Category: Sword and Sorcery

Blog Sword and Sorcery

A Reader’s Guide to Modern Sword and Sorcery Magazines

Back in the days of yore, some 100 years ago at this point, pulp fiction magazines were everywhere. Publications like Weird Tales and Unknown Worlds were the places to be for short-fiction writers hoping to make a living. Throughout the twentieth century, publications like these introduced the world to the likes of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, C.L. Moore, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and countless others. Without such authors, fantasy as we know it would not exist. While all sorts of genre fiction were represented among the pulps, I’ve always been most interested in Sword & Sorcery and…

Blog Sword and Sorcery

Forging New Nexuses: Gassing Up Genre Writers of the 1920s and 2020s

Citation abbreviation notes: During the desperate economic precarity of the Great Depression, some of the most celebrated early writers of horror, weird, and sword & sorcery fiction found, via the highly resilient U.S. postal service, the voices of other aspirant wordsmiths. These exchanges of letters not only took place in relatively public venues, such as featured letters in magazines, but also private correspondences. H. P. Lovecraft found himself as a kind of epistolary super-nexus, writing thousands of pages to dozens of organizations and individuals, often laudably with a spirit of attentiveness, generosity, and earnestness. S. T. Joshi, a leading Lovecraft…

Short Fiction Sword and Sorcery

Once is Never Enough

Aisling held what remained of Blightheart by his horn, throwing the goblin magelord’s head at the boots of her liege lord, Árdghal, who had commanded his fighters to cleanse his lands of the vile bastard’s black magic. “You have done well, Aisling.” He leaned forward in his throne, examining the grotesque grimace gazing upward from the straw and cobbles. Aisling did not kneel. She did not bow her head. Tough as leather, she crossed her sinewy arms and smirked. She met her liege lord’s eyes as if she were his equal, as if she were his better. “The deed is…

Serial Fiction Sword and Sorcery

All but Guaranteed

The tower wall of Duke Danlo’s palace reflected the brumal light of a winter moon. Stones fitted and polished to near perfection by expert masons of two centuries past, its silken surface emanated a ghostly sheen, not unlike the frozen moat upon which Izrak Laav stood. His infiltration had thus far gone unhindered. Diamond shrouds of whirling snow, and a shirt of black iron mail, had veiled the mercenary’s approach. Yet scaling the icy wall presented an impossible challenge to any would-be invader. Impossible to all, but for him. Izrak removed his gloves and reached out to the wall, his…

Serial Fiction Sword and Sorcery

A Valley of Shadow — Part Five

VIII A Blade Reborn Sight returned to the dead man. Lying upon a bed of lilies, his gaze was met by the somnolent eye of the moon drifting towards the west. Stars flickered as candles in the quilt of night, beacons guiding the weary moon to its diurnal repose. Envy had flared within Izrak’s mind, now replaced by cool sympathy. The moon’s journey was not yet over, and many long hours remained until its passing. An echo; a thought; a memory called to the dead man from the ether. Izrak clutched the worn pouch at his hip. Please… let me…

Serial Fiction Sword and Sorcery

A Valley of Shadow — Part Four

VI IT OPENS FROM WITHIN Vision returned to Izrak as he knelt before his executioner. A broken blade lay upon the sand. My son. The mercenary looked up. Ryol kneeled before him, leaning on his grandfather’s sword, its edges dull and rusted, the sigils along the fuller now faded. No longer the dark warrior, Ryol was once again the image of a boy, no more than sixteen. As you were… so long ago. Staring at Izrak, the boy remained silent. Izrak reached out a trembling hand. Ryol’s flesh began to fall away in flakes of ashen decay, his body withering…

Serial Fiction Sword and Sorcery

A Valley of Shadow — Part Three

IV DARK SUN Vision returned to Izrak as he stood upon the altar. Lebi was gone, taking with her whatever warmth had remained to a day growing cold under the weary eye of the late afternoon sun. The dead man fell to his knees. Trembling fingers raked over the stone where she had stood mere moments before—and yet so long ago. His roar reverberated through the chamber, his eyes flaring with hellfire. Stone fractured under the force of his fists crashing against the floor. Then silence, and Izrak shrank into himself. Light spilled into the narthex as the iron doors…

Serial Fiction Sword and Sorcery

A Valley of Shadow — Part Two

II ONLY ONCE Faith is patience. Resilient in its timeless endurance, faith remains a steadfast sanctuary for lost and weary wanderers of epochs burdened with strife and discontent. Yet faith is not without tribulation. All must pass through the valley of shadow, where hope is naught but a dim light, a distant memory of halcyon days, long since forgotten. And as the afternoon sun drifted towards uncertain horizons, golden light fading behind a veil of grief laden clouds , Izrak Laav came upon a church in the outskirts of the Old City. It was a stout building, despite its age.…

Serial Fiction Sword and Sorcery

A Valley of Shadow — Part One

Prologue No one expects a dead man to walk through the front door. This time was no different. The dozen patrons of the Soul’s Lament went silent as the cobbled door whined on its hinges, and Izrak Laav crossed over the threshold, ducking his head as he passed inside. A trio of men, grim faces flushed, eyes glazed in a half-drunken stupor, sat at a table near the door. Shifting in their chairs as the dead man approached, they whispered as quivering hands hovered over unseen knives. Izrak glanced at the vagrants, the iron studs of his jerkin and mail…