In Lands That Never Were: Tales of Swords and Sorcery from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction [Paperback]

Gordon Van Gelder (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 12, 2004

Long before Arnold attempted a pale copy, Conan the Barbarian held sway over the land, and all was swell. Neither man nor woman, beast nor spirit could rival him. Then, for many a day, he disappeared ... but lo, now he's back! Conan is featured, together with some of fantasy's favorite characters, in this compendium of swordplay and wizardry, fleet-footed thieves and flat-footed palace guards, witches and man-eating leopards, giants and giant slugs. In Lands That Never Were also Includes introductions to each story by the editor.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

For more than half a century, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has been the leading forum for the most literate sf and fantasy. Hence it may surprise many F&SF stalwarts when they discover this new and entertaining anthology culled from its pages but devoted to swords-and-sorcery fantasy--a subgenre generally confined to less noble publications. The quality of writing on view is nonetheless up to F&SF standards, and the writers include many familiar names, from Fritz Leiber, whose award-winning "Ill Met in Lankhmar" features his popular swashbuckling thieves Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, to Ursula LeGuin, who contributes one of her Earthsea tales. An engaging, early Conan the Barbarian episode by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp opens the volume, and Jeffrey Ford's satirical jab at similar barbarian swordsmen, "The Fantasy Writer's Assistant," concludes. In between are enough dragons, wizards, and medieval skulduggery to satisfy even the most demanding swords-and-sorcery devotee and enough plain good writing to make its admirers take a peek. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 395 pages
• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press (August 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568583141
• ISBN-13: 978-1568583143
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,963,298 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gordon Van Gelder worked as a book editor for St. Martin's Press for more than a decade. He has been the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction since 1997. He lives in New jersey.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quality tales of adventure and magic, October 19, 2005

By 

the_smoking_quill (South Carolina) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: In Lands That Never Were: Tales of Swords and Sorcery from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (Paperback)

This is a collection of short stories and novellas from aleading speculative fiction magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Selected by its current, award-winning editor, Gordon Van Gelder, these stories span the years from 1967-2004 (with most being more recent) and, for the most part, feature excellent writing from veterans and newcomers alike. A quick inventory:

* The Hall of the Dead, Robert Howard and L. Sprague de Camp: Old-school adventure featuring a young, thieving Conan and a cursed city. (Written by de Camp from Howard's outline; the outline and many of Howard's original Conan tales may be found in the excellent collection, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian.)
* A Hedge Against Alchemy, John Morressy: a wizard confronts a rock-brained barbarian; self-consciously witty but a quick read
* Ill Met in Lankhmar, Fritz Leiber: the classic account of the initial, tragic meeting of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; a must-read for S&S fans. (This and the duo's other initial adventures may be found in a collection called The Three of Swords.)
* Counting the Shapes, Yoon Ha Lee: a poignant reunion of a sorceress and her long-lost son in the midst of war
* Firebird, R. Garcia y Robertson: fresh, Russian-flavored girl-meets-knight story; fantastic setting
* Dragon's Gate, Pat Murphy: a tomboy-bard seeks a dragon's help; painless but a bit obvious
* After the Gaud Chrysalis, Charles Coleman Finlay: the second adventure of the swordsman Vertir and the scribe Kuikan; excellent description ("showing") of setting and characterization. (Their first adventure, For Want of a Nail, is in the March 2003 issue; their third, Of Silence & the Man at Arms, is in the June 2005 issue.)
* The Swordsman Whose Name Was Not Death, Ellen Kushner: master duelist Richard St. Vier and his moody scribe/friend/lover Alec cope with a persistent visitor; you'll likely either love or hate Kushner's tales of these two (which feature no magic, abundant intrigue, and are set in a city akin to 16th-17th century London or Paris. Their complete doings may be found in the recent edition of the novel Swordspoint.)
* The Island in the Lake, Phyllis Eisenstein: Alaric the magical minstrel investigates the noble household that dwells in the center of a poisonous lake
* Darkrose & Diamond, Ursula Le Guin: more gorgeous prose from a grand master
* King Rainjoy's Tears, Chris Willrich: the second adventure of the poet Persimmon Gaunt and her long-lived lover, the thief Imago Bone; one of the best stories here. (Their similarly excellent first adventure may be found in the June 2000 issue. One hopes for more tales from this talented author--or at least a website.)
* The Fantasy Writer's Assistant, Jeffrey Ford: the only story here set (partially) in the present day; a student takes a part-time job as a consistency-checker for a prolific chronicler of Conan-esque yarns. (Be sure to check out Ford's collection, The FWA & Other Stories, as well as his more recent work. The neatly crafted "The Empire of Ice Cream" may be found in the 2005 Nebula Awards collection.)

Overall, a solid collection of tales that will please most fans of heroic fantasy and S&S. Four steel-bright stars.

Footnote: The introduction notes that there may be a distinction between heroic fantasy and S&S. Through the efforts of Howard Andrew Jones and others at swordandsorcery.org (the Flashing Swords e-zine), that distinction has finally been defined. (In a nutshell, S&S is 'fantasy with dirt' and less-than-noble characters most often opposed by magic rather than aided by it.) By this standard, the only true S&S tales in those collection are those featuring Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Vertir and Kuikan, and Persimmon Gaunt and Imago Bone. I mention this simply for the benefit of the most zealous among us. ;)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Classic tales and new interpretations of this timeless subgenre., August 3, 2006

By 

Scott Andrews (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Lands That Never Were: Tales of Swords and Sorcery from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (Paperback)

_In Lands That Never Were_ includes several classic epic fantasy / swords and sorcery heroes and a few brilliant modern renditions of that timeless subgenre, culled from over fifty years of _The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction_.

A Conan story fittingly opens this anthology, as Robert E. Howard's barbarian is the most famous fantasy character ever. Fritz Leiber invented the "duo of rogues" pairing with his barbarian Fafhrd and thief the Grey Mouser. "Ill Met in Lankhmar" tells of their first meeting, when the infiltrate a thieves' guild.

Two brilliant young writers use this classic duo format to spin their own tales that blend sword and sorcery with cerebral modern elements. Charles Coleman Finlay sends his rogues Kuikin and Vertir on a vivid quest through jungles to recover the chrysalis of a hibernating god. Chris Willrich's duo includes a thief and a poet. They ruminate on the nature of emotion as they seek the physical embodiment of an old king's sorrow, created by the king's bargain with a dark sorcerer.

Unfortunately, few of the other stories in _Lands_ live up to the wild adventure of Leiber or the clever concepts of Finlay and Willrich. Ellen Kushner offers a glimpse of the heroes from her dueling novel _Swordspoint_, and Ursula LeGuin returns to the world of her Earthsea novels. But these stories, and the meandering tales by R. Garcia y Robertson and Pat Murphy, never leap off the page with vivid imagination.

_Lands_ offers a good introduction to classic as well as modern swords and sorcery, including tales from the two writers who defined the genre and the two modern writers best continuing it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader, June 15, 2008

By 

Blue Tyson "- Research Finished" (Legion clubhouse) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Lands That Never Were: Tales of Swords and Sorcery from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (Paperback)

Very impressive. An anthology that averages over 4.00, and for me, a fantasy selection at that is a great find. Even more so given the editor has selected stories from one source, although a profilic one, being the magazine in the title. He also is focusing on more recent stories, as in nineties and noughties, too, which is very cool.

The editor says "I'm looking to bring you a collection of terrific stories united by their common goal of telling a rousing good story set in a land that never was."

The criticisms would be structural here, which is fairly minor. The end of the book has a lot less 'rousing' than the start, so a bit better ordering, particularly splitting the Howard and Leiber may have made more sense. Anyone familiar with Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint novel will know the sort of thing they will get here, a non-fantastic fantasy if you like, with the second world furniture that could easily be somewhere in Europe a few hundred years ago.

He also contradicts himself with the last story, by having a meta tale actually set in what is supposed to be in the real world, not a land that never was. Almost as though a case of I really like this writer, but he doesn't write anything remotely fitting (compared to say, Charles Coleman Finlay, who could probably talk about swordsmen and sorcerers for hours in the pub, I'd imagine), so I will whack this piece in. I'd guess Ford's story is the one that is likely to annoy people the most, and he doesn't really carry it off with the aplomb of a Terry Pratchett to make it more palatable, even though I still liked it.

People that find very wearying, not to mention annoying stories with writers writing about writers whingeing about writers whingeing about writing sort of stuff can skip the last story.

Overall, however, what you will find here is an outstanding anthology containing only good to very good stories of fantasy of a general considerably more popular kind of thing that a lot of people will mean when they talk about that sort of book.

In Lands That Never Were : 01 The Hall of the Dead - Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
In Lands That Never Were : 02 A Hedge Against Alchemy - John Morressy
In Lands That Never Were : 03 Ill Met in Lankhmar [short story] - Fritz Leiber
In Lands That Never Were : 04 Counting the Shapes - Yoon Ha Lee
In Lands That Never Were : 05 Firebird [short story] - R. Garcia y Robertson
In Lands That Never Were : 06 Dragon's Gate - Pat Murphy
In Lands That Never Were : 07 After the Gaud Chrysalis - Charles Coleman Finlay
In Lands That Never Were : 08 The Swordsman Whose Name Was Not Death - Ellen Kushner
In Lands That Never Were : 09 The Island in the Lake - Phyllis Eisenstein
In Lands That Never Were : 10 Darkrose and Diamond - Ursula K. Le Guin
In Lands That Never Were : 11 King Rainjoy's Tears - Chris Willrich
In Lands That Never Were : 12 The Fantasy Writer's Assistant - Jeffrey Ford


De Camp completed this from an outline of Howard's that was found. Conan has left Shadrizar to look for the treasure of Larsha, and a squad of soldiers, out to arrest him for other larceny are on his trail.

He deals with most of them, but the leader, Nestor is not dead and follows him into the city, meeting him in the treasure room after he deals with a giant slug.

They leave, quickly, when mummified warriors come to life and the building starts collapsing. Their loot is not too stable, and not enjoyed for long.

3 out of 5


How about gold into lead, you barbarians?

4 out of 5


Twosome's Thieves Guild tormenting leads to tragedy and travel.

4.5 out of 5


Maternal mathemagic champion.

4.5 out of 5


Witchiepoo's cat cunning and troll-bear stops knight's losing streak.

4 out of 5


Icy bloody demand for mum needs dragon empathy transformation.

4 out of 5


A sorcerer wanting to make a deal with an immortal monster has a Vertir, Kuikin and cousin disadvantage to deal with.

4 out of 5


Boy disguised as a girl disguised as a boy's sharp lesson.

4.5 out of 5


Minstrel ghost's poison protection.

4 out of 5


I'll be screwing, you wizard, and the rock and roll lifestyle is enough magic for me.

4 out of 5


Salting and Misting and Scalding will make you more than cry.

4 out of 5


Metawriting not heroic.

4 out of 5