Looking Back on the first Sword and Sorceress
Sword and Sorceress I
Edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley (DAW, 1984)
The late author and editor Marion Zimmer Bradley probably could not have dared to guess in 1984 that her anthology series, Sword and Sorceress, would turn into a yearly and best-selling institution of fantasy short stories that would extend past her death. That the first volume in the series bears a Roman numeral shows that she did believe the anthology would see at least two volumes; that it now reaches into the mid-twenties (with the twenty-fifth due this year) shows just how much sword-and-sorcery has embraced inclusiveness during the last three decades. Strong female heroines are now a key part of the genre, completing what C. L. Moore started with her amazing — especially for the time — Jirel of Joiry stories of the 1930s. Bradley invokes Moore a few times in her introduction, and the book is dedicated to both Moore and Jirel.
Over a quarter of a century after publication, the first Sword and Sorceress holds up quite well, while still showing some of the growing pains of sword-and-sorcery in the 1980s. Reading through it makes it clear that the sword-and-sorcery revival still had a distance to go in 1984. About three quarters of the stories Sword and Sorceress I are good-to-excellent, but like all anthologies it has rough patches, some shaky editorial picks, and a few pieces that don’t hit at all. As the series had just started, Bradley did not have a large pool of submissions to pick from. Later volumes would improve the mix as the number of works submitted increased, but this is the start, and therefore worth reading for its historical importance, saggy spots and all.
One of my favorite books — among a host of many favorites, of course, many many favorites, collected over decades of careful reading in a wide variety of genres, it’s hard to choose, depends on the time of day, naturally, and what we’re talking about, whether you want to include non-fiction, and it’s difficult to judge pleasure reading against, you know, literature like The Sound and the Fury, which was great until the part where I quit reading and pretty much gave up. That Quentin character though, man, what a dick. Anyway. Where was I.
I’ve been pondering the need for heroes in fiction again this week, and I thought it a good time to revisit a post I’d made on the Black Gate Livejournal page a few years ago. I imagine a lot of you haven’t read it; if you have, I apologize for the repeat.
Apex publisher Jason Sizemore has announced that the magazine has re-opened to submissions.
Paizo, publisher of the Pathfinder role playing game, 
Following some of the recent discussion on the future of the magazine, including the 
It gives me great pleasure to announce what some of you may have already heard — the talented Ryan Harvey, author and Black Gate blogger extraordinaire, has placed third in the International Writers of the Future contest for the First Quarter of 2010.
Ah summertime! With Memorial Day behind us we can finally relish the signs that warm weather is here to stay and the frigid months are at least temporarily a thing of the past. Though I am already counting down the less than five months until Halloween, even I am somewhat giddy in the abundant sunlight streaming in the office window, making it clear I haven’t dusted since the last full moon. Which reminds me…
Reports have surfaced that Realms of Fantasy publisher Warren Lapine has written to subscribers of the magazine, telling them that if they don’t renew their subscriptions he’s going to shut it down.