1967
The bibliographical entries below detail novels, fixup novels, novellas, novelettes, short
stories, collections, and anthologies of sword & sorcery published in 1967 across sixteen entries. They break down thusly:
· Original short stories and novelettes by living authors: 2
· Original novellas and novels and fixup novels by living authors: 3
· Translations first appearing in English for the first time: 1
· Reprinted fiction originally written in English of any length by authors still living and active: 8
· Short stories and novelettes with first appearances in 1967, but which did not appear in the author’s lifetime: 10
· Short stories and novelettes that did not appear in the author’s lifetime and were completed and edited by other hands: 13
· Works of pastiche: 1
· Fiction of any length featuring the character Conan, by any hand: 19
· Non-Conan fiction of any length either written by Robert E. Howard or based upon his work: 15
Perhaps it is inevitable, in a genre that looks to history (or at least glances at it) for part of its inspiration, that sword & sorcery tales often look to the past of the genre itself. We will shortly see an explosion of original material (perhaps original should be within quotation marks), but in 1967, what was old was, if not presented as new, likely new to many readers.
This is, of course, in no way a bad thing. If sword & sorcery was to survive, and it has, it had to exist in some easily purchasable form. Readers in the late sixties and early seventies would, as stated, soon be exposed to a great swath of newly produced material. 1967, though, was the Year of Conan, whose creator had been dead for thirty years.
The first reintroduction of Howard’s greatest hero actually occurred almost twenty years earlier, when L. Sprague de Camp first embarked on his long journey from appreciation to exploitation. He was heavily involved in the hardcover series of Conan stories presented by Gnome Press, the specialty small publisher founded in 1948 by New York City science fiction fans Martin Greenberg (not be confused with the prolific anthologist Martin H. Greenberg) and David A. Kyle. That series caused some controversy, as it included among Howard’s stories a novel written by a fan and one story apparently wholly written by de Camp. Then, as in the sixties and seventies, de Camp arranged for the printing of some Conan material in magazines, appearing before or nearly simultaneously with the publication of the books. This presents some bibliographical complexities in terms of order of appearance.
The lengthy series of Conan stories this year (and those of King Kull, Howard’s first sword & sorcery character) may be best understood by simply looking over the entries below. But there was more to read than just the Cimmerian, and some of that was to be found in the work of the sparkling wunderkind, Michael Moorcock.
It was in 1967 that Moorcock’s first full-length book about the brooding, doomed character Elric of Melniboné appeared in American bookstores. Conceived as an “anti-Conan,” Moorcock began Elric’s long career in the June 1961 issue of the British magazine Science Fantasy, a career which, remarkably, continues over 60 years later, with the most recent Elric story appearing in the Fall 2023 issue of New Edge Sword & Sorcery. The sublime first four
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novelettes detailing Elric’s adventures had been collected in hardcover in 1963 by the London-based (later Suffolk) publishing company of Neville Spearman. Though sword & sorcery aficionados in America were well aware of the stories (perhaps through specialty book and magazine importers), it was not until 1965 that Elric made his official American debut in L. Sprague de Camp’s second Pyramid Books anthology, The Spell of Seven. It was also in 1965 that Herbert Jenkins, Ltd published Stormbringer, which fixed up and abridged the early Science Fantasy stories. The first Elric book published in the US was a Lancer Books reprint of Stormbringer, which appeared in the year we are reviewing. It was also Lancer, again, who published in 1967 the first of Moorcock’s Dorian Hawkmoon novels, The Jewel in the Skull.
Another important book in 1967 was the fifth of Andre Norton’s long-running series of novels and stories set in her Witch World, a vital setting even into the 21st century owing to reprints and sequels by other hands. Norton was the most active woman writer in this early cresting of the Second Wave of sword & sorcery. She cannot be said to owe much, in her prose and ideation, to the first great woman writer of the genre, C.L. Moore, but that is only because her world and characters were quite unique to her (though they would not remain so). She was not merely asserting herself as a skilled writer, she was establishing a sprawling empire that would long outlive her, as did Howard. We will soon see another woman loom large in the genre, C.J. Cherryh, but among women writing sword & sorcery in the sixties, Norton reigned supreme.
But perhaps we should end by mentioning a story that very few people likely read then, or have read in the intervening decades.
In June of 1966, science fiction fan Gordon Linzner, while still in high school, founded what eventually became a semi-professional magazine called Space & Time. The magazine maintains a presence in genre publishing even today, with its most recent issue, the 146th, having appeared with a Spring/Summer 2024 cover date. Longevity seems to be a characteristic in the world of science fiction and fantasy (including especially sword &
sorcery). In the second issue, dated Fall 1967 and appearing in September, an almost unutterably bad but genuinely charming sword & sorcery story titled “Valgart of Zantar” was published. It was written by one of Linzner’s friends, a young man seemingly completely unpossessed of guile, named Willie White. A novelette, it would be concluded in the next issue. White seems to never have published another word. Perhaps he might have, if Linzner had received what the author said, in his single-spaced three plus page afterword, was needed to ensure that the series continue, “forty to fifty letters.”
Howard, Moorcock, and Norton are all names to conjure with (as is that of Fritz Leiber, whose Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser appeared in a single reprint in 1967), but I like to think that they each would have treated White as a colleague.
Cheers, Willie.
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1. Fantastic [Volume 16 Number 3, January 1967] edited by Joseph Ross (50¢, 164pp, digest, cover by Frank R. Paul)
p. 28 • The People of the Black Circle [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • novella • first appeared as a serial in Weird Tales [Volume 24 Number 3, September 1934; Volume 24 Number 4, October 1934; and Volume 24 Number 5, November 1934]
2. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction [Volume 32 Number 2, February 1967] edited by Edward L. Ferman (50¢, 132pp, digest, cover by Chesley Bonestell)
p. 4 • “The Hall of the Dead [Conan] • L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appearance
3. Great Science Fiction Magazine [#6, 1967] edited by Sol Cohen (50¢, 132pp, digest, cover by Ed Valigursky from Fantastic March 1959)
p. 4 • “Lean Times in Lankhmar” [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser] • Fritz Leiber • novelette • first appeared in Fantastic Science Fiction Stories [Volume 8 Number 11, November 1959]
4. The Fantastic Swordsmen • edited by L. Sprague de Camp • mixed reprint/original anthology [1st ed., Pyramid R-1621, May 1967] (¢50, 204pp, pb, cover by Jack Gaughan, interior maps by Gaughan and James Cawthorn)
p. 9 • Tellers of Tales • L. Sprague de Camp • essay
p. 13 • “Black Lotus” • Robert Bloch • short story • first appeared in Unusual Stories [Volume 1 Number 2, Winter 1935]
p. 23 • “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth” • Lord Dunsany • short story • first appeared in The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories [Lord Dunsany • collection, George Allen & Sons • 1908]
p. 41 • “Drums of Tombalku” [Conan] • L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appeared in Conan the Adventurer [L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard • collection • Lancer Books • 1966]
p. 87 • “The Girl in the Gem” [Brak] • John Jakes • short story • first appeared in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination [Volume 14 Number 1, January 1965]
p. 107 • “Dragon Moon” [Elak] • Henry Kuttner • novelette • first appeared in Weird Tales [Volume 35 Number 7, January 1941]
p. 149 • “The Other Gods” [Dream Cycle] • H. P. Lovecraft • short story • first appeared in The Fantasy Fan [Volume 1 Number 3, November 1933]
p. 157 • “The Singing Citadel” [Elric] • (1967) • novelette by Michael Moorcock • first appearance
p. 193 • “The Tower” • (trans. by de Camp of Il mago, la torre e il cavaliere 1966) • Luigi De Pascalis • short story • first appears in English here
p. 203 • Afterword (“The Tower”) • Luigi De Pascalis • essay
5. The Magazine of Horror [Volume 3 Number 3, Spring 1967] edited by Robert A. W. Lowndes (50¢, 132pp, digest, cover by Virgil Vinlay)
p. 48 • “The Vale of Lost Women” [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • short story • first appears here
6. Michael Moorcock • Stormbringer [Elric] • abridged fixup novel [1st ed. thus, Lancer 73-579, 1967] (60¢, 191pp, pb, cover artist Jack Gaughan)
Abridges and fixes up the novellas Sad Giant’s Shield [Science Fantasy, Volume 21, Number 63, February 1964], Doomed Lord’s Passing [Science Fantasy, Volume 22 Number 64, April 1964], Dead God’s Homecoming [Science Fantasy, Volume 20 Number 59, June 1963], and Black Sword’s Brothers [Science Fantasy, Volume 21 Number 61, October 1963]
7. Conan [Lancer/Ace Conan #1] • Lin Carter, L. Sprague de Camp, and Robert E. Howard • collection [1st thus, Lancer Books 73-695, 1967] (60¢, 221 pp, pb, cover artist Frank Frazetta)
p. 9 • Introduction • L. Sprague de Camp • essay
p. 16 • Letter to P. Schuyler Miller, March 10, 1936 ("Dear Mr. Miller: / I feel indeed honored...") • Robert E. Howard • letter • 1958
p. 21 • “The Hyborian Age, Part 1” [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • fictional essay (variant of “The Hyborian Age” • 1938)
p. 34 • “The Thing in the Crypt” [Conan] • Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp • short story • first appears here
p. 51 • “The Tower of the Elephant” [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appeared in Weird Tales [Volume 21 Number 3, March 1933]
p. 81 • “The Hall of the Dead” [Conan] • L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction [Volume 32 Number 2, February 1967]
p. 107 • “The God in the Bowl” [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • short story • first appeared in Space Science Fiction [Volume 1 Number 2, September 1952]
p. 131 • “Rogues in the House” [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appeared in Weird Tales [Volume 23 Number 1, January 1934]
p. 162 • “The Hand of Nergal” [Conan] • Lin Carter and Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appears here
p. 189 • “The City of Skulls” [Conan] • Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp • novelette • first appears here
8. Conan the Warrior [Lancer/Ace Conan #7] • Robert E. Howard • collection [1st thus, Lancer Books 73-549, 1967] (¢60, 222pp, pb. cover by Frank Frazetta)
p. 9 • Introduction” • L. Sprague de Camp • essay
p. 11 • Red Nails [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • novella • first appeared in Weird Tales [Volume 28 Number 1, July 1936]
p. 105 • “Jewels of Gwahlur” [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appeared in Weird Tales [Volume 25 Number 3, March 1935]
p. 157 • Beyond the Black River [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • novella • first appeared in Weird Tales [serialized in Volume 25 Number 5, May 1935 and Volume 25 Number 6, June 1935]
9. The Jewel in the Skull [History of the Runestaff #1] • Michael Moorcock • novel [1st thus, Lancer Books 73-688, 1967] (¢60, 175pp, pb, cover artist Gray Morrow)
10. Conan the Usurper [Lancer/Ace Conan #8] • Robert E. Howard • collection [Lancer Books 73-599, 1967] (¢60, 256pp, pb, cover by Frank Frazetta)
p. 9 • Introduction • L. Sprague de Camp • essay
p. 13 • The Treasure of Tranicos [Conan] • L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard • novella • first appeared in Fantasy Magazine (as The Black Stranger) [Volume 1 Number 1, March 1953]
p. 119 • “Wolves Beyond the Border” [Conan] • L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appears here
p. 173 • “The Phoenix on the Sword” [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appeared in Weird Tales [Volume 20 Number 6, December 1932]
p. 205 • “The Scarlet Citadel” [Conan] • Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appeared in Weird Tales [Volume 21 Number 1, January 1933]
11. Warlock of the Witch World [Witch World] • Andre Norton • novel [Ace Books G-630, 1967] (50¢, 222pp, pb, cover and interiors artist Jack Gaughan)
12. King Kull [Kull] • Robert E. Howard and Lin Carter • collection [1st thus, Lancer Books 73-650, September 1967] (¢60, 223pp, pb, cover by Roy G. Krenkel)
p. 9 • “Prolog” [Kull] • Lin Carter and Robert E. Howard • short fiction • first appears here
p. 11 • “Exile of Atlantis” [Kull] • Lin Carter and Robert E. Howard • short story • first appears here
p. 21 • “The Shadow Kingdom” [Kull] • Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appeared in Weird Tales [Volume 14 Number 2, August 1929]
p. 56 • “The Altar and the Scorpion” [Kull] • Robert E. Howard • short story • first appears here
p. 61 • “Black Abyss” [Kull] • Lin Carter and Robert E. Howard • short story • first appears here
p. 76 • “Delcardes' Cat” [Kull] • Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appears here
p. 103 • “The Skull of Silence” [Kull] • Robert E. Howard • short story • first appears here
p. 112 • “Riders Beyond the Sunrise” [Kull] • Lin Carter and Robert E. Howard • short story • first appears here
p. 138 • “By This Ax I Rule!” [Kull] • Robert E. Howard • short story • first appears here
p. 160 • “The Striking of the Gong” [Kull] • Robert E. Howard • short story • first appears here
p. 167 • “Swords of the Purple Kingdom” [Kull] • Robert E. Howard • novelette • first appears here
p. 196 • “Wizard and Warrior” [Kull] • Lin Carter and Robert E. Howard • short story • first appears here
p. 204 • “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune” [Kull] • Robert E. Howard • short story • first appeared in Weird Tales [Volume 14 Number 3, September 1929]
p. 215 • “The King and the Oak” [Kull] • Robert E. Howard • poem • first appeared in Weird Tales [Volume 33 Number 2, February 1939]
p. 217 • “Epilog” [Kull] • “Prolog” [Kull] • Lin Carter and Robert E. Howard • short fiction • first appears here
13. Space and Time [#2, Fall 1967] edited by Gordon Linzner (35¢, large e/s, cover by Alex Saviuk)
p. 28 • “Valgart of Zantar” [Part 1 of 2] • Willie White • novelette
14. Thongor Against the Gods [Thongor #3] • Lin Carter • novel • [Paperback Library 52-586, November 1967] (¢50, 157pp, pb, cover artist Frank Frazetta)
15. Conan the Conqueror [Conan] (Lancer/Ace Conan #9) • Robert E. Howard • novel • [1st thus, Lancer Books 73-572, 1967] (¢60, 224pp, pb, cover by Frank Frazetta) • variant title of The Hour of the Dragon, first appeared in serialized form in Weird Tales [December 1935-April 1936]
16. New Worlds of Fantasy • edited by Terry Carr • reprint anthology [1st ed, Ace Books A-12, 1967] (¢75, 253pp, pb, cover and interior artist Frank Kelly Freas)
p. 18 • “Break the Door of Hell” [Traveller in Black] • John Brunner • novelette • first appeared in Impulse [Volume 1 Number 2, April 1966]
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