Having beaten back the kobolds (see Part One of this interview, here at Black Gate), Sean CW Korsgaard sat down again to talk Sword & Sorcery, and his editorial vision for Battleborn, his upcoming magazine.

With your editor hat firmly on, what’s something you nearly always respond to positively? Heroic animal companions? A romantic sub-plot? A surfeit of halberds? 

Given Battleborn‘s approach to sword-and-sorcery, it should surprise nobody that memorable characters and authentic, hard-hitting action scenes are right above home plate for me.

For characters, you follow in the traditions of heroes like Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Elric, Kane, Hanuvar, and more. So, even as you plot out your story, every detail you give your lead character matters. Are they distinctive in your mind’s eye? Do they have a few details that make them stand out, not only in the story, but as they stand beside a century of sword-and-sorcery heroes? Do you have an arc for them planned? Do you have some ideas for sequel stories where we follow that arc?

I urge authors to pay special attention to action. Watch a Shaw Brothers movie, or take a couple acting courses, anything to help you visualize your scenes and better stage every movement of your action. That raw authenticity is as important to sword-and-sorcery as any visceral level of violence. Your reader (and your editor) should feel every punch. Their hearts should leap in their chest with every twist of the knife, and their hair ought to stand on edge when your hero faces down the unspeakable horror you’re pitting them against. You nail your action scenes and then you pull the throttle down and don’t let up until the climax.

Dream big for a moment: in an ideal world, where is Battleborn three years from now? Five? Ten?

Careful Mark, get me talking about my ambitions and we could be here all week.

Three Years? By this point I would love to be regularly putting out an issue four to six times a year, either quarterly or bimonthly, 80K words a pop and paying pro rates. I’d love by this point to have a few house authors and characters known for showing up in the magazine, and maybe a few breakout discoveries of new authors, too. Audiobook and merchandise production are in full swing, and the magazine is financially stable and turning a small profit. That profit being turned over to myself and Iron Age Media to buy up author back catalogs and get them back in print or available as e-books, as well as working with some of our house authors to produce collections of their stories.

Five years in, I would love for the magazine to be reliably bimonthly, with the odd theme or special issue thrown in. A few characters from our magazine start getting mentioned in the same breath as Conan, Elric, or Hanuvar. Just in time, too, because with audiobooks and merchandise now running like a well-oiled machine.

We’ve expanded into some comic and manga adaptations of our stories. We have a reliable stable of e-books that continues to grow, perhaps paired with an in-house print-on-demand option, and several collections from our house authors that do well. I’d love to see a few of our authors and stories get an award nod or two.

Ten years? You know what I’ll see as the benchmark of success? By that time, my son will be the same age I was when I first discovered Conan and Elric. I want him, and a new generation of kids, to pick up an issue of Battleborn and feel that same rush, to have sword-and-sorcery call to them the way it did to me.

Throughout it all? I want the Battleborn name to mean as much to readers as Weird Tales, 2000 AD, or Tales from the Magician’s Skull…and if I allow myself a moment of pride? To see my name mentioned alongside Howard Andrew Jones, and not feel like a fraud.

Are there any action-adventure authors who aren’t as well-known as, for example, Robert E. Howard, who left a mark on you as a reader and editor?

First, two in the subgenre: David Drake and John Jakes.

Drake is an author who, within sword-and-sorcery, does not get nearly the credit he should within the community, which astounds me. Part of that may be that he was a victim of timing, reaching his greatest prominence as an author just and the genre began to decline, part of that may be his work in science fiction, horror and as a military veteran in the arts may have overshadowed his work in fantasy.

It shouldn’t, the man was a World Fantasy Award winner, and even his earliest sword-and-sorcery work shows his knack for action and hard-fighting heroes facing terrifying odds, all the same things that would put Drake on the Mount Rushmore of Military sci-fi. His Vettius and Dama stories especially need more love, not just because they’ve been out of print for decades in some cases, though both in the pages of Battleborn and outside of it, I’m doing what I can to change that.

All this without even touching on his work with Manly Wade Wellman and Karl Edward Wagner, or his role as a mentor to an entire generation of authors.

John Jakes, meanwhile, is a victim of his own success. As a young man, he was a mainstay of the pulp fiction and sword-and-sorcery scenes, and his Brak the Barbarian stories were very popular.

Then, in what would be a tragic loss for sword-and-sorcery, but a wonderful change of fortune for Jakes, he wrote the Kent Family Chronicles and North & South, sold one hundred million books, penned several acclaimed TV shows, and was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Jakes never again dabbled in fantasy, though he always still loved the genre, and in one of his final interviews, he said there’s a detailed outline for a final Brak novel in a safe he left with his estate – something I would very much like to see someday. I worry many are too quick to lump Brak in with the scores of Clonans, but Brak stands out, both physically as a lanky blonde, and for Jakes’ own flourishes, be it the religious subtext of Brak’s journey or his gift for action.

Lastly? Peter Benchley, another of those authors whose work I fell in love with thanks to that used book store in Terre Haute. He has a wonderful style as an author, a marriage of New England high literary tradition and the pulp sensibilities of an airport novelist. It especially lends itself well to his creature features and thrillers — even ignoring Jaws, I would argue The Deep, The Island, Girl of the Sea of Cortez, and The Beast are bona fide classics.

White Shark, my personal favorite, is a perfect showcase of Benchley’s gifts, and how a great author can turn what should be a laughable premise –– a Nazi shark/human hybrid killing people in New England –– into something utterly gripping.

Tragically, save for Jaws, all of Benchley’s books are out of print. With time and some petty cash, I’d love to seek out his estate and offer to produce e-book editions. Future generations deserve to love his work as I did.

Just as I was about to ask the next question, we got word that the Eye of Rhynn and the Hand of Kwll had both gone missing, so off we went to save the day. With luck, our interview will conclude right here at Black Gate, shortly.

Meanwhile, and in case we don’t make it back, we hope you’ll explore Battleborn’s Indiegogo page, HERE.

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Mark Rigney is a writer and long-time Black Gate blogger. His work on this site includes original fiction and perennially popular posts like “Adventure on Film: Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers.” About his new novel, Vinyl Wonderland, reviewer Rich Horton said, “I was brought to tears, tears I trusted. A lovely work.” His favorite review quote so far comes from Instagram: “Holy crap on a cracker, it’s so good.” A preview post can be found HERE, while his website lives over THERE. He is pleased to report that his story, “The Icehawk,” is slated to appear in an early issue of Battleborn.