Don’t let Aaron Sorkin off the hook. He’s been more influential than Whedon.
Yes, but they’re funny. It’s kind of a different thing. Although, to be fair, they’re pretty good sword-and-sorcery, too.
And Terry Pratchett’s first couple of Discworld books were (among other things) a parody of that style of fantasy.
I’ve been reading books since the '70’s and have read books published as far back as 1818. I haven’t noticed any decline or upgrade in quality. That being said, Kindle makes it a lot easier to check out new authors and there are occasionally some not very good ones.
The only options that I have found is the various fantasy magazines or short story collections. I have a ton of the short story collections and try to grab new ones as they come out. Magazines are hit and miss for me, as often there are no stories of the type I’m looking for over three or four issues. I still buy them and I mostly enjoy the stories in them, they just don’t hit the particular niche I’m looking for.
I think I have and have read all of these. I would have to check to be sure.
I have all of Lieber’s works. Some really good stuff there but the Fafhrd books were a bit of a bore to me.
I don’t really have this excuse, because I live mostly in NY. There are fewer bookstores now, but I still have a few that are easily reachable. It just seems somewhere along the line, I substituted bookstore time with something else. Probably reading here all the time.
Thanks for this @CalMeacham. I don’t remember these at all. Were they so bad I may have wiped them from my memory? I’ll have to look these up.
I have a lot, if not all of her writings. I liked the Jirel of Joiry stuff better than the Joiry of Jirel stuff , although it was close. 
Now this disappoints me. Of all the authors listed above by @Thudlow_Boink that I hadn’t already read, I thought Turtledove may be worth a shot. He’s put out a lot of great books.
Gardner Fox wrote some Robert E. Howard-esque stuff on occasion. Kothar: Barbarian Swordsman and Kyrik: Warlock Warrior. I haven’t read the Kothar novels, but I enjoyed the Kyrik novels. (Caveat: I was in junior high or high school when I read them.)
Personally, I really enjoyed the whole “Old Man’s War” series by Scalzi. I also heartily endorse “The Expanse” series by James S.A. Corey, the “Altered Carbon” series by Richard K. Morgan, “The Culture” books by Iain M. Banks, and the “Zones of Thought” series by Vernor Vinge (i.e. “Fire Upon the Deep”, etc…).
Those are as good as anything written in the last half-century for sure.
I was actually going to mention Thieves’ World as well, but with the proviso that it’s really uneven. There are absolute gem stories in there, and well, stuff that doesn’t work so well. Sadly, some of the best stuff was more or less one off - those characters were not used to great effect by the other authors. But still quite a few gems.
While some regard it as the ‘anti-Conan’ I’d still want to at least mention the works of the Eternal Champion Series by Michael Moorcock. Corum, Hawkmoon and Elric stories most closely fit the Howard mold. And since these are all much shorter than the modern mega-novel, they’re less of a trudge to read.
The most ‘Conan’ thing I’ve read recently isn’t a novel or short story however, it is the Manga Berserk. If anything, more violent, more dark, and more brutal - but still with the elements of humans fighting not only humans, but forces of nature that one feels may never be beaten. I’d check it out on some of the online aggregators and if you like it, buy translated copies. Fair warning, some of the later material didn’t work for me, and the author basically worked himself to death recently, so it’s not going to likely ever be finished.
I know him from comics, I didn’t even know he wrote books.
I’ll second bumps and GreenWyverns picks for the Scalzi books and also second the vote for Altered Carbon.
I’ve read all these, of course, but unlike most people I think the Corum series is the better of the bunch. Speaking of Elric, I have a collection of stories by Karl Edward Wagner, where in one, his character Kane uses his magic and tricks Elric and Stormbringer to hold open a time portal and slay a monster , while Kane pops in to steal an artifact behind his back. Great story, and Wagner writes a much better Elric than Conan.
And to try to return to what @Lakai asked about, I’m not good at SF for the last 20 years or so but if you, or anyone else gets a chance, try to pick up The Timeliner Trilogy by Richard C. Meredith. It’s from 1987 and as far as I know has not been reprinted since, but used copies show up online pretty regular. It’s one of my all time favorites.
What’s appealing to you about that style? Not trying to be snarky, but there are different reasons folks might find it appealing.
Is it the “strong silent type” hero who overcomes impossible odds all by their lonesome? The world with very little magic, and what there is is generally evil? I’m gonna assume it’s not the jaw-dropping misogyny or racism of the Howard books.
I just read a book that might appeal, although I’m not really sure if it’s up your alley: The Blacktongue Thief. It’s a world where magic is rare and always terrifying, where big strong heroes take on impossible odds against horrific monsters, where organizations are often just terrible. It’s also funny as hell, and the protagonist is both extremely capable and very wry. I don’t know if it hits the buttons you want sword and sorcery to hit.
One other recommendation: The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie. There’s a vicious barbarian who’s unmatched in battle, and who occasionally murders his friends in his bloodlust. There’s a wizard who’s evil as shit. There’s a decadent kingdom. In a lot of ways the book feels like a satire of sword-and-sorcery, but if it is, it’s not just cutting humor, it’s whip-out-the-razor-and-flense-the-genre humor. One of the best people in the book is a professional torturer. What there’s not is unicorns. No unicorns.
In looking for modern Sword & Sorcery, I ran across this really interesting article: The Mud, the Blood and the Years: Why "Grimdark" is the New "Sword and Sorcery" - Grimdark Magazine
There was a reason I listed the characters in the order I did. Don’t get me wrong, I like Elric’s world, but I’m never going to deny he’s a whiny, entitled jerk.
While it’s not low-fantasy, or pulp, you might get a kick out of the ‘Acts of Caine’ books. It gets a bit more meta than I’d like as it goes on, but the first novel Heros Die is a solid sardonic anti-hero goodness. Fair warning, it’s a hybrid near future sci/high fantasy universe. Saying much more would probably be telling.
I don’t know why you had to throw the racism and misogyny in there. It has no place in this thread and you have no reason to hint that would be why I would like an author. And way to assume I’m white. This is another example of the rudeness and scolding that everyone is discussing right now. You don’t really deserve it a civil answer, but here are some for you anyway.
Like a lot of pulp authors, Howard wrote action driven stories but was able to paint vivid imagery with short, well written prose. He could describe a scene in 100 words that would have taken Tolkien 100 pages, and it would have created a better picture. Also, since Conan lived in pre-history on earth, Howard used real or real sounding names for people and places thus making it easier for a ten year old me to understand in relation to what little I knew of world history and maps. Being able to compare the map of the Hyborian age to a modern map was a revelation and an education for me, connecting historical names to modern places.
I have The Blacktongue Thief in my “to read” bookcases, but as I think I said above I think I have 2,000 unread books. Not counting e-books.
I don’t have The Blade Itself, so I’ll make a note. I do have two other Joe Abercrombie e-books, A Little Hatred and Trouble With Peace, both unread.
Thanks for the suggestions and the Grimdark link, I’ll check it out.
I don’t have this series, so it goes on the list. I also have two paperbacks of his, Iron Dawn and Jericho Moon. Guess what? In the unread stack.
Wow, what a strange response. Howard’s rampant racism and misogyny is hardly a secret, but rather is woven into his Conan stories to such an extent that one book of the stories was more than enough for me. I said, entirely truthfully, that I figured that wasn’t what you’re looking for: you’d prefer something that appeals to you in the books, without the hatred dripping from the page. If you gotta go DEFCON 1 over that, spiffy–but please don’t act like it’s a civil answer. I think we’re done.
LHoD, ya did it again. You didn’t realize that Dopers can have different values than yours, and sometimes they’re mature enough to understand that authors from bygone eras will have different views of society than modern authors, no matter how forward thinking they might have been. Mark Twain wasn’t PC either, but that value system didn’t exist in his era.
What I find incredible is that Howard, Lovecraft and Smith were all completely different individuals, yet corresponded with each other long before the Internet became a thing. Howard was from Texas and into boxing and bodybuilding. Lovecraft came from an affluent New England background and was a shut-in most of his life. Smith was an agoraphobic from California who was into gardening. Yet somehow, they found common ground in their love of writing which still resonates with readers today and continues to influence more books, movies, games, and life philosophies. Discrediting them because of culture shock is letting fear close your mind. They might not be to your taste, but don’t assume everybody else has the same sense of taste.
Get an e-reader. Change the font size to whatever is comfortable.
I have an 8 inch one, larger than a typical paperback and I can set the font size to large. (Warning: this doesn’t really work with PDFs. But e-book retailers know this and sell other file types instead.)
Thanks, buddy! I totally realize all that stuff. I just didn’t realize that people think that means that racism and misogyny of the past must not be mentioned. I didn’t realize that because it’s fuckin ridonkulous.
You didn’t “mention it”. You hinted that was why I would like the books.
Why did you have to bring it up at all? The thread is not about any of that. People are recommending more modern books to each other, based on books they liked in the past. I don’t know why you jumped to the worst possible conclusion you could. Well, I do know, I just won’t write about it here. Nobody except you read any subtext into the conversation. If you want to talk about other things, start your own thread. And if you think someone pointing out your threadshitting is DEFCON 1 you’ve been spending too mush time with your fourth graders. But, thanks for probably ruining the thread for everyone.
No kidding. Pretty much any book or movie from that era is going to have racism in it. Everyone knows that, that’s why it wasn’t necessary for anyone to mention it every time it comes up. It’s built into the era, we can’t time travel back and change it. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the story.
To try to get back on track, a couple of decades ago, I decided to start reading more mainstream novels authored by women. While I had read SF/fantasy women authors, I had read very few mystery/thrillers by women. This was back when there was a lot of talk about how men wrote terrible female characters, always week and crying or just there for the sex stuff. So, using bestseller lists, I started reading more women writers. It worked great for a long time, new authors, realistic characters, plots etc. But somewhere along the line, women started writing more like men. Either the main character was a tough as nails super-genius sleuth, or they were in trouble and relied on the handsome stranger to help her out, they fall in love, solve mystery, the end. And secondary women characters really faded into the background, often there just to show that the main character had friends. It isn’t all women authors, or even a majority, but it is a big chunk of them. It’s no surprise, of course, all genres eventually merge into a certain sameness of plots, settings etc. I just happened to be reading a lot of these books when it started happening.
One that is really obvious now, if you read the descriptions on books, is what I think of as the “small town plot”.
Sara loses her husband so she moves to Smallville to start a new life, only to discover…
Betty loses her son in a horrible accident, so she moves to By the Shore Town to start a new life, only to discover…
Henrietta is traumatized by a brutal attack, so she moves back to the family home in Little Town On the Moors to start a new life, only to discover…
There are still good mysteries to be had, you just have to look for them a little harder. Over the last year or so, I read both The Woman In The Window and The Woman On The Train, and although they are basically the same plot as Rear Window, they stand up great on their own.
That is the exact opposite of what I did. I even said “no snark” to forestall such an interpretation.
The phrasing of your question doesn’t make it any less insulting. If you had actually read the thread from the beginning, you would have seen I already gave a short description of what I was looking for before you jumped in with your bullshit. It had nothing to do with racism or misogyny, and no one here thought it did except you. And even tho I took the time to write out a answer to your question, you totally ignored that and replied with your Defcon nonsense and said you were done with me. So, be done with me, and leave this thread alone so we can get back to our conversation, if you haven’t ruined it already. You must have forgotten the day you taught your fourth graders about how it’s okay to just apologize when you insult someone, even unintentionally.
Yes, this is amazing. I would love to read any of those letters. While I mostly know second hand things about these authors from bios and articles, it would be great to see what they talked about to each other first hand, especially if you could read them in sequence, rather than the little snippets that you usually see. Like you said, a different time, a different place, a different mindset from the view of three very different individuals who took the time to keep up a conversation by writing letters to each other. Compare that with today, when people bitch if you call them rather than text them, because phone calls take too long.