Semi OT: Novels with Swords or Knives

ddean

ddean

Joined
Mar 26, 2002
Messages
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What novels do you recommend that feature knives or swords?

I recommend a series of 4 by Dennis Schmidt.

-Way-Farer *
--Kensho
---Satori
----Wanderer

Read them in order *.
In the beginning:
Colony from Earth
besieged by mental parasites,
Zen,
& the Way of the Sword.

Originally read them Oh so many years ago.
First book has the
"young student continually beaten up by old master"
section.
Well done.
 
The Vlad the Assasin series by Stephen Brust features lots of edged weapons. I kind of lost interest after the 5th on or there abouts. Entertaining, but hardly the best of the genre. Any Conan stories are going to feature swords to some degree. It will depend on the author a bit though. For those that are not familiar. Conan was invented by Howard, but many used the character, Howard was OK with that. Him, Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and others of that period shared many elements of their stories, regardless of who had the original idea. Sort of how comic books operate today.
 
Up to about 1600 CE, many histories, military and otherwise, feature swords.

Beowulf
Saga of the Jomsvikings
Greek and Roman classics
Battle of Maldon
Shakespeare, the Histories and the tragedies, mostly
Warfare in the Classical World, by John Warry
The Osprey Man-at-arms series, hundreds of books in the series.
The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England, H.R. Ellis Davidson.
Any number of medieval warfar or warcraft books.

\\and of course, Sir Richard Burton's Book of the Sword--Quintessential reading here, especially if you want ot understand the origins and uses of the sword thwe world round.

This is the short list.
 
For Greek & Roman era I'd recommend Stephen Pressfield.
His "Last of the Amazons" was very entertaining.
For fantasy, I'd recommend "The Black Company" series by Glen Cook.
 
I like it medieval

the Artus-Novel
Erec (Hartmann of Aue)
Iwein (Hartmann of Aue)
Tristan (Gottfried of Strassburg)
Parzival (Wofram of Eschenbach)
or the Nibelung-Saga with Siegfried`s Sword Balmung

However most of them I read in middle high German - a wonderful experience - but very hard if not impossible for non German-speakers. I do not know if good English translations exist - maybe Ferrous knows :confused:

I like the classic knight-novels too (Scott: Ivanhoe etc.)

Andreas
 
Mentioned earlier was "Glory Road" By Robert Heinlein. There's "Swordspoint" by Ellen Kushner, but I'm not sure how many of you will like it.
"The Drawing of the Dark" by Tim Powers is a great book and there's lots of swords play and little of its accurate. Still, it's a good book and I recomend it.
"The Broken Sword" and "Hrolf Kraki's Saga" by Poul Anderson are both terrific, if sad, books.
 
Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series is one of my favorite's for sword and scorcery, along with Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series. Don't read the two concurrently, they are of such similar idiom that a feller can get confused about which is which.

Sarge
 
Following up on Mr.BadExample, Pressfield's Gates of Fire is a great novelization of the battle at Thermoplyae.

There's also Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, about a British rifleman in India and the Napoleonic Wars.

There's some sword-work in my latest read, Stephenson's Quicksilver, but not enough to read the 920 pages if you're looking for alot of fighting :D
 
I had lots of fun with Dumarest Saga by E.C.Tubb. Earl Dumarest, lost in space in his childhood, carries his knife and uses it at least once in every episode. Survival in wilderness, fight in arena, escape from his trans-galactic, hi-tech enemy.
Sounds stereotype? You'll get used to it after reading 10 of the series, and will enjoy the rest 20 books.
 
Just cracked Quicksilver myself.

Another good one is "The Peshawar Lancers", by Sterling. Alternative history, mostly set in India. It was mentioned in this forum some months ago.

Also, Raphael Sabatini's "Scaramouche" and "Master-At-Arms". He also wrote "Captain Blood" and a bunch of other great stuff.
 
Sarge, you took my answer! I knew you were all right, I just couldn't put my finger on it before. It must be your taste in literature. :D
 
Um, okay. Never let it be said that I didn't give a book or a knife a good home.

If any of you guys liked Gates of Fire, look for Thermopylae, The Battle for the West, by Ernle Bradford. Non fiction, but a great read. He did a stellar bio of Hannibal (called, appropriately enough, Hannibal) as well. Definitely worth your time, and I'm pretty sure both are still in print.
 
If you guys haven't found them yet, get George RR Martin's books. First one is Game of Thrones, two more follow, with more on the way. Takes Jordan's WoT series and beats it like a rented mule.
 
The first 2-3 'Amber' books by Roger Zelazny all had a good bit of swordplay. Definitely recommended in their own right, too. They are sci-fi/fantasy.
 
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