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Author: Fletcher Vredenburgh

May Short Story Roundup

May Short Story Roundup

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oie_1662641OEwJwWbpMay’s come and gone by several weeks, but I’m only just getting to the short fiction review now because, well, I was busy with stuff. I’m glad I’m finally getting around to it, though, because there were some really ace stories last month and I hope I can convince you to check them out for yourselves.

Swords and Sorcery Magazine #28 starts off with “The Witch of Anûn” by Raphael Ordoñez. It’s the third story of his I’ve read in the past year (both reviewed here at BG previously), all set on the world Antellus, a “paleozoic counter-earth at the cosmic antipodes.”

Cuneaxe has brought his daughter, Una, to a thaumaturge to cure her of an “infestation.” When this fails, he is sent to a temple in the swamps. The clerics there send him in search of the titular witch. Willing to do whatever’s necessary to save his daughter, Cuneaxe journeys to the witch’s home. There he will meet danger he is willing to face and a deal he’d rather not.

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The Constant Tower by Carole McDonnell

The Constant Tower by Carole McDonnell

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oie_92323565jFPqCc4When I started my blog (Swords & Sorcery: A Blog), one of my goals was to force myself to read new fantasy. I knew I’d get bored pretty quickly if all I did was write about books and stories I’d read many times. As a fan, it’s too easy to allow oneself to get comfortably caught up in a cycle of reading and rereading the same old dusty stack of Howard, Leiber, and Moorcock. My newer go-to books include Norton, Saunders, and Wagner, but most of their books are still between thirty-five and fifty years old.

Like any other person writing, I also wanted people to read my work. Another article about “Queen of the Black Coast” or “Adept’s Gambit” out in the universe was going to bore most readers as much as it would me while writing it. This meant finding my way back into the thicket of current heroic fantasy, which I’d stopped reading a long time ago.

Turns out I picked about the perfect time to start reading heroic fantasy again, as there was an exciting revival taking place. One discovery I made was Milton Davis and the tremendous efforts he was making to write and publish sword & soul stories. My interest was piqued by the idea that someone was doing something different in the genre, not just regurgitating the same heroic fantasy tropes that have been done to death.

When I went from looking at the amazing cover of his and Charles Saunders’s anthology Griots and actually reading the contents (reviewed at my site), I was hooked. Other than Davis and Saunders, I didn’t recognize any contributors to the collection. Several really grabbed me, but the story that I liked best was “Changeling,” a tale of daughterly duty and sibling jealousy by Carole McDonnell.

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To The Dark Tower He Came: Warlock of the Witch World by Andre Norton

To The Dark Tower He Came: Warlock of the Witch World by Andre Norton

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oie_305718ZdC2d7IWIn my previous reviews of Andre Norton’s Year of the Unicorn and Three Against the Witch World, I wrote how exciting it was to discover that a series I had long overlooked was so much fun. I am happy to report that with Warlock of the Witch World (1967), things get even better.

In Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Reginald, Menville, and Burgess, Andre Norton wrote that “the background of most of [Witch World] is based on Celtic and early English folklore. Warlock of the Witch World is a retelling of “Childe Roland.” In the original Scottish ballad, the children of the queen are playing ball. When the daughter, Burd Ellen, dances widershins around the church, she vanishes. Her four brothers learn she has been taken prisoner by the King of Elfland. One by one, her brothers set off to save her, each disappearing in turn until only the youngest brother remains. Armed with a magic sword, he undertakes the quest — his siblings’ last hope.

In Three Against the Witch World, the three children of the dimensionally transported American, Simon Tregarth, and a Witch of Estcarp, Jaelithe, have escaped their homeland to the hidden land of Escore. There, the arrival of the triplets — warrior Kyllan, scholar Kemoc, and witch Kaththea — reawakened dark forces long asleep and reignited a war between the forces of Shadow and Light. By the end of the book, the stage for a final confrontation was being set. Allies for the armies of Light were being sought and marshaled in the magically protected Valley of Green Silences.

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The Shout of a Young Man Who Finds the World a Complicated Place: The Eternal Champion by Michael Moorcock

The Shout of a Young Man Who Finds the World a Complicated Place: The Eternal Champion by Michael Moorcock

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oie_272267fTHTh1HnWhen I was a kid, all my friends read Michael Moorcock’s sprawling Eternal Champion series. Endlessly resurrected and reincarnated, the Eternal Champion exists to right the balance between Law and Chaos. According to Moorcock in the introduction to the 1994 edition of the novel, The Eternal Champion:

I use the ideas of Law and Chaos precisely because I am suspicious of simplistic notions of good and evil. In my multiverse, Law and Chaos are both legitimate ways of interpreting and defining experience. Ideally, the Cosmic Balance keeps both sides in equilibrium. By playing “the Game of Time”… the various participants maintain that equilibrium. When the scales tip too far toward Law we move toward rigid orthodoxy and social sterility, a form of decadence. When Chaos is uppermost we move too far towards undisciplined and destructive creativity.

Seemingly deep stuff for teenagers to be reading, but I think it was part of the series’ appeal. Teenagers are constantly pushing boundaries and trying to get a grip on right and wrong. I think many of them are as suspicious of supposedly “simplistic notions of good and evil” as Moorcock was. It appeared to be presenting a more nuanced way of looking at the world.

Most of the guys (and it was all guys) I knew who read swords & sorcery back in the 1970s and early ’80s were SF/F geeks, potheads, or metalheads and there was a lot of overlap amongst those groups. In my experience, gaming had a lot to do with bringing those tribes together and we all loved Moorcock’s stories and heroes.

Most preferred the morose albino, Elric, of doomed Melniboné. Dressed in black armor, wielding the evil soul-drinking sword Stormbringer, and riding a dragon — I totally get it. A few liked Dorian Hawkmoon von Koln and his adventures across post-apocalyptic Europe and America better. Personally, I did and still do enjoy the two trilogies about Corum Jhaelen Irsei, last of the Vadhagh. Steeped in Irish myth and a gloomy Celtic miasma, I think they’re the most intense and beautiful books in the series.

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Jews With Swords: Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

Jews With Swords: Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

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oie_19193039NDl2SGNtIn 2002, Michael Chabon edited a collection of retro-pulp stories titled McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, filled with stories by both literary writers and genre writers. I found it underwhelming. What grabbed me, though, was Chabon’s cri de couer for a return to plot in fiction. And in so doing he wanted writers to be able to use whatever genres they wanted to tell whatever stories they wanted, without fear of being dismissed as no longer writing “literature.”

While he had by then written the superhero-themed novel Kavalier and Klay and the baseball and Norse Mythos mashup Summerland, he was known primarily as an author of literary fiction. From that point on, he threw himself deep into the waters of plot and genre. Since then, he’s written a Sherlock Holmes novella, The Final Solution, the Nebula- and Hugo-winning alternate history novel, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, and the screenplay for John Carter.

In 2007, as part of his exploration of plot and genre, he wrote Gentlemen of the Road, an unabashed, fun-for-the-sake-of-fun swashbuckler. Hewing to its old roots, it was initially serialized in the New York Times Magazine. His working title and, as he writes, “in my heart the true” one, was Jews With Swords.

While he hoped to invoke memories of Jewish troopers at Antietam or Inkerman, or warriors like Bar Kochba and Judah Maccabee, most people found it too incongruous. But that incongruity, between Jews with swords and the modern steroptype of Jews as decidedly un-adventurous, was something Chabon wanted to explore. He notes that from their very begininning, when Abraham was told by God “lech lecha: Thou shalt leave home,” Jews have been wanderers and “by definition, find adventure.” In his own words, he “attempted to…find some shadowy kingdom where a self-respecting Jewish adventurer would not be caught dead without his sword or his battle-ax.”

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April Short Story Roundup

April Short Story Roundup

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oie_124340bRDfwruIApril was a good month for swords & sorcery short fiction. Between Swords and Sorcery Magazine, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, nine new stories and two poems were published. (I already reviewed two from BCS last month.) Also, a new online magazine, Fantasy Scroll, appeared, promising all sorts of good things. I’ll review the first issue next month.

Swords and Sorcery Magazine #27‘s first of two stories, “Wolves,” is only the second English language story by Brazilian writer Cesar Alcazar. It continues the adventures of renegade Irish swordsman Anrath the Black Hound, whom he first introduced in “A Lonely Grave on the Hill” (HFQ #118).

One night, five brutal mercenaries find themselves together in a “desolate tavern” waiting for a mysterious employer to arrive. Alcazar’s cunning warrior and the nasty conclusion reminded me of Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane stories. Considering his bio says he’s translated Karl Edward Wagner, Robert E. Howard, and George R. R. Martin into Portuguese, I’m not surprised.

The only flaws in the story are some iffy word choices which I attribute to Alcazar writing in English, not his first language. For example, we’re told a man “laid” his cup on a table, though it was clear that the cup was set down on its bottom. Those few minor details aside, this is a clever story.

The second, “The Best Intentions,” is Benjamin Darnell’s first published story. It starts as a somewhat humorous tale of Aidan, student of the apothecarist Edwin, sent out for magical ingredients. It becomes a darker, violent story as things start to go wrong for the young apprentince. It’s a laudable first effort with some thrilling bits, even if its setting is overfamiliar.

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A Perfect Artifact from the Glory Days of 1970s Swords & Sorcery: Keith Taylor’s Bard

A Perfect Artifact from the Glory Days of 1970s Swords & Sorcery: Keith Taylor’s Bard

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oie_520266yr2OCRWhAfter several weeks spent among ghoulish haunts, a Cthulhu-haunted island, and nightmare dimensions, I thought a trip to ancient Britain — the sun-dappled forests of the High Weald and the rolling downs of the Vale of Kent — was needed. Yes, I’ve visited previously in reviews of Henry Treece’s The Great Captains and David Drake’s The Dragonlord, and Keith Taylor’s Bard (1981) is a return to post-Roman Britain in the days of Arthur and Saxon and Jutish invaders.

Bard is one of those books that my dad bought years ago and I never bothered to read. I didn’t know anything about it or its author, but I was done with my short-lived infatuation with Celtic fantasy. Nothing about it enticed me to pick it up… until I started blogging about swords & sorcery.

As I read articles and websites on heroic fiction, I quickly learned that Keith Taylor was an important voice in the field of Robert E. Howard scholarship and then I started seeing very good reviews of Bard. I remembered that a copy was tucked away in the attic so I went and retrieved it and I’m quite glad I did.

Bard is a fix-up of four previously published stories and one original tale about Felimid mac Fal of Eire, wielder of the magic sword, Kincaid, and player of the ancient harp, Golden Singer. Under the right circumstances, the harp allows him to cast spells and play songs to influence his audience. Blessed with talent, wit, and cunning, Felimid is able to enter the courts of ferocious Jutish warlords and survive encounters with monsters and sorcerers in haunted forests.

Though tied together by a pair of ongoing plots, Bard reads more like the scattered adventures of a peripatetic traveler than a novel. Despite its melancholic setting in a time of fading magic and invaders from across the sea, this book is tremendous fun. Felimid is a bold, lively character with a winning way, well worth any heroic fantasy reader’s time.

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A World Mottled With Decay: The Throne of Bones by Brian McNaughton

A World Mottled With Decay: The Throne of Bones by Brian McNaughton

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oie_27162551H2hCeV1C

For all their laughter, ghouls are a dull lot. Hunger is the fire in which they burn, and it burns hotter than the hunger for power over men or for the knowledge of the gods in a crazed mortal. It vaporizes delicacy and leaves behind a only a slag of anger and lust. They see their fellows as impediments to feeding, to be mauled and shrieked at when the mourners go home.
— from “Meryphillia”

The late Brian McNaughton’s 1997 collection The Throne of Bones is a book I want to on one hand praise and with the other hold it away from myself with a pair of iron tongs. It contains some of the best writing I have ever read in fantasy; by turns tense, dark, grimly funny, and occasionally majestic. And it’s set in a vivid world, parts of which will haunt me for a long time.

On the other hand, many of the characters are by far the most despicable I’ve ever met and their actions among the vilest put to paper. Lots of the characters’ actions are motivated by sexual appetites that are many things — mostly disturbing — but never even remotely erotic. So if this review leaves you curious about McNaughton’s work, be warned: while it’s not sadistic or very frightening, it is strong stuff.

The Throne of Bones contains nine short stories and the novella, “Throne of Bones” itself composed of six intricately intertwined stories. They are set within and on the edges of an old empire slipping into decay: crumbling cities, clashing religious sects, and feuding noble clans. The rich and powerful lead lives of luxury, while the poor live in squalor. Between them a small middle class live in dual fear of the nobility and of falling into poverty.

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In A Land Before Atlantis and Mu: The House of Cthulhu by Brian Lumley

In A Land Before Atlantis and Mu: The House of Cthulhu by Brian Lumley

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oie_214202658YPxSzMI imagine that when most people hear the name Brian Lumley, they think of his vast Necroscope series. You know — the books with the malformed skulls on the covers. If your memory is a little longer, you might think of his August Derleth-influenced contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos series, featuring the supernatural sleuth Titus Crow. And in case you didn’t know, he’s also a prolific writer of really great horror short stories. Even if I didn’t love the stories in his collections, Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi and Beneath the Moors and Darker Places, I’d still love them for their titles.

While I did know about all those books and stories, what I didn’t know was that he’d written a whole series of swords & sorcery tales set in Earth’s earliest days on the primeval continent Theem’hdra. I had read a story in Andrew Offutt’s anthology, Swords Against Darkness IV, called “Cryptically Yours,” but hadn’t realized it was part of a much longer series of adventurous stories of wizards and warriors.

Recently, I learned from from Paul McNamee that Subterranean Press was making a lot of Lumley e-books available at $2.99 a volume. I immediately bought three story collections: Haggopian and Other Stories, The Taint and Other Novellas, and No Sharks in the Med. I’ve dipped into all three already and recommend them all.

My buying spree led me to check out Lumley’s website, which led me to something called The House of Cthulhu: Tales of the Primal Land (2010). I learned it was the first of three collections of adventures from the dawn of time. While Tor Books wasn’t selling it as cheaply as the Subterranean collections, I still hit the buy-button. Within minutes, I was traveling back into the deep ages of the world to the Primal Land, encountering giant slug-gods, sorcerers striving for immortality, amoral barbarians, and old Cthulhu himself.

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March Short Story Roundup

March Short Story Roundup

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oie_1551226jPhPhKow (1)This is really the March and first week of April short story roundup. While Swords and Sorcery Magazine came through with two new tales, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly did not come out in a timely enough fashion to suit my schedule. Then Beneath Ceaseless Skies spent all of March publishing science fantasy issues. It’s all right if you’re inclined to read that sort of stuff, but I’m here to write about fantasy, preferably of the heroic kind.  Actually, most of those stories in BCS really do look all right, but the arrival of a new story by Raphael Ordoñez in the April 3rd issue made me include it in this week’s post.

I joke about Beneath Ceaseless Skies’s neglect of heroic fantasy in favor of steam punk or sci-fi, but don’t ever make the mistake of thinking I don’t love the folks over there and everything they’re doing for speculative short fiction. Every two weeks, they publish a very well-polished magazine with stories by great writers from all over the sci-fi/fantasy spectrum. There are few platforms getting as much new material out in front of the public (and for as little money). And if, like me, you don’t like what’s in one issue, there’s a great chance you’ll find something in the very next one.

So, after all that praise, let me start off with a story from BCS #144 I didn’t love: “Golden Daughter, Stone Wife” by Benjanun Sriduangkaew, a writer unfamiliar to me. In a world peopled by exiles from some unknown calamity, in a country ruled by the Institute of Ormodon, a woman mourns the loss of her golem-daughter.

Hall-Warden Ysoreen Zarre has been sent to retrieve the remains of a golem from Erhensa, an exiled sorceress. All golems, whomever makes them, belong to the Institute. Having learned of the thing’s existence when it “died,” the Warden was dispatched to collect it. For the Institute, it is something to be studied and understood. Erhensa, though, considered the golem a daughter and is reluctant to submit to the Institute’s demands. Her maneuvers around the Warden comprise the rest of the story.

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