Howard’s Conan has undeniably become the alpha and the omega of the genre think of Sword & Sorcery, and that Cimmerian immediately springs to mind: black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand – a thief, a reaver, a slayer. There is an ongoing discussion about decolonising the curriculum, and it’s worth considering whether it’s time to ‘de- Conan-ise’ Sword & Sorcery. And that indeed sums up our dilemma: is it worth trying to expand the genre, when the general audience’s idea of S&S has calcified in cliché? Especially when a large section of S&S fans (and authors) have very firm ideas of what S&S was, is and always will be? The Red Man and Others: Swords? Sorcery? My love for Conan, was whittled away by some friends who were obsessed with it -that was a culture of the cis-het white super-dude.”Ĭan readers like him really be blamed for not recognising a broader chorus of voices as having an S&S accent? Modern Sword & Sorcery writers face an uphill battle, if they want to emerge from the shadow of Conan (including, and in particular, his Marvel comics and Schwarzenegger film incarnations). “I would not have put Red Man in the same bracket as Conan-they just feel *utterly* different to me. However, a recent conversation with a friend, a Fantasy author himself, highlighted an inherent problem: With The Red Man and Others, we aimed to present our own take on the Sword & Sorcery genre.
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