The Sword & Sorcery Anthology Now on Sale
One of the year’s most anticipated books has arrived — a few days ahead of its official June 1 publication date.
The Sword & Sorcery Anthology, edited by David G. Hartwell and Jacob Weisman, is now on sale. This massive 480-page tome contains classic S&S tales from the writers who created the genre — including C. L. Moore, Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, Poul Anderson, Karl Edward Wagner and Michael Moorcock — as well as modern masters such as Charles R. Saunders, Glen Cook, George R. R. Martin, Jeffrey Ford, and Caitlín R. Kiernan.
It also includes “Epistle from Lebanoi,” an original tale by Michael Shea, author of the classic Nifft the Lean, and “The Year of the Three Monarchs,” a new story by Michael Swanwick.
The early reviews have already been filled with praise, including this one from Publishers Weekly:
Hartwell and Weisman have selected some of the best short-form work in the genre… This is an unbeatable selection from classic to modern, and each story brings its A game.
With an introduction by David Drake, “Storytellers: A Guided Ramble into Sword and Sorcery Fiction” and a tantalizing assortment of stories I’m unfamiliar with — including “Gimmile’s Song” by Charles R. Saunders, “Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat” by Glen Cook, “Six from Atlantis” by Gene Wolfe, and “Path of the Dragon” by George R. R. Martin — this ones leaps right to the top of my want list.
The Sword & Sorcery Anthology is published by Tachyon Publications, and priced at $15.95 for the print version and $10.95 in digital format. More complete details are here, and the complete Tables of Contents is here.
I’ve been eager for this since I got wind of it ( boy that sounds a little gnarly ) here on the BG Blog.
Looks like a superlative antho and seems to include almost every one.
They made room for Saunders people.
Charles R. Saunders hasn’t been included in major Sword + Sorcery anthos since Swords Against Darkness ‘series’ ( all out of print + super-rad btw ) in the 70’s.
+ Gene Wolfe whom is renown for his erudition, but somehow falls through the cracks in Sword + Sorcery talk though any one familiar with work can see he himself is familiar with Sword + Sorcery, and largely approves.
Joanna Russ,C.L. Moore, + Karl Edward Wagner are represented here as well.
Someone did their homework.
Could complain about the absence of Dunsany + Smith, or even Howard Andrew Jones or James Enge but I won’t.
The only thing that seems strange to me is that the cover has Jack Vance up there ( as well he should be! ) however he is not listed in the Table of Contents on the publishers site.
Hope that’s a mistake on the site and not in the actual antho.
Any ways…I’ve read most of this already should make a cool collectors item + a few should serve as gifts to people whom dig action/adventure driven Weird Tales.
Just checked the table of contents on my Kindle version and alas! no Vance. (But I’ve been buying every single ebook they’ve put live on http://www.jackvance.com, so that’s all right.) If it’s any consolation, the Michael Shea story actually is a new Nifft the Lean story.
(And they’re not listing the ebook version on Amazon at this point, but when I bought it direct from Tachyon, they emailed it to me within a couple of hours.)
Hi Radiant,
I hadn’t noticed that Jack Vance was missing — good eyes.
Looking closer at the Tachyon Press website, it looks like there’s a new cover for the final version. Text is too small, but I presume Vance is missing from the cover in the final version.
Once I can get a large scan, I’ll replace the cover in the article. Thanks for pointing it out.
Joe — excellent! I was hoping it was a new Nifft story.
Started reading it last night. Tower of the Elephant and Black God’s Kiss — they’re really setting the bar high right out of the gate.
Yep, getting this one.
And now that I’m thinking of it, I’d love to see a Jirel of Joiry collection illustrated by Ned Dameron — something like he did for the Kull hardcover from Donald Grant.
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