Howard’s nor Karl Edward Wagner’s, anywhere near that number of times. I have definitely not reread any other S&S books, neither Robert E. I’ve probably read all six Corum novels five or six times. Some of them, particularly the assorted Eternal Champion books (Elric, Dorian Hawkmoon, Corum, etc.), I’ve read numerous times.
I did a quick count of how many Moorcock books I’ve read and got over thirty. I ended at least one universe in a very Moorcockian style. Many, many elements in his books wound up in roleplaying sessions. The gradual realization that all of Moorcock’s S&S stories were linked in some crazy pattern made our reading even more compulsive. As soon as one of us finished one series we plunged right into the next. When I was in my mid-teens, all my friends and I devoured these books relentlessly. Its appeal is purely and mind-blowingly visceral. That depiction of Elric, runeblade held high, Horn of Fate trailing behind him, under the storm-wracked heavens, says more about what brings me back to the genre than any book-long disquisition ever could.
civilization and whatnot until the end of the day but, ultimately, this is what I dig. You can talk about heroism, barbarism vs. Michael Whelan’s painting for the 1977 DAW edition of Michael Moorcock’s Stormbringer (1965) is the first time in over two hundred essays I haven’t put the first edition cover first.
⇐ That cover, more than any other, depicts the absolute coolness of swords & sorcery and what I like about it. Greatest of these heroes was a doom-driven adventurer who bore a crooning runeblade that he loathed. And there rose up in this time, which was called the Age of the Young Kingdoms, heroes. There came a time when the destiny of Men and Gods was hammered out upon the forge of Fate, when monstrous wars were brewed and mighty deeds were designed.
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