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Author: Fletcher Vredenburgh

March Short Story Roundup

March Short Story Roundup

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oie_2831152onP2pF5uThere are a whole lot of new-to-me goings on out there in the world of magazines and short fiction (see John O’Neill’s recent posts). So much so that I’m a little behind this month trying to catch up. I haven’t gotten to any of Beneath Ceaseless Skies most recent issues yet.

From a swords & sorcery perspective, the biggest — and potentially most interesting — new publication out there is Grimdark Magazine. The first issue, completely unbeknownst to me, appeared last fall. The third issue hit the virtual newsstand on March 25. Like the title says, it’s filled with grim and dark stuff.

The term grimdark, lifted from Warhammer 40K, was originally one of opprobrium for a certain type of fantasy, and was later taken up as a badge of honor by its creators. For those who managed to miss all the talk about the subject a few years back, here’s a quick definition: grimdark fantasy is nihlistic/realistic storytelling that moves the genre forward/destroys the genre, and features characters with realistic motives/who are utterly vile. Whether you like or hate the fiction coming out under the rubric, Grimdark Magazine, by its very nature, is going to feature S&S.

Each issue is packed with original stories, interviews with some of grimdark’s leading lights, and reviews. The magazine has a definite point of view as stated by editor Adrian Collins in the first issue:

Grimdark Magazine started out as the identification of a gap in the niche ezine market coupled with an obsession with grim stories told in a dark world by morally ambiguous protagonists.

As far as I’m concerned, grimdark is just another marketing term, like splatterpunk was for supposedly extra-bloody horror back in the mid-1980s. As much as some writers and fans have claimed that grimdark is both about introducing more realism as well as being a revolt against black-and-white morality that they say saturates much fantasy, I don’t think it’s all that different from lots of what’s gone before (just check out any of Karl Edward Wagner or Michael Moorcock’s fantasies).

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Return to the Witch World: The Crystal Gryphon by Andre Norton

Return to the Witch World: The Crystal Gryphon by Andre Norton

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oie_14001ZDaNwY6NI started slowly working my way through Andre Norton’s splendid Witch World series three years ago. I’ve written several reviews for my site and Black Gate that you can read at the links.

In The Year of the Unicorn (reviewed here) we saw the end of the great war between High Hallack and Alizon. We go back in time to the war’s vicious start in The Crystal Gryphon (1972), the seventh published novel in the series.

The Crystal Gryphon is the first volume of a trilogy about Joisan and Kerovan, a young noblewoman and her husband, a prince tainted at birth by strange magics. Married in absentia when they were only six and eight respectively, the book is told in chapters narrated by one then the other. They hail from two distant parts of High Hallack, and are not to meet for ten years, when Kerovan comes of age. As the years pass, each must struggle to forge his and her way in a conservative land wracked by local power politics and a brutal invasion.

Kerovan of Ulmsdale was born in the ruins of a building erected by the Old Ones, the magically powerful race that lived in and vanished from High Hallack long before the arrival of men. The forces that still lingered in the place changed him, giving him slanted eyebrows over yellow eyes and cloven hooves instead of feet. His mother refuses to see him ever and his father, while declaring Kerovan his heir, gives him over to a crippled soldier to raise and train.

The orphaned Joisan lives with her childless uncle, Cyart, lord of Ithkrypt, and his widowed sister, Dame Math. Together, her aunt and uncle teach her to run an estate. When war with the raiders from the land of Alizon becomes imminent, basic sword and archery skills are added to her education.

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Return of the Master Cheeser: The Disappearing Dwarf by James P. Blaylock

Return of the Master Cheeser: The Disappearing Dwarf by James P. Blaylock

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The Disappearing Dwarf-smallPublished in 1983, The Disappearing Dwarf is James P. Blaylock’s second novel, the sequel to his first, The Elfin Ship. Along with The Stone Giant (1989) they form the Balumnia Trilogy. If you have any love for Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, or mouth watering descriptions of all sorts of food and drink, then these books are for you.

The Elfin Ship (reviewed here last year) is filled with constant comical digressions and expends pages on delightful, superfluous details. It’s filled with oddball characters and deliriously silly escapades. The plot is wonderfully complicated. The Disappearing Dwarf has all of those things — save the plot. It’s not that it doesn’t have a plot, it’s just not much of one.

Bored with his new life as man of leisure (allowed by the success of his travels in the previous volume), Jonathan Bing, master cheesemaker, agrees to take a trip down the Oriel River with Professor Wurzle to explore the abandoned castle of their foe, Selznak the dwarf. The castle, they quickly learn, is not empty — and definitely not safe.

From there they meet Miles (pronounce Meelays), the Magician who is hunting Selznak. He tells them that their old nemesis has reappeared, and is certainly up to no good. The magician suspects the dwarf is looking to steal a great magical orb from their friend, Squire Myrkle. Upon reaching the squire’s estate, they discover that he has vanished through a magical door that appeared in his library. The next thing we know, Jonathan, the Professor, and Miles (along with Ahab the dog), are back on board the elfin airship and headed for a doorway to the parallel world, Balumnia.

Narrative drive is nearly absent in The Disappearing Dwarf. Jonathan’s goals switch from one thing to another several times throughout the book. The adventurers spend much of the book traveling from one place to another without ever really knowing what they’re trying to achieve, other than their rather vague plan to find the squire before he falls into Selznak’s clutches. Balumnia has its own villain, a mysterious figure called Sikorsky, but as with the rest of the characters, we never get a clear sight of him or what he’s actually up to. Several characters fade away. One vanishes only to suddenly reappear with little explanation. The book moves haphazardly from one incident to another. Fortunately, most of those incidents are terrific fun.

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Metal on Metal: Swords of Steel edited by D.M. Ritzlin

Metal on Metal: Swords of Steel edited by D.M. Ritzlin

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oie_3111058UFfTOs2zWhen John O’Neill posted a few weeks ago about Swords of Steel, edited by D.M. Ritzlin, I knew I had to read it. The hook was simple: swords & sorcery stories written by members of metal bands. Tons of heavy bands — Uriah Heep, Iron Maiden, Manowar, Metallica, Megadeth, to name several — have drawn on the themes of heroism, monster-fighting, and sorcery for lyrics and look. Sometimes they lift stuff directly from favorite authors, like the UK band called Conan, or Texas band The Sword with the song “Beyond the Black River.”

When I read Tolkien I hear folk music in my head; when I read Karl Edward Wagner I hear Black Sabbath. So although I recognized the name of only one band represented in the collection, I was stoked to dive in. With an amazingly cool cover by Martin Hanford and its back cover claim that it’s “NOT FOR WIMPS!,” I was expecting great things from Swords of Steel. It came tantalizingly close.

Set in England during the reign of Elizabeth I,”Into the Dawn of Storms” by Byron A. Roberts (vocalist, Bal-Sagoth) gets the book off to a solid start. Captain Blackthorne is plagued with dreams of death and magic and seeks help from the legend-shrouded scholar, John Dee. It’s billed as the first chapter in an ongoing saga and I’ll be keeping my eyes open for Chapter Two.

From the author bio (and there’s a nice one included for everybody), I learned that Roberts has developed a mulitverse that forms the foundation of his band’s music. This story, with references to past exploits and multiple worlds, is set there as well.

“The Riddle Master” by Ernest Cunningham Hellwell (bassist, Hellwell) is one of the best stories in the collection but, sadly, not S&S at all. A nameless writer narrates his run-in and bet with a demon, made to ensure eternal fame.

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February Short Story Roundup

February Short Story Roundup

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oie_174947HoPAYr1cHere we are again, people. It’s that time when I let you know what’s going on in genre magazines that might possibly appeal to fans of heroic fantasy. Whatever lack of love swords & sorcery gets from the big publishers, it’s doing quite well at the short story length in the ‘zines.

Swords and Sorcery Magazine Issue 37 kicks off its fourth year of publication with two decent enough stories. The first is “Old Bear and the Grey Bird” by Nathan Elwood. It’s narrated by Old Bear, a non-human native of a land increasingly dominated by human colonists. He’s almost nine feet tall, covered in thick gray fur, and two short horns rise out of his head. His people have retreated into the remote, hidden places of the land and most humans consider them legendary.

Despite his own efforts to escape interaction with humans, Old Bear feels moved to intervene when he comes across a burned and pillaged human settlement. When he spots several raiders about to kill the only survivor, a young girl, the hunter steps in to rescue her. The rest of the story is about him deciding what he should do with her.

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Legion from the Shadows by Karl Edward Wagner

Legion from the Shadows by Karl Edward Wagner

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oie_9192021nLnODdJxFor those raised in this day of pure unadulterated Robert E. Howard texts, it may interest you to learn that once upon a time a flourishing industry of pastiche publication existed. There were only so many Howard stories to satisfy hordes of swords & sorcery fans, so the powers that were created more. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, the masterminds as it were, behind the pastiche industry were either greedy exploiters of Howard’s legacy or passionate fans who saw the need for further Howardian adventures. As a fan myself at the time, I was quite happy to buy and read a lot of them. Most weren’t better than alright but they scratched an itch.

De Camp (who fiddled mercilessly with Howard’s own short stories) and Carter wrote some of the weakest pastiches. For all his involvement with Howard’s fiction, de Camp never seemed to understand its nuance and why it worked. By education he was an engineer, and the need for things to be logical and systematic undermines his fiction. Carter, sadly, just didn’t have the talent to mimic the writer whose work he loved so dearly.

Unknown Swedish author, Bjorn Nyberg wrote The Return of Conan (1957). Decades later famous authors such as Poul Anderson and Andrew Offut tried their hands at the game. Howard Andrew Jones wrote a good piece on the pasticheurs a while back. Eventually a critical mass of fans and academics rose up, rightly so, to decry the inferior copies — and really, most were — of Howard’s creations.

There’s one Conan pastiche novel I remember truly liking: The Road of Kings (1979) by Karl Edward Wagner. It was good; equal parts dark and exciting. You can read Charles Rutledge’s review from a few years back here.

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The IX by Andrew P. Weston

The IX by Andrew P. Weston

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oie_235511s7P3HzLYAre you old enough to remember the Kirk Douglas Saturday Night Live sketch from 1980 that asked the important question: “What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?” Well I am, and it was the first thing that popped into my head when I received a review copy of Andrew P. Weston’s new novel, The IX, from the fine people at Perseid Press. I don’t read or review much sci-fi, but they suspected, quite correctly it turns out, that this would be right up my alley.

No, modern aviation doesn’t save the famous Roman IX Legion from destruction. Instead, the IX — and a host of other soldiers from across the ages — get a chance to play with advanced weapons to stave off a massed army of energy-devouring monsters on a star far across the galaxy from Earth.

The Ardenese, a highly advanced race, rule dozens of worlds, crossing the stars in ships that rip holes in space…until they encounter an enemy they come to know only as the Horde.

First discovered on a colony world, the energy-devouring Horde manage to secrete themselves aboard Ardenese starships. One by one the colonies fall, until all that remains is the homeworld and the capital city, Rhomane.

Even protected by barriers and nearly impregnable walls, the Ardenese know they are doomed. In the end, and it is surely near, they will all die, subject to the hideous ravages of the Horde. To ensure the survival of their race, the handful of survivors turn their fates over to the Architect, a massive AI computer.

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January Short Story Roundup

January Short Story Roundup

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oie_1743017Z1jBJggOHere we are again with a new batch of short stories for your reading pleasure. Some were good, some were alright, you know, the usual. Remember, though, whatever I write about these stories, take the time to go check them out yourself and let the writers and magazines know what you think.

Swords and Sorcery Magazine Issue 36 marks three years of continuous publication and is one of its best in a while. The first tale, “The Fourth River” by Brandon Ketchum, is a good old bit of monster-fighting set in the forests of a magical land called Ohio, in a seventeenth century filled with fantastical beasts. The story tells of the violent encounter between a party of colonial traders and a bunch of Shawnee with a Kinepikwa — a giant serpent with antlers and the power to paralyze any unlucky enough to view the evil gem embedded on its brow.

“The Fourth River” is good example of the continuing movement by some writers away from the too, too common medieval trappings of much fantasy. There’s not much to the characters — they’re too busy struggling to save the Ohio Territories from destruction — but Ketchum does a good job limning out his alternate reality in six thousand words.

Issue #36’s second story is “Warden’s Legacy” by Daniel Moley. It’s only his second published story, but it feel like it’s part of a much longer tale. Dane is a talented soldier hoping to join up with an elite unit, the Phantoms. They are the frontline in a war against a force of wizards bent on resurrecting the Forshai, a race of reptilian beings who once ruled mankind. Not a bad story at all, with enough tantalizing refrences to a larger world to make me want to read more.

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The Long Reach of Night: The Voidal Vol. 2 by Adrian Cole

The Long Reach of Night: The Voidal Vol. 2 by Adrian Cole

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oie_862634UE7X7d5eLast year I reviewed (quite favorably, after an initial aversion to it) The Oblivion Hand (2001), the first collection of Adrian Cole’s stories about the Voidal. To say they’re excessive, over the top, and incredibly phatasmagorical barely does them justice. They are all those things and much more. These traits are carried over into the second volume, The Long Reach of Night (2011), an even better book than the first.

The Voidal is a man, cast out by the Dark Gods onto the currents of the Omniverse as punishment for some unknown sin. He has been stripped not only of his memory but also of his right hand, which has been replaced with the Oblivion Hand — a sentient-seeming thing that carries out the will of his tormentors. The Voidal is endlessly tossed about parallel dimensions and planets of the Omniverse, wholly against his will, a scourge in servitude to some celestial tribunal.

By the end of The Oblivion Hand the Voidal had acquired an associate, the froggy familiar, Elfloq. Together they set out on a search, from one hellish locale to another, for how to restore the Voidal’s lost memories and free him from the control of the Dark Gods.

Like its predecessor, The Long Reach of Night is a fix-up. Two of the stories appeared in magazines previously, but the rest appear here for the first time.

It is Elfloq who is the real protagonist of this book. For much of the time, the Voidal is lost somewhere in the aether. In each story the familiar is forced to hunt for clues to where his master is, ever formulating a plan to get one step closer to their goals.

Sometimes Elfloq is forced to undertake some dangerous task in exchange for information. In the first story, “The Preposterous Library,” he must travel through the pages of a book entitled The Skullworks to a pocket world of the same name.

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What Price Immortality? In Yana, the Touch of Undying by Michael Shea

What Price Immortality? In Yana, the Touch of Undying by Michael Shea

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oie_34161QIl911YLAs I was rushing to get out of the house the other morning I remembered that I had to pick a book to read and review for this week. Nothing in the front row of my swords & sorcery shelves caught my eye so I started going through the books stacked in the back and still, nothing called out to me (that was short enough to read in just a couple of days). Finally I snagged the late Michael Shea’s In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985). I saw the print was big, so even though it’s just over three hundred pages I knew it would be a quick read. I can’t believe that such lame criteria led me to this dynamite book.

Last year John O’Neill wrote that a friend had told him this book would change his life, though I didn’t remember that when I took up In Yana last Thursday. What I knew, from the back cover, was that the book featured a student named Bramt Hex searching for the secret of immortality in a world filled with ogres, ghosts, vampires, and lots of magic. From reading Shea’s very good Nifft the Lean, I expected a similar work of Vancian fantasy — dark, bizarre imagery laced with humor.

For the first chapter or two, In Yana appears to be just that. At 28, Bramt Hex has been a student for much of his life. He’s fat, worried about failing his final examination, and coming to dread what he assumes will be a life of day-in day-out dreariness in academia. When a wealthy dowager, the Widow Poon, enters the inn where he’s dining, Bramt allows a wave of romantic dreaming to sweep over him.

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