Fans of the original Conan stories and the de Camp/Carter pastiches inspired by them will be familiar with the character of Sigurd of Vanaheim, a boastful, red-haired and bearded slayer and reaver wielding a deadly double-bladed battle axe. He was one of Conan’s few friends of long-standing even though their respective peoples, the Vanir and…

Many fans of The Lord of the Rings will know that after Saruman the White's fall, he was known not only as Saruman the Many-Coloured, but also as Saruman the Traitor. But while his treason in latter days seems clear, what caused him to fall into treachery? Was it simply moral corruption on his part,…

while not canvassed in the original works of Robert E. Howard in the 1930s, the 1960s era pastiches of L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter brought the Hyborian World of Conan, the world’s most savage barbarian, to the attention of a new generation of readers. Their 1968 story Conan of the Isles culminated in…