Search Results for: "sword & sorcery"

The Aesthetics of Sword & Sorcery: An Interview with Philip Emery

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The Shadow Cycles by Philip Emery (Immanion Press, August 2011) This continues our interviews on “Beauty in Weird Fiction” with previous topics being: THE BEAUTY IN HORROR AND SADNESS: AN INTERVIEW with DARRELL SCHWEITZER THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE REPELLENT: AN INTERVIEW with CHARLES A. GRAMLICH DISGUST AND DESIRE: AN INTERVIEW with ANNA SMITH SPARK ACCESSIBLE DARK FANTASY: AN INTERVIEW with CAROL BERG GOD, DARKNESS, & WONDER: AN INTERVIEW with BYRON LEAVITT Are you haunted, perhaps obsessed, with Sword & Sorcery?…

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Sword & Sorcery Has a Future: The Red Man and Others by Remco van Straten and Angeline B. Adams

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The Red Man and Others (March 2021). Cover artist uncredited Back in May I was contacted by author Remco van Straten, who was promoting his new Heroic Fantasy collection The Red Man and Others, written with Angeline B. Adams. Here’s what he told me. These are interconnected stories around a small but tough sell-sword, Kalia, her disabled forger girlfriend Ymke, and their teenage thief and con-artist protégé Sebastien, each with a grudge against the Brotherhood of the Wheel. In their…

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Read Matthew David Surridge’s Sword & Sorcery Novella “The Great Work” at Patreon

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Matthew David Surridge’s novellete “The Word of Azrael” first appeared in Black Gate 14, and was one of the most widely acclaimed stories we ever published. Tangent Online called it “One of the strongest heroic fantasies I have seen in years,” and Rich Horton selected it for the 2011 Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy. In his Locus review Rich said: Even better is Matthew Surridge’s “The Word of Azrael.” It concerns Isrohim Vey, who sees the Angel of Death on…

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Sword & Sorcery from a Bygone Era: Tales of Attluma by David C. Smith

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Cover art by Tom Barber David C. Smith has written a number of articles for Black Gate, most recently a fine review of Brian Murphy’s history of Sword-and-Sorcery, Flame and Crimson. He’s also the author of twenty-six novels and collections, including Oron, The Fall of the First World trilogy, and Robert E. Howard: A Literary Biography. His newest is Tales of Attluma, a collection of classic S&S tales from Bob McLain’s Pulp Hero Press, most of which appeared in hard-to-find…

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The Best in Modern Sword & Sorcery: The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Volume 3

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Cover by Zoltan Heroic Fantasy Quarterly has been published, like clockwork, every quarter since June 2009. And every eight issues, like clockwork, the editors of HFQ assemble a Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly volume, as a way to celebrate another milestone and promote their worthy magazine. These books are top-notch examples of modern sword & sorcery (and I’m not just saying that because I was invited to write the introduction for Volume I.) In his review of Volume I, Fletcher Vredenburgh…

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A Sword & Sorcery Christmas

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It’s Christmas Eve. Everyone in the O’Neill household is wrapping presents, munching Christmas cookies, and listening to music (so… much… loud… music…). Yesterday I gave up and turned off the portable Bose speaker next to my head, because the music coming out of the basement was so loud I couldn’t hear it. Christmas break isn’t just about having our kids home, food, and taxing my eardrums. It’s also when I have time for more ambitious reading projects, and this year there’s one in…

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Get a Free Sword & Sorcery Anthology from DMR Books!

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DMR Books, helmed by the tireless Dave Ritzlin, is one of the more exciting modern publishers of science fiction & fantasy. Bob Byrne and I shared a table with Dave at the Windy City Pulp & Paper show here in Chicago last year, and we got to see first hand how enthusiastically modern readers respond to his books. Last month DMR released a free sample book with stories from DMR’s previous releases, upcoming titles, and a few you won’t find…

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DMR Books Brings Pulp Sword & Sorcery Back Into Print

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Last month I rented a booth at the Windy City Pulp and Paper show here in Chicago — my favorite local convention — and piled it high with brand new hardcovers and trade paperbacks I was giving away. I had 31 boxes of leftover review copies, duplicates from my collection, and hundreds of rare advance proofs to get out of my basement, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Bob Byrne and Steven Silver made long drives to the con to…

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The Finest in Modern Sword & Sorcery: The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 2, 2011-2013

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One of the reasons I especially regret not attending the World Fantasy Convention this year is missing the release of The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 2, which debuted at the con. I wrote the introduction to the first volume, and I dearly wish I’d been there to celebrate the arrival of this one. In his review of Volume 1, Fletcher Vredenburgh wrote: Regular readers of my monthly short story roundup know how great I think Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is, ranking…

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Support an Exciting New Magazine of Sword & Sorcery: Tales From the Magician’s Skull

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Here’s the best news I’ve heard all month: Goodman Games, publisher of the excellent Dungeon Crawl Classics line of old-school RPG adventures, has launched a brand new magazine of Sword & Sorcery, Tales From the Magician’s Skull. The editor chosen to helm this groundbreaking project? None other than our very own Howard Andrew Jones. Here’s Howard with the scoop. A gong shivers… The mists part to reveal a grisly object lying upon a mound of rubble, a browned and ancient…

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