There is some debate about the definition of "Sword and Sorcery" as a literary genre. The first appearance of the term was in the magazine ANCALAGON in April 1961, where author Fritz Leiber coined the term in a letter to the editor. Here is that letter in it's entirety:
ANCALAGON looks nice, especially the cover (where the art seems nicely gaged to the method of reproduction) and the article on fantasy adventure-- a field which I feel more certain than ever should be called the sword-and-sorcery story. This accurately describes the points of culture-level and supernatural element and also immediately distinguishes it from the cloak-and-sword (historical adventure) story---and (quite incidentally) from the cloak-and-dagger (international espionage) story too! The word sorcery implies something more and other than historical human witchcraft, so even the element of an alien-yet-human world background is hinted at.
At any rate I'll use sword-and-sorcery as a good popular catchphrase for the field. It won't interfere with the use of a more formal designation of the field (such as the "non-historical fantasy adventure" which Sprague once suggested in a review of Smith Abominations of Yondro in AMRA) when one comes along or is finally settled on.
Of course there will always be wide fringes of border-land around a story-area like this, and too-carefull efforts at placing any single story or sets of stories may result in a sort of nonsense. For instance Burrough's John Carter stories have so much the feel of sword-and-sorcery (rather than science fiction) that one immediately wants at least a new category for them-- sword-and-superscience? To me, Burroughs' Mars stories are Atlantis-on-Mars and no more science fiction that Smith's / Clark Ashton/ stories of Atlantis-- or no
less science fiction... Ah well.
About my own stories. The one you're missing is "When the Sea King's Away" from the May 1960
Fantastic. And the short novel
Adept's Gambit from my Arkham House book,
Night's Black Agents--- though that tale rouses all sorts of problems, as Fafhrd and the Mouser are presented most anachronistically in Asia of the Seleucid Dynasty. Perhaps I'll someday transfer that tale to Lankhmar or (more likely) provide a time-travel link to justify it.
But the best news (I certainly think) is that the May
Fantastic, out in a month, will carry a 23,500-word novelet of the Twain called "Scylla's Daughter". The story is laid in Nehwon and Lankhmar, I hasten to say, and yet the classical allusion of the title is fully justified. This is a story I've been meaning to write for 25 years and it's good to have it done-- or rather begun, as there'll be room for sequels. If people really like it I'm hoping a few of them will drop
Fantastic a line to that effect, as editors are influenced by mail they get and it's good (nay, rather, amazing) to have a magazine once more interested in this sort of story.
FRITZ LEIBER
833 Ocean Ave.
Santa Monica, Calif.
