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Charles Saunders was a vital member of that last wave of honest-to-goodness sword-and-sorcery writers. Imaro, an African sword-and-sorcery hero, strode onto the scene in the 1970s with a series of short stories and a trio of novels at about the same time as Kane and Oron and Simon Magus and Tiana. Saunders' prose was taut, the setting vivid and unique. And then, suddenly, Imaro and all those other heroes were gone. For a while Charles Saunders had such a low profile in the fantasy and science fiction community some feared him dead, although he was keeping busy, as you can read here, in an excellent interview with Amy Harlib.

If you missed the initial run of Imaro fear not, because Charles Saunders is back. Night Shade Books is re-releasing tales of the mighty hero, and some unpublished work as well. A week or so ago I was able to ask Mr. Saunders about his work, the upcoming re-release, and other matters besides.

Howard Andrew Jones

I think one of the most exciting things for those of us already familiar with Imaro is hearing that there are more of his adventures that we’ve never seen. What sort of adventures can we look forward to seeing in books four and five? And what kind of publishing schedule can we expect?

Without giving too much away, the fourth Imaro novel ties up all the threads that were spun in the first three novels. The fifth novel takes Imaro in another direction. As for a publishing schedule, the new version of the first novel from Night Shade came out in February. Naturally, I want the rest of the books to come out as soon as possible. I’m working with Night Shade on that.

Dale Rippke’s excellent site Heroes of Dark Fantasy is the single best source of information about Imaro’s exploits. Do I understand the site correctly in that there are uncollected Imaro short stories, as well as works set in Nyumbani featuring other characters? How many are there, and can you tell us a little about what characters they feature and what they’re about? Are there any plans for these to be collected?

First, I agree whole-heartedly that Dale Rippke’s site is, indeed, excellent. When I first came across it several years ago, I was astounded at how thoroughly researched it was. Because I was still keeping a low profile then, I never thanked Dale for his efforts, and I take the opportunity to do so now. By the way, I hope he can accommodate all the changes I’ve made in the new version of Imaro.

There are three Imaro stories that were not incorporated into the novels and did not appear in anthologies. “Hut of Death” was published in Dark Fantasy, the zine in which Imaro was first published. “Mzee” was in Dragon magazine. “Death’s Friend” appeared in Weirdbook.

The setting for my African Amazonian warrior, Dossouye, is different from Imaro’s world. Other anthologized, non-Imaro stories, such as “Amma” in DAW’s The Year’s Best Horror Stories, Series VII and “Ishigbi” in the Hecate’s Cauldron anthology, are set in Nymbani. I also have other non-Imaro Nyumbani stories that were published in small-press zines back in the 1970s and ‘80s. There’s magic and suspense in those stories, but there are no Imaro-like characters in them. One of the stories is about Pomphis during the time before he met Imaro.

I’d like to compile a collection of these stories, but first things first. Right now, I’m working on the fifth Imaro novel, which I started, then abandoned, in the mid-1980s.

You’ve stated clearly that one of your intents with Imaro was to create “the brother who could kick Tarzan’s ass.” What else did you hope to do with Imaro’s character and setting?

That was my mind-set back in the early 1970s, when I was an angry young man. Now, I’m a mellow old head. Don’t get me wrong – I still think Imaro would get the best of Tarzan, although it would be a truly epic battle – the Ali-Frazier of heroic fantasy. But I’ve broadened my horizons since that time. Now, I’m not concentrating on counteracting Tarzan. I’m trying to show that it’s possible to write fantasy in an African setting without following the formula of the “jungle stories” genre, which was popularized by H. Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs and all their emulators. First, I took that mold and stood it on its head. Now, I want to show what’s possible after that mold is broken.

I’ve read in one of Amy Harlib’s interviews with you that until recently you weren’t really aware your Imaro stories had a following. When and how did you discover that your writing was remembered so fondly? Was this linked to your new publication with Night Shade?

I knew Imaro had a following back when the books first came out. I just didn’t know that people remembered the books after they went out of print, or that new readers would continue to discover them through Amazon, EBay and so on. Morgan Holmes of REHUPA was a great supporter after the books disappeared from the shelves. But I guess I really woke up to the fact that there were still fans out there in 1999, when Sheree Renee Thomas tracked me down and asked for a contribution for her first Dark Matter anthology. This led to my discovery of supporters like Amy Harlib.

Night Shade came into the picture later, about three years ago. Unbeknownst to me, a young man in Australia named Ben Szumzkyj discovered the Imaro novels long after they went out of print, and became a fan. He knew of Night Shade Press through some of their other publications. Ben got the idea that Night Shade should bring the Imaro novels back into print. He approached me by e-mail with the idea in the summer of 2003.

At that time, Imaro was history for me. A segment of the first novel was too close to the Rwanda genocide for comfort, even though I had written the Imaro novels long before that awful event. I could not think of a way to get around it, and I was in the middle of writing Ben an e-mail expressing my regrets when suddenly, I thought of a way to get around it.

I contacted Night Shade, and they were interested. I spent the rest of 2003 and 2004 rewriting all three of the published novels. During that time, the word got out that Imaro was making a comeback, and that’s when I learned that I wasn’t really “history” after all.

Lin Carter has something of a mixed reputation. You worked with him briefly when he helmed The Year's Best Fantasy Stories anthologies – how was he to interact with?

I never interacted directly with Lin Carter. When I started writing Imaro stories back in the early 1970s, I read several of Carter’s Ballantine Books fantasy anthologies. In one of them – it may have been New Worlds for Old – he lamented the fact that few fantasy writers were creating settings different from the usual Celtic/Arthurian/Hyborian Age/Middle Earth mold. At the time, I’d had my first Imaro story published in Dark Fantasy, Gene Day’s small-press zine. So I sent Carter a copy of the zine with my story, basically saying that I had taken up that challenge.

A while later, I learned that Carter wanted to reprint the story – "City of Madness" – in DAW’s first Year’s Best Fantasy anthology. But I didn’t hear that directly from Carter. Instead, Carter contacted Gene Day, who then let me know. I wrote to Carter thanking him for choosing my story, but I never heard back from him.

A few years later, I sent him another Dark Fantasy Imaro story – "The Pool of the Moon." It was the same drill. Carter contacted Gene, who in turn gave me the good news. I sent Carter several other publications with my stories after that, but I never heard from him – directly or indirectly – again.

Imaro’s disappearance, coupled with your own disappearance from the fantasy field, seemed to go hand-in-hand with the disappearance of adventure fantasy short fiction. For a while there, we had some exciting anthologies – Flashing Swords, Swords Against Darkness, Amazons, – sword-and-sorcery series like Oron, Imaro; characters like Simon Magus and Tiana. And then, nothing. And it all seemed to peter out at about the same time. Do you have any insight into what almost killed sword-and-sorcery?

There are several factors involved in this. One was barbarian overkill – publishers wanted to jump onto the Conan bandwagon. Another was Conan overkill. Everyone wanted to write a Conan novel. Hell, even I wanted to write a Conan novel. Of course you know it would have been set in the Black Kingdoms. But the thing that came closest to killing the genre was the Conan movies. The makers of those two films took one of the most dynamic and compelling characters ever created and turned him into a muscle-bound doofus. They showed no respect whatsoever for the work of Robert E. Howard. A good series of Conan movies would have been a shot in the arm for the genre. These duds were more like a lethal injection.

The sad thing is there was an enthusiastic new generation of writers set to take heroic fantasy to the next level. We were ready to step up. But the publishers stepped back.

Do you still read sword-and-sorcery? What do you think of the genre as a whole?

I re-read a lot of my old favorites. Among the writers of today, I think David Gemmell is outstanding. He’s prolific and he’s good, and you can’t beat that combination. Paul Kearney’s The Monarchies of God series is also terrific, although it straddles the line between heroic and epic fantasy. Or perhaps blurs it. Steven Erikson’s work is like an all-you-can-eat buffet with 50 courses. But I don’t know if you can classify his work as sword-and-sorcery.

As a whole, I think the roots Robert E. Howard planted have the potential to grow in many new directions. And if Peter Jackson ever did a Conan movie … well, imagine what his rendition of The Hour of the Dragon would be like.

The Imaro stories are a fine mix of taut, action-laced prose and imaginative world-building. The style is perfect for adventure writing. Are there any tips you can share with writers about writing in the same genre?

Write about your setting as though you live there. Write about your characters as though you know them.

Now that these older Imaro stories will be available to all, have you considered writing further of Imaro, perhaps bringing his saga to a close, as Robert E. Howard and Karl Edward Wagner never lived to do? Fritz Leiber never officially ended his Lankhmar tales, but he did age his heroes. Also, do you have any other writing projects on the go? How soon can we expect to see more fantasy novels and short stories from you?

Before DAW Books pulled the plug on Imaro in the mid-1980s, I had already written a fourth novel in the series. I spent most of last year rewriting it. I had also written almost half of a fifth Imaro novel. I’m now in the process of rewriting that one, and of course the second half of the fifth novel will be new. I’ve got an idea for a sixth Imaro novel. Also, there are some short-story ideas I had long ago, but never got around to writing. Now, I will. As for ending the Imaro saga, I do have an idea for a “final” story. But I want to finish the novels first.

Concerning new material, about half of the revised version of the first Imaro novel is fresh. It was the first time I had written about Imaro in nearly 20 years. We had quite a reunion. During the years after the Imaro novels went out of print, I did a lot of work on an epic, non-Imaro, non-Nyumbani African fantasy series, which I hope to finish eventually. I also wrote a novel based on the Dossouye stories, with some added material.

I’m not a spring chicken anymore. I’m part of the cutting edge of the Baby Boomer generation turning 60 this year. I intend to write as much as I can for as long as I can.

To read more interviews with writers and publishers
working in sword and sorcery and its related genres, go to the
Sword and Sorcery Interview Page .

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