Search Results for: Steven Erikson

Fantastical Crime Noir for the New Year: Crazy Town edited by Jason M. Waltz

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Jason M. Waltz may be our favorite independent publisher. His publishing house Rogue Blades Entertainment, newly relocated to Texas, is celebrating its first 2018 release: Crazy Town: A Dark Anthology of Fantastical Crime Noir, and it looks very good indeed. Jason earned his rep with top-notch titles such as Return of the Sword (2008), Rage of the Behemoth (2009), Demons (2010), and Writing Fantasy Heroes (2013), with original contributions from Brandon Sanderson, Howard Andrew Jones, James Enge, E.E. Knight, Glen Cook, Orson…

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And in the End: Soldiers Live by Glen Cook, Part 2

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So that’s that. Last night I closed the cover of Soldiers Live (2000), the final volume of Glen Cook’s Black Company series. (Yes, yes, I know there’s a new book, Port of Shadows, coming out this month, but it’s set in the past, before Shadows Linger.) All the Company’s enemies and most of its veterans are laid to rest, mostly in their graves. In the last few pages the Black Company, Last of the Free Companies of Khatovar, leaves one universe…

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Sharpen Those Writing Pens: Rogue Blades Entertainment Open to Submissions for Three New Anthologies

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Rogue Blades Entertainment’s Jason M. Waltz is one of the best editors in the adventure fantasy business. His books include the groundbreaking Writing Fantasy Heroes, Challenge! Discovery, Rage of the Behemoth, and Return of the Sword, one of the most important Sword & Sorcery anthologies of the 21st Century. But as exciting as those tomes are, what I want to talk about today are Jason’s future books — which promise to be as groundbreaking as his epic back catalog. One of…

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February Short Story Roundup

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Just a little to report from this past month’s excursion into the realm of short heroic fantasy. First, there’s the best issue in some time of Swords and Sorcery Magazine. Second, issue #14 of Grimdark Magazine. While the latter is loaded with good non-fiction articles, there’s only a single, albeit 15,000-word-long, story. Swords and Sorcery Magazine rarely falls below good, but less often rises to great. I suspect it’s the nature of a magazine that only is able to pay…

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The January Fantasy Magazine Rack

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Only two print magazines in the first half of the month, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and pulp reprint mag High Adventure. Online zines definitely seem to be where the action is. The first magazines of 2018 feature fiction from Tobias S. Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, S.B. Divya, Tamara Vardomskaya, Sunny Moraine, Terence Faherty, Osahon Ize-iyamu, Erin Roberts, Bo Balder, Bao Shu, Arkady Martine, Marissa Lingen, Sunny Moraine, Vivian Shaw, R.K. Kalaw, and many others. Here’s the complete list of magazines that won my…

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New Treasures: Swords Against Darkness edited by Paula Guran

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I’ve been anticipating Paula Guran’s monumental Swords Against Darkness anthology for over a year, ever since word started to leak out about the massive amount of research she was doing to make her selections (including reading every issue of Black Gate). The book was finally released this summer, but it wasn’t until last weekend that I was able to settle in with it. And so far, it’s been a delight. It’s divided into three sections: Forging and Shaping, covering the…

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Another View: The Difficult Experiment of Scott Oden’s A Gathering of Ravens

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I really wanted to like this book. With pleasure I listened to Oden speak on The Literary Wonder and Adventure Show. He talked at length about Tolkien (my own spiritual and literary master), and it seemed that Oden’s and my dials were approximately set. Oden’s book, like Tolkien’s most popular works, deals with “that northern thing” (though I just today learned that Tolkien objected, in part, to this characterization from W.H. Auden). But Oden’s book is so grimdark that, while…

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Feeding the Forest with Memory: Mythago Wood and Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock

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There are a few novels I will return two over and over. García Marquéz’ One Hundred Years of Solitude is one. Dan Symmons’ Hyperion is another. I’ve been back to R. Scott Baker’s Prince of Nothing series a few times. But my pile is shrinking. I’ve grown as a reader and can’t read Dune anymore, and I haven’t tried to go back to Tolkein in probably a decade. But one truly haunting work is Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood and Lavondyss. The novels won the World Fantasy Award in…

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A Tale of Two Covers: Swords Against Darkness

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Last September we reported here on the massive stack of research material Paula Guran was digesting in a noble attempt to produce the ultimate modern Swords & Sorcery anthology. The project, Swords Against Darkness, now has a cover (above right), and a release date (July). It does not (yet) have a table of contents. But when it does, you’ll be the first to know. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to put Paula’s cover side by side with its…

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In 500 Words or Less: Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

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Best Served Cold By Joe Abercrombie Gollancz (544 pages, £9.99 in paperback, £6.99 digital, June 2010) Remember a few weeks ago when I talked about Steven Erikson being in my top five fantasy authors? Joe Abercrombie is in there, too – in fact, he’s probably higher than Erikson. The First Law trilogy blew me away, which makes it painful to say that its immediate sequel, Best Served Cold, left me a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong: this fantasy-style homage…

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