Five giants sitting at a table

26 July 2014 by Davide Mana 1 Comment

An extra post, because there’s a photo I found yesterday online, and I think it would fit nicely this sword & sorcery-themed week.

Here’s the pic…

It’s from 1975.
Now, from left to right, you get…

Fritz Leiber Jr. – probably the greatest author of fantasy of the 20th century, bar none. Author of the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series, which is required reading, and the man who coined the expression “sword & sorcery” in the first place.

Lester Del Rey – legendary author and editor, he’s the Del Rey in “Del Rey Books“.

Lyon Sprague de Camp – science fiction and fantasy writer and scholar, whose Harold Shea books were the first fantasy I ever read, and the man responsible for the Lancer/Ace Conan reprints.

Andrew J. Offutt – whose Conan pastiches delighted me even if they feature a most un-Conanish Conan, and a fine author in his own right.

Lin Carter – another legendary editor, the man responsible for Ballantine’s Adult Fantasy series of books, which rescued from obscurity a number of seminal fantasy works.

Five legends, five authors and editors that shaped my reading tastes back when I was a teenager, captured in a single shot.

Author: Davide Mana

Paleontologist. By day, researcher, teacher and ecological statistics guru. By night, pulp fantasy author-publisher, translator and blogger. In the spare time, Orientalist Anonymous, guerilla cook.