Kenneth Bulmer (1921-2005) was born on this day, January 14. A prolific science fiction adventure author, you probably know him better as Alan Burt Akers, author of the long-running Dray Prescott series of sword and planet adventures.
These are basically Burroughs pastiches in which the hero, Dray Prescott, is tranported to a planet orbiting the star Antares in the constellation Scorpio, where he falls in love with a princess, gets separated from her, and tries to return to her. There are fifty-two novels in the series, which is divided up into cycles.
I’ve read the first two books, and I need to read the third, because unlike the first one, the second novel ended on a cliffhanger. Now, which box did I put those books in?
These books fall firmly into the subgenre of swowrd and planet. While not up to the level of that genre’s best practitioners, such as Leigh Brackett (few are), they are solid. At least the first two. I can’t say anything about hte later books.
One thing I’ve noticed about this type of fiction is that the author tends to put in various societies for the purpose of social commentary and to examine how such a society would work. Burroughs did that. So did John Norman, but the less said about Gor, the better for this post.
Bulmer certainly did that in the two books I read.
The approach can have its drawbacks. Often this is done for the purpose of satire, which can be a hard sell for me bacuse the emphasis is on how the author thinks things should or shouldn’t be instead of the adventure. Bulmer does a good job of it in what I’ve read.
Bulmer was quite prolific, and he wrote a number of stand alone novels, as well as some shorter series. You can find a list of them here at the ISFDB.
I’ve not read any of his other work. Other than one or two titles, I don’t recall seeing much of it in second hand stores.
A few years ago, it looked like we were seeing a resurgence in sword and planet fiction. I’ve not see much of the subgenre that’s new in the last year or so, but that might be because I’ve been focusing on mysteries and thrillers.
What other sword and planet series would you suggest?
I have a certain skepticism of satire and social commentary. Satire is often the writer taking certain social trends and taking them to the extreme where they have become pathological and absurd. Thing is anything taken to the extreme is pathological and absurd.
Social commentary is usually just telling you what they think. If it goes along with what the literary elites think it is promoted as incisive. This is usually means from a political left leaning position. (Though there are exceptions.) Thing is social commentary comes across as simplistic.
I agree, which is why I really don’t have much interest in satire. Social commentary I’m a little more flexible on, but not by a lot.