own and together, they will face some of their most challenging obstacles. Against assassins, angry gods, and even Death himself, the duo must battle for their very lives.

The stories in The Dying Earth introduce dozens of seekers of wisom and beauty, lovely lost women, wizards of every shade of eccentricity with their runic amulets and spells. We meet the melancholy deodands, who feed on human flesh and the twk-men, who ride dragonflies and trade information for salt. There are monsters and demons. Each being is morally ambiguous: The evil are charming, the good are dangerous. All are at home.

The Eyes of the Overworld is the first of Vance’s picaresque novels about the scoundrel Cugel. Here he is sent by a magician he has wronged to a distant unknown country to retrieve magical lenses that reveal the Overworld. Conniving to steal the lenses, he escapes and, goaded by a homesick monster magically attached to his liver, starts to find his way home to Almery. The journey takes him across trackless mountains, wastelands, and seas.

Though Vance puts himself in tradition of popular fantasy writers, one might assume that he had also grown up with Ovid and Herodotus, Homer’s Odyssey, Don Quixote, and Candide. The Cugel tales lack some of the scope and pathos of the great adventure yarns, but, in the 21st century, they may be as close as one gets to the celebration of epic human perseverance.

In the interlocking Tales of the Dying Earth Vance explores the world at the end of time when sun is guttering. Light itself is different and Vance’s landscapes —described in language that is lyrical, seductive, and partly self-invented —are wild and surreal, full of opportunity and danger. On the Dying Earth, the rules of physics as we know them have been amended and replaced by magic. The laws of evolution have spun out creatures that are humanoid, hybrid, and often terrifying.

Having risked their lives and souls to capture the fortress of Stormgard, a band of weary soldiers known as the Company witnesses their commander's descent into madness and await the reemergence of their ancient gods.

Croaker has fallen and, following the Company's disastrous defeat at Dejagore, Lady is one of the few survivors--determined to avenge the Company and herself against the Shadowmasters, no matter what the cost. But in assembling a new fighting force from the dregs and rabble of Taglios, she finds herself offered help by a mysterious, ancient cult of murder--competent, reliable, and apparently committed to her goals.

After the devastating battle at the Tower of Charm, Croaker leads the greatly diminished Black Company south, in search of the lost Annals. Every step of the way, the Company is hounded by shadowy figured and carrion-eating crows. As they march every southward, through bug infested jungle; rivers dense with bloodthirsty pirates; and cities, dead and living, haunted by the passage of the Company north, their numbers grow. But always they are watched by the Shadowmasters, a deadly new enemy.

For years, Glen Cook's Black Company series has built a major audience among fantasy fans. Told from the "worm's-eye" view of the soldiers and functionaries who fight in the trenches of vast sorceress wars, this epic has riveted a generation of readers. If the Joseph Heller of Catch-22 were to tell the story of The Lord of the Rings, it might read like the Black Company books.

Defeated by the Lady and cast from this world, all that was left of him was a foul trace of lingering evil. But the graveyard that was once the Barrowland contains more secrets than dead. All who would possess the power of the Dominator are drawn to the spike. A foolhardy band of thieves is the first to reach it, and a rapacious and malign spirit is unleashed on an unwary world. The forces gather, sides are drawn, and mortal men can only die as the Dark Lords battle for domination.

As Soldiers Live opens, Croaker is military dictator of all the Taglias, and no Black Company member has died in battle for four years. Croaker figures it can't last. He's right. For, of course, many of the Company's old adversaries are still around. Narayan Singh and his adopted daughter - actually the offspring of Croaker and the Lady - hope to bring about the apocalyptic Year of the Skulls. Other old enemies like Shadowcatcher, Longshadow, and Howler are also ready to do the Company harm.