Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery by Brian Murphy

Author:Brian Murphy [Murphy, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: conan, lovecraft, heroic fantasy, weird tales, grimdark
Publisher: Pulp Hero Press
Published: 2020-02-22T04:00:00+00:00

Jack Vance (1916–2013)

More than a decade before the sword-and-sorcery renaissance, a curious volume called The Dying Earth (1950) appeared with little fanfare from Hillman Periodicals, known largely as a publisher of true crime, romance, war, and westerns. The relative indifference with which it was first received may have been due to genre confusion: not quite fantasy enough for Howard-heads, nor proper “hard” science fiction favored by readers of Analog, The Dying Earth did not fit neatly into any one genre. Its cover was suitably mysterious and opaque, featuring a well-proportioned female in a gauzy gown, foregrounded by a trio of vaguely menacing, conspiratorial, cowled men, against a backdrop of stars. Then and today The Dying Earth is often categorized as science fiction, and not inaccurately. The action takes place on a literal “dying Earth” of a distant future. Our planet is in its final throes, its aging, decaying sun on the verge of burning out and plunging the world into darkness. Flying cars and anti-gravity elevators dot the landscape, but have fallen into disuse and decay. Cities are abandoned, mute testaments of mankind’s past achievements before the apocalypse. Today, some credit its author, Jack Vance, for creating an entirely new “dying earth” subgenre (“Dying Earth,” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction).

But a closer look at The Dying Earth reveals a much closer affinity with fantasy, and in particular sword-and-sorcery. Duels are fought with swords instead of guns. Horses and sail have resumed ascendancy over manned flight and the automobile. Most critically, magic has replaced science. Though the backdrop is vast and an irrecoverable apocalypse looms, the aims of its cast of characters are refreshingly small, often involving petty quests for personal enrichment. And the stories—six in the first volume—are short, loosely connected only by the grim universe in which they are set.3 Later post-Hillman editions made The Dying Earth’s sword-and-sorcery heritage far more explicit. A 1977 Pocket Books edition for example featured a sword-wielding, heroically proportioned warrior with tunic and cape battling an ogre with a helpless female draped over one monstrous arm, with a dark castle looming in the background. Yet its cover blurb maintained a degree of ambivalence, declaring it “The classic science fantasy of the world on the eve of destruction.”

More than 60 years after its publication, The Dying Earth retains a classic status in the genre due to its well-crafted prose. Vance’s style is of the James Branch Cabell/Lord Dunsany/Clark Ashton Smith school—evocative and atmospheric, studded with strange names and references left enchantingly unexplained—though also highly readable, lucid, and modern. In Flashing Swords #1, Carter declared Vance “virtually the only genuine stylist the field has recently produced” (Flashing Swords #1 41). Here is a sample of his prose, from “Turjan of Miir”:

Turjan hesitated, then opened his eyes. It was night in white-walled Kaiin, and festival time. Orange lanterns floated in the air, moving as the breeze took them. From the balconies dangled flower chains and cages of blue fire-flies. The streets surged with the wine-flushed populace, costumed in a multitude of bizarre modes.

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