Lin Carter has written a lot of stories about Conan the Cimmerian, invented by Robert E. Howard.
Thongor is much like Conan, only his world is wildly different from ours. Lemuria has none of our animals, none of our plants, and none of our names for anything. Thongor flies around on a spring-powered boat made of weightless metal. Middle Earth is cool and all, but Lin Carter made sure everything about his world was more badass than anything in anyone else's fantasy world.
Pretty rad. He knew what he wanted to achieve and achieved it. Sometimes 'telling a good story' isn't enough. Not for Lin Carter. Why not just go ahead and look at what you're doing and decidedly make it more epic? Maximum epic.
I've never been a huge sword and sorcery kind of guy. Violence doesn't excite me, especially when I know the hero is going to survive and, in the end, move onto a new adventure in which they will survive again. However, I'm interested in anything with wizards and demons in strange worlds. Beyond the Black River is one of the first stories of Conan the Cimmerian (Barbarian). It takes place in the mythical Hyborian Age, on our very earth. Beyond the Black River is fantasy before high fantasy became a thing. That is, before Lord of the Rings.