October 2022, Michael Harrington hosted an interview with Oliver Brackenbury on Black Gate; Brackenbury is the editor and champion of New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine. That post coincided with the release of the teaser Issue #0 including short fiction & non-fiction (free in digital format, or priced at cost on Amazon Print-on-Demand, through the New Edge Website). In Feb. 2023 Black Gate announced the magazine’s Kickstarter which succeeded and spurred the creation of the illustrated Issues 1 & 2 that are being released now (Nov 2023).  This post shares the official press release of these issues and adds the Table of Contents for both.  New Edge is setting a strong foundation with these, with illustrations and heavy-hitting authors.

NEW EDGE SWORD & SORCERY ISSUES 1&2 IMPENDING RELEASE!

New Edge Sword & Sorcery will be releasing issues #1& #2 in mid-November for direct sale through their website. Until then, the new issues are available for pre-order through Backerkit. Those who pre-order issues #1 & #2 will be paying slightly less than final retail prices, all the more reason to run over to the NESS pre-order shop now!

Issue one features an original Elric tale by Michael Moorcock! He joins twenty-three other authors across both issues, such as Canadian horror master Gemma Files, Margaret Killjoy, S&S veteran David C. Smith, Hugo Award-winner Cora Buhlert, Milton Davis, and more. There’s also a tale by Jesús Montalvo, an author from the burgeoning S&S scene south of the US border, translated from its original Spanish by Gonzalo Baeza.

Twenty artists are spread across the two issues, including Morgan King, who directed Lucy Lawless in his 2021 rotoscope-animated Sword & Sorcery film The Spine of Night.

Each issue features seven or eight original stories and four works of non-fiction: one book review, one essay, one in-depth interview, and one historical literary profile of figures like Charles Saunders or Cele Goldsmith. All stories, essays, and profiles are to be paired with two original B&W illustrations.

“Made with love for the classics and an inclusive, boundary-pushing approach to storytelling”, these Sword & Sorcery tales take place in settings inspired by Asian, African, and Central American, as well as European, cultures; featuring prominent disability, neuro-divergent, and LGBTQ+ representation; all while delivering high-quality writing in a wide variety of styles. Sword & Sorcery can be many things and still be Sword & Sorcery.

New Edge Sword & Sorcery #1 & #2 are available in digital, perfect bound softcover, and sewn-stitched hardcover formats which lay flat for ease of reading. Interiors are printed on eighty firm, 100gsm cream paper pages sized at a spacious 8½x11 inches. The hardcovers are also enhanced with bookmark ribbons in colors taken from the gorgeously painted cover art.

Brackenbury has plans for publishing further issues, as well as expanding into book publishing with a line of themed anthologies & novella series. News of future crowdfunding campaigns and more can be found via the New Edge Sword & Sorcery newsletter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Twitter accounts. To help cut post-crowdfund turnaround in half, the NESS editorial team are already editing stories for next year’s issues.

VOLUME I, NUMBER 1 – MMXXIII

Cover art by Caterina Gerbasi

FICTION

• CARNIVORA by Kirk A. Johnson, Illustrated by Daniel Vega
• COME LAY THE CRONE TO REST by Margaret Killjoy, Illustrated by Gary McCluskey 
• SISTER CHAOS – Bryn Hammond, Illustrated by Dan Rempel
• CHAK MUUCH – Jesús Montalvo, Translated from Spanish by Gonzalo Baeza, Illustrated by Carlos Castilho
• TEARS OF EB by Sarah A. Macklin, Illustrated by Trevor Ngwenya
• THE PILLARS OF SILENCE by Prashanth Srivatsa, Illustrated by Hardeep Aujla and Gary McCluskey 
• THE FOLK OF THE FOREST – Michael Moorcock, Illustrated by Sapro 

NONFICTION

• WHY (NEW EDGE) SWORD & SORCERY? by Brian Murphy, Illustrated by Sara Frazetta 
• CELE GOLDSMITH LALLI—MIDWIFE TO THE SECOND SWORD & SORCERY BOOM by Cora Buhlert, Illustrated by Chuah Shih Shin 
• FRESH BLOOD AND NEW THUNDER! BRINGING NEW READERS TO SWORD & SORCERY, WITH SOF MAGLIANO – Oliver Brackenbury
• REVIEW: WOMAN OF THE WOODS BY MILTON J. DAVIS – Robin Mar

 

VOLUME I, NUMBER 2 – MMXXIII

Cover art by Gilead

FICTION

• THE DEMON OF TASHI TZANG by Dariel Quiogue, Illustrated by Aldo Ojeda
• FANG by Jacquie Kawaja, Illustrated by Ursa Doom (Björn Magnusson)
• REVELSTOKE by Gemma Files, Illustrated by Saprophial
• A DEBT FORGOTTEN, A DEBT UNPAID by Jeremy Pak Nelson, Illustrated by Damiano Di Marco
• THE EYES OF THE DEMON by J.M. Clarke, Illustrated by Morgan King
• WATER, WHICH LAUGHS AT ALL THINGS by T.K. Rex & L. Ann Kinyon, Illustrated by Magda Kulbicka
• ATONEMENT FOR A RESURRECTED GOD by David C. Smith, Illustrated by Simon Underwood
• HOW MANY DEATHS TILL VENGEANCE? By June Orchid Parker, Illustrated by Matthew Spencer

NONFICTION

• NEURODIVERGENCE IN SWORD & SORCERY by Jonathan Olfert, Illustrated by Remco Van Straten
• SWORD & SOUL BROTHERS by Milton J. Davis, Illustrated by Chuah Shih Shin
• SWORD & SILK: AN INTERVIEW WITH DARIEL QUIOGUE by Oliver Brackenbury
• REVIEW: RETURN OF THE SORCERESS BY SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA by Kris Vyas-Myall

 

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S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at Black Gate, regularly reviewing books and interviewing authors on the topic of “Beauty & Art in Weird-Fantasy Fiction.” He is also the lead moderator of the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group and an intern for Tales from the Magician’s Skull magazine. As for crafting stories, he has contributed six entries across Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series, has an entry in Weirdbook Annual #3: Zombies  He independently publishes novels under the banner Dyscrasia Fiction; short stories of Dyscrasia Fiction have appeared in Whetstone, Swords & Sorcery online magazine, Rogues In the House Podcast’s A Book of Blades Vol I and Vol II, DMR’s Terra Incognita, and the 9th issue of Tales From the Magician’s Skull.