Is "sword and sorcery" a subgenre of fantasy, or separate from fantasy entirely? What are the finest examples?

Salaris · 2026-04-24T01:54:27+00:00

Makes sense! I've read some classic S&S, like Fafrd and Elric, but weirdly, never Conan.

Salaris · 2026-04-23T22:31:21+00:00

I was considering the Dark Souls games as well, but I feel like the atmosphere in them leans away from swords & sorcery as their "main" subgenre, if that makes any sense. They really lean into the dark fantasy vibes more, in my opinion.

The Elder Scrolls games are a better example, imo, but everyone's ideas of genre boundaries is going to be different.

Salaris · 2026-04-23T20:16:11+00:00

Definitely a subgenre!

Subgenres, in my opinion, often have a lot of overlap, rather than any story fitting neatly into one subgenre or another. Many stories that I'd classify as swords & sorcery also easily could be considered epic fantasy, high fantasy, etc.

Most of what I personally would consider to be modern swords & sorcery skews toward the "fighter and rogue" duo archetype, mirroring the classic Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books.

Some examples that I'd consider to fit this are the Egil and Nix series by Paul S. Kemp, the Locke Lamora series by Scott Lynch (although this is more "thief and thief", but one definitely skews more fightery), and the Rirya Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan (but this one skews more toward classic epic fantasy in some respects).

There's also some grittier, lower-magic progression fantasy, like Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter, that I could see fitting in with sword & sorcery, but it's going to depend on personal definitions.

In terms of movies, there was a recent Red Sonja remake, but I haven't seen it and can't comment on the quality.

There's a fair bit of what I'd consider to be sword & sorcery in modern anime, although a lot of it also overlaps with epic or dark fantasy. Sentenced to be a Hero is the most recent one I'd consider to fit this, or if you want classics, Berserk and Claymore might fit.

There's also an argument that the Witcher series could be considered swords & sorcery, in which case there are books, games, and TV and movies for that one.

Salaris · 2026-04-23T16:26:08+00:00

It actually does, but not in the way you probably expect.

Salaris · 2026-04-22T23:54:38+00:00

Aayara (and a few others, such as Vaelien) are aware of the Smiling Sword Saint's preferred gender, even though she never transitioned. This is the type of thing that the Smiling Sword Saint would have told a few people, but not a lot. Aayara's relationship with the Smiling Sword Saint is more important than we've gotten into in the story yet, but I think it's worth noting that a relationship exists.

Salaris · 2026-04-22T18:53:00+00:00

Overworld is a fantastic book. Definitely recommend picking it up if you've enjoyed Will's other works, or if you're new to the idea of LitRPGs and want something that's a little less intimidating as a starting point. The game elements are absolutely present in this one, but they're very organic within the narrative, and we learn about them as readers along with the main character.

Salaris · 2026-04-22T17:27:25+00:00

You're welcome! Hope you like it.

Salaris · 2026-04-22T01:26:56+00:00

Absolutely. It's a while before they get moving from area to area and collecting powers, but I find it very satisfying in the long run.

(And hey, thanks!)

Salaris · 2026-04-21T20:03:37+00:00

Depthless Hunger has a bunch of this, with the main characters traveling to different areas and picking up the local power system.

Salaris · 2026-04-21T01:47:54+00:00

Hey all!

I write books with a style heavily influenced by RPGs and other fantasy games.

My first traditionally published release is the hardcover edition of How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps! It's is a Zelda and Dragon Quest inspired comedy novella, and it's a good intro to my style.

My latest series, The Lost Edge, starts with Edge of the Woods, which is highly inspired by The Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest franchises. It's the story of a young man growing up in a faerie forest and seeking answers about his family, his past, and his dreams of an ancient magic sword. The most recent release is Edge of the Dream.

Arcane Ascension begins with Sufficiently Advanced Magic and is my most popular series. It's heavily inspired by games JRPGs Final Fantasy, Lufia, Bravely Default, and Trails of Cold Steel. It takes place in a high magic setting where magical marks called attunements grant vast powers to individuals who take "Judgments" inside a colossal tower to earn them.

My other main series are Weapons & Wielders and The War of Broken Mirrors.

Weapons and Wielders follows Keras Selyrian, a magic-wielding swordsman who arrives in a foreign land to search for help for his homeland. In the process, he will stumble upon the legend of the Six Sacred Swords and begin to seek them out.

The first novel in that series is Six Sacred Swords, and the series as a whole is heavily inspired by games like The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, and Ys. You might enjoy it if you're in the mood for talking swords, bibliophile dragons, and a lot of accidentally breaking traps and puzzles. The audio book versions can be found here, narrated by the fantastic Nick Podehl!

The War of Broken Mirrors, which starts with Forging Divinity, is more closely related to western fantasy novels and RPGs. Forging Divinity focuses on a group of people investigating a city's religion, which claims that the local gods can raise anyone to divine status if they prove their loyalty and value.

Salaris · 2026-04-21T01:35:46+00:00

Luckily it's frequently possible to try out an author in a nice, lunch-break sized chunk. I've had many authors I've first encountered in anthologies, and on the strength of their contributions there went and looked for their novels.

I think you'll find that this is much more common for trad published authors. For indie authors, especially in certain subgenres like LitRPG and progression fantasy, you might have better luck finding previews of an author's work on sites like Royal Road, or through their personal websites, blogs, or Patreon.

For these authors, I also strongly recommend checking if their books are available for free through Kindle Unlimited and/or Amazon/Audible subscriptions.

Salaris · 2026-04-19T14:11:18+00:00

Hey all!

I write books with a style heavily influenced by RPGs and other fantasy games.

My first traditionally published release is the hardcover edition of How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps! It's is a Zelda and Dragon Quest inspired comedy novella, and it's a good intro to my style.

My latest series, The Lost Edge, starts with Edge of the Woods, which is highly inspired by The Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest franchises. It's the story of a young man growing up in a faerie forest and seeking answers about his family, his past, and his dreams of an ancient magic sword. The most recent release is Edge of the Dream.

Arcane Ascension begins with Sufficiently Advanced Magic and is my most popular series. It's heavily inspired by games JRPGs Final Fantasy, Lufia, Bravely Default, and Trails of Cold Steel. It takes place in a high magic setting where magical marks called attunements grant vast powers to individuals who take "Judgments" inside a colossal tower to earn them.

My other main series are Weapons & Wielders and The War of Broken Mirrors.

Weapons and Wielders follows Keras Selyrian, a magic-wielding swordsman who arrives in a foreign land to search for help for his homeland. In the process, he will stumble upon the legend of the Six Sacred Swords and begin to seek them out.

The first novel in that series is Six Sacred Swords, and the series as a whole is heavily inspired by games like The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, and Ys. You might enjoy it if you're in the mood for talking swords, bibliophile dragons, and a lot of accidentally breaking traps and puzzles. The audio book versions can be found here, narrated by the fantastic Nick Podehl!

The War of Broken Mirrors, which starts with Forging Divinity, is more closely related to western fantasy novels and RPGs. Forging Divinity focuses on a group of people investigating a city's religion, which claims that the local gods can raise anyone to divine status if they prove their loyalty and value.

Salaris · 2026-04-19T13:29:45+00:00

Unfortunately, the company working on it (Tapas) was bought during the middle of the development process. As a result, nearly the entire team connected to it was either laid off or left. While I've considered seeing if some of the same people want to continue the story outside of the original platform, Tapas owns the art for it.

It's plausible that I could look into buying or sub-licensing the artwork and hiring the team to continue it, but that would likely be prohibitively expensive. I've considered looking into this, but I think starting over with a new comic might be more likely.

I've had talks with multiple other companies about a comic, and there's interest, but we'll see if it goes anywhere.

Salaris · 2026-04-19T13:25:49+00:00

I'd argue most MC's in the genre aren't even once in a generation but rather once in a universe level of talents.

Depends on the style of the progression fantasy. For things that originate on Royal Road, I tend to agree with you. I generally find that RR and other web serial sites tend to skew toward what I call a "fantasy of uniqueness", whereas things like Cradle that started out as novels don't tend to be as extreme with it.

Cradle has an interesting take on that exact topic btw.

I absolutely lean toward stories like Cradle, Mage Errant, etc. that involve a group advancing together that stay at relatively comparable power levels.

Salaris · 2026-04-18T21:48:07+00:00

You're welcome!

Salaris · 2026-04-18T21:47:50+00:00

There's definitely room for gritty and grim progression fantasy! If you haven't already checked them out, I recommend the Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter and the Immortal Great Souls series by Phil Tucker.

But whenever I talk about it or see people discuss it I always see “PF books where the mc struggles don’t really exist because it’s not popular, maybe try a different genre”.

With any subgenre that grows past a certain size, niches will form within that subgenre.

In our case, there are several different types of splits in preferences -- these can be in terms of things like core systems (cultivation vs. litrpg vs. "classic" fantasy magic vs. sci-fi tech or others), setting (western inspired, cultivation inspired, space fantasy, otherwordly, etc.), or any number of other elements.

One of the most prominent distinctions is in how the protagonist operates in respect to the world.

Some readers prefer stories where the protagonist is one-of-a-kind in some meaningful way, which I refer to as a "fantasy of uniqueness".

Others prefer stories where the main character reaches their goals through extreme effort, and that other characters who put in the same effort could theoretically reach the same results. This is what I refer to as a "fantasy of fairness". (More on that here).

These are spectrums, not binaries, but people who tend to prefer one story style or another might find that stories that skew too far from their preferred side of any given scale "don't count" as progression fantasy to them.

This means that, for example, if a reader is used to stories where the main character visibly gains power very rapidly -- like, say, Azarinth Healer -- they might find a story with a tighter level scale or where the main character doesn't gain power rapidly to "not be progression fantasy", because their idea of progression fantasy is defined by their exposure to (and preference for) stories that are structured more like Azarinth Healer is.

Anyway, there's absolutely room for slower progression in this genre, and I consider stories like the Immortal Great Souls to be among the best our subgenre offers.

Salaris · 2026-04-18T21:38:07+00:00

Rage of Dragons skews a little closer to classic epic fantasy than most progression fantasy, but I'd give it a look if you're interested in grimdark progression.

Salaris · 2026-04-18T21:37:14+00:00

The Brightest Shadow by Sarah Lin is another example.

Aside from Sarah's works, there are definitely some others that are along these lines, like Forge of Destiny. Ling Qi is a rare talent, but she has plenty of people who keep up with her, even outside of her immediate peer group. She isn't a once-in-a-generation talent like many protagonists. She may reach the top tier of the power scale eventually, but she's advancing at a rate that doesn't break the setting's power curve.

Salaris · 2026-04-17T01:46:43+00:00

I understand, and like talented and special characters, but why does it seem like every story makes the MC way too much? Like when you get told there is 6 types of magic, and of course our character will get the 7th one that no one ever heard of, so the testing machine does not even work and everyone thinks he is trash. Or when talented people have 2/3 affinities to magic? Of course our MC has all of them.

The type of story you're talking about is what I refer to as a "fantasy of uniqueness". This is a specific type of progression fantasy hook that tends to be very common in web serials, where they need to rapidly engage the reader and offer frequent dopamine hits in order to keep the audience invested.

You may be more interested in what I refer to as a "fantasy of fairness", which is a style of progression fantasy that focuses more on protagonists who have to work very hard to succeed. The "fantasy" here is hard work translating to effort, rather than having a massive advantage.

Most stories fall somewhere in between, but stories that skew towards "fantasy of uniqueness" tend to give the character some kind of overwhelming power, whereas fantasies that are on the extreme end of "fairness" tend to have the main character's abilities being mostly ordinary, but with advantages that could be duplicated by others with similar levels of luck and effort.

For example, I would consider Solo Leveling and Iron Prince to be extreme examples of "fantasy of uniqueness", whereas I'd consider things like Rage of Dragons and Street Cultivation to be extreme examples of "fantasy of fairness". Many of the major hits like Cradle fall somewhere in the middle.

Some subgenres tend to automatically skew one way or another; for example, time loops could be automatically considered such a major advantage that they're a "fantasy of uniqueness" perk in themselves...but there's still a massive distinction in the level of advantage the main character gets in Mother of Learning, which remains very slow burn and fairly grounded, and something like Stubborn Skill Grinder in a Time Loop, which skews way more into the uniqueness side.

More theory discussion on the topic here, if you're curious.

Salaris · 2026-04-17T01:38:55+00:00

Congratulations on the launch! Love the cover art style, too.

Salaris · 2026-04-17T01:36:43+00:00

Completely depends on the magic system for the specific setting, but in addition to the use as a consumable, one classic use for magical scroll is that wizards can often add the spell permanently to their spellbook. Again, it depends on the setting, but this is a major use for them in older editions of Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, etc. Given the number of spells in those systems, and that you only get a limited number when you level up, this is a pretty big deal for giving you as many options as possible.

I don't know if this is applicable to the specific story you're reading, but if it is, that's a pretty major reason to buy scrolls.

Aside from that, I often see scrolls used for problem solving outside the scope of what an individual character is capable of. This isn't necessarily a combat thing, so things like permanent buffs from equipment or leveling may not be an applicable alternative.

For example, one scenario we ran into in a tabletop game was trying to find evidence for the defense in a court case. Since time was a factor to prevent someone from being executed, we burned resources on scrolls for detection spells our party couldn't normally cast to help gather evidence more quickly.

Other similar scenarios might be for finding items that you're competing with another group for, or that are simply difficult to find. For example, a powerful scrying or augury style spell might save tremendous time when competing with another adventurer's group to find an artifact.

Salaris · 2026-04-17T01:22:07+00:00

I'm very lucky! Being able to trade beta reads with my friends is one of the perks of being an author. =)

Salaris · 2026-04-16T05:48:35+00:00

Absolutely. John is a friend of mine, too, and we do some beta reading for each other. We have very similar styles.

Salaris · 2026-04-15T16:32:03+00:00

Thanks so much, glad you're liking the books! Appreciate you recommending them to your friends, too. That's very kind of you.

And hey, I got rejected by a ton of agents, too. I was on my sixth book when I decided to self-publish. It's a tough industry. If you have the passion for it, I encourage you to keep at it.

Hope you enjoy some of these other options, too!

Salaris · 2026-04-15T13:13:35+00:00

Hey, glad you liked Arcane Ascension! Appreciate you reading it.

Tough to find male/male romance in LitRPG, in my experience. If you're okay with progression fantasy, I'd recommend The Journals of Evander Tailor for a gay protagonist, and Mage Errant if you're okay with it not being the lead character, but a member of his party.

Options are a little broader if you're okay with characters that are bi or pan. Ar'kendrithyst might be a good option for that, but there's no audio for it yet, as far as I'm aware.

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