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Month: August 2023

Review: King of Sartar, by Greg Stafford

Review: King of Sartar, by Greg Stafford

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King of Sartar by Greg Stafford

Overall Rating: ***** (5 stars)

King of Sartar is a compendium of myths, legends, and faux-historical documents, centered around the mythical hero Argrath, set in the fictional world of Glorantha.

(Note: This review is for the “Revised and Annotated” edition of King of Sartar, published in 2016.)

The most important thing to know about King of Sartar is that it is not a novel. Some reviewers have labeled it as an “epistolary novel,” but even that is too suggestive of a single narrative with a unified plot. There’s none of that in King of Sartar. Instead, it’s a collection of many stories, sometimes multiple versions of the same story, all set in the same fantastic world. It’s a tour de force in world-building, and it’s well worth reading on that basis. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a single coherent narrative, with a more conventional plot, characterization, and dramatic tension, then this book is not going to work for you.

The central conceit in King of Sartar is that centuries ago, a hero named Argrath (the name means something like “savior” or even “messiah”) unified the tribes of the kingdom of Sartar, and led them against the oppressive Lunar Empire which had occupied the kingdom for a generation. The result was a period of conflict and cosmic upheaval known as the “Hero Wars.” The gods and forms of magic that had held sway for eons were cast aside. Even literacy itself vanished, as for generations people simply forgot how to read and write. Only in recent times have literate civilizations begun to reappear. King of Sartar is a collection of fictional letters, scholarly papers, and mythical accounts, all written as if academics are trying to piece together the truth about Argrath long after his death.

There are some brilliant intellectual jokes buried in this odd book, familiar to anyone who’s made a serious study of real-world ancient history or mythology. The Hero Wars and the dark age that followed are immediately reminiscent of the Greek heroic age, and the “Bronze Age Collapse” that brought the Mycenaean civilization crashing down. The book’s fictional authors constantly engage in euhemeristic speculation, trying to cut through to the mundane truth they assume must stand behind the magical stories they’re studying. There are debates over whether Argrath was a single historical individual, or whether several different hero-tales were merged into one. There’s even a dispute over whether a “long” or a “short” chronology is more appropriate, with a positively Velikovskian speculation about whether a few centuries of the accepted account simply never happened in the first place.

Meanwhile, the stories themselves are a treasure-trove of lore about the world of Glorantha, famous through decades of tabletop wargames, roleplaying games, and computer games. Fans of any of these, from Runequest to King of Dragon Pass and its sequels, will find lots of clues to that fictional world here.

King of Sartar defies classification – there just aren’t many books like it in the fantasy genre. The closest thing I can compare it to is parts of J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium. King of Sartar occasionally reminds the reader of the Silmarillion, or better yet the volumes of unfinished material later collected by Christopher Tolkien to document the evolution of his father’s creation.

All in all, this is less a novel to be read than it is an intellectual experience to be savored. Very highly recommended if you’re a student of ancient history or myth, if you’re a fan of the world of Glorantha, or if you’re simply interested in how fantasy world-building can be done. Keep your distance, though, if you’re looking for a more conventional narrative.

Status Report (14 August 2023)

Status Report (14 August 2023)

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Well, the good news is that I’ve just about finished unpacking my library, getting my writing work-center back into fully operational condition. I still have a big pile of boxes and miscellaneous items in the middle of my basement apartment, so I can’t set up my gaming tables yet, and that part of my creative enterprise is still off-line. Maybe in another couple of weeks, if my wife and I can work our way though more of the unpacking and re-homing.

The even better news is that as of this past weekend, I’ve gotten back to work on Architect of Worlds in a major way.

I started by doing a review of the portions of the book I had already laid out, making minor editorial and layout adjustments, adding a few pieces of new text. I also finished the task of correcting all the extended examples in the design sequence – those should be more or less consistent now. As of Sunday evening, I finished that review and moved on to actually laying out new material. If you look at the progress bar in the sidebar on this site, you’ll notice movement there for the first time since late June.

I fully expect to be done laying out the main design sequence by the end of August. The one possible hold-up is that I want to rewrite Step Thirty-Two of the design sequence almost from scratch. The current version of that material is really ugly and hard to apply, and I think I see ways to simplify it and make it a lot more user-friendly. I’ll have to see how long that rewrite takes, but I can’t imagine it will require more than an evening or two.

At the moment, I would estimate a 85% probability that I’ll have a free update for patrons and readers by the end of August, including the entire edited design sequence.

That still leaves a few tasks:

  • Laying out the last two sections of the book
  • Going through the entire draft for a final editing pass, to resolve all the “p. XX” references and correct any last-minute errors
  • Generating or collecting and placing in-line art assets
  • Producing a back cover
  • Building a credits-and-acknowledgements page and a Table of Contents
  • Preparing the book for publication through DriveThruRPG (and possibly through another outlet as well – that conversation is in very early stages, so we’ll see)

I had originally planned to have the book out the door by late this summer, but obviously that’s not going to happen. I still think, barring any further setbacks, that it will be on the market before the end of this calendar year.

Planning for August 2023

Planning for August 2023

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As of today, we’ve reached another really big milestone in recovering from the basement-flooding incident in late June. A moving crew has come to return all the furniture and boxes that were packed out on 3 July, and I also hired them to move everything back in out of the storage pod we have in front of the house. My library and all of my office items are now at least back down here with me, although they’re almost all still in boxes. I’ll be unpacking (and searching for critical items) for days at least, possibly a couple of weeks.

A lot is still up in the air – in particular, I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get most of these boxes unpacked, and clear space down here for the game tables that are the other half of my creative enterprise. I hope that by mid-month I’ll be more or less back to normal. So I’m not going to establish any hard-and-fast objectives to meet this month.

On the other hand, for the first time in about six weeks, I can at least think about having a firm plan of action for creative work in the coming month.

My plan is to focus on Architect of Worlds this month, recovering the battle rhythm and forward momentum I had going before all this happened. My primary objective will be to make enough new progress on Architect that I can reasonably release a new free update for my patrons by the end of the month. Ideally, I’d like to have at least some idea as to what the new release date for the book might be, but we’ll see how the month goes.

Meanwhile, I do have a couple of small items to write up – some world-building work for the Danassos setting, and another book review for August. I don’t anticipate any real trouble hitting those milestones. I may also keep banging out some new prose for Twice-Crowned, although I don’t expect to make enough progress there to release a new update.

Stay tuned.