Barbarity

The fourth week of the holidays is almost over and I get my new flat keys next Friday. I won't, therefore, be staying for a few days by the seaside in a hotel -but I can get a bus to Roseisle beach as I did the other morning.
 For over forty years, since my first Conan treasury edition, I have associated Sword and Sorcery with the summer months and in June, I had bought a copy of Lin Carter's The Black Star for a couple of days down in Galloway. I'm still keeping it to one side for the right day trip but I had also picked up two of Gardner F. Fox's barbarian adventures ( in case I finished the Carter book on the Stranraer train).

 I first became aware of Fox's S&S stories through a Roy Thomas adaptation of Kothar and the Conjurer's Curse for the monthly US comic, Conan The Barbarian.
"The Curse of the Conjurer" appeared in the mid-70s UK Avengers and in Mighty World of Marvel when the comics amalgamated. Issue 200 of MWOM was one of the bundle of UK weeklies I chose to keep when I cleared out my flat in Glasgow.


Conan's quest preserve the corpse of a wizard and unseat the demon-spawn king Unos has a tone that's very different from the other story-arcs in the 70s colour comic. For me, it's not nearly as successful as the Shadow on the Land arc which followed it. The etymology for one thing-Zoqquanor, Medormaon, Belthamquar - is more fantastical than that of Robert E. Howard.


Given ERB's second and third Barsoom novels as a child ( a series we'll revisit in a week or two),Gardner Fox of course, was the author of many famous DC stories. In the Golden Age, he wrote the Lovecraftian adventures of Dr. Fate  and exploits of the reincarnated Hawkman. In the Silver Age, Fox wrote the seminal issues of JLA from my childhood, including the JSA revival; sci-fi revivals of Hawkman and the Atom; and created  Zatanna, Batgirl and the android Red Tornado.


Leaving DC with a number of other, older creators due to conflicts over health benefits, Fox wrote scripts for Marvel in the early 70s- Dr. Strange, Doc Savage, Dracula and Red Wolf ( which I've yet to read, still). He also wrote over 100 genre novels. Fox passed away in 1986 but the books I'm reviewing today are, as far as I can gather, from 1969.

I think I found a copy of Kothar Barbarian Swordsman at a comic mart in Glasgow some time in the early -to-mid 2000s. It's published by Starbooks of Sydney and contains three stories.
The prologue is by far the best part of the book, for me. It's an "extract" from what the Planet of the Apes magazine would've called a "Future History Chronicle". Kothar's world  of  Yarth with its two moons is not prehistoric but rather exists in a epoch of "dying star-suns" where civilization has "reverted back to childhood".


The Sword of the Sorceror is a kind of origin tale. Sole survivor of a battle, like Conan in The Hand of Nergal, Kothar is gifted with an enchanted sword, Frostfire, by the lich of the wizard, Afgorkon. He then rescues a second wizard from the torments of the witch Red Lori, by slaying a sea-serpent. Every time I see Red Lori, I want to say "Yellow Lori" but she is the principal antagonist of the series.
The image of Kazazael, the wizard, flayed and buffeted like a kite in the wind, is very striking. Kothar himself is a very stock figure, however: the only distinguishing characteristics are his yellow hair and hairy arms and his offer to "serve" four of the wizard's serving maids. He has little personality other than these cliché barbaric traits.


In The Treasure in the Labyrinth, Kothar encounter a Minokar- a bull-man, of course and refers to the legendary riches of King Midor of Sybaros. This is the most forgettable of the three stories.
The Woman in the Witch-Wood is the Lady of Shallone who sends Kothar on a quest for a lock of her hair. She turns him into a dog at the climax of the story. It's beyond belief. His cunning substitution of the lock of hair means the spell is quickly broken but it's an unforgettably absurd image.

As I said, before I found the book in my walk-in cupboard earlier this month and looking for some S&S for the summer, I picked up another Fox book on ebay. Kothar of The Magic Sword was printed in New York but there's no publication date. Fox's fantasy lands of the distant future again have recognisable names: Avalonia, Aegypton,( ruled by the Pharah in Memphor) and Mongrolia.


 This book comprises two stories. In the first, The Helix from Beyond, after fighting a bear with a slave-girl tied to his back, for the amusement of an evil king,  Kothar steals the helix which is a portal to enchanted Nirvalla. First however, he has to kill Skrye the giant eagle and then combat an ice demon.


In A Plague of Demons, Kothar sets out to rescue Mahla, whom he views as a "baby sister", from the orgiastic cultists of Pulthoom ( a name very like Volthoom, the Buddhist poonghie - a Burmese priest, seemingly- who gave Earth-3's Power Ring his lantern and ring).


The story opens in the city of Clon Mell - previously Clonmall in the first book. Oddly reminiscent of the county town of  Tipperary!
Assisted by a female demon. Ahrima, Kothar has to free Red Lori from her captivity, fights a yeti ( an "Abominathol") and escapes from the Mongrols, led by Imkak Khan, with the aid of the "ebon intelligence" Thurkaknorr. Finally, in the lost desert city of Xythoron, Kothar seals Red Lori up in the tomb of the mage Kalikalides.


For all that the demon-gods have a Lovecraft flavour and the stories share something of the cosmic chess games of Moorcock, Fox, in my opinion, is an inferior writer of Sword-and-Sorcery to REH. His stories aren't nearly as formulaic or sentimental as those of Lin Carter but the characters, settings and situations are pasteboard and the events random. Damningly, the only wit or humour is accidental (viz the dog spell incident, which might be meant to evoke Circe but is risible). Kothar is more earthy than the stoic Thongor or the enigmatic John Carter but he completely lacks the emotional range of Conan. The witches are far more interesting; maybe the stories should have been written from their perspective.


In the next post, I'll look at a couple of  Fox's mid-70s Sword and Sorcery novels.


All images are presumed copyright of their respective owners