Sword and Sorceress seriesThe Sword and Sorceress series is a series of fantasy anthologies edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley. As she explained in the foreword to the first volume, she created the anthology to redress the lack of strong female protagonists in the sub-genre of sword and sorcery. At the time, most female characters in sword and sorcery were little more than stock damsels in distress, or pawns who were distributed at the conclusion of the story as "bad-conduct prizes" (MZB's term) for the male protagonists. Many of the early sword-and-sorcery works featured attitudes toward women that Bradley considered appalling. Although Bradley had some difficulty filling the first few volumes of the Sword and Sorceress series, as they grew in popularity with readers, she began to receive increasing numbers of excellent submissions. As a result, she had to become more selective, and to shorten her reading periods accordingly. For the eighteenth volume, which she was editing at the time of her death, she made reading by invitation only. After her death, it was decided to take as many as possible of the stories she had tentatively chosen and publish them in three annual volumes, thus extending the series. After volume twenty was published, the publisher decided to extend an invitation for an additional volume under an editor who had worked with Bradley, with the possibility of additional volumes being published if it became a success. The Sword and Sorceress series is noteworthy not only for its introduction of strong female protagonists into a sub-genre previously dominated by male characters, but for its financial success. Unlike most anthologies of original fantasy short fiction, they routinely earned out their advances and continued to pay their authors royalties for years afterward, often on foreign sales. In addition, many authors who made their first professional sales in the Sword and Sorceress anthologies subsequently enjoyed successful careers as novelists. The Books
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