Sword & sorcery fiction due to its nature works better in novelette or novella length. Many classic works are actually collections of stories rather than novels. Paperback barbarians were in some great anthologies. L. Sprague de Camp was the first to edit sword & sorcery anthologies: Swords and Sorcery (Pyramid Books,1963), The Spell of Seven (Pyramid, 1965), The Fantastic Swordsmen (Pyramid, 1967), and Warlocks and Warriors (Berkley, 1970).

Lancer Books had been reprinting Robert E. Howard, Fletcher Pratt, Michael Moorcock, and Jack Vance in the late 1960s. It got into the anthology business with two anthologies edited by Han Stefan Santesson.

Hans Stefan Santesson (1914-1975) was born in Paris, France to Swedish parents. His mother and Hans emigrated to the United States from Sweden in 1923. He started editing mystery including The Saint magazine and then the science fiction magazine Fantastic Universe. He did some reviews of two of Gnome Press Conan books. He also had wanted something on the lines of Conan for Fantastic Universe about the time the magazine ended.

The Mighty Barbarians, Lancer Books, 1969, 221 pages, five stories.

Contents:

Santesson makes the case for fantasy fiction as satire throughout history. The contents are weighed to pulp and earlier digest magazine reprints. The bases are covered with Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Elak of Atlantis, and a one shot character by L. Sprague de Camp in his “Pusad” cycle. There was one original story to the book by Lin Carter with Thongor in events before A Wizard of Lemuria.

The cover for the book is my all time favorite sword & sorcery painting by Jim Steranko. I have seen the original painting in person. I talked with Jim Steranko a few years back at Pulpfest about his sword & sorcery book covers. He told me that there was only one Frank Frazetta and any imitation was always going to be second best. Hence, he did not try to imitate Frazetta.

There was a follow up anthology a year later in 1970 with The Mighty Swordsmen. This again has a cover by Jim Steranko. 256 pages with six stories.

Contents:

Santesson has more recent fare with a Traveller in Black story by Brunner, an Elric story by Moorcock, a Dilvish story by Zelazny, a new Conan pastiche by Bjorn Nyberg, and a new Thongor story by Lin Carter.

Santesson has an intersting short introduction wherein he discusses how sorcery has taken on an anti-social connotation.

Lin Carter’s Thongor must have been a hot enough character to warrant a new story in mostly reprint anthologies. I generally like my anthologies to be either all new fiction or reprints but not a mix of both. Carter’s neo-pulp style fits in the contents enough to not jar the reader.

Pick these books up if you run across them. They are worth it for the Steranko covers alone. Also get the four L. Sprague de Camp edited books also. Warlocks and Warriors also has an excellent Steranko cover.