Had a blast meeting up with fellow Sword and Sorcery authors at the local pub. With Andy Fix and Bill Pearce ... we salute Howard Andrew Jones whom we've admired and perhaps even served as Skull Interns. All hail the Skull!
With Bill Pearce who has a story in Tales from the Magician's Skull issue #11 (link to Gen Con 2023 when we first met),
OLD MOON QUARTERLY ISSUE V REVIEW PLUS A KICKSTARTER FOR VII AND VIII
Simulcast on Black Gate magazine Nov 6th, 2023.
Old Moon
Quarterly is a magazine of dark fantasy and weird
sword-and-sorcery. In the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, Tanith Lee and Karl
Edward Wagner, it contains stories of strange vistas, eldritch beings, and the
bloody dispute thereof by both swordsmen and swordswomen. Old Moon
Quarterly emerged in 2022 led by Editor-in-Chief Julian Barona,
flanked by Assistant Editors Caitlyn Emily Wilcox and Graham Thomas
Wilcox. This May 2023, Black Gate reviewed
Issue #3 (with an overview of #1 and #2). True to what the
editors promise, the magazine consistently delivers strong doses of weird Sword
& Sorcery.
This post reviews Old
Moon Quarterly Issue V; shared below is the table of
contents with summaries of each story and excerpts (these were selected to
avoid spoilers while conveying the feel of each). As with previous
issues, expect stories that push the boundaries of uniqueness, blending poetic
writing with horror and adventure. If you read tropes they’ll lean toward the
twisted or bizarre.
But first a quick call out to the ongoing Kickstarter
for Issues VII & VIII; This campaign runs now through Nov
31st, 2023 and, if successful, would fund two more issues paying contributors
professional rates!
Here is a key blurb from and about the Old Moon Quarterly crew.
Old Moon Quarterly is an award-winning print and digital magazine of sword-and-sorcery and dark fantasy fiction, featuring over 20,000 words of original fiction as well as poetry and original nonfiction. We’ve a love for the classics of the genre and a desire to push for some new, strange takes on our old favorites. And of course, the magazine is made with a particular love and affinity for the eldritch aesthetics and weird storytelling of Berserk, Bloodborne and Dark Souls.
We’ve published five issues so far, with a sixth issue on the way. Since our inception in June 2022, we’ve increased our pay for authors from 5c a word to 8c a word, making us the only sword-and-sorcery focused fantasy magazine that pays what the SFWA considers a “professional” rate. We firmly believe that dark fantasy and sword-and-sorcery authors deserve a venue where they can receive fair pay for stories that are often very difficult to place in other venues. We started Old Moon Quarterly to give authors that venue.
With the funding from this Kickstarter, we’ll be able to maintain that payrate for issues 7 and 8, which will release in 2024. And not only will we be able to maintain that payrate, we’ll be able to increase the amount of fiction in each issue from 20,000 to 30,000+; we’ll be able to include (for the first time) interior artwork in a classic black-and-white style!
Old
Moon Quarterly Issue V: Stories and Poems
1) “Together Under the Wing” by Jonathan Olfert
The perspective and scale of this story are simply huge: the
protagonists are mammoths, and they pale in size versus their giant
antagonist! Epic duels drive this revenge
tale. Walks-like-a-Rockslide seeks revenge for the death of his mother (Grass-Wisper)
by the hands of the ancient Giant King.
The matriarch Grass-Whisper had lived in a grove in the hills, now stomped flat by vast human-like footprints. Her carved tusks lay in cracked-off chunks; they and the blood were all that remained—that, and the huge flint used to skin her before eating. A flint five times the size of the quartz blades bound to his tusks… (p11)
2) Champions Against the Maggot King by K.H. Vaughn
Get ready for some Warhammer/Grimdark-Tolkien fare. The
soldier Grath narrates this tale. He details an epic battle against the Maggot
King. The titular, heroic champions lead an army of >60 thousand that ride
in landships made from living stone, armed with canons, and fueled by elemental
sorcery. The champions include the Dwarf Ko Mon who has a lengthy
morning-star-like prosthetic, the sword-wielding elf-who-never-smiles lIhar,
and their demoness leader Sergeant, the female Sorrow Mai.
A wave of wild men break against the ship. They are pathetic. Pale and soft, but secure in their sense of power, waving their genitals at us as they come. They howl in impotent rage as they die, mowed down by arrows and lances. The ship rolls over them and churns their corpses into dirt. No one will find their bones or mourn their deaths. Where does the Maggot King find them? There must be thousands of them in the dim light of subterranean caves, thinking nothing but their eventual victory. (p49)
3) “The King’s Two Bodies” poem by Joe Koch
I enjoyed this so much, I read it three times to soak in the
words. It is beautiful, but too cryptic to understand on its initial
pass. Two souls with liquid properties are contained within one body. One
may exit the vessel via a ritual of exiting the body and filling a cup.
4) “The Origin of Boghounds” by Amelia Gorman
Samphire is a female bounty hunter searching out a snake-oil
salesman at the edges of Sichel, the stained city that radiates a New Orleans
swamp vibe. She’s not the only bounty hunter seeking a payout. Several other
hunters stumble into her and boghounds as they track down their prey while
unearthing mysteries and monsters.
Samphire blows out her candle and sips into the dark corner between the headboard and wall. She disappears into the dark sod and crouches down in a knot in the tiny crawlspace, barely fitting with her giant pack of unguents and vinegars. [A boghound] hops silently off the straw, pads over to her and crawls under the bed, looking up at her with those affectionate golden eyes like two stars in the dirty dark. As the dark obscured their faces, Samphire catches voices she’s butted against time and again. (p56)
5) “Well Met at the Gates of Hell” by David K. Henrickson
An amoral warrior arrives in Hell and is met at the entrance
by three antagonists (two humanoids, one not) seeking to duel. Lots of
banter makes this more of a light-hearted read.
In that moment, the newcomer skims the plate he has finally freed from his armor toward the giant’s eyes and throws himself in a roll.
Automatically, the giant flinches away from the spinning metal. ‘Faithless!” he cries out, aiming a blow at the tumbling figure as it dives past.
The newcomer is already inside and below the other’s guard. His blade flashes out in a backhand swing, shearing through the giant’s thigh just above the greave. (p73)
6) “A Warning Agaynste Woldes” poem by Zachary Bos
As the title suggests, this poem has an Old Shakespeare
tone. It is cryptic like the previous poem. It conveys that nature, and its
forests, are a type of temple or church. Be wary of entering the forest, since
it is full of fear, faith, and spirits.
7) “The Skull of Ghosts” by Charles Gramlich
Confession: I’m a huge Gramlich fan and frequently seek out
his Krieg stories (I
interviewed him for Black Gate in 2019, and we
discussed his Krieg character). Here the sorcerer-warrior receives a
haunting call from “Amma”, so he seeks out his old acquaintance (of the same
name) in a plagued city. An evil sorcerer is seeking bodies to possess, and as
Krieg starts to put an end to the madness, he learns he’s jumped into a trap.
Krieg slipped to one side, caught the swordman’s hand and
twisted. A raw shriek burst from the man’s lips; bones ground audibly together
as his blade turned inevitably upward to point at his face.
The assailant’s hood fell back, revealing swarthy skin marked by plague skulls. A topknot of greasy reddish hair invited a hold. Krieg grabbed it, slammed the man’s face forward onto the sword. Once, twice, thrice. Wiping his hand on the man’s cloak, the black-eyed warrior let the body fall like a burden he’d grown tired of… (p87)
8) “The Headsman’s Melancholy” by Joseph Andre Thomas
This could easily be a Twilight Zone episode
written by Edgar Allen Poe. Executioner Jack meets a robber multiple times on
the chopping block. Written as a series of journal entries. The ending is
emotive, and a bit abstract, as Jack seeks peace by stopping his profession,
leaving town, or pursuing other options. Loved this.
The man screeched laughter as he eviscerated himself, His
blood poured down my face, into my mouth. It seeped between my teeth and
beneath my tongue.
I screamed.
His smile was no longer cocky, but overjoyed. He reached into his chest cavity and grabbed hold of something, pulled it out. His heart, I realized, still attached to whatever tubes and capillaries govern the viscera. He hung it out above me with one hand… (p129)
I am excited to have a short story ("The Last Witch of Salem") in Witch Wizard Warlock.
Wizardry is always a draw for attention. Halloween is around the corner too, and there will be special attention toward beloved (feared?) magical arts. Three Cousins Publishing (an imprint of West Mesa Publishing) gathered Carol McConnell, David Lawrence Morris and Robert Allen Lupton to collect tales of spellcasting with a global perspective from contemporary voices, and so Witch Wizards Warlock was conjured. It is available now in Kindle ($4.99), Paperback ($16.95), and Hardcover ($25.99). An audiobook is in the works.
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The "Last Witch of Salem" story revisits possible supernatural undercurrents behind the infamous town during the super-charged time of Leslie's Retreat. That event (aka "Salem Gunpowder Raid") was a standoff between the British military and American colonists in Salem, Massachusetts. Here's the historical context before & after the "Retreat":
The massive volume contains thirty-four stories about witches, wizards, and warlocks from the brightest talents writing speculative fiction today, writers from seven countries around the world. Horror stories, fantasy stories, adventure stories, some with a touch of humor, and some that shouldn't be read after the lights go out. Young witches, old witches, pretty witches, and ugly witches, along with wizards, good and bad, share stories with warlocks. Are there good warlocks - who knows?
Readers can attend wizard school, fight monsters and of course, evil witches and warlocks. They can journey on magical quests, seek true love, and even take sides in the American Revolutionary War.
Contributors to the anthology include the following, some of whom may or may not be a witch, a wizard, or a warlock, but they all have a magical way with words. Many of them have books available, If you like their story, consider one of their other works. Three Cousins Publishing would like to thank: Alyson Faye, E. V. Emmons, Campbell Blaine, S. E. Lindberg, Carol McConnell, David Morris, Shebat Legion, R. L. Meldrum, Rose Strickman, Lawrence Dagstine, Catherine Jordan, Tim Pulo, Judy Mowdy, Donna Garren, Shane Porteous, Ann Tjelmenland, Kay Hanifen, Ann Solinsky, Jason Battle, Dwain Campbell, C. J. Carter-Stephenson, AE Stueve, Dr. Ayman Kole, Josh Schlossberg, Rie Sheridan Rose, Chris Adams, George Jacobs, Darren Lipman, Bill Durfy, DW Milton, Yvonne Lang, and Robin Allison Lupton.
One has to be careful when dealing with witches and the like, because none of us is every quite as smart as we think we are, but hopefully that rule applies to those who seek to master the dark arts.
So here's the book, sit down and light a candle, and make sure to keep a bell within reach. You never know when you'll need to break a spell. Enjoy.
This anthology contains stories from writers around the world, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, the United States, and the Bahamas. Each country has its own version of the English language, its own idioms, and its own way of spelling certain words. In the United States, the language varies from region to region. A Louisiana dialect bears no resemblance to what’s spoken in Boston. We’ve tried to respect and celebrate those differences. We learned that 'you lot' in the UK apparently means the same thing as all 'y’all' does in Mississippi. A pint in one country is a coldie in another. Innocuous words in one part of the English-speaking world are offensive in another. Our resident punctuation warlock insisted that we use consistent punctuation. Hopefully, we’ve accomplished that. So a quick toast before you start the first story, “To Witches, Warlocks, and Wizards; and to active verbs, proper use of conjunctions, and the Oxford comma. May all intransitive verbs, participles past and present, and gerunds rot away on some ancient alchemist’s shelf.”
... Whether you believe in witches, warlocks, or wizards, be nice if you meet someone who claims to be one. Politeness never hurts and you just never know.
In 2022, Dyscrasia Fiction appeared in Book of Blades Vol. 1.
The necromantic Doctor Grave still struggles to "raise" three daughters; so the chronology of Ember, Leech, and Mel continues with "Breaching Earth's Womb" appearing in the just-released A Book of Blades Vol. II!
Join the critically acclaimed podcast focusing on Sword and Sorcery & Heroic Fantasy.
From May 28th; Family hike at Rentschler Park. Spotted a fawn in the Native American mounds hidden in the forest... and then we stumbled into an old graveyard. Folks buried there around 1830's. Many born about 1800.
Old Moon Quarterly Vol III — Winter (119p, March, 2023). Cover by Daniel Vega.
Old Moon Quarterly is a magazine of weird sword-and-sorcery fantasy. In the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, Tanith Lee and Karl Edward Wagner, it contains stories of strange vistas, eldritch beings, and the bloody dispute thereof by swordsmen and swordswomen both.
Old Moon Quarterly emerged in 2022. This reviews the four stories inside the Winter 2023 issue (Vol III), which delivers solid doses of the weird adventure it promises. The Editor-in-Chief is Julian Barona, flanked by Assistant Editors Caitlyn Emily Wilcox and Graham Thomas Wilcox (who recently debuted here on Black Gate with his review of John Langan's Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies, so I gleefully checked this out). Excerpts best convey the style and elements of what to expect, so you'll get those here!
Gen Con is the largest tabletop gaming convention in North America. In 2019, they welcomed over 65,000 unique visitors and offered over 19,000 events. By its nature, Gen Con attracts a large number of attendees who enjoy speculative fiction.
Gen Con 2023 will be held August 3-6 in Indianapolis, Indiana
The Gen Con Writers’ Symposium (GCWS) is a semi-independent event hosted by Gen Con and intended for both new and experienced writers of speculative fiction. All registration is handled through the Gen Con website.
Over the past 28 years, the Writers’ Symposium has grown from a small set of panels over a day or two to one of the largest convention-hosted writing tracks in North America, offering hundreds of hours of programming from authors, editors, agents, and publishers to nearly 3000 unique visitors per year on average.
We’re proud to announce that the Scalzi Family Foundation will be this year’s Gen Con Writers’ Symposium Legendary Sponsor! This sponsorship will enable the symposium to support more writers to attend, creating a more representative and inclusive event.
Simulcast on Black Gate: BEAUTY AND NIGHTMARES ON ALIENS WORLDS: INTERVIEWING C. S.FRIEDMAN
We have an ongoing series at Black Gate on the topic of “Beauty in Weird Fiction” where we corner an author and query them about their muses and methods to make ‘repulsive’ things ‘attractive to readers.’ Previous subjects have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney, and John C. Hocking (see the full list at the end of this post).
Inspired by the release of Nightborn: Coldfire
Rising (July 2023, see Black
Gate’s review for more information), we are delighted to interview
C.S. Freidman! Since the late 1990’s she has established herself as a
master of dark fantasy and science fiction, being a John W. Campbell award
finalist and author of the highly acclaimed Coldfire trilogy
and This Alien Shore (New York Times Notable Book of
the Year 1998).
Let’s learn about C. S. Friedman’s muses & fears, her
experience with art, and tease a future TV series!
SEL: Tell us about your fascination with Human vs Alien
Colonization, and the struggle over shared souls/minds/psyches. That foundation
resonates across This Alien Shore, The Madness Season (the
Tyr’s gestalt-mind), the Coldfire series (via the ethereal
fae), and the Magister Trilogy (consumable souls!).
CSF: Science fiction and fantasy offer an opportunity for us
to step outside of our normal human perspective, questioning things we normally
take for granted. What better vehicle could there be for this than to have
humans confront a non-human being or force? Or to have two souls battle
over a single identity? Such stories invite us to question what
‘identity’ really means, and whether the assumptions we make about the world
are rooted in some kind of universal reality, or are simply a human construct.
One of my favorite creations is the first story I decided to
publish, which wound up being chapter 11 in my first book, In Conquest
Born. Stranded on an alien world, a human telepath is forced to seek
mental communion with an alien race. In doing so, she must surrender her
human identity, because the manner in which these aliens perceive the world is
not something a human psyche can comprehend. One must see reality through their
eyes to understand them. That is a repeated theme in my work.
One of my favorite stories that someone else wrote was
published many years ago in Asimov’s SF magazine. It was Nancy Kress’s “A
Delicate Shade of Kipley.” It takes place on a world where constant fog makes
everything appear gray, so that the entire world is drained of color. The
humans who landed there desperately hunger for color and treasure the few
colorful pictures of Earth that they have managed to salvage. To their
child who was born there, however, the grey world has its own kind of beauty,
and she relishes fine gradations of gray as her parents once relished the
brilliant colors of a rainbow. (“A Delicate Shade of Kipley” can be found in Isaac Asimov: Science Fiction
Masterpieces)
Jeszika Le Vye’s cover for Nightborn prominently
features the fae even more so than the striking trilogy covers by Whelan (more
on those below); we learn in the novella Dominion (bundled
with Nightborn) that the fae has colors (to those blessed to see
them). The alien energy seems to be both muse and nightmare, and we’d love to
learn your take on them. Do you envision your own nightmares and muses this
way?
No, my nightmares are much more mundane. The most terrifying
ones involve the American Health Care system 😊.
The fae is described: Earth-fae is a luminescent blue, dark
fae the intense purplish glow of a UV lamp, solar fae gold. One of the
opening scenes in Jaggonath takes place when an earthquake hits, and the wards
on buildings pulse with visible blue power. The fae is beautiful and
energizing and terrifying, all at once.
I was thrilled to find some pictures of bioluminescent ocean
waves while I was working on Nightborn. No doubt my cry of “Oh my
God, it’s the fae!” could be heard for miles. The eerie beauty of rippling blue
light as it ebbed and flowed with the waves was mesmerizing, and that will be
my image of it forever, now that I have found those videos (here’s a link to sample
them).
The Coldfire Series,
cover art by Michael Whelan
What scares you? Is it beautiful?
“I was afraid that if I became a happier person I would
not be able to write dark fiction” — C.S. Friedman
What scares me most is the darkness in my own soul, the
capacity for depression that can cause me to sabotage my own life and undermine
my own spirit. The only thing positive I will say about it is that I drew upon
my experience with depression in my early books when I depicted psychological
darkness. In fact, I recall when I was first diagnosed and offered
anti-depressants, I was afraid that if I became a happier person I would not be
able to write dark fiction. And it is harder now, to be sure.
There is a song by the band Renaissance, Black Flame. It
tells the story of someone struggling against inner darkness, in powerfully
evocative poetry. For me it has always reflected that terrible inner
seduction, the darkness that can drive a human soul to lose sight of its path,
and ultimately destroy itself. Here is the song on Youtube, and
here are the
lyrics.
Here
is another piece they did in which psychological darkness becomes
hauntingly beautiful. (A radio contest declared it “the most depressing
song ever.”). I believe the original music is by Bach.
There is a dark beauty in such songs, and I hope in my
writing.
Do you detect beauty in art/fiction that appears to be
repulsive (weird/ horror)? Any advice for writers on how to strike the
right balance to keep readers engaged?
What is beauty? Is it something that is “pretty?” or a
deeper, more visceral quality? Classically beautiful things transfix us, but we
will also stop at the site of a road accident, mesmerized by its horror.
Against our will, we want to see it.
Gerald Tarrant is the essence of human beauty, described as
nearly angelic in appearance. When he walks through a room, everyone notices
him, and women are magnetically drawn to him. But it is the horror of that
appearance being wedded to pure evil that makes us want to read about him —
that makes it impossible for us to look away. It is when the nature of
something horrific fascinates us that we cannot turn our eyes away, no matter
how much we want to.
“… it is the horror of that appearance being wedded to
pure evil that makes us want to read about [Tarrant].” – C. S. Friedman
Fashion Muse: You were formerly trained in Costume Design [link]),
creating for professional theater, PBS, and all sorts of productions; you even
were a lecturer on the topic for years. Do you still dabble in fashion arts,
and how does that influence your prose and/or character design?
Not really. I was in an abusive job situation for 13 years
and I burned out pretty badly. Knowledge of aesthetic principles and fashion
history inform my descriptions, of course, but I have left that field behind in
favor of writing and teaching. Sometimes I miss it, but what I miss is the
pleasure I originally took in it, not what it became. There are too many bad
memories now. I sew when I have to, not for pleasure.
What other muses inspire you (i.e., for your bead jewelry [link]),
and does that creativity spill over to writing?
I took up glasswork because it was different from my
writing, using different parts of the brain, explorations of color and texture
rather than language. It speaks to a different side of my creativity, which
is why I enjoy it.
Do you identify with your protagonists?
No, and sometimes I feel like I am unique among writers in
not having a personal connection to my characters. I have been on writing
panels where writers talk about how they talk to their characters, or sense
what their characters want to do…I just write them. They are my creations. I
relate to them as I would relate to clay I was molding into a sculpture, or
glass I was wrapping around a mandrel. I am deeply invested in them as
creations, but not as people.
The Magister Series –
cover art by John Jude Palencar
Let’s talk about covers & how artists depict your
characters via illustrations. Gerald Tarrant was famously adapted in the
Michael Whelan cover for the Coldfire trilogy) and Kamala from the Magister
Series depicted by the renowned John Jude Palencar. Traditionally,
authors have no say in the cover art design, but I’m curious about your
experience. Did the costume designer in you have any influence or comment on
those?
I have been permitted to offer input into my covers, to
varying degrees. This is something that evolved over time. I studied graphic
art in college, and of course I spent years as a theatrical designer, so I have
enough understanding of graphic design to offer meaningful input, and I have
always understood that the purpose of a cover is to help market the book. Over
time, my editor learned that I could offer meaningful suggestions in that
context, so I have been allowed to do so.
Any current or future endeavors we can pitch? More Coldfire? In August
2022, Deadline reported The Coldfire Trilogy may
become a TV series; also according to Pat’s
Fantasy Hotlist, you have plans for another Coldfire novella
will be focused on Gerald Tarrant bringing faith to his world, even as darkness
begins to take root within his own soul.
The most exciting news right now is my novel Nightborn, which
is coming out in July. It tells the story of the founding of Erna and
mankind’s discovery of the fae, and is one of the most intense things I have
ever written. That volume will also include Dominion, a novella
dealing with Tarrant’s transformation from a simple creature of the night into
the Hunter. Both are compelling works that I know Coldfire fans
will enjoy, but also accessible to new readers.
And yes, we are attempting to market a TV series based
on Coldfire, so fingers are crossed on that. I want to see
the fae in visual media! The next novel will probably be in my Outworlds series
(This Alien Shore, etc.) but I am considering shorter works in the Coldfire series.
There are so many interesting time periods and events in Ernan history! I
am working on a timeline that will enable me to offer many different stories,
all in the context of the greater setting. It’s all very exciting, and the
enthusiasm my fans have shown for all my Coldfire stories
has been downright inspiring.
“And yes, we are attempting to market a TV series based
on Coldfire, so fingers are crossed on that. I want to see
the fae in visual media! ” – C. S. Friedman
Lots of updates are forthcoming! How do we stay in touch
with the latest?
Please join me on Facebook, and/or Patreon for news, essays,
project excerpts, and of course conversations with my readers.
C.S. Friedman
An acknowledged master of dark fantasy and science fiction
alike, C.S. Friedman is a John W. Campbell award finalist, and
the author of the highly acclaimed Coldfire trilogy, This
Alien Shore (New York Times Notable Book of the
Year 1998), In Conquest Born, The Madness Season, The
Wilding, The Magister Trilogy, and the Dreamwalker series.
Friedman worked for twenty years as a professional costume designer, but
retired from that career in 1996 to focus on her writing. She lives in
Virginia, and can be contacted via her website, www.csfriedman.com, Facebook,
or Patreon.
#Weird
Beauty Interviews on Black Gate