Category Archives: sword and sorcery

Neither Beg Nor Yield Up For Sale

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I mentioned the Kickstarter for Neither Beg Nor Yield  a while back. If you missed it, here’s your chance to own a copy of the book. It goes on sale today. This is the ebook.

In his State of RBE post earlier today, Jason M. Waltz said there have been delays at the printer, so we’re going to have to wait a while on the hardcovers. Hopefully, those books will be ready next month.

I’ve been looking forward to this anthology for a while now. Most of my reading over the last couple of years has been mysteries and thrillers. It will be good to get back to some old fashioned sword and sorcery.

If you didn’t pledge the Kickstarter, now is your chance to get some brand new S&S by some name authors, both established and up and coming.

Time is Running Out for Neither Beg Nor Yield

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We interrupt the attempted packing of a library (so many books, so few boxes) for a public service announcement.

The Rogue Blades Kickstarter for Neither Beg Nor Yield is about to end. It ends in just over two days as I write this. If you haven’t supported it, or if you were on the fence about it until you knew if it funded, the window to do so is closing fast.

This campaign has more than succeeded, so get your butt off that picket (or vice-versa, you know what I mean) and click the link above to support this campaign. I’m looking forward to this one. Jason M. Waltz, head headhunter at Rogue Blades, always puts out a terrific project. At this point, he’s working on stretch goals.

The Golden Age of Sword & Sorcery 1929-1949: A Guest Post by Will Oliver

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Editor’s Note: Will sent me this a few weeks ago. It was right before my wife had knee replacement surgery (yes, I am now married to a cyborg) and at the beginning of teaching a summer class. My cyborg wife is well on her way to a full recovery, and I turned in grades today. I want to apologize to Will for taking so long to get this up. I’m sure what he has to say will generate some discussion, so take it away, Will.

The Golden Age of Sword-and-Sorcery, 1929-1949

By Will Oliver

Sometime ago, I ran across a list of the early Cthulhu Mythos stories, sort of a Golden Age of Cthulhu list. I took up the challenge of tracking down and reading all of the stories in order. It was an interesting experiment in seeing how the so-called Mythos developed during that era. As my interest lies more with Sword-and-Sorcery, however, I began wondering what a list of Golden Age S&S stories would look like. Finding none online, I decided to create one.

Starting with the well accepted premise that the genre, or sub-genre, known as Sword-and-Sorcery started with Robert E. Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom,” I knew I had a starting point, August 1929. As a generation is approximately 20 years, that would take the end point of the list to August of 1949, or simply the end of 1949. This makes sense in that the date falls right before Gnome Press began reprinting the Conan stories in hardcover and well before the 1960s resurgence.

While I noted Brian Murphy’s detailed definition of what makes up a S&S story, I took a more liberal stance on what was included on the list. If the story emphasized one element (sword or sorcery) over the other, I still included it. Some of the stories had a slight issue with meeting the definition as they fell under other sub-genres, such as portal stories, but I included them if the majority of the story read like pure S&S.

Part of the motivation for creating the list was to see if there were any strong feelings one way or the other toward which stories were ultimately included on the list. And I wanted to see if there were any stories I might have overlooked during the timeframe in question. Finally, it is just nice to have a go-to reading list for anyone interested in reading every story from the Golden Age of Sword-and-Sorcery. Continue reading →

Having Fun in Merth

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Rogues of Merth
Robert Zoltan
Paperback $14.99
Ebook $6.99

I’d thank Robert Zoltan for sending me a review copy of this book.  And if you don’t recognize the name of Robert Zoltan, you need to remember it.  If he continues writing, it’s one you’re going to be hearing in the future.

The subtitle of this collection is The Adventures of Dareon and Blue, Book 1. I’m  looking forward to further collections.  These stories are lean, fast-moving, and most importantly they are a heckuva lot of fun. Continue reading →

Tales From the Magician’s Skull Premieres

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Tales From the Magician’s Skull
Howard Andrew Jones, ed.
Goodman Games
Bedsheet size magazine, $14.99

If you’ve followed this blog, you may remember me mentioning the Kickstarter for this publication.  Well, it’s out now, and the second issue is in production.

I think the editor Howard Andrew Jones and his team have set the bar pretty high with this inaugural issue.  It’s modeled after the old pulp magazines.  I think this approach is a success.  The illustrations, fan club index, and the editorial by Jones all complement the most important aspect of the magazine, the stories. Continue reading →

Introducing Andrasta and Rondel

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Cult of SutekThe Cult of Sutek: The Epic of Andrasta and Rondel vol.1
Joshua P. Simon
ebook $2.99 (free on Smashwords as of this writing)
paper $11.99

Joshua P. Simon has proven himself to be a consistent writer of solid, character driven fantasy adventure. His Blood and Tears Trilogy (reviewed here, here, here, and here, interviewed here) was one of my favorite epic fantasy series of the last few years.

Now he’s turned his hand to a story that’s smaller in scope and more personal in nature, the sword and sorcery series he’s calling The Epic of Adnrasta and Rondel.

Andrasta is a woman from a distant country, a warrior who is out to steal a jewel in the Tower of Bashan. Rondel is a minstrel who got caught in the wrong bedroom. They meet in a dungeon when Andrasta is thrown in Rondel’s cell. Of course they escape, and shortly thereafter rescue a young woman named Dendera who turns out to be the daughter of a king. Since Rondel knew the king from his minstrel days, they return her home, hoping for a reward to finance their jewel heist.

Unfortunately, the Cult of Sutek is staging a comeback. They believe in human sacrifice and practice cannibalism. Not the sort of folks you want moving in down the block. Continue reading →

A Review of The Scroll of Years

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ScrollofYearsThe Scroll of Years
Chris Willrich
Pyr Books
Trade paper $15.95 US $17.00 Canada
Ebook $11.99
Amazon  B&N Indie Bound

A Scroll of Years is the first novel about thief Imago Bone and poet Persimmon Gaunt. The pair have appeared in 5 short stories to date, and the first is included in this volume. Somehow this series has managed to fly under my radar. That’s something I’m going to need to fix. Looking at Willrich’s website, I may have read one or two but didn’t realize they were part of a series.

Anyway, Bone and a pregnant Gaunt are fleeing from Night’s Auditors. They are a pair of hit men who don’t merely kill their victims. In essence they steal their victims’ souls. They’re a pair of nasty dudes, and they have a dragon working for them. One of them controls a fire spirit. The other has a mirror embedded in his forehead which shows all possible things his victim might do. These guys are hard to kill, and they don’t give up easily.

Gaunt and Bone flee across the ocean to a land much like Imperial China. Gaunt has a mark forming on her belly that resembles two dragons. It’s a sign that the child she carries is someone a lot of powerful people want to get their hands on. Gaunt and Bone are going to need all the allies they can get.

The writing is rich and subtle, and Gaunt and Bone are foremost of a cast of delightfully flawed characters. Some fantasy novels are like a tankard of ale, intended to be slammed back. The Scroll of Years is of a more refined vintage, one in which you savor the writing as well as the story and characters.  The story takes place over both months and years simultaneously.  (That statement will make sense if you read the book, trust me.)

Gaunt and Bone have been compared to Fafhred and the Grey Mouser. I can see the resemblance, and I’d bet money that Fritz Leiber was one of Willrich’s influences. But that comparison runs the risk of limiting the characters or skewing a potential reader’s expectations. I see echoes of an earlier generation of writers in this book. Writers such as Ernest Bramah with perhaps a dash of Dunsany and maybe a pinch of Clark Ashton Smith. Plus a nod to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Leiber’s heroes were clearly cut from the same general cloth as Conan, inhabiting a milieu rooted in Western tradition where any portrayal of Eastern cultures were filtered to a greater or lesser degree through the West’s perceptions of the East. As Willrich notes in the Acknowledgements, this particular work is firmly planted in Chinese soil. The titular Scroll of Years is a concept I’ve not come across in much European based fantasy.  And rather that detracting, the Chinese folk tales Willrich interjects into the story give it added depth and resonance.

The Scroll of Years is not like anything I’ve seen recently. Willrich has a fresh voice, and with this novel (I can’t speak for the short stories, not being familiar with them yet) he expands the boundaries of sword and sorcery.

The events in this book grow out of the short stories, and there are one or two passing reference to previous events that seem to refer back to them. Don’t let that stop you from picking this one up. You can enjoy The Scroll of Years on its own merits. The ARC I have says today is the release date (which is why I wrote the review today), but the author’s website says the 24th.  Either way, look for a copy if this sounds like it might be your cup of tea. And if Pyr want to publish the short stories (with one or two new ones included, hint, hint), well, that would be fine with me.

I’d like to thank Lisa Michalski at Pyr Books for the review copy.

Worldcon Report, Part 1

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This is going to be the written report, mostly without pictures because I haven’t had time to sort through the ones I took and see what I want to post.  It’s been one of those weeks at work and it started on the way down to San Antonio.  I spent more time than I would have liked dealing with a couple of problems that waited until I was on the road to arise.  I post some pictures in the next few days.

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James Gunn at his reception.

I had to teach class Thursday morning, so by the time I got to San Antonio, checked into the hotel and hoofed it over to the convention center to register, I just made it before registration closed.  I wandered the dealer’s room and familiarized myself with the layout before grabbing a bite.  At least I intended to.  I ran into Adrian Simmons, editor of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and ended up accompanying him to a private, invitation-only reception for James Gunn.  Adrian had been invited, and I went along as his guest.  It was a great event, and I took advantage of the opportunity to speak with him.  He’s 90, and critics are calling his new novel his best.  I picked up a signed copy before the weekend was over.  There’ll be a review going up at Futures Past and Present sometime in the next few months.  Learning of Fred Poh’s death made me extra glad I grabbed a signed copy, in spite of being a little overbudget.

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What would you eat for a book?

Later I attended the Bookswarm party, which was packed.  I got a chance to talk to Martha Wells for a few minutes, and I walked away with two free books.  The theme of the party was Eat a Bug, Get a Book.  The bugs were sanitized and freeze dried.  (I ate a mole circket and a dung beetle and got The Other Half of the Sky edited by Athena Andreadis and Exile by Betsy Dornbush.)  The highlight of the party was getting to meet Brad Beaulieu, Douglas Hulett, Courtney Schafer, and Zachary Jernigan.  If you haven’t read them, you should.  Other than a glimpse of Jernigan from across the street, the only one of that group that I saw after that night was Courtney Schafer.

The next day was one of those where there was about twelve hours of programming I wanted to attend, all of it in a three hour block.  I went to most of the Robert E. Howard panels, of which there were many.  Most of the hanging out I did with friends was with members of the Robert E. Howard Foundation or chatting with folks at parties.  Saturday was much the same, but Sunday was a little more relaxed.  Among the non-Howard panels I attended were a discussion of C. L. Moore’s “Vintage Season”, the history of firearms in the 1800s, a discussion on writing that included Michael Swanwick and James Patrick Kelly, a panel of Texas writers who have passed on, and readings by Jack McDevitt and Howard Waldrop.  I only caught part of the panel on sword and sorcery since it was up against one of the more interesting Robert E. Howard panels.  The autographing lines were either nonexistent or ridiculously long, so I only got a few signatures.

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Sword and Sorcery Panel: (l. to r.) Stina Leitch, Lou Anders, Sam Sykes, Saladin Ahmed, Chris Willrich

I went to the Alamo Saturday morning with Bill Cavalier, editor of REHupa.  He hadn’t seen it, and it had been a while since I had paid my respects.  Next to the Alamo is the Menger Hotel.  Teddy Roosevelt recruited the Rough Riders in the bar, and it’s something of a mini-museum.  I’ll do a write-up of it on Dispatches From the Lone Star Front over the weekend.

I didn’t try to attend the Hugos.  I wasn’t impressed with the slate of nominees for the most part.  But it’s a popularity contest, and currently my tastes and those of the field are in a state of moderate divergence.  The Legacy Circle of the REH Foundation went to dinner Saturday night.

There were some free books, including NESFA’s three volume Chad Oliver set.  I found the first two of the Heinlein juveniles I was missing, and picked up an extra copy of Glory Road.  This year marks the 50th anniversary of that novel.  I read it when I was about 14, and it’s about time for a reread.

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It’s good to be the king.

Some overall thoughts.  First, this was the first time I’ve been able to attend a Worldcon.  It wasn’t quite what I expected.  I’ve attended World Fantasy twice, and the density of pros in that venue is high, but then that’s a convention that’s aimed at pros.  Worldcon is more geared for fans.  I never saw some of the bigger names, although I know they were there.  Most of the ones I did see, I only saw once or twice.  The convention center is a bit too spread out for this sort of event.

I was surprised at crowded it wasn’t.  I was also a little surprised with how old the average attendee seemed to be.  While people seemed to be having a good time, I didn’t detect a great deal of excitement.  Maybe that’s because I’m getting older, but everything seemed more laid back than I was expecting.

I’d certainly attend another Worldcon, but only if it wasn’t at the same time classes started.  And only if it wasn’t too far away.  While I enjoyed it and am glad I went, I wouldn’t travel halfway around the world, or even the country, to repeat the experience.

I’ll post some more photos later in the week.

The Next Big Thing Blog Chain

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I was chained to this by David J. West, author of Heroes of the Fallen and numerous short stories, including one in the forthcoming Space Eldritch.

What is the working title of your book?

I’m not actively working on any novels at the moment, although I have a couple in different degrees of completion I hope to finish/polish after the first of the year.  In addition to some stand-alone short stories (science fiction and fantasy), there are two series I’m working on, both fantasy.  The epic fantasy series doesn’t have a working title at the moment.  The sword and sorcery series is The Chronicles of Roderik and Prince Balthar.  That’s the one getting most of my attention right now.

Where did the idea come from for the book series?

I don’t recall what gave me the initial idea for the characters.  There was a comment on the Black Gate blog a couple of years ago in a post about a fantasy magazine that shall remain unnamed.  The magazine had folded, and in one of the comments, someone said this particular publication didn’t have enough tomb robbing heroes.  Now I really enjoy a good tomb robbing.  Somehow I came up with the idea of a prince and his squire who were into a little cemetery burglary.  The only reason they would do this (that I could think of) was the prince is under a curse to murder his father, something he desperately wants to avoid doing.  So he and his squire are voluntarily exiled from their home until curse can be broken.  The court sorcerer is trying to find a way to break the curse, and it often involves having our heroes liberate certain items from their eternal resting places, usually at great risk to themselves.  The stories are written from the squire Rodrik’s point of view, and all of the ones I’ve worked on so far start with the words “The Chronicle of” in the title.  Rogue Blades Entertainment was accepting some submissions about this time, and I wrote the first story in the series.  Jason Waltz liked it enough to buy it for the Assassins anthology.  I’ve placed a second story in the series with him, and I’ve got four more I need to finish, plus a two more to plot and write.

What genre does the series fall under?

Sword and sorcery, definitely.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

 I have no idea.  I see so few movies these days, I’m not familiar with many of the younger actors.  The characters are both young men, so most of the actors I’m familiar with are too old for those roles.

What is a one-sentence synopsis of your series?

An exiled prince and his faithful squire travel their world seeking to break a family curse while there’s still time.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Self-published.  I’m not convinced agents bring enough value to the table in the current publishing climate to justify 15% of the earnings for the number of years they want to receive commissions.  Since everything I’ve written in this series so far is either short story or novelette length, I will try to place them in top markets.  If I’m not able to, I’ll put them up myself.  And of course, I’ll collect them and publish them in bundles.

How long did it take to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The first story took a couple of weeks working in the evenings when I didn’t have other commitments.  The others have been stop and go, except for the second I finished.  It’s been accepted, although I have no idea when it will see print.  That one had a deadline and took a week or two once I got past a couple of false starts.  The others are longer, so they’ve been start and stop affairs.

What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?

Who or what inspired you to write this series?

This may be cheating, but I’m going to combine the answers to the two previous questions since the works to which I would compare these stories are also some of the main inspirations.  First, I’m a huge fan of Robert E. Howard’s Hyborean Age.  I love how he mixed and matched different historical periods in an imaginary fantasy setting.  I also love how the stories are mostly episodic in nature and for the most part can be read in any order.  The setting of The Chronicles draws a lot on that template, although the world isn’t a carbon copy of the Hyborean Age.  On the other hand, there have been so many imitations that I didn’t want to create another Clonan.  I wanted a civilized hero or heroes who were forced to act at times in, if not uncivilized ways, at least ways that wouldn’t meet with civilization’s approval.  There’s probably a little Fafherd and the Grey Mouser in the inspiration somewhere, although I’ve not read that series in years, and there are more F&GM stories I haven’t read yet than there are ones I have.  I also try to read across multiple genres, so you can see the influence of Arthur Conan Doyle in the structure.  Roderik is Watson to Balthar’s Holmes, in that Balthar is supposedly the hero whose exploits are detailed by his faithful companion.

What else about your book series might pique your readers’ interest?

This series is intended to be fun.  I’ve griped at times about how many authors seem to be writing with a political or social agenda, at least judging by their blogs and tweets.  While I certainly don’t begrudge these authors their right to say whatever they like in their works, I maintain that the primary purpose of fiction is to tell an entertaining story, not convert me to your way of thinking.  With that in mind, I want to write some things that people will enjoy reading, hopefully to the point they want to read more. 

I’m also using this series as an opportunity to challenge and stretch myself as a fiction writer.  It would be very easy to get stuck in a rut and write formula stories, so I’m trying to do something different with each installment or to work on some technique.  For instance, the story I’m trying to finish in time to submit to a market by the end of the year focuses entirely on Roderik.  He and Balthar are in serious trouble, and Balthar has been taken out of commission.  Getting them out alive is all on Rodrik’s shoulders.  He doesn’t have much to work with or much time, either.  There’s also a market coming open after the first of the year  The story I’ve got in mind for it isn’t told by Roderik (or Balthar), although he and Balthar are central to everything that happens.

Now I have to chain people to this thing, so…I’m going to I’m going to list several authors whose work I enjoy and want to read more of:

Joshua P. Simon
Ty Johnston
J. M Martin
Mark Finn

Blogging the Lost World of the Warlord

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Back in the 1970s DC Comics had a try-out title they called 1st Issue Special.  It was one of those things like Showcase had been in an earlier era where new characters, teams, and series were given a trial run.  Reader response determined if a particular character or team got his/her/its/their own book.  It was also at this time that sword and sorcery was enjoying a period of popularity, in part due to a boom in Robert E. Howard’s work.  This carried over into comics, with Marvel’s Conan.  DC tried to get in on the excitement by attempting several sword and sorcery titles.  Of these, only Mike Grell’s The Warlord lasted more than a few issues. 

The Warlord premiered in 1975.  I didn’t start reading the title until the early 1980s, when it had peaked and begun a long decay, but there were a number of solid issues with some good sword and sorcery storytelling still to come.  Mike Grell was still writing and drawing the book and would continue to do so for a few more years.

I’m going to take a look at this series, and I’m going to try to post on a regular basis, meaning once every week or every other week, hopefully on the same day.  We’ll see.  I’ll focus on one to two issues at a time.  If this series of posts is well received, I’ll continue until I reach the point where Grell left the book.  If not, I’m sure I can find something to blog about.

The story opens with Air Force colonel Travis Morgan flying a solo spy mission over the Soviet Union in 1969.  His plane is damaged in a missile attack, and while he survives, he doesn’t have enough fuel to make it back to the US, specifically a base in Alaska.  He tries to save time by flying over the north pole.  As he passes over the pole, his compass spins wildly, with the explanation that it won’t work over the North Pole. 

Now I’m a physicist by training and there are just some things I can’t ignore, at least not easily.  This is one of them.  On the geographic North Pole, the compass would point south because the magnetic axis and the spin axis of the Earth don’t line up.  The magnetic pole in the northern hemisphere is near the western coast of Greenland.  (It moves slowly with time, so I’ll not try to be more specific.)

Anyway, Morgan crashes his plane, and much to his surprise discovers himself in a tree in a jungle.  While walking, he discovers a dinosaur attacking a beautiful maiden, scantily clad, of course.  He rescues her, although it’s something of a team effort, the girl is the one who delivers the killing blow. 

They are soon captured by slavers and taken to the city of Thera, where Morgan immediately gets on the wrong side of the high priest Deimos.  He still has his sidearm and shoots a globe Deimos uses to try and get inside Morgan’s mind. 

Thinking Morgan is a god, he and the girl are treated as royalty.  Bathed, wined, and dined, they are given a chamber where they immediately fall asleep.  It’s during this sequence that Morgan is given the first costume he would wear in the series, a sort of black leather tights without sleeves.  The winged helmet and loincloth would come later.

At this point Grell reveals another aspect of Skartaris, the name of the world he’s in.  Time has no meaning.  When Morgan and the girl awake, they discover a great deal of time has passed.  He was clean cut when he went to sleep, but when he wakes up he discovers his hair and beard are long and shaggy.  It’s here he adopts the forked beard, a la Green Arrow.  This was another aspect of the series I was never crazy about because at times it will seem as though the characters never age even though decades pass in the outside world.

Being adept at linguistics, Travis Morgan quickly picks up the language, learns the girl’s name is Tara, and some basics about the realm of Skartaris.  Here’s where I have another problem, not just with this story but with any  hollow world tale.  Morgan tries to explain to Tara that they are in the center of a world and gravity holds them to the sides.  The problem is that gravity doesn’t work that way.  There is no gravitational attraction to the side of a hollow sphere or a spherical shell.  Not because gravity doesn’t exist, but because it cancels out.  And it does it everywhere, regardless of where you are in the cavity.  This is basic physics that’s been known for centuries.  Makes it hard for me to suspend my disbelief.

Deimos hates them and wants Morgan dead for humiliating him in front of the king but is hesitant to move against Morgan because the people think him some sort of god..  One “night”….rather while Morgan and Tara are sleeping Deimos sends mercenaries into assassinate them.  But Morgan and Tara wake up in time to defeat the mercenaries and escape, ending the first appearance of The Warlord.  Why Deimos didn’t try this while they were asleep the first time, when Morgan’s hair and beard grew so long, is never explained. 

We’ll look at the first and second issue of The Warlord in the next installment of this series.  For now, a few closing comments.  First, the series hadn’t found its legs at this point, a common thing for most new series in just about any format.  Most of the supporting cast haven’t been introduced nor the characters of Morgan or Tara well established.  The two page opening spreads that would come to characterize Grell’s run on the book wouldn’t start for a while. 

I was a pretty naive teenage when I read this series, and I’m interested in seeing what subtle things I missed.  Or just plain don’t remember.  The Comics Code Authority was still very much in place at the time The Warlord was launched.  It would be another decade, give or take a few years, before the direct market would open the door to more adult oriented themes and content.  I’m curious as to what things I missed when I first read these, and I’ll speculate at times as to how the series might have been different if it hadn’t been subject to the Code.

There have been some attempts to revive the character and/or the series in the last decade or so, but I’ve not read them.  The general consensus based on what little I’ve heard is that they weren’t successful in terms of story.  I’d like to see Grell take another stab at the character.  That may be too much to hope for.