2020 is not getting any better, and news of the death of Charles R. Saunders, journalist and Fantasy/Science Fiction author, is disheartening to nerds with discriminating taste who eschew discimination. Charles R. Saunders is primarily known for inventing the 'Sword and Soul' subgenre of Sword and Sorcery fiction, stripping the pulp genre of its often caustic racism (I'm looking at YOU, Robert E. Howard), and serving to 'decolonize the imagination' of readers.
Mr Saunders' body of fiction originally took the form of short stories which were assembled in 'fix-up novels', but the sales of the first story collection were hampered by a lawsuit from the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate regarding an ill-considered cover blurb and the books became very difficult to obtain for all-too-long. Being a journalist, he was also a keen critic of the genre he was trying to subvert, a genre he found full of offensive depictions of black people. His blog is a wealth of now-timely pieces about race and history, covering such topics as the removal of Confederate monuments. If you are reading him for the first time, you will be elated at having discovered him and upset that you have lost him. For lighter reading, he wrote a great essay on the mythological creatures of Africa that was published in Dragon Magazine 122, detailing such critters as the one-legged, nine-buttocked chemosit.
Charles R. Saunders should be better known, especially in light of renewed interest in the 'weird tales' of the early 20th century pulps. His early works were responses to, and rebuttals of, those problematic works, but they transcend response and rebuttal, standing on their own as entertaining adventure yarns in their own right. If you are a fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy literature, check out his work as a welcome change from 'the elfy stuff' and join in mourning the loss of this pioneer.
3 comments:
Thank you for this. I confess to have never having heard of Charles Saunders, but thanks to you, I will go and search out his work.
You won't be disappointed. It's a privilege to be able to introduce a reader to a new author who hasn't received sufficient accolades.
Would Michael moorcock's character of Elric of Melniboné and the sword that ate souls even when eleric tried to restrain it qualify as Sword and Soul.
Remember Elric of Melniboné was an agent of balance between choas and rigid ( stagnateing) Order.
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