It’s been a while since I looked at any online magazine here, and that includes Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. One of my goals for the year was to change that. I’m a bit behind on that one, I’m about to start making progress.
The latest issue of HFQ contains two poems and four stories rather than the usual three. All of them have a desert theme. (I wonder if the harsh winter we’ve been having has anything to do with that. California Dreamin’, sword and sorcery style.) Continue reading
Legends: Stories in Honour of David Gemmell
Ian Whates, ed.
Newcon Press
trade paper $20.99 US L11.99 UK
ebook $3.99 Kindle
Last year at the David Gemmell Awards, held in conjunction with the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, a tribute anthology was premiered. Obviously, that anthology was Legends.
One of the wonderful things about ereader apps for phones is that you can read when you have a spare minute and do so without the hassle of carrying around one (or more) books. I’ve spent the last few weeks reading and thoroughly enjoying Legends.
One of the nice things about it was that so many of the contributors were unfamiliar to me. I recognized a number of the names but hadn’t read their work before. My TBR list just got a lot longer. The authors represented here are James Barclay, Gaie Sebold, Ian Whates, Storm Constantine, Tanith Lee, Johnathon Green, Joe Abercrombie, Juliet E. McKenna, Anne Nicholls, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Jan Siegel, Sandra Unerman, and Stan Nicholls.
While most of the stories in the volume were heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery, there were a few that were more fairy tale in nature. This lent the volume a nice variation to the contents.Rather than give a summary of each tale, I’ll highlight some of my favorites. Continue reading
Swords of Good Men
Snorri Kristjansson
Jo Fletcher Books
Hardcover, 298 pp., $24.95
ebook $9.99 Kindle Nook
I came across this one not too long ago in B&N. Over a period of a couple of weeks, I picked it up and browsed through it. I don’t normally buy hardcovers if I’ve not heard of the author, especially if the hardcover is a first novel as this one appeared to be. But I had a coupon, and there really wasn’t anything else that looked very interesting that particular evening. So I took a chance.
Boy, am I glad I did. This was a terrific novel. If I had to sum it up in one word, that word would be “visceral”. Continue reading
You may remember the controversy last summer over the SFWA bulletin, which encompassed, among other things, people being offended by some things said by Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg, some other articles deemed sexist, and of course, the cover you see on the left. I discussed the situation in this post.
Well, now there’s another controversy brewing. Steve Davidson of Amazing Stories does a fine job of summarizing it here.
I’ll hit the high points, but you’ll have to track down some of the details on your own. During last summer’s fiasco, publication of the Bulletin was suspended. Plans are for it to resume. A few things need to happen first, like a new editor has to be hired. And there’s some sort of oversight committee that will be put in place to see to it that the Bulletin doesn’t publish anything that isn’t up to SFWA standards.
And that’s got some people upset. Continue reading
Just a quick note to let you know my latest post on the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany is up on Black Gate. You can find it here. If you haven’t read it, check it out and join the discussion. There are some great comments.
Turn Down the Lights
Richard Chizmar, ed.
Cemetery Dance
trade hardcover $35
slipcased artist edition $75
traycased limited edition $750
Cemetery Dance has long been one of the major players in the horror and dark suspense fields. That’s true for the magazine and the publishing house. The first issue of the magazine Cemetery Dance was published just over 35 years ago.
To celebrate, Richard Chizmar has put together this little volume. It’s a great introduction to the type of thing you’ll find in the magazine as well as among the titles in their catalog.
In addition to an introduction by Chizmar and an afterward by Thomas Monteleone, there are stories by Stephen King, Norman Partridge, Jack Ketchum, Brian James Freeman, Bentley Little, Ed Gorman, Ronald Kelly, Steve Rasnic Tem, Clive Barker, and Peter Straub.
Some of the top names in the field. May favorite stories were by King, Freeman, Little, and Gorman. All of them were well-written. Not all of the stories are supernatural. The Gorman and Freeman entries especially dealt with more mundane terrors. In fact these two were some of the best short fiction I’ve read in the horror field.
There’s not a bad story in the book, and there’s something here for every taste. This is the type of book Cemetery Dance excels at. With Turn Down the Lights they’ve met and surpassed their own standards.
Adventures Fantastic would like to congratulate Cemetery Dance on 35 years of publishing some of the best dark fiction to be had and wish them another 35 years. If you haven’t read them, check them out.
Called to Battle, vol. 1
No editor credited
Privateer Press
Skull Island Expeditions
electronic $4.99
The Iron Kingdoms is fast becoming one of my favorite fantasy worlds. Eschewing the traditional medieval milieu for a steam-powered industrial setting, The Iron Kingdoms is a fresh take on military fantasy. This collection of four novellas is a good example why that is. Continue reading
While it’s not quite January 24 where I am just yet, it is a few times zones east of here, and that’s good enough for me. Especially since tomorrow is going to be a pretty full day.
Fantasy and science fiction author C. L. Moore was born this day in 1911. After her marriage, her writing was overshadowed by that of her husband Henry Kuttner. This was in part because Kuttner’s byline got a higher word rate that hers.
Even so, Moore had a major impact on the field. Her Jirel of Joiry was one of the first women fighters in the field of sword and sorcery, a direct forerunner of Red Sonja. And Northwest Smith was clearly one of the models for Han Solo.
I started a series of posts last year taking an in-depth look at the Northwest Smith stories. I stopped when I got to “Nymph of Darkness”. This was co-written with Forrest J. Ackerman. I have a book in which Ackerman discusses the story. Unfortunately, it was not on the shelf. I finally found the book in a box that hadn’t been unpacked from when we moved in 2012. Look for more Northwest Smith posts soon.
Decades Years ago, when I was in college, I saw an autograph book that contained pictures of science fiction and fantasy writers, one per page. The page for C. L. Moore had a picture of her sitting on what appeared to be the back steps of a house. I’ve not seen that picture since. It doesn’t appear to be online anywhere. If anyone has a copy of that picture, I would appreciate your sending it to me.
For those who are interested, as well as the morbidly curious, here are the Northwest Smith posts I’ve done so far:
“Shambleau”
“Black Thirst”
“Scarlet Dream”
“Dust of Gods”
“Juhli”
Today is the birthday of one of my literary heroes, and one of only a handful of authors who has his own shelf in my library. In fact, he’s the only one who has two full shelves devoted to his works. I’m talking of course about Robert E. Howard. You may think there’s not much still to be learned about Howard. If you read the Two Gun Raconteur blog (and if you don’t, shame on you), then you know productive research into Howard’s life is still going on.
I said in my reading goals post a few weeks ago that I want to read more Howard this year. His birthday is a perfect time to start.
Classes start today; I’ve got one from11:00 – 1:50. On top of that, my wife is having shoulder surgery tomorrow morning. Nothing big, i.e., not a rotator cuff, but I’ll be tied up with that and won’t be at work. Depending on how long her parents stay and if her painkillers are working, I may or may not be at work on Friday. (It hey are here and the drugs aren’t working, I’m coming in to work.) Anyway, I might not be very active online until next week.
In the meantime, there’s a new Kickstarter readers of this blog might be interested in. It’s called, Farewell, Something Lovely. The title is a play on Raymond Chandler’s novel, Farewell, My Lovely. It’s a collection of hardboiled sword and sorcery tales by Fraser Ronald. Since S&S and hardboiled/noir are two of my three favorite subgenres, I’m looking forward to this one.
And if you haven’t been following the discussion at Howard Andrew Jones’ blog on the relationship between hardboiled and sword and sorcery, start here.