Showing posts with label Reviews - by S.E.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews - by S.E.. Show all posts

Sunday, December 6, 2020

Imaro: The Trail of Bohu - Review by SE

 

The Trail of Bohu by Charles R. Saunders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Spurred by a Sword & Sorcery groupread honoring this year's passing of Charles R. Saunders, I continued the Imaro Series with The Trail of Bohu. A guide to the series and book availability will be posted on Blackgate.com shortly [link coming].

This third novel is a setup for last: The Naama War. The Trail of Bohu has considerably less action than Imaro and The Quest for Cush: Imaro II (the prior being comprised of short stories and this being the first full-length novel). So far, Saunders has been building up two big plots: (1) Imaro's mysterious, ancestral origin, and (2) the burgeoning war between the united Northern tribes/nations (Cloud Strider and Cushite aligned) and the evil Naamans (Erriten, Mashataan sorceries). Here Saunders delivers mostly on the former, and quite comprehensively; the latter, reserved for the final book.

When he does deliver action, he doesn't hold back. Creatures are wonderfully dark:
"Even in the half-light of dusk, the animate corpses were hideous to behold. Though they were all naked, the bloating of their bodies had advanced to the point that their sex was difficult to determine. Their faces were travesties of humanity: noses split apart, teeth jutting beyond peeling lips; eyes that were nothing more than gelatinous orbs that glimmered with a tinge of green luminescence. Machawai green... The walkingdead gouged at throats, faces, eyes. They attempted no defense against the steel that hacked and slashed at their bodies..."
Saunders provides plenty of Nyumbani (i.e. Africa) lore, culture, and creatures, including mountable rhinoceros and zebras. Glossaries in the back of each book are appreciated, but not necessary. There is one distinct moment which made me snicker, recalling Samuel Jackson's renowned cursing. When questioned by Rabir about what Imaro will do when he catches the titular Bohu, Imaro says: "I will kill the mama-mfuka." I am no linguist to know the etymology of that insult, but it sounded the most contemporary of every Nyumbani term.

My favorite location is the "The Placed of Carved Trees", a mystical grove that Imaro seeks guidance:
"Each of its trees was carved into a gigantic sculpture that was grotesque in form and enigmatic in meaning. At first glance, the sculpted tree-trunks appeared distorted, and even monstrous. Many of the carvings took the shape of bulbous masses of bodies separated by thin, cylindrical stalks that might have been legs. Faces hung from those bodies--faces with misarranged features and distended mouths with protruding teeth, sometimes smiling, sometimes screaming..."
All in all a great stage for an all-out war for the continent of Nyumbani!

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Sunday, November 29, 2020

Shattered Seas Review AND Deep Madness Tour Guide - Review by S.E.

This post was simulcast on Black Gate.com on Nov-28-2020

BG_SS_cover
Cover art by Christopher Shy / Cover design by Byron Leavitt.

Shattered Seas is a toxic dose of Lovecraftian mythos, psychedelic team-exploration (reminiscent of Stark Trek voyages), and survival-horror melee (mutant creatures replacing zombies). It’s a maelstrom of fun if you enjoy horror adventure, losing your mind, and drowning.

Ever want to crack open the gateway into an Otherworld with a few friends? Perhaps you are ambitious and naively want to gain dominion of cosmic powers. Will you be comfortable with mutating forces transforming you into a tentacled mass? Start the madness by searching for the mystical Sphere buried in the ocean near the submerged Kadath Mining facility. Lucas Kane, a marine biologist, is one of your tour guides. Here he observes Kadath, a mining facility with organic qualities (excerpt):

Kadath lit up below them drew his attention and caught his breath. The facility sprawled across the seabed like a sunken metropolis from another world, its illuminated structures pushing defiantly upward into the inky abyss. The station’s domes and towers seemed like the last bastions of light and reason still standing in an endless Stygian wasteland. It was hypnotic, dreamlike, and yet somehow inexplicably solid. Lucas could make out the shuttle tubes running between the three main domes, as well as to the smaller, squarer outposts and middle structures. He could even see the primary enclosed drilling site not far off from the main facility, connected to Dome Three by long, spacious tubes.

This novel was inspired by Diemension Games' Deep Madness, a cooperative sci-fi/horror board game. The novel serves as a stand-alone book as much as it does a gateway into the game narrative. Non-gamers will enjoy it all the same since the key protagonists (Lucas Kane and Connor Durham) are freshly introduced, plus the story is a prequel to the story presented in the game. At the end of this article, there is an embedded movie overviewing the board game. 

Saturday, September 26, 2020

The Dungeon Vol. 1: The Black Tower - Review by SE

SE rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Black Tower (1988) is full of forced action and lost opportunity. In any event, I thank the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery groupread that enabled me to revisit a series I thought I missed out on. If you like to be constantly bait-n-switched without reason, then this book is for you. Since it is the anchor for the series, I don't plan on reading more.

The Concept: Set ~1870, the aristocratic Englishman Major Clive Folliot goes exploring across the world for his missing brother Neville. The premise has a "lost world" pulp vibe (i.e., an alien world in which the protagonist is teleported/transported to and cannot return to earth) and that world is essentially a hostile prison for beings across time & space. A few instances, the book evoked emotions I last felt while watching the 1967 TV series The Prisoner or the 2004-2010 TV series The Lost. As the introduction explains, Byron Preiss had asked Philip José Farmer to edit and oversee the Dungeon series. Richard A. Lupoff was chosen to lead this (but it is unclear if Farmer selected him) with Volume 1: The Black Tower (1988).

What worked:
-Farmer's introduction to the series & the concept of the "Dungeon"
-The pull of the mysterious disappearance of Neville; this premise kept me in the book the duration.
-Bonus sketches/illustrations ostensibly drawn by the protagonist
-Occasional, brief scenes that deserved more than a paragraph (i.e., the plight of enthralled giants, and the impregnation of spider eggs into human bodies)
-User Annie's futuristic (~1999) language (which mention motherboards, and downloading); for a 1988 novel, this take on future vocabulary was entertaining and fairly accurate.

What did not work:
(1) The promise behind the cover and title: The cover by Robert Gould is awesome. It has stuck in my head for 30+ yrs. However, it promises a Heroic Fantasy or Sword & Sorcery story, and the book is Sci-Fi adventure. My initial, ignorant impression was that the book may be like the 1984 Deathtrap Dungeon experience in which a hero is trapped a grim prison and must fight his way out (at least that cover matched the milieu).I don't think Major Clive Folliot ever wears a cape while wielding a sword either. The first third of this book is set in ~1870; then it's a mix of modern and futuristic elements. "The Black Tower" title seems off too; there is a black tower which is termed the City of Q'oorna, run by a khalif who spares the explorer's crew and puts them into a dungeon of sexy women! (an exclamation used to mirror the author's style) ... but we do not return to this tower or khalif, so...whatever.

(2) Embarrassing Sexism: Clive's constant desire to have sex with every woman undermines his deep feelings for Annabella Leighton, his love interest (stuck on earth as he explores the Dungeon). It is laughable to read chapter after chapter with him observing women as sex objects; expect descriptions of boobs, hips, and lips. Clive even has carnal desires for his relatives stuck in the dungeon! Cripes. Here's my favorite as Clive meets an alien lady with alabaster white skin:
"The magnificent woman touched the emerald that lay against her bosom, and Clive found himself wondering at the likely color of the areolae of her breasts." (p310)
(3) The conflict is "Clive vs.... ??? ". Maybe the conflict is against the Q'oornans (which are labels for people/things that might be ruling the strange Dungeon) but Clive fights people/things that are not Q'oornan constantly. Several prisons and military outpost exist, but they are all run by other prisoners. The final climax is not at the original Black Tower (i.e., the center of Q'oorna, the first outpost we experience in The Dungeon proper, and the title of the book) but features some other random tower with other random antagonists.

(4) The cool stuff relating to the main mystery is sidelined. Beyond the Black Tower bait-n-switch, the few links to a real story are sparse. For example, Clive's brother's notebook appears abruptly (mysteriously providing communications), then disappears for a long time; when it eventually reappears, it is given scant attention. On the other hand, the book is full of random conflicts that don't matter from chapter-to-chapter. In short, the pretense of "mystery" allows Clive to randomly explore, attack, befriend, and wander without reason.

(5) The author seemed lost: The formula was clear for each chapter: introduce new ideas then toss them. Many times the main story arc was disregarded and we are treated to campy, fireside discussions amongst the characters echoing the author's lack of direction. Here is my own distillation of these silly discussions:
"Why are we banding together?"
    [no answer since no ones knows why]
"What should we do now that we are stuck again?"
    "Let me tell you, the plot calls for us to do something, dammit sah (~sir)!"
When first stumbling into the Dungeon, and climbing a mountain, the characters find themselves stuck (they can't descend). But wait, there is a mysterious coffin here...and it seems tall. Yes it is. In fact, there is a trap bottom under the body and inside are ropes to climb down. Perfect, let's take them and go! (That is actually a true spoiler of a minor scene) and it represents the constant pseudo-action. Essentially, the action has to keep going, and every few pages when the group is in a bind, a meaningless solution presents itself.

Conversely, in the middle of action sequences we are treated with forced sides, i.e., when Shriek is introduced and spearman threatens the group, Clive decides to calmly experiment with telepathy to someone back "home" (for a few pages of dialogue).

Instead of closing the loop on the key story arcs, the final chapter (named "Chang Guafe") even springs a new character on us. In Farmer's intro, he actually calls out Chang as being a great element (maybe, but it is poorly placed in the story, and poorly utilized).

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Friday, July 24, 2020

Tales of Attluma - Review by SE and Oron Guide



Tales of Attluma by David C. Smith
S.E. rating: 5 of 5 stars

David C. Smith crafts his own flavor of adventure-horror with his Tales of Attluma, heavily influenced by Robert E. Howard (REH, Conan creator) and his contemporary Pulp Fiction writer Clark Ashton Smith (CAS). Attluma is an island continent akin to the mysterious Atlantis, and these 16 tales cover its dark history and doomed end. These stories are fantastically dark and exciting, a true blend of REH’s action and CAS’s dreaded atmosphere. On Attluma, ancient gods live in mountain temples and underground; humans struggle to survive, and seem to be intruding on land made for, and by, demons.
“These tales and a dozen more by fantasy and adventure author David C. Smith appear in this unique collection. Out of print for more than 40 years, these stories were first published in the days of limited-circulation fanzines—the only avenue for new work created by the generation of writers who grew up in the shadow of the pulp magazines. The paperback reprints of those pulp stories in the late 1960s and early 1970s encouraged an entire generation of young writers to enlarge on that tradition of popular American storytelling. Now they are in print once more for a new generation of fantasy fiction enthusiasts.” -- Official book blurb

Interestingly, there are no Oron tales, Oron being the warrior protagonist that the original Zebra series was named after. Yet he is not needed here. Attluma is saturated with lore and conflict, armies of ghosts, lost loves seeking retribution, and hungry demons just looking for some attention. The last several stories ramp up the demonic uprising (or retaking) of the island/continent. “The End of Days” finale is epic in scope, a sprawling battle with loads of mayhem and militant sorcery. The collection fits the Sword & Sorcery label, with an emphasis on Sorcery (specifically necromancy and demon summoning). Excerpts are the best way to share the poetic, dark conflict readers should expect:

EXCERPTS:
“Dressed in scarlet wounds and running with blood, here was my mother, her face beseeching mercy, gashes across her face and body. There came my father, hobbling on a split foot and one arm gone, strings of meat and tendon trembling from the open shoulder. Here was my brother, once a strong and handsome man, now in death a broken thing with no legs, pulling himself forward with his arms, his wife beside him, on her belly and kicking her feet as her head rolled beside her.”—from “The Last Words of Imatus Istum”

And there was Yadis, The All Mother, the hag with one eye and triple teats whose spittle had made the stars and whose defecation made the earth. Her mad singing had awakened humans to life; we crawled from the muck and ever since wondered about the dark heart of life.” —from "Dark Goddess”

“Silene observed the sorcerers as they met and fought in the field. She saw the air turn colors between these people and watched as they moved their arms in gesticulations, or with daggers drew designs in the air. One or the other of these mysterious people would die, pulled into the sky to be torn invisibly into pieces, raining blood, or drawn into the earth to suffocate, or simply fall, breathless and unmoving, wrapped beneath sheets of glowing color.” —from ”The End of Days”

Several of the attacking sorcerers made signs toward Edric’s fighters and dropped them. These men and women fell onto their backs and caught fire from their chests. They screamed as they died, but the unnatural fire consumed them swiftly, turning the men and women as black as charred wood. From the burnt corpses rose pieces of them, bits of black, which moved high into the air and, at the command of the attacking sorcerers, dropped like hurled missiles into the lines of Edric’s men, the bits of black pushing through faces and armor. …“Souls,” Hame told her. “They remove the charred souls from the burned bodies to use as weapons.” —from ”The End of Days”

GUIDE: Tales of Attluma is splendid by itself, but it serves as a foundation for the other works in the same world. Read this and you’ll want to jump into the novels and other short stories. A guide is needed since the publication history is complicated by title changes and, like most fantasy, publication order does not match the chronological order of the fictional world. Thanks to a group-read in the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery group we were able to communicate with the author and clarify the chronological & publication history of the Attluma Cycle (coined that with the tacit approval of the author). As of 2020, there are 25 stories and novelettes; 3 Oron novels; 1 Akram novel.

For newcomers, I recommend starting with Tales of Attluma since it fleshes out the world and prepares readers to jump into various arcs, such as the primary barbarian Oron set (many start with the 1978 book that introduced the character to the world named simply Oron), or the cursed sorcerer Akram novel The Sorcerer's Shadow). To learn more about David C. Smith, check out recent interviews by DMR and BlackGate.


ATTLUMA CYCLE

Chronological Story-Order / Key Characters / Publication date

Tales of Attluma by David C. Smith Azieran Adventures Presents Artifacts and Relics Extreme Sorcery by Christopher Heath Warlords, Warlocks & Witches by D.M. Ritzlin Oron Mosutha's Magic by David C. Smith Oron No. 4 The Valley of Ogrum by David C. Smith Oron 5 The Ghost Army by David C. Smith Oron by David C. Smith The Mighty Warriors by Robert M. Price The Sorcerer's Shadow by David C. Smith Engor's Sword Arm by David C. Smith

0) Tales of Attluma: Collection (2 Akram tales, 1 Dathien, no Oron); 16 Short stories, 2020 by Pulp Hero Press: Listed mostly in chronological order, mostly pre-Oron, with the last several being the “End” of Attluma (see below)

1) “Shadow-born Shadow-taken” in Azieran Adventures Presents Artifacts and Relics: Extreme Sorcery Pre-Oron novelette (featuring Dathien from Tales of Attluma’s “Dark of Heart”), 2013

2) “Twin Scars” in Warlords, Warlocks & Witches Pre-Oron, “(standalone Kellen tale), 2019

3) Oron: Mosutha's Magic Oron Novel 1/3: Zebra #3 1982 (original title: Reign, Sorcery!)

4) Oron No. 4: The Valley of Ogrum Oron Novel 2/3: - Zebra’s #4 1982 (original title: Deathwolf)

5) Oron 5: The Ghost Army 5 short stories with Oron: - Zebra #5, 1983 (original title: Death in Asakad and Other Tales)

6) “The Shadow of Dia-Sust” Oron short story appears in The Mighty Warriors, 2018, … also available online at Blackgate.com

7) Oron, the original Oron Novel 3/3: Zebra #1, 1978

8) Sometime Lofty Towers, Pulp Hero Press, 2021

9) The Sorcerer's Shadow an Akram Novel: Zebra #2, 1982 (original title: The Shadow of Sorcery)

10) Engor's Sword Arm novella, Forgotten Ages ~1991

11) Several stories from Tales of Attluma including two Akram tales (“Come Death” and “The Return to Hell”) and the grand finale “The End of Days”


CONTENTS of TALES of ATTLUMA (summary notes with spoilers)

1. “Descales’ Skull”: Three men collect as many parts of Descales’ skull and resurrect his soul….he grants them each a wish (Clamus:Gold, Sumi Dan power over slavery; Bordogas: partnering with a woman). All get their wish… with nasty, ironic deaths.

2. “The Generosity of the Gods”: Obroc of Kurstikan and his buddy Cedes are fishermen who decide to test the power of the two gods [they should remain nameless!]. The pair blaspheme to determine if the gods are real. The consequences of so terrifying, really really terrible, but at least the friends survive in some way, together. This is so dark, it is funny.

3. “Feasting Shadows”: Pel and Jenta are a young couple seeking ancient temples in the caves, and come across more than ruined ritual spaces. They experience the Song, Dance, and Culmination of the Feast.

4. “Dark of Heart”: Captain Dathien gets a second chance of freedom. Princess Amyra is missing in Midriga (his place of origin) and Prince Eam seeks to save her. What ensues is a mad mission into the mountainous region of Midriga, involving body horror, bleak fates for all.

5. “The Last Words of Imatus Istum”: The depressing story of Imatus Kad Istum, of the civilized city Mograd which was overrun by the barbaric Kunashtu. Loss of knowledge, slavery, eating of former citizens, raising the dead on a mass scale.

6. “Aliastra the Sorceress”: Count Holos, a homeless roaming royal who deals with failing his father; he had been taught that 'he owned his own future through the choices/actions he made'. This is mostly a story of the love between the sorceress Aliastra and her long-dead lover Ormenidu….which Holos gets embroiled in.

7. “Ithtidzik”: The titular student was arrogant enough to seek power from around his wise mentor; he seeks out an ancient tome from a demon and gains more insight than his single head can hold! Sharing knowledge with enthralled, sustained corpses helps for a time… doesn’t end well for the protagonist, of course.

8. “Rhasjud’s Destiny”: A mercenary warlord of the title returns to the site of where he murdered his brother, who haunts him; wolves and ghosts roam everywhere.

9. “Blood Ransom”: Androm the pretty boy, gets tied up with Tsathsimus and Ishrid in a plot to kidnap the princess Asri; beware bloody red gems that are actually alive. Asri and Lady Liprosa let Androm go since he redeems himself.

10. “Dark Goddess”: Jutom and the Nthgali warriors ransack the city of Coroth which includes the raping of a priestess of Yasid. The product of rape and torture will haunt Jutom.

11. “Come, Death”: Akram is introduced as a cursed immortal sorcerer strolling through plagued ruins. He pities a child amongst a plague and saves it.

12. “The Return to Hell” Akram appears again in a very trippy story. Akram amasses mercenaries to sacrifice them to the Witch/Sorcerer pair (Nidyis, Narathkor) that made him immortal. He wishes to die, but he has a young female fan Tharis who wants to be like him. He tries to spare her even as he leads hundreds to slaughter….

13. “The Passing of the Sorcerer”: A love story of the sorcerer Camses with royal princess Porissa of Karhum, with hints of reincarnation and celestial life. A demonic scourge plagues the town, and the King. Apparently, humans took too much from the demons without sacrifice or honor, or belief…

14. “Patience Serves”: A dose of vengeance for a “wronged love” between Lady Tristania and Lord Mors.

15. “The Sounding of the Gong”: Another bizarre love story. Seft and Oma (sorcerer aged, and younger sorceress) are the last few humans worth stealing from. A trap is set for these thieves to sacrifice. This continues the theme of weird-love and eternal life between pairs of sorcerers.

16. “The End of Days”: Meet the poet Nour, his pregnant wife Silene, and her brother Edric, as they race toward the Surkad Capital city. It is the last stand for humans on Attluma. The demon Serenthal seeks to reclaim all the territory and eliminate everything. It is over the top epic and dark…a great end to the book.

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Twilight of the Gods - Review by SE

This review was published on Blackgate.com April 8th, 2020:
The Doom of “Oden”: Twilight of the Gods (Grimnir #2)


With Grimnir #2 Twilight of the Gods (TotG), Scott Oden presents a novel take on Ragnarök, the apocalypse in Norse mythology. He masterfully integrates his historical fiction expertise (i.e., from Memnon, Men of Bronze) with gritty battles reminiscent of Robert E. Howard (i.e., the creator of Conan the Barbarian; Oden recently published a serialized, pastiche novella across the Savage Sword of Conan Marvel Comic series). Few can merge the intensity of low-fantasy Sword & Sorcery with high-fantasy Epics, but Oden does here.

TotG is second in this series; Fletcher Vredenburgh reviewed Griminr #1 A Gathering of Ravens (AGoR) in 2017, and reported: “Oden tells a story that feels lifted straight from the sagas and Eddas.” This February, John O’Neill posted a Future Treasures to reveal the Jimmy Iacobelli cover art to Twilight of the Gods.

This article is a review of the story, the style, and the lore. Read on to learn about the series’ namesake, the apocalypse in this second volume, and get teasers for the third book, The Doom of Odin.

“Mark this, little bird: you can judge how high you stand in your enemy’s esteem by the weapon he draws against you.” – Grimnir



Odin Fades and the Cross Emerges

TotG blurs the line between fantasy and history.” With Odin losing power, the hymn-singers are stepping up to rule the world. The Christian commandment “Thou shalt not have strange gods before me” gave rise to much strife in real history, which even had converted Danes and Norsemen crusade for the Cross. The book opens with this conflict fueling Ragnarök (read Ch.1. online). These excerpts also capture Oden’s style, including Grimdark scenery:

Corpses sprawled atop a low hill, beneath a sky the color of old slate. They lay in their tattered war gear: mail riven, shields broken, and helmets split asunder by ferocious blows. There were scores of them, arranged not in the perfect windrows borne of clashing shield-walls, where the dead fall like grain beneath a thresher-man’s blade, but rather in heaps and mounds—as though the Tangled God himself, cunning Loki, had decided to reshape the land with the bodies of slain Northmen. Their blood mingled with other vital fluids, turning the early snow underfoot to a scarlet slurry.
A cold north wind moaned through the evergreen spruces ringing the hill. It rattled the shafts of spears that grew from bodies of the slain like corpse-flowers, their blades rooted in bellies and spines; it snapped the fabric of cast-off pennons. Some displayed a wolf’s head against a white field. Others, more numerous, bore a stark black cross. The wind faded; utter silence returned.

And… Howardian battle scenes:
Úlfrún did not flinch. She did not shy away from the whistling blade that sought to end her life. Instead, she stepped in and caught it on the knuckles of her iron fist. The sword sparked, rebounded; the clangor of impact reverberated. Far to the north, from among the cloud-wreathed peaks, came the echo of thunder as if in answer … The blade of her axe flashed in autumn’s pale light, and she rained blow after furious blow down upon the guard of her enemy. A rush of breath, a ringing crash, and the rasp and slither of steel on iron were the only sounds as she batted aside Heimdul’s clumsy riposte and very nearly took off his head. A hasty backward leap was all that saved him.

And… poetic horror:

And with a sound like the rattle of immense bones, the stranger’s cloak is borne up as by a hot breath of wind. There is only darkness, beneath. And that darkness grows and spreads, becoming monstrous wings that blot out the burning sky. The darkness crawls like a serpent across the ruin of Hrafnhaugr. It snuffs the flames and robs the air of its breath; it slays the living with a pestilence that rots the blood in their veins. It crushes and destroys. She turns to run as the darkness engulfs her. And in its hideous embrace, she opens her mouth to scream…

Via the current Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Groupread featuring this book, I learned from beta-reader Stan Wagenaar that this chapter was an intentional homage to REH’s Conan tale “Frost Giant’s Daughter” (1953, Fantasy Fiction). Between Étaín and Disa, Grimnir has sympathized with both sides of the religious war marking the end of the world (i.e., the Nailed-God versus the likes of Odin). Ultimately, he is out for his personal agenda, and there are plenty of antagonizing forces beyond human ones.
Frazetta, REH’s Frost Giant’s Daughter

Who/What is Grimnir?

In the Beowulf saga, the titular hero hints down the monstrous Grendel, then Grendel’s mother, then a dragon; the hero even becomes King of the Geats (the Geats of Scandinavia hailing from modern-day Sweden). TotG presents Grimnir as a demi-god hybrid of Beowulf & Grendel: half monster, half savior-to-be-worshipped) and king over the Raven-Geats no less! He has one working eye, but so do many suspicious characters ranging from Odin, a great wyrm, Nila, Grimnir, and the Grey Wanderer. So, you should not trust any one-eye, let alone Grimnr: he is a brutal bastard who is more out for self-preservation than for defending his human worshippers. He cares less about the threats of cross-bearing crusaders than he begrudges an ancient dragon—but more on wyrms below. TotG’s cursed crusader introduces us to Grimnir, emphasizing the various perspectives and clashes of cultures:

“Grimnir son of Bálegyr,” Konraðr said. “What a rough beast you are. You go by many names, I am told. Corpse-maker and Life-quencher, the Bringer of Night. Some claim you are the Son of the Wolf and Brother of the Serpent. The Irish called your kind fomoraig, did they not? They cursed your sire, Bálegyr, and the wolf ships that brought him to their fair isle. What did the English name you? Orcnéas? But to the Danes and the Norse your kind were always skrælingar. Accursed sons of Cain, you are …

Oden followers will note the “Orcneas” reference. The author has said: “Since young adulthood, I’ve wanted to write a book about Orcs—those foot soldiers of evil first revealed to us in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. I wanted to write it from the Orcs’ point of view. And I wanted to redeem them.” Inspect the Russian cover to A Gathering of Ravens (inset) depicting Grimnir, albeit with a gratuitous beard. Oden concurs of his appearance on his blog while explicitly developing the lore: “I’ve seen that gets his hair right. Really, give him a sharper nose and there you have the last of the fabled kaunar, that blighted race of monsters who would enter popular culture centuries later as Tolkien’s Orcs.”
Russian cover art for A Gathering of Ravens, and zoomed-in depiction of Grimnir

Grimnir’s Partner, Dísa Dagrúnsdottir:

Étaín was the young female protagonist in A Gathering of Ravens. This round, Grimnir’s partner is young Dísa (a.k.a. “Little Bird”, a Raven-Geat). Whereas Étaín was a Christian, Dísa is a barbaric, maiden of war—or she dreams to become one, anyway. Motherless, her clan selects her to confer with their godly protector the “Hooded One” (Grimnir). This book is really about her coming of age while the world ends; her priestess role puts her smack-dab on the intersection of the corporeal and the supernatural. Disa is a likable, spirited character that you will be rooting for from the instant she is presented in chapter two.

[Disa], who springs from the loins of Dagrún Spear-breaker; she, who is a Daughter of the Raven, bearer of the rune Dagaz; she, who is the Day-strider, chosen of the Gods. She, who is skjaldmær, shieldmaiden.

A contemporary similar character would be Sensua from the acclaimed Ninja Theory video game series Hellblade (Sensua’s Sacrifice (2017) followed by Sensu’s Saga due out 2020). This January, S.M. Carrière posted on the sequel’s video trailer featuring the band Heilung. In short, if you like Sensua or Heilung, then you must experience Disa’s saga. The embedded video could easily be repurposed as a trailer for Dísa in TotG:


Serpents & Dragons:

In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is triggered by the world (Midgard)-wrapping serpent Jörmungandr releasing the tail from its mouth, and uncoiling. So, readers should expect some form of dragon and we are gifted the spawn of the legendary Jormungandr’s (Midgard Serpent): Malice-Striker. The combination of lore and prose reinforcing Malice-Striker’s presence evokes classic dragons, such as Beowulf’s foe or J.R.R.’s Glaurung (the Worm of Morgoth/Angband from the Children of Hurin). Malice-Striker’s character and past are revealed, and [minor spoiler] he is set up for a key role in the next installment.

John Howe depicts Tolkien’s Glaurung and Alan Lee depicts Glaurun’s eye

The Doom of Odin (Grimnir series #3)

Twilight of the Gods delivered an apocalyptic nail-biter. It can be read completely stand-alone, but certainly builds on A Gathering of Ravens. Still the battle rages on for Grimnir. Oden plans to finish the third installment, The Doom of Odin, by the end of summer 2020 (publication at St. Martin’s discretion). From the author’s website, we find the likely book blurb:

As the Black Death rampages across Europe, two creatures of the Elder World clash over the rotting corpse of Christendom. 
Sicily, 1347 AD. A ghost ship from the east washes ashore at Messina. A ship of dead men, and hidden in its belly is a doom like no other: the dragon Niðhöggr, the Malice-Striker, an ancient vessel of destruction from the Elder Days. And while it is no longer the mighty wyrm of Ragnarök, the beast’s breath still bears upon it a pestilence, a plague that will echo through the ages as the Black Death.
But the world of Men has a strange champion – another creature of the Elder World: a snarling, spitting knot of hatred, profane and blasphemous, whose ancestors were the goblins of myth and legend; he is a monster in truth, though nevertheless he stands as the last bastion between humanity and the cold silence of oblivion. He is Grimnir, and he has hunted the Malice-Striker for more than a century, from the cold wastes of the Baltic to the dank cisterns beneath Constantinople.
Now, as the plague stalks through Western Europe – and as the dread wyrm slithers through Italy, bound for Rome on its mission to devour the head of Christendom – Grimnir must contend not only with the beast’s insidious cunning, but with the iron fist of the Papal Inquisition, and the army of a vengeful Italian condottiere. Grimnir, however, is not without allies of his own. Accompanied by a Jewish witch and mystic, and aided by the fey King of the Mongrel Court, a troupe of half-blooded creatures bound for Finisterre and the World’s End, Grimnir sets the stage for a final showdown. 
For at Avignon, the papal enclave on the River Rhone, the Doom of Odin will fall, and the Elder World will finally meet its bloody end. The only question that remains is: will Miðgarðr and the world of Men survive this deadly clash of titans?

On Scott Oden

Scott is the author of five novels, two historical fiction (Men of Bronze and Memnon), three fantasy with a strong historical bent (The Lion of Cairo, A Gathering of Ravens, and Twilight of the Gods), and a collaborative novel (A Sea of Sorrow: A Novel of Odysseus). He is the author of the Robert E. Howard pastiche Conan novella “The Shadow of Vengeance”, serialized in issues #1-#12 of Marvel’s The Savage Sword of Conan, as well as the Conan short story “Conan Unconquered”, appearing in the video game of the same name. In addition, he has written a couple of short stories, and a few non-fiction articles and introductions (notably, the introduction to Del Rey’s Robert E. Howard collection, Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures). He has been an avid tabletop role-playing gamer since 1979, beginning with Holmes-edition D&D. Scott was born in Columbus, Indiana, but was raised in rural North Alabama, near Huntsville. He currently splits his time between his home in Alabama, a Hobbit hole in Middle-earth, and some sketchy tavern in the Hyborian Age.


Monday, March 2, 2020

The Thief of Forthe and Other Stories - Review by S.E.

The Thief of Forthe and Other Stories by Clifford Ball
S.E. rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery group for bringing Clifford Ball's The Thief of Forthe and Other Stories, with vintage cover art by Virgil Finley, to my attention; also, thanks to DMR Dave Ritlzin for compiling great collections like this one (and others like The Sapphire Goddess: The Fantasies of Nictzin Dyalhis).

As the introduction reviews, these tales emerged in the wake of the death of S&S "father" Robert E. Howard in 1936. Clifford Ball was one author stepping up to try and fill the void in pulp magazine collections (Weird Tales). He is relatively obscure, but I speculate that these tales may have been very influential to others (like Leiber and Wagner). There are six in this collection. Conan the Barbarian Marvel Issue #264 (1993, Roy Thomas and John Watkiss) reintroduce Karlk, the evil sorcerer, as an enemy of Conan in a tribute to Clifford Ball (along with Throll, and the white apes of Sorjoon).

The Sword & Sorcery Tales (stories 1-3): These occur in kingdoms adjacent to Ygoth, called Forthe and Livia. There are explicit call-outs to Burrough's white apes from Barsoom. In all three, the protagonist(s) are held captive or in jail and escape.

(1) “Duar the Accursed” May 1937 Weird Tales. 5-star
The mysterious barbarian king Duar battles Lovecraftian horror while searching for the powerful Rose of Gaon. This was dark, fun adventure that set the stage for lots more Duar...but that never seems to have materialized. As an immortal, intelligent barbarian, Duar seems to be a precursor to Karl Edward Wagner's Kane. Duar's companion is a female spirit, Shar, who monitors him via the ether and counsels him on demons.Unlike the following stories, Duar's capture is more intense and his escape more interesting.

(2)“The Thief of Forthe” July 1937 Weird Tales3-star ...and...
(3)“The Goddess Awakes” Feb. 1938 Weird Tales.3-star
The "Thief of Forthe" introduces us to the thief Rald. Rald is contracted by Karlk, an evil wizard, since a mission requires some sort of corporeal brawn, which is simply to lift a bar from a door. The melodramatic interactions with the King and Queen are full of incongruity; they seem to like Rald despite his criminal nature. The wizard and Rald are eventually caught and tied up, and then left alone to escape!

"The Goddess Awakes" continues with Rald, this time gaining a partner. Most S&S prior had a lead protagonist (ie Conan) and a semi-serious delivery, but here we have a humorous duo featuring a barbarian thief (Rald) and a sly, philosophical mercenary (Thwaine). This screamed of a Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" influence (ie The Swords of Lankhmar. However, Leiber's first story of his own duo was published the following year (1939, "Two Sought Adventure" in Unknown). The end-boss had a Sphinx quality to it, but was too easily dispatched. In any event, this was slightly better than the second tale, but still too shallow for my tastes.

(4)“The Swine of Ææa” Mar. 1939 Weird Tales.5-star
Having sought out this collection for the first three, these others were just unexpected fun. This one has a slow setup, but the characters are engaging. They include an author documenting a wild story from a drunk sailor. There are echoes of statuesque end-bosses (Buddha and the Sphinx) that began in "The Goddess Awakes". The story is delivered with care and the descriptions are cool too:

The mystery island
“That’s queer shrubbery for these parts, isn’t it?” It was. I never saw such strangely shaped trees, with limbs that twisted like writhing snakes, or such oddly formed, three-cornered leaves as those growing on this island. Now that we were closer, things did not appear to be entirely green; there was a red network through some of the leaves, a patter of tiny lurid veins running wild at strange angles. No two of them seemed alike. The influence of jungle odors which we now encountered must have affected me; for the thought came into my mind that the colors of the brush were continually changing, like some lizards I had seen that were readily able to merge their outlines and coloration with their surroundings. It gave me the creeps, I tell you."


Beautiful Goddess:
"It was her eyes. They burned with a submerged fire that might have been stolen from Vulcan after he pilfered it from Olympus. I can’t tell you what color they were; they must have taken on all the tints of the rainbow, for one minute I thought them to be blue and the next I decided they were either gray or green. Another look, and I was prepared to swear her eyes were as yellow as a panther’s. You can’t describe the color of flame-tips; they keep changing too rapidly. The next best thing is to discover the source and look at the fuel. It was her eyes, not her features, that registered the “here-I-am” invitations, yet the woman, or girl, owned an aura of virginal sweetness..."


Ruins:
The whole floor of the inner courtyard was strewn with projecting rock formations which might once have been statues, but were now worn so smooth by the hands of Time and changing climates that they had lost all bold outlines a sculptor may have executed upon them. Chunks of shapeless stone, some formed groups oddly suggestive of women gossiping in the market place, or leaned toward one another as men engaged in desperate struggle. I selected one piece, in particular, which resembled a crucified man with his head thrown backward as he stared in hopeless pleading toward a silent sky. All were so worn that any carven facial contours some ancient artist may once have been proud of had been erased forever, and perhaps my impression of lines defining corded muscles and rounded limbs was a fantasy of the brain alone.

...The worn images seemed to have recovered whatever original forms they had once enjoyed; they, too, were laughing and gesticulating with queer movements. The whole courtyard was a fantastic scene, such as may have been drawn by imaginative artists depicting lost souls in Hell.


(5)“The Little Man” Aug. 1939 Weird Tales.5-star
What's this? A noir mystery with a self-confessed serial killer walking the streets? Fast and very fun. Will you understand how a thin, lithe man murders bigger men? Well...to quote the story: "Men lack faith in a thing simply because they are not able to understand it."

(6) “The Werewolf Howls” Nov. 1941 Weird Tales. 4-star
Monsieur Etienne Delacroix has a secret, and a canine-cryptid to deal with. An obvious denouement ends a short story, but the delivery was enjoyable.

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Wednesday, February 12, 2020

The Sleeping City - Review by SE

The Sleeping City by E.C. Tubb
S.E> rating: 3 of 5 stars

E.C. Tubb (1919 – 2010) was prolific, known mostly for his Sci-Fiction (i.e., his Space-1999 adaption and 33 volume Dumarest Saga. Thanks to the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group for having groupreads, I was able to learn about Tubbs’s two-volume heroic fantasy novels, The Chronicles of Malkar (both published in 1999):
1) Death God's Doom
2) The Sleeping City

I delved into The Sleeping City before I knew about the first volume, and there was no issue with that. This one starts with the mercenary Malkar assuming a throne for the city of Dashkit; he incidentally won the queen as a bride. Her name is Ishma, and, like the other few women in this book, are present only to offer their bosoms (excerpts below). The misogyny seems more suited to another era, but the book is unabashedly masculine. The men are at the forefront of all the characters of substance, and the few women exist as erotic decor or prizes. Two excerpts of many examples:
She stood at the rear of the ramparts dressed in a gown of flame, red silk flowing over the curves of her body, rubies adorning the waterfall of her hair. Her neck was bare, her shoulders, the upper swell of her breasts. On the naked flesh shone a jewel.

He felt the movement of her breasts, her hips, the enticing invitation of her thighs.
It reads much like Michael Moorcok’s style, or even Lin Carter’s Thongor. In fact, it goes so fast, the plot stumbles over itself. It propels the action regardless of consistency. One example (a minor spoiler but explains the title): eventually, Dashkit is held in a sleepless state under a storm-like spell; Malkar avoids the effects and goes on a random walkabout away from the city for magic to retaliate; when Malkar returns from being gone for ~1week, it is completely unclear who has been under suspension and who has not. Whereas his citizens and friends are frozen, his enemy Jalthar was free to roam around—but Jalthar did nothing to the city as it lay vulnerable, but instead waited for Malkar to return to battle for it.

Whatever. Malkar is always on the front-lines of danger, and always being saved by coincidence and luck, so never fear for his safety. In fact, he accidentally evokes a secret power three times at critical junctures, with no explanation or engagement for the reader to anticipate. In fact, his latent, convenient powers undermine the reasons & risks for his adventures. A shallow reason is offered at the end by a magician who explains that those powers (paraphrased) were fitting for a king, not a mercenary. As if Malkar was granted powers by usurping the throne… I guess? Or he earned them.

Malkar’s exposition is noteworthy, since he has “gut feels” that enables him to use scarce data to explain to his loin-clothed buddies (i.e., Hostig) what his enemies are thinking & doing, and thus allow him to lay traps and respond proactively. Likewise, the melodramatic dialogue is laughable at times. Many times I envisioned Adam West playing him (the ~1960’s Batman TV show may have inspired the drama).

Example Melodrama: call me a dog? I’ll kill you
“Dog?” The Benowinian stepped close and lashed Malkar across the face with his gemmed hand.

“You call me dog!” He grimaced, vile in his rage. “For that I shall feed you the agonies of hell! You will be staked on the sand with your eyelids removed so as to stare at the sun. You will be stripped and lashed with whips of wire so that the ants will come to drink your blood and eat your flesh. You will scream while being roasted over slow fires. I will burn out your eyes and sear your tongue! I will –”

The strengths lie in the fight scenes and poetic descriptions. I really did enjoy these.

Fight Scene example:
He chopped and mail burst, a severed head rolling from spouting shoulders, eyes wide in the amazement of death. He beat aside a swinging blade, beat again, sent the steel in a whining arc which ended on a shoulder and clove through bone and flesh to bare the naked lungs. Wrenching free the weapon he turned, smashed aside reaching steel, thrust at a snarling face. He felt irresistible, metal, flesh, bone all yielding to the fury of his attack. A machine of destruction cutting its way through a dozen men.

Poetic descriptions:
A passage led from the chamber to the Temple, the Hall of Kings where statues of previous rulers stood in double line in a wide passage of gleaming marble and malachite. The glow of votive candles touched them with dancing light, drifting glows that gave the dead eyes the semblance of watchful life, the dead lips the hint of sardonic smiles.

It was naked, hairless, the skin a sere yellow, the ears shrivelled against the creased flesh of the skull. A tall jar of black metal rose from the floor to clasp it around the scrawny throat. Ancient hieroglyphics intertwined with a serpent motive covered the surface of the jar and the head had the dried, desiccated appearance of a mummy, the mouth a thin crease, the eyes sunken beneath heavy lids.

So if you are looking for a guilty-pleasure adventure, some juvenile wish-fulfillment that can be consumed like fast food (tastes good, but isn’t really nutritious), then have a go at Malkar’s chronicles.

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Sunday, January 5, 2020

Death Dealers & Diabolists - Review by SE

Death Dealers & Diabolists by D.M. Ritzlin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading anthologies enables readers to discover new voices and authors, and since short stories launched the Sword & Sorcery genre in the ~1920's, the Goodread's S&S Group has a 2-month groupread every Jan-Feb for this purpose. This is my first DMR anthology and I am impressed. This bodes well for many others in my to-read list (like Swords of Steel Omnibus, Warlords, Warlocks & Witches, and the The Infernal Bargain and Other Stories). DMR also hosts an outstanding blog that fans of S&S adore.

I only knew of Keith Taylor from this set. Three of the four that stick with me are ones that had less forward-momentum than I normally expect, but they ended strong and surprised me. I star my favorites below. The genre may have started in the 1920's, but anthologies like this demonstrate that it still lives strong a century later.

“Q’a the Librarian” by Buzz Dixon
Many others on Goodreads enjoyed this the most. It is true to the theme of “Death Dealers and Diabolists”. You can root for the anti-heroine Q'a since the other characters are eviler than she. Involves plenty of sacrifices and murdering children, and Q’a could not care less. However, her immorality wore off on me, so I wasn't as engaged with any of her antagonists/plight. This opening entry consumes 28% of the book too, which wasn't necessary. Would definitely appeal to Grimdark readers.

“The Man With the Evil Eye” by Keith Taylor
I adore Keith Taylor's work (i.e., Servant of the Jackal God: The Tales of Kamose, Archpriest of Anubis ). This one was ok. Three crusader buddies (Palamides, Chiron, Michael) save an alleged murderer, a runaway woman, from a bunch of thugs hired by an evil magician/collector. Was hooked up to the point when the merry men met Harmatius. The ending battle/climax ended abruptly and with less reader-engagement than expected.

* “The Vault of Geigar Varakas” by Kenneth R. Gower
The tale of the thief Kral Mazan starts slow and meandering, but it ramps up nicely. He's good at cards and doesn't like cheating (stealing is alright though), and a card match with the wealthy, cheating Varakas gets him tossed into a street. There, a conniving woman, Firien, hires him to break into Varakas' treasure trove to retrieve an heirloom item for her--and seek revenge for himself. An eruption of Lovecraftian-like horror explodes on the scene which made the build-up satisfying.

* “Lord of the Wood” by Geoff Blackwell
This tells of the hunter Ville returning to a ravaged home. He tracks the death-dealers of his family considering revenge. Not much sorcery/diabolists in here. Very, very grim. Beautiful wording drew me in:
“Cold azure glitter replaced warm red glow. Skies lay naked, the moon and stars shone like pinpricks in tough fabric. Trails of teal and rich violet whipped across the firmament. He whistled into the shimmering aurora as though to beckon it closer. The sky fox danced tonight. A beautiful night to start Ville’s last hunt.”

“Ranorax, Son of Tiger” by Mark Taverna
Haukan of the Tiger Clan is a real ass and hopes to lead his clan soon. A pesky prophecy from their shaman indicates the leader will instead be a strange boy emerging from the woods. An okay entry. Not sure if Death Dealing or Diabolism motivated it.

* “Intrigue in the Unassailable City” by Carl Walmsley
Menias returns to his island city/home after sailing abroad as a mercenary for over a decade. He has a slim hope of reuniting with Carwynn, a lady of higher class who had a crush on him before he trekked off. But to find her he has to climb up the strata of the island from the poor docks. Having been sailing with a bunch of pirates hasn't helped his network. Old "friends" slow his mission to his love interest. This is the second of three tales that were a slow brew, that delivered in a satisfying way. Nice milieu and characterization.

“Three Coins of Doom” by Bryan Dyke
This has humor in it, which many like. But I am more of a curmudgeon, enjoying the humor only if there is a deeper story. Mau-Keefe is a pirate on a cryptic quest to track down an acquaintance (Naravian), while his compatriot wizard-buddy Lucrutius drinks more than he helps. Levity was nice to include to break up the grimness of the other stories, but the purple pummich's silliness overshadowed any story arc.

* “The Age of Crows—The Return of the Swarm” by Jed J. Del Rosario
A slow start sets up the epic premise of Angel vs Demon warfare. For the first third, I wasn't sure about its direction. Duryodan is the protagonist, but he is driven by a higher power (which chimes in via first-person narrative) and was summoned by a fellow angel, Vidur, to tackle a big job. Another angelic immortal, Nakula, also meddles as they battle a corrupt Emperor. Weird corpse-possessing flies/insects play a dominant role. I’m a sucker for necromancy and angelic battles like this one.

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Sunday, December 29, 2019

Offutt's BS: The Black Sorcerer of the Black Castle - Review by SE


The Black Sorcerer of the Black Castle by Andrew J. Offutt
S.E. rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Black Sorcerer of the Black Castle is Andrew J. Offutt's parody of Sword & Sorcery. The one I read has illustrations from Jim Pitts, introduction by Wayne Warfield (editor), and an afterword by andrew j. offutt (who seldom capitalized his name).

It is intentionally overwritten with excess adjectives, and offutt referred to this as "BS" (short for many things, Black Sorcerer included.) The story has the common tropes of a lone hero fighting ~3 representations of something evil capped with a final confrontation with a malicious wizard. Plenty of silly call-outs to the S&S crowd are within (i.e., the wizard is named Reh after Robert E Howard).

I heard about this via the Sword & Sorcery group on Goodreads. My goal was further to understand how the use of color was applied in pulp fiction (S&S especially).

The afterword reveals the story's evolution. More importantly, it showed how multiple readers/editors preferred a particular balance of humor and action. In fact, offutt confessed he learned via working with BS of his Great Discovery:
"pornography and heroic fantasy have something much in common: both quite for different reasons, need to create a mood and a spell, and to make it last --and neither, can be overwritten.




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Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Tales from the Magician's Skull #3 - Review by SE

S.E rating: 5 of 5 stars
"Rejoice, mortals! I have heard your pleas and returned to grant your greatest desire: More sword-and-sorcery!

Once again I will bring you tales of thrilling adventures in time-lost lands. There are swords, and there is sorcery. There are dark deeds and daring rescues..." -- The Magician's Skull speaks in Kickstarter

Should you trust a talking skull? Well, no sane person would, but I attest this skull does not lie (and I am making a habit of listening to it). Tales from the Magician's Skull (installments #1 and #2) spawned from a successful 2017 Kickstarter campaign in which Howard Andrew Jones (Sword & Sorcery guru, author, and RPGer) teamed up with Joseph Goodman (of Goodman Games, publisher of Dungeon Crawl Classics). The resulting magazine reflects this partnership, marrying great stories with corresponding RPG elements. This July 2019, the Skull resurfaced with issue #3 and promises of issues #4-6. As a backer and enthusiast of fantasy fiction, I couldn’t be more pleased.

If you missed the Kickstarters, have no worries, you "mortal dogs" (another Skull saying). Behold! Goodman Games and Amazon offer them. Future plans are as follows: "Issue #4 will release in March 2020, and others will follow bi-annually thereafter. Upon reaching issue #666, the Skull will travel to a higher plane and the magazine will end."


Quality: The print quality is great again (the artwork, editing, illustrations, tan-cardstock pulp-feel etc.). The magazine is just fun to hold.

Appendix: The last item in the Table of Contents (below) should be the first to discuss since it is iconic: The Appendix. What a great design idea! To drive home the RPG elements of the stories, Terry Olson once again created items and Dungeon Crawl Classic RPG rules related to each story. This is really cool. Read the stories...then go re-live/play them. I enjoy reading this section each time just to re-imagine the stories (without playing an RPG).

Illustrations: The cover is by master Sanjulián (Manuel Pérez Clemente). Many full-page, detailed illustrations decorate the interior by established artists: Samuel Dillon, Justine Jones, Doug Kovacs, Brad McDevitt, Russ Nicholson (an old-time favorite from Fighting Fantasy), Stefan Poag, Matthew Ray, and Chuck Whelan. There is a short contribution in which Samuel Dillon explains how he created one the frontispiece for "The Second Death of Hanuvar."

intrior illustration by Samuel Dillon

Tales #3: Contents. All six are quality Sword & Sorcery stories, and there is plenty of bonus content like flash fiction, author and illustrator notes, and the appendix of RPG-items. Most stories have some mystery or police-procedural flare; several are serials from the previous Tales magazines; others have characters appearing in other venues. For me, since I am a huge fan of Clark Ashton Smith and poetic/weird adventure (Dunsany), the last story by Sarah Newton was a true highlight.

(1) "Face That Fits His Mask" by William King. King's Kormac is available in a series of anthologies (starts with Stealer of Flesh). Kormac is a hunter of dark creatures with some supernatural abilities of his own. With the aid of a suspicious demon, he goes after a kidnapper to rescue children from an underworld full of rat-men. Even though this is not Warhammer, William King has written for the Black Library and the rat-kin resembles Skaven.

(2) "Tyrant’s Bane" by John C. Hocking. This time our King's Blade (i.e., the king's right-hand man) is sent to find a missing colleague named Viriban—well, sent after his missing corpse. The shady King Flavious wants to know what is going on in the mortuary. Benhus sets out to solve a weird necromantic tale, armed with his Nobleman's Comfort wand of freezing and his master's sword. Yes, this is the third tale of Benhus in as many Tale's magazines. It is really rewarding to see Benhus evolve. From Tales #1: “The Crystal Sickle’s Harvest. From the World of the Archivist" thieves were breaking into royal crypts, but not necessarily to steal. Why? The police-like duo of Thratos (mentor Hand of the King sorcerer) and Benhus (young mentee, warrior sorcerer) investigate. And from Tales #2, "Trial by Scarab" showcased the rapid rise of Benhus from being a dexterous student of the military arts … into something better.

(3) "Five Deaths" By James Enge: More S&S police procedurals/mysteries! I recall reading my first Morlock tale in Rogue Blade Entertainment's Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure ("Red Worm's Way"). "Five Deaths" reads as two cops tracking a thief/criminal. Morlock is a thain (servant) to the older Lernaion (a summoner). Both are dwarf-like, with Morlock being a better caver and Lernaion being able to sense the demon's trail. The pair chases a murdering demon in a tale that is more Sorcery than Sword. Morlock's strange optimism balances the seriousness of the adventure well. I laughed out loud when Morlock surmised:
"The sorcerer died for a flippancy?"
Morlock's exploits are in the book Blood of Ambrose, and the first two Tales from the Magician's Skull. From Tales #1 "The Guild of Silent Men : A Story of Morlock Ambrosius", a fantasy-murder mystery fleshed out Thain Morlock's background and motivations. And from Tales #2 "Stolen Witness" the sorcerer investigator overcame his father's legacy in a compelling (pun intended) mystery regarding a stone--a device of sorts that reminded me of Robert E Howard's "The Black Stone" (1931).

(4) "The Forger’s Art" by Violette Malan. A mystery adventure regarding forged art and theft! Dhulyn (finally, a lead female protagonist) and Parno are Mercenary Brothers for hire, but in this case they are also out to avenge a fellow Brother's death. They also appeared in Tales #2: "A Soul’s Second Skin" in which the duo with telepathic skills unraveled a mystery, and accidentally caged themselves in another plane with antagonist magicians.

(5) "Second Death of Hanuvar" by Howard Andrew Jones. Twice as long as any other story herein, this one stands out. Hanuvar (a fictionalized anti-Roman general...could this be an incarnation of Hannibal Barca?) tangles with the Roman-like Dervani who have invaded his homeland. Expect espionage thriller sorties, gladiator battles, and a sorcery-saturated climax that balances all the sword fights prior. Hanuvar appears in Tales #1: "Crypt of Stars, From the Chronicles of Hanuvar Cabera."

(6) "The Wizard of Remembrance" by Sarah Newton. Wow, there are few who can roll out a tale as smoothly as Dunsany or Clark Ashton Smith, but Sarah Newton delivers this literary dose with excellence. I admit this was my first experience with her writing and couldn't be happier to discover someone "new" (to me). That's the fun of anthologies and magazines...enjoy the stories and find new authors to track down. Here is an excerpt of her voice:
"So Suven would summon the memnovores, as was his duty, and close his doors and stop his ears to the screams as the demons devoured the thoughts of his women in return for terrible gifts. Later, when the sight of their placid faces, cleansed of all care, became too much to bear, he would bow his own head and submit himself, too, to the ministrations of the memory eaters.

The Empire of Ubliax waxed mighty on the strength of its forgetting, and the savage lands of the Men of Mogor grew smaller each year. No one in the Empire knew how long its glory had endured..."
"By That Much", "Dead Wood", "The Return", and "Duel's End" by Joseph A. McCullough: These flash fiction pieces are sprinkled throughout all feature the grave digger Nick Bury. Full of whimsy and irony. Nice change of pace to complement the longer contributions.

The Appendix by Terry Olson. This is the aforementioned collection of spells, creatures, and magic items for RPG play derived from the stories.

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Sunday, December 1, 2019

Arrival - Review by SE

Arrival by Richard Lee Byers
S.E. rating: 4 of 5 stars

Richard Lee Byers's Author's Note in Arrival invites the reader to provide feedback regarding the future of The Paladins (the series that Arrival novella kicks off).

Note the book blurb (below) is an excellent synopsis. It combines Lost-World tropes with Sword & Sorcery, as a witch in an alternate realm summons six warriors (five Christian Crusaders and a Muslim/Saracen fighter) that team up to fight an evil force called the Stain.

It reads really fast. This is true to Richard Lee Byer's style who has a long bibliography of fantasy books, many associated with RPG games.

Would I buy Book Two: yes.

What would I want/expect:
- More explanation about the Stain: is it a curse on the land, or some mutagen? I hope for something to show the commonality in all its manifestations: Parchment-men, one-eyed-dogs, sentient mud, mutating children...
- Kolinda's plan (she could have used her six warriors behind enemy lines to her advantage, but she lead them to her homeland, but it is not clear how they are going to help still)
- The continuing reveal of the Muslim (Saracen) Jibril's collusion with the Christian Hospitalers (Ox, Ottoman), and escalating tension between the Hospitaler and the Crusaders (hot-blooded Pierangelo and his more empathetic companions: Gaspard, William)

The author is accessible at conventions (such as GenCon). After meeting Richard Lee Byers, I interviewed him in 2018. Check it out to learn more about his views on Art and Horror.

Official Arrival Book Blurb:
Prophecy said holy warriors would travel from another world to save the Western Kingdoms. The men who showed up were rather different.

The priestess Kolinda risked her life to travel deep into the Stained Lands and cast the summoning in the only place where the ritual could be performed. She believed the magic would bring a fellowship of paladins.

Instead it snatched six warriors from the so-called Holy Land of the Earthly Crusades: Pierangelo the fanatic, Gaspard the pragmatist, William the callow novice, Ottomar the politician, Ox the dullard, and the enigmatic Jibril.
Flawed men with no interest in helping a strange land of pagans solve its problems. Enemies who sought to kill one another only moments before.

Now, however, they must band together to escape a country blighted by the foulest sorcery and stalked by unnatural terrors like the parchment men, the One-Eyed Hounds, and the ice witch Lady Coldbreath. It’s a brittle alliance born of necessity, in danger of shattering at any moment and surely not fated to last should the company be lucky enough to reach the Western Kingdoms alive.

The Paladins: Arrival is the start of a new fantasy epic about swordplay, war, demonic magic and horrors, and, just maybe, second chances and redemption.


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Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Upon the Flight of the Once Queen - Review by SE

A Grim Take on the Holy Grail: Upon the Flight of the Queen by Howard Andrew Jones - Nov 12th 2019 Black Gate

flight-of-the-queen-larger-BGThe Ring-Sworn Trilogy

Howard Andrew Jones’s For the Killing of Kings jumpstarted the epic fantasy Ring Sworn trilogy this February 2019, and the sequel Upon the Flight of the Queen hits shelves next week (November 19th). MacMillan’s St. Martin's Press pitches the series as “The Three Musketeers presented via the style of Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber.” The pacing is reminiscent of Zelazny since Howard Andrew Jones (HAJ) doles out action and backstory with precision. Yet there are many more than three heroes, and the milieu has more medieval flare than musketry, so it is more “King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table” than Musketeers. For the Killing of Kings is actually a grim take on the consequences of seeking, and finding, a figurative Holy Grail (hearthstones). The Altenerai guard had been spread out over the Five Realms searching for many hearthstones that fuel magic — the enigmatic Queen Leonara deems them holy. Twice I was completely floored by plot twists, and the last third kept me from going to sleep. I haven’t had that much fun reading a book in a long time. Black Gate’s Fletcher Vredenburgh's review should likewise entice new readers.

91fi4aU2QFL#2 Upon the Flight of the Queen

Summarizing a sequel can be tough without spoiling its predecessor, but the following overview will try as it showcases why you should commit to Ring-Sworn. Upon the Flight of the Queen starts off exactly where For the Killing of Kings ends. The adventure begins in high-gear with Alten Rylin assuming his action-thriller role (~James Bond) penetrating the Naor camp disguised in magic, dragging the reader into mayhem.

The primary story arc still focuses on the coming of age of the female squire Elenai, a soldier with burgeoning magic prowess. Her rise in the Altenerai ranks is compelling. On her journey she campaigns with seasoned members who are still reeling from the previous war; their commander was killed, and their Queen Leonara decided to make temporary peace rather than annihilate the barbaric Naor enemies. War rages across the Five Realms of the Dendressi again, but now the Altenerai forces are less prepared, less numerous, and less united. By the end of this sequel, the new war with the Naor reaches a major milestone, and the Queen is confronted by the Altenerai. Upon the Flight of the Queen delivers on all the tension brewed in For the Killing of Kings, and you’ll still be left hungry for a third installment.

Cut-to-the-Chase Style

HAJ applies the same intense momentum from his Sword & Sorcery short fiction into these novels. Even though the Ring-Sworn epic spans a continent with dozens of characters, it propels without any filler. Likewise, despite there being ample political intrigue with the loyal Altenerai have been replaced with secretive Exalts of Queen, the conflict pulls no punches. HAJ simultaneously covers:
  • Remnants of the past war (readers will learn about many of the Altenerai who went MIA previously)
  • The current escalating war across three major fronts (the besieged Alantris, the corrupted Darassus; the lands about Vedessus)
  • An impending cataclysm (meddling with hearthstones unsettles the foundation of the Five Realms).

How Can so Much Ground be Covered so Fast and Smoothly?

The carefully designed milieu enables the efficient storytelling and informs everything: the magic systems, the health of the land, and every character’s motivations. The Naor, the kobalin, the Dendressi… all have cultures, and biology, intimately tied to the Five Realms and the conflicts between them. The Naor and ko’aye fight over nesting lands, the hearthstones obsessed by the Queen literally tap into the land’s substance, and as nature is reshaped, so too are the kobalin’s bodies:
[The Shifting Land] looked as though some mad deity had dropped geometric monoliths upon a distant line of irregular hills. Immense, perfectly square onyx and celadon blocks had embedded in three of the nearer ones, and the slopes were littered with smaller cubes of gray and green.
Storms pass and interact with the land and the creatures who live there—nature and beast share the same chaotic lifeforce:
…the light harshened and the dark, rocky soil under their feet transformed into white sand blazing under a tropic haze. The kobalin crooned, then they themselves began to shift…Qirock’s hands lengthened to claws and the hunched one grew hooves... the orange one thrust new elbow spikes into the soil.

Expect a Diverse Cast, with Contemporary Issues and Comic Relief

Don’t expect dwarves, elves, and such, since HAJ is always motivated to create fresh experiences. The Ring-Sworn has a unique cast of humanoid creatures, like the kobalin Ortok who provides humor as a fierce frenemy: if Ortok respects you, then he’ll challenge you to a duel to the death. Ortok’s banter and social analyses are hilarious. A few of the cast are sexually nonbinary (orientations are not a focus of the story, just low-key matters of fact). The macho Rylin certainly tries to charm more women than he deserves, but he is driven to be chivalrous and his approach to relations matures during the adventure. Gender roles even add tension amongst the masculine Naor ranks. Despite a requisite dose of masculinity (via testosterone-fueled violence), women play a dominant role in the book. In addition to Elenai’s role as lead protagonist, all the governors of the realms are female: Queen Leonara of Darassus, Verena of Vedessuus, and Feolia of Alantris.

Evil Naor

The antagonistic Naor disdain modern sensibilities and civilization. They love to coerce/enthrall dragons to fight on their behalf, they ransack nesting grounds of the ko'aye and harvest blood from hundreds of people to fuel their blood-sorcery (sacrificial “olech” ceremonies). All that just makes them really entertaining, bad guys. While the standard humans are fascinated with hearthstone magic (at the expense of the land’s health), the Naor are thrilled to practice blood magic (at the expense of life):
The rising strands of blood twisted into ropes that quickly shaped a complex framework. Over the course of a few minutes a scaffolding took shape, over which recognizable forms grew distinct: a torso, a head, a mass below that which was flowing and vaguely fishtail-like until it was revealed as the bottom of a robe… long strands of blood hung down either side of the head… Vannek looked upon a sculpture of his oldest brother.

Cover & Map & Trailer

A map was not necessary for the first book, but Upon the Flight of the Queen expands the scope of action across the Five Realms and a map appropriately complements the story. As the Lauren Saint Onge cover indicates, readers will experience aerial battles between dragons and Archaeopteryx-like ko’aye. Darian Jones, son of the author, is a skilled animator and produced the trailer. Fletcher Vredenburgh interviewed Darian Jones and revealed how the trailer was designed and made (including the music), and sheds light on a father-son relationship.

#3 The Goddess Wakes in 2020?

The trilogy is well underway. During the Feb 2019 Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA), I inquired on the release schedule. HAJ returned: “The third book is fully outlined, and I had begun drafting…”. From subsequent correspondence, I learned the working title for Ring Sworn #3 is When the Goddess Wakes (obviously subject to change), with a targeted release in 2020.

Howard Andrew Jones

When not helping run his small family farm or spending time with his amazing wife and children, Howard Andrew Jones can be found hunched over his laptop or notebook, mumbling about flashing swords and doom-haunted towers. His novels include The Chronicles of Sword and Sand (The Desert of Souls, The Waters of Eternity, The Bones of the Old Ones) and several Pathfinders Tales. Jones has worked variously as a TV cameraman, a book editor, a recycling consultant, and a college writing instructor. He assembled and edited 8 collections of Harold Lamb's historicals for the University of Nebraska Press, and served as Managing Editor of Black Gate. He edits the Sword-and-Sorcery magazine Tales From the Magician’s Skull, and edits for the Perilous Worlds book imprint.