Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock

Elric of Melniboné
by Michael Moorcock
1972, Hutchinson

An evil tyrant maybe wants to be marginally less evil. His cousin tries to usurp the throne and he gets a magic sword. Feels like a fix-up novel, a collection of short stories, focused on his origins, don't know if the stories later in the chronology were better.

A couple decent action sequences, but mostly visions and prophecies and not much going on. In a couple throwaway lines it manages to be more grimdark than most modern stuff I've read, low bar such as it is.

I'm likely in the minority, but Elric didn't come across as especially goth or rock n roll, certainly not as cool as the covers. He gets weak without his drugs, but it feels more like grandpa needing his heart medication more than Keith Richards. It didn't feel especially elevated, psychedelic, or intellectual either, just standard fantasy with less adventure than his earlier stuff.

From Amazon 

War of the Spider Queen Book 1: Dissolution by Richard Lee Byers

War of the Spider Queen Book 1
Dissolution
by Richard Lee Byers
2002 Wizards of the Coast

Set in the Dungeons and Dragons setting of the Underdark, a series of connecting underground caverns in cities, the Drow, or dark elves, are plotting against each other. Some males have escaped the matriarchal society, and it appears that their deity Lolth has withdrawn her favor, limiting their spellcasting ability.

The story culminates in an uprising by the lesser creatures of the Underdark - goblins, kobolds, that kind of stuff, led by an undead mind flayer lich. There are tons of spells and magic items and hand crossbows and this is probably the closest a D&D novel will come to my kind of thing.

I should have read this instead of listening to the audiobook, as I have a harder time keeping track of characters in spoken word. It didn't help me that every character was a drow magic user - someone has to be named Bardo the Bard for me to maybe keep track of who they are in these kinds of things.

Kindle, audiobook, and paperback from Amazon.

Mzee by Charles Saunders

Mzee
by Charles Saunders
Dragon 86, Vol 9 No 1, June 1984

Young Imaro is an orphaned outsider who is bullied by the other children of the village for not being given the responsibility of raising his own calf. He's finally been given the task of caring for one, but only because it is sickly and sure to die. He runs away and meets a mysterious stranger able to calm wild lions with his music who teaches him a valuable lesson.

A fine enough story, but would have done better in a collection or worked into a novel, which may have been the intention. It feels especially strange in Dragon magazine sandwiched between instructions to make your own paper castle and a review of Steve Jackson Games' Battlesuit. I was expecting more action, or at least more fantastical. It works best if you're already familiar with the character - I don't see a lot of 80s nerds running out to grab Imaro after reading this.

Series Showdown: Michael Kane vs Imaro

 We've seen the entirety of the Michael Kane universe (unless you count whatever the eternal hero thing is with Moorcock), while Imaro has two more novels and some uncollected short stories left. Kane's first installment had the better story, while the second had more imaginative elements, while the last had neither. I didn't enjoy the Nyumbani Tales near as much as the Quest for Cush, but it's clear that the author enjoyed them, something I wouldn't say for Moorcock.

Imaro marks the forehead of Michael Kane and sells him into slavery, winning the throne of best Fantasy series of all time.

Imaro: Nyumbani Tales by Charles Saunders

Nyumbani Tales
by Charles Saunders
2018 MV Media

A collection of short stories set in Nyumbani, the setting for the Imaro stories. While some have characters from the novels, Imaro himself doesn't make an appearance. Most are based on African folk tales, and have that medium's narrative structure more than that of heroic fantasy. Some warriors, witches, warlocks, curses, and monsters, including a blob monster like the Creeping Terror.

The last, and best, tale took me by surprise as it ended exactly like the film Dogville, but I found that both were based on Pirate Jenny from the Threepenny Opera.

A bit tricky to get these days, try Abebooks

Series Showdown: Silverglass vs Imaro

Imaro is one of the finest of the genre, while Silverglass barely qualifies. Silverglass trips over the ropes and knocks herself out getting into the ring. Imaro is the chosen one for the finals.

Imaro 2: The Quest for Cush By Charles Saunders

Imaro 2

The Quest for Cush

By Charles Saunders

1984 Daw

Imaro, with his gal pal Tanisha and pygmy pal Pomphis head to the big city, where Imaro struggles to deal with laws, cops, and civilization. He fights a kung fu master in a pit fight, fights half stone golems, underground mutants, and a raiding party of fishmen.

Saunders gives a master class in having it both ways - Imaro's fighting spirit isn't always a strength, and Tanisha's compassion and Pomphis' diplomacy often forge a better way. Imaro learns that violence isn't always the answer, and even regrets his actions at times. Saunders shows you can express mature morality and still cut the heads off monsters.

He even has fun with the Chosen One cliché  - Imaro is destined to play a vital part in an oncoming conflict, but in the meantime he needs to get a job.

Note that the ebook versions had different cut offs - I read the paperback and missed a scene that originally in the first installment.

Paperback and Audiobook from Amazon

Series Showdown: Thongor vs Michael Kane

These two titles are so similar I'm already have problems distinguishing them. But when in doubt, bet on the laser toting boneless desert ghouls. Michael Kane dispatches Thongor and moves up to the finals.

Michael Kane 2: Blades of Mars aka Lord of Spiders

Michael Kane 2
Blades of Mars aka Lord of Spiders
by Michael Moorcock as Edward P. Bradbury
1965 Compact

Michael Kane returns to ancient Mars, landing on a different part of the red planet. He encounters the blue giants, who are more civilized in this area, and assists a prince to fight off invaders. They find laser wielding ghouls in a desert fortress, find an airship built by ancient advanced technology, are blown off course, fight spider men, then return to pick up the plot.

The femme fatale Horguhl from the last installment shows up and Kane uses a magic mirror to thwart her plans of domination. Strongest in episodic adventures, less so when the main plot takes over.

Paperback from Amazon

Thongor and the Dragon City by Lin Carter

Thongor 2
Thongor and the Dragon City 
by Lin Carter
1966 Ace

Thongor, the princess Sumia, and the other guy fly back from their adventures of the first novel. They crash land in the jungle, get captured, fight cannibals and man-eating plants, escape, get captured, escape, find the airship again, get captured by a vampire scientist, escape, defeat an army and evil druids, and became king of everything.

This one started out feeling more juvenile than the first, and the ending kind of lost the thread with Thongor and company barely participating.

Kindle ebook from Amazon

Highlander: The Element of Fire by Jason Henderson

Highlander: The Element of Fire
by Jason Henderson
1995, Aspect

An original story set in the world of the Highlander TV series. We get both Duncan and Connor MacLeod and their run-ins through time with the immortal pirate Khordas, who refuses to participate in The Game and instead starts a salamander cult.

I don't know how the rules of this stuff work since the original movie, or why there are still immortals around, and know just enough to know that there are no good answers and the franchise gets more confusing the more they try to explain it.

Decent fight aboard a burning ship at the end, but the rest is aimless and uneventful.

Paperback from Amazon

Series Showdown: Dying Earth vs Imaro

Dying Earth was more imaginative, but with no narrative to carry it along. Imaro was more out-of-the-box, but with better characterization. Imaro hacks and slashes his way to the next round.

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

The Dying Earth aka Mazirian the Magician
by Jack Vance
1950, Hillman Periodicals

A series of short stories set on a future Earth with a dying sun. The source for D&D's magic system, where magicians have to memorize a limited number of spells which the forget after casting. The naming conventions for magic items comes from here as well.  It hints at off-page body horror with the consequences of magic gone wrong. The stories have a fairy tale feel to them and are more of a pile of interesting ideas than an actual narrative.

Available from Amazon

Viking Book Series

The below list are Viking book series from the 70s and 80s, those more in the Men's Adventure or Heroic Fantasy vein. There are others not included outside of that scope, from historical epics on one side to full blown Odin and Thor on the other.

Berskerer by Chris Carlsen (Robert Holdstock)

• Shadow of the Wolf (1977)
• The Bull Chief (1977)
• The Horned Warrior (1979)

Dream Quest by St. Alcorn Lloyd

• Halberd : Dream Warrior (1987)
• On the Shoulders of Giants (1988)
• The Serpent Mound (1989)

Haakon by Eric Neilson

• The Golden Ax (1984)
• The Viking's Revenge (1984)
• Haakon's Iron Hand (1984)
• The War God (1984)

Starkadder by Bernard King

• Starkadder (1986)
• Vargr-Moon (1986)
• Death-Blinder (1988)

Vidar Saga by Michael Jan Friedman

• The Hammer And The Horn (1985)
• Seekers And The Sword (1985)
• Fortress and the Fire (1988)

Vikings by Neil Langholm

• Blood Sacrifice (1975)
• The Dark Return (1975)
• Blood on the Sun aka Sun in the Night (1975)
• Trail of Blood (1976)

Wolf-Dreams by Michael Weaver

• Wolf-Dreams (1987)
• Nightreaver (1988)
• Bloodfang (1989)

Wolfshead by Arthur Frazier

• Oath of Blood (1973)
• The King's Death (1973)
• A Light in the West (1974)
• Viking Slaughter (1974)
• A Flame in the Fens (1974)
• An Axe in Miklagard (1975)

Series Showdown: Silverglass vs Jalav

It's the showdown of foxy female fantasy fighters. Both get increasingly unsexy as you pass the cover, not much fantasy, and not a lot of fighting. Silverglass is more morally defensible, which would have given the edge to Jalav, but Jalav even failed at being trash. Silverglass at least caused no pain, and vanquishes her foe.

Jalav 1: The Crystals of Midas by Sharon Green

 Jalav 1
The Crystals of Midas
by Sharon Green
1982 Daw

Jalav is the war leader of a female clan of warriors in a bronze age-ish world. Some crystals are stolen by city males and Jalav leads an expedition to find them, but mostly people just get tied up and raped.

Jalav and her woman warriors do the raping for the first third, capturing men, tying them up, giving them boner drugs and taking turns with them. Then Jalav and a handful of warriors get captured in town and enslaved. Jalav gets a divine message to put up with it for a while, and the plot kind of meanders from there, with Jalav getting captured and freed ad nauseum.

The crystals are to be used in a device called a comm, which is used to talk to the gods, so we know that this world is a post-apocalyptical reversion to savagery or something, but it's still a big reveal at the end when the female run galactic empire answers the call.

This series is supposed to be a rebuttal to Gor - not going to chime in about which flavor of sub/dom philosophy is more on track, but Green is a marginally better writer.  This is still trash - it's written in first person, with most of the text being a savage's perception of everyday objects so we get "long thin pots" instead of cups every time someone takes a drink. Jalav and her crew don't like the constant rape for reasons of pride, though they're uncontrollably aroused each time.

Like Gor, this fails on a level of exploitation. There is nothing sexy going on at all, just "he used me on the floor, and later I tied him up and used him, and sent him to the use tent for everyone else to use him". A little bit of action, but not enough to trawl through 350 pages of bad prose, non-existent plot, and rape apologia.

Ebook and paperback from Amazon

Silverglass by J.F. Rivkin

Silverglass
by J.F. Rivkin
1986 Ace

Mercenary Corson is hired by sorceress Lady Nyctasia to guard her through her travels.  There is an interesting magic system, and I appreciate the approach to gender and sexuality. Woman have roles as soldier or pirate captain without mention or qualification - says a lot about my assumptions as a reader when I had to go back a couple of times because the pronouns confused me. Characters are casually bisexual (at least the women) and polyamorist and society excepts it, to the point of making assumptions that if two women are sitting next to each other they must be banging.

All of this would go well with a fantasy story in which ANYTHING AT ALL happened. The plot is like the beginning of a D&D campaign with adventurers meeting in a tavern, but the DM lost his module and dice and hex sheets and his religious mom keeps coming in the room so no fights or monsters.  There's one brief section in a magical forest that shows there could have been some decent fantasy, but it's mostly hanging out in taverns, hanging out in inns, traveling between taverns, etc.

The single instance of swordplay is played out in less than a sentence, and I'm just assuming there's sex off page because people wake up in the same bed. There's some development with the relationship of the two leads, but you really couldn't call it romance. It's all written enough, but it never gets going.

In ebook, audiobook, and paper from Amazon

Series Shadow: Swordsman of Mars vs Warriors of Mars

The Swordsman and the Warriors were very similar.  More characterization from the Swordman, but better action from the Warriors, and that's what I'm here for.  The Eternal Champion moves forward.

The Swordsman of Mars by Otis Adelbert Kline

 The Swordsman of Mars
by Otis Adelbert Kline
1933 Argosy

Down on his luck Harry Thorne is kidnapped by a mad scientist who psychically switches his consciousness with his double who lived on ancient Mars.  His mission, to kill the subject of a previous swap who plans on using ray gun technology to threaten Earth.

More violent than I was expecting, with heads being cut off or in half and rolling all over the place.  Not as fantastical or literate as Princess of Mars.  Perhaps due to the read of the audiobook it evoked the idea of a Planet & Sword/Gangbusters crossover, but that was not to be.

Kindle and Audiobook from Amazon

Audiobook currently on Hoopla, check your library

Series Showdown: Fantasy/Sword and Sorcery - Thongor vs Kothar

Two barbarians fight it out in the Sword and Sorcery match in the Fantasy division.

Had to write this quick, as I'm already beginning to confuse the two barbarians who both get magic swords from sorcerers and go on quests.  Fox's prose was better and his stories had a bit more of an edge to them, but (odd coming from me) the pieces were under written.  While epic fantasy takes too long to get from point A to point B, here I had some problems following what little story there was.

Carter's prose was a titch immature, though not always a bad thing for this kind of story.  His action scenes were more blow for blow than Fox's and the novel format benefited the series of scenes which could have been disjointed short stories.

I would say Kothar was better written, but Thongor was more fun to read.  Thongor moves up in the Fantasy division!