Kenneth Bulmer (1921-2005) was a prolific English writer who mainly wrote more action oriented fantastic fiction. He may be best remembered for the 37 volumes in the Dray Prescot/Kregen/Antares/Scorpio sword & planet series.

He wrote some historical series with Vikings, Saxons vs. Normans, a couple Roman, sailing ship era, and a WW2 series (Sea Wolf). Bulmer also wrote some sword & sorcery. A good portion of his output were under a number of pseudonyms.

Swords of the Barbarians was first published in the U.K. in 1970 from New English Library. Belmont Tower reprinted the book in the U.S. in 1976 with a generic looking Ken Barr cover. Barr was a hot commodity for the few years in the 1970s.

Bulmer has a twist on the wandering barbarian in having a brother and sister: Torr and Tara Vorkun. Torr and his sister search for the wizard Jaran the All-Seeing in Gamelon Town.

I have never been a Bulmer fan. His writing has never grabbed me. The prose in Swords of the Barbarians is bad. It manages to make Gardner F. Fox’s Kothar read like Shakespeare in comparison. The dialogue is especially bad. It is a case of heaping so high it is almost burlesque.

Bulmer must have liked the characters as he wrote a story, “Naked as a Sword” for Fantasy Tales #1 (Summer 1977). Fantasy Tales was a U.K. small press magazine that lasted for 24 issues from 1977 to 1991. The magazine ran horror, weird, and generally at least one sword & sorcery story per issue. Brian Lumley’s “Primal Land,” Adrian Cole’s “Voidal,” and even one of Karl Edward Wagner’s “Kane” stories appeared in the magazine. The magazine also had entries from pulp era writers Manly Wade Wellman, Frances Garfield, and H. Warner Munn.

“Naked as a Sword” takes place before the events in Swords of the Barbarians. In this case, the prose is in a different style, the bombast is gone for a much better result. Torr serves in the palace guard of the Lord High King of Paltomir. A coup is afoot.

Torr and Tara Vorkun returned one last time in “Ice and Fire” in Fantasy Tales, Spring 1989. Torr and Tara take a short cut in the winter and encounter bats, wolves, liches, and a demon. The story is middling. Not bad but not memorable.

Swords of the Barbarians is not must-read fiction. You can safely pass this one up if you come across it in a used book store.

E.C. Tubb was another English author that wrote at the same time and similar fiction. He had his own sword & sorcery series with three stories about Malkar in the 70s. I would rather read Tubb’s “Dumarest of Terra” series than Bulmer’s “Dray Prescot” series.

“Naked as a Sword” would be worthwhile to reprint if someone were to cull sword & sorcery from the issues of Fantasy Tales for a reprint anthology.