DMR Books & Doug Draa PresentsTerra Incognita, S.E. Lindberg tale included

 

DMR Press Release for Terra Incognita April 2022

Follow the link for the full announcement.  Here are highlights:

In May DMR Books will release the anthology Terra Incognita: Lost Worlds of Fantasy and Adventure. This project was masterminded by Doug Draa, editor of Weirdbook Magazine. Doug assembled an all-star team of writers, including David C. Smith (author of Oron, The Sorcerer’s Shadow, and the Red Sonja series), Howard Andrew Jones (editor of Tales from the Magician’s Skull and author of the critically-acclaimed The Desert of Souls), Adrian Cole (author of numerous series, including The Voidal, The Dream Lords, and War on Rome), and John C. Hocking (author of Conan and the Emerald Lotus.)

Terra Incognita will appear in May in trade paperback and digital formats. The cover art was created by Lauren Gornik, whose work has appeared on other DMR titles such as Tanith Lee’s The Empress of Dreams, Manly Wade Wellman’s Cahena, and Harry Piper’s The Great Die Slow.

Table of Contents:

• “Shadow of the Serpent” (a tale of Akram, hero of The Sorcerer’s Shadow) by David C. Smith
• “The Place of Unutterable Names” by Adrian Cole
• “One Hive. Two Queens.” by S.E. Lindberg
• “The Siege of Eire” by J. Thomas Howard
• “Warriors of Mogai” by Milton Davis 
• “Necropolis Gemstone” by John C. Hocking
• “From the Darkness Beneath” by Howard Andrew Jones

For more updates on Terra Incognita, join the official Facebook group.

Terra Incognita
: unknown territory: an unexplored country or field of knowledge
-Merriam Webster

You are holding a ticket in your hands.
A ticket for a voyage of thrills, wonder, and discovery as seven of today's top fantasists, each one a master of Heroic Fantasy, transport you to lands beyond your imagination. Lands of fantasy and adventure. And the only passport needed is your imagination.

Howard Andrew Jones sets sail into adventure with a group of sea-going merchants and their passengers. Many of them are not whom they seem to be and only reveal their true selves once a sunken kingdom from the bottom sea launches an attack against the travelers.
Adrian Cole transports a group of explorers to a Lovecraftian nether world of no return. Or is there, if one is courageous enough?
Milton Davis introduces us to a young man, barely past boyhood, who has to brave great dangers on his own to seek the help of ancient allies who may no longer exist.
John C. Hocking regales with the plight of a young archivist who is forced at swordpoint to travel into a parallel world full of horrors from a time long forgotten.
David C. Smith's courageous rebels under the leadership of an undying warrior must form an alliance with an ancient race to overthrow murderous usurpers, along with their necromantic masters, who are hell-bent on destroying their kingdom in an insane attempt to conquer the world.
S.E Lindberg gives us a distant world where two alien sisters, who were created in the image of man, wage a war against each other to determine the future of their world.
J. Thomas Howard reveals the harsh realities of ancient Eire, Sam Hain, and the war between the Fomorians and Tuatha Dé Danann.

Tales From the Magician's Skull March 2022 Round-Up 2

 

Tales From the Magician's Skull Blog  Mar 2022 Round-Up-2

 Post Links & Blurbs, Championed by Bill Ward

 

Apr 1:  Look at Henry Treece’s The Great Captains by Fletcher Vredenburgh

When Treece turned to fiction, an endeavor that would eventually put an end to his poetry writing, he found his voice in historical fiction, in particular in legendary events and characters, and in providing a realistic basis for them. Among his most notable works is the Celtic Tetralogy. Chronologically, the first, The Golden Strangers (1956) is about the conquest of Neolithic Britain by bronze-wielding invaders. The Dark Island (1952) and Red Queen, White Queen (1958) recount the doomed resistance by British leaders Caractacus and Boudicca, respectively, to Roman rule. In The Great Captains (1956), Artos and Medrodus, descendants of the invaders from The Golden Strangers, fight a doomed battle against a new race of intruders. Together the four books recreate ancient Britain, its forests haunted by spirits, portents looming in every strange occurrence. In his novels he presents events that perhaps lie at the center of the mythic heart of Britain. Alongside Paul Kingsnorth’s Buckmaster Trilogy, it’s one of the great poetic works about Britain’s history, its land, and its people

 

Mar 29:  Ballantine Adult Fantasy: William Morris

One of the most significant figures in the cultural life of Victorian England, William Morris (1834-1896) was everything from a poet, translator, and writer of medievalist fantasy, to a political activist, printer, champion of building preservation, and a renowned innovator in textile manufacturing and interior design. When Lin Carter oversaw the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line (1969-74), he brought many of Morris’ out-of-print fantasies back into print in affordable paperback editions.

 

 

Mar 25: Fueling the Fire of Fantasy Fiction: Gaming’s Influence on Today’s Writers by Brian Murphy

After taking a bit of a controversial stance last week with my piece on the possible detrimental effects of gaming on sword-and-sorcery, I will now take the opportunity to rebut … myself, and offer the opposing side a chance. And discuss the net positives that role-playing and, in particular, Dungeons and Dragons has had on fantasy fiction. As I mentioned in my prior piece, gaming can, and in many instances has, inspired gamers to take up a pen and launch successful careers as fantasy authors. Before they were writers, the likes of China Mieville (author of Perdido Street Station), Cory Doctorow (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom), and Joe Abercrombie (First Law trilogy, The Heroes) were slinging dice at the game table. George R.R. Martin is another notable author who sings the praises of role-playing, though he had started writing in 1971, prior to the invention of D&D.

 

 

Mar 22: Classic Covers: Dragonlance

It might be fair to say that the Dragonlance series — initially a trilogy of novels written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman in tandem with a group of D&D modules from TSR — is The Lord of the Rings of media tie in fiction: massively best-selling, appealing to a broader fanbase than conventional wisdom dictated, and prompting an entire industry of imitators. In Dragonlance one can see the beginnings of not only an explosion in shared worlds based on popular media, but also the genesis of Young Adult fiction as a force punching well above its weight class in publishing.

 

Mar 18: Dungeons & Dragons: Friend or Foe of Sword-and-Sorcery?   by Brian Murphy

I’m a long-time D&D fan and ex-gamer who may again pick up the dice bag. D&D is an awesome game, has given me countless hours of unadulterated joy, and I will unequivocally state that the world is a better place for it. But, I don’t think it has necessarily been a uniformly positive influence for subsequent generations of writers. Specifically, it may have played a role in the downfall of sword-and-sorcery.  Note: The following bit of speculation is not an indictment of what goes on at the table during D&D games, which at their best are cauldrons of creativity. But rather, the impact D&D may have had on sword-and-sorcery and subsequent fantasy fiction.

 

Mar 15: Where to Start With Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser

Aside from Conan the Cimmerian, there can be no more iconic image in all of sword-and-sorcery fiction than the dynamic duo of “the Twain.” Fafhrd, towering Northern barbarian, and Mouser, weaselly little thief, form a wonderfully visually complementary whole, and that’s even before you get to their actual personalities. Bawdy and reckless, bantering and adventurous, these two lovable rogues have traveled the length and breadth of a nowhere place called Nehwon, with many of their most memorable escapades taking place in the city of Lankhmar.

FROLIC ON THE AMARANTHYN BY CHASE A. FOLMAR

 Posted on Black Gate : 

NEW TREASURES: FROLIC ON THE AMARANTHYN BY CHASE A. FOLMAR

 Monday, March 28, 2022  SELindberg 

Frolic on the Amaranthyn (Sable Star Press,4/6/2022). Cover art by Goran Gligović

Frolic on the Amaranthyn will be published by Sable Star Press on April 6th, 2022. It is 130 pages, priced at$7.99 paperback and $2.99 in digital formats (available soon from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others).  Cover art by Goran Gligović. This post announces the release and previews excerpts.

Chase A. Folmar has been demonstrating his command of Weird Fiction, Sword & Sorcery (S&S), and the English language in various short fiction entries (primarily via Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Sword & Sorcery & Witchhouse: Amateur Magazine of Cosmic Horror online magazines). This novella, Frolic on the Amaranthyn, seems to be his print debut. If you are not familiar with his previous work, you may misconstrue the contents from the title as being a fantasy romance (which it is not; and, you can check out his stories in Whetstone #1 #2 #4 or Witchhouse #1).

If you are familiar with his works there, you will need to read Frolic on the Amaranthyn. Chase A. Folmar (CAF) style is very reminiscent of Clark Ashton Smith (CAS). Clark Ashton Smith was a contemporary of the Father of S&S, Robert E. Howard, and Father of Cosmic Horror, Howard Phillips Lovecraft (most of CAS’s fiction is online, as well as his nonfiction like his essay on Atmosphere in Weird Fiction). In short, do not expect fantasy romance; expect an engaging, literary adventure.

Official Book Summary:

Channeling the artistic stylings of weird fantasists such as Clark Ashton Smith and Jack Vance, Chase A. Folmar utilizes lush prose and archaic vernacular to craft a wholly otherworldly setting for readers to explore in this, his debut novella. We follow within the duo Uralant and Emrasarie, brigands who employ their respective talents of swordsmanship and seduction in the pursuit of precious coin. After the spoils of an orchestrated heist are lost to them just as success seemed assured, the pair’s misfortune only increases when, stranded in a strange city neither are familiar with, it is revealed that their target had also been pursued by a sorcerer of the worst and most dreaded kind, and that all his attention has now been directed towards them. In order to escape the severity of his vengeance, they are forced to comply with his fanatic whims and take part in a theft that will hopefully strike clear the debt he has placed upon them. But that same theft will lead them towards a dark secret behind the city’s beautiful façade, a secret tied to a mysterious ark that travels down the waters of the Amaranthyn River on certain nights, and upon which takes place what is known only as the Frolic.

Style & Excerpts

“My own conscious ideal has been to delude the reader into accepting an impossibility, or series of impossibilities, by means of a sort of verbal black magic, in the achievement of which I make use of prose-rhythm, metaphor, simile, tone-color, counter-point, and other stylistic resources, like a sort of incantation. You attain a black magic, perhaps unconsciously, in your pursuit of corroborative detail and verisimilitude.” — 1930 letter to Lovecraft, by Clark Ashton Smith

Within Frolic on the Amaranthyn dialogue is sparse and the narrative is filled with obscure, abundant vocabulary. It is surprisingly easy to read. As per the teaser quote above, CAF follows CAS’s approach by stringing together words & feelings as if casting a strange spell, a cadence, that will enthrall you. So, he’s sort of a thaumaturgist. He’s on the radar now to corner about his thoughts on Beauty in Weird Fiction (that’s a series of interviews we run here on Black Gate (link to interviews).

Frankly, the title and blurb do not convey the intentional weirdness you will experience. The literary prose-poetry will appeal to weird fiction fans, and the vivid melee will appeal to Sword & Sorcery readers. Check out these excerpts:

Poetic Prose

…and soon did Emrasarie find herself surrounded by a flock of revelers similar to those she had earlier left. They had paraded up the same hill as she, and now fell playfully to the grass about her, as if flower petals cast aside by an infatuate pondering the affection carried their way by the one whom they so ardently desired.

Emrasarie had not the strength, nor indeed the will, to retreat this time. She simply watched as arms fumbled lazily through the air, legs entwined with one another, and faces alight with the unearthly fire overhead coalesced like streams of wax dripping from a weary candle. The other face, so prevalent in her mind’s eye only a moment ago, had completely disappeared. With it went the name it carried, and the affection she had felt towards it. Nothing remained in the void of its absence. Nothing but beauty seeking to smother her in its embrace. Beauty so much more preferable to all that was ugly, coarse, and unforgiving in the world beyond…

Weird Melee

…Uralant spied several that had veered aside and were instead making towards Emrasarie. Leaping with furious bounds, he hurled himself across the distance separating them, and thrust like a battering ram his sword at the nearest threat. Its length plunged clear through the enemy’s torso, releasing a heavy spume of embers from its back as it crumpled from the blow and collapsed.

Quickly pulling his weapon free, Uralant noted a thick, glistening fluid of purest black now coated its tapered edges, bearing a gaseous stench that lingered even as he leapt clear from a subsequent attack. More talons cut through the air in a whirlwind of steel, and as Uralant dodged about and kept the slashing monstrosity at bay, he realized no other sounds came from any of these approaching demons. No roars or shrieks of fury, no grunted breaths from exertion, no muttered curses or vows of vengeance for its fallen companion; just the tearing of its hands through empty space, and red eyes glaring at him, bright as the blood they were so desperate to spill.

Spying an opening, Uralant took the chance and swung high. He felt the shattering of steel beneath steel, and the subsequent tear as a rigid neck was severed through. When the head finally fell and crashed near his feet, the eye set within it dimmed to a vacant black, and did not ignite again…

 

Expect More Folmar

Without spoiling, it is clear that Uralant and Emrasarie will have more adventures to chronicle. The epilogue works in a mysterious, angelic sorceress that begs for more attention as do the fates of some rare, papyrus magic scrolls.

Chase A. Folmar Bio:

Chase A. Folmar is a writer of speculative fiction, especially in the vein of weird fantasy and horror. He is one of the associate editors of Witch House: Amateur Magazine of Cosmic Horror, and a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Hampton Roads writing group. A graduate of English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Chase has pursued his writing ambitions ever since, having been published in several online magazines and amateur zines. Inspiration for his writing comes from all across the literary spectrum, as well as the music he listens to and art he invariably stumbles upon. He currently lives in Virginia with his wife and their ever-growing horde of rescued pets.

www.chaseafolmar.com; Twitter: @stranger_lands; CAF on Instagram

S&S Group Read Topic Poll - May-June Selections

 Sword & Sorcery Group on Goodreads 

Poll

May-June 2022 Group Rad Topic Poll; usually top two topics get a two-month spotlight. Feel welcome to write-in options

Sword & Planet: for example... Thundar: Man of Two Worlds or Swords of Talera or Transit to Scorpio (Dray Prescot, #1)
Sword & Gun? or "Solitary Gunman" (Solomon Kane?) The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane
Tanith Lee
The Blood of Roses Volume 1: Mechail, AnilliaThe BirthgraveEmpress of Dreams ,
Sword and Sea: some swashbuckling adventures like Waters of Darkness or Sea of Quills...or The Mark of Ran or dare I say: Conan the Buccaneer
Kagen the Damned by Jonathan Maberry (due out in May 2022)

comments and details · show results · invite friends

Tales From The Magician's Skull -Mar-2022 Round-Up 1

 

Tales From the Magician's Skull Blog Mar 2022 Round-Up-1

Feb-24: Adventures in Fiction: Arkham House, Ithaqua, and In-Jokes: The Influence of August Derleth by Bradley K. McDevitt

Most of you probably know the name H.P. Lovecraft, but do you know August Derleth? Bradley K. McDevitt reminds you that you have a good reason to remember him. Without August Derleth (1909-1971), you probably wouldn’t have that Cthulhu bumper sticker on your car, that Cthulhu for President poster, and certainly not that Plushie Cthulhu you have staring down at you from your geek-memorabilia shelf.  Not that Cthulhu would not exist, but he (it?) would be just one more forgotten character in a series of stories by an author unknown except to the most ardent of horror literati. Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s greatest creation and most if not all of his fiction would have passed into obscurity if not for August Derleth’s founding of Arkham House publishing.

 

Feb-25: Classic Covers: Arkham House

When one thinks of legendary pulp publishers, names like Weird Tales, Black Mask, and Planet Stories leap to mind — beautiful magazines as sadly transitory as the era of popular literacy they defined. But it was for an indie book publisher to emerge as one of the leading lights of preservation for the best in the weird and fantastical horror of the age, and add its own legendary name to the rolls of honored pulpsters: Arkham House.

Mar-3: Appendix N. Archaeology: Arthur Machen by Bradley K. McDevitt

This article is part of a series where the spotlight shines on some authors that inspired the writers we acknowledge today as influencing the creation of Dungeons and Dragons. For those unfamiliar with his fiction, the late Victorian era Welsh author Arthur Machen was admired by contemporaries like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Butler Yeats. Further relevant for this article, his work is an acknowledged influence by Appendix N authors such as Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft even cheerfully admitted appropriating details like the god Nodens and reality-destroying language Aklo from Machen to be parts of the Cthulhu Mythos.

 

Mar-4: A Look at Andre Norton’s Witch World by Fletcher Vredenburgh

Born in 1912, Alice Mary Norton worked as a teacher, a librarian, and finally a reader for Gnome Press before becoming a full-time writer in 1958. By then she’d already had a dozen books published, including such classics as Star Man’s Son, 2250 A.D. and Star Rangers. Based on their easy style and simpler characterizations, most of her early books would probably be classified as YA today. It was with 1963’s  Witch World that Norton first wrote a full-fledged sword-and-sorcery book steeped in pulp gloriousness. Sadly, for one of the most successful and prolific women to write fantasy and science with a career that last over fifty years, her books seem sorely neglected today.

 

Mar-8: Classic Covers: Andre Norton

Alice Mary Norton — best known to the world by her pen name Andre Norton — was the author of over a dozen series in the genres of fantasy and science fiction, as well as a host of standalone works, including everything from young adult stories and historical adventures to wild science-fantasy mashups and sword-and-sorcery. Her best known and most enduring work is Witch World, itself consisting of story cycles running the gamut from portal fantasies incorporating science fiction to straight up high fantasy. Her long and varied publishing career would influence many a future writer, result in Norton being honored as the first woman to receive the SFWA Grand Master Award, and, of course, inspire dozens upon dozens of evocative book covers.

 

Mar-11: Jack Vance’s Influence on Dungeons & Dragons

Did you know that ‘Vecna’—he of the disembodied hand and eyeball—is a deliberate anagram of ‘Vance?’ Gary Gygax made no secret of his love for the work, and person, of Jack Vance, and Vance’s Dying Earth stories in particular were often cited (see Appendix N) by Gygax as a major influence on the genesis of Dungeons & Dragons. Most prominently, of course, in what came to be known as the ‘Vancian magic system’—a term that emerged from the world of RPGs rather than any literary fandom—but there are many other elements, and indeed a prevailing tone, in D&D that are inspired in whole or in part by the works of Jack Vance.

 

 

BEAUTIFUL AND REPULSIVE BUTTERFLIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH M. STERN

 BEAUTIFUL AND REPULSIVE BUTTERFLIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH M. STERN

originally posted on Black Gate.com 

 Photo Credits: H. Lindberg[/caption]

We have an ongoing series on Black Gate discussing “Beauty in Weird Fiction.” We corner authors to tap their minds about their muses and ways to make ‘repulsive’ things ‘attractive to readers.’  Recent guests on Black Gate have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, & Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney, and John C. Hocking. See the full list of interviews at the end of this post. This one covers emerging author M. Stern who writes weird/horror fiction and sci-fi. He has had stories appear in Weird Book #44, Startling Stories#34, and Doug Draa's clown anthology Funny As a Heart Attack. There's some strange and complicated beauty to be found in all of those. He also has published in several other markets including  Lovecraftiana: The Magazine of Eldritch Horror and flash fiction that deals with aesthetics and transgression in Cosmic Horror Monthly #19.

B.J. Swann Reviews Helen's Daimones

Author B.J. Swann Reviews Helen's Daimones (link from Goodreads)

BJ Swann writes splendid bizarre adventure (Aeon of Chaos series, featured on Black Gate), so it is an honor he delved into Dyscrasia Fiction. He also reviewed Lord of Dyscrasia and Spawn of Dyscrasia, and the set offers a comprehensive review of the series (which sill evolves).

Here's his review:

"A worthy sequel to a work of epic weirdness.

It’s hard to articulate what it feels like to visit the world of Dyscrasia fiction. It’s weird in the extreme but also eerily familiar. The visuals are especially striking. Here we have grotesque and apocalyptic images interwoven with visions of ethereal beauty. The constant gothic themes of decadence and fathomless antiquity serve only to enhance the reader’s sensations of awe. The world of Dyscrasia fiction also has it’s own peculiar laws, its own sorcerous rules, which possess the irresistible emotional logic of folklore and fairy tale.

There were a lot of vivid moments in this book that felt intensely cinematic and really stuck in my head. The two young heroines, Helen and Sharon, wandering through an apocalyptic wasteland, coming face to face with a hideous dyscrasia-ridden mutant building a nest of dead bodies and filth...the tragic Lady Sabina, preserved in a state of hideous and beautiful undeath, her womb a honeycomb of horrors...and of course, the vision of fiery sprites coming alive from a pyre of children’s dreams and nightmares. Lindberg’s intensely visual style creates a hallucinatory reading experience.

There are some notable differences between HELEN’S DAIMONES and LORDS OF DYSCRASIA, the first book in the series. LORDS was epic in scope, detailing the course of an apocalyptic conflict. HELEN’S has a more intimate focus, dealing with the foundation of a settlement now that the Ill Age has ostensibly ended. The two new central characters, Helen and Sharon, are sympathetic and relatable, and their simple humanity provides an excellent anchor point amongst all the weirdness of their world. My only real criticism of LORDS was that its weirdness sometimes made it alienating, but HELEN’S has the human touch throughout, and is always grounded in the emotions and needs of its protagonists. On a similar note, there also seems to be a superior balance in place between the wealth of visuals on offer and the internal realities of the characters. Because of this, HELEN’S feels more grounded and less abstract, whilst still being as relentlessly weird as the original. This feels like an impressive achievement. Structurally the book is somewhat meandering and episodic, which is by no means a bad thing. Perhaps the only downside is that HELEN’S lacks the epic, apocalyptic conclusion of its older sibling. Indeed there is no real conclusion, only the setup for the third book in the series, which I will naturally be reading very soon."