Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"
Goodreads Group
This focuses on Beauty in Weird Fiction, with interviews. S E Lindberg is the creator of Dyscrasia Fiction, a Managing Editor at Black Gate, an intern for Tales From the Mag.’s Skull, and moderator of the Goodreads Sword and Sorcery Group
Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"
Goodreads Group
“…along with their prophets, Alesh the Old, Sasha the Scarred, and Mera the Cruelly Beautiful, the cultists were taken to the purple swamps outside of the city. A deep grotto had been prepared there, of roots, mud, and worms. Their crime, writ on the beaten bronze tablet in ancient hieroglyphs, there was verbalized with the sonorous majesty of the High Priest of Atok’s powerful voice. Amidst song and the beating of spears on shields, all of the heads were sliced off the convicted and swung into the hole.”
“The thrall-messenger breathlessly pleaded his case, told the council his terrible tale: high in hubris, the Sorcerer Peroptoma of Dis-Penethor, Duke of Chius, seeking secrets in the stars, had opened a Black Gate, one he could not close, and now shadows poured through it, like black blood from a wound, ravening with hunger for human flesh."3. “One Less Hand for the Shaping of Things” appeared in Skelos, #1 (2016)
“[Ayolo’s] thoughts wandered to his wife Shemira and Chamberlain Brocoshio, who had, with clever arguments, convinced him to organize his caravan to the south...If he had any virtue as a merchant, it was due to his shrewdness. He was no swordsman or adventurer and was fully aware of the dangers that plagued the roads through Yizdra. Instead of sublime beauty of alien lands, he’d much prefer the ordinariness of his study, reading correspondence or tabulating accounts by candlelight; or better yet, the poetry of Thees….4. “A Song in Deepest Darkness” appeared in Cirsova: Heroic Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, Issue #10 (2018)
“O lightdrinkers!” sung a mellifluous voice as pale lights bobbed behind them. “Listen to how we will treat with you! We will flay you and then bind a Black Book with your skin! We will make a wine pot of your skull! We will read dark verses as your soul writhes in the chest-cage of the Horned One’s breast!”5. "Her Formless Temple" appeared in Phantaxis #7 (2017)
"Cas of the Sun Disk flourished at his mother’s breast, and when he grew to a hate-filled guttersnipe, he was not killed in the urchin wars that plagued that slum’s youths, nor did he lose his namesake; but, alas, a grippe swept through the slum, and both mother and child contracted it. "We also learn more about the cryptically named story #3 with this excerpt:
“Most heroes know not themselves .... have fallen deeply... Their joy in questing unselfing like a breath exhaled .... Inflating their mainsails, propelling them beyond .... To strangle lands where the measure of joy is sunlight, lightning, shadow, and mist, and sometimes death: one less hand for the shaping of things.”
"...they looked at me, the little quivering wretches, and answered my warning with snarling grins that revealed transparent teeth. Their radiant eyes dilated. I saw their brains bulging, brightening. They threw the force of their poisonous dreams against my ward that repelled them back like a brick wall. In the intensity of their mental barrage, they popped like overindulging ticks, the bloody slime of their brains smearing across the cliff face and undergrowth."
“The Rogue slid his dagger into this man; his eyes bulged and bubbling foam spurted from his mouth. The dagger removed, the Rogue slit his throat with a wet slash, hissing, showing stained teeth in a rictus snarl, and then shoved the limp body over a table, scattering wine bowls, gnaw bones, and candles. In a flash, seven swords gleamed trembling in the flickering light of the smoking grease lamps swaying from the rafters. The Rogue leapt to a table, his cloak thrown off, his blade, a curving shiwa, gripped and ready at his dark brow. One of the men-at-arms came forward and died, stabbed through the eye. Another guard came forward and died, his blood spattering the Rogue’s face and bare chest, and thereafter fell like a sack of roots to the ground, his hot blood spurting rhythmically from his wound. The sounds of his gargling and dim death-movements were all that broke a new silence, and the iron aroma of blood blended with the stale musk of fear-sweat.”8. “Shadows from Shadows” (new)
"I saw them: at the base of the incline were two Loriks, their faces nearly identical, their brains glowing red in grayish, translucent skulls. They gazed up at me with large, lamplight eyes: little naked slime men with undulating lobes like blooming flowers. They chattered something at me in a foul, half-formed language, black tongues slipping out."9. “The Curio Dealer” appeared in Hypnos, Vol. 6 No. 1 (2017)
"The gran were elder-lived humans of mysterious origin, sometimes thralls to ancient, tree-tall sorcerers, purposefully stirred to emotional frenzy so that their insubstantial fear, hatred, and rage could be incarnated, extracted, and harvested as a black sap used as a dark fuel for even darker sorceries."4) The land is shared across all tales, and an excerpt from story#5 best captures some of the names:
Cas and Lia learned much about the world: the Youv to the north marshalled brown-cloaked armies of Porthror axemen and swore to annex Drossus, a northern fief of Griess Volor, peopled by shrewd merchants who flirted with republicanism. The City of Re to the south was plagued with religious dissent; a coven of witches cowed the oligarchy there, a masked priesthood of Atok, a God of a Million Eyes. Even whispers of Yesha trickled into Roa: the devil sorcerer who sat on the throne of that city-state was fashioning a great sphere that gave dark vibrations, and the thrall-nobles who kept his court, bathed in the sphere’s subtle movements, had developed a taste for human flesh and long teeth to tear it. But the worst of these stories treated Yizdra, the forestland Cas and Lia called home, where of recent seasons evil, cavern-dwelling creatures, the gran, had been waxing in numbers and raiding by night. They depleted game, burned villages, and murdered travelers on the ancient roads. … hung brazenly at a crossed cart road, the flyblown, wet skins and bones of the slaughtered, hooked beneath a rude formation of horns and antlers nailed and tied to a stand of weeping trees, and a flapping banner with ancient runes inked with blood and gore, and a single rune, a rendering in an ancient tongue. What, precisely, it meant, no scholar could tell, but its core message was clear: war.
With the release of Mystics in Hell, Perseid Press is rotating a spotlight on its authors. This week it's on me, eh gad! I wanted to capture my post here as well, adding some extra links and ensuring my blog has a record of how I infuse Alchemy into the Heroes in Hell and Heroika series:
Strange muses have had inspired my creativity for decades. I’m fascinated with the intersection of science, art, and spirituality (alchemy essentially) and have turned toward writing as a medium to learn. Since 2014, I’ve also interviewed authors on the topic Beauty in Weird Fiction to explore how others approached such inspirations (for this crowd, I recommend Death Panelists, when is it O.K. to go to hell?). By education and trade, I am actually a chemist. For Perseid Press, I’ve contributed five alchemy-inspired tales to date (three for the Heroes in Hell series and two for Heroika).
I’ve adopted the duo of Howard Carter
(renowned archaeologist and looter of King Tutankhamun’s tomb) and Ernst
Haeckel (discredited evolutionist and original ‘ecologist’) as tour guides.
Their motives contrast: Carter adores material, artificial wealth as much as
Haeckel is fascinated with nature’s riches. They roam the Egyptian world of the
dead, Duat. Their story arc continues in the just-released Mystics in Hell.
1) “Curse
of the Pharaohs” in Pirates in Hell
·
In
the Egyptian realm of the dead of Duat, many pharaohs wait to be judged by
Anubis; yet, he has been in absentia for centuries. As
the piratical Sea People threaten to come ashore, the meddling duo
of Carter and Haeckel unearth Anubis’s Hall of Two Truths. Eleven anxious
Rameses risk leaving the shoreline unprotected to chance judgment (and a
chance to exit Duat!). Read this teaser interview to learn more: Ernest Haeckel
Interview (Hell Week 2017, Pirates in Hell).
2)
“Lovers Sans Phalli” in Lovers
in Hell
· Surviving
Pirates in Hell’s “Curse of the Pharaohs”, the lovers Hatshepsut and
Senenmut depart Duat toward hell proper, Anubis having removed their hearts and
broken their toy phallus. They find Osiris, missing the penis he requires to
retake the realm from Satan’s influence. Carter and Haeckel quest with the
Egyptians, seeking to make everyone whole again by stealing genitalia from the
Undertaker’s Mortuary. Listen to this teaser interrogation of Carter and
Haeckel as higher powers seek out the location of a stolen artifact: the
phallus of the Egyptian god of rejuvenation: Osiris. Hell
Week 2018 – A Day in the Life of Haeckel and Carter.
3)
“Fool’s Gold? in Mystics in Hell
· The Egyptian god of
mysticism, Thoth, seeks conspirators to retrieve the Philosopher’s Stone; with
it, Thoth could usurp Satan’s control of the realm of Duat. Taking up the
charge is Carter and Haeckel. They discover that King Midas’s alchemical
ability to transmute flesh into gold relies on the stolen Philosopher’s Stone,
and Midas is producing hell’s new gastro-currency: buttcoin. Yes, rejoice,
there is a gold-rush in hell! Mine for a price. At your
own risk.
For this
series, I track the mystical Emerald Tablet (a.k.a., the Philosopher’s Stone) through
time. Read these and experience the birth of chemical warfare. You’ll see that
Thoth and Osiris make appearances here too.
1)
“Legacy of the
Great Dragon” in Heroika 1:Dragon Eaters
· Legacy of the Great
Dragon fictionalizes the Hermetic Tradition, presenting the “Divine
Pymander–Great Dragon” as being the sun-eating Apep serpent of Egyptian
antiquity (a dragon who ate the sun each day from under the horizon, in the
underworld). Thoth, physician of the gods (the
Father of Alchemy), helps Horus to find power to avenge the death of his
father, Osiris, at the hands of Set. This is a wild piece, with a cosmically
huge dragon and gods fighting inside of it. Learn more: Library
of Erana Interview.
2)
“The Naked Daemon” in Heroika 2: Skirmishers
· “The Naked Daemon” pits the mystic Apollonius of Tyana
(deceased ~100 CE) against zealots who destroy what remains of the Alexandria
Library. In life, his principles had been aligned with those of the pacifist
gymnosophists (a.k.a. naked philosophers); hundreds of years past his death,
Apollonius finds himself reborn as a daemon empowered with Hermes’s Emerald
Tablet. He observes the Roman oppression over pagan scholars and is challenged
with an urgent need to defend knowledge. Will Apollonius rationalize war by
unleashing the power of alchemy to do harm? Will he become an angel or demon?
How will alchemy transform The Naked Demon? Learn more: Heroika: Skirmishers – Witness the Birth of Alchemical Warfare!
S.E. Lindberg resides near Cincinnati, Ohio working as a microscopist,
employing scientific and artistic skills to understand the manufacturing of
products analogous to medieval paints. Two decades of practicing chemistry,
combined with a passion for the Sword & Sorcery genre, spurs him to write
graphic adventure fictionalizing the alchemical humors (including his
independently published “Dyscrasia Fiction” series). With Perseid Press, he writes weird tales infused with history
and alchemy (Heroika: Dragon Eaters & Skirmishers, Pirates
in Hell, Lovers in Hell, Mystics in Hell). S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at
Black Gate and co-moderates the Sword & Sorcery group on Goodreads.
S.E.’s Amazon Page / Perseid
Press Author Page / Sword
& Sorcery Group on Goodreads
Join us Saturday, February 27 at 10:00 am EST on Goodman Games Official Twitch Channel
"The exalted Skull, lord of all things sword & sorcery, has sent a selection of his minions and interns to satiate the mortal desire for sword & sorcery discussion while they breathlessly await issue #6 of his magazine of superlative greatness.
Join Chief Editorial Minion and interns #12, 34, and 657 to learn more about the ongoing open call for sword & sorcery fiction, tips and tricks for writing great fiction, and just a good discussion of what books we’ve been reading. Intern #78 will fill in if any other interns meet their demise prior to screen time."
Sword & Sorcery Group On GoodreadsOur Spring 2021 (March-April) groupreads will have a "rebirth" theme to our two topics. Please join us! Nostalgia TOPIC FOLDER: Share, reread, and review the books that lured you into the Sword & Sorcery genre. Appendix N: Eldritch Roots FOLDER LINK. The anthology "Appendix N: The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons and Dragons" exhibits the weird roots of Sword & Sorcery, and was a hot topic delayed from our Jan-Feb Anthology topic (book release was moved to late Feb). Banner Credits, L --> R
|
(1) Non-Fiction Discussion Folder link
(2) The Lost Empire of Sol Discussion Folder link
(3) Simon of Gitta Discussion Folder
Banner Credits
Three topics, cover art in banner represents them (cover artists below):
1) Non-Fiction represented by Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery : cover art by Tom Barber
2) Lost Empire of SolScott Oden Presents The Lost Empire of Sol: A Shared World Anthology of Sword & Planet Tales : cover art by M.D. Jackson 2021
3) Simon of Gitta Sorcery Against Caesar: The Complete Simon of Gitta Short Stories: cover art by Steven Gilberts 2020