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Monday, April 5, 2021

Is Sword and Sorcery a dead Genre?


Growing up reading was my escape, it was my outlet. I was always drawn to fantasy. Even as a little girl I was drawn to My Little Pony due to the Unicorns. And one of my favorite series was Dragonlance. I found the complete trilogy in this house my parents were fixing up. I fell absolutely in love with the world, the characters, and story. 


My favorite character was Raistlin, I begged my Mom for the Twins Trilogy. Which she got me for Christmas. I devoured these books, and pretty much all the ones with these character's. Thankfully my family is a bunch of book nerds and had most of the series all ready. As a teen I enjoyed D&D and fell hard down the Ravenloft rabbit hole. I loved these books about as much as Dragonlance. 
My Husband is also a huge fan of these type of books and recently we were talking and the question came up if sword and sorcery a dead genre? The question stemmed from the fact that Hubby was having a hard time finding the type of books he wanted. 
I haven't really seen any books out there that I would qualify as Sword and Sorcery. I've seen Epic Fantasy but that's really a different animal. While they have similar aspects I feel their very different genres. 
Picture that inspired Jessie's Dirty Little Secret


In my opinion classic sword and sorcery is has an action based plot. The thrill of the chase, the sense of danger, and the push to get to that big battle at the end. That is classic sword and sorcery. While epic fantasy is more character based, yes there is that sense of danger but it doesn't drive the story as much as seeing a character grow and flourish. I find both to be good in their own rights, yet I'm seeing less and less of that classic sword and sorcery from the 70's and 80's era. Which is actually a bit surprising given the resurgence in D&D and other fantasy based RPG's. My Husband is a big sword and sorcery fan and has bemoaned the fact he can't find good books to me more than once. 
Now you can find newer stuff in the series I mentioned, but it's taken on the epic fantasy tilt. Where the stories have gone from a fast paced action to a more mild pace character building. The actions still there, but not the focus of the plot. Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me? If you know of any Sword and Sorcery books like I described let me know. 


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