Swords and heroes.

This year I reread one of my favorite trilogies in the world of fantastic fiction -- the Swords series by the late and prolific fellow Fred, Fred Saberhagen. I had been meaning to do so for years, but couldn't find my copies. (I think a relative absconded with them.) So I bought them again and I'm glad I did. 

Fred Saberhagen had a number of distinctions in his career. For example: 

⚔ He had multiple well-loved fantasy series, and one well-loved science fiction series (about the Berserkers, exceptionally adaptive robotic enemies of all life in the universe). 

⚔ He wrote a very successful series about Dracula, bringing in Sherlock Holmes for fun.

⚔ When he began the Swords series in the 1980s, he had an eye toward using it for a video game series. He was ahead of his time -- back then, "the project was deemed technologically infeasible" (according to Dr. Wiki), but no question it could be done now. 

⚔ He became a joke for my unappreciative wife; his work on Dracula stories was so well-known that he wrote the book adaptation of the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula, which was sold as Bram Stoker's Dracula by Fred Saberhagen. Which she thought was hilarious, and she has used "by Fred Saberhagen" as a running gag for years. ("Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind by Fred Saberhagen.") Philistine! 

The main conceit in the Swords books is that the gods have, for their own fun, created twelve swords of the most astonishing and varied powers, and tossed them into the (medieval-level) human world for their own amusement. Little did the gods realize that the Swords were so powerful that they themselves could be harmed by them. Each Sword is virtually indestructible, and has its own hilt symbol and its own superpower, as you can see on this li'l chart I drew up: 

Some of them have an instant appeal. Like Doomgiver, for example -- you could travel in safety anywhere, because no matter what an enemy tried on you, from violence to psychological warfare to sorcery to poison to anything else, just carrying the Sword of Justice would leave you unharmed and inflict the damage on your foe. Farslayer is perfect if you want someone dead, because once you send it flying, nothing can stop it from piercing the heart of your enemy. 

Of course, they all have drawbacks of some kind. The perfect good luck of Coinspinner makes it unbeatable, but the Sword up and vanishes without warning. You can literally defeat an army with Townsaver, but the Sword does nothing protect its wielder, and you still take all the hits -- and once the fight is over, so are you. Wayfinder will lead you to anything you want, but doesn't take the safest path. And if you use Farslayer on your enemy, you'd better hope his friends don't know who sent it, because guess who has the Sword now?

 

Of all of them, only Dragonslicer seems out of place in that it has a weirdly specific purpose: to kill dragons. But in Saberhagen's world, dragons are not friendly, not helpful, not very intelligent -- they are enormous and very much akin to natural disasters, wiping out entire towns, destroying flocks and agricultural lands, bringing down castles. The one with the Sword of Heroes is a hero indeed. 

The original trilogy was so much fun that Saberhagen went on to write an eight-book series with further adventures connected to the Swords. There was even a book of stories by other authors with Swords-related adventures. 

The appeal of these books is all about the magic weapons -- what can they do, what will characters do with them, what happens when forces use them against one another -- and Saberhagen's careful plotting never fails to please the reader. His characters are vivid and memorable. If he has a weakness as a writer, it is that sometimes he lets the reader down with emotional payoffs. In one case, family members are violently separated, each believing the other dead, and are reunited years later, and we don't even get to see the reunion. It's just glossed over. It's like the writer was too busy with other stuff to care. 

We cared! We wanted to see it! 

Oh, well. It's a small price to pay for some very exciting and often terrifying action. The third book of the original trilogy has a god-versus-men battle that is simply outstanding. I can't think of any other scene that was more of a page-turner. And that's only one of the climactic confrontations in the novel. 

So, highly recommended. 

At one time I really hoped that someone would make an adaptation of the series. After reading about Amazon TV's revolting and disrespectful Rings of Power series, however, I no longer hope for that. Moviemakers used to ruin book adaptations by limitations in running time and budgets. Now they ruin them by their lack of talent and insertion of ideology. Who needs it?