Flashing Swords

Flashing Swords is a 1973 sword and sorcery anthology edited by Lin Carter. The collection features five original stories from established authors in the fantasy genre including Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, and Poul Anderson. The stories follow different heroes through separate adventures involving swordplay, magic, and dangerous quests. Each tale stands alone but shares common genre elements like warrior protagonists, supernatural threats, and medieval-inspired settings. The collection preserves the pulp sword and sorcery style popularized in the 1930s while showcasing newer developments in the genre. Carter provides introductions to each story with context about the authors and their contributions to fantasy literature. The anthology demonstrates how the sword and sorcery subgenre balances action-driven plots with underlying themes of honor, power, and human nature versus supernatural forces. The stories highlight the genre's focus on individual heroes facing otherworldly challenges through both physical prowess and cunning.

Reviews describe this sword & sorcery anthology as an uneven mix of stories, with the quality varying between entries. Readers highlighted George R.R. Martin's "The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr" as the standout piece. Multiple reviewers noted Fritz Leiber's story maintains the familiar Fafhrd and Gray Mouser style. Several praised Lin Carter's editorial selections for featuring both established authors and newer voices. Common criticisms focused on dated writing styles and weak endings in some stories. Multiple readers found Carter's own contribution to be the weakest in the collection. Some felt the anthology didn't live up to its promise of showcasing the best new sword & sorcery tales. Ratings: Goodreads: 3.6/5 (87 ratings) Amazon: 4/5 (6 ratings) "Worth reading for Martin's story alone," notes one Goodreads reviewer. Another states "The quality drops off sharply after the first two stories." LibraryThing users rate it 3.5/5 across 28 reviews, with most calling it "average" or "serviceable."

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🗡️ Lin Carter created and edited the "Flashing Swords!" anthology series while also serving as the editor of the influential Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which helped revive interest in fantasy literature during the 1960s and '70s. ⚔️ The book features original sword and sorcery tales from some of the genre's most prominent authors, including Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, and John Jakes. 🏰 "Flashing Swords!" spawned four sequels between 1973 and 1981, each featuring new stories from leading fantasy authors of the era. 📚 Lin Carter coined the term "imaginary world fantasy" to describe works like those featured in the anthology, helping to define and categorize different subgenres of fantasy literature. 🎭 Many of the stories in the anthology were written specifically for the collection by members of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), an informal writers' group Carter founded in 1960.