Book Review: Andrew j. Offutt - My Lord Barbarian (1977)

 

"Valeron, by the strength of his sword-arm, had subdued the savage Sungoli and was acclaimed king of the barbaric land of Branarius. The Emperor of the Seven Kingdoms determined to reward the conquering hero with the hand of his daughter, his only child, the princess Aleysha.

 But there were those who could not stomach the idea of the scarred and bloodied barbarian Valeron as husband to the delicate and civilised Aleysha. when Valeron arrived to claim his own he was imprisoned - for the murder of the Emperor.

 Only the keen edge of his sword, the speed of his arm and his cunning brain lay between Valeron and death in his toughest struggle for life yet."

 I am onto the second book in the stack I picked up t'other day.   

 Andrew J Offutt is a writer I have encountered before; he did some pastiches of Robert E Howard characters Conan and Cormac Mac Art which were pretty decent so between that and the cover, I had a fair idea what was in store.

  The back-cover blurb fails to mention an important fact - deliberately, I suspect - that Valeron is not just King but King of an entire world which in turn is part of an empire of seven worlds  making up a solar system.  The twist is that while Valeron and his people are able to travel between world on spaceships,  a war long ago destroyed the advanced civilisation that created the ships, leaving the survivors to go back to Dark Age society and tech. Yes, they have spaceships but nobody knows how to really operate them beyond pushing the button that makes them go. 

Which is why Valeron is depicted on the cover as the classic sun-bronzed barbarian but right behind him is some architecture straight out of  an Asimov book.   

 Since we're on the cover, let's talk about the half-naked hottie clutching Valeron's arm.  Yes, she's in the book and is an important character.  Andrew J Offutt had a profitable side gig writing erotica which might explain why he devotes so much ink to describing slave-girl Jheru's ample charms.  Thankfully it doesn't get into Gor territory and Jheru is a feisty character more than capable of standing up to our big bruiser of a hero. 

Except Valeron isn't all brawn. While he's big and badass, he also spends the book doing some serious thinking about his role as  king and potential emperor. 

In short, while there is some skull-cleaving to be add "My Lord Barbarian" takes the cliches of sun-bronzed barbarians, adds some neat twists and tells a better story than many others I've seen. 

   This was written in 1977 so some passages might raise an eyebrows but bear that in mind and "My Lord Barbarian" delivers what the cover promises.  If you like Conan or Lin Carter's "Thongor" books then you might like this. 

That's All Folks. 

Book Review: Frank Oliver - Axe- A Tale Of Carthelion (1985)

 

  60 years ago the evil Loch overran the lands of the Carthelion and drove the survivors to the other side of the mountains. Now the Carthelions are mounting a desperate attempt to regain their lost lands. 

 A pair of children - age indeterminate - tag along for some reason. Whatever. 

  As promised, this is the first of the books I picked up the other day and I already knew this was not going to be a polished work.  Look at the cover. 

  Anyway, I think I can describe this book as an attempt at telling a "Lord Of The Rings" style epic in one slim volume.  

 Doesn't really work.

 Between the worldbuilding, backstory and a cast of characters that's maybe larger than it needed to be, "Axe" gets bogged down. Too much gets stuffed into the pages at the expense of  pacing and story, and to be honest, at the end  I was struggling to keep track of who the hell all these people were.  I also found it a bit weird that certain characters were set up as being important to the story but never really achieved anything. 

 Fantasy storytelling 101: If you're going to have a character lug around a magical amulet, you should have him do something cool with it. 

And it did not help my enjoyment or understanding  when the book turned out to have occasional blank pages.  As in, great chunks of text were just not where they were supposed to be.  As proof reading goes, I feel that somebody really failed their job. 

It's a shame because with a bit of tweaking and sanding down, Frank Oliver could have delivered an entertaining story. There's nothing wrong with his use of words and there's some useful ideas but this book either needed trimming down or, going the other way,  expanding so there was space to fit everything in. 

To sum up:  "Axe" started off as a decent old-school fantasy but got overloaded.  Not recommended. 

I Bought A Fistful of Books

 One of my favourite things to do when I have money in my pocket is to poke about a bookshop, and especially a second-hand bookshop.

  I'm going to make a clear difference a 2/h bookshop rather than a charity shop that does books because while charity shops do have some great stuff, their selection tends to be limited to what they think will sell, so anything too obscure or too dog-eared  is going in the bin.  2/h bookshops are more likely to have the sort of mostly-forgotten fantasy/Sf that I'm after.

 So the other day I decided to swing by the bookshop in Fratton's Bridge Centre because I could guarantee coming out with some interesting stuff.  

Let me share my haul with you.  

 Larry Niven - The Flight Of The Horse (1974)

 Not an author I know very well but that's an intriguing cover.

Am I the only one that prefers the old-school

 Chris Foss-style covers to the "stylish" stuff you get nowadays? 

Andrew J.Offutt - My Lord Barbarian (1977)

If there isn't at least one head-cleaving in this book I will be very disappointed.

James C.Glass- Shanji (1999)

I'm a sucker for anything with a woman wielding a sword. 

Interesting mix of tech on display too. 

Rick Cook - The Wizardry Quested (1996)

Another one that plays right into my interests;

WW1 fighter dogfighting  dragons? Yes please. 

Rosemary Edgehill - The Warslayer (2002)

   I saw this one on Reddit and promised myself I'd pick up a copy one day.

You can probably guess why 

The next three are all part of a series. 

Hopefully it's not a five part series because getting the other two books could be awkward. 

Paul O. Williams - The Pelbar Cycle (1981)

1. The Breaking Of Northwall

2. The Ends Of The Circle

3. The Dome in The Forest

See what I mean about "obscure" I'd never heard of this one. 

God damn, that's a big-ass axe. 

Frank Oliver - Axe - A Tale of Carthelion (1985)

The cover looks like something from a mid-80s German metal band

 so right away I was interested. 

And just to prove I don't only read SF/Fantasy:

James Lucas & James Barker - The Killing Ground (1978)

Oh boy, I already know this isn't going to be an easy read. 

This entire bagful cost me £15, by the way.

If I can, I  will review as many of these as possible so watch this space.

That's All Folks