STEVE CARROLL WRITES

One of Robert E. Howard’s finest short stories is  Worms of the Earth , first published in 1932, a pitch-black, horror-tinged piece of sword and sorcery pulp that features a very different protagonist from his famed Cimmerian, Conan. The tale revolves around the diminutive but powerful Pict King, Bran Mak Morn, and details his willingness to dabble with dark supernatural forces in summoning a race of degenerate subhuman underground creatures to achieve revenge against a Roman governor for the crucifixion of one of his comrades.  The task that stalwart dark fantasy author Karl Edward Wagner takes on in  Legion from the Shadows  is to give readers a direct novel-length sequel to Howard’s story, once again focusing on Bran Mak Morn and his ongoing war against Rome in ancient Britain. Wagner’s scope is impressive as he casts his net large enough to incorporate the mystery of the legendary missing IX Le...

Andrew J. Offut was a prolific writer in many genres, including   science fiction, fantasy, sword and sorcery, and even erotica. In fact, he   authored some   420+ published works of erotica under a variety of different   pen-names. But his real passion as a writer under his own name was in creating   fantasy   tales and writing books for the sword and sorcery brands originally   created by Robert E. Howard, with 3 Conan books, and a total of 6 books   featuring the   Gaelic Viking, Cormac mac Art.  Cormac is a contemporary to King   Arthur, though the British king never makes an appearance.  The Sign of the   Moonbow  is a direct sequel to  The Undying Wizard  and picks up immediately after that novel’s   resolution with Cormac and his crew having imprisoned   the powerful wizard,   Thulsa Doom, whom they keep impaled by swords to their ship’s mast to impede   his shape-shifting abilitie...

Red Sonja began life as a comic book, the creation of writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith in 1973 for Marvel’s popular  Conan series. She was partially based on a character created by Conan author Robert E. Howard,  Red Sonya of Rogatino . However, it was the Marvel Comics version that captured the imagination of young boys in the 70s with her voluptuous curves wrapped in a chain mail bikini, her sword fighting skills, and her take-no-prisoners kick-ass attitude. She finally made the leap to novels in 1981 through the combined efforts of established fantasy authors David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney.  The first book in a 6-book series,  The Ring of Ikribu , even had its prologue written by Roy Thomas, giving it his personal blessing as a proper extension of his character. What follows is a reasonably straightforward sword and sorcery adventure tale with the twist that its sword-wiel...