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Author: SELindberg

S.E. Lindberg resides near Cincinnati, Ohio working as a microscopist, employing scientific and artistic skills to understand the manufacturing of products analogous to medieval paints. Two decades of practicing chemistry, combined with a passion for the Sword & Sorcery genre, spurs him to write graphic adventure fictionalizing the alchemical humors (primarily under the banner “Dyscrasia Fiction”). With Perseid Press, he writes weird tales infused with history and alchemy (Heroika: Dragon Eaters, Pirates in Hell, Lovers in Hell). S.E. Lindberg co-moderates a Goodreads group focused on Sword & Sorcery.
Across Time: Claude Moreau and His Translator Scott Oden in Conversation

Across Time: Claude Moreau and His Translator Scott Oden in Conversation

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A Clockwork’s Dreaming: And Other Tales by Claude Moreau [Claude Moreau and Scott Oden, Jan 24, 2025, 134pages, Kindle and Paperback]. Cover art by Richard Doyle. Detail from “Under the Dock Leaves: An Autumnal Evening Dream” (1878).

This post packs two punches:

  1. A showcase of the New Treasure A Clockwork’s Dreaming: And Other Tales by Claude Moreau and Scott Oden (January 2025, 134 pages, Kindle and Paperback).
  2. An exclusive interview with the deceased author Claude Moreau, the living translator Scott Oden, and special appearances of Laurent Dupont, editor of the literary magazine Les Petites Merveilles. Yes, this article is historic and magical. Read on to learn how this came to be.

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Two Howards Fathering Sword and Sorcery – Swords Together!

Two Howards Fathering Sword and Sorcery – Swords Together!

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Left: The memorial booklet for Howard Andrew Jones given to attendees at the February
22nd Celebration of Life. Right: Sean CW Korsgaard gives his eulogy for Howard.
Foreground: Christopher Rowe, Cinda Hocking, John C. Hocking. Photo by John O’Neill

A Celebration of Life for Howard Andrew Jones (HAJ) was just held in Evansville, IN, Feb 22, 2025.  The event gathered friends, family, and over a dozen author colleagues. Numerous online memorials and tributes had been posted leading up to this. Links to many are listed at the bottom of the post; reading these reveals wonderful insights. This article aims to honor HAJ slightly differently by echoing excerpts from his blogs intermixed with remembrances and emphasizing the importance of community.

It struck me that when discussing HAJ, there are always references to REH (Robert E. Howard, indisputable “Father of Sword & Sorcery Genre”). Whereas REH kicked off the genre with his heroes in the 1920-30s (Conan, Bran Mak Morn, Kull, etc.), a hundred years later, the other Howard, our dear HAJ, championed S&S, wrote S&S, and built a community of S&S readers & writers.

You may already know that HAJ edited the online Flashing Swords ezine (links to internet archives below), grew Black Gate in print and online, edited the Harold Lamb series, led the Tales from the Magician’s Skull Magazine, and wrote copious amounts of pulp and fantasy fiction (Asim & Dabir, Ringsworn, Pathfinder, Hanuvar). He did all that while immersing himself with authors and readers.

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New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine – New Jirel of Joiry!

New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine – New Jirel of Joiry!

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In 2023, New Edge Sword and Sorcery Magazine (NESS) emerged, and it continues to deliver outstanding magazines, renewing past classics while showcasing contemporary and veteran authors. Notably, issues 1 and 4 include Elric tales by Michael Moorcock. Black Gate featured the crowdfunding and reviewed the initial volumes, and published an interview with editor Oliver Brackenbury (links).

A new crowdfunding campaign to bring issues 5-7 to life is live on Backerkit through March 15th. NESS continues to bring us Jirel of Joiry stories! We’ll highlight Jirel of Joiry here but the magazine offers much more.

Read this to learn the trajectory of Jirel of Joiry and NESS! Jirel is alive and well!

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New Treasures and Interview: C.S.E. Cooney’s Saint Death’s Herald

New Treasures and Interview: C.S.E. Cooney’s Saint Death’s Herald

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Black Gate’s interview series on “Beauty in Weird Fiction” queries authors/artists about their muses and methods to make ‘repulsive things’ become ‘attractive.’  We’ve hosted C.S. Friedman, Carol Berg, Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, and Janet E Morris (full list of 29 interviews, with Black Gate hosting since 2018).

This round features C. S. E. Cooney (CSEC), who is no stranger to Black Gate [link to listings]. She is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author: first, for Bone Swans: Stories, and most recently for Saint Death’s Daughter. Previously on Black Gate, an all-star crew heralded its release with a video cast including readings of Saint Death’s Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney.

Forthcoming in April 2025 is Saint Death’s Herald, the second in the Saint Death series. In this post, we reveal exclusive details, CSEC’s creative process, and hint of Book #3’s contents! Read this and her contagious energy will infect you! Cripes, simply by doing this interview, I was infected with a buttery aura! Read more and learn C.S.E. Cooney’s real identity and code name too (Tiger of the gods? Or is it Lainey!)

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Besting the Beast and Other Fantasy Tales: Scott Forbes Crawford’s Weirdly Accessible Adventure

Besting the Beast and Other Fantasy Tales: Scott Forbes Crawford’s Weirdly Accessible Adventure

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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).

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Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery – Cover Artist Perspectives and Campaign

Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery – Cover Artist Perspectives and Campaign

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Black Gate has been tracking the inception and growth of New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine, starting with Micheal Harrington’s 2022 interview with Oliver Brackenbury (author, screenwriter, podcaster, and editor of NESS), through 2023 with NESS first two magazine releases (also Mele’s review of #1), and NESS’s first book “Beating Heart and Battle Axes (July of 2024).  Now, as of Sept 19th, NESS continues this epic trend of presenting contemporary adventure fiction in fun ways with their second crowdfunded book DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD & SORCERY. It is “double-edged” because, in the tradition of the Ace Double, it’s two novellas bound in one book with unique covers on either side. Both tales are Mongol-inspired Sword & Sorcery.

In this post, we share the campaign’s information and blend in perspectives from both cover artists.
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Janet E. Morris Memorial Tribute

Janet E. Morris Memorial Tribute

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Perseid Press recently announced the passing of author, editor, and publisher Janet E. Morris (JEM, August 2024). A group of us who have known and written for her and published by her, decided to honor her memory and her legacy with this group memorial. This ad-hoc remembrance has organically turned into a virtual shrine. This post initially has ~17 contributions, but collecting testimonials can be chaotic and more comments may be added. Janet and Chris Morris made a remarkable creative couple, and our deepest condolences extend to Chris.

As a brief introduction, we open with a bit taken from her Wikipedia page, which captures her work by the numbers well.

Janet Morris began writing in 1976 and has since published more than forty novels, many co-authored with her husband  Chris Morris  or others. Her debut novel, written as Janet E. Morris, was  High Couch of Silistra , the first in a quartet of character-driven novels with a female protagonist. According to original publisher  Bantam Books , the Silistra Quartet had over four million copies in print when the fourth volume,  The Carnelian Throne was published. Morris has contributed short fiction to the  shared universe  fantasy series  Thieves’ World , and created, orchestrated, and edited the series  Heroes in Hell . Most of her fiction work has been in the fantasy and science fiction genres, although she has also written historical and other novels. Morris has written, contributed to, or edited several book-length works of non-fiction, as well as papers and articles on non-lethal weapons, developmental military technology and other defense and national security topics.

Black Gate has featured many of these books. Most of her work is available via the Perseid Press website; at the end of this article are links to Black Gate reviews of many of these. Read now personal notes from Janet E. Morris’ Hellions (synonymous with Heroes in Hell and/or Perseid Press contributors).

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To Walk on Worlds: Matthew John’s Sword & Sorcery Collection

To Walk on Worlds: Matthew John’s Sword & Sorcery Collection

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To Walk on Worlds (Rogues in the House Podcast, 2024, 188pages). Cover art by Mike Hoffman

Black Gate highlighted Rogues in the House (RitH) podcast in 2022, and in a few years, that crew rapidly expanded with Sword & Sorcery publications that include: A Book of  Blades (2022)  and A Book of Blades Vol. II (2023), and a collection of John R. Fultz’s stories in The Revelations of Zang (2024)

This post reviews the newest collection of stories from RitH’s own Matthew John released this June: To Walk on Worlds is available now in eBook and paperback. Matthew John is fascinated with adventure fiction and moonlights as a writer and game designer for Monolith in addition to his podcast responsibilities.  This post reviews To Walk on Worlds with excerpts.

If Gandalf was an a**hole, then we’d call him a “Meddler” instead of an “Istar”

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Beating Heart & Battle Axes – New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine Forges a Book

Beating Heart & Battle Axes – New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine Forges a Book

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Beating Hearts & Battle Axes – A Romantic Sword & Sorcery Anthology seeking funding, championed by New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine. Cover Art is by M.E. Morgan

New Edge Sword and Sorcery Magazine, championed by Oliver Brackenbury, has emerged over the last few years to provide a market with “love for the classics, and an inclusive, boundary-pushing approach to storytelling.”  Black Gate has featured the crowdfunding for and reviews of the initial volumes (link).  Today we highlight a crowdfunding endeavor that is in progress now, set to end on July 20th: a collection of six stories called Beating Hearts & Battle-Axes. Starting with this new anthology, Oliver Brackenbury (Publisher) & Jay Wolf (Editor) will carry that same approach into the Brackenbury Books lineup. It’s a bold meeting of Sword & Sorcery and the current zeitgeist in fantasy publishing: Romantasy. Some of the stories get quite spicy, too!

Check out the Beating Heats & Battle Axes campaign now!

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Conan: City of the Dead, John C. Hocking’s Living Plague is Alive Inside

Conan: City of the Dead, John C. Hocking’s Living Plague is Alive Inside

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Conan: City of the Dead, by John C. Hocking (2024, Titan Books. 507p)

It’s June of 2024, and Titan Books has just delivered John C. Hocking’s City of the Dead which contains both Conan and the Emerald Lotus (1995, TOR) and its follow-up Conan and the Living Plague — a book lost in the limbo of publishing craziness for ~two decades! Hocking also wrote a bridging novella set in between these two novels called “Black Starlight” (serialized across Conan comics in 2019, and provided assembled as an eBook in 2023 as Conan: Black Starlight: The Heroic Legends Series).

Since Titan Books & Heroic Signatures had the rights to publish and print “Black Starlight” separately, it seems like a lost opportunity to have it absent from  City of the Dead, but fans are just glad to finally see the Living Plague in print, it is tough to whine about that.

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