Swords and Dark Magic: Steven Erikson's, "Goats of Glory"

I recently read Steven Erikson’s “Goats of Glory,” the first story in the “Swords and Dark Magic Anthology.” I liked it a lot. To a large extent, it has everything I would expect from a sword and sorcery yarn. Here are some highlights:

Conventional Sword and Sorcery Elements

The “secondary world” where the adventures take place is dark, gritty, and unforgiving. It is violent and the violence is portrayed (struggling for the right adjective here) “beautifully.” And the antagonists, rather than being mere mortals, are otherworldy, demented, and imbued with magic. In other words, the main conflict is between the natural/ the immanent—soldiers who are road worn and wielding steel—and the supernatural—demon sorcerers from other planes.

This violent confrontation, between the worldly and the otherworldly is, for me, the essence of sword and sorcery. The mundane and the magical, in sword and sorcery, tend to be suspicious of each other. In this story, this is indeed the case.

Unconventional Sword and Sorcery Elements

In spite of its traditional sword and sorcery elements, there is a lot about this story that is indeed new.

On the level of plot, the protagonist is not a single, lone figure but a group of people, a fellowship. Let me explain why I think this is new.

When I think of sword and sorcery., I often think of “the one versus the many,” the barbarian versus the sorcerer and the spirits he summons. Think of all the Franz Frazetta paintings that depict a single barbarian facing off with a sorcerer or demon. In this story you have a group of people confronting the darkness of sorcery (i.e. demons). I’m probably overstating the case here, but Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, C.L. Moore’s Jorel of Joiry stories, Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone stories, and, to a certain extent, Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories—these all depict a single individual (or a duo) facing a pluralistic force. To some extent, these writers setup this theme of the one versus the many (I get the sense that the “fellowship” of folks fighting against evil is more of an element of high or epic fantasy). In this sword and sorcery yarn you have what seems like a platoon or fellowship facing a (evil?) force together. I am reluctant to write “evil” because sword and sorcery often blurs the distinction between so-called good and evil; this story is no exception.

Secondly, gender is portrayed somewhat neutrally in this story; thus, there are a unique type of “strong women” characters. Sure, you may cite Jorel of Joiry or Red Sonja (or Red Sonja), but the “strong women” in these stories are different. Jorel and Red (the comic book girl or the literary version) are sex objects and unique *because* they are women. Even though they are Medusa-like females who often expose the emptiness of their male antagonists so-called masculinity, they nevertheless become portrayed as sexual objects and are unique because they are women.

In this story, however, this is entirely not the case. The Captain is a woman and this situation is in no way portrayed in this story as unique. Furthermore, the women aren’t portrayed as being “sexy” or attractive; and furthermore—this was an interesting element of this story—they are sexually aggressive, i.e. they seek out males “for hire” when they arrive in town.

I know that non-sexualized woman who seek out sex aren’t anything new as far as fantasy literature; nevertheless, this type of neutral approach to gender in a traditionally masculinist genre like sword and sorcery seems interesting and perhaps new to me.

A reminder: this is the first of a series of reflections I’m going to do on the anthology of new sword and sorcery titled *Swords and Dark Magic,* edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders (New York: EOS, 2010). I’m probably going to take a break from this as I have another post idea in mind. But I’ll return to it later this week.