Karl Edward Wagner Books In Order

Publication Order of Bran Mak Morn Books

Publication Order of Echoes of Valor Books

Publication Order of Kane Books

Publication Order of The Best Horror Stories Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Author's Choice Monthly Books

Publication Order of Conan (Lancer/Ace) Books

Publication Order of Little Book II Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Karl Edward Wagner was an author, poet, editor, and a publisher known for publishing works of science fiction, horror, and fantasy.

Born on December 12, 1945, in Knoxville, Tennessee, he was born to his mother Dorothea and his father Aubrey J. Wagner. He was one of four children and the youngest. His father served as an official for the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Wagner graduated in 1967 from Kenyon College with his history degree. He then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated with a psychiatry degree. He attempted to practice but did not like the medical profession and left it behind once he got started and settled in as a writer.

Wagner did well as a writer and then an editor. He published two of Manly Wade Wellman’s collections with his Carcosa publishing post. In the course of his career, he wrote several horror and dark fantasy stories. While working as =an editor, he restored a three-volume set of Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard. He also edited The Year’s Best Horror Stories for DAW Books. The Carcosa publishing company also put out four volumes of stories by big authors of pulp magazines. He also put out stories with the character of Kane the Mystic Swordsman.

You can see his lack of enthusiasm with the medical profession in his stories “The Fourth Seal” and “Into Whose Hands”. He has described his philosophy as a cross between absurdist, anarchistic, and nihilistic. He also claimed to be related to Richard, an opera composer. He also had a fondness for Sam Peckinpah’s cinema.

Wagner passed away on October 14, 1994, due to heart failure and liver failure, according to a newsletter from the Horror Writers of America. He died at home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A collection of stories and more called Exorcisms and Ecstasies was published posthumously by Fedogan & Bremer, a small press publisher, in 1997.

Some of his writing is set in the universe established by Robert E. Howard. These feature Conan the Barbarian as well as Bran Mak Morn. He has served as editor for three volumes of the Conan stories by Howard. He also put out three volumes called Echoes of Valor that contained a variety of pulp fantasy stories by various authors. He himself wrote a Bran Morn novel that ended up going unpublished called Queen of the Night.

Perhaps inspired by Conan the Barbarian, Wagner came up with his own protagonist called Kane. The immortal and mystical character had the name based on Cain from the Bible. The character has blue eyes and red hair. is left-handed. and is a powerful force. The author described the character as being one that could rise to the top of any situation and physically dominate (‘rip heads off’) if needed. The immortal character also has elements of the character Solomon Kane from Robert E. Howard. Kane has to wander the Earth as a result of a curse. He is a fighter. but sells his abilities to those who will pay the most. He is intelligent and smart and is able to talk about many topics. But at the end of the day, the sword and sorcery character does not have morals and is a killer. One of the anti-hero’s enemies is the albino Elric.

It was while attending medical school that he came up with his own fantasy character. He also published a dirty novel with a small publishing company in New York. It was then that he decided to give up on being a doctor and to write on a full-time basis. His novel Death Angel’s Shadow was published by Warner Paperback Library in 1973, which brought together the three first Kane tales. which included a novella, a novelette, and a short story.

Wagner also started getting some of his poems and his stories published for money. Some of his stories were published in a magazine called Midnight Sunn, which had once been dedicated to Kane and new fantasy writers. Soon in 1974 the first Kane book came out, called Bloodstone. A cover painting was commissioned by Conan artist Frank Frazetta.

Another book came out in the Kane series in 1976, Dark Crusade. Another Kane story published “Two Suns Setting” won a British Fantasy Award and was nominated of a World Fantasy Award. Other Kane stories were published in magazines during the same time period. Kane stories were also reprinted in Night Winds. Six more published Kane stories came out later in a collection. The publisher also reissued Kane books and a new edition of the story Darkness Weaves.

The last published story of Kane to come out was The Book of Kane in 1985. It was followed by an omnibus of books and short stories from Night Shade Books. There was a novel planned that was never finished and an excerpt came out later in a World Fantasy Convention souvenir book in 1981 and it would later appear in the Midnight Sun collection in 2003.

In 2004, Death Angel’s Shadow was acquired, and plans developed to make a movie based on the first of three short stories in the book. The two other short stories are waiting to possibly be developed into a Kane franchise for Tonic Films.

He won the World Fantasy Award in 1983 for his novella “Beyond Any Measure”. He also won the British Fantasy Award for his story “Neither Brute Nor Human” in 1984. Wagner created the Carcosa publishing house in 1973 in North Carolina with the intent of preserving some of the great work published in pulp magazines and novel form by horror writers. They published four volumes of horror stories, all edited by Wagner. A fifth collection was in the works but Lee Brown Cove passed away while working on the illustrations. The book was abandoned but later came out from Fedogan & Bremer.

He also collaborated on a sci-fi horror novel called Killer with Drake. He also wrote a story called “Sticks”, which won a British Fantasy Award. He edited many more horror anthologies and fantasy anthologies, including fourteen years of The Year’s Best Horror stories. Once he passed away, the series was canceled.

Many of his stories were also adapted into recordings of audio cassettes over the years as well. His story “The River of Night’s Dreaming” was also adapted in 1998 to the television series The Hunger.

Night Winds is the first novel in the Kane series by Karl Edward Wagner. If you like innovative fantasy, check this book out!

Kane is a swordsman who is immortal and walks the Earth alone. Wherever he goes, people remember him. Now he is traveling again to a city’s ruins, where the only people living there are half-men and their queen.

He also goes to the half-burned tavern where a woman he knew many years go holds his kid in keeping for the Devil. He wronged her, but can he get back his child? He goes many places, to giants and their cave kingdom to a house of death.

Get a copy of this novel to follow along on his adventures through the centuries!

Bloodstone is the second novel in the Kane series by Karl Edward Wagner. Kane is back in yet another establishment about the immortal figure.

In this story, the swordsman becomes a living link with a super race gone missing’s power. There’s an old relic from the times when star creatures saw over the Earth.

From the treasure found during a raid, Kane finds a bloodstone ring. The ring may be the key to inactive power that is buried somewhere in the forest. Now Kane can plan to finally rule himself. Will he be able to? Read this novel to find out!