Much of my teenage and early-adult years were spent browsing the shelves of The House of Speculative Fiction, a small local fantasy and science-fiction book store that used to grace an old downtown house here in Ottawa, Canada. Our tribute begins with a personal reminiscence by Wayne MacLaurin, and includes an overview by Wayne and Steve Tompkins of what is now Gemmell’s legacy: all those novels. With 30 novels in 22 years, Gemmell did more to change that than anyone save possibly Robert E. From the near-immaculate conception of “The Shadow Kingdom” in 1929 on up through even the boom years of the late ’60s to the mid-’80s, there has quite simply never been as much of the really primo, adventurous and non-counterfeit stuff as we would like. Sword-and-sorcery has always been as associationally damned by mediocre or mercenary writers as by those who automatically dismiss the subgenre.
We come not to bury David Gemmell - that was the sorrowful duty of his family and friends after his death on Jbut to praise him and a contribution to recent heroic fantasy that was profound as well as prolific. By Wayne MacLaurin & Steve Tompkins Copyright 2006 by New Epoch Press.
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