Grey Maiden: The Story of a Sword Through the Ages
I have a habit of buying books — a compulsion, really. Older books, mostly, from book fairs and small used bookstores. Things that look unusual, and which, in the absence of an immediate reason on my part to read them immediately, often sit on my shelves for some time before I get around to them.
So I don’t remember now exactly when and where I picked up a collection of Arthur D. Howden Smith’s Grey Maiden stories, only that it was some time ago. I wish I knew now, because I’d like to go back for more, if there are any.
Arthur D. Howden Smith (1887-1945) was an early pulp writer; the collection Grey Maiden (Centaur Press, 1974) has four out of seven — or nine, depending on what reference you look at — of his stories about the Grey Maiden, the first sword ever forged from iron.
Each tale follows a different wielder, each in a different time and place, as the blade’s won and lost among battles and wars and the rise and fall of empires. All were originally published in the pulp magazine Adventure.
The four tales in the collection I have (there was at least one other collection, with more of them) include a story of betrayal and revenge among the soldiers of Alexander the Great, an account of a group of Phoenicians retreating across Italy, a story of the ebbing of Roman power in Britain, and an imagining of the first collision between the Byzantine Empire and the followers of Islam.
The stories are bleak, violent, and possessed of a dark energy that makes them utterly compelling. The history perhaps couldn’t always stand up to intense scrutiny, but is used in such a way as to make the most exciting and brutal tale possible.
Lou Anders 
Dracula by Bram Stoker frequently vies with The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett as my favorite book.
Okay, writers. Let’s say you have a short story idea or two, but you don’t know the best way to write it. Some sage writers with some sales under their belts tell you that you Must Outline. Other wisened authors tell you to just, “Go where the story takes you,” that you shouldn’t outline at all.
Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius.
Famed with her husband Henry Kuttner for turning out superlatively compelling and complex stories for the pulps, both jointly and singly, Catherine Moore began writing in 1933.
The 2010 Locus Awards winners were announced today, at the annual Science Fiction Awards Weekend in Seattle. The winners include:
Graham McNeill’s novel Empire: The Legend of Sigmar (Black Library) is this year’s winner of the David Gemmell Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel of 2009.
Corleu is an oddity, a white-haired youth in a black-haired tribe of wanderers. His family has a talent for foresight, but all he has is a knack for stories. And then one year the tribe goes south for the winter and finds itself in a marsh where time seems to stand still, where the flowers are perfect but the skies are invisible behind the mists — and no one knows how long they’ve been there. No one but Corleu notices anything wrong.