Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
BY THE LIGHT OF A STRANGE STAR, a Look at the Science Fiction subgenre of Sword and Planet by Joseph Armstead (JosephArmstead)
Stars and moons, alien kingdoms and space barbarians, strange cultures and courageous adventurers, vengeance and doomed romance ..., once upon a time these elements were the basic tenets of post- World War I-era weird fiction, the kind of episodic storytelling found in early 20th century pulp magazines like "Weird Tales", "Planet Stories" and "Amazing Stories". In a time when the reading public was still reeling from the loss-of-innocence and socio-political fallout of the end of the First World War, a new formula for imagination-driven, fictional narrative resulted in a very specialized the kind of often-serialized fantastic fiction. The fundamental components of western adventures and pirate stories were awkwardly blended into standard science fiction fare to birth a relatively popular, if critically and academically adolescent, literary chimera.
Building on the working class popularity of the Sword and Sorcery tales of Robert E. Howard's ConanSaga and the fanciful exploits novelized in Edwin Lester Arnold's Lieutenant Gullivar Jones story, the genre of "Sword and Planet" appeared. It was presented as a subgenre of Science Fiction (or even, perhaps, Science Fantasy) anchored by male-centric heroic-fantasy adventures whose name derives from the literary conceit of its protagonists engaging their adversaries in hand-to-hand combat primarily with weapons like swords, as opposed to ray guns, even in exotic Off-Earth settings often possessed of advanced technology.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Though Science Fiction's Sword and Planet subgenre actually predates the popularity of mainstream science fiction, its plot points and execution doesn't rely on any actual scientific specificity, the tales being instead swashbuckling tales of high adventure. The Sword and Planet subgenre is mostly true to its naming convention: containing both swords and planets, formulaically presenting the idea of an Earth-human male traveling to an alien planet by some esoteric means, where he meets and interacts with the primitive, vaguely human locals and becomes embroiled in all manner of adventures, usually centered around kingdoms and conquest with medieval court intrigues and battles, wherein the hero basically stabs villains with his sword. Sword and Planet stories are presented as a romanticized version of Space Opera. Often there are broad-stroked elements of Historical Fantasy included in the world-building. Anachronisms abound. So, too, unfortunately, does blatant sexism, veiled racism and cartoonish depictions of machismo wherein the human protagonist is generally considered more heroic and more virile than any native inhabitant of the alien world could ever hope to be.
