We hope you’ve had a great month! In this issue, we’re looking at the re-release of a major 21st-century work of Sword & Sorcery, the return of one of the genre’s most iconic characters after 85 years, some comics to keep an eye on for later this year and more.
Rogues in the House Presents has published two sword & sorcery anthologies in the past two years with A Book of Blades 1 & 2. Now, they’re branching out with a reprint of a key work of Sword & Sorcery from a decade ago that deserves a larger spotlight.
The Revelations of Zang was first described to me as “If Clark Ashton Smith listened to thrash metal,” and certainly author John R. Fultz’s brand of baroque visions traces DNA back to the Weird Tales author, but more precisely Fultz, is a great admirer of authors like Darrell Schweitzer and especially of the late Tanith Lee. While he possesses Smith’s flair for the decadent and grotesque, he also infuses it with a sincere romanticism much closer to Lee.
The book is an interlocking series of stories based around the continent of Zang and often features the scribe Artifice The Quill and the thief Taizo in a strange phantasmagorical setting.
Last year, he saw the publication of his contemporary horror fiction with Darker than Weird from Jackanapes Press. This year Fultz is re-entering the Sword & Sorcery field in a big way. As well as having a story, “Evil World,” in the Rogue Blades anthology Neither Beg Nor Yield, he has more Sword & Sorcery stories featuring other recurring characters appearing in upcoming issues of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, New Edge Sword & Sorcery, and a brand new fantasy novel (his first in seven years) called Immaculate Scoundrels from Flying Wizard Press.
Fultz’s return to the Sword & Sorcery field is a reason to celebrate. He’s been one of the most distinctive and compelling voices in the genre these past 20 years.
You can read an interview with him about this at Black Gate as conducted by S E Lindberg.
Fultz’s blog goes into more detail about the work and other upcoming projects here.
You can read “Chivaine” online here to get a sense of the man’s work.
After 85 Years… She’s back.
On January 15, New Edge Sword and Sorcery announced they would be doing a crowdfunder for issues 3 & 4 on Backerkit. On January 16, they publically revealed if successfully funded, one of the stories will feature the return of C. L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry. A character that appeared in Weird Tales magazine at the same time as Conan the Barbarian, the first major Sword & Sorcery heroine whose descendants can be seen in everyone from Lucy Lawless’ Xena to Brienne of Tarth from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.
Licensed from the C. L. Moore Estate, it will be written by Molly Tanzer, whose own fandom of Sword & Sorcery led her to do her own Swords v Cthulhu anthology in 2016.
As well as this news, New Edge has also revealed other features will include a bonus reprint of a rare story of Michael Moorcock that was uncollected in the recent Saga Press reprints of the Elric of Melnibone books, but with all new art.
And as of February 1 (so if you’re reading this before then, you’re getting a bit of scoop here), New Edge will be announcing a new story, a history-based Sword & Sorcery tale from Harry Turtledove.
As well as of press time, authors John R. Fultz, Premee Mohamed, Dariel R. A Quiogue, Jeremy Pak Nelson, June Orchid Parker, and artists Sasa Dudevic, Goran Gligovic, Shih Shuah Chin, B. H. Tyson, Simon Underwood, Sapro and Saprophial with more to come.
You can join the Backerkit Campaign here. It goes live on February 15.
Podcasts on Parade
New Edge Sword and Sorcery Short Story Chat takes a look at the first ever published story of Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock and compares and contrasts it with Moorcock’s most recent story featuring the moody albino “The Folk of the Forest” NESS Editor Oliver Brackenbury is joined by editor Jay Wolf, author Christopher Rowe and uh, some guy named Kevin Beckett to discuss the two tales.
Oliver Brackenbury and Molly Tanzer join Matt John at Rogues in the House for a more intimate conversation about the Jirel of Joiry stories from C. L. Moore and their plans to revive the character for New Edge Sword and Sorcery.
The Cromcast sits down with Jim Zub to discuss the current Conan comic from Titan.
Jay Requard’s Pondering the Orb looks at and gives a dramatic reading of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and, more contemporarily, a reading of Kirk A. Johnson’s Sword and Soul anthology: The Obanaax.
This special roundtable remembers Tanith Lee with Melanie R. Anderson, Craig Laurance Gidney, Lisa Kröger, and Terri Windling with moderator Julie C. Day.
Cartoonist Kayfabe looks at the notorious attempt to reboot Conan the Barbarian as an X-TREEEEME Rob Liefeld-esque comic. The script is by Dan Abnett, but alas, the truly non-Euclidian art from Joe Bennett is as bad, no, even worse than you feared.
In Other News:
Greg Amato has a Kickstarter for Book Two of his Norse fantasy saga Spear of the Gods that has this irresistible description from his website:
”Vikings roam the northern seas in search of plunder while skalds compose poetry about great adventures. Sorcerers manipulate unseen spirits and runes to cast powerful spells. Dragons and undead draugar hoard gold and other great treasures. Dwarves forge magic swords, change shape, and brew incredible mead and ale.
And Odin is a massive asshole.”
Scott Oden, who we covered last month, has a tale being published by Heroic Legends that’s just come out. Originally serialized for the backmatter of a Conan comic when it was published by Marvel, “Shadow of Vengeance” is now available in completed form.
Oni Press revealed Akogun: Brutalizer of the Gods by Murewa Ayodele and Dotun Akande. Two Nigerian creators tell a story of a warrior’s struggle against the gods, taking inspiration from Yoruba mythology. The four bimonthly issues are slated to start coming out in April.
Over at Dark Horse, a four-issue miniseries is coming out that sounds interesting; Rich Douek and Gavin Smith are doing Heartpiercer, a sword & sorcery/dark fantasy comic with an intriguing premise.
”Atala thought she was saving the world from monsters, but hunting great supernatural beasts brought doom instead. Tricked into killing the last unicorn, betrayed by her lord and left for dead, Atala awakens in a dark world overrun by nightmares. Broken and ashamed, now Atala seeks revenge, and rises to save the world from darkness.”
The first issue is scheduled for May.
Finally, in October, for those looking for something to do in Tennessee, there will be a memorial for Karl Edward Wagner on the 20th Anniversary of his death. There are only 48 spots available. The lineup of panels and guests is quite impressive.
Reviews
Greg Mele has stepped up this month with a couple of reviews of recent Sword & Sorcery releases over at Black Gate:
Bringing a Whetstone to an Old Blade: New Edge Sword and Sorcery #1
He also takes a look at Howard Andrew Jones’ second Hanuvar novel:
Neverwhens: Hannibal’s Ghost(s) Roams A City of Marble and Blood and a Genre is Reborn
This Month in Sword & Sorcery Magazines:
Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: This Black Gate article goes more in-depth about the magazine with sneak previews of art (such as the cover detail you see above) for both issue #59 and the upcoming Best-Of anthology in the works. Speaking of which, HFQ sent this update out to its backers:
”Work progresses on the best-of-anthology #4. Artwork is rolling in, and formatting the volume is well underway. Hoping for late February or early March.
Check out one of the newer pieces of art by Miguel Santos.”
New Edge Sword & Sorcery: As well as what you’ve seen above, Bryn Hammond looked at the creative process that went into her story “Sister Chaos,” which you can read here.
Old Moon Quarterly: They released their Winter 2024 Issue. It contains the following stories:
”The Orphan of Bones” by Josh Reynolds
”Corpse Wax” by R. L. Summerling
”What They Don’t Tell You About Training To Slay” by Katherine Quevedo
”The Marchers in the Fog” by Dariel R. A. Quiogue
”The Festering Mantle” by J. M. Hayes
”Towards a Justice” by Matt Holder
”Diary of the Wolf” by Adam McPhee
Plus the poems
”Respite” by R. H. Berry.
Swords and Sorcery Magazine: For issue #144, editor Curtis Ellett notes it is one gross issue, but you can read three new stories online for free.
“The Fleet of Lamvula” by Rab Foster
“Diamonds in the Darkness,” by Matthew X. Gomez
“The Peddler of Favours,” by Matthew Owen Jones
Tales From the Magician’s Skull: No new news this month, but Robin Marx reviews issue 11 for the Winter 2024 Old Moon Quarterly (see above).
As well as the companion blog Adventures in Fiction and Appendix N Archaeology from the parent company Goodman Games had entries this month on:
Clark Ashton Smith (b. Jan 14)
Abraham Merritt (b. Jan 20)
Robert E. Howard (b. Jan 22)
Philip Jose Farmer (b. Jan 26)
Whetstone: On Hiatus till 2025. Their entire 8 issues back-catalogue is free to download.
Their upcoming space-opera dedicated magazine, Way Station, recently closed its Open Call. Good luck to those who submitted!
Submission Calls
The following markets are dedicated to or specified to accept sword & sorcery.
+ Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, an annual contest, is open from Jan 16 - April 30. Story submissions max 8k words. Grand Prize $500 USD. Submission Guidelines Here.
+ BFS Horizons, put out by The British Fantasy Society, is always open. 500 - 5000 Words. Remuneration £20. Submission Guidelines.
+ Grimdark Magazine is open for submissions on the 1st of March, 2024, at 00:01 AEDT and opening up their submissions email address for two weeks until 23:59 14th of March, looking for short stories of up to 4,000 words for original fiction and up to 12,000 words for reprints. 7 c AUD per word.
They expect to purchase between 2 and 4 original pieces of fiction and a similar number of reprints. See the submission deadlines here.
+ Indie Bites, a non-profit fantasy anthology series put out by Silversun Books, is available on Kindle Unlimited and is looking for stories for both, its upcoming Wishes & Wizards and Forests & Familars-themed issue. Deadline Dec 31, 2023. Accepts up to 7500 Words. Honorarium £5. Submission Guidelines
+ Swords & Sorcery is always open. Takes up to 10k words. Payment: $25 USD. Submission Guidelines.
That brings this month to a close. We hope you’ve seen one or more items of interest. See you next month! —KB
A Jirel of Joir story by Molly Tanzer sounds interesting. I’ll be backing that!