Besting the Beast by Scott Forbes Crawford
(2024, Kindle); Cover art by Ben Greaves

Besting the Beast is Grimm-like tales for Grimdark readers

Fantasy readers often seek escapism and encounters with the unknown, but those adventures can become too weird to be accessible. Shorter forms help. Incorporating some grounding in history or reality helps too. One of the most accessible styles is the fairy tale, and Scott Forbes Crawford delivers five remarkable fun, and easy-to-read, adventures bridging the short story and fairy tale form in Besting the Beast (Aug 2024). All are rooted in Asian history/myth and feature relatable human protagonists to lead the way.

The cover art by Ben Greaves is appropriately derived from “Recovering the Stolen Jewel from the Palace of the Dragon King” (1853) by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861). Don’t let the friendly style fool you. The beasts herein are pleasantly weird and gory. Excerpts from all the stories are below so you can get a flavor of the horrific creatures and antagonists you’ll experience. Sword & Sorcery and Grimdark fiction fans will enjoy these (indeed, Besting the Beast is Grimm-like fairy tales for Grimdark readers).

The contents of Besting the Beast have all been published before (in SNAFU: Holy War, Bards and Sages, Sword and Sorcery Magazine, and more). Also, expect more of these characters in future publications since Crawford has a few acceptances brewing for other Sword & Sorcery venues. My favorites are “The Carving of a Warrior” and “Half-baked Hero” since I am fascinated with weird art and human sculptures. I am thrilled that the character Janza from “Half-Baked Hero” has more stories penned in her honor.

Crawford’s blending of weird adventure and global history/myths is expressed in his other books like  Silk Road Centurion (which had an excerpt inside Besting the Beast) featuring a 53 B.C. Roman soldier Manius Titinius who is held captive by a warband of nomadic Xiongnu, and The Phoenix and the Firebird that explores a realm of magic and monsters inspired by Chinese and Slavic folklore (The Han-Xiongnu War: 133 BC–89 AD). What inspires Crawford? Well, he’s been traveling the world during his life, including stints in Japan and China.

Don’t let the friendly, fairy tale style fool you. Crawford’s beasts are pleasantly weird and gory

Besting the Beast: Table of Contents & Excerpts

The Carving of a Warrior (first published in Bards and Sages, 2020)

A young woman named Resh desires to be an artist when she grows up but must cross a monster-infested forest to sculpt a new destiny.

More leaves crunched. Nearer now. Before Resh’s eyes grew a hulking, barely comprehensible form. Humanoid – vaguely – its bulbous torso was a purple shade and it lumbered nearer on limbs of black chitin. Four tentacles swelled from its chest in place of arms. Two organic tubes, the hue of intestine, stemmed from its back and bent over its shoulders, belching a stream of the lavender gas. No features contoured its face; utterly flat, the head served only to host a single mammoth eye, white but for some speckles of red, like blood-spattered milk…In a hollow of her mind, Resh sensed the Imps were nothing more than phantasms born of the gas. This demon, though, was all too real as it stood before her father and wreathed him in gas. The creature’s tentacles embraced his head and chest. He dropped the spear without a fight, his empty hands savagely clawing air until they froze and he flopped beside the useless weapon, his head pulped, a rotten melon.

Heart of a Samurai, (first published in Pulp Modern 2019)

In the tradition of Japanese ghostly tales, a proud warrior, Kokoro Kenzo, learns the limits of his purity, courtesy of the cat Scrapper

…he spied a furry lump outside the first hut – what was that? He moved closer: a large, floppy-eared dog, torn into ragged, gory thirds. There, at the next hut – three more, and there, beside the well, seven bodies of cats, sworn enemies, who had in death become brothers and sisters. Loosening his katana in its scabbard, Kokoro quickened his step – and then he froze. A stack rose ahead of him, like of firewood. A stack so tidy and geometrical and perplexing, Kokoro took a moment to recognize it was made of men. Children, grandmothers, sun-browned farmers. What had happened to their chests?

A Thief’s Work (first published in The Society of Misft Stories, 2020)

A novelette of intrigue and conspiracy in a city enslaved to the magical drug Sorcel (zombie-like drug addicts are called Droolers). Can a burglar recruited into the resistance free her people?

… a gauntlet closed around her throat and lifted her. Choking, she stared at the blank eyes of the Drooler, her mind flailing for some action to take. The edges of her vision darkened. Another moment and the dark would swallow her. But an idea sparked. The Drooler hadn’t fully locked her right arm. Slowly, she reached for his wrist and with fingers made cunning by years picking pockets, she untied the lacings which fastened the gauntlet to his forearm. Her vision clouded and she felt consciousness dwindling away, but finally she undid the last lacing. The gauntlet fell and she tumbled free, rolling as the Drooler tried sweeping her up. Shaking off a woozy head, she leaped into the mill wheel, folding herself in the cramped hollow between the wheel’s blades as it swooshed her down and away.

Besting the Beast (first published in SNAFU: Holy War, 2021)

The titular tale covers the aftermath of a demonic invasion; a bandit orphan Kai is one of the few survivors of a grand melee with winged demons. He seeks revenge for his lord and family in a confrontation with the mother of evil gods.

On an impossibly long, spindly arm, a hand shot from the water, snatched a Jomon trooper from the front rank and yanked him screaming into the pool. A red cloud mottled the surface. Another arm whizzed out. Another. Long fingers raked in Guardians. Now the water swirled and frothed. A head broke the surface and swooped up on a lengthy, sinuous neck.

The whole of the chamber released a collective, ecstatic sigh. Kai reeled at what hovered above the water – a woman’s head, in some demented fashion, with strings of blue-black hair. Eyes like moons filmed in the hue of blood, a jumble of sharp teeth set in an outsized mouth. What form of body lurked beneath the surface?

Half-baked Hero (first published in Sword and Sorcery Magazine, 2019)

When the female bodyguard Janza encounters an outlandish client, she faces a choice between her past and future, vengeance and honor.

Kong parted his robe.

Waist up was immense flab, the flesh of his belly coarse, grainy, gloppy. Incongruously, his legs rippled with muscle. Kong began massaging his stomach and chanting ancient words. Cruel, bestial words Janza had never heard, yet somehow, her blood recognized them, recognized and feared them. Janza could only lie there, frozen and terrified, until the sorcerous, blood-thieving assassin had his final say.

Yet with every bead of sweat wetting Kong’s brow, more disgusted heat blasted through her body. Rage warmed her. By inches her limbs began melting free.

Kong rubbed his paunch furiously . . . and he dug his fingers in and tore away bloodless wads of paunch. These he piled on the floor.

Silk Road Centurion – Novel Excerpt (Published by Camphor Press., 2023)

The book chronicles a 53 B.C. Roman soldier making a life on the ancient Chinese frontier. However, Manius Titinius falls captive to a warband of Xiongnu, nomadic horsemen who rule the seas of grass between the Gobi Desert and the Mountains of Heaven.

Hooves pounded nearer. They were almost on top of Manius. He snatched the two pila javelins he kept on his horse, just as the enemy rounded the bend. The lead rider now was a squat man wrapped in furs, not that giant. Judging his speed, Manius drew back a pilum, coiling his muscles like a tensed spring before whipping forward and launching. The javelin arced true, striking the horseman to the dirt.

Manius readied his throw against the next man. No, only a beardless boy, unarmed. From his speeding horse he looked up at Manius and their eyes locked, the boy’s seeming to register in that split second his life had been spared. Around the bend came the giant. Manius sent his last javelin soaring up and as it arced, he knew it had its victim’s scent. The barbarian seemed to freeze, gazing stupidly at the onrushing projectile, at his end foretold. … Mouthing a curse, Manius clawed out his gladius, dashed at his surprised foe and thrust for his ribs. In one fluid motion the giant drew his sword. There was a clang and a silvery flash as the barbarian’s curving steel batted away the short, straight Roman sword. Manius was open now to a follow-on strike and braced to receive the killing blow…

About the Author

Scott Forbes Crawford is the author of the historical novel Silk Road Centurion, the history book The Han-Xiongnu War 133 BC – 89 AD, and co-author, with his wife Alexis Kossiakoff, of the Middle-Grade historical fantasy novel The Phoenix and the Firebird. His short stories and articles have appeared in a range of magazines and anthologies. After spending many years in Beijing and Taipei, Crawford now lives in Japan with his wife and daughter. You can learn more about Scott Forbes Crawford at the author’s website, his Facebook page, or his newsletter site.

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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 eight entries across Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series, and 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.