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.
And overall, they’re excellent stories. Chris Willrich provides a Gaunt and Bone adventure, while James Enge gives us a tale from early in the life of his character Morlock Ambrosius. Bill Ward sends Shan Spirit-Slayer and Banner General Bao to investigate where a dangerous drug is coming from. Aeryn Rudel tells a tale of revenge, when an executed man returns to protect his sister from her evil sorcerer husband. Howard Andrew Jones introduces what I believe is a new character, one who destined to lead a rebellion against the empire that conquered his people. (This is a character I want to see more of, Howard.) C. L. Werner takes the old saying “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” to a literal level with his story. John C. Hocking gives us a story from the World of the Archivist, in which a grave robbing doesn’t go quite the way the graverobbers are expecting. Nor the way the sorcerer hunting expects. This was my favorite story.
The issue ends with a set of game statistics based on the stories (the publisher is Goodman Games, after all) and a list of bookstores not only in the US, but in Canada, Brazil, Germany, Sweden, and Great Britain.
I was highly impressed. There are a number of small press publications that have come along in the last few years that specialized in adventure fiction, weird fiction, and fantasy, such as Skelos, Weirdbook, and Cirsova, just to name a few. But Tales From the Magician’s Skull is the only one I’m aware of that is devoted solely to sword and sorcery. If the quality continues, and I have every expectation that it will, then Tales From the Magician’s Skull will be one of my must-reads.
If you haven’t read it, check it out.
I was surprised by the quality of the contents, but I was by the actual physical quality. Goodman Games and HAJ did a terrific job and I’m looking forward to #2.
“WASN’T surprised by the contents” Stupid fat fingers
Me, too. The bar has been set high, but I have no doubt it will continue to be met.
Hey Keith,
Appreciate the thoughtful review. I have a story in the mag, but beyond that, I’m basically the bullseye-target audience for this kind of project and I completely geeked out on the look and feel of the magazine. I do not want to make negative comparisons with the work of anyone intrepid enough to produce a print genre magazine these days, but Tales from the Magician’s Skull looks and feels better than anything the field has seen in a very long time. Just paging through it made me happy.
I’m also pleased you liked my story. I channeled more hardboiled edge into it than I usually do and reader’s reactions, especially to the protagonist, have been, um, decidedly mixed.
So thanks.
JCH
Hi, John.
I apologize for the mistake in the original version of the post where I misattributed your story to someone else. It’s been fixed. That’s what I get for writing the post so late and not double checking.
I agree with you about the production values. I don’t think you’re making a negative comparison to the other print publications. Rather you’re recognizing the that the bar is being raised. Goodman Games has the resources to do that, and I don’t consider it to be a negative reflection on anyone else to acknowledge that. It was like reading a classic pulp without the crumbling yellow pages.
The mixed reaction is understandable. My initial reaction was a little mixed as well. I like hardboiled (and have tracked down some of your recommendations to HAJ), and I like my sword and sorcery to have a thread of darkness through it. OTOH, I’m growing tired of grimdark fantasy where there are no heroes or honorable characters. After some thought, I decided the former outweighed the latter in the case of your story; you do have honorable characters. You told a tale well enough that I want to return to that world regardless of whether the story had the some of the same or different characters. The actions of the protagonist were what made the story be more than just a standard fantasy adventure. They were logical and consistent with how you had developed his character early on and left a stronger emotional impact than if he hadn’t done what he did. I would also be interested in seeing the consequences of the protagonist’s actions.
Yeah, grimdark is fine in concept but much of it develops a weirdly uniform tone. Everything everywhere every time is weak, sad, mean and stinky.
I can understand a backlash against the ‘Noble Knights Against Foul Darkness’, and the ‘My Magic Cat Rides the Unicorn of Self Discovery’ types of fantasy, but relentless grimness loses any sense of wonder or excitement and becomes predictable and even dull.
Thanks for the close reading of The Crystal Sickle’s Harvest. Never any guarantee anything you write will get that.
With luck you’ll see Benhus, and some of the consequences of his actions, in the second issue of the Skull.