#Sword and planet

[omercifulheaves]

Dejah Thoris Art by William Stout

[surfingkaliyuga]

“Flash Gordon and the Princess of Mongo” Frank Frazetta 1976

[vintagegeekculture]

Marcus Boas’s paintings of Leigh Brackett’s “Lorelei of the Red Mists.” 

Just like comic book fans tend to start, when young, with Archie Comics, then move on to Superman and Batman, and then, finally, challenging books like X-Men and Daredevil in their early teens, Sword & Planet devotees usually start by reading John Carter of Mars around 8-13, then in their teen years, get into the moodier, darker and atmospheric Leigh Brackett and L. Sprague de Camp. 

[would-they-listen-to-that]

Could I get a selfship playlist with Mermista from She-Ra and the Princesses Of Power?

‧₊˚🖇️✩ ₊˚🎧⊹♡ here you go, caller! RAAAAH MERMAID SUPREMACY!!!!

Where We Belong - Kate Alexa

Mermaid - Skott

Swimming - Florence + the Machine

True Love - P!nk ft. Lily Allen

Heart Attack - Demi Lovato

I Think I'm in Love - Kat Dahlia

If U Seek Amy - Britney Spears

First Love/Late Spring - Mitski

You were Meant for Me - Jewel

Lovers Lane - Elizabeth Mitchell

thanks for dialing in!

[siryl]

Teaser from Weird Worlds #7. Art by Howard Chaykin. More scans and information at source.

[jack-of-crowns]

@flashfictionfridayofficial

'The Deep Moans Round With Many Voices' by @jack-of-crowns

Ulysse closes his mind to the frothy cacophony on the command deck and dives deep within himself to yon jou ete, sliding beneath cerulean waves down the wrought iron chains of the 'Aurore' anchored above him. He is back home on Antilles Prime; he and granpapa have rowed out on this fine summer's morning to the corvette, and all is bon bagay.

The memories rise slowly, a school of goliath grouper drifting upwards from flooded mangroves. "Regardde, mon petit," granpapa says, "An anchor is more than metal and chain. It is a konvésasyon between the vessel above and the seas beneath." Ulysse remembers the hot gleam of young double suns on water, the flukes of the anchor biting into the sea floor in a cloud of silt, the snap of that moment of taut stillness amid constant motion.

Claudine, his navigation officer, stares unseeingly , streams of quantum data weeping from her torn mind. She had plotted the deep space courses of the 'Luminaire', tracking anomalies out on the spinward rim. "Capitaine Vincennes," soft and low. Ulysse should have warned them, should have warned them all, that space is never truly empty. An inexperienced crew he had taken out for training.

Their voices are all about him now, neither language nor sound but pure information. Entangled memories, celebration and mourning, futures forgotten, and possible pasts, all fragmented quanta adrift in the endless seas of spacetime. Martin, the xenolinguist, mutters to himself in a language between form and thought, fingers twitching in impossible geometries. The Deep is speaking now, and it is destroying his crew.

He holds fast to firsts; most of the 'Luminaire' are having their first interstellar jump. Their minds are receptive to the spells of the chronothurge at the helm, the calming chants that the automaton mage embeds within the neurocortex prior to psion expansion. He remembers his first love, Felix. Remembers what it felt like to be held as the dark energy roared all about you, a chaotic information storm comingled with one's own consciousness, and there was his partner, familiar presence in the strange, the taste of warm cassava bread in a kiss.

"An anchor holds. An anchor connects." Ulysse is the captain of this ship now, and he must be the anchor. He must anchor the psyches of his crew, soti nan lanmou li, and hold them fast. And so he does; because he himself was held fast in the Deep that first jump out of love, so he holds all the lost voices of his crew together in his psion-expanded consciousness in the depths of that timeless space. They are all together on a fine summer's morning in the depths of interstellar night, and all is bon bagay.

[victusinveritas]

Since Corben's first painting for the cover of Den was rejected (due to the nudity), he painted this second one, which became the one that was used as cover art. To get around the censorship, he gave the woman who is featured inside green skin resembling body make up.

Why Michael Chiklis is beating a crocodile guy to the point where CTE will definitely be a problem later is irrelevant.

[mysticforge]

Sketchbook Dino-rider! Having fun, learning a lot!

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Catgirl Sword and Planet

I should blame Flash Gordon for this. Though I hope to write something more along the lines of Andre Norton’s interstellar works, or Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars; a story where  rayguns, spaceships, and psionic powers make each planet uniquely fair and perilous. Or, again, possibly along the lines of “Bride of Chaotica”. Because that was fun.

But at the moment I’m blaming Flash Gordon (1936). Not to diss anyone’s childhood fun. If there weren’t some fun stuff in it I wouldn’t keep watching even 20-minute episodes. And yet....

And yet. Well. I think I’ve finally tracked down part of my grumps to, “Why can’t this have as coherent a plot and characters as Tarzan or Conan? They were comics too!”

Which is, honestly, unfair. First, those two were made into comic books, not weekly newspaper serials. I grant you Prince Valiant was amazingly coherent over long periods of time, but it’s more like expecting Garfield to have a long-running tight plot.

Second - Tarzan and Conan were books first. Of course their writers had to be more organized, or readers would have wandered off after the third Mad Science Plot Device.

(So many in Flash Gordon. So many.)

Meaning I’m frustrated because I keep expecting it to be something it’s really, really not. Probably made worse in growing up with Doctor Who; now there was a serial that had well-written characters!

But I’m also frustrated because there are elements in it that’d be fascinating in another setting. Lion-men, shark-men, bird-men! Flying and underwater cities. Horrific monsters, uncanny science, and unashamedly Evil Overlords. Elements, in fact, that would work splendidly in the Sword and Planet subgenre of SF. If that doesn’t ring a bell, consider that it includes much of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ books (the Barsoom series being best known, I recc’ the movie John Carter of Mars). I would also fit many of Andre Norton’s books in here; The Beast Master, Lord of Thunder, and Catseye in particular.

A catgirl native to a Sword and Planet setting could be interesting indeed. And the genre already allows for isekai’d heroes in it!

At the moment bunnies are leaning toward a group isekai of some kind. With at least one guy expecting it to go to formula (harems, power leveling, etc.) and a more sane guy who ends up teaming up with the catgirl and being a valiant hero. Possibly also a birdman in the group, Because.

Sword and Planet also has a heavy emphasis on exotic cultures (yay costumes!), hand-to-hand combat with Weird Powers (psychic, qi manipulation, any way you slice it wuxia stunts are possible), and on-planet adventures in cities and wild alike. No boring interstellar trips here!

I don’t yet have any solid ideas what the Sane Guy should be like or how they all got there, outside of considering him as Swordsman to the catgirl’s Sorceress. Meaning I need to figure out how he could know or learn swordfighting when I think he starts as a more average guy....

Anyway. Getting some thoughts down so that when another project isn’t eating my brain, I might tackle this one. As well as Druid. And Hunted by Unicorns. And....

Drat. Must write faster.

[figcatlists]

Sword and sorcery, planetary romance, and Dying Earth books

A list of classic pulp fantasy books in the vein of Conan, John Carter of Mars, and Cugel the Clever, as well as later novels and stories that expand on or subvert their tropes. For more information and useful links, check out the full version of this list. Come for book recommendations, stay for vintage cover art!

Many of these books were cited as inspirations for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons by Gary Gygax in the famous Appendix N and are still popular among fantasy RPG players.

[shelandsorcery]

Summon the strength of millenniums past

Forged by the fire and flame

I am the weapon of empires vast

Immortal is more than a name

12 x 16" mixed media on 300gsm paper; pencil, watercolour, pencil crayon (aka coloured pencil), and workable fixative to seal and rework and seal again.

[omercifulheaves]

Thuvia, Maid of Mars Art by William Stout

[kckramer]

Also what are the names of your short stories? I wanna read em

Yeah! So, my one short story is "Sofia Serrento's Flying Circus and the Sky Pirates of Shanghai," which is published in the anthology Hell Hath No Fury: New Pulp Heroines. The other one is titled "The Godkings' Tomb," and it is published in Broadswords and Blasters Presents...Futures That Never Were. These and my standalone 5e adventure can be found linked here

[schlock-luster-video]

On December 30, 1983, Krull debuted in Ireland.

Here's some new art inspired by the sword and planet classic!

[would-they-listen-to-that]

Omg I WOULD LOVE TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS THE PLAYLIST THING IS SUCH A COOL IDEA UHHH COULD YOU DO

Double Trouble (2018 shera) x oc 💚💚💚

I hope I did this right, XDDD

‧₊˚🖇️✩ ₊˚🎧⊹♡ thank you! yep, you're doing it right! here you go, caller!

Toxic - Britney Spears

Everybody Loves Me - OneRepublic

Girls in Bikinis - Poppy

Baby Hotline - Jack Stauber

Hit and Run - LOLO

Cannibal - Kesha

space girl - Frances Forever

Animal - Neon Trees

Photo ID - Remi Wolf

Oops! ... I Did It Again - Britney Spears

thanks for dialing in!

[igotopinions]

Magazine Month (tm) continues here at SIWAN as we speak with Matthew Gomez of Broadswords & Blasters about the life, death, and rebirth of the SFF magazine he co-edits.

Broadswords & Blasters (Facebook) Matthew Gomez's author site (Twitter)

www.soimwritinganovel.com

PATREON: www.patreon.com/soimwritinganovel

BUY OLIVER’S BOOKS: https://www.oliverbrackenbury.com/store SO I’M WRITING A NOVEL… TWITTER: https://twitter.com/so_writing OLIVER’S TWITTER: https://twitter.com/obrackenbury Oliver’s Link Tree (For everything else): https://linktr.ee/obrackenbury