Just The Axe, Ma'am #2

A curated newsletter of new and notable Sword & Sorcery news.

Stephen Graham Jones has been making waves in the horror genre with novels like The Only Good Indians, and My Heart is a Chainsaw. He has also, in recent years, been talking about his love for Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, most memorably in the Texas Monthly article “My Life With Conan the Barbarian,” in which he discussed being a Blackfoot who grew up in the same sort of rural Texas much like Robert E. Howard did, but also in this article on Re-Presentation for PBS American Masters.

This year, he wrote a sword & sorcery story, the harrowing “Dog in the Corner,” collected in the new anthology Swords in the Shadows from Outland Entertainment, and now this month, a story written for his childhood icon comes to publication with “Conan: Lord of the Mount” for the new Heroic Legends series of ebooks being released monthly by Titan Books (you can see the entire lineup of notable authors, among them Jonathan Maberry, V. Castro, and Laird Barron, working on Conan and other characters created by Robert E. Howard at this ScreenRant article here).

Also, the Rogues in the House Podcast sat down with Heroic Signatures editor Chris Butera and author John C. Hocking, whose Conan story will come out next month from Savage Tales, to discuss more of what the line contains and what they hope to achieve. You can listen to the episode here.

The New Edge Sword & Sorcery Story Chat had an in-depth analysis of “Dog in the Corner” that you can listen to here.

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Comics

The first volume of the late Richard Corben’s Den Saga has been collected and reprinted through Dark Horse Comics. This is a primal Sword & Planet epic in comic form that the late Corben refused to reprint for over 30 years. Matt Seneca at The Comics Journal gives an in-depth review analyzing the appeal of Corben’s art, which is well worth reading, though do be advised that the art used throughout is NSFW.

For those who are at work, we recommend this episode of Cartoonist Kayfabe, where hosts Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor discuss the Corben comic with artist Geof Darrow (Shaolin Cowboy and Hard Boiled with Frank Miller) as they flip through pages and use some artfully placed thumbs to conceal the NSFW bits.

Also, if you enjoy Seneca’s review, we advise checking out his Sex And Violence Epics From Classic Mythology: Conan Meets The Queen Of The Amazons, which analyzes both “A Witch Shall Be Born,” the adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan story by Roy Thomas and John Buscema in Marvel Treasury Edition #23, and Frank Stack’s underground Amazon Comics.

Speaking of Robert E. Howard’s “A Witch Shall Be Born,” this story is the focus of this month’s Cromcast, which you can listen to here.

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In other news…

+ Rogues In The House Presents has begun to publish the Book of Blades series, an annual anthology of Sword & Sorcery. Robin Marx at Grimdark Magazine looks at the second volume released earlier this year and spotlights five of the grimmest, darkest stories courtesy of S. E. Lindberg, Scott Oden, Matt John, John R. Fultz, and Steve Dilks.

+ Sword & Soul author Milton Davis explains the origins of his character Changa and the comic book featuring the character.

+ While most reviews of Howard Andrew Jones’ Lord of a Shattered Land came out last month, we wish to spotlight this new review at Nerds of a Feather, as well as this one from author James Reasoner.

+ The City of Marble and Blood, Jones's second novel in the Chronicles of Hanuvar, is still due to be released next month (yes, two novels in less than three months, you read that correctly). However, the release date has been postponed till October 17.

+ Over at Goodman Games, publisher of Jones’ Tales from the Magician’s Skull, does a quick catchup Q&A with the man.

+ Finally, Howard Andrew Jones and Todd McAulty got together for another S&S-flavoured chat at Tor.com, discussing short epic fantasy fiction (yes, it exists.)

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This Month in Sword & Sorcery Magazines:

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: HFQ had a successful Kickstarter for collecting the best stories and poems from issues #28 - #32 in a permanent edition.

In the meantime, you can read their issue #57 for free and online here.

New Edge Sword and Sorcery: NESS released a sneak preview of the cover of issue #2 featuring art by Gilead and interior art by Daniel Vega for “Carnivora” by Kirk A. Johnson. The cover art for #1 will be released in October as the magazine gears up for a simultaneous shipping of both issues in November.

The two issues are available to be ordered in advance.
Their pre-order store is up here.

Sept 28 also marks the one-year anniversary of the release of their free issue #0, which you can download and read in ePub/Mobi/PDF form over here.

Old Moon Quarterly: While issue #5 was available as an ebook as of last month, at the beginning of September, the paperback edition is now up for ordering. Take a look here.

Swords and Sorcery Magazine: The online magazine has just premiered three new stories for September. They are:

“The Travelling Fayre of Señor Monteluz comes to the Occidental Archipelago”, by J. M. Cyrus

“The Towers of Death”, by Zephyr Dorsey

“Acosar”, by Jonathan Olfert

All are online and free to read at the following links.

Tales From The Magician’s Skull: Sneak previews were released to three stories from Issue #11.

“Lady of the Frost” by C.L. Werner,

”The Eyes of Rath Kanon” by Bill Pearce,

“Ghostwise” by Caias Ward

Whetstone: The Open Submission Call for Issue #8 has ended on Sept 17. Good luck to all who submitted!

All previous seven issues are available to read for free here.

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Submission Calls

The following are markets that are dedicated to or are specified to accept sword & sorcery.

+ BFS Horizons, put out by The British Fantasy Society, is always open. 500 - 5000 Words. Remuneration £20. Submission Guidelines.

+ Crimson Quill Quarterly, a brand new magazine due January 2024, is open for submissions till October 31, 2023. Accepts up to 10k words. Remuneration $25. Submission Guidelines.

+ Indie Bites, a non-profit fantasy anthology series put out by Silversun Books, is available on Kindle Unlimited and is looking for stories for its upcoming Royals & Rogues-themed issue. Deadline Dec 31, 2023. Accepts up to 7500 Words. Honorarium £5. Submission Guidelines.

+ Insurgent, from Lost Boys Press, is looking for “stories about rebels, insurgents and insurrectionists set in a secondary world.” Open till November 1. 2k - 9k words. $40 USD plus eBook. Submission Guidelines.

+ I Want That Twink OBLITERATED! from Bona Books. Pulp with non-trad masculinity. Kickstarter funded. Open for subs Oct 13 - Dec 17, 6 spots in addition to the invites. 8 cents per word. Stories inspired by the pulps that centre 'non-traditional masculine queer heroes and villains'’ Submission Guidelines.

+ MYRIAD is a zine series designed to give experience to emerging editors. Each subscriber-exclusive digital zine features five flash fiction pieces selected to fit a theme chosen by a guest editor. The December 2023 theme is “Necropolis.”
The deadline is October 15, 2023. Up to 1000 Words. Remuneration $10 CAD.
Submission Guidelines.

+ Swords & Sorcery is always open. Takes up to 10k words. Payment: $25 USD. Submission Guidelines.

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That’s it for this month. I hope you enjoyed this. What are you excited about from this newsletter?